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Weapon Battle Value Calculation

While all of the HeavyMetal programs include a custom weapons editor which can also calculate weapon Battle Value, you can use this table to calculate or confirm these values when not using the program. In addition, these detailed calculations give the theory behind the calculations.

The following procedure calculates Battle Value for weapons which do damage (not ECM or similar systems), and can be used to calculate the BV of your custom weapons. Please note that the formulas that these calculations are based on are the result of my reverse-engineering Battle Values of existing weapons; to my knowledge no one has any "official" rules for them. However, I think you will find that the results from these calculations agree very closely with published Battle Values.

Battle Value Calculation Table
Weapon Name: Weapon Type:
Number of
Shots/Missiles: 		Damage per Shot/Missile - Set All Ranges!
Short Range:   Medium:   Long: 		To-Hit Modifier:
Minimum Range: Short Range: Medium Range: Long Range:

Calculated Battle Value:   for weapon, per ton of Ammo

Basis for Calculations:

Ratio of Missile/Ultra Hits versus Number of Missiles/Shots Fired (Table values are rounded)
Number of Missiles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 12 15 20 30 40
Ratio of Hits: 1.000 0.708 0.667 0.660 0.633 0.667 0.608 0.631 0.678 0.633 0.635 0.624 0.635
Note:   
 
The above table displays only a portion of the all the available values.
The actual code uses all columns from Total Warfare and are accurate to six places.

Probability of Hitting with 2D6 To-Hit Number (0.417 = 41.7%. Table values are rounded)
2D6 To-Hit: 2 or less 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 >12
Chances in 36 36 35 33 30 26 21 15 10 6 3 1 0
Ratio of Hits: 1.000 0.972 0.917 0.833 0.722 0.583 0.417 0.278 0.167 0.083 .0278 0.000
 
Range
Hexes		 2D6
To-Hit		 Average
Damage
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40

   Total

Step-by-Step Calculations:

This weapon fires shot(s), each shot doing points of damage. At Short Range the average damage done with each salvo is therefore points, based on a ratio of of the shots hitting, from the Missile/Ultra hits table. At Medium Range the average damage done is points, and at Long Range the average damage done is points.

All damages are calculated based on a base to-hit of 4. At a Short Range up to hexes, the average damage considering to-hits (a to-hit of 4) is damage points, ignoring any Minimum range. At a Medium Range up to hexes, the average damage is points. At a Long Range up to hexes, the average damage is points. The table at right lists the to-hit and average damage at each range from 1 to 40 hexes for this weapon. The total of all the average damages is .

This total damage of is multiplied by for weapons, giving a running total of .

If a single hit does 12 or more points of damage, multiply the total by 1.2. The running total is now .

For Single Shot (OS) weapons, a total damage of 1/5 of this value is used. The running total is now .

Weapon Battle Value is the total of the above, rounded to the nearest integer, so this weapon has a Battle Value of .

For weapons using ammo (not Energy or Single Shot weapons), ammo BV is 1/8 of Weapon BV. Here, Ammo BV is .

 

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Revision History:
Code Revised 03/20/2004 (format only)
Code Revised 02/26/2007 for OS weapon BV fraction change
Operation enhanced 05/12/2008 for longer ranges and varying damage with range
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All HeavyMetal programs are developed by Rick Raisley of RCW Enterprises, and Copyrighted © by RCW Enterprises. All rights reserved.
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