Measure

Hits-to-kill

You might say: HTK, shots to kill

Hits-to-kill (HTK) is the number of successful damage events needed to remove a target’s health after mitigation. Apply the game’s damage formula, minimum-damage rule and rounding policy, then take ceil(health / damage); compare it per encounter condition.

What it does

Turns a damage pipeline into a discrete pacing and survivability measure for a roster.

Ask

How many meaningful hits does this attacker need against this defender in each condition, and is the exchange playable?

Typical

whole hits; attacker × defender × condition, including open ground, cover and flanked states

Parts

• Hits-to-kill matrix: A hits-to-kill matrix puts attacker types across one axis and defender types down the other; each cell is the number of landed hits after the game’s damage formula, minimum-damage rule and rounding.
• Damage breakpoints: A damage breakpoint is the minimum effective damage, attack, penetration or armour value that changes the required whole-hit count by one.
• Overkill and rounding: Overkill is the final hit’s post-mitigation damage minus the target’s remaining health.
• Effective health: Effective health is the unmitigated damage required to defeat a target after mitigation.

Sources

1. GameDesign.gg, Weapon Design: The Feel, Math, and Balance of Guns, The Core Numbers: Damage, Fire Rate, and Time-to-Kill; Tuning Weapons in a Live GameShots to kill is the enemy’s effective health divided by damage per shot, rounded up.
2. Calc, Hits to Kill Calculator, Formula; Frequently askedEffective HP = HP ÷ (1 − reduction); avg damage = damage × (1 + crit × (critMult − 1)); hits = ⌈effective HP ÷ avg damage⌉ · Hit counts round up (ceil): the final hit only needs to remove the leftover HP to count as a kill.
3. StatGarden, Time to kill (TTK) calculator for shooters, What this calculator does; Formula; Working out whether a damage buff mattersFormula shots to kill = ceil(effective health ÷ damage per shot); time to kill = (shots − 1) ÷ (rounds per minute ÷ 60)
4. Ian Schreiber, Level 6: Situational Balance, What’s the central resource?; Using the central resource to derive balance; Situational Balancehow many hit points you had (that is, how many times could you survive being hit, and how many times would you have to hit something else to kill it).

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "Hits-to-kill" (hits-to-kill) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/game-design/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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