DirtSide II tables

What can I say? I did it. With help from Andy Skinner and Thomas Barclay

(and an collegue who does not play DSII but appreciates a mathematical 
problem), I calculated the various damage tables for DirtSide II.

Those with itchy fingers can rush off to
http://www.swob.dna.fi/mini/gzg/ds.html  for vehicle damage tables
http://www.swob.dna.fi/mini/gzg/ds-inf.html  for infantry (and AA)
tables

And those who always bitch about my slow connection, can fetch

http://www.swob.dna.fi/mini/gzg/dsdam.zip

It's only 4kB for both tables zipped. Even the rusty UK lines should
swallow 
that. 

There's also an Excel 5.0 version at

http://www.swob.dna.fi/mini/gzg/ds-tab.zip

Roughly 20kB. Oh, and yes Virginia, the vehicle damage table *does*
print
readably out on a single A4. I could have fit the other one there too,
had
I tried (more on that later). 

A word about the tables: They are based on a single 1d100 roll. What you

do is check your number of chits to be drawn, your opponent's armor and 
your validity code to find the correct row. Then roll away. There are
ten 
possible end results, marked with a number each. That is the minimum 
number you must roll to get that result. Look up the number that is the 
same as the one you rolled, or the closest one lower -- that's your
result.

Now, while I realize it's very satisfying to pull a BOOM chit, it
doesn't
affect game play at all (providing BOOM is valid). A kill is a kill no
matter how you got there. Thus the ten possible end results (miss, btw.
is
simply shorter than "No Effect" -- it doesn't mean you somehow blew the
to-hit roll retroactively). Most of the chances have been rounded, but
no
more than a fraction of percent in any case. Some chances are rounded
out
of the table, because their probability is significantly less than 1%. 
While I personally feel it doesn't affect gameplay much if such rare
occurances are ignored, you're free to fetch the entire data from

http://www.swob.dna.fi/mini/gzg/ds.zip

and formulate new tables for 1d10000 or something. It's easy if you know

how to work with Excel.

Now, the infantry tables are interesting. I was actually a bit unclear 
how they should work, since the rules are a bit, hmmm, fuzzy. Ok, they 
say rather clearly that NO special chits are valid when drawn against 
infantry. 

BUT: SD:Firer is also a special damage chit. So this means if you aim
your
MDC/5 at an infantry squad, the chance for it to go "phut" drops from
roughly 10% to blank zero. Sounds dumb, right? So, maybe SD:F is always
valid (a special special chit), but they forgot to tell us about it?
Well,
then what happens to an infantry squad that draws it in an infantry
firefight? At this point I gave up second-guessing Jon and Mike and just
did it the way they had written it... 

What about replacing each chit after drawing? Well, let's consider this 
one example:

Out of the 119 counters, there are two SD:F ones. This is the most rare
counter. 5 chits is max draw. Combining these two elements, we get the
case where it makes about most difference (wrt the end result, not the
actual chit spread pulled) whether you pull your "hand" at one time, or
one chit at a time each from a fresh cup. 

Looking at my tables, it's roughly a 10% chance to pull a SD:F with 5 
chit draw using the vanilla method (you can dig the exact chance from my

Excel table if you wish but it's actually something a little lower,
9.xxx%).

The other way around, the chance is 1-(117/119)^5 == 8.125% 

Quite frankly, I don't see much of a difference. In fact, I'd probably 
die of old age before I noticed a difference of that magnitude in 
playtest sessions, if I was not carefully recording each chit pull
result 
and analysing those.

I won't argue math. It's all there. Should I have made a mistake, I'll 
gladly correct it.

-- 
maxxon@swob.dna.fi (Mikko Kurki-Suonio) 	   | A pig who doesn't
fly
+358 50 5596411 GSM +358 9 80926 78/FAX 81/Voice   | is just an ordinary
pig.
Maininkitie 3C14 02320 ESPOO FINLAND | Hate me?    |	      - Porco
Rosso
http://www.swob.dna.fi/~maxxon/      | hateme.html |