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OpenTS Manual

Strength

The maximum strength of most object types; wall overlays use it as a per-hit damage threshold.

Maximum strength

Specification — Maximum strength
Applies to
ObjectType and derived types
AircraftTypeBuildingTypeBulletTypeInfantryTypeParticleSystemTypeParticleTypeSmudgeTypeTerrainTypeUnitTypeVoxelAnimType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
integer
When omitted
Not documented
rules.ini
[GAPOWR]
Strength=800

This scope sets the type’s maximum-strength value. A damageable runtime instance created from the type starts with that value as its current strength, and damage reduces the current value.

Maximum strength

Specification — Maximum strength
Applies to
AnimType
File
art.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
integer
When omitted
0
Used by the game
No — loaded but not used

The figure is stored as the type’s maximum strength, which the engine consults when something takes damage, when a health ratio is worked out, and when a health ratio is written back. An animation reaches none of them. The blast sweep gathers its victims from a cell’s occupier list, which an animation is never entered into, and from the aircraft, jumpjet-infantry and jellyfish rosters, which it never joins. It is on the logic list, which a heal crate walks without filtering by type, but that crate restores only what belongs to the house that opened it, and an animation answers to no house. Nothing creates an animation with a strength drawn from its type either. No gameplay path reads the figure.

The damage an animation deals to what is underneath it is Damage, which is unrelated to this.

Wall damage threshold

Specification — Wall damage threshold
Applies to
OverlayType
File
rules.ini
Section
[<ObjectType ID>]
Value
integer
When omitted
1At that figure almost every hit clears the threshold outright, so a segment advances a stage on nearly anything that reaches it.
rules.ini
[GAWALL]
Strength=100

For a wall overlay, Strength is not a health pool. Each hit is evaluated independently:

  • Damage greater than or equal to Strength advances the wall by one damage stage.
  • Positive damage below Strength succeeds when a random integer from 0 through Strength is less than the damage.
  • A failed hit leaves no damage to accumulate for the next hit.

With Strength=100, a hit for 20 therefore has a 20 / 101 chance, about 19.8%, to advance the wall by one stage.

A stage that lands is a stage regardless of how much damage carried it, so a wall’s durability is the number of stages DamageLevels grants multiplied by how often a hit clears this threshold — never the sum of the damage taken. Raising Strength past the largest damage figure that will ever reach the wall does not make it invulnerable; it only reduces every hit to the chance above.

Two fixed damage figures ignore the threshold in practice. The cascade into neighboring segments and the hit dealt to a wall run when a wall tower is removed both carry 200 damage, which clears any threshold of 200 or below outright.

See also — Crushable, Damage, walls-and-gates, DamageLevels