How Much Life Does A Hive Have?
SecretFire
Join Date: 2003-01-02 Member: 11712Members
Join Date: 2003-01-02 Member: 11712Members
<div class="IPBDescription">I did a wee bit of testing...</div> <b>Edit: I suppose I should change this post for anyone that comes upon it after a while: 6000 hp and it regens at 2 hp per secon, as of 1.04</b>
Well, I was sitting around, wondering how much life a hive had, and couldn't find anywhere where it was stated. So decided to test it myself.
<b>For those not wanting to read a big long thing: aprrox 6500-6600 hp</b>
So, here's the experiment I did. The only assumptions I made is that knife damage is 30, and lmg bullets do 10 damage each. I calculated all the other numbers myself.
So, the first problem with the hive is that it regenerates, at an unknown rate. This presents a problem, as just about every weapon in NS will be doing damage over time to the hive. (As I found out later, hive regen rate is VERY slow, but I didn't know that yet) My solution? Siege guns, a lot of siege guns. By putting them out of sight, then scanning the hive, I could do a rather large bit of damage in just under a second.
So, I loaded up ns_eclipse, positioned a turret factory near the hive area, and started making sieges. I placed a bunch, and whenever I had too many, I simply siwtched to alien and ate one of them. Whenever I placed new ones, I spawned a few hives in order to syncrhonize their rotations. Hopefully, I'll be able to put up a screenshot showing all the sieges, but take my word for it, they were all pointing the same direction at the same time.
Going back and forth, I found that <b>21</b> sieges was enough to "on-hit kill" the hive. 20 sieges was not enough. However, I decided that I didn't trust the listed siege damage, and I wanted to test it myself. In fact, the listed siege damage was quite wrong, as I disocvered later.
As an alien, I placed 3 defensive chambers (out of healing range of each other) around the map, then went marine and got out my trusty knife. Each defense chamber took exactly 24 knife hits to die. 24X30= <b>720 hp for a defense chamber</b> I also noticed that the health bar around a defense chamber consists of 16 segments.
Putting a single siege gun at south loop, I then placed defensive chamber and noted how much damage they took. Generally, the siege removed 7 segments worth of life, although a few times the siege did less damage. 720/16 is 45 hp per segment, meaning that <b>siege damage is approximately 315 hp against structures</b> Since the value is listed as 350 damage, double against structures, I was rather surprised at this result. Has anyone else conducted tests of siege damage?
Anyhoo, 315 dmg X 21 sieges = 6615 hp for the hive. However, I decided that this needed a little bit more testing.
Getting out my trusty lmg (no weapon upgrades), I dropped an armory at comp core hive and began shooting. Note that due to reloading time, the hive had a fair bit of time to regenerate. It took 13 clips to kill the hive, which is exactly 6500 damage. Note that the hive did have some time to heal between clips. It would appear that the regeneration rate is very slow, practically nonexistant.
I did another check with the knife, but counting was difficult, and the number innacurate, and it agreed with the previous results anyway. Since 6500 is a pretty likely value for the amount of hive life, it's posible I overestimated siege damage slightly.
So, I'm hoping this was useful and that the info wasn't posted somewhere already. (cause then I did a lot of testing for nothing) Anyone done some of their own tests?
Well, I was sitting around, wondering how much life a hive had, and couldn't find anywhere where it was stated. So decided to test it myself.
<b>For those not wanting to read a big long thing: aprrox 6500-6600 hp</b>
So, here's the experiment I did. The only assumptions I made is that knife damage is 30, and lmg bullets do 10 damage each. I calculated all the other numbers myself.
So, the first problem with the hive is that it regenerates, at an unknown rate. This presents a problem, as just about every weapon in NS will be doing damage over time to the hive. (As I found out later, hive regen rate is VERY slow, but I didn't know that yet) My solution? Siege guns, a lot of siege guns. By putting them out of sight, then scanning the hive, I could do a rather large bit of damage in just under a second.
So, I loaded up ns_eclipse, positioned a turret factory near the hive area, and started making sieges. I placed a bunch, and whenever I had too many, I simply siwtched to alien and ate one of them. Whenever I placed new ones, I spawned a few hives in order to syncrhonize their rotations. Hopefully, I'll be able to put up a screenshot showing all the sieges, but take my word for it, they were all pointing the same direction at the same time.
Going back and forth, I found that <b>21</b> sieges was enough to "on-hit kill" the hive. 20 sieges was not enough. However, I decided that I didn't trust the listed siege damage, and I wanted to test it myself. In fact, the listed siege damage was quite wrong, as I disocvered later.
As an alien, I placed 3 defensive chambers (out of healing range of each other) around the map, then went marine and got out my trusty knife. Each defense chamber took exactly 24 knife hits to die. 24X30= <b>720 hp for a defense chamber</b> I also noticed that the health bar around a defense chamber consists of 16 segments.
Putting a single siege gun at south loop, I then placed defensive chamber and noted how much damage they took. Generally, the siege removed 7 segments worth of life, although a few times the siege did less damage. 720/16 is 45 hp per segment, meaning that <b>siege damage is approximately 315 hp against structures</b> Since the value is listed as 350 damage, double against structures, I was rather surprised at this result. Has anyone else conducted tests of siege damage?
Anyhoo, 315 dmg X 21 sieges = 6615 hp for the hive. However, I decided that this needed a little bit more testing.
Getting out my trusty lmg (no weapon upgrades), I dropped an armory at comp core hive and began shooting. Note that due to reloading time, the hive had a fair bit of time to regenerate. It took 13 clips to kill the hive, which is exactly 6500 damage. Note that the hive did have some time to heal between clips. It would appear that the regeneration rate is very slow, practically nonexistant.
I did another check with the knife, but counting was difficult, and the number innacurate, and it agreed with the previous results anyway. Since 6500 is a pretty likely value for the amount of hive life, it's posible I overestimated siege damage slightly.
So, I'm hoping this was useful and that the info wasn't posted somewhere already. (cause then I did a lot of testing for nothing) Anyone done some of their own tests?
Comments
u can be sooo cruel vash <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Going back and forth, I found that 21 sieges was enough to "on-hit kill" the hive. 20 sieges was not enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How bored can somone be?
"commander, we have about 15 sieges here. why dont you scan?"
"build 6 more. I want to kill it with one hit. muhahahahahaha"
Actually, its damage can be anywhere from 315 to 359. As you said, each segment has 45 health. But think about it.
350/45 = 7.778
Since the game can't represent the .778 as a bar, it rounds it down. Meaning even though you did 350 damage, until the defense chamber gets hurt for 10 more units, it won't remove the bar. Also, did you account for the fact that a structure can have 0 bars left and still be alive? HP for a DC that goes from 1 to 44 means that it won't have a bar.
From my experiences with massive siege farms, they do not all fire instantaneously, but rather in quick succession.
So when you pinged that hive with 21 sieges, it would've taken roughly half a second for all the siege cannons to fire. In that time, the hive most likely regenerated once.
20 * 350 = 7000, a very nice round number... and programmers like nice round numbers that are easily divisible by 8. (7000/8 = 875)
Assuming this was true, your 21st siege would've had massive overkill, having to shoot an entire siege damage for one "gulp" worth of regen. Here's something to prove me wrong/right: build 20 sieges, walk up to the hive and look at it. Once all 20 siege shots are emptied, shoot it with one or two bullets. If I'm right, it'll die.
As for why it took 13 clips to kill it, I've no idea. It sounds a bit low. Could be because hives may be extra susceptible to hand held guns to promote an active role for soldiers in taking down the hive, while not making it all too easy for a siege cannon to take one out.
[EDIT] Assuming Vash is right, maybe it has a fixed armour value that resists sonic weapons better than normal weapons? I admit I've never seen this "6000 hp" display myself.
<!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
That would be true if siege really does 315 damage.
I still bet that 350 is the damage and the lack of an 8th bar is due to the truncation of the values (350 - 315 = 35, 10 dmg short of a "bar" of a defense chamber). If somehow, siege damage can be proven to be 350, then my theory of 6000 hp + armour (mistaken for 7000 hp) won't be so crazy afterall.
But yes, it could work if you can get 2 people to do it, although it's a big assumption to think that siege does equal damage to buildings and to life, since many NS weapons does a different damage value against buildings AFAIK.
You know what'd be an easy solution is... Flayra, how much health does a hive have and how much damage does a 1.04 siege cannon do?
I think that the siege test may have been a little innaccurate (I have a nagging suspicion they didn't all fire), and I also think that my lmg test is more accurate. It seems like 620 rounds of lmg will kill a hive, which would give 6200 hp. However, in the ns fgd file:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
//@PointClass base(TeamChoice) size(-64 -64 -64, 64 64 64) = team_hive : "Alien hive location"
@PointClass size(-64 -64 -64, 64 64 64) = team_hive : "Alien hive location"
[
hivemodel(studio) : "Model" : "models/hive.mdl"
maxspawndistance(integer) : "Spawn distance" : 2000
//hitpoints(integer) : "Hit points (if not default)" : 1200
armor(integer) : "Armor value (if not default)" : 300
targetonspawn(string) : "Target on spawn" : ""
targetondeath(string) : "Target on death" : ""
]
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Note that hitpoints, at 1200, are commented out, whilst the 300 armor is still in. This may be the health of hive under contruction, I'm really not sure. This is a fair bit more complicated than I thought.
Edit: Here it is again, in ns.qrk
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
team_hive:e =
{
angle = "360"
origin = "0 0 0"
;desc = "Alien hive location"
hivemodel = "models/hive.mdl"
maxspawndistance = "2000"
hitpoints = "1200"
armor = "300"
}
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i'm too lazy to do the math...someone do it
[EDIT]: spelling mistakes <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
***KILL THE FATTY***
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's pretty obvious. Read the first post.
Let's assume he actually just asked what it was and was given the number 6000.
6000/350 rounded up = 18 siege shots. So a hive should only take 18 shots, assuming you ping it constantly and then you would've walked away with false information (assuming the tests are actually correct), when in actual fact, it takes 21.
So in "wasting time" in testing it, he found the right number of siege shots to take out a hive. Obviously it's not important in a game where you can actually afford 21 siege cannons, but when you're in a desperate time-limited situation, it makes all the difference to know how many siege cannons to build to minimize build times. With the information given you can then use high school calculus to find the number of siege structures to build to get the best cost-to-effectiveness ratio. Probably doesn't matter to us, but I guarantee the clan scene cares.
Throw in medpack spamming and all too often i see the game end this way. Hives should have same health as CC IMHO. (10,000?)
Why don't you just believe the admin and the file in your NS folder?
PS: The hive really does need a serious bump in health though.