HE Overpenning?!

[Steeltrap]

On 12/2/2020 at 9:31 AM, Skeksis said:

There's only one hit rate for both shells, you can't remove part of the equation if both shells are using the same equation e.g.  "removing HE ricochet/over-pen" just for HE.

A LONG time ago I laid out some thoughts about the nature of the mechanics the devs were building.

I made some comments based on the fact that I am a contract business consultant who specialises in all things process related. In English that means I get hired on contract to go into large companies (they're all banks or insurance companies) and design/redesign their processes, regardless of what they may be (the skills required don't change based on the subject).

I'll see if I can find it, because it addresses the very point you're dsicsussing.

In my example I said I thought the system would have compartmentalised sub-processes, such as the hit calculation which then passes the results to the armour/penetration interaction and then to the damage calculation and application. The advantage here is you can change parts of ONE while keeping stability in the others. Indeed it was with respect to some rather excessive consequences of an update that I was discussing the matter because it bothered me they seemed to be producing results either they didn't anticipate or didn't anticipate that the players would find them bizarre/unacceptable (one questions how well they understood their own mechanics, the other questions how well they understand what "realism" means in this genre). As an aside, If they've NOT done it this way, I think they're nuts, lol.

Point is that the hit rate and the armour calculations OUGHT to be entirely distinct matters. There's absolutely no reason why HE ricochet/over-pen can't be removed. In fact we all but know it HAS been for ricochet as HE shells NEVER RICOCHET. Whether that's because it's a null check for ricochet which excludes it from that calculation or because it has a false value that means it does the calculation but never produces a '= ricochet' result is kind of moot other than as a matter of curiosity. Either way, it's pretty clear they can exclude, include or alter all sorts of values of the pen mechanics without affecting the hit calculations (we've seen them change one or both elements independently).

Depending on the shell and velocity, it's also technically possible for an HE shell to explode without any penetration OR not to explode because the shell itself is damaged excessively due to what it strikes. Clearly An HE shell that strikes a main gun turret of a BB ought not have a certain pen/over-pen result. There has to be a "did nothing effective". I know WG has a blast calculation for HE shells, both in WoWS and WoT, and they can damage certain things without penetrating armour per se.

In fact it's an irony that WG generally built some quite sophisticated mechanics when it came to shell performance, particularly with respect to tanks (I suspect they merely altered them for ships, which is an error because there really are some important difference between 16"/406mm shells and 6"/152mm shells), yet they take those and apply them to a remarkably arcade, brain dead total system in WoWS. When WoWS was in Alpha, ships had an additional floatation bar along with the 'general health'. WG removed it because they felt the average potato would "find it too complicated" (that quote is accurate).

On 12/2/2020 at 4:53 AM, Skeksis said:

WOWS and War Thunder sell themselves on the realism experience, why can’t UAD?

As to why "realism" matters? I find it hard to believe anyone can take a blatantly arcade yippee shoot game like WoWS seriously when it claims "realism", One look at any of their ads, or any game play, would quickly show you that the ONLY thing WoWS can claim when it comes to realism is the ship models (and even there the scale is wonky).

THIS game, a one-player game with tech research and ships the player builds themselves is so clearly NOT an arcade shooter that to make the comparison surprises me as it's frankly disingenuous to do so. In a multiplayer online shooter, it's the other players that offer the challenge for good or for ill. Realism is antithetical to balanced competition between classes when it comes to naval combat. WoWS is grossly UNREALISTIC precisely because it needs to be. THIS game ought to be none of that as there's absolutely no reason within the game play itself that it needs to be to function effectively.

As I've said all the time, however, I do agree and accept that there will always be compromises, not only because there can BE no such thing as "realism" in a computer game (if 16" shells start landing within a few hundred metres of my place, for example, I'd expect you'd all see it on the international news, LOL), but also certain "near enough is good enough" is perfectly valid and to be expected. Indeed one mustn't let the perfect become the enemy of the good as is so often said in development and projects generally.

The important practical matters become, as it pretty much always the case, where to draw the line at "good enough" vs "unacceptable".  I've mentioned it many times before, but I think it is as important to define the latter as it is the former, although I think of them as the "musts" and "must nots" as it's simpler. So I think we're really arguing at the margins of whether we think something is good enough to satisfy the "must" requirements (a functioning armour and shell interaction, for example) vs the "must nots" such as small calibre (or arguably larger ones, too) HE over-pens through the midships side of a merchant ship.

[As an aside, It has always surprised me how little the "must nots" are discussed even in multinational corporations, yet the consequences can be pretty dire. A great example are the sorts of things seen in the Royal Commission into Banking etc in Australia where money laundering safeguards were not implemented correctly and cost two banks a combined AUS$2 billion in agreed fines with the government. Oops!]

Cheers

[Cabusha]

On 11/24/2020 at 6:12 PM, Steeltrap said:

I've been raising this for the best part of a year. In fact I've a bunch of screen snips of various scenarios aimed directly at questioning the interaction of the armour, pen and damage systems I was going to lay out in the "Issues" thread, but haven't raised the enthusiasm to take the time required.

You'll see the same thing even with 4" to 6" HE shells hitting transports.

I believe it is due to the crude mechanism regarding how pen/overpen/ricochet is calculated. Have you noticed HE shells NEVER ricochet? Same issue.

1. When a hit is scored, the system seems to check for ricochets first. It appears HE shells are exempt from this.

2. The system seems to have a set if thresholds along the lines of checking to see if the pen exceeds the effective armour thickness. If it exceeds by "too much", however, then it becomes an "over-pen" and does 10% the damage a pen would in the same situation.

3. As far as we know (someone looked into the coding in more detail), the HE has a pen of 1/3rd that of the AP.

Thus the problem becomes a large calibre HE round may be treated as having 7" pen at relatively close range because the AP has 21". If it hits something with 0 effective armour, it falls outside the "Goldilocks zone of penetration" (that's an unfortunate image, LMAO) and thus becomes an over pen. More annoying still, it doesn't matter WHERE it hits. You can hit a ship from astern such that the shell ought to be travelling the full length of the ship and it STILL treats it as an over-pen.

In another thread I pointed out that the famous USN 16" "super heavy" AP shell had a fuse that required only as much force as would be applied by striking 2"/5cm of armour plate at 90 degrees, or as little as 1" at 60 degrees.

The very idea that large calibre AP shells "ricochet" from the 1" bow of a light cruiser in any but stratospherically rare instances yet HE detonate perfectly under the exact same conditions is a load of BS straight out of WoWS. It's also why I immediately force my guns to use HE whenever a ship is doing the whole "angling" thing, again another mechanism disturbingly familiar to any WoWS players. Other people around here disagree with me on this, but, to be bluntl, my many years (35+ on and off) of reading all sorts of sources suggests they're incorrect.

It's another core mechanic I see as needing some attention. It's currently WAY too crude.

If it's because we're dealing with another instance of "placeholder, good enough for now" core mechanism, fine. Provided, of course, the devs indeed see it as such and plan to update it to something more accurate.

Well, that is if they want to continue to mention "realism" anywhere, lol.

Unfortunately, I've seen far too many games where "placeholder" mechanics linger into the core product.  Considering the lack of development on the armor, engine spaces, and penetration mechanics, I doubt we're going to see anything better in the final product.  I'd like to be wrong, but I suspect we're just going to end up with a WOWs "light" offline mode.  

[Cptbarney]

16 hours ago, Cabusha said:

Unfortunately, I've seen far too many games where "placeholder" mechanics linger into the core product.  Considering the lack of development on the armor, engine spaces, and penetration mechanics, I doubt we're going to see anything better in the final product.  I'd like to be wrong, but I suspect we're just going to end up with a WOWs "light" offline mode.  

If we push for it, they will do it. Armour, internals, engine, penetration and maybe even physics need some/alot or all the work, plus the designer as well which is also pretty limited.

I think they only just realised the scope of their game and now are digging in. Hopefully they will rework the relevant areas and add in areas (internal armour and also internal components) to the game.

If i was them, i would just focus on getting the core mechanics done to a good standard while also adding in hulls and parts from each era (1920 and below need hulls too be fair) since the designer will have nothing to do with coding anyways, and maybe a graphic designer could do more icons and make the game more pretty.

[CapnAvont1015]

4 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

If we push for it, they will do it. Armour, internals, engine, penetration and maybe even physics need some/alot or all the work, plus the designer as well which is also pretty limited.

I think they only just realised the scope of their game and now are digging in. Hopefully they will rework the relevant areas and add in areas (internal armour and also internal components) to the game.

If i was them, i would just focus on getting the core mechanics done to a good standard while also adding in hulls and parts from each era (1920 and below need hulls too be fair) since the designer will have nothing to do with coding anyways, and maybe a graphic designer could do more icons and make the game more pretty.

Physics yeah. It is ridiculous that a ship leaning hard from flooding can still shoot perfectly from miles away.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Reminder to all the internal spaces modelling enthusiasts..
This here is going to be a naval warfare strategy game, with just elements of simulation. It's not a warship sim.
This means, i think so at least, that this game does not need a very detailed ship model and damage simulation. Just like RTW, it needs just "good enough" system, but unlike RTW this goes for realtime 3d battles, so it's requirement for "good enough" is a bit higher.

From this point of view I personally will be fully content with semi random chance based damage model, that just accounts for the most obviously visible aspects of the 3d battle, like creating damage to the ship part that was actually hit, and avoiding stuff like lengthwise overpens of HE.
It will do as long as it just produces believable results that somehow correlate with history, and not fully counter it as now.
With this i'd like to see a ship model that actually looks like ship, allows enough flexibility to freely implement any layout that might be considered for appropriate tech level (so no hardpoints, hardlimits, predefined superstructures etc etc), and accounts for a few most essential parameters of a warship "anatomy". Like the fact that engines, gun turrets and magazines will (almost) always be under the main armour and cannot be popped by a 2" hit, not the whole superstructure matters (conning tower and rangefinders should be separate entities from the rest really), you need enough space for the crew so can't have guns everywhere, etc.

hmm, i'm curious of what exactly people want from the game. should i make a poll or something?

Edited December 6, 2020 by Cpt.Hissy

[Cptbarney]

11 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Reminder to all the internal spaces modelling enthusiasts..
This here is going to be a naval warfare strategy game, with just elements of simulation. It's not a warship sim.
This means, i think so at least, that this game does not need a very detailed ship model and damage simulation. Just like RTW, it needs just "good enough" system, but unlike RTW this goes for realtime 3d battles, so it's requirement for "good enough" is a bit higher.

From this point of view I personally will be fully content with semi random chance based damage model, that just accounts for the most obviously visible aspects of the 3d battle, like creating damage to the ship part that was actually hit, and avoiding stuff like lengthwise overpens of HE.
It will do as long as it just produces believable results that somehow correlate with history, and not fully counter it as now.
With this i'd like to see a ship model that actually looks like ship, allows enough flexibility to freely implement any layout that might be considered for appropriate tech level (so no hardpoints, hardlimits, predefined superstructures etc etc), and accounts for a few most essential parameters of a warship "anatomy". Like the fact that engines, gun turrets and magazines will (almost) always be under the main armour and cannot be popped by a 2" hit, not the whole superstructure matters (conning tower and rangefinders should be separate entities from the rest really), you need enough space for the crew so can't have guns everywhere, etc.

hmm, i'm curious of what exactly people want from the game. should i make a poll or something?

Having internals is an element of simulation, i dont see how that would suddenly make the game a warship sim, since it is no where near that at all. The reason for the anatomy is so that it is easier for the game to determine what it hit and what effects should occur next and also simulates damage that much better.

War thunder does it despite being semi-arcade/semi-realistic, even world of warships has internal armour plates and sections, something this game lacks entirely. Also current armour schemes are pretty basic with the belt covering the entire citadel rather than being several strips or sections for example. 

Also allows us to have more freedom with building with ships which lets face it is the entire point of this game in the first place, along with realism and alt-history and having more control on what we can make doesn't hurt at all.

I want the design to give me as much freedom as possible, while also being limited sensibly depending on the game mode to what can produce (so custom battles anything and everything, campaign restricted to how much moneh you have etc.) with mechanics that are realistic or very realistic, but doesn't detract from the fun and turn the game into a bore-fest. 

The game has got a long way to go, but i hope it will be worth it 3-4 years down the line. This sort of thing will take time, but we will have to push for it together on the forums.

Although it seems the devs are aware of the problems, it just depends what they are focusing on atm.

[Cpt.Hissy]

War Thunder worked on vehicle simulation alone for years, as did WG on their arcades, and these are huge, filthy rich companies, you don't probably even imagine how rich they are. I know, i had some.. deals with both.
This game here has wider and a bit different scope, and team is small. They have to choose.
You want a decent game in couple of years or all your wishes but never?

That said I myself came here for shipbuilding aspect primarily, i'm kind of ship modeller as well, but understanding things above i'm content with necessary compromises. I just wish these will be smart enough to not kill this project.
What I really want is freedom to nudge the general warship design ideology within historically meaningful frame and put them to use, to replay the history in different way. Not at all interested in space superbattleships and can live without perfected to the last rivet model of certain turbine or turret in this case.

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Cpt.Hissy

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

16 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Reminder to all the internal spaces modelling enthusiasts..
This here is going to be a naval warfare strategy game, with just elements of simulation. It's not a warship sim.
This means, i think so at least, that this game does not need a very detailed ship model and damage simulation. Just like RTW, it needs just "good enough" system, but unlike RTW this goes for realtime 3d battles, so it's requirement for "good enough" is a bit higher.

From this point of view I personally will be fully content with semi random chance based damage model, that just accounts for the most obviously visible aspects of the 3d battle, like creating damage to the ship part that was actually hit, and avoiding stuff like lengthwise overpens of HE.
It will do as long as it just produces believable results that somehow correlate with history, and not fully counter it as now.
With this i'd like to see a ship model that actually looks like ship, allows enough flexibility to freely implement any layout that might be considered for appropriate tech level (so no hardpoints, hardlimits, predefined superstructures etc etc), and accounts for a few most essential parameters of a warship "anatomy". Like the fact that engines, gun turrets and magazines will (almost) always be under the main armour and cannot be popped by a 2" hit, not the whole superstructure matters (conning tower and rangefinders should be separate entities from the rest really), you need enough space for the crew so can't have guns everywhere, etc.

hmm, i'm curious of what exactly people want from the game. should i make a poll or something?

Um, SSI's Burning Steel series had internals in ships that took damage according to hit-locations and penetration and stuff (and required you to manage repair parties to boot) in friggin 1992.

Granted, they had a (much) larger team working on the game, but then again, there are tools today, those guys wouldn't have dreamed of back then.

 

Edit: I don't remember, but didn't TF 1942 also have internals?

Edited December 7, 2020 by The_Real_Hawkeye