Weapons Mechanics

This is the page for the discussion of weapon mechanics in Star Command 13.

The following are parameters most weapons have in some combination:

Accuracy: Determines the probability of a ranged weapon hitting a target when its projectiles enter the target's space. Melee weapons do not use this parameter and always hit their target if it's in range barring special exceptions, like shields and weapons that can deflect melee blows. Tends to decrease when a weapon is in burst mode. A projectile's accuracy normally decays with each tile travelled; the further a projectile moves, the less likely it is to hit a target. It may not reduce damage falloff from distance travelled by a projectile.

Armor Sundering: Determines the probability of a weapon damaging the target's armor.

Armor Penetration: Determines the probability of a weapon bypassing the target's armor.

Burst Count: Determines how many shots are discharged per burst fire for any weapon with a burst fire mode.

Damage: Determines how much damage a weapon deals per attack/projectile. Further, this damage can differ between melee and ranged attacks if a weapon is capable of both. Their values can be seen under the weapon's Ammunition section. Melee and thrown damage is increased by a random amount, plus 10% of Strength.

Damage Falloff: Determines how much stopping power the bullet will lose for every tile it travels by. This starts immediately after the bullet has left the effective range of the weapon. The closer you are to the target, the more damage you can inflict upon them. Certain weapons have no damage fall off, which means at any range, the weapon will always deal its maximum damage.

Effective Range: Determines the effective range of a weapon where the bullets will deal maximum damage. If it reaches beyond effective range, the damage falloff will start to take effect.

Fire/Attack Rate: Determines how quickly the weapon can shoot/attack, and the delay between consecutive shots/attacks. A higher fire rate means a reduced delay between attacks.

Recoil: Determines the amount of screen shake that happens when a ranged weapon is fired. Has no direct adverse effect on Accuracy or Spread, though it can throw off the placement of your clicks.

Spread: Not to be confused with Accuracy; determines how much a projectile from a firearm can deviate from the intended target tile; higher spread equals more deviation. Tends to increase when a weapon is in burst mode.

Weapon Size: Determines what kind of container the weapon can fit into. Most weapons are 'bulky' in size and thus cannot fit into boxes or backpacks normally.

Each weapon deals damage equal to

Dmg = ammo_dmg * (1 + weapon_damage_modifier) - ((tiles_travelled - effective_range) * damage_falloff), min 0)

Where weapon_damage_modifier is usually 0, and can be seen in the weapon codex. For example, T-64 has -50% dmg modifier. Damage falloff also can be seen there, usually it is 0.5 per tile. Base weapon damage is heavily based on the ammo it uses.

Some weapons have AP, or Armor Piercing. It reduces armor values by a flat amount:

Effective_armor = Armor*(1-Sunder/100) - AP

Then resulting damage is:

Effective_dmg = Dmg*(1-Effective_armor/100)

Note that Sunder of a weapon directly decreases armor until it is healed or repaired. Sunder of 2 decreases armor by 2%.

So if your damage is 100, with 10 AP, and you shoot a warrior with 50 bullet armor and 20 Sunder, then his effective armor is

Effective_armor = 50*0.8 - 10 = 30

Effective damage = 100 * 0.7 = 70

Range (a, b, c) means EXPLOSION_DEVASTATE in range of a from center, HEAVY in b and LIGHT in c.

• Each limb has fixed and separate health pool and breakpoint. After breakpoint is reached, attacks on limb can break it.
• After limb HP reaches 0, it can be dismembered with probability% P = brute_attack_damage * 2.
• After 20 damage is done to a limb, with 5% chance, half of any further damage goes to internal organs as additional damage.
• After 30 damage on a limb, any attack with damage > 15 can cause Internal Bleeding with probability% P = brute_attack_damage * 0.5
• After each attack, a “wound” is created or widened.
• Each wound regenerates by 0.1 per tick on avg
• Treated (bandages, oil, ATK, ABK) wounds regen by 0.4 per tick on avg
• Regen only works for wounds which have less than 50 dmg, and if you are not in crit

Command Staff and Leaders have access to orders, which can be used to buff nearby troops with helpful effects. These also cause you to broadcast a quote over the radio (provided you have one) so people know when you're calling one out. After giving an order, there is a cooldown period until you can give another one. Give orders using the action buttons on the top-left of the screen.

Orders effects are increased by your Leadership skill, which increases both the effect and range.

Range = 3 + Leadership

To make a turret out of any weapon, you need to use Build-A-Sentry kit (ctrl+click), which goes to scope slot of a weapon. Most weapons can be turrets, except launchers and bolt action weapons. Also, despite the fact that turrets aim through friendlies, it doesn't give them IFF (aim), so it's best used with IFF weapons. Bought from Requisitions.