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Health is a fundamental mechanism in COH, and probably in most of the games with fighting contents.

Overview[]

Health in COH is a numerical value that indicates how much damage a unit can take before it dies, or before it is destroyed for vehicles and buildings.

Most active units will have a Health Bar constantly presenting on top of them. If a unit is hit(by a weapon that can deal damage to them), it loses health equals to the amount of damage indicated by a decreasing health gauge. When health reaches 0, the health gauge will be empty and immediately disappear as the said unit no longer exists on the field.

Basis[]

Health Value[]

Every single entity has health, no matter it is a man, a vehicle, a house, a bunker or a piece of scrap on the floor that can be used as a light cover. When it is hit by effective fire, it will lose health until killed, destroyed or demolished.

Infantry or Vehicle always has their health bar shown on top of them, telling the controlling player, the allies and the enemy if seen: how much health does this unit has. The health is measured in numerical value, but it is quite hard to tell by just looking on the health bar rather than giving a prediction.

Buildings also have health. Their health bar is not visible unless players hover their mouse on it, or simply click it for detail. In most of the case, when a building is destroyed, the infantry still inside will be buried by the debris, which means death. If they are manned stationary weapon such as HMG, the valuable weapon will be gone as well.

Health for natural covers is not visible by default. However, they will be destroyed at a logical timing (i.e. being showered by HMG for a while). Veteran players will have health bar in their mind for natural covers they are using/relying on.

Health Damage[]

Only effective fire will cause the target to lose health. To be an effective shot, the round have to penetrate target's armor. Infantry and soft targets have 0 armor, means they take full damage from all sources.

The minimum acceptable penetration probability is 3%. Any weapon versus a specific armor which has lower than 3% chance to penetrate is completely hopeless to penetrate(this means infantry weapons can barely penetrate armored cars which usually have below 20 armor because the weapon penetration is 1, 1/20=5% > 3%). Higher than that, when a shell hit a hard object like an enemy tank, the penetration chance is simply penetration rate divided by target's armor.


Detail[]

Infantry[]

The default health of a man is 80. Some of them may have less(like pioneers) and some of then may have more(like snipers).

Players will see infantry unit having a health bar as a squad. However, the fact is each individual man having their own health as well. In COH, injured infantry receives no penalty toward combat effectiveness for being at low health except are more likely to be killed by AOE attack such as explosive, mortar and artillery. The only way to weaken a squad's ability to fight back is to kill its member. With less number of men, less weapon on their hands, they will do less damage.

In general, squads fighting at long range will quickly lose a man. This is because units are tends to fire on the closest entity, causing the man standing in front of their mates to take damage from all sources and die quickly. When come to close range, usually engaging with assault units, because each infantryman have a different "closest target", the damage will spread out more evenly to every infantry, causing the enemy squad lose health rapidly, but not losing a man.

In addition, if a infantry squad is carrying a stationary weapon, and a vast of its member was killed, the moment it has not enough men to carry the weapon, the remaining infantry will abandon the weapon and flee to the border of map and get deleted. If it has less member than the number of slot weapon(i.e. Flame Thrower, LMG, Rocket Launcher) they are carrying, there is a 85% chance that the remaining infantry will keep these weapon but also a 15% chance to drop the weapon(can be resupplied once the squad is reinforced with sufficient men). If a infantry squad is wiped out, all special weapon they were carrying will be lost.

When comes to strategy, it is possible to rely on "stealing" weapons from your enemy instead of producing them yourself. You just need infantry to take out enemy weapon crews, and re-man the abandoned weapon.

There is a chance that dead infantry still crawling on the ground and providing vision. This happens quite a lot when they are killed by explosives. These dying men can be further executed by infantry to prevent them from providing vision to your enemy.

Vehicle[]

Vehicle's health varies. Usually it depends on the size of the vehicle. The default health of a medium tank is 640.

Vehicles including manned stationary weapon have precise health since it is a single-entity unit. If a vehicle is hit by effective fire, it will lose health. When a stationary weapon loses all of its health, it turns into wreck that might be used as cover. When a vehicle loses all of its health, the following things may happen:

  • Explodes and becomes a wreck.
  • Becomes out of control, runs forward and turns slightly until it hits an obstacle or is being hit again, explodes and turns to a wreck.
  • If it is a tank or tank-like vehicle, remains functional for few seconds, and proceeds to internal combustion, and finally becomes a wreck.
  • Rarely, remains 1 health to be repaired and manned by any infantry, or turn to a wreck by taking a single shot.

Building[]

Buildings lose health by taking effective fire. When destroyed, it will collapse and bury all units still inside.

Covers[]

Covers lose health by taking effective fire just like buildings, but their health bar is not visible, which means their health is calculated internally. When destroyed, they turns into useless debris.

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