AON armor scheme is a death trap

[Cabusha]

So I've been doing some testing with the AON armor scheme, going full AON.  EG only armoring the Deck, Belt, Turrets, and Secondaries, 0 armor on the DE or BE locations.  Full immunity to my own guns 10K and out.

1) You obviously take a ton of chip damage from AON.  8" and under tend to arm in the unpotected areas, and capital guns overpen (as you would expect).  What's interesting is I've noted a number of Mid-Deck penetrations at ranges of say 14K.  Inspecting the damage model, it seems to be calling the superstructure pens (oustide of the armored conning tower itself) as mid deck penetrations.  Since my ship is immune to plunging fire at such ranges to the deck (I checked the oppositions guns) This leads me to believe that it is actually the extended deck providing this protection.  Since the superstructure is so large, this is a HUGE weakness.  

2) Second is the critical problem.  AON doesn't actually protect your ammunition stores.  I have been successfully detonated from an ammo explosion, via a penetrating hit, to the stern belt extended.  I would construe this as meaning a bow, deck extended, ammo penetration is possible as well.  The point of AON is to focus the protection into your critical areas, EG the machine spaces and ammunition store/barbettes.  Since it's currently not fully protecting these areas, then any ship designed around AON is a tinder box waiting to happen.  See photo below.  

Edited February 16, 2020 by Cabusha
typos

[RedParadize]

Yep

Note that your turret are on the deck extended portion of the ship. That mean the ammunition depot is right under it and not protected. Even if it would not be the case AON is not a option atm. It is much better to go for a all around armor scheme with no citadel or barbette. Doing so, you can make super thick armor and beat end game super battleship with 1925 tech.

[RedParadize]

@Cabusha You inspired me to perform some testing regarding AoN. Thing is I am currently chalanging myself into defeating super BB with the oldest and cheapest ship I can.

Looks like you can make AoN work, but only if turrets are on the central section of the ship. It is much more effective if you keep yourself at high angle to the enemy. You will lose the front of the ship and take massive damage, but after that the front is more or less a shell sponge.

Armoring the tower do not seem to impact its survivability. It also seem that destroyed tower transfer damage to hull when hit again.

Edited February 16, 2020 by RedParadize

[Cabusha]

Interesting!  Good info.

[Tycondero]

10 hours ago, RedParadize said:

@Cabusha You inspired me to perform some testing regarding AoN. Thing is I am currently chalanging myself into defeating super BB with the oldest and cheapest ship I can.

Looks like you can make AoN work, but only if turrets are on the central section of the ship. It is much more effective if you keep yourself at high angle to the enemy. You will lose the front of the ship and take massive damage, but after that the front is more or less a shell sponge.

Armoring the tower do not seem to impact its survivability. It also seem that destroyed tower transfer damage to hull when hit again.

Do you mean with central section the predesignated locations where you are officially allowed to place guns? 

We can often still place guns beyond these spots by using Ctrl. Are those spots considered to be covered by the extended armor sections only?

[RedParadize]

10 hours ago, Tycondero said:

Do you mean with central section the predesignated locations where you are officially allowed to place guns? 

We can often still place guns beyond these spots by using Ctrl. Are those spots considered to be covered by the extended armor sections only?

The 3 middle section are the main belt and deck, the two on each extremity are the extended ones. couple month ago I made a topic about this. Here is a image the illustrate it:

There is a error on the right battleship. There is no turret on the rear, so no ammo there. Also, I believe that ammunition depot are now in the middle row instead of the bottom.

Anyways, if you want to do a AoN, stick to middle 3 row for turrets. That way ammunition depot will be protected. As shown in the image of my previous post, the front will get utterly annihilated. The rear should be kind of safe if you stay angled.

[Accipiter]

this is interesting and obviously a big oversight by the devs.
all main battery ammo in addition to the machinery should always be counted as being inside the spaces protected by the main belt and main deck as this is the entire point (not just of all or nothing, but of any modern ship armor scheme using a belt and an armored deck in general).

On 2/16/2020 at 9:44 PM, RedParadize said:

Armoring the tower do not seem to impact its survivability. It also seem that destroyed tower transfer damage to hull when hit again.

the "Conning Tower" armor slider is not the entire superstructure but just the small armored conning tower that is inside of it (google it for pictures: "armored conning tower"): basically it's a VERY heavily armored narrow tower (typically just a few metres wide) that goes trough the front superstructure of the ship and acts as a refuge for spotters and officers in case of battle. in some case it goes all the way down into the citadel with stairs inside it, in some other cases, it just "sits" on top of the weatherdeck without a direct connection to the citadel.

in game, all the conning tower armor does (i believe) is it reduce the chances of getting the "captain/officer disabled" critical hit on your ship in case of hits to your superstructure.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Accipiter

[Tycondero]

I tried to do AoN yesterday on a BB and it is very true that the amount of sustained damage, when giving the extended armor sections 0' protection, is quickly crippling (low HP) to the ship. In the next attempt I added some light cruiser thickness protection to this same AoN BB and it faired much better. Of course AoN has its weakness in having no protection where it can be spared, but the principal does not seem to work very well in game atm. The entire cidadel armor schemes are implement to a very simplified level. They are mere bonuses and maluses to various ship wide parameters rather than protecting the sections of the ship in a better way.

[Shaftoe]

Judging by all the findings above, it would seem Armor/Survivability System warrants a rework. At least a minor one.

[Cptbarney]

So AP, armour, and i think accuracy need adjustments and/or rework.

[Tycondero]

8 hours ago, Shaftoe said:

Judging by all the findings above, it would seem Armor/Survivability System warrants a rework. At least a minor one.

I would say (but this is not new and I believe the developers were working on this) also the way the citadel is represented in game should be revised, it is just too simplified for what it tried to model. Effectively citadels done the right way (especially turtleback) cause ricochets thus protecting the most critical structures of the ship. That is something different imo than flat bonuses and maluses like 30% or so less chance for damaging the engine. 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Tycondero

[Skeksis]

4 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

So AP, armour, and i think accuracy need adjustments and/or rework.

Could do.

In custom battles if you set all your 1940 BB Armor to 600mm (23.62 inches) and 1914 CL enemies to ensure 178 gun calibre or less (to ensure pen lower than 600),

then 178 of 412.8 pen (at 1000m) 'penetrates' 600 armour, this should never happen, every shell should shatter, only the superstructure should receive damage, BB should be immune from damage but it is not.

But on the other hand it's probably will be the damage model that we will be playing with since it's also probably too late to change it now.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Skeksis

[Accipiter]

by the way just as a heads up, in real life too, All or Nothing was merely a design philosophy and a guideline, it does not mean LITERALLY no armor whatsoever outside the citadel and turrets/barbetts. it just means maximum armor possible to vital parts, while reducing to the reasonable bare minumum (but rarely to nothing) other armor. in most places a few mm of armor to act as anti-splinter and anti-HE was kept.

and in addition, there is almost always a decent amount of casemate armor for the upper decks, plus some rather heavy armor on some crucial parts outside the citadel too, like, often, the rudder steering compartiment, and the main battery director towers.

especially the americans which often used very high quality and expensive STS steel (which is armor, by the way) as the Structural steel as well on all of their ships (!) from WW1 onwards. so effectively all of their ships had a minimum of 5-15mm or so of armor absolutely everywhere, which helps a lot already vs HE and splinters.

but all nations still added armor in various places outside of the citadel and had some "skin armor" across the hull too, to an extent.

so if you did a literal all or nothing design in game, with zero armor on most of the ship, it's not a problem in my view that it sucks and has crippling vulnerability all over the hull. it was a known danger irl and was basically never done on any real ships either. Nelson Class was probably the closest BB to literally no armor at all outside the citadel (as far as i know), and that sucked. the lack of armor and light superstructure meant they always caused serious damage to their own hulls from just the muzzle blast of their own guns (sometimes even rupturing electric and hydraulic lines in their bow section when firing many broadsides in a row.) let alone what whould have happened to them if they had ever actually been shot at in combat...

see for yourself:

Iowa class: all or nothing? Yes. but...note the long citadel tail-end extension to cover the whole steering gear machinery, the 38mm of weatherdeck armor all along the ship, 13-16mm of armor on all the lower compartiments in the bow, 25mm casemate armor, 38mm fire control tower armor, ect ect...

 

Littorio class: all or nothing? yes. but... notice the 2 armored deck extensions in the bow in front of the 1st turret, and in the stern above the citadel, 70mm casemate armor, long rear citadel extension to cover the steering gears. 45 mm deck armor on the casemate between turrets 2 and 3, ect ect...

Yamato class: all or nothing? yes. but... notice the 35-50mm weatherdeck armor. mutiple small armored compartiments at the rear for the steering room and damage control centre. 50mm armor on the funnel, ect ect...

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Accipiter

[Accipiter]

^with that said i still agree that the citadel mechanic needs to be reworked to actually let you change and fine-tune the position of armor on your ship. having a bit more freedom on that would be very good. rather than giving a reduction to detonation/engine damage chance when you get penetrated, which isn't really what the citadel does, citadel type is just the armor scheme philosophy.
internal layout of the ship, bulkhead armor, quick-flooding system for magazine rooms, ect... those are the kind of things that whould lower the chance of detonation/engine damage when citadel penetrated.

[Cabusha]

3 hours ago, Accipiter said:

by the way just as a heads up, in real life too, All or Nothing was merely a design philosophy and a guideline, it does not mean LITERALLY no armor whatsoever outside the citadel and turrets/barbetts. it just means maximum armor possible to vital parts, while reducing to the reasonable bare minumum (but rarely to nothing) other armor. in most places a few mm of armor to act as anti-splinter and anti-HE was kept.

and in addition, there is almost always a decent amount of casemate armor for the upper decks, plus some rather heavy armor on some crucial parts outside the citadel too, like, often, the rudder steering compartiment, and the main battery director towers.

especially the americans which often used very high quality and expensive STS steel (which is armor, by the way) as the Structural steel as well on all of their ships (!) from WW1 onwards. so effectively all of their ships had a minimum of 5-15mm or so of armor absolutely everywhere, which helps a lot already vs HE and splinters.

but all nations still added armor in various places outside of the citadel and had some "skin armor" across the hull too, to an extent.

so if you did a literal all or nothing design in game, with zero armor on most of the ship, it's not a problem in my view that it sucks and has crippling vulnerability all over the hull. it was a known danger irl and was basically never done on any real ships either. Nelson Class was probably the closest BB to literally no armor at all outside the citadel (as far as i know), and that sucked. the lack of armor and light superstructure meant they always caused serious damage to their own hulls from just the muzzle blast of their own guns (sometimes even rupturing electric and hydraulic lines in their bow section when firing many broadsides in a row.) let alone what whould have happened to them if they had ever actually been shot at in combat...

see for yourself:

Iowa class: all or nothing? Yes. but...note the long citadel tail-end extension to cover the whole steering gear machinery, the 38mm of weatherdeck armor all along the ship, 13-16mm of armor on all the lower compartiments in the bow, 25mm casemate armor, 38mm fire control tower armor, ect ect...

 

Littorio class: all or nothing? yes. but... notice the 2 armored deck extensions in the bow in front of the 1st turret, and in the stern above the citadel, 70mm casemate armor, long rear citadel extension to cover the steering gears. 45 mm deck armor on the casemate between turrets 2 and 3, ect ect...

Yamato class: all or nothing? yes. but... notice the 35-50mm weatherdeck armor. mutiple small armored compartiments at the rear for the steering room and damage control centre. 50mm armor on the funnel, ect ect...

 

 

 

You'll note in your example of the Iowa, the main armored belt extends all the way to protect Turret A.  That is the issue here, as currently Turret A is unprotected in a full AoN scheme.  0inches or 6inches in the BE, it doesn't really matter as the protection scheme in game is wrong.  Often testing in the extreme is best to explore flaws in a system, such as this early access game.

 

I completely agree no one in their right minds would design a ship with 0 protection in those areas, and as you show, have at least some protection.   I've had plenty of fun before looking over and replicating Iowa equivalent ships in say Rule the Waves, within it's limits.  

 

Good information,  but the lecture is misplaced.  

Edited February 19, 2020 by Cabusha

[I Scouting Group]

I've really been enjoying the game so far in the two or so weeks I've had the early access release and am very excited by what I've seen so far. I think that that's always an important preface to include because I'd never want feedback or suggestions to be disheartening or de-motivating.

I think this issue with how all-or-nothing is currently modeled is one of several that exposes how the current system for managing armor does not yet capture the essence of the task at hand.

Deciding how to armor a warship is a massively consequential decision that's inextricably linked to several other fundamental design decisions, the most relevant perhaps being the disposition of the main battery and the second most relevant being the length of the hull and the length:beam ratio, which of course has a major impact on speed/propulsion requirements.

What's most missing now is a model of the length of the main belt, which should presumably run from the front edge of the foremost turret to the aft edge of the aft-most turret. Using fewer turrets with more guns per turret (3x3 vs. 4x2 or 2x4 -- that is two quads-- vs 4x2) -- or just using fewer turrets period -- should necessarily result in a shortening of the main belt. These savings can either be used to make the belt thicker, make the deck thicker, add armor elsewhere, save weight to increase speed or just to save cost outright.

"Belt Extended" is also somewhat ambiguous. Some schemes of course have a main waterline belt and an "upper belt" of lower thickness, or a main belt that tapers as one goes higher. This concept -- i.e. how tall/narrow is the main belt -- is different of course from how long it is fore and aft.

At minimum, firmly establishing the minimum length of the belt as a function of the disposition of the main battery (and relatedly making it so that one can't erect turrets forward and aft of the belt as doing so makes no sense) would help better capture the spirit of things. Ideally, there'd be an interface that gave us three buckets: main belt/upper belt with height and thickness for each, and "extended belt", which would represent bow and stern protection, if any.

 

[arkhangelsk]

8 hours ago, I Scouting Group said:

What's most missing now is a model of the length of the main belt, which should presumably run from the front edge of the foremost turret to the aft edge of the aft-most turret. Using fewer turrets with more guns per turret (3x3 vs. 4x2 or 2x4 -- that is two quads-- vs 4x2) -- or just using fewer turrets period -- should necessarily result in a shortening of the main belt. These savings can either be used to make the belt thicker, make the deck thicker, add armor elsewhere, save weight to increase speed or just to save cost outright.

"Belt Extended" is also somewhat ambiguous. Some schemes of course have a main waterline belt and an "upper belt" of lower thickness, or a main belt that tapers as one goes higher. This concept -- i.e. how tall/narrow is the main belt -- is different of course from how long it is fore and aft.

At minimum, firmly establishing the minimum length of the belt as a function of the disposition of the main battery (and relatedly making it so that one can't erect turrets forward and aft of the belt as doing so makes no sense) would help better capture the spirit of things. Ideally, there'd be an interface that gave us three buckets: main belt/upper belt with height and thickness for each, and "extended belt", which would represent bow and stern protection, if any.

 

Actually, we have a pretty good idea where the main belt is. Right now, the ship is divided into 7 blocks lengthwise. The center THREE blocks are Belt. The other blocks are Extended. Further, due to weight balancing the aft turret often HAS to go on the extremity, so basically if you want to protect that one you have to armor the entire length of the ship.

[RedParadize]

Just now, arkhangelsk said:

Actually, we have a pretty good idea where the main belt is. Right now, the ship is divided into 7 blocks lengthwise. The center THREE blocks are Belt. The other blocks are Extended. Further, due to weight balancing the aft turret often HAS to go on the extremity, so basically if you want to protect that one you have to armor the entire length of the ship.

Yep. But how many hull allow you to place turret inside of main belt? Not many, and it often imply placing the tower on the very front of the ship

[Steeltrap]

 

On 2/17/2020 at 2:17 AM, Cabusha said:

Second is the critical problem.  AON doesn't actually protect your ammunition stores.  I have been successfully detonated from an ammo explosion, via a penetrating hit, to the stern belt extended.  I would construe this as meaning a bow, deck extended, ammo penetration is possible as well.  The point of AON is to focus the protection into your critical areas, EG the machine spaces and ammunition store/barbettes.  Since it's currently not fully protecting these areas, then any ship designed around AON is a tinder box waiting to happen.

None of this is news to those of us who've been playing for a while, but it's still good to see others finding it.

As "the usual suspects" (those of us who have tended to bat this around, and @RedParadize has pointed to his excellent thread on it) have replied, not much more I need to add.

It's why you see CAs or CLs get destroyed due to bow/stern extended deck/belt armour penetrations exploding a main gun's ammunition. Even 2" casemate guns can achieve this.

Given how the AI is obsessed with steering bow on at you (honestly, makes me think of WoWS and ships sitting still in an open ocean going ahead and astern a bit, which of course makes me want to vomit) it's REALLY bad for them if they don't armour the extended zones while having main guns in them, and they often don't. Others have mentioned how the "WTF?" weight distribution system forces the placement of guns outside the normal concept of a citadel, too.

They all add up.

I have reached the point where I have little interest in playing until such time as I see the devs get around to addressing the damage and damage control models to at least some degree, including the implications for armour schemes that are associated with those things. Whatever they are planning, I would like to see the next version of them.

Without these, it's pretty pointless. I know what's likely to happen, and we've seen the interesting thread about current hot-fix realities and how to build to suit them. With the exception of some new hulls and the ability to target main and secondary guns separately (the target change being a huge improvement), it's not clear to me exactly just how much of significance has improved. Changed? Sure. Improved, however? Different question.

The devs know, too, of course. So I'm not complaining about it. I would, however, appreciate some indication of when they will get some attention.

I've played a bit since the hot-fix, but the main issues remain the same. I play a battle here and there solely for shitzngiggles, not with any serious interest. Otherwise I'm letting my fellow players make discoveries and post them for discussion. I find that more interesting than the game, frankly.

Cheers

Edited February 21, 2020 by Steeltrap

[I Scouting Group]

15 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

Actually, we have a pretty good idea where the main belt is. Right now, the ship is divided into 7 blocks lengthwise. The center THREE blocks are Belt. The other blocks are Extended. Further, due to weight balancing the aft turret often HAS to go on the extremity, so basically if you want to protect that one you have to armor the entire length of the ship.

 

I think you're right about this. I guess I'm saying that rather than have a system in which ships are arbitrarily divided into blocks, the placement of things, including the main belt, should be more fluid and dynamic and less LEGO-like. Otherwise, you're not really "designing" a ship, but rather assembling one.

[VarangianGarde]

Question for you guys, with example:

 

How can you eyeball where belt armor transitions to extended armor in the ship designer? Example below:

 

 

Armor Stats:

Edited February 21, 2020 by VarangianGarde

[cb4]

The easiest way I've found is to start the battle (you can do this as long as your ship meets the minimum requirements), and then look at the ship's diagram. As previously mentioned, the center three sections are covered by the belt.

I have found that there are a few hulls where you can actually make a pretty decent AON ship. The Japanese Large Cruiser is one of those - it has more flexibility around superstructure placement than any other hull, and is very long for its actual displacement. The British N3/G3 hull is also viable due to the ability to place the secondary tower very far back in the ship.

You can actually build a very unrealistically capable ship on a small tonnage, as the belt and deck seem to form a full box around the middle three sections of the ship (unlike real battleships, where the main armor deck was not the weather deck since an impossible amount of weight would be involved in an armor belt the entire depth of the hull.) Deck and belt armor is also unrealistically light. In addition, all the engines seem to be packed into the middle three sections, and there are no issues with space mixing in magazines with the engines as there would be in real life.

Here is a Japanese Large Cruiser which, at 35,000 tons, has 33 knots of speed, a 21.9 inch belt, 14.6 inches of deck armor (+100%), and 6 18" super heavy autoloading guns with TNT bursting charges. This ship has an immunity zone between 10,000 and 17,500 meters against its own guns. Since the idea is the main armored box cannot be penetrated, you don't need to spend extra weight on Barbette or Citadel enhancements. The ship also has excellent turret angles and good balance. But no torpedo protection, as is traditional for large cruisers (looking at you Alaska class)

I have not yet experimented with placing turrets near or on the border of the middle three sections.

Currently, by placing all turrets completely inside the middle three sections, I have never been detonated except by a point blank 17" penetration of the mid belt, and a torpedo. Penetrations and overpenetrations of the bow and stern sections only seem to cause flooding and sometimes knock out the rudder.

It really does seem as if most designs depend on modifiers to reduce the chance of an ammunition explosion, rather than actually preventing shells from reaching vital spaces.

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by cb4

[Tycondero]

9 hours ago, cb4 said:

It really does seem as if most designs depend on modifiers to reduce the chance of an ammunition explosion, rather than actually preventing shells from reaching vital spaces.

 

Yes, that is what I believe as well. It seems that the armor schemes we get are just flat modifiers that impact the chance of getting engine damage, flash fire or other effect. 

The devs are working on a new system for armor. I do hope they will introduce it soonish as it could affect the game and later campaign mode to a huge extend.

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, Tycondero said:

Yes, that is what I believe as well. It seems that the armor schemes we get are just flat modifiers that impact the chance of getting engine damage, flash fire or other effect. 

The devs are working on a new system for armor. I do hope they will introduce it soonish as it could affect the game and later campaign mode to a huge extend.

I hope they use a mesh instead of just a model of the existing armour scheme and just make that slightly more complicated as a mesh made of several primitives or from one allows for greater flexibilty and makes the armour model far more realistic. Also we need a internal armour model as well and also having model of internal objects (transmission, engines, ammorack, storage, fuel etc) would again allow for better and more realistic and consistent damage effects and mechanics in-general.

[1MajorKoenig]

On 2/17/2020 at 6:39 PM, RedParadize said:

The 3 middle section are the main belt and deck, the two on each extremity are the extended ones. couple month ago I made a topic about this. Here is a image the illustrate it:

There is a error on the right battleship. There is no turret on the rear, so no ammo there. Also, I believe that ammunition depot are now in the middle row instead of the bottom.

Anyways, if you want to do a AoN, stick to middle 3 row for turrets. That way ammunition depot will be protected. As shown in the image of my previous post, the front will get utterly annihilated. The rear should be kind of safe if you stay angled.

That is a great piece of information!

 

Thanks and +1