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Old 11-23-2021, 04:33 PM   #51
PresidentTwoeagles
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
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Default Re: A closer look at Explosion Damage

Edit: Bah, wrong thread!
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Old 11-26-2021, 09:40 PM   #52
beetle496
 
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Default BP6 guns

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Originally Posted by beetle496 View Post
An obvious first challenge is: What numerical value to assign the wrenches? What about special effects like fire and re-roll?
If anything, Wrenches are more valuable than Star — because the player had a choice, and s/he picked weapons which attached value too those die results. But Wrenches are not much more than a Star. Also, 2nd/3rd Wrench results convert to Star. For sake of simplicity, I will be assuming Wrench==Star for Tire/Fire/Blast effects but Slug weapons Wrench==Shield (so a miss, 0).

Re-rolls are a bit more complicated, so i need to think about that a bit more, and maybe work them out exactly. Initially, I had expected to just approximate ‘linked’ with a fixed value, maybe 0.5 per re-roll. But having worked out the math for Linked Jackhammers (BP6, 4.11 mean damage), this first guess of mine was much too high. It very much seems to me that some value might accrue for the perceived “insurance” that a re-roll provides, but is this just merely wishful thinking on my part? Why not just trust the mean? When comparing weapons, does Standard Deviation even matter? If I had a gun that always did 3 damage, is that any better or worse that one which did 1-5 but had a mean of 3 damage? If my opponent’s defense has RNG, and if 3 damage is enough some of the time, I think rationally, mean damage is what I should be paying attention to!

I get exactly 4.5 mean damage for BP6 Auto Cannon (Shred) and Buffalo Gun (Slug).

Last edited by beetle496; 11-26-2021 at 09:44 PM.
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Old 11-29-2021, 12:25 PM   #53
Sam Mitschke
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Default Re: A closer look at Explosion Damage

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If I had a gun that always did 3 damage, is that any better or worse that one which did 1-5 but had a mean of 3 damage?
Whether or not you have (or can plan on having) re-rolls makes an enormous difference for which of these weapons is better in a given situation.
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Old 11-29-2021, 01:56 PM   #54
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Default Re: BP6 guns

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Originally Posted by beetle496 View Post
If I had a gun that always did 3 damage, is that any better or worse that one which did 1-5 but had a mean of 3 damage?
Personal Experience: During a NOVA event, someone nailed me with an ATG round.

Damage Rolls: "1", "1", "1".

He was Displeased. :)

(He always had terrible luck with damage dice -- this was the same guy I scored the "one-shot, one-kill" on; two "5"s, one "6", on 3d6.)
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Old 11-29-2021, 02:39 PM   #55
HeatDeath
 
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Default Re: A closer look at Explosion Damage

This is why the larger numbers of dice, and the fact that they are custom dice, is a /very/ good thing.

Longer tails and gentler curves [and tunable by the game designers, at that!] on the probability distributions.
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Old 11-29-2021, 05:47 PM   #56
Sam Mitschke
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Default Re: A closer look at Explosion Damage

@HeatDeath
Thank you. The dice were a challenging process, to say the least. We almost didn't have the blue, black, or white dice, which would have handicapped the game considerably. It was such a late change that some of the folks here may have played a prototype with only red/yellow/green dice. From our work trying to balance everything using just those colors, we had already decided what dice we WOULD add if we ever got the chance. As soon as we got the go-ahead to make the additional dice, we immediately went back and re-balanced everything in the game, and I think it's better for it.
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Old 11-30-2021, 02:55 PM   #57
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Join Date: Oct 2021
Default Re: A closer look at Explosion Damage

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Originally Posted by Sam Mitschke View Post
@HeatDeath
Thank you. The dice were a challenging process, to say the least. We almost didn't have the blue, black, or white dice, which would have handicapped the game considerably. It was such a late change that some of the folks here may have played a prototype with only red/yellow/green dice. From our work trying to balance everything using just those colors, we had already decided what dice we WOULD add if we ever got the chance. As soon as we got the go-ahead to make the additional dice, we immediately went back and re-balanced everything in the game, and I think it's better for it.
I think the game is definitely better for the extra colors! Glad you went that direction!
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