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This War of Mine has a fairly basic combat system. Interactive combat only occurs while scavenging and the player only needs to control one character. Scavenging characters can use melee weapons or firearms against civilians, thugs, and heavily armed soldiers. Melee weapons can be used to stealthily attempt a backstab. Firearms combat incorporates a cover system to mitigate damage from return fire.

Combat is driven by first clicking on a weapon in the top-left corner of the game screen; you must choose to leave Scavenge mode to initiate an attack. After that, click on the "attack" icon next to a target, represented by a white fist, knife, or cross-hairs, depending on your weapon.

Weapons[]

Fists: Unarmed survivors will be forced to use their bare fists when scavenging and defending the shelter. Scavenging survivors can attempt to punch adversaries, though─depending on each individual survivor─they will typically miss or inflict very low damage. Survivors defending the shelter unarmed will typically get wounded and have supplies stolen from the shelter. Roman is the only character that is able to instakill with his bare fists (by stealth ambushing).

Melee weapons: Including Crowbar, Shovel, Hatchet, Knife, and Pickaxe (Exclusive to The Last Broadcast DLC).

The game automatically equips the strongest melee weapons while scavenging in order:

  1. Hatchet
  2. Knife
  3. Shovel
  4. Crowbar
  5. Pickaxe
  6. Bare fists

Crowbar is the weakest melee weapon, which deal much less damage than others in both direct melee combats and ambushes. However, it will be equipped before Pickaxe which is better both in terms of Hit prob modifier and Damage modifier (presumably, a bug).

Firearms: Including Pistol, Shotgun, Assault Rifle, and Scoped Assault Rifle. All ranged weapons in the game use Ammunition when fired. In-game Ammunition is a simplified representation and is cross-compatible with all firearms regardless of the implied caliber or cartridge that would be used in real life. For example, the Pistol uses the same unit of ammunition when fired as does the Shotgun (though the Shotgun is more powerful). The Assault Rifle uses 3 Ammunition when fired, whereas all other weapons will only use 1.

Melee Combat[]

There are 7 tiers of Combat Proficiency among the survivors. They are based on individual hit probability modifiers - a subject which will be expanded upon later in this article. But before that, it is important to understand basic mechanics of close combat.

Hit probability[]

Every close combat participant has got their own Hit Probability parameter. Below is a table that contains basic Hit Probability for every possible type of combatant; the types are names exactly as they are in the game's code.

Type Hit prob Character HP
Playable Characters 0.5 All survivors 100
Soldiers 0.7 All soldiers (including deserters and rebels) 100
Warriors 0.5 Bandits and combative civilians (e.g. Matey of Garage) 100
Cowards 0.25 Non-combative civilians 100
Weak Cowards 0 Weak civilians like the hobos in the School 50

When a combat is initiated, hit probs of every participant are processed to calculate a Result Hit Prob. The formula is as follows:

Attacker's hit prob / (Attacker's hit prob + defender's hit prob)

This way, a ratio is calculated (further referred to as a Result Hit Prob), which is always between 0 and 1 (even if one of combatants has got a Hit Prob exceeding the other's several times over). While in melee combat mode, the Result Hit Prob is represented as a white overlay that overlaps the attack icon. The Result Hit Prob determines chance to hit.

But the table above contains only basic Hit Probs, which are then modified in several ways.

To give one example, here is a Result Hit Prob for a basic D-tier survivor against a soldier:

(0.5*1) / (0.5*1 + 0.7) = 0.42

This means that the survivor has got a 42% chance to successfully land a hit (while in the remaining 58% cases a soldier will successfully counterattack).

Individual Hit Probability[]

As is widely known, all characters you control perform differently in close combat; that is because each of them has got an individual hit prob multiplier which affects the outcome of a fight. Below is a table containing each survivor's individual hit prob.

Tier Character Hit prob multiplier (X) Hit prob (0.5*X) Image
S Roman 2 1 CC RHP tier S
A Arica 1.6 0.8
CC rhp tier A
B Boris 1.5 0.75
CC rhp tier B
C Henrik 1.2 0.6
CC rhp tier C
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 1 0.5
CC rhp tier D
E Anton, Irina. Katia, Zlata 0.8 0.4
CC rhp tier E
F Cveta 0.6 0.3
CC rhp tier F

Insights:

  • Surprisingly, Boris is slightly worse than Arica in terms of hit probability.
  • To even more surprise, Henrik is a very capable combatant, occupying his own tier just below Boris, but still above most other survivors. Nothingin his backstory indicates why he might be such a good brawler.
  • It would be expected to see Irina on the same tier than Cveta, but she is one tier higher, making Cveta the absolute worst combatant.

Knowing about individual modifiers, we can now calculate Roman's Result Hit Prob against an unarmed soldier:

(0.5*2) / (0.5*2 + 0.7) = 0.59

It is significantly better than the ordinary 42%. Let's now calculate Cveta's Result Hit Prob in the same situation:

(0.5*0.6) / (0.5*0.6 + 0.7) = 0.3

However, individual modifiers are not the only way how the Result Hit Prob is affected.

Weapon Hit Prob modifiers[]

Every melee weapon has got a modifier that changes how likely a hit will land. Note that this affects all parties, including enemies.

Weapon Hit Prob modifier
Pickaxe 2
Hatchet 2
Knife 2
Shovel 2
Crowbar 1.5

Firearms do not affect Hit Prob in close combat.

With weapon modifiers in mind, we can calculate Anton's chances to hit an unarmed soldier. First with just fists:

(0.5*0.8) / (0.5*0.8 + 0.7) = 0.36

And then - in a situation when Anton holds a hatchet:

(0.5*0.8*2) / (0.5*0.8*2 + 0.7) = 0.53

So now you see that with a hatchet, Anton has a 17% better chance to hit an unarmed soldier. However, that changes back if a soldier has a knife:

(0.5*0.8*2) / (0.5*0.8*2 + 0.7*2) = 0.36

Damage[]

In Close Combat damage is calculated using a complicated formula. Result Hit Prob is a part of that formula too - meaning that it affects not only a hit chance, but the damage dealt too. However, this parameter's influence is not linear - meaning that despite Roman has a hit prob = 1, and Marko's is 0.5, Roman will not deal twice as much damage as Marko.

The formula itself is hidden deep in the game's code and can not be obtained. However, the following quartic function gives an accurate enough estimation (the error is never bigger than 0.1 HP). Y here is the damage dealt, while X is the Result Hit Prob.

Of course, it is not reasonable to use this formula every time you need to calculate how much damage you can count on, so below is the table with pre-calculated values for every opponent you may encounter, provided that's it's face-to-face close combat with your character unarmed. Cowards are excluded since it is unnecessary to kill them in general, and crowbar is also excluded since it is presumed that no NPC wields crowbar.

Tier Character Warrior Soldier
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
S Roman 26.9% 23.3% 25.3% 21.3%
A Arica 25.9% 22.0% 24.1% 19.9%
B Boris 25.5% 21.6% 23.7% 19.5%
C Henrik 24.4% 20.3% 22.4% 18.1%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 23.3% 19.1% 21.3% 16.9%
E Anton, Irina. Katia, Zlata 22.0% 17.7% 19.9% 15.5%
F Cveta 20.3% 15.8% 18.1% 13.8%

From this table you can make a conclusion that in unarmed face-to-face combat no survivor will ever manage to kill an opponent in less than 4 hits, however, some may take up to 8 (Cveta vs. soldier with a hatchet).

Weapons damage modifiers[]

Aside from hit prob multipliers, weapons also have damage multipliers that affect how much damage per turn a weapon can inflict. Below is a table containing damage modifiers for every melee weapon.

Weapon Damage modifier
Hatchet 1.75
Pickaxe 1.5
Knife 1.5
Shovel 1.5
Crowbar 1.25

However, since now you know that Hit Prob also affects damage dealt, weapons' influence on damage is not linear (because they modify damage directly via damage modifier, and coincidentally via hit prob modifier). Therefore, below you can find tables containing damage a survivor can possibly inflict with any melee weapon.

Crowbar[]
Tier Character Warrior Soldier
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
S Roman 35.7% 31.9% 34.0% 29.7%
A Arica 34.6% 30.5% 32.7% 28.1%
B Boris 34.3% 30.0% 32.3% 27.6%
C Henrik 33.0% 28.4% 30.9% 25.9%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 31.9% 27.0% 29.7% 24.4%
E Anton, Irina. Katia, Zlata 30.5% 25.3% 28.1% 22.6%
F Cveta 28.4% 23.0% 25.9% 20.3%

As you can see, this only got slightly better with Crowbar: now top tiers can count on a 3 hit takedown instead of 4. It gets better though:

Pickaxe/Shovel/Knife[]

These three weapons are exactly the same in terms of both Hit Prob and Damage modifiers.

Tier Character Warrior Soldier
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
S Roman 44.3% 40.4% 42.6% 37.9%
A Arica 43.2% 38.8% 41.2% 36.1%
B Boris 42.8% 38.3% 40.8% 35.6%
C Henrik 41.5% 36.5% 39.3% 33.7%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 40.4% 35.0% 37.9% 32.0%
E Anton, Irina, Katia, Zlata 38.8% 33.0% 36.1% 29.9%
F Cveta 36.5% 30.4% 33.7% 27.1%

With these weapons almost any survivor can take down any opponent in 3 hits. And finally, for a hatchet:

Hatchet[]
Tier Character Warrior Soldier
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
Fists Pickaxe/Shovel/
Knife/Hatchet
S Roman 51.7% 47.1% 49.7% 44.3%
A Arica 50.4% 45.3% 48.1% 42.2%
B Boris 50.0% 44.7% 47.6% 41.5%
C Henrik 48.5% 42.6% 45.8% 39.3%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 47.1% 40.9% 44.3% 37.3%
E Anton, Irina, Katia, Zlata 45.3% 38.6% 42.2% 34.9%
F Cveta 42.6% 35.4% 39.3% 31.7%

With a hatchet, top-tier survivors can take down some enemies with as little as two blows.

Ambush[]

Attacking an unaware enemy, from behind or from a hiding spot, will replace the melee icon with a white stabbing one. Clicking this icon allows you to perform an ambush which can critically injuring or even instantly killing an adversary in full health.

Backstab[]

Backstab

Emilia is about to backstab an unsuspecting adversary with her crowbar.

Backstabbing refers to the act of sneaking behind your unsuspecting target to land a critical melee attack. Opportunities are few and far between, as enemies can easily detect sprints used to close distance at range without Arica's stealth. Done strategically with the right characters, backstabs are essential to neutralizing threats with minimal risk.

From the point of game mechanics, Result Hit Prob is counted here too, but only used for calculating the amount of damage. No matter how unskilled your character is, they will always deliver a backstab, unless detected. However, the damage outcome depends on both your character's and enemy's modifiers. To calculate the backstab damage, you can use pre-calculated damage tables above, multiplying the amount damage by 2.

However, there's one more factor in play: instakill threshold. It compares your survivor's Hit Prob (not Result Hit Prob!) with a number of 1.4 and, if Hit Prob is larger, an instakill will be performed, even if by calculation the damage would be less than 100. For your convenience, below is a table which presents possible backstab damage with all kinds of weapons, and 100% means an instakill. Note that in this table, columns with weapons represent the weapons your characters may wield (not enemies).

Tier Character Weapons
Fists Crowbar Knife/Shovel/Pickaxe Hatchet
S Roman 38.8-48.9% 100% 100% 100%
A Arica 36.3-47.0% 51.0-63.0% 100% 100%
B Boris 35.5-46.4% 50.1-62.3% 100% 100%
C Henrik 32.9-44.3% 47.0-60.1% 61.2-75.5% 71.4-88.1%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 30.8-42.4% 44.4-58.0% 58.2-73.4% 67.9-85.6%
E Anton, Irina. Katia, Zlata 28.2-40.1% 41.1-55.4% 54.4-70.5% 63.5-82.3%
F Cveta 25.1-36.8% 36.9-51.7% 49.4-66.4% 57.6-77.5%

Insights:

  • Roman can instantly kill enemies with a backstab unless he is unarmed.
  • Arica and Boris are capable of backstab instakill with all melee weapons above crowbar.

Stealth Ambush[]

Ambush icon

Arika is about to ambush an unsuspecting adversary with her hatchet.

Stealth-ambushing refers to the act of attacking the unaware target in melee as they pass by your hiding spot. Due to its immense damage often killing its targets outright, it is the best course of action against enemies that are otherwise dangerous to confront directly. Since they can be done with only melee weapons, it also saves ammunition and precludes unnecessary attention.

Just like with backstab, basic damage your character would inflict is multiplied by 2. However, there's one more variable in this particular equation: in the code it's called "Attack from shadow multiplier". It equals 2 and is used to increase your character's Hit Prob (not the Result Hit Prob). And after that, just like in Backstab, it is compared with instakill threshold (1.4), vastly improving the odds of an instant kill. Once again, in the table below you will find how much damage your survivors can deal to unsuspecting enemies while performing stealth ambush, and 100% means an instakill.

Tier Tier Weapons
Fists Crowbar Knife/Shovel/Pickaxe Hatchet
S Roman 100% 100% 100% 100%
A Arica 100% 100% 100% 100%
B Boris 100% 100% 100% 100%
C Henrik 44.9-55.4% 100% 100% 100%
D Bruno, Emilia, Christo, Marin, Marko, Pavle 42.7-53.8% 100% 100% 100%
E Anton, Irina, Katia, Zlata 39.9-51.7% 56.1-69.2% 100% 100%
F Cveta 36.2-48.7% 51.7-66.1% 67.33-83.1% 78.55-96.9%

Insights:

  • Most characters can instakill in stealth ambushes with anything stronger than a crowbar. Cveta is the only exception, being unable to do so under all circumstances.
  • Roman, Boris, Marko, Arica, Emilia, Bruno, Marin, Christo, Henrik, and Pavle are capable of instantly killing enemies when stealth ambushing with the Crowbar. Tools do not lose durability when used during combat or if their associated actions are suspended, and this feature drastically improves the utility of crowbars, allowing it to save up slots, pick off enemies and destroy obstacles blocking access to loot all in one. Moreover, crowbar also serves as an excellent baiting tool with its loud noise when breaking lock, especially for Arica who cannot create noise to bait enemies into ambush.
    • In particular, Roman, Arica and Boris can do so even with their bare fists.

Firearms Combat[]

Similarly, equipping a firearm will create an overlay to appear over the cross-hairs reticule. This overlay also represents the hit-chance. After entering combat mode, icons representing areas of cover will be revealed. Survivors can use cover for a defensive bonus against firearms.

Health[]

From the table above you know that all playable characters, as well as most NPCs, have exactly 100 HP. However, it somewhat contradicts with the fact that some playable characters can take more damage than others. Boris takes 5 hits to die by Emil (who is armed with a knife), while Roman takes 4 and others take 3 hits.

This is because these characters have an individual "shield" modifier - the same one that is being increased when a character equips a helmet or a vest. This parameter modifies any damage the survivor receives. Roman's Shield is around 0.75, while Boris' is 0.5. That makes Roman take about 29 hit points of damage when attacked by Emil, and Boris takes only 20 (a regular survivor would receive about 39 points of damage). Combined with Helmet and Vest, this can make Roman and Boris (especially the latter) real damage-consuming tanks, capable to withstand attacks that would kill any other survivor.

Some civilians have lower health than others, such as the old couple at the Quiet House ("weak cowards").

Additional Information[]

  • Two handed firearms, such as the shotgun, assault rifle, and scoped rifle increase character movement speed by about 20%. Two handed melee weapons such as the shovel and hatchet don't seem to increase movement speed despite being held with two hands by the survivors. It is best used with a well fed (if possible content) Pavle, resulting in a sprint of ridiculous speed.
  • A good tactic is to enter a hiding spot and monitor NPC movements, if an NPC appears above or below you one floor you can lure them to the hiding spot by making noise such as running around the spot and then hiding until the NPC comes over to investigate. Note that this tactic doesn't work for Arica, since she's too quiet.
  • Doors are invaluable assets in melee combats. As the NPCs will never attempt to shoot through doors blindly, closing doors in front of you will force your adversaries to get into your melee range, even if they have already spotted you from afar; should you ever find yourself in a dangerous situation that requires immediate escape, creating a window by blocking the line of fire with a closed door can also be a life-saving move. This is exceptionally useful when facing heavily armed adversaries like soldiers, rebels and thugs as they usually have an edge over survivors in ranged firefights, especially in maps with building of many confined spaces like Military Outpost, Ruined Villa, Construction Site and Brothel.

NPC Tactics[]

NPCs seem to have a well programmed AI that sometimes completely catches the survivor off guard, while sometimes several of them walk into the same death trap over and over again. Some notable behaviour can be witnessed, such as:

  • Surrounding awareness - Hostile NPCs will always investigate the noises made by the player's survivor if it reaches them. Noises can be seen as shockwaves, and certain actions such as backstabs, gunshots, breaking open containers with crowbars and chopping furniture produce the highest amount of sound. Even if some sound effects (such as doors opening and closing) are relatively loud, they seem to not produce any noise at all unless kicked/charged open.
  • Visual awareness - NPCs always close doors behind themselves if in a calm state. Neutral/friendly NPCs will panic and alert everyone if it sees a door left open by the survivor. Hostile NPCs seem to have a 50:50 chance of staying calm (then closing the door), or raising the alarm. If a single NPC that has closed a door sees another open door, it will raise the alarm without hesitation. Witnessing a murder or finding a fallen friend will make them alert everyone else and attack the survivor on sight.
  • Patrolling - NPCs usually have a fixed patrol pattern, often triggered when the player's survivor enters an area. Neutral/friendly NPCs alert the survivor that they have been spotted and will urge him to leave the area considered private. Hostile NPCs will yell at the survivor and attack on sight, if the survivor manages to hide unseen they seem to be scripted to pass by the players hiding spot, giving the player an obvious chance for retaliation. The exact "hostile" patrol time seems to be around 1 or 2 ingame hours, the NPCs seem to return to their default patrol route after that time.
  • Communication - Lone NPCs usually alert or even bring friends to search for the survivor. A good tactic for splitting them up is hit and run, generally killing the last person in the patrol and then running/hiding until they spread out.
  • Surrendering - NPCs that have been incapacitated (severely or lethally wounded) will give up on combat and beg for mercy.
  • Scripted sequences - NPCs in some occasions have a scripted behaviour, this includes intentionally walking by a survivor's hiding spot if in a "hostile" patrol, not falling for the same hiding spot as their dead friend to the extent of floating down an open wide building (notably the Brothel). If on a "neutral" patrol route they might stop just before the survivor's hiding spot for a few seconds then continuing its patrol or going in the other direction, they wait in front of doors what seems indefinitely until the survivor tries to sneak by, and many other such instances.

Bugs[]

  • After performing a backstab, clicking to hide will make the scavenger stand still. This is because the backstab animation lasts longer than the actual action. To fix this, click to move after the backstab then click to hide, the character will move a bit then hide normally.
    • The above bug might be an intentional way to prevent players from backstabbing an NPC, then quickly hiding again before its friend comes to investigate.
  • Sometimes hostile NPCs, like soldiers and thugs, repeat an action over and over and keep standing in that spot instead of patrolling normally. Scavenger must get out of the hiding spot and reveal themselves, forcing them patrol normally. This is dangerous, due to the NPCs gaining advantages.
  • When stealth-ambushing with fists, the animation and sound is the same as backstabbing/stealth-ambushing with a knife.
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