Vastly over-performing effectiveness of armor

[Christian]

current Iron Plate armor uses the US 1945 class B armor as a standard for quality 1 armor this means that 10 inches armor is 10 inches of effective armor (1 inch of us 1945 B steel is essentially 1 inch of RHA armor aka rolled homogeneous armor which is used as the standard for 1 inch thickness to 1 inch effectiveness)

in reality Iron Plate had an effective thickness modifier of 0.5 to 0.55 so 1 inch of Iron plate armor would be 0.5 inches of effective thickness this meant a 10 inch iron plate is in effect only 5 inches of effective armor

this means all types of armor in game over-performs by at-least 150%

armor such as Krupp IV over-performs by 200% 240% if you account for 40% weight saving (a 1 inch armor plate of Krupp IV in game is equivelant to 2 inches of what would be the best quality battleship armor created in ww2 (around 1 quality in real life while in game is 200% more effective than quality 1 armor aka quality 2)

(quality armor means how much effective thickness it gets from its actual thickness for example a quality 3 plate would have 3 inches of effective armor from a 1 inch thick piece of armor while a quality 1 piece of armor would have 1 inch of effective thickness from a 1 inch thick plate)

this DOES NOT account for the fact armor gets lighter which was not the case in real life

the density of steel armor remained at around 7750kg m^3 (yes you can do various things to it but generally armor weight remained the same)

 

the current armor stats are as follows

KruppIV  -40% weight +300% cost +100% strength  SHOULD BE  around cost 100% strength +10% 

KruppIII -35% weight +220% cost +90% strength  SHOULD BE around cost 70% strength 0%

KruppII -30% weight +160% cost +80% strength  SHOULD BE around cost 50% strength -10% 

kruppI -25% weight +100% cost +70 strength  SHOULD BE around cost +40% -14 strength -2% chance to shatter ap shells -5 ricochet angle of incomming shell

Harvey (nickel steel version) -15% weight +50% costs +45% strength  SHOULD BE  around+ 12% cost -26% strength - 10% ricochet angle of incomming shell due to low brinell - 15% chance to shatter AP shells due to low tensile strength 

Nickel-steel -5% weight +25% cost +40% strength SHOULD BE around cost +5-8% strength -30% strength -16% ricochet angle of incomming shell due to low brinell -15% chance to shatter ap shells due too low tensile strength 

Compound: +5% cost +35% strength     SHOULD BE around    cost + 5% strength -35% +10% chance to shatter projectiles due to high tensile strength  (introduced in 1876 so yeah ancient and horrible armor quality) -

Iron plate -15% hull form +65% hull weight -25% armor weight (all types) -50% armor weight (belt, belt extended) SHOULD BE around -15% hull form (lets assume Iron armor back then was harder to shape properly) (IRON ARMOR DOES NOT increase the hull weight or reduce armor weight)-50% strength -30% ricochet angle of incomming shells due to low brinell hardness -50% chance to shatter AP shells due to the low tensile strength

 

looks a bit complicated but the new armor would essentially have these characteristics 

Krupp IV cost 80% strength +10% 

Krupp III  cost 50% strength -4%

Krupp II cost 40% strength -10% 

Krupp I cost +25% -18 strength -2% chance to shatter ap shells -5 ricochet angle of incomming shell

Harvey +12% cost -21% strength - 10% ricochet angle of incomming shell - 15% chance to shatter AP shells

Nickel-steel cost +5-8% strength -26% strength -16% ricochet angle of incomming shell -15% chance to shatter ap shells

Compound  cost + 5% strength -30% +10% chance to shatter projectiles

Iron plate  -15% hull form -50% strength -30% ricochet angle of incomming shells -50% chance to shatter AP shells

 

source used to determine armor values and effects 

http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/metalprpsept2009.php#Japanese_Vickers_Hardened_Non-Cemented_Face-Hardened_Armor_(VH)

the less hard in brinell the armor is the more likely a shell wont ricochet off the armor 

the less tensile strength the more likely an ap shell is to not shatter on the armor

this was mostly done to diversify and make a bigger difference out of the different types of armor

in reality the effects would be less pronounced (specifically ricochet chance) than in real life (though shatter chance is quite realistic) 

 

what effect do these changes have on armor in general

in general would improve the realism of the game while greatly increasing gun penetration for AP shells

on top of this it would reduce the tendency  to go bow in and charge enemy battleships until almost point blank range to effectively penetrate enemy armor

it would reduce the tendency for large ships to fire high explosive shells when they shouldn't and would reduce what can only be described as an HE meta 

 

final conclusion

armor is currently overperforming to various degrees this would make armor effectiveness realistic for the thickness compared to the currently super effective armor we have in game which overperforms by extreme amounts 

Edited October 20, 2019 by Christian
edited grammar and made it easier to read in general reworked the thread

[Zak MacKay]

It seems kind of strange to have krupp 3 as the base line instead of the most basic. Their would be many missions or a large portion of the campaign where you always have a strength disadvantage. You could just change every stat to reflect that.

I have seen battleships be basically immune to heavy guns from a good distance. Nerfing armor and especially tech would help close that gap. Right now if you have better armor techs your ships are a lot stronger. Because the techs are very strong.

Another thing which could help is adding the varying belt armor. Almost every shot I had was a partial penetration because their was only the strong belt. With the varying belt lower, middle and upper belt which ships at the time did have. It could be as simple as a % chance for each. Every region would have less damage potential so a shot to the lower is worse then to the upper.

It would also give secondary guns a chance to penetrate the belt armor. Enemy main guns unable to penetrate the lower belt would be able to penetrate the middle and upper. Letting even old battleships still be a threat. Instead of 95% partial pen.

[Wakelessrex]

I am studying to be a Welding Engineer right now and have an avid interest in metallurgy. 

Ive mever heard of this Nathan persons website but a brisk skim through the first section does seem to conclude he at least knows what hes talking about metalurgically. Without reading further this looks really interesting, thanks for sharing that :)

 

I would like to point out though that your statement about steels being the same density isnt exactly true. Steels can ramge a bit in density depending on the chemical composition, adding vanadium or other things can increase that. Many tool steels are slightly more dense which would matter more at the weights we are calculating. 

Thats me really condesing a complex subject but just wanted to clarify that.

I like where you are coming from with this armour rehash but your modifiers are slightly confusing to me. For instance am I to believe Krupp 4 is adding 80% cost I assume? you should make the modifiers more clear please.

 

In addition im not entirely sure that the armour is working the way you may imagine. For instance I played the modern warship mission and tried to give the yamato a set of impervious armour. She had an 18" belt 20' turrets and similiar armour scheme and krupp 4 I was still getting 'partial pens' from 10 and 12" guns. 

Im just saying im not 100% sure how the system acts right now, though I agree completely that Armour should be as realistic as possible.

[Pedroig]

@Wakelessrex considering 90% of a welding engineer's job is metallurgy, I do hope you have an avid interest in metallurgy.

His statement of steel density is simply false, not, "not exactly true".  I can easily get a light titanium steel alloy with about a 6 g/cm3 density or a heavy tungsten steel alloy with an 18 g/cm3 density.

Quote

FACEHARD program with certain conditions in mind - a 90° target angle

This is the most important part of the page, because from what I can tell, the armour values given are average effective numbers, meaning they are already taking into account the vertical angling inherent to the hull design.  From that, they then "add on" the deflection angle from horizontal alignment.  The 90 degree target angle was basically a statistical impossibility to achieve in battle.

[Ishtar]

25 minutes ago, Pedroig said:

@Wakelessrex considering 90% of a welding engineer's job is metallurgy, I do hope you have an avid interest in metallurgy.

His statement of steel density is simply false, not, "not exactly true".  I can easily get a light titanium steel alloy with about a 6 g/cm3 density or a heavy tungsten steel alloy with an 18 g/cm3 density.

I very much doubt any nation on earth could build a battleship armored in 18 g/cm3 steel, these extremes aren't really relevant. The British for example denoted their armor in pounds rather than milimeters/inches, suggesting that the differences in density weren't exceeding manufacturing flaws.

Quote

This is the most important part of the page, because from what I can tell, the armour values given are average effective numbers, meaning they are already taking into account the vertical angling inherent to the hull design.  From that, they then "add on" the deflection angle from horizontal alignment.  The 90 degree target angle was basically a statistical impossibility to achieve in battle.

This is irrelevant when the game does the same thing. Changing the Resistance value (which is stated in the help menu to denote slope design) has no effect on penetration, nor does changing armor quality. This means we're basically shooting 18" guns that penetrate 26.5" of Iron armor at 1km.

[Wakelessrex]

48 minutes ago, Pedroig said:

@Wakelessrex considering 90% of a welding engineer's job is metallurgy, I do hope you have an avid interest in metallurgy.

His statement of steel density is simply false, not, "not exactly true".  I can easily get a light titanium steel alloy with about a 6 g/cm3 density or a heavy tungsten steel alloy with an 18 g/cm3 density.

This is the most important part of the page, because from what I can tell, the armour values given are average effective numbers, meaning they are already taking into account the vertical angling inherent to the hull design.  From that, they then "add on" the deflection angle from horizontal alignment.  The 90 degree target angle was basically a statistical impossibility to achieve in battle.

No actually youre wrong. Youre not going to find ANY Steel Alloy that is 18 g/cm that is the density of pure tungsten or close to which does not make good armour for various reasons. To clarify the original post is discussing Armour which has always been Steel alloys, he did not mention Tungsten alloys which is a completely different thing and not relevant to the discussion on armour plates.

 

T1 tool steel is a common Steel Alloy and includes tungsten it is denser than most steels but only somewhat so. 

 

Nowhere near as dense as pure tungsten or tungsten alloys though. which again having nothing to do with armour or steel alloys.

 

Heres a lost of common steel alloys and their densities.

https://www.amesweb.info/Materials/Density_of_Steel.aspx

Edited October 13, 2019 by Wakelessrex

[Christian]

10 hours ago, Pedroig said:

@Wakelessrex considering 90% of a welding engineer's job is metallurgy, I do hope you have an avid interest in metallurgy.

His statement of steel density is simply false, not, "not exactly true".  I can easily get a light titanium steel alloy with about a 6 g/cm3 density or a heavy tungsten steel alloy with an 18 g/cm3 density.

This is the most important part of the page, because from what I can tell, the armour values given are average effective numbers, meaning they are already taking into account the vertical angling inherent to the hull design.  From that, they then "add on" the deflection angle from horizontal alignment.  The 90 degree target angle was basically a statistical impossibility to achieve in battle.

yeah im no metal expert and neither am i an armor expert but there was generally no mention anywhere of armor getting lighter

neither have i ever heard of naval or tank armor getting lighter

 

point is still you are not getting a piece of armor to be 40% lighter than pure Iron Plate while having twice as much effective protection

Quote

Most steels and cast irons are over 90% Iron, by weight, though some special alloys, such as maraging steels, have very large percentages of other alloying elements.

from the armor article

http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/metalprpsept2009.php#Grüson_Chilled_Cast_Iron_Land_Fortification_Armor

i can not find a single mention of armor getting lighter

if you can go ahead and source it but considering it is nowhere to be mentioned in both tank and naval armor i dont see it being the case

 

Quote

"This is the most important part of the page, because from what I can tell, the armour values given are average effective numbers, meaning they are already taking into account the vertical angling inherent to the hull design.  From that, they then "add on" the deflection angle from horizontal alignment.  The 90 degree target angle was basically a statistical impossibility to achieve in battle."

this might be true but even if we go by this the guns in game are still underperforming by alot

as shown with the 16 inch gun which has a mere 7 inch penetration at 20km distance compared to the real life 17 inch to 16 inch pen

at 20km distance the fall of shot is around 15.5 degrees

 

that 7 inch plate (178mm) is gonna be 184mm thick in effectiveness

 

aka all in all you get 3.37% more effectiveness at 20km with non inclined armor (we dont have inclined armor in game)

which is not enough to be of any meaning 

to get 16 inches of effective belt armor the shell would need to hit at a 64 degree angle

the highest angle the shell is gonna reach is 52.8 degrees angle of fall which it can only reach when firing out to 40km 

at longer distances it will matter more but at 20km it does not matter

and guns in game underperform by enough that it would only be comparable in pen at 40km in real life compared to 20km in game 

 

 

also what makes you think in game penetration characteristics takes into account enemy ship belt angle or impact angle

how do you know the in game pen values are not against a 90 degree plate

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[Christian]

11 hours ago, Wakelessrex said:

 

I like where you are coming from with this armour rehash but your modifiers are slightly confusing to me. For instance am I to believe Krupp 4 is adding 80% cost I assume? you should make the modifiers more clear please.

 

In addition im not entirely sure that the armour is working the way you may imagine. For instance I played the modern warship mission and tried to give the yamato a set of impervious armour. She had an 18" belt 20' turrets and similiar armour scheme and krupp 4 I was still getting 'partial pens' from 10 and 12" guns. 

Im just saying im not 100% sure how the system acts right now, though I agree completely that Armour should be as realistic as possible.

 

1: ah yeah i should have been more clear with cost but much like how the game handles it right now its 80% EXTRA cost over the worst armor

so in this case its 80% more expensive than Iron Plate 

50% more expensive would also be 50% more expensive than Iron Plate

 

2: partial pen in game might be trying to simulate spalling

aka hitting a very thick piece of armor with a very big gun might cause spalling behind the armor though im unsure if this is the case

 

from nathan okuns table it seems there can be significant PP and NFF diffrences (Partial Pen and Effective limit)

for example japanese 16 inch gun has 4 inch diffrence between them at point blank

 

aka while you cant effectively pen 30 inches of armor at point blank you can partially pen it (partial pen for said gun is 32.8 inches limit and eff limit is 28.8 inches)

 

thats the best explanation its simply trying to simulate spalling

 

though it makes 0 sense that 10-12 inch guns are also causing spalling those guns shouldnt have enough energy to spall such thick armor

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[admin]

5 minutes ago, Christian said:

yeah im no metal expert and neither am i an armor expert but there was generally no mention anywhere of armor getting lighter

neither have i ever heard of naval or tank armor getting lighter

 

1898 10 inch Krupp armor worked as effectively as 12 Inch Harvey armor

 

[Naval Enthusiast]

I believe the whole "armor weight" thing is being misunderstood.

It's just a matter of what standard you use.

If you want 300mm of armour "x", you could use 300mm of "x" armour which is going to weigh a specific amount. Let's say you develop a new type of armour. This "y" armour is twice as effective as your "x" armour and now you can achieve 300mm of "x" protection by using just 150mm of your shiny new "y" armour. Both are pretty much identical in density since they're steel based, but suddenly you have reduced the weight of your armor by half, whilst keeping your protection the same.

Alternatively you could use 300mm of "y" amour so it would weigh the same, but suddenly you have 600mm of "x" grade protection.

tl;dr:

Armour improvements should work like this: Either you get the same level of protection (as your older armour) at a lower weight, or an increased level of protection at the same weight.

Currently, the game does *both* which is obviously a bit overpowered.

[Christian]

4 hours ago, admin said:

1898 10 inch Krupp armor worked as effectively as 12 Inch Harvey armor

 

which harvey/krupp armor ?

just saying krupp and harvey dosent really mean much in itself

krupp armor could also be one of these types of armor

German Thick-Plate Improved Krupp Cemented 'New Type' (KC n/A)

German Krupp "High-%" Nickel-Steel

German Post-WWI "Krupp Non-Cemented" (KNC) Armor

German Thick-Plate Improved Krupp Cemented 'New Type' (KC n/A)

we arent exactly lacking diffrent types krupp armor and this is not including british krupp armor

 

back to the point harvey vs krupp

Nathan okun lists Original Krupp as a quality of Q 0.828

while he lists harvey as Q 0.766

(this should also showcase the importance of which harvey it is notice the tensile and yield diffrences)

and notes for Harvey Nickel-steel armor which has a quality modifier of Q 0.791

Quote

"For Harvey plates under 8" thick when shatter occurs, the HL begins to increase above the unshattered NBL value used with the thicker plates as plate thickness goes down until at 3" thickness it is about as wide a gap between the shattered and unshattered HL values as with KC armor, which it is approximating with the 1.25" cemented face on a 3" total plate thickness. Thin Harveyized plate is not inferior to thin KC armor, at least when compared to the original Krupp KC a/A armor introduced in 1894."

 

now the important part in that giant wall of text

this means that yes a 10 inch plate was roughly 10% to 20% better than Harvey Nickel steel (assuming its not thin)

Quote

1898 10 inch Krupp armor worked as effectively as 12 Inch Harvey armor

so this statement is perfectly correct 

BUT

10 inches of krupp in game armor is not 12 inches of real life harvey armor in effectiveness

10 inches of krupp in game is more than 25,457 inches of real life harvey armor in effectiveness

krupp performs 254.57% better than real life harvey does

it should only perform 10-20% better

this is due to the fact it has a 1.95 quality modifier in game so going from that alone 

1.95 is 254,57% bigger than 0.766

thus its 254,57% better

 

now the problem is Krupp 1 armor in game gives a 25% bonus over harvey

not a 10-20% bonus (15% is the intermediate between the 2 so we assume thats the general increase it gives)

combine this with the fact that its already too strong its 70% stronger than US class B armor plates from 1945

aka it has a quality modifier of 1.7 in game 

Iron Plate in real life according to nathan okun has a 0.55 modifier 

 

Krupp 1 in real life according to nathan okun has 0.828 modifier

in game its at 1.7 

in short its over twice as good as it is in real life 

 

and because krupp weights 25% less than it did in real life we have armor which effectively has a quality modifier of 1.95

 

(ps changed the strength values in the what they should be suggestion section to be a bit more balanced and a bit more realistic especially moving from harvey to krupp)

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[Nick Thomadis]

Thank you for the very detailed feedback, which will help to balance penetration better, in the next update.

Just want to clarify something, since I see a misunderstanding.

We have armor thickness and quality. Quality increases the final armor strength accordingly. 10 inches of thickness +100% quality (due to armor type) counts as 20 inches of final thickness. It is as simple as that.

[Christian]

11 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Thank you for the very detailed feedback, which will help to balance penetration better, in the next update.

Just want to clarify something, since I see a misunderstanding.

We have armor thickness and quality. Quality increases the final armor strength accordingly. 10 inches of thickness +100% quality (due to armor type) counts as 20 inches of final thickness. It is as simple as that.

yeah ok that was what i thought wasent sure if the other factors i suggested could be implemented such as ricochet and shatter chance they were mostly meant to start some idea

 i look forwards to more balanced armor quality modifers  (or in my oppinion best case made completely realistic)

 

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[Shaun]

26 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Thank you for the very detailed feedback, which will help to balance penetration better, in the next update.

Just want to clarify something, since I see a misunderstanding.

We have armor thickness and quality. Quality increases the final armor strength accordingly. 10 inches of thickness +100% quality (due to armor type) counts as 20 inches of final thickness. It is as simple as that.

If such a thing is to be implemented, then we are to expect weaker armour overall, especially on later ships. Perhaps a nerf on semi-penetrations would be an idea, given currently even with say 10 inches of Krupp IV (20 inches effectively), semi-penetrations are frequent, even with 8 and 9 inch guns. I'm not saying it should be possible, because spalling is a thing, but the amount of damage on semi-penetrations should be reduced. Right now if I make a replica of a Majestic class (1894) ship with 9-inch (harvey steel) belt armour, cruisers with 7 inch guns can semi-penetrate quite consistently.

Perhaps if armour qualities are nerfed, armour qualities could gain a spall (semi-penetration) damage resistance instead?

[Wakelessrex]

7 hours ago, Christian said:

point is still you are not getting a piece of armor to be 40% lighter than pure Iron Plate while having twice as much effective protection

Again that isn't exactly true, Steel alloys depending on what it is can be lighter than other steel alloys in in this case Iron but I cant think of anything close to 40% lighter no, it would be a much subtler difference. Though that would make a significant impact if your armour takes up thousands and thousands of pounds of weight.

 

 

7 hours ago, Christian said:

: partial pen in game might be trying to simulate spalling

aka hitting a very thick piece of armor with a very big gun might cause spalling behind the armor though im unsure if this is the case

AHHHH I hadn't thought of spalling damage that makes sense. Though if that is what it is trying to simulate I would think it would be better to do a small amount of crew damage rather than say the 10dmg to structure that most rounds seem to cause. We don't have crew in yet but I hope this turns out to be the case then.

[Christian]

1 hour ago, Shaun said:

If such a thing is to be implemented, then we are to expect weaker armour overall, especially on later ships. Perhaps a nerf on semi-penetrations would be an idea, given currently even with say 10 inches of Krupp IV (20 inches effectively), semi-penetrations are frequent, even with 8 and 9 inch guns. I'm not saying it should be possible, because spalling is a thing, but the amount of damage on semi-penetrations should be reduced. Right now if I make a replica of a Majestic class (1894) ship with 9-inch (harvey steel) belt armour, cruisers with 7 inch guns can semi-penetrate quite consistently.

Perhaps if armour qualities are nerfed, armour qualities could gain a spall (semi-penetration) damage resistance instead?

yeah partial pens seem to appear too often even when the armor is so thick there is no way it should even cause dents

 

12 inch guns shouldnt do anything to 20 inch thick harvey/krupp plates and wouldnt spall

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[akd]

I don't think thee damage from partial penetrations is meant to be internal spalling.  You are thinking too much in terms of tank armor and damage.  I think AP in game is purely AP with bursting charge, so the damage is likely from the secondary effects of impact (which might cause structural damage to plates, etc.) and the bursting charge and consequent splinter damage.  Bear in mind also that ships are not like tanks where all armor is on the exterior surface.  Before being stopped by deck armor, an AP shell could do quite a bit of structural damage and might still be bursting inside the ship, albeit not in the vitals.

[Christian]

4 minutes ago, akd said:

I don't think thee damage from partial penetrations is meant to be internal spalling.  You are thinking too much in terms of tank armor and damage.  I think AP in game is purely AP with bursting charge, so the damage is likely from the secondary effects of impact (which might cause structural damage to plates, etc.) and the bursting charge and consequent splinter damage.  Bear in mind also that ships are not like tanks where all armor is on the exterior surface.  Before being stopped by deck armor, an AP shell could do quite a bit of structural damage and might still be bursting inside the ship, albeit not in the vitals.

generally speaking spalling is a much larger thing on ships

much larger projectiles are being dealt with than with tanks

spalling just has much less of an effect since ships are quite open and have alot of air volume tanks dont and most of said volume is taken up by crew

Though turrets can take alot of spalling damage incapacitating crew if hit but generally speaking there is alot of material behind the front turret place which obsorbs the fragments (steel bits and structural bits equipment and so on gun barrels breech and the things holding the guns)

even if a shell hits the belt armor or turret armor it can still spall behind if it had enough energy

it might also stun the turret crew or jam the motor and so on

 

but generally speaking spallings should not happend as often as they do as far as i have seen

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by Christian

[Mycophobia]

On 10/13/2019 at 2:15 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Thank you for the very detailed feedback, which will help to balance penetration better, in the next update.

Just want to clarify something, since I see a misunderstanding.

We have armor thickness and quality. Quality increases the final armor strength accordingly. 10 inches of thickness +100% quality (due to armor type) counts as 20 inches of final thickness. It is as simple as that.

Having spoken to the OP about this issue, I think I can help clarify the issue the OP is trying to point out.

The Issue:

Currently, the in-game penetration value of guns seems to be based off real life data (with the range fall-off issue seems to be addressed in the upcoming patch). 

For example, the in game 12" Mark 2 gun have a 1000m pen value of 15.3", this closely match the British 12"/45 Mark X gun used on Dreadnought, which have point blank penetration of 16" against KC armor. (There are many other similar case, like similarity between in game Mark 1 12" and the British 12"/35， I wont list them all)

The problem is that while the most irl penetration data is measured against KC armor, the in game "baseline" for armor is the worst armor variant, aka wrought Iron. Meaning that the in-game Mark 2 gun penetrate 15.3" of wrought iron armor, not 15.3" of KC armor, which receives a 70% effectiveness thickness modifier. 

To see the implication of this discrepancy. The IRL 1888 French Pre-Dreadnought Brennus have an armored belt of 18“ Nickel Steel. This translate to an effective thickness of 25.2". This is the same as 1000m penetration of in game 16" gun in the modern battleship mission, with most advanced tech. In other word, the most advanced 16" gun in game cannot defeat the armor of an 1888 pre-dreadnought at point blank range. (Using SH shell and powder will allow it just barely do this)

Solution:

The underlying problem of the issue I described is that the game does not use the same baseline when dealing with armor effectiveness and penetration. The game takes penetration value of IRL guns against KC armor as the baseline for penetration, but takes wrought armor as the baseline for armor effectiveness.

The obvious solution then, will be an uniform baseline for penetration and armor in the game.

If the game's gun penetration are based off KC, then the 0% modifier to armor should be somewhere between KC 1 - 4, with earlier variants giving negative modifier instead. If that might be confusing to player, then it maybe better instead to increase the gun's penetration value, such that the base penetration of guns are high enough that they can keep up with the armor modifier. 

Ultimately, I believe what would be most intuitive to players would be having an UI element that allows scaling of gun penetration value based on specific armor type. But first, the game needs to stop using IRL penetration data of guns against KC or similar higher grade armor as the starting point for guns, while using wrought iron as the starting point for armor. 

I hope that clarifies the main issue I have with the armor system at this moment.

 

Edited October 21, 2019 by Mycophobia

[TimPBerry]

As an aside: shots on curved armor of even thickness would be interesting... likely still effective. At a guess, though, less effective initial splat (poor spreading around curves) but smaller and much faster ejected slab. Also interesting would be the variable-thickness standard-los cast armor( for example  https://primearmor.us/body-armor/ ) on a lot of US designs, especially turrets. 

[Tycondero]

On 10/13/2019 at 5:35 PM, Naval Enthusiast said:

I believe the whole "armor weight" thing is being misunderstood.

It's just a matter of what standard you use.

If you want 300mm of armour "x", you could use 300mm of "x" armour which is going to weigh a specific amount. Let's say you develop a new type of armour. This "y" armour is twice as effective as your "x" armour and now you can achieve 300mm of "x" protection by using just 150mm of your shiny new "y" armour. Both are pretty much identical in density since they're steel based, but suddenly you have reduced the weight of your armor by half, whilst keeping your protection the same.

Alternatively you could use 300mm of "y" amour so it would weigh the same, but suddenly you have 600mm of "x" grade protection.

tl;dr:

Armour improvements should work like this: Either you get the same level of protection (as your older armour) at a lower weight, or an increased level of protection at the same weight.

Currently, the game does *both* which is obviously a bit overpowered.

Indeed. To me it makes little sense that we improve armor over time both by making it lighter AND more effective. I do not understand this from the developers either.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Or you can use less than twice, but more than original protection in more than half, but less than full original weight, that way you do *both*
But current problems with penetrations and armor seem to be much much deeper than just weight multipliers.