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Plunging fire and historical armour values.


Draco

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I don't know about you lot but I'm loving the update ❤️

There is now a legit reason to go for few or even minimum bulkheads if you know what you're doing and why you're doing it with the over-pen rework, deck hits result in partials much more often at longer ranges when facing heavy deck armour, and the hits that do get through are more survivable, and best of all I haven't had a single flash fire yet in spite of staying well over 20km in all my test runs!

Only negatives I found was a "too many threads" crash in my second battle. Do I need to extract a log or does the launcher keep the records and pass them on to the team on it's own?

Also, two of the secondary mounts on the US super BB can only take 2" guns now.

For some reason I can't upload images that take up more than 4.3kb right now, so can't post a screenshot, but it's two of the smaller AA mounts at the top of the superstructure.

I'll keep testing tomorrow to see if flash fires still occur when you specifically don't have enough armour to realistically prevent them, but for now I am overwhelmingly positive! My compliments to the programmers!
 

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yep, flash fires definitely still occur, just had two in a row whilst testing a 5" turret top as a control experiment.

Still can't post screens, but one was a deck pen from a 20" std shell at 30km and one was a turret top pen at 33km.

Maybe they are actually a bit too survivable, as both ships still had half hp left afterwards, but there is no need to address that right now imo. The devs can sort out minor balancing tweaks related to the rework at their own pace in upcoming patches. No stress.

We should probably keep testing to see if we can generate more flash fires from smaller guns than the mighty 20", and post our findings in this thread. Oh and somebody should tell stealth that maximum bulkheads now has drawbacks, otherwise his next video is potentially going to involve a lot of frustration! Happy beta testing everybody!

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Alright so these are the secondary mounts I talked about. Not a pressing concern at all just letting the devs know.

Screenshot-5.jpg
Next image is one of the flash fires I got in my control experiment testing 5" turret tops at long range (30km), showing that flash fires still do occur when they should, at least when hit by 20" shells.
Screenshot-6.jpg
And on the same note, here's an AI design also paying dearly for not adding enough turret top armour and getting hit close to the centre barbette at ca. 25km distance.Screenshot-7.jpg
Here's her armour profile (clearly on the lighter side).
Screenshot-1.jpg
And here's the profile of the shell that did it.
Screenshot-8.jpg
I'd like to add that this was a 4v4, and all four british battleships were eventually killed off by flash fires, and some of them at much closer range than the above, so at least in terms of the really really big guns, flash fires are still alive and well, and have not been nerfed out of existence in case anyone was afraid of that.
We need to keep testing to see if something smaller like a 14", 15" or 16" can still cause flash fires when they realistically should, but the problem of flash fires occurring with alarming frequency when they realistically shouldn't seems definitively solved by the rework :)feel free to pitch in guys. The more data the better.

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Even the latest really built ships couldn't offer full protection from their guns anymore, it was more of "we probably won't instantly explode" than "immunity". I think it'll be fine both from realistic and gamey point if high tech guns would be nearly - or at all - impossible to stop by any realistically possible amount of contemporary armour. This will kinda recreate the gun vs armour race that brought dreadnoughts into existence. (and partially was responsible for their decline).

Why I mention this.. Maybe you shouldn't test historical armours against totally anime Planet Buster Cannons after all.
Especially considering that their pen curves seem to heavily favour "plunging fire", they in fact do have deck pens skewed up even more absurdly than all other guns.
Try smaller guns.

Just overall, 1940 tech and anime guns is a thing that you'll see at the very end of your playthrough or not even meet at all (if campaign progression happens to be anywhere near as flexible as we hope)
Most of the game's timeline you'll deal with much older stuff. And it seems to be almost completely forgotten about by both devs and community. They need more attention.

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Just looking at that 19" gun table, the values on deck pen look more inline with real world trends with pen. About 1/2 the pen value (at max range) of side armor at point blank range. This should make designs more realistic for sure. Time will tell if more tweaks are needed, but looks good to me so far. 

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Well i must say i like the changes Nick made to the deck armor. The interesting part is when in the past i would sail with 15" or 16" inch guns against 20" and imo i would be in good position to win the battle. Now at long ranges 20" inch guns will dominate the battlefield and force me to rush the enemy and engage them at medium ranges. For me this is great news.  20" deadly at long ranges, but the 15" rate of fire at close quarters will also be deadly.

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@Cpt.Hissy agreed, I've been testing 16" guns for the past couple hours, here's a quick summary.

Test one: 1930, 4v4 modern battleships. France (AI) V Germany (me).

Guns tested: 16" Mk.III SHS White powder propellant.

Enemy armour profile:
Screenshot_12_1.jpg

Enemy gun profile (important data because of ammo load, gun calibre and propellant all affecting flash fire chances):
Mk.III 16" LS White powder propellant with low ammo loadout (forgot to screenshot it).

Results: in total my ships scored 6 direct main gun penetrations, resulting in two main gun turrets knocked out. No flash fires.

Test two: 1930, 4v4 modern battleships. France (AI) V Germany (me).

Guns tested: 16" Mk.III SHS White powder propellant.

Enemy armour profile:
Screenshot_15.jpg

Enemy gun profile:
Screenshot_18.jpg

Results: 11 direct main gun penetrations, resulting in 4 main gun turrets knocked out. No flash fires.

Test three: 1930, 4v4 modern battleships. France (AI) V Germany (me).

Guns tested: 16" Mk.III SHS White powder propellant.

Enemy armour profile:
Screenshot_27.jpg

Enemy gun profile:
Screenshot_28_4.jpg

Results: 9 main gun penetrations, resulting in three turrets knocked out, one ammo detonation, one main gun damaged, and one flash fire finally incurred at 10km dist.

Conclusions: I concede that the hotfix might have reduced flash fire chances on mid-to-low sized calibres a bit too much.
Granted all ship designs encountered were running low ammo, but none of their armour schemes were really strong enough to deflect much of anything beyond 15-16km dist, and 26 full turret pens for one flash fire is if nothing else a little underwhelming.
I still consider it the sole negative side effect of an overall more positive change, but yeah if there's anything left that might need some balance tweaks it would be this.
@Nick Thomadis let me know if you want me to keep testing and reporting, otherwise I think I have spent quite enough time telling you and the team how to do your job, and just hope it was equally as useful as it was annoying :)

Edited by Draco
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On 3/9/2021 at 5:21 PM, Draco said:

Right @Nick Thomadis there is no immediate need to fix this before release, I concur with as much.

As with expecting a historical deck armour value like 6-8" to make you completely immune at theoretical ranges, no one ever expected that. We all agree it would be unrealistic if it worked 100% every single time.
However, currently there is no point whatsoever in equipping any deck armour at all, and it sucks.
I've had 15" guns bounce on my 0" extended deck only to then pen my 14" mid deck at the exact same range seconds later.
I've bumped up deck values to the order of 16-17" (over two yamatos worth of deck armour) only to still get penned at 15km or below by medium sized guns.

I vehemently disagree with this statement, and the thread is by now full of evidence to the contrary. We have done multiple analytic studies displaying that the opposite is true.
I think the true crux of the matter might be that we simply disagree on what constitutes a "full deck pen", which in regular naval discourse only constitutes penning all defensive layers to enter the citadel and cause catastrophic damage to boilers, magazines ect. If by saying "full deck pen" you are also inferring hits that pen the upper "sacrificial" plates but fail to enter the citadel, then yes such hits should "pen" inside the immunity zone but do significantly less damage than "full" pens, which, as we have done our best to display with as many in game examples as possible, isn't currently the case.

No. As stated earlier one should expect such hits to do about a third or fourth of a full deck pen with no chance at hurting engines or magazines, so if a 16"er does 200dmg with a full pen post-modifiers, then about 50-80dmg is what we're after, and the magazines should have no chance to detonate.
Again this is not what is happening in game.

 

Just this morning I got a flash fire from a 15" gun penetrating 14.5" (again, almost two yamatos worth) of deck at 20km distance. It completely disintegrated the ship well inside it's theoretical immunity zone, which is exactly what you just said can't happen. I really think I am just about running out of different ways of telling you that what you're saying is the opposite of what is happening...

Apologies, I don't mean to insult anyone, I just want this game to be as good as it can be.


 

 

Armor in general isn't too effective currently.

 

I made an experiment, with a Battleship that had NOTHING, but all of its weight dedicated solely to Krupp IV armor thickness. Using the 130,000 ton ship hull.

 

It had a 1,200mm belt and belt extended, and a 400mm thick deck and deck extended, if I recall correctly.

 

Obviously this wouldn't be usable in combat, as it was armed with just two 279mm guns (required to launch) and 16 knot top speed, not a single module installed... all the weight went for the armor, to experiment.

 

And it still got sunk by ships armed with 14 inch guns. Penetrations, partial penetrations... I put the battle at x5 speed and it took just 2-3 minutes for them to sink the experimental battleship.

 

I feel like armor isn't really effective xD Having a 305, 420 or 700mm thick belt doesn't really seem to make any difference, and deck armor, there doesn't seem to be a single thickness where it can stop anything at any range.

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39 minutes ago, Draco said:

@SPANISH_AVENGERwhen did you make this test? Before or after the hotfix?

Both... I am obsessed with armor hahah and I find it a bit sad and strange that no matter the value there's always "partial pen" damage

However, if that turns out to be realistic, I won't complain. It's just that I find it to be a bit odd that ships with 330mm guns can sink a ship with 1200mm of armor just through partial pen damage (I did that test yesterday), except for some occassional blocks and bounces, and sometimes even full penetrations...

I mean, I know partial pen damage is a realistic thing, but right now they seem to have a too large margin IMO... like, I can get that a 800mm pen shell at a range deals partial pen damage to 850mm worth of armor, but a 600mm pen shell at a range dealing partial pen damage to +1200mm worth of armor...?

I know all these armor values are unrealistically high for any practical combat suitable ship, but I thought it was the only way to test the armor penetration and damage models, through extreme values

Edited by SPANISH_AVENGER
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Well, I personally find that partial pen values are a bit low. Consider that this was technically a "partial" pen from a 15" shell, but it still almost sank the ship in question anyway.
Screenshot_29.jpg
Armour cannot render you immune to damage no matter how much of it you have, because you can't armour every inch of your ship and even if you do you might still get results like the above.

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If you look at historical armour profiles, they're usually something like this IRL.
Queen_Elizabeth_class_diagrams_Brasseys_
Note that this girl had both extended belt and deck, but the armour still didn't cover the entire ship (the white areas in the top section have no armour at all), since the weight penalty is too much on something as big as a battleship to ever make that kind of protection level worthwhile. Literally all historical capital warships ran with some level of all-or-nothing configuration if you can call it that, where armour would cover the ship's vitals, and in earlier cases thin down over less vital parts, or in later cases not armour them at all.

So yeah, if you ever manage to build a battleship that is immune to damage entirely then you have built a very unrealistic ship indeed.

Hope that clears things up.

Edited by Draco
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On partial pen, just remember, that you're being hit with literal ton of steel travelling at several times speed of sound.
Enough armour probably can stop that from cutting through smoothly to explode somewhere within, but nothing realistic can take such a hit and stay intact. In fact even deflected shot will still cause enough damage to send the ship to the docks afterwards. Goal of protection is not to shrug off incoming shells, but to keep the ship afloat and mostly functional for long enough to finish the battle and get home.

Due to how complex ship's structure is, as well as all the physics involved in artillery hits, it's impossible to model all possible outcomes in a video game by honest simulation. That's where RNG comes helpful. It's very far from reality at first glance, but it can ENABLE rare unusual cases that did happen in reality (such as hood'ing a Hood), and with careful balancing of chances it may FEEL more realistic than something like war thunder damage model.
 

with that, i still find penetration graphs of the game absurd.

Edited by Cpt.Hissy
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/12/2021 at 6:05 AM, Draco said:

If you look at historical armour profiles, they're usually something like this IRL.
Queen_Elizabeth_class_diagrams_Brasseys_
Note that this girl had both extended belt and deck, but the armour still didn't cover the entire ship (the white areas in the top section have no armour at all), since the weight penalty is too much on something as big as a battleship to ever make that kind of protection level worthwhile. Literally all historical capital warships ran with some level of all-or-nothing configuration if you can call it that, where armour would cover the ship's vitals, and in earlier cases thin down over less vital parts, or in later cases not armour them at all.

So yeah, if you ever manage to build a battleship that is immune to damage entirely then you have built a very unrealistic ship indeed.

Hope that clears things up.

This is true historically... but it's not the way armor layouts work in the game. There is no upper belt, no torpedo bulkhead, no main deck and armored deck, no armored bulkheads - there is no citadel that conforms to the layout of your main armament - there is just a box... the middle 3 sections of your ship have whatever you specify as the 'deck' armor on top, and whatever you specify as the 'belt' armor on the sides. The outer 2 sections on either end have whatever you specify as the 'deck extended' on top, and whatever you specify as the 'extended belt' on the sides. This is always the case. The different citadel types have no effect on this - all they do is change costs, weights, armor strengths, and probabilities as specified in the tool tip.

The armor values in these sections is the only thing that impacts whether you get a mid deck/mid belt/extended deck/extended belt penetration.

You'll still get partial AP penetrations, if the shells hitting don't have enough penetration but have a significant fraction of what is needed. However, this isn't really what will get you killed if your ship has extreme levels of armor. If the AI determines that it cannot penetrate your ship, it will shoot HE instead, and HE requires far less penetration to get a partial pen, and larger caliber HE shells do huge amount of damage from a partial pen. A HE partial pen will do far, far more damage than an AP partial pen, which is very unrealistic against heavy armor.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/21/2021 at 10:40 PM, cb4 said:

This is true historically... but it's not the way armor layouts work in the game. There is no upper belt, no torpedo bulkhead, no main deck and armored deck, no armored bulkheads - there is no citadel that conforms to the layout of your main armament - there is just a box... the middle 3 sections of your ship have whatever you specify as the 'deck' armor on top, and whatever you specify as the 'belt' armor on the sides. The outer 2 sections on either end have whatever you specify as the 'deck extended' on top, and whatever you specify as the 'extended belt' on the sides. This is always the case. The different citadel types have no effect on this - all they do is change costs, weights, armor strengths, and probabilities as specified in the tool tip.

The armor values in these sections is the only thing that impacts whether you get a mid deck/mid belt/extended deck/extended belt penetration.

You'll still get partial AP penetrations, if the shells hitting don't have enough penetration but have a significant fraction of what is needed. However, this isn't really what will get you killed if your ship has extreme levels of armor. If the AI determines that it cannot penetrate your ship, it will shoot HE instead, and HE requires far less penetration to get a partial pen, and larger caliber HE shells do huge amount of damage from a partial pen. A HE partial pen will do far, far more damage than an AP partial pen, which is very unrealistic against heavy armor.

You're right about almost all of that, but bear in mind that the game aims to recreate historical combat. The box setup is a necessary simplification which intends to approximate reality.
Maybe someday down the line we will get more accurate citadel models, but for now the box system suffices.
With regards to your HE comment, this is actually meant to simulate the effects of having an incomplete armour layout like the one pictured. An armour piercing shell would fly straight through that and explode more or less harmlessly in the sea of the other side IRL, whereas an HE shell (which has a lot more explosive on board than an AP shell due to the increased shell thickness required to penetrate battleship grade armour, and thus necessitating a lower explosives-to-mass ratio) would explode more or less on impact and do exponentially more damage to unarmoured parts.
In this manner, what you're complaining about with HE doing more damage on partials is actually the best way to make the currently imperfect armour layout models feel closer to reality, because obviously the devs are aware that the armour schemes currently don't function like real ones and therefore need to compensate for it with mechanics such as this one.
Again, if anyone actually made an armour scheme exactly like the ones we currently have ingame where you can effectively armour every inch of a given ship, the ship would weigh and cost three-to-four times what an otherwise identical warship with a normal armour scheme does, and you can hopefully see why building one über-battleship with that kind of armour will never have the same strategic usefulness as building three to four times that number of just as fast and just as well armed and still sufficiently armoured battleships. So rather than viewing that as the "reality" that should be acknowledged and balanced after, instead try to view it for what it is, namely a limited hitbox model with mechanics built in to give a sense of what it really should be.

Edited by Draco
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