Matrix Games Forums

Per Attack Scores section in the manual, every model, per it's weapon, has a soft attack, soft defense, hard attack, and hard defense. These with some modifiers establish the firepower in a given enagement.

However, nothing in the manual explicitly defines what's hard and what's soft in the game.

I assume my soft attack value is when that model attacks something soft. and etc. for the other three values. In other words, this model, in this tactical attack/defense posture, against a soft/hard target.

Nothing in any screen Ive found states what's hard and what's soft. I've been making assumptions, but is a Soldier in Combat Armor hard or soft?

I don't really know.

Anything with armor thickness is 'hard'.

So infantry in Combat Armor are hard then?

I concur.

I've been assuming soft and hard target are armored and unarmored, but there are fringe cases in which I'm not too sure.

Vehicles for instance : I'm assuming all are armored, thus hard targets, except maybe transport trucks?
Or cannons. Although I'm almost sure they're soft targets, there's nowhere I can see it for sure.

If it needs high velocity armor piercing munitions it's a hard target, and if you can make do with small arms and explosives it's soft. But oh noes there are fringe cases too, so that's just a very basic rule of thumb and in no way foolproof.

So, I'm on board with you. A simple mention in the model's description if it's a soft or hard target would solve the issue once and for all.

Infantry artillery and truck and AT gun are soft and everything else are hard. (if you see infantry armor on the unit or nothing like truck it's soft)

To rephrase then, from observation, anything that has vehicle armor counts as a hard target.

To go into more detail, I believe the game determines which attack value to use based on the final attack score. If your weapon cannot penetrate the armor and its final value is lower than its hard attack value, then it will use hard attack/Guns.

Starting buggies have 5mm of "armor". That's not armor. However... Hard.

Trucks, Soft.

I'm making all the same assumptions. But, I challenge any player to show me evidence.

ORIGINAL: WeaverofBrokenThreads
To go into more detail, I believe the game determines which attack value to use based on the final attack score. If your weapon cannot penetrate the armor and its final value is lower than its hard attack value, then it will use hard attack/Guns.

That I'm not sure about. Clearly, types of weapons have modifiers to hard and soft. That's in the manual.

Also, there is a penalty-bonus for muzzle diameter vs armor thinkness. Also in the manual. Did you know soldiers basic slugthrower weapons count as 20mm muzzle diameters for this calculation? Sorry 5mm thick buggy.

I made the same assumptions as given here (pretty common in wargames like this), but you can verify this by looking in combat details for how it calculates if it uses the hard or soft value in various cases. So if you doubt some specific case, it is easy to test.

Well, attacking APCs seems to use soft attack. I am not sure anymore. I guess it is related to type then. Also, I am 100% sure that calibre matrix does absolutely nothing, currently. Vehicle or personal armor.

No surprise they use soft attack, but are they considered hard targets?

You attack APCs with soft attack, which shouldn't be the case.

That is good to know. It is true that really only tanks are always considered hard targets. APCs, Jeeps/Buggys, AT Guns, Artillery, can all depend on the system. So, perhaps I'll have to go into the logs and test them all.

I think that is a good starting assumption, but you should test it all carefully for optimal model design.

THe manual lists the unit categories. From what i've experienced everything with "personal armor is" treated as "soft" and everything with armor is treated as "hard". Page 321 of the manual.

Kind of a related question, what counts as "mechanized" for the various posture stratagems? Is it the ones that have a "motor" in the chart above?

ORIGINAL: jimwinsor

Kind of a related question, what counts as "mechanized" for the various posture stratagems? Is it the ones that have a "motor" in the chart above?

That is an interesting question. When it comes to stratagems I believe motorized infantry, for example, is counted as a motorized unit when you adopt blitzkrieg but will need to double check to confirm. So the motorized infantry in that case gets posture bonuses from stratagems for motorized units but when something fires at an infantry subunit during combat resolution it uses the defense fire value for soft targets.

I'd like to know also, what counts as "tanks" in the kill/casualty/report in-between turns. Seems like even buggies are called "tanks" in that case...

ORIGINAL: Culthrasa

THe manual lists the unit categories. From what i've experienced everything with "personal armor is" treated as "soft" and everything with armor is treated as "hard". Page 321 of the manual.

I think you deciphered it!

Thnaks!

But Weaver above said his test showed that APC was soft. I'll have to check it myself.