Why Fire Ships Can't Shoot Over Other Units | Projectile Collisions Part 2
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- Fire Ships have a hit mode of 0, but their projectiles still get block by Palisade Walls and other units. Let's figure out what causes this behavior.
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Age of Empires II © Microsoft Corporation. This video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" using assets from Age of Empires II, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft. www.xbox.com/en-us/developers/... - Ігри
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"The archer always misses the target but then always hits the target"
Logic design in a nutshell
The task failed successfully.
Quantum mechanics in AoE
Sometimes I wonder which quirks are masterfully crafted and which are random derps occured because naked dave was dancing on the worktable
0% precission and 0% dispersion = Task Failed succesfully
so did you miss?
"well yes, but actually no"
With all these extra parameters that determine what damages what it feels a little like AOE2 is held together with string and prayers.
1998, Ensemble Studios...
AOE2 developer: Hey I fixed that problem we had by adding in a new parameter.
Other AOE2 developer: but what about this other problem that you've now caused.
AOE2 developer: It's fine, we'll add in another parameter to fix it!
Many of these parameters might be reworks of older, rejected concepts.
For instance, (IIRC) aoe2 walls were originally supposed to block incoming fire so you could safely defend with archers behind them. That idea got scrapped, but the blast level system allows for this if you make all attacks depend on blast level and level 2 or lower. In code, that just meant changing most attacks to blast level 3.
Beautiful piece of code, really, a simple and consistent way to declare which attacks cause 3d-collisions by buildings and which should pass through to hit the units behind.
It also feels like blast level might have been reintroduced or expanded to make sure resources can never (or "never") be hit by units, and trees only by some buildings. So the system has a raison d'être even if it has outlived its original purpose.
20 years later and still this game has a lot of surprises
Ancient people did not know about fire or wheel for geneteriyons. You wont find anything if you wont look for.
Isnt this added by DE? Since it requires 3d collisions.
0:53 Every morning facing the toilet
Next meta: building a gate in front of trebs during a treb-treb battle
Yep gonna totally try this now
People do it but I think its to avoid cavalry sniping the treb
Many players in taiwan have used this for years
Just notice this meta is still not common to see
But wall is more often to see than gate
not sure which is better
@@puddingpudding7817 I suppose both have the same blocking potential against enemy trebs, but walls have more HP per stone cost, so they hold out longer. Gates are faster constructed against enemy cavalry or infantry.
It blows my mind, how this game is so F>>>ing complicated...
That's the thing, when we developers make stuff it sometimes feels like people appreciate the easiest stuff the most ("oh look, shiny image!") and the most complex stuff gets dismissed as "oh, that's what I am used to, so that must be easy" 😅😅😅 I mean, totally understand that it's mostly black magic to most, but yeah xD
I'm impressed by how they overcome the 2D limitation of the game to turned it into 3D
almost every game is like this :)
The fact with the trebs is also why repairing villager gets hit more easily to the face with a 90kg stone thrown over 300m.
So if you can spare some military to win a treb fight, surround the treb with units
T-West: hit mode, attack dispersion, blast defense...
Me: *confused math lady meme*
T-West: *Pepe Silvia meme*
Oh no not again! "The archer always misses the target but then always hits the target"
It feels like kidnapping villagers all over again.
Some should make a mod where all projectiles will get blocked by buildings and trees but give archers an appropriate buff to compensate just to see how much gameplay would differ. I imagine defenses would be entirely different
Keep up the great work, your videos based on deep game datas covers a niche that sotl doesn't do
Could you investigate why towers and castles prefer to attack houses and production buildings and camps over enemy castles/towers? And also, why do castles attack houses again after creating a new unit?
Archer: Did you miss?
Fire ship: Well yes, but actually no.
0:53
When I pee in the public restroom
Every day we come one step closer to a 'Parallel Universe/Scuttlebug' video for AoE 2.
I'm sad you didn't talk about the bug that makes secondary projected behave like if they had a blast radius. Accuracy not only determines if it misses for them, but also if it deals damage at all.
I've never played AoE2 HD or DE (only Conquerors waaaay back then),
but T-West and SpiritoftheLaw are one of my favorite YT channels.
Spirit for explaining in-game theories,
T-West for explaining coding theories.
i had never played aoe2 for real. i was more of a starcraft guy back then (and AOE1, for some reason i couldn't get into aoe2). then i found spirit of the law, got interested, tried and realized my mistake. this is the best RTS ever, it's that simple.
@@GraveUypo I wouldn't word playing starcraft/warcraft as a mistake, they are to this day still the best RTS in terms of preset generated maps, the only real contender for that was command & conquer imo.
However AoE2 isn't just about learning the map layout in and out, it's also about adapting. Rng maps was one of the main reason why AoE2 never got into esports, just to ensure fairness. But nowadays the rules got more flexible (like having restarts) and that acceptance of rng is what makes AoE2 now the best esports rts game worldwide, not just korea.
I really wonder how the meta would be if walls and buildings really absorbed ranged attack now. All the pieces are in place, wonder if there's a mod already for it.
I am learning something new every day
Thanks T-west
Tbh I've never been aware of those specific projectile mechanics. This is some really interesting and useful info
It's so fascinating to me how deep this AoE rabbit hole goes.
Keep up the great work
Great series, i hope you keep it up.
I was the one who mentioned the Saladin scenario, in a related reddit thread; I thought it was totally buried under the other comments, but you truly read every comment, don't you? :D
That's what the hearts are for.
:D I thought I was the one who mentioned it in a comment in his last video. I can only second the above comment, nice content!
@@T-West T-West leaving your comment on heart is like your crush leaving your text on read
That's such a cool thing. I wondered why it always took so long, as young me was always super cautious in scenarios (how I found the path through the trees in Joan 1) and for Sala 1 I would just use the cannon galleon til I destroyed all the towers and then would move my army
You sir are truly an amateur modders friend❤️
Thank you for clarifying.
Thanks for bring up the cannon galleon scenario , it's surprising that it's a different mechanic than the previously mentioned vertical space mechanic. Also if I wasn't subscribed before I'm definitely am now!
Nice video. Very interesting. Good work T-West.
and another hidden gameplay mechanic :D
amazing how much there is to this game
Twest: Since they hit only the ships in front of them
Byzantines: *Laughs in Greek Fire*
(Sorry I commented before checking about Greek fire comments so no offense(
I have always wondered why this was the case. Well now I know! Great explanation!
Trebuchets: fighting to the death
Jaguars: This is fine
i love these kind of videos. keepup the good work
I wasn't curious about this, but now I'm satisfied. Thanks
spirit of the law has some competition
Damn I wish more units would make use of this mechanic, for example what if all archers had a blast attack level of 2 instead of 3? Cover would suddenly become quite important.
Actually developers lingered arround this idea.
They sorta of scratched it because if this where like this the turtling would be absurdly strong
whoa man this game never stops to surprise me
Nice work T-west
I am software developer working on an especially convoluted system. This kind of special casing is a daily bread for me. And the system is not even 20 years old like AOE2.
Fun fact knights can also block tower fire, source an AI hiding a monk behind a knight from one of my towers.
Yes, all units (not just rams and other siege) can block tower fire. They just have to be tall enough for the tower projectile to hit it instead of just flying over the unit and hitting the intended target. So you probably can't block a tower arrow with a villager (if the unit behind is something taller than the villager, like a knight or ram).
These vids are awesome! Still finding new things in a 20 year old game. Now you just need to team up with Hera for a couple of team games and then you're YT full time... Spirit of the law watch out
*fire ship approaches"
Villager: I could take 2 steps back
But I'll just grab all my wood and nails and starting building a wall on the coastline
I thought I understood these videos well when I first watched them, but now that I'm really thinking about it, holy fuck this is complicated
The new spirit of the age of empires law book
very big brain episode
Oh hey, my observation turned into a video. Cool. I just thought it somehow had to do with height from the last video.
5:17 Don't thank me too watch for watching though, since I don't know what that means :D
Love your videos!
easter egg at 4:50
ａｃｃｕｒａｙ
oh boi...
I learn 2 new things out of this video. thanks!
This reminds me of the missile knows where it is because the missile knows where it isn’t
@2:17 "And to do that, let's discuss parallel universes"
Wait...no...wrong channel. Wrong music for that too.
Well explained
One thing happened to me when a bombard cannon was too close to a stone wall it couldn’t shoot over it (in arena)
This is getting complicated...
Some elite physics lesson.
Microsoft Programmer: "I'm proud to report - we made a simple, effective ranged unit attack system - but scrapped it, in favor of a massively confusing, and complicated mess."
Microsoft Boss: _"Brilliant!"_
You should win the Nobel Prize in AoE, with Spirit of the Law
So wierd you can still learn smehting about aoe 2 after watching and playing for like 8 years
that villager living in paradise, i'm jealous :( lmao
Keep it up
Hey ! You prosimed us some videos on Monks about techs and conversion mechanics !
Those are still coming, the Monk tech one is about halfway edited. Should be out after the next pacifist video.
Thank You Sir!
high dispersion fire ships look beautiful
1:52, Fire Ship: Why I'm spin-
Game: cus of DE.
Just seeing that damn inaccurate cannon galleon from Saladin 1 annoys the hell out of me.
Fire ships even the byzantine ones always hit the target because of the low range. I wonder where it would it hit if it had range 10
Can you do a video on why the Monument can't take damage?
If SotL has a Math Major, T-West has a Math PhD
5:15 you can see the top right villager getting hit by the fireship? Or is that just an animation glitch?
Not sure exactly. Sometimes I've seen the projectiles go through the wall if the Villagers aren't really close to it. I don't see a HP bar appear above the Vil, though, so she probably isn't actually hit by the fire.
0% accuracy... Incredible, really interesting!
Question:
1:31 "(...) a result of the game using 3D collisions"
I still don't get this even after this and the ram-repair video...
You mean something like arrows have a "height" value when they fly? Building and units also have "height"?
Yes, you can change the unit height and arrow arc in the data files.
I wonder what features were originally planned for the game to make the projectile system so complicated. As the game stands right now, it could be a lot simpler, so I guess they had some more complex features planned. Or perhaps they even had them implemented, but they made the game less fun to play.
You're godsent ! Thanks to this I can finally have my villagers do their job in peace during sieges without losing my mind 😂
One other thing that bothers me is that villagers constantly run away when hit instead of focusing on building. Any way I can mod this behavior in a straightforward way? I found that changing their class gets rid of that issue but introduces other problems that I'm currently trying to workaround.
Not sure about Villager behavior like that, I think a lot of that is hard-coded or bound to the unit class.
i always wondered about that cannon galleon
To me, it naively made sense that some balls land on the wall. I never thought of accuracy though
@@MaartenvanHeek it made intuitive sense but that particular cannon galleon's accuracy haunted me for two decades
@@ryanborn7026 for me it was how weak or slow it was in taking that tower down
Awesome!! I have more knowledge for be a pro!
does something similar happen with gunpowder units and scorps? They always hit the thing closest to them
Not that I know of. Bombard Cannons and Scorpions have 100% accuracy.
If you really want to have fun with fireship projectiles, try Byzantines with the 256 tech mod/cheat.
Me being confident about knowing some game mechanic and game engineering
Watched the video to realize I'm Jon Snow all the time.
I feel like gates always have some weird hitboxes. can you use a gate to save your vill from a fireship?
I would guess that you should be able to. Gates may have weird hitboxes though, that's something to investigate.
Does this apply in any way to ranged melee units, like Throwing Axemen or Memelukes?
The same mechanics govern that behavior, yes. The fire from Fire Ships actually does a bit of melee damage.
5:16 it all sorta made sense until I saw the fireship in the top right corner shooting some fire particles through the wall, onto the villager ... what happens here? Is that a special exception case?
Not sure there, I didn't see an HP bar appear above the Villager, so I don't think she actually got hit by the fire.
@@T-West true. maybe it's just a matter of orientation of the ships
The more I learn from this game, the more unrealistic it gets. A castle or wall can't protect a unit from arrowfire, but a mangonel can.
So if you target vill, you deal 2 times less dmg to the building he's hiding behind?
Yes, if you target the Vil but hit the building, then the building takes half damage.
If the archer deals only half damage on a missed shot that hits a non-targeted unit, does that apply to fire ships as well? Does the fireship deal half damage to the palisade wall if it is targeting the villager compared to if it is targeting the wall itself? Fire ships have 2 pierce/1 melee attack and +2 attack against buildings, palisades have 5 pierce/2 melee armor, so on direct attack the fire ship should deal 2 damage (masonry gives +3 building armor, so might negate this bonus damage and make the question a purely academic one). Is this damage halved?
Correct, the damage the Fire Ship deals to the Palisade Wall is cut is half if it is targeting the Villager.
this behavior applies to all units that don't deal splash damage. it also doesn't apply to arambai in DE because they are a hardcoded exception.
Hey, sorry for the off-topic, but I just realized something... your voice sounds super similar to the Primer guy! You know, the guy who makes educational videos with simulations using blobs! Primer, is this you? LOOOL
Never heard of them.
@@T-West LOL. I guess I've also been the first one to notice!
ua-cam.com/video/nsVD8VPh96w/v-deo.html
So Greek Fire isn't very helpful (+1 Range to Fire Ships)?
The range is helpful, but it doesn't change this mechanic, the ships still can't shoot over other ships.
So what attacks are damaging resources? Is this just lumberjacks, gold miners etc? Or special scenario units?
I'm not entirely sure about that, I don't know which units have a zero blast attack level. I don't think blast attacks are used by Villagers to gather resources. "Resources" is just what the genie editor labels in its tooltip, there may be a better description for how it's used.
@@T-West The siege onager and trebuchet can both cut down trees. Although getting anywhere with a treb is going to take some time.
@@edwardteach3000 Yes, but they have Blast Attack Level 1, not 0. (And they also have a special combat task to target trees).
@@T-West Maybe this is for siege onagers and trebuchets destroying trees?
@@PauxloE That's still level 1. I'm not sure where level 0 is used, if at all.
In the exit screen with 6 villagers repairing walls being attacked by fires it looks like villagers are taking some hits, any idea why? If you pause at 5:32 and look at the top right villager you can see
I'm not sure why. I think somehow the projectiles avoid the wall at very precise angles and manage to hit the Vil. But I don't know for certain.
@@T-West That makes sense, you'd mentioned the 3D engine being part of the calculation seeing if the structure interposes the projectile.
I dig your content, your channel's a recent discovery after years of SOTL.
What language/ engine does AoE2 actually use? How have they updated it over the years?
It's the Genie engine written in C++ by Ensemble Studios back in the 90's. That codebase is still used, albeit with many changes, for the Definitive Edition.
@@T-West It’s amazing how it held up over the years. I assume it doesn’t dump everything on the poor CPU 0. Yes, looking at you, Clausewitz.
Does any of this explain why Vietnamese Archers with 42 HP die from a Mangonel shot that is supposed to deal 40 damage?
Oh, I've never looked into that.
So T-West, how do you keep trebs out of your base???
I'd say try to keep your army in a position where you can control the vulnerable areas of the map to prevent the Trebuchets from being able to deploy there. But really the question is a bit too vague for me to be able to give a good answer, other than "It depends." There are lots of different situations you can run into when you face Trebs in Imp.
@@T-West , comments one the super unrealistic Al micro on range units?
Also your thoughts on the AoE2 DE anniversary update?
@@emilyding2496 I haven't really gotten a chance to look at it too much yet.
@@T-West , have you watched the trailer yet? ua-cam.com/video/WsJJKaImg9Y/v-deo.html
Nobody: All of this information has so much application in real life or while playing.
So question: is there anything that has a blast defense level of 0 and if you change a unit to have a blast attack of 0, what can you destroy?
It may make gold nothing maps a lot more interesting.
Don't know anything that has a blast attack level of 0, but those projectiles should damage everything.
@@T-West The question is what is everything. Like does it include terrain like cliffs?
@@meneldal It's all units that have a Blast Defense Level greater than or equal to 0, which should be all units. In practice I don't know any projectiles with a Blast Attack Level of 0, so I'm not sure how it would turn out if used.
@@T-West What is a unit? It seems that wood is one, but are other resources like gold and stone also units?
@@meneldal Yes, they're also units. The units consist of the items in the list on the "Units" tab of the Advanced Genie Editor.
I just realized I wasn't subscribed... pretty sure I was. UA-cam is very strange.
Avatar would have been a much shorter series if AOE2 mechanics applied
What about bizantine fires? 🤔
They behave the same way.
T-West, say you know quite a lot about game mechanics?
Were the dev's drunk when they designed this game?
I love it
Wait there was a part 1?
ua-cam.com/video/r_25-1gG2pA/v-deo.html
@@T-West Thank you!
So you're telling me it'll be really easy to make onagers destroy gold and stone for epic castle age laming?
Spirit of the Law v2.1