Source
r/WorldofTanks•
Jak_Atackka

Facts and Myths: Burn Damage

Guide

Hi everyone! WGNA has graciously loaned me a couple of press accounts, so that I may do a variety of tests in training rooms to determine how certain game mechanics work. My primary goal is to determine the penetration RNG distribution. I have the accounts for a short while, so I'm fielding some community requests for other mechanics to test.

Today, inspired by NoKillCapAll [TL-DR], I took a peek at fire mechanics. Today, we will answer four questions:

Do fires go out faster if you're standing still?

Answer: NO

For this experiment, I set up a Type 5 Heavy as my test subject and an E 25 as the shooter. (Low-alpha guns have the best ratio of module damage to regular damage). For the moving tests, I switched to the E 50 (using the same 75mm KwK L/70 gun), as it was significantly easier to pen the side of a moving Type 5. I excluded any and all fires that killed the target.

Stationary target: 77 fires. Damage ranges from 330 to 703, with an average of 526.77.

Moving target: 20 fires (it was much slower to get this data). Damage ranged from 388 to 639, with an average of 513.50.

This is well within error.

Is fire damage fixed?

Answer: NO

In the above stationary test, the fire damage ranged from 330 to 703. The distribution appears normal, but it would take many hundreds of tests to be sure. Values closer to the mean were more likely, but extreme values were not uncommon. The range was roughly ±35%, but I only tested one tank in one configuration, so this range may not apply to other vehicles.

Does being on fire affect your concealment rating?

Answer: YES

This one surprised me. A random line on the wiki suggested it, and it was correct. In fact, being on fire completely negates your concealment. Even if you use an automatic fire extinguisher, your concealment will disappear during that one tick of fire damage, letting others easily spot you.

Can you put out a fire by submerging your tank in water?

Answer: NO

Even if you are currently drowning, an enemy can still set you on fire.

If you have any suggestions for other mechanics to test, put them below!

Posted Jul 15, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC · edited

12253
meem1029[RDDT]•

Nitpick: I don't think throwing out just all fires that killed the target is quite valid. This means that you will be underestimating the damage of a fire because if the target is at 500HP the fire will be included if it is a low damage one, but not if it is a high damage one. (I doubt this affected your results here.)

26
Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

That's a good point. I should've ignored all fires set below a certain hitpoint level (like 700hp). Off the top of my head, without going back to check the replays, only about 5 or 6 of the counted fires were ignited within this range.

For future tests, I'll have to keep effects like that in mind. Thanks for pointing that out!

13
Zoddom•

I always had the impression that fire damage scales with the damage dealt by the shot thats ignited it.

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Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

It doesn't seem to. The UI combines your fire damage with your base damage, so it looks the same, but in my tests, using a 240 alpha gun did not appear to affect burn damage.

4
elitesilvia11•

Same

1
Infectious_Burn[DSS]•

Water doesn’t put out fire. Literally unplayable.

19
chaos_factionchaos_faction•

I blow into my mic to feed the fire more air. Amidointhisrite?

2
CataphractGW69% unicum your bf faps to :snoo_dealwithit:•

Always suspected fire negated concealment and having it confirmed is extremely helpful. Thank you very much for your testing efforts.

​

Only thing left now is to decide whether to feed my tankers Panzerschokolade or give them fire extinguishers. I mean, if they're on meth, they should be able to GTFO a burning tank pretty fast, right? Right?

18
Pirulax•

For those who don't know, some soliders got chocolate which had presumably meth in it, in the ww2 Germany

7
haluura•

Except that story is an urban legend. (And yes, I have seen the doctored photo that is supposed to prove it.

Panzer tankers got their meth directly in pill form. (See "Stuka-Tabletten" or "Hermann-Goring-Pillen")

7
Pirulax•

That's why I said "presumably". Thanks for the correction!

3
haluura•

Not trying to "shoot the messenger", of course.🙂

I just have a habit of going after myths and urban legends with Soviet superheavy when I see them.

4
zhouy3141[TL-DR]•

Nitpick: Very minor typo but my name is NoKillCapAll lol. Thanks for the shoutout even though all I did was just say some offhand comment how a test should be done, I didn't expect anyone to get results this fast.

Thanks very much for doing this, it was really enlightening. I really believed that moving while on fire increased burn time/damage but I guess that was just confirmation bias.

It is also highly disappointing that being submerged does not affect burn time. Literally unplayable.

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Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

My attention to detail is the bestest. Thanks for the correction.

5
The13Disciple[-G-] twitch.tv/13Disciple•

Thanks for confirming the concealment one.

The devs answered the moving one in a QnA with WGNA a couple months ago.

10
Pixel_Highwaymen•

Not long ago DezGamez tryed to test out how the track durability equipment helps you get less ramming damage while ramming with your track.

It was really wierd. Sometimes it even dealt less damage into the enemy. Also, the ramming dmamge calculations looked like pure RNG and they were completely broken. He basically rammed at the same speed( put the tempomat to level 1 and 2 and let it get the top speed possible in that mode, what is less than the normal top speed) and also he tried with full speed too.

Basically in this test server live stream he could figure it out that the acceleration of the tank is somehow counted, but could not get it actually right.

There were moments, when he dealt 14-24 damage for like 3-4 times, then dealt random several hundreds between 100 and 500 and then dealt 14 again 2 times, then around 200. At the same speed.

So there are really interesting questions what can be asked about ramming damamge, if you did not already test it.

9
Pirulax•

Don't forget about the fact that ramming is basically a HE shell exploding. The random high values may be because the algorithm has found a weaker part in the armor, which lead to a higher damage.

11
Pixel_Highwaymen•

Oh, intersting. I did in fact not know that. Then it makes sence, how you can basically get 3 module knocked out when receiving only 200 fall damage, because the HE algorithm does not make any sense at all ATM. Seriously, 16 damamge by arty, and 2 dead crew, while I have big first aid (+10% crew hp) and did not get any shots before, seriously WeeGee fix that old trash.

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Pirulax•

Yeah,.sometimes I get 0 dmg, but 2 crew members dead.. WeeGee "logic"

4
Echo9835•

Huh, I never knew fires negated camo. Could it just be the low camo of the Type 5? I'd be happy to help you test that sort of thing.

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Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

I performed that test with the Leo 1, which has good enough camo for the difference in spotting range between burning and firing on the move (the worst your concealment normally gets) to be a few tank lengths. 16m, to be exact.

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FearTheBush1140/SConq/Lynx/Leo PTA/S1/Skoda T50/Leo 1 3marks•

If you ever set up a light on fire in the obvious bushes on prokarovka/malinovka you will know that it's true. They get spotted and you can see their hp go down

1
SparkleFunHorse•

Good use of this opportunity, thanks for that.

Any data on how effective the firefighting crew skill can be in putting out fires? E.g. zero percent skill, 50% skill and 100% as well as only one crew member with the skill, vs. two, three, etc?

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Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

I'll only be able to get rough estimates, but I'll try testing this for a followup post.

2
SparkleFunHorse•

Well, I think you've already done alot. And thanks again for the work.

I was just curious as to whether or not you had any info on that. No rush, no fuss: I'm sure there are more interesting parameters to check out... Like winning and losing streaks! 😱😉

2
m_stitek•

Thanks for awesome theorycraft. One thing that I would love to know is a distribution of shot accuracy for different tanks. Those numbers should be in game files as are other hidden stats, but noone knows which one. Do you think you would be able to figure out which number it is?

1
Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

I haven't looked at every single file in the game, but based on what I've datamined thus far, there does not appear to be any such value in the files.

WG made a post a few years ago outlining the current accuracy RNG (they had a useful graphic, but didn't release the exact equation). So far, no one has found any evidence that different vehicles have different accuracy curves.

Proving it one way or the other would require designing some sort of mod and collecting a monstrous amount of data from multiple users over multiple months. Until someone is willing to do all that work, which will be no one ever, we can't reject the null hypothesis. In simpler terms, without actual evidence to the contrary, the assumption should be that all tanks have the same accuracy RNG.

3
m_stitek•

Even though my personal belief is that the shot distribution is not same for all tanks, it is still just a belief without any evidence. But you're right, a mod would be required to determine how far the shot went from the center, but I don't think it would necessarily need monstrous amount of data. Just to reject null hypotheses, few hundred shots from two or three different tanks would be sufficient.

1
rutgerdad•

Even if there are different shot distributions there must be lots of tanks that use the same ones (or ones similar enough to be indistinguishable), so how would you know if you picked the correct tanks for testing? I suspect that all tanks use the same distribution but that SPGs possibly have their own.

If there was patterns I think it would be kinda cool, then aiming would be more skill based and kinda like handling recoil in counter strike.

2
m_stitek•

You're right, you can accidentally choose tanks with same distribution parameters, and if there is only a handful tanks with different distribution, then you're chance of finding it is low. However, if we would be able to figure out distribution of few tanks, then we might be able to find all those parameters in game files and you could see them on websites like tanks.gg for every tank.

1
Makkaroni_100•

How long are you still spotted even nobody can spots you (again) for the Moment.

1
Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

For the full ten seconds, same as if you immediately retreated behind cover after being lit.

1
VillicusOverseer[SNPAI]•

Is fire damage percentage based or a flat amount?

1
Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

I'm not sure. The wiki says that each vehicle has its own (hidden) fire damage constant, and I'm inclined to believe it.

1
Artygnat•

I'm more surprised that engines in world of tanks aren't flooded when you drive into water

1
Joe_BidenWOT[E50M]•

u/Jak_Atackka See if ammo rack explosions are a function of shells remaining. For instance, is an ammo rack with 1 shell left less likely to explode than a full ammo rack?

Can an empty ammo rack explode at all?

1
TheRealJellytoad•

After playing this game for 7 years I’ve noticed that burns don’t often finish off tanks, but rather bring them critically low on hitpoints. I’m very interested if a correlation exists between the hp the vehicle had when lit on fire and the total damage dealt.

Thoughts?

1
Jak_AtackkaOPtanks.gg's worst developer•

I tracked something similar, by seeing if the first fire did more or less damage than the second or third. I didn't notice any patterns.

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pickpocket293Casual Boops•

why is the wiki wrong??

1
UberrandomnessChaffee Unicum•

The wiki is maintained by players, not by WG themselves.

2