AP, HE & Incendiary/Phosphorous

[Orz]

What's the actual difference, damage-wise, between Armor Piercing, High Explosive and Incendiary (or Phosphorous, in TFTD)? Does a weapon with an AP power value of 60 do the same flat damage as another weapon with either an HE or I value of 60 as well? (I do understand armors have various different modifiers that come into effect, but when it comes to raw damage values, do all weapons do the same damage regardless of their ammo type?)

I am aware HE has an AOE damage, but does it hit the same way as AP at ground zero (ie. hitting the target directly in the face)?

And what about Incendiary/Phosphorous, does it work like HE but with a "lingering" fire effect afterwards or is the direct-hit damage actually less than stated?


Lastly, is there a reason why in UFO/EU Incendiary ammo seems to pack the highest punch...

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Heavy Cannon (AP) 56
Heavy Cannon (HE) 52
Heavy Cannon (I) 60

Auto-Cannon (AP) 42
Auto-Cannon (HE) 44
Auto-Cannon (I) 48
...but in TDFT the highest damage value is always carried by HE, with AP and Phosphorous being typically on exactly the same level?

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Gas Cannon (AP) 60
Gas Cannon (HE) 65
Gas Cannon (P) 60

Hydro-Jet Cannon (AP) 40
Hydro-Jet Cannon (HE) 50
Hydro-Jet Cannon (P) 40
Is this merely a design choice or there an underlying reason behind this change?

[kikimoristan]

AP is direct damage mitigated by AP resistance  providing target got hit

HE is area damage that is strongest at ground zero then gets weaker towards the edges

Incendiary is small initial damage then damage every turn to anything sitting in fire or is on fire. Incendiary can set tiles and units on fire . Units on fire show a fire animation following them and take damage every turn.  So things sitting in fire or is on fire. Now I don't know if you sit in fire and are on fire you take double damage. Maybe. A dev needs to confirm that.

[kikimoristan]

See here  https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Weapons_Summaries_(TFTD)#Weapons_by_Damage

[Orz]

HE is area damage that is strongest at ground zero then gets weaker towards the edges

Got it, but how strong is that at ground zero? Is it the full HE value applied (as if it were AP), minus whatever damage modifiers may apply due to armor?

Incendiary is small initial damage then damage every turn to anything sitting in fire or is on fire. Incendiary can set tiles and units on fire .

Got it, but how much is that small initial damage and how much is the subsequent damage every turn?

https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=Incendiary

Incendiary damage mechanics are not fully understood and are being re-investigated by Zombie.

Incendiary rounds do very little direct damage -- between 0 and 10 points per hit -- but continue to do damage every turn that a unit is in fire or on fire.

Additionally, it seems Incendiary blast radius is only dependent upon the weapon, rather than its Incendiary damage output?

    Auto-Cannon incendiary rounds have a blast diameter of 5 tiles.
    Heavy Cannon incendiary rounds have a blast diameter of 7 tiles.
    Incendiary rockets have a blast diameter of 9 tiles.

So, basically, if I made a weapon capable of inflicting 200 points of Incendiary damage, it'd only be good for illumining a big patch of ground at night?

What's the point of having different types of Incendiary ammo (with different power/damage values attached to them) then?

Looking forward to replies

[yrizoud]

Full strength at ground zero, AFAIK - and victim only opposes "under armor", which is generally weaker.

About uses of fire:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,3817.msg49261.html#msg49261

[kikimoristan]

The light your weapon makes is based on how many tiles are on fire. Each tile lights up a radius of like 20 or something. Having 2 fire tiles makes it twice as bright. Something like that. So an incendiary weapon with 0 damage and a blast radius of 10 probably makes more light and less damage.  But maybe less damage means less time burning. I don't know that part. You kinda need to look in XCOM code to understand. Incendiary is not well understood how it works in the game.

HE only uses under armor if at ground zero but if you're not at ground zero then is uses sides armor as well where ground zero is facing.

[Ridаn]

Larger Incendiary damage value = larger blast radius = larger area on fire. Damage done by fire is the same.