Dispersion Pistol damage statistics (primary/secondary/splash) at each level?

[NaPaliShore]

Sorry, the "powerlevel" in the formular is 1 less than in the oldunreal guide, i.e. you start with powerlevel 0. So the numbers for the charged secondary should move one class lower. I also verified them with some damage-triggered movers. I got 28|34|39|45|51 for powerlevel 1 - 5. So pretty much the same numbers, just rounded down.

Note, that the real damage can be the double of those numbers (direct + splash). On powerlevel 5 you should be able to deal 102 damage with a direct hit.

But in practice secondary fire doesn't improve with powerlevel. Charging your dispersion will alarm enemies and has a worse damage per ammo ratio. And unlike Gesbiorifle hurtradius isn't increased. In my opinion, primary fire even gets worse. Damage per ammo gets worse for powerlevel 2 and 3, and firerate massively sinks for powerlevel 4 (bad against Skaarj). So I don't collect powerups. If I had designed the dispersion, I would have let it consume as much ammo as powerlevel in primary fire mode and let it recharge faster for more maxammo.

Once again, very interesting! I have updated the chart in my previous post, to reflect the "starting at Powerlevel0" adjustment, and also parenthetically mentioned the possibility of double damage by doing equal amounts of both direct hit damage and splash damage with a direct hit from a charged secondary botlt.

I must say, I don't really understand how that splash damage works - if you make a direct hit on your enemy, does the energy from the bolt "splash" off of the enemies body and hit other parts of his own body? What is the likelihood of doing both kinds of damage in this way? Would a direct hit in the "center mass" of, say, a brute or skaarj who is standing still with his back to you (or who is so far away that he doesn't realize you're there - as in the situations that UBerserker describes, with gasbags or skaarj snipers in Deja Vu 2) be "quite likely" to do double damage? Assuming that's the kind of situation in which I'm most likely to take the time to charge up a secondary bolt (another situation might be with tentacles, who can't move out of the way even if they know you're there), it helps to know if I can usually expect to inflict the "plain" damage (51 for a red shot) or the "doubled" damage (102 for the red shot with splash damage as well), or something in between. Especially because a primary red shot does 75 damage, so 51 is worse and 102 is better - so it makes all the difference in deciding which kind of shot to use against an unsuspecting enemy in that situation!

Regarding the question of whether "charging your dispersion will alarm enemies", UBerserker claims that is not the case, but I seem to remember in situations where a skaarj has his back to me, he won't hear it when I charge the shot up, but once I "release" the bolt he suddenly spins around and dodges to the side, avoiding the shot. I'm not 100% sure if I'm remembering that correctly, though, so I'll have to double check that.

It is definitely true that a charged secondary bolt has a considereably "worse damage per ammo ratio" than a primary bolt, thought the gap is closed a little by the possibility of doubling damage via "bonus" splash damage with a charged secondary shot...

Let's look at the cases of Powerlevel 1 (blue primary shots) and Powerlevel 5 (red primary shots):

For Powerlevel 1:
Primary damage/ammo maxes out at 15.
Charged Secondary damage/ammo maxes out at 28/7=4 (or 56/7=8, with full splash damage plus direct damage).

For Powerlevel 5:
Primary damage/ammo maxes out at 75/7=10.71
Charged Secondary damage/ammo maxes out at 51/15=3.4 (or 102/15=6.8, with full splash damage plus direct damage).

However, if you are just going for an initial "surprise attack" (or a series of surprise attacks, with time to recharge in between). then it doesn't matter if you're going to use more ammo/damage, as long as you don't risk running out of DP ammo, or if you're going to switch to another weapon after the first shot, anyway....

Anyway, this has all been quite educational. I have recently finally realized the utility of secondary ASMD shots against slith, and will probably use them where available, but it's good to know that uncharged secondary DP might have some use against them as well...

[UBerserker]

The Skaarj strangely react more to the secondary fire i.e. they like to dodge it compared to the primary fire (which makes their AI exploit with the "secondary fire triggering Skaarj dodge -> fire a primary bolt where they land" much more easier). If you still stay "behind" a wall even if the distance between you and the Skaarj is small, the Skaarj will eat it.

Between lvl5 Red bolts and fully charged bolts I don't make any proper decision, I choose what I feel like to use. I just make myself sure to hit always the target and humiliate it. Same with the weapon itself in general, hell there were times I was stuck against an annoying group of opposition that I managed to get through because I knew how to make the DP shine against them while I just sucked with the rest of the weapons I had.
I also never use the Amplifier, it's a complete waste of time unless you're planning an intelligent ASMD combo against a group of Skaarj TROOPERS.

For the Slith or Titans just spam the secondary fire uncharged and you're set, slimeballs and multiple-type rocks are likely to get destroyed a lot, they are joke enemies most of the time. Except if you're in the water facing Slith, use the ASMD orbs instead.

Another DP exploit is being a complete ass and staying in a place where enemies will never find you or where nothing will never happen if you keep the game active for hours. Type slomo 25, see your DP ammo recharging at an ultra-fast rate, go back to Slomo 1 (or whatever is your speed), DP killing again.
Up to you if trolling the law of time is a "cheat".

[integration]

ASMD secondary can eliminate all projectiles during its flight. Dispersion secondary only works, when the enemy's projectile is in its explosion radius and has a collision size bigger than 0 (Slith ball and Biogel have that). So you must hit the Slith in the same moment, when it spawns its ball.

Normally a weapon/projectile, only does splash damage OR direct damage. Dispersion's secondary is the exception (Flak's secondary also, if you count the chunks as direct damage). For splash damage, all actors, whose middle lie in the the explosion radius (and isn't covered by level geometry), will suffer some damage. The dealt damage is multiplied by (1-distance/hurtradius). Distance is calculated as (actor's middlepoint distance - actor's & projectile's collision radius). Note, this is not the exact distance (actors are cylinders). It's often bigger (e.g. when you hit the ground near a tall enemy). Newer 227 version sometimes take (collision radius + collision height)/2 instead of collision radius. Another problem with splash damage is, that it can happen, that you directly hit very big enemies, but don't do any damage to them. Best example herefor is ASMD's secondary against Titans (Titan's collision radius & height is bigger than projectile's hurt radius, so Titan's middle is always outside of the hurt radius). Unreal 227 also has some code to prevent this happening.

[NaPaliShore]

the secondary fire ... does direct damage to the hit actor and additionally splash damage with a hurt radius of 150 unreal units.

Normally a weapon/projectile, only does splash damage OR direct damage. Dispersion's secondary is the exception (Flak's secondary also, if you count the chunks as direct damage). For splash damage, all actors, whose middle lie in the the explosion radius (and isn't covered by level geometry), will suffer some damage. The dealt damage is multiplied by (1-distance/hurtradius). Distance is calculated as (actor's middlepoint distance - actor's & projectile's collision radius). Note, this is not the exact distance (actors are cylinders). It's often bigger (e.g. when you hit the ground near a tall enemy). Newer 227 version sometimes take (collision radius + collision height)/2 instead of collision radius. Another problem with splash damage is, that it can happen, that you directly hit very big enemies, but don't do any damage to them. Best example herefor is ASMD's secondary against Titans (Titan's collision radius & height is bigger than projectile's hurt radius, so Titan's middle is always outside of the hurt radius).

The plot thickens!

So I'm not entirely sure what the precise definitions of "actor's middlepoint distance" and "actor's & projectile's collision radius" are, in Unreal.

But I gather that:
Splash damage (secondary shot) = Base Damage * (1-d/150)

where the Base Damages are 28/34/49/45/51 (for the different Powerlevels), and d is the distance (in Unreal units) that is calculated in some way that involves taking that "middlepoint distance" and comparing it with the collision radius of projectile and collision radius of the enemy pawn.

And if Total Damage dealt = Base Damage + Splash Damage, then:
Total Damage (secondary shot) = Base Damage * (1+(1-d/150)) = Base Damage * (2-d/150)
(And it makes sense, then, that as d approaches zero, the Total Damage approximates double the Base Damage)

But when and how is the "middlepoint distance" measured? Is that the distance between the middle of the projectile, and the middle of the enemy pawn, at the moment when the projectile collides with anything (a wall, or floor, or the enemy pawn itself) that causes it to explode with a hurt radius?

And I think I understand that the collision radius of the enemy pawn basically defines a spherical region around the middlepoint of the pawn that must "penetrated" by anything in order to cause damage to that pawn.

But I'm not sure how the collision radius of the projectile is measured, and I don't understand precisely which numbers are added or subtracted in order to calculate "(actor's middlepoint distance - actor's & projectile's collision radius)". Specifically, I don't understand what kinds of numbers we would have in that case of "ASMD's secondary against Titans" where "Titan's collision radius & height is bigger than projectile's hurt radius, so Titan's middle is always outside of the hurt radius".... I can understand that if the Titan's collision radius is bigger than the projectile's hurt radius, then the Titan's middle will always be outside of the hurt radius. But if "d" is "calculated as (actor's middlepoint distance - actor's & projectile's collision radius)" then wouldn't the Titan's collision radius be subtracted from the effective distance measurement (d), in such a way as to make d less likely to reduce the splash damage amount to zero, rather than more likely to do so? I think I'm just getting a little confused by the arithmetic or the formula, here.
My intuitive sense was that by subtracting the collision radii from the measured distance between middlepoints, we are basically finding out how far apart the actors' "perimeters" are from each other, and in the case of a direct hit (e.g. of an ASMD orb on a Titan's skin) that net distance would be calculated as zero? But obviously something else is happening here....

Maybe I'm just confusing two different matters - one being the formula for calculating the splash damage modifier based on the net distance between projectile and target pawn, and the other being a sort of "check" that determines whether the formula even applies at all (which is whether the target's middle lies within the explosion radius/hurtradius)... That is starting to make sense to me, as I think about it. Crudely put, it means that if you are at least as "fat" as the explosion (or its hurtradius), then you will be immune to that explosion...

If that is correct, then all I need to do is modify the initial statement/formula to say:

For only those pawns whose collision radius is less than the hurtradius of the projectile, the splash damage may be calculated as:
Splash damage = Base Damage * (1-d/hurtradius)

which for secondary DP shots means:
Splash damage (secondary shot) = Base Damage * (1-d/150)

And:
Total Damage (secondary shot) = Base Damage * (2-d/150)

Am I on the right track?

The next question is, where can I find a chart or reference that gives the collision radius of various Unreal monsters? Does the formula basically work normally for all but the largest pawns, like Titans? And for those pawns, does a direct hit generally do full spash damage (equal to the base damage)?
If so, then in most situations a direct hit with a charged secondary shot can be counted on to do close to double the base damage, and double the base damage for a secondary shot will exceed always the damage done by a primary shot, at any Powerlevel...

[NaPaliShore]

The Skaarj strangely react more to the secondary fire i.e. they like to dodge it compared to the primary fire (which makes their AI exploit with the "secondary fire triggering Skaarj dodge -> fire a primary bolt where they land" much more easier). If you still stay "behind" a wall even if the distance between you and the Skaarj is small, the Skaarj will eat it.

Cool -- I'll have to practice that...

I also never use the Amplifier, it's a complete waste of time unless you're planning an intelligent ASMD combo against a group of Skaarj TROOPERS.

Good point about the ASMD combo - I forget to do those when I have the amplifier. But isn't the amplifier also helpful to use with the DP? I mean, doesn't it give you more damage/shot without using up your DP ammo faster (since it draws on its own energy reserves to cause the extra damage)? Are there some drawbacks to using the amplifier that I'm not thinking about?

For the Slith or Titans just spam the secondary fire uncharged and you're set, slimeballs and multiple-type rocks are likely to get destroyed a lot, they are joke enemies most of the time. Except if you're in the water facing Slith, use the ASMD orbs instead.

I'll give this a try, too - especially if I'm low on ammo for other weapons. But I don't use the tougher difficulty filters so I usually have plenty of different types of ammo (rockets, etc) when I meet a Titan. But for a change it might be fun to see how it goes taking one down with the DP. And with a slith, on land and in an open area, it wouldn't be as time-consuming to kill it with just the DP.

Another DP exploit is being a complete ass and staying in a place where enemies will never find you or where nothing will never happen if you keep the game active for hours. Type slomo 25, see your DP ammo recharging at an ultra-fast rate, go back to Slomo 1 (or whatever is your speed), DP killing again. Up to you if trolling the law of time is a "cheat".

That's one that trick that I have already been using, occasionally!

Thanks for all the great tips!

[integration]

Yes, you are on the right track, but it goes a little more into detail than I wanted. I don't know any tables, but you can use Unrealed (chesspawn symbol, go to pawn->scripted pawn->titan or whatever, right click->default properties->collision). Basically, formular works normally, when you don't hit Titans with ASMD secondary or Gesbiorifle or Queens with ASMD secondary.

The first vent, that you have to pass in Vortex Rikers, is 128 unreal units (uu) big, so that you have an imagination of the dispersion's explosion radius (=150 uu). It's less than the ASMD combo (240 uu), Eightball's explosion (200 uu), the same as Flak's secondary (150 uu), more than Gesbiorifle's primary (120 uu) and ASMD's secondary (70 uu). Most projectiles have a collsion size of 0 (even grenades, rockets or fireballs), so you don't have to worry about that. A projectile explodes, when its collision cylinder collides with the collision cylinder of a pawn (or a decoration or whatever) or with level geometry. For collision size = 0 it means, the projectile's middle must be inside another object.

The distance is calculated like the distance between 2 balls. But as mentioned before, all actors (=everything, which isn't a brush or mover) are cylinders. The cylinder covers all points, whose horizontal distance from the middle is less than collision radius, AND, whose vertical distance from middle is less than collision height. Here a small example, projected into 2D (that means cylinders become rectangles and balls become circles)



projectile (pink cylinder): radius = 1, height = 1
target (blue cylinder): radius = 3, height = 5
red crosses = middles / central points
middle point distance = squareroot(4*4+3*3) = 5
calculated distance = middle point distance - proj radius - target radius = 5 - 1 - 3 = 1

The calculated distance is the distance between the green balls (=1), but not the distance between the red and blue cylinders (=0). If the hurtradius is 10, then only 90% damage is dealt, although you hit the enemy. If the hurtradius is 4.5 no damage is dealt, because the target's middle is too far away.

------------

Ah yes amplifier. In my unpatched version you could kill a titan with 1 shot

Amplifier quadruples the damage (300% more damage). It consumes 2 units of power every second (out of 1000 units). Dispersion's primary uses 80 units (indepent of powerlevel!), secondary uses (50 + 50*chargetime) units. In comparison: ASMD's secondary uses 80 units (basic damage = 55), ASMD's primary 100 units (basic damage = 35). For an amplified ASMD combo (basic damage = 214), the primary shot mustn't be amplified (that means you can do 800 damage with just 80 units).

So amplified dispersion primary gets much better with higher powerlevel. On the highest powerlevel it means instant death to all Skaarj. However, I like ASMD primary more as you can ensure to hit the enemy. ASMD combo has still the best damage per consumed power ratio (when used correctly).

[NaPaliShore]

A projectile explodes, when its collision cylinder collides with the collision cylinder of a pawn (or a decoration or whatever) or with level geometry. ... The distance is calculated like the distance between 2 balls. But as mentioned before, all actors (=everything, which isn't a brush or mover) are cylinders. The cylinder covers all points, whose horizontal distance from the middle is less than collision radius, AND, whose vertical distance from middle is less than collision height. Here a small example, projected into 2D (that means cylinders become rectangles and balls become circles)



projectile (pink cylinder): radius = 1, height = 1
target (blue cylinder): radius = 3, height = 5
red crosses = middles / central points
middle point distance = squareroot(4*4+3*3) = 5
calculated distance = middle point distance - proj radius - target radius = 5 - 1 - 3 = 1

The calculated distance is the distance between the green balls (=1), but not the distance between the red and blue cylinders (=0). If the hurtradius is 10, then only 90% damage is dealt, although you hit the enemy.

Wow -- thanks for that wonderfully clear explanation and excellent diagram!

This makes everything much clearer. It's especially helpful to visualize the net distance ("calculated distance") as the distance between the nearest 2 points on the surface of two spheres - that of the projectile and that of the enemy pawn - that are defined for each by its respective middle point location and a radius equal to its collision cylinder radius. And then the next step is to understand that the definition of "collision" is based on the moment of contact of two cylinders, rather than two spheres - specifically, the moment of contact between two vertical cylinders that are just big enough around to contain the two spheres in question.

This has the interesting consequence that we can now determine that the only way to achieve a net distance ("calculated distance") of 0 at the moment of collision between the projectile and the enemy pawn is to shoot him in the "belly button" (that is, to make contact with his collision cylinder at a point whose z-value is equal to that of the his middle point - to shoot him at his "equator line", halfway up the cylinder). So that means that a direct DP secondary shot to the midsection has a chance of delivering the full double base damage (direct damage + full splash damage), whereas a shot to the head or foot will necessarily do less than full splash damage, since the "calculated distance" will be >0 (the hypotenuse is always longer than the horizontal leg, except when the angle between the two is 0). That is because the only alignment that allows simultaneous contact of both the cylinders and the spheres is when the midpoints of both spheres exist in the same horizontal plane. (It would be the same vertical plane for Skaarj who are lying down and "playing dead" but that's a relatively rare case, and you'd still want to shoot them in the mid-section to get maximum splash damage!)

So if you're using secondary DP, don't go for headshots! Aim for the belly button!

This also makes sense in terms of thinking about how splashes work. If you hit someone with a water balloon in the midsection, then the water that splashes out up toward their head will hit the person, as will the water that splashes down towards their feet. But if your water balloon hits them in the head then some of the water that splashes upward will be directed away from person's body, and they will absorb less water over all in their clothes and hair than they would if you hit them in the midsection...

The other funny thought is that you can imagine a tall, skinny creature whose own head is so far away from his own middle point that the distance between the two exceeds the hurtradius of various projectiles. In that case then a direct shot to the head could result in a distance calculation that puts the creature's middle point outside the hurtradius. But a direct shot to the midsection could place that same projectile well within "hurtradius distance" of the enemy pawn's middle point. So such a creature could have an "invulnerable head" and "invulnerable feet" but be quite vulnerable in the midsection?!

Anyway, I'm starting to worry that I'm overindulging in these long postings, so just want to say thanks again for explaining everything!

Good points, too, about the damage amplifier. Like you, I tend to use primary ASMD with the amplifier, to minimize wasted shots that don't hit their target. But when the moment is right I'll definitely try not to forget about the ASMD combo shot as well - with an amplifier that should be quite lethal, especially when loosed into a crowd of enemies with lesser hit points...

[NaPaliShore]

So if you're using secondary DP, don't go for headshots! Aim for the belly button!

Speaking of headshots, can anyone explain in what cases - against which monsters, and using which weapons - it pays to target the head (or specific body parts), in order to get more damage out the same kind of projectile (thus resulting in a different type of damage calculation than we've been discussing above)? For example, is there any benefit to aiming to shoot a brute or a slith or a titan in the head (instead of the midsection or feet) with, say, an automag or a biorifle or a stinger? I do get the sense that headshots with a razorjack are effective against brutes, even if brutes are immune to decapitation. But I've never really understood how wide ranging the phenomenon of differential damage based on targeting of specific body parts might be, apart from using the sniper rifle or razorjack to the head against the small or medium sized humanoid targets...

[UBerserker]

Only the Rifle/Sniper Rifle and Razorjack/Ripper can do Headshots. All you need to do is aim on the upper part of the creature's collision height. Works against all enemies. You can tell you're hitting the right spot if the creature (except the bigass ones) gets heavily hurt (animation and sound are played even if they have full health).

Being able to do headshots on all creatures is the main rule of the Razorjack's primary fire. If you can't do this, never use that weapon (let alone mastering the secondary fire).

[Semfry]

If you're using the Rifle or Razorjack then headshots work on just about any non-boss enemy (some, like Pupae, have pretty odd head hitboxes though). It might work on bosses too, but those weapons aren't especially efficient against bosses even if that is the case. Other weapons don't headshot, although some mods change that.

If you use oldskool then turning on the announcer headshot notifications can be a good way to learn where to aim.

Edit: Oh, Uberserker pretty much said this.

[UBerserker]

Other weapons don't headshot, although some mods change that.

7B did this for the CAR and the Shock Rifle. Not sure about the SubMachine Guns.

[integration]

Yes, Rifle and Razorjock can't do headshots to bosses (Titan, Queen, Warlord). On the other hand, their UT counterparts are boss killers. You have to aim for the topper 19 % of the pawns. When a Skaarj is in its sitting waiting position, you still can do a headshot, but you must aim above the head. Rifle does 100 instead of 45 damage. Razorjack even does 105 instead of 30 damage. Though with Razorjack, I can only do consistently headshots to Brutes, Slith and Mercenaries.

[UBerserker]

Oh wow, nevermind, they don't.
What the fucking shit. Maybe this may the second advantage that UT weapons have over the U1 ones since the BioRifle. The Ripper is still a terrible weapon for SP, though.

Now I'm wondering how.

[NaPaliShore]

Yes, Rifle and Razorjock can't do headshots to bosses (Titan, Queen, Warlord). On the other hand, their UT counterparts are boss killers. You have to aim for the topper 19 % of the pawns. When a Skaarj is in its sitting waiting position, you still can do a headshot, but you must aim above the head. Rifle does 100 instead of 45 damage. Razorjack even does 105 instead of 30 damage. Though with Razorjack, I can only do consistently headshots to Brutes, Slith and Mercenaries.

Interesting to know that UT Sniper Rifle and Ripper can do headshots against Titans, Queens, and Warlords - will definitely try to keep that in mind!

You mention that with a headshot, the "Rifle does 100 instead of 45 damage" and the "Razorjack even does 105 instead of 30 damage". Are the numbers the same for a UT Sniper Rifle and a Ripper? Also, what's the deal with the Ripper's secondary fire - is the tradeoff that the explosion from a secondary shot does extra damage (even for a non-headshot), but in turn it will never get the bonus "headshot" damage that a primary shot could? Ultimately, which is better with the Ripper: primary headshot damage, or secondary explosive damage?

Another question - how do decapitations work? Are they just a cool animation to show that the pawn is out of hit points and that the the last shot that took their remaining hit points was a headshot? Or can you actually decapitate a foe with a well timed or well placed headshot, even before it fully runs out of hit points (thus effectively saving some ammo, versus methods that do rely on reducing hit points to 0)? Which foes are susceptible to decapitation? Seems like I basically remember it happening against Skaarj (excluding Queens and Pupae) and krall, and I guess Nalis. Not sure about Mercenaries? Anybody else? I basically got the impression that you can decapitate many weaker foes with a headshot on the second rifle shot, but never on the first rifle shot (even if you land a perfect headshot). But I wasn't sure if it was because they still had hit points left after the first shot, or because the are somehow immune to "surprise" headshot decapitations, and you have to shoot them once, first, with something in order to "activate" them and then they become susceptible to decapitation headshots. But now I'm thinking that sounds silly and it's probably just a matter of how many hit points they have left?

Thanks for helping me to finally peek "under the hood" and start to understand how the mechanics of this game work!

p.s.: I don't know how to split off a thread, but since this discussion has moved on from Dispersion Pistol damage statistics to head shots, if someone wanted to migrate the last several posts over to a new thread, with the subject line "How do headshots work - against which monsters, using which weapons?", I'd be fine with that. Or maybe someone can tell me how to do it myself?

[UBerserker]

The Ripper is a despicable weapon for SP:
1. The fact it's not centre-only makes headshotting harder. And the centre visual for it sucks.
2. It's way too fast and it will get you killed more than you can ever expect. It's definitely harder to aim with this thing compared to the Razorjack.
3. The secondary fire was made for Botfights and puts out nothing of value for the SP table. The Razorjack's secondary fire lets you do stuff out of the ordinary instead, providing you master it...

Don't let me get started on the Pulse Gun, lol.

Decapitation deaths cause the pawn to ALWAYS play his "decapitated" animation if he has one (and that only counts for Skaarj, Mercenaries and Krall). Pawn's HP still needs to reach 0 no matter what. All ScriptedPawns are susceptible to decapitation (the only real exception is Drago from 7B) and of course there are the bosses that can't be headshot by Razorjack/Rifle which is fucking weird to begin with.
There are no kind of "surprise hit" bonuses in this game whatsoever. It's basically all math and enemy health reaching 0.

Read also that sticky thread I made in this board section.