Combat System

This page provides an explanation of the different components of MENACE's combat system.

Cover

Cover Stats

Cover Level	Cover Bonus	Damage Reduction	Concealment	Suppression Reduction
Light Cover	20%	20%	1	10%
Medium Cover	40%	40%	2	20%
Heavy Cover	60%	60%	3	40%

Stances

Standing Up

This is the normal stance for a unit. In this stance, the unit can move freely. This stance does not result in any changes to cover and accuracy.

Deployed

If a unit is deployed either by the player themselves or in response to incoming fire (see Suppression), the unit gains:

• +15% Accuracy,
• +15% Defense,
• +15% Damage Reduction and
• +1 Concealment.

Being deployed and being suppressed aren't the same thing. A unit can be deployed directly by the player at a cost of 20 AP (without modifiers). However, a unit may be deployed automatically when suppressed, which removes 30 AP.

Any Equipment with the DEPLOY tag can only be used when the correposnding unit is deployed (with the exception for Techs starting perk)

Any unit stationed inside a watchtower is automatically counted as deployed.

A deployed unit must stand up again before they can move.

Pinned Down

If a unit receives a lot of suppression, it gets pinned down. The units gains:

• -50% Accuracy,
• +30% Defense,
• +30% Damage Reduction,
• -50% View Range and
• +1 Concealment.

A pinned-down unit loses all its Action Points and can only crawl. This enables a unit to move up to two tiles, but not over half-cover or between buildings.

Unit stats

Elements

Every unit and destructable object on a battlefield consists of elements, used to represent their numbers. Each infantry unit consists of 2-9 elements(models). Vehicles and map objects are treated as single elements. The number of elements in unit affect unit's skills and stats.

Hitpoints

Each unit and building have a certain amount of hitpoints(HP), representing their current structural integrity and appearing as a lower bar on tactical UI. For infantry squads, their total number of HP is the combined value of each element HP. On the UI infantry HP bars are segmented by notches, each segment correlating to one element in the unit. To calculate individual element HP, divide the unit max HP value by number of elements.

Armor

Each unit has an Armor value and Armor Durability values, used to protect it from incoming attacks. For human units, it usually comes from their equipment, while non-human units have "natural" armor. Armor is represented by the grey middle/upper notched bar on the UI, where each segment is equal to 20 armor. Armor Durability is hidden from a player by default, but it affects the Armor Value and decreases as unit takes Armor Damage.

For infantry squads, the unit Armor value is the same regardless of element number, while similar Armor Durability is a sum of each individual element Durability, similar to Hitpoints.

For vehicles, the Armor value is different, dependant on the direction of incoming attack compared to vehicles direction, usually with front having highest Armor, and rear having the lowest.

Suppression

↪ Main article: Suppression

Human infantry units have a Suppression value, which is used to represent how squad reacts to incoming fire. Each successful or missed hit to the unit, including hits on the nearby tiles affect the Suppression value of a squad.

Damage calculation

Penetration

When attack hits a unit, for each individual hit the game completes a check to see if the unit's armor has been penetrated. For this, the value of incoming attack's penetration is compared to unit's current Armor value. The formulas for calculating penetration chance are:

Chance of Penetration = 100 - 3 * ( Effective Armor Value - Effective Penetration )

Note that for UI purposes the 3 in the formula is currently replaced with 2, which causes the game to show incorrect information on initial penetration chances

With minimum chance being 0, and maximum being a 100 and with:

Effective Armor Value = (Current Armor Durability / Maximum Armor Durability) * Baseline Armor

Effective Penetration = Special Modifiers * (Basic Penetration - (Penetration Dropoff * (Range - 1))) - where Special Modifiers are additional Perks and Conditions and Penetration Dropoff is unique to each weapon.

After that, the game compares the random number between 1 and 100 to the chacnce of penetration. If the random number is lower than penetration chance, attack successfully penetrates and deals Hitpoint Damage. If the number is higher than penetration, then attack is "blocked" by unit's armor and only deals Armor Damage.

Armor Damage

When hit fails to penetrate unit's armor, it deals Armor Damage. To calculate the it, first the damage is reduced by Armor Damage Dropoff dependant on Range to the target(rounded down), with each weapon having unique Armor Dropoff, and then modified by (Current Armor Durability / Maximum Armor Durability)^2 Formula:

Armor Damage = (Basic Armor Damage - Armor Damage Dropoff * (Range - 1)) * (Current Armor Durability / Maximum Armor Durability) ^ 2

After that, the damage is modified by Perks and Conditions that might affect the target and attacker, rounded down and then deduced from target's Armor Durability, thus making it possible to "shred" the armor and increase the chance of penetration for following hits.

Additionally, when hit penetrates armor, it also deals small amount of armor damage, roughly from 5% to 15% of Armor Damage of non-penetrating hit.

Hitpoint Damage

When hit penetrates, similar to Armor Damage the Base HP Damage is reduced by specific HP Damage Dropoff * Ranged. Then the damage is modified by random value between 0.9 and 1.1 and rounded down. So the formula is:

HP Damage = (Base HP Damage - (HP Damage Dropoff * (Range - 1))) * Rand(0.9, 1.1)

After rounding, the HP Damage is deduced from unit's HP. If unit is consisting of multiple elements, HP is reduced from whole unit bar, and if HP damage is bigger than individual HP of one element, the last element is killed and damage is not transferred to the next. If HP Damage is not enough to kill the element, it's deduced from the last element in the squad. Thus, elements are killed one by one and cannot be damaged, until the element before them is killed. The last element to be damaged is always Squad Leader(Specialist for non-player Factions).

HP Damage Example

Pirate Scavengers squad is attacked by squad of two TCR Marines with C1A2 SPC. out of 4 shots 3 land succesfully, and 3 incoming hits are resolved in the order as:

• 1st hit - Deals 9 HP damage to the first Pirate Scavenger, leaves him at 1 HP
• 2nd hit - Deals 9 HP damage to the same first Pirate Scavenger, kills him but does not deal damage to any other Scavengers in the Unit
• 3rd hit - Deals 9 HP damage to the second Pirate Scavenger, leaves him at 1 HP

Psychological Effects

Morale

↪ Main article: Morale

A unit can either be unaffected, wavering or fleeing.

A wavering unit gains:

• -20% Accuracy and
• -20% Action Points.

A wavering unit will flee if it loses more morale. A fleeing unit will retreat automatically from all enemies as far as possible and can't be selected to act by the player.