Question about damage in Deus Ex

Dedicated to the discussion of OTP and Deus Ex in general.

Moderators: Master_Kale, TNM Team

Post Reply
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Hi everyone,

So, I've started playing Deus Ex again after many, many years, and this time around, I wanted to understand how certain mechanics work. This seems to be one of the most active forums around, and being centered around mods, I was hoping that I'd be able to stumble on someone who could help me about how things actually work.

Specifically, I'm interested in how damage and several related things work. I've looked at other places and I've experimented a bit in the game myself, and I wanted to ask a few questions. I'm playing the original, with Shifter and Biomod, if that's important.

As I get it, there are 6 types of damage:

1) ballistic - hurts the HP of the body part that is hit
2) fire - hurts the HP of the body part that is hit, continues doing damage over time, and whatever is burning can set other things on fire
3) poison - hurts the HP of the body part that is hit, continues doing damage over time
4) radiation - does damage to the entire body as long as you are in a radiation field
5) electric - does HP and BE damage
6) EMP - does BE damage

Various weapons deal different types of damage. There are also various protections from different types of damage - ballistic protection, energy shield, EMP shield, aggressive defense system, environmental resistance, ballistic armor and hazmat suits.

Now, there are a few things that puzzle me. First are the non-lethal weapons. I'll write how I think I figured out they work, and ask questions, so hopefully somebody can answer them and also correct me if I got the mechanics wrong.

Tranquilizer darts. If I get it correctly, they deal poison damage. How do they knock people out, though? Do they have to reduce the HP of the torso or the head to zero? Or do they have to reduce any body part to zero? Or do they just need to deal a certain amount of damage after which an enemy is knocked out? If that is the case, does the amount of damage they need to do vary by enemy?

Will they continue dealing damage until an enemy is knocked out, or will they deal damage for a fixed amount of time irrespective of whether the enemy is knocked out by then (in essence, will they always eventually knock out an opponent or are some opponents too strong to be knocked out by one dart)?

Does the damage the they deal depend on the pistol skill?

Or, do they simply knock out an enemy after a fixed amount of time, with the time needed varying by enemy and with your pistol skill?

Baton. If I get it correctly, it deals ballistic damage. Once you've reduced the enemy's torso or head HP to zero with the baton, they are knocked out. Is this how it works? Or, is there something more to it?

Riot-prod. It deals electric damage. I'm wondering how its stun/knock-out effect works. Is it simply coded that the riot prod stuns or knocks out an opponent or do those effects somehow depend on the electric damage that's done? If they depend on the damage, how exactly do they depend on it? Is it the absolute amount of damage that counts? Or is it about the amount of damage done to a certain body part?

Also, does the length of the stun depend on the damage done? Does the length of the stun depend on which body part you've hit?

Also, how does the low-tech skill affect the riot prod? I take it that it increases the damage done, and if the stun/knock-out effects depend on the damage, then that is how the skill comes into play.

Stealth bonus. Apart from these issues with weapons, I'm also a bit confused about the damage bonus you get when you attack someone from behind. Does it work so that damage is multiplied if you attack an opponent who is not aware of you? Or is it multiplied if you attack an enemy from behind, irrespective of whether he or she is aware of you, and it just so happens that you normally won't be able to attack an enemy from behind if they are aware of you (as they will be turning to face you)? So, basically, is it a stealth bonus to damage, or a bonus for attacking from behind? Or is that two separate bonuses? If they are two separate bonuses, do they stack? If it is a stealth bonus, is it important that the enemy is totally unaware of you, or is it OK if they are alerted (have heard you, for example, but not seen you)?

Also, does the bonus affect all weapons?

Head-shots. I'm a bit confused by head-shots as well. Is there a multiplier to damage when you hit someone in the head? Or do they just die more easily, because their heads (unlike mine) have less HP than their torsos?

If there is a bonus to damage because of a head-shot, does it stack with the stealth bonus?

Does the whole head give an equal bonus, or is it important, as some people say, to aim higher up? I've noticed that sometimes, an enemy dies of a head-shot, and sometimes not. Or is that just an effect of hit-boxes overlapping, but not visibly on the model, so I'm actually hitting the torso or an arm or the back, while I'm thinking that I'm hitting the head?

Also, does the head-shot bonus, if it exists, apply to all weapons? Or just some?

Pepper-gun. Finally, the pepper-gun. I don't think I'll be using it, but just to check. It doesn't actually deal any damage, right? It simply has the effect of stunning an enemy for a time?

Thanks a lot for the answers! I really tried figuring out as much as I could by reading elsewhere, and experimenting, but this was as far as I could come, so now I'm counting on someone who knows the code to help. :) I'll update the Deus Ex Wikia page with this info once I'm clear about things.

(Also, a neat trick I noticed when I was experimenting. I was playing on Realistic. I bumped up my pistol skill to Master level and aimed a tranquilizer dart at the head of an NSF guard on Liberty island, to see whether they would faint more quickly. What happened was that they were knocked-out immediately. So, you get a silent, instant knock-out from a distance. Useful. :))
Chris Rosenkreutz
NSF
Posts: 50
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2009 3:38 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Chris Rosenkreutz »

There are more than 6 types of damage.

An NPC is stunned rather than killed if the damage is Stunned, KnockedOut, Poison or PoisonEffect.

NPCs do have separate health for hit locations just like the player, though you can kill them by doing enough total damage so you can't really tell.

Tranquiliser darts do poison damage straight away. If an NPC takes poison damage, they'll take PoisonEffect damage in intervals later. It will only do PoisonEffect damage 8 times so strong NPCs will indeed survive, just like the player can. The amount of PoisonEffect damage they get each time they are damaged is the same as the initial poison damage . So yes the pistol skill affects all the damage.

The amount of time the riot prod or gas grenades/pepper gun disable an NPC for does not depend on the damage and so does not depend in the skill.

The pepper gun and gas greanages don't damage NPCs but do damage you.

Someone else can cover head shots.
User avatar
Eye.sys
Thug
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 12:23 pm
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Eye.sys »

Chris Rosenkreutz wrote:The pepper gun and gas greanages don't damage NPCs but do damage you.
Indeed, a small PoisonEffect to NPCs from Gas Grenades wouldn't have been a bad thing at all in my honest opinion. But that's my opinion.
Image
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Chris Rosenkreutz wrote:There are more than 6 types of damage.

An NPC is stunned rather than killed if the damage is Stunned, KnockedOut, Poison or PoisonEffect.

NPCs do have separate health for hit locations just like the player, though you can kill them by doing enough total damage so you can't really tell.

Tranquiliser darts do poison damage straight away. If an NPC takes poison damage, they'll take PoisonEffect damage in intervals later. It will only do PoisonEffect damage 8 times so strong NPCs will indeed survive, just like the player can. The amount of PoisonEffect damage they get each time they are damaged is the same as the initial poison damage . So yes the pistol skill affects all the damage.

The amount of time the riot prod or gas grenades/pepper gun disable an NPC for does not depend on the damage and so does not depend in the skill.

The pepper gun and gas greanages don't damage NPCs but do damage you.

Someone else can cover head shots.
Hi Chris,

Thanks for the answers!

So, tranquilizer darts do Poison and PoisonEffect damage and if I do enough total damage with them, or reduce the head or torso to zero HP, the enemy is knocked-out. Higher Pistol skill helps, because it increases damage. I take it then that if I blow up a poison barrel, it will knock-out enemies rather than kill them? (I never paid attention to whether they were dead or unconscious, but, then again, I don't remember blowing up poison barrels often.)

The baton then, if I get it correctly, does knock-out damage? Again, if I reduce the head or torso to zero HP, or deal enough total damage, then they're knocked-out?

The riot-prod does stun damage, then, I take it, and not electrical? (I got that it does electrical damage from the Deus Ex Wikia entry on the riot-prod.) If I do enough damage, I will stun the enemy, and if I do even more, I will knock him out? Does the body part I attack matter? Or is it only about the amount of damage?

Thanks again!
G-Flex
Silhouette
Posts: 621
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:16 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by G-Flex »

Location-specific damage, for the most part, works exactly the same regardless of the weapon you're using. The only difference is that head shots don't really matter for "KnockedOut" (baton) and "stunned" (riot prod) damage, which, due to some weird coding on the developers' part, means that torso hits with those weapons are more effective than headshots.

Any sort of damage type reduces the same pool of hit points in an NPC. The way the game determines KO status depends only on the last hit. If the last damage the character took was from something like a tranq dart, the riot prod, or the baton, they'll get knocked out, even if the other 99% of their health was taken down by gunshot wounds.

The only exception to the above is EMP damage for robots, which drains their "EMP hit points", basically.

Poison barrel gas won't KO enemies; it kills them. That's because it uses the "PoisonGas" damage type, which is distinct from "Poison" and "PoisonEffect".

It's complicated, and there are a lot of obscure damage types in the game, like "HalonGas" (fire extinguishers).

For what it's worth, the damage done by the riot prod is "Stunned", whereas the damage done by other electrical sources is "Shocked".

Of course, how the game treats these is pretty arbitrary, and a lot of them are treated very similarly.
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Hi G-Flex,

Great! Thanks!

So, basically, damage is more complicated than it seems at first. But, if I'm actually just interested in taking down enemies, in essence, in order to knock them out or kill them, I either need to reduce the torso or head HP to zero, or do enough total damage. And, if I want a knock-out, then I need to get the last hit-point with a non-lethal weapon.

Not that I think this will come up as an issue in actual play, but just out of sheer curiosity - if I reduce the HP of an opponents arm or leg to zero, and the opponent is not yet taken down, and I hit that part of the body again, is the damage wasted or does it get transferred to the rest of the body in some way? For that matter, how does it work with me?

From what you say about head-shots, riot-prods and batons, I take it that the head-shot bonus does exist, except for the baton and the riot-prod. Do you have any idea, by any chance, if Shifter or Biomod fixed the issue with the "KnockedOut" and "Stunned" damage not receiving the head-shot bonus?

I also assume that the issue with aiming higher up on the head is not that the head-shot bonus differs by where you hit the head, but with hit-boxes overlapping?

Thanks a lot for all the answers thus far! It was really starting to get annoying to play the game and not know whether something I was doing was actually having any effect in the game or not. I'm not a min-max player, but I still don't like the idea of doing something thinking that it has an effect, while it actually does not.
User avatar
Prophet
NSF
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Jun 06, 2013 3:39 pm
Location: South Africa

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Prophet »

The Tranquilizer Darts don't actually have a fixed amount of damage or time limit to knocking out.
I found that, like other weapons, it takes better effect when you shoot their head, and worse effect when you shot the legs or arms.

For example, if you shoot the torso, it will take a 8* point effect for every time it takes effect, if you shoot the head it will take a 12* point effect, but if you shoot the arms or legs, it will take a 4* point effect.

* Not actual amounts. Just an example.


The Gas Grenades don't really deal any damage. They just occupy the enemies by causing irritation to the eyes. Simple "tear gas" as the UNATCO troops call it.
It does however turn friendlies hostile, so just be careful where you drop those.


The difference between the EMP Grenade and the Scrambler Grenade is that the Scrambler Grenade uses a very small amount of EMP damage, but uses some sort of other electrical current to "scramble" the robot's IFF system.
Basically, use an EMP to shut them down, and use a Scrambler to screw them up. Don't over-use the Scrambler, though, because, as I said, it has a small amount of EMP damage to it. 5* Scramblers=1* EMP

* Not actual amounts. Just an example.
THE PROPHET
G-Flex
Silhouette
Posts: 621
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:16 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by G-Flex »

Lots of misinformation going on here.
Prophet wrote:The Tranquilizer Darts don't actually have a fixed amount of damage or time limit to knocking out.
What? Yes they do. The damage is only applied a certain number of times before it wears off.
For example, if you shoot the torso, it will take a 8* point effect for every time it takes effect, if you shoot the head it will take a 12* point effect, but if you shoot the arms or legs, it will take a 4* point effect.
This is wrong. Where you shoot an NPC with a tranq dart (or get shot with one) only affects the damage from the hit, not the damage from the poison effect afterward.
The Gas Grenades don't really deal any damage. They just occupy the enemies by causing irritation to the eyes. Simple "tear gas" as the UNATCO troops call it.
It does however turn friendlies hostile, so just be careful where you drop those.
This is likely not true in many cases, as many NPCs have bHateIndirectInjury set to False, meaning they won't hate you for causing injury to them using indirect damage effects such as explosions or tear gas, and may also have bFearIndirectInjury also set to false, meaning they also won't run from you. I can't be sure how many have the latter set to false, though.
The difference between the EMP Grenade and the Scrambler Grenade is that the Scrambler Grenade uses a very small amount of EMP damage, but uses some sort of other electrical current to "scramble" the robot's IFF system.
Scrambler grenades do not cause any EMP damage at all, to players, NPCs, or anyone else. The only thing they do is mess with robot alliances.

Hiawata wrote:So, basically, damage is more complicated than it seems at first. But, if I'm actually just interested in taking down enemies, in essence, in order to knock them out or kill them, I either need to reduce the torso or head HP to zero, or do enough total damage. And, if I want a knock-out, then I need to get the last hit-point with a non-lethal weapon.
Yeah. In practice, it's fairly intuitive: Go for the head or at least the torso, generally speaking, bear in mind that the poison effect from tranq darts is not affected by hit location (although the intiial damage is) and that the poison effect is applied to the torso, and that, in most mods and the original game, headshots suck with the baton and stun prod.
Not that I think this will come up as an issue in actual play, but just out of sheer curiosity - if I reduce the HP of an opponents arm or leg to zero, and the opponent is not yet taken down, and I hit that part of the body again, is the damage wasted or does it get transferred to the rest of the body in some way? For that matter, how does it work with me?
In either case, it spills over, either to the other leg/arm or, if that's also fully destroyed, to the torso. The same applies to the player.

Bear in mind that, if either of an NPC's arms goes down to zero health, he'll drop his weapon (it doesn't matter which arm). This usually isn't very useful in practice, but may be interesting to know.
From what you say about head-shots, riot-prods and batons, I take it that the head-shot bonus does exist, except for the baton and the riot-prod. Do you have any idea, by any chance, if Shifter or Biomod fixed the issue with the "KnockedOut" and "Stunned" damage not receiving the head-shot bonus?
I have no idea. I don't think they do, although my mod (Human Renovation) does.
I also assume that the issue with aiming higher up on the head is not that the head-shot bonus differs by where you hit the head, but with hit-boxes overlapping?
Which issue?

Bear in mind that the hit detection in Deus Ex is... really primitive. They're just cylinders, one cylinder for the whole object/NPC, and location-specific damage is done by comparing the hit location to different offsets in the x, y, and z directions. So yeah, sometimes the hitbox for an NPC ends a little above or below where it looks like their head does.
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Which issue?

Bear in mind that the hit detection in Deus Ex is... really primitive. They're just cylinders, one cylinder for the whole object/NPC, and location-specific damage is done by comparing the hit location to different offsets in the x, y, and z directions. So yeah, sometimes the hitbox for an NPC ends a little above or below where it looks like their head does.
Well, this is what I wrote in my OP:
Head-shots. I'm a bit confused by head-shots as well. Is there a multiplier to damage when you hit someone in the head? Or do they just die more easily, because their heads (unlike mine) have less HP than their torsos?

If there is a bonus to damage because of a head-shot, does it stack with the stealth bonus?

Does the whole head give an equal bonus, or is it important, as some people say, to aim higher up? I've noticed that sometimes, an enemy dies of a head-shot, and sometimes not. Or is that just an effect of hit-boxes overlapping, but not visibly on the model, so I'm actually hitting the torso or an arm or the back, while I'm thinking that I'm hitting the head?

Also, does the head-shot bonus, if it exists, apply to all weapons? Or just some?
So, as far as I could gather from the answers thus far, the head-shot bonus does exist. The opponents' heads may or may not have less HP than their torsos, but in any case, I will get a multiplier to the damage I do, if I deal the damage to the head (and if I'm not using the baton or riot-prod).

As for where you hit the head, you can see what I was talking about. I assumed that there were separate boxes for the head, torso, each arm and each leg, and that sometimes a box for an arm or the torso would be overlapping with the one on the head, and that I would be hitting it, instead of the head hit-box. Hence, an enemy might die of one head-shot, whereas the next identical enemy would not. Separate hit-boxes overlapping seemed like a more plausible explanation than there being a bigger bonus if I hit the top of the head, instead of the back of the head. But, as I now know, there is just on hit-box, and I guess sometimes, even though I think I'm hitting the head, the computer calculates that I'm actually hitting the torso or an arm.

OK, so that's clear now. :)

If I may bother you with one final thing that I also asked about in my OP:
Stealth bonus. Apart from these issues with weapons, I'm also a bit confused about the damage bonus you get when you attack someone from behind. Does it work so that damage is multiplied if you attack an opponent who is not aware of you? Or is it multiplied if you attack an enemy from behind, irrespective of whether he or she is aware of you, and it just so happens that you normally won't be able to attack an enemy from behind if they are aware of you (as they will be turning to face you)? So, basically, is it a stealth bonus to damage, or a bonus for attacking from behind? Or is that two separate bonuses? If they are two separate bonuses, do they stack? If it is a stealth bonus, is it important that the enemy is totally unaware of you, or is it OK if they are alerted (have heard you, for example, but not seen you)?

Also, does the bonus affect all weapons?
Thanks!
DDL
Traditional Evil Scientist
Traditional Evil Scientist
Posts: 3791
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:03 am

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by DDL »

Damage is calculated at several stages.

First it gets filtered, to see if it shouldn't be damaging this person at all. Usually this is fairly irrelevant. The code for halon gas extinguishing people on fire is here.

Positional next (you relative to the target): Hit a stunned person (anywhere), you get 4x bonus. So in other words, prodding someone and then prodding them again is effectively 5 prod-hits (1 at 1x damage, 1 at 4x damage). Prodding and then shooting in the face is a very effectively technique for high-health targets.

Hit from behind, close (so the distance from your centre to their centre is less than..I think 64 uunits, which is effectively near-as-makes-no-odds touching distance), you do 10x damage. That's a flat damage bonus that doesn't stack with the stunned bonus, and is why a baton to the small of the back is such an instant winning approach. This does not require them to be unaware of you, though if they're hostile they're unlikely to be looking the other way anyhow.

Next up, locational damage: this is where headshots come in. If it's a headshot, it's x8. Unless, as has been stated, it's with a stunned/knocked out weapon (so prod or baton): if it's one of those, it's x1, which is actually WORSE than if you hit them literally anywhere else. Torso and limbs are all x2.
Head is determined as "above a certain point, and not in the side of the head". The sides of the head are treated as torso, for some reason. It's bad vector maths, basically: you're shooting at a head inside a collision cylinder which is always going to be slightly wider than the head itself, so they try to reduce damage from shots that are slightly off-centre. Helmets make no difference: a headshot is a headshot.

So, if you were, for instance, to stun someone with a prod, then shoot them in the face with a sniper rifle, you'd do

25 dam x4 (stunned) x8 (headshot) = 800 damage. And your average soldier has 100 hitpoints.
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Hi DDL,

Thanks a bunch! That makes thing much clearer, and makes planning my moves in the game much more easy and fun.
Hit a stunned person (anywhere), you get 4x bonus
Had no idea about the stunned bonus. Good to know.
The sides of the head are treated as torso
That explains it. Thinking about it now, when I noticed that some NPCs won't die of a headshot, I was shooting them from the side.

One final thing - I take it that the headshot and hit from behind bonuses don't stack? At x80, it would be a bit of an overkill, I guess. Or, do they stack?

If they don't stack, which one takes precedence if I attack the head from the back? I suppose it's the back attack bonus, because when I whacked NSF guards in the head with the baton from behind, they went down. If it was the headshot bonus with the baton (x1) they wouldn't have gone down in one hit, I suppose.

By the way, great work on the HDTP!
G-Flex
Silhouette
Posts: 621
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:16 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by G-Flex »

Locational damage bonuses and the sneak-attack bonus do stack, since they're calculated at separate stages and aren't aware of each other.

Bear in mind that the "stunned" 4x bonus does not stack with the sneak-attack bonus, and in fact takes precedence over it.
Hiawata
Mole Person
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:00 pm

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by Hiawata »

Thanks G-Flex!
that guy
The Nameless Mod
The Nameless Mod
Posts: 1312
Joined: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:54 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by that guy »

not sure if this has been covered already but if memory serves all it takes to knock someone out is to drop their health to zero using a non-lethal attach. This means you could shoot them in the head until they had one health left and then baton them in the leg to do the remaining 1 damage. This would knock them out.
ggrotz
X-51
Posts: 780
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2009 12:55 am

Re: Question about damage in Deus Ex

Post by ggrotz »

G-Flex wrote:Bear in mind that, if either of an NPC's arms goes down to zero health, he'll drop his weapon (it doesn't matter which arm). This usually isn't very useful in practice, but may be interesting to know.
Yes it is. It's not very useful in general practice, but it's fun to do every once in a great while on Liberty Island. It's the Deus Ex equivalent of the knee-capping thing in Terminator 2. The big fun part of this is seeing flocks of NSF just running from you. The problem with this is the same as getting head-shots - it's hard to do it accurately because the shot detection thing is pretty hit and miss.
DDL wrote:Prodding and then shooting in the face is a very effectively technique for high-health targets.
Prodding then using any other weapon properly is always highly effective. Consider if you wish to knock out an opponent. Always easier on you and your ammo if you stun an opponent once and then pull out the baton to end them. Damages always stack too, so (as those that see my videos know), it's always incredibly effective to gas your opponents at the right times (before for lethal, after for tranq darts - drops them near immediately)
that guy wrote:not sure if this has been covered already but if memory serves all it takes to knock someone out is to drop their health to zero using a non-lethal attach.
Yep, to knock out a character you can reduce their health any way you like, but the last hit points have to be from a non-lethal. This is about the only way to knock out high hit point characters (like if you want to defeat Gunther or Walton this way).

All of this was more for the OP than anything - really all you need to know from the playing end of it, since the rest of the damages are pretty indiscriminate, is that the hit boxes exist (mainly for your projectile weapons), and that your stun weapons stack damage, and that anything has a stealth bonus on top of it. Also your augs (namely targeting and combat strength) provide certain damage enhancements as well depending on how upgraded they are. Of course, upgrade relevant skills for further damage enhancements.

For instance a DTS hit with low-tech master skill + head + lvl4 combat strength + lvl4 targeting + stun or stealth becomes an ungodly number (I'm sure those with better memories can say, this was discussed somewhere but I couldn't find it) delivers a hit total in the thousands. It almost needs a special "hammer of thor" kind of sound-effect to do it justice.
Post Reply