Problem with the new penetration model+newish damage model, aka HE is super OP.

[neph]

Quickly defining some new terms:

• Juicy shells are those with low penetration characteristics, quick fuzes, and big bursting charges.
• Dry shells are those with high penetration characteristics, long fuzes, and smaller bursting charges.

Now,

Right now, the best way to kill a superbattleship is by selecting the juiciest shell possible which can still punch through it's belt/aft amour. The juicier, the better--if it's too dry, it'll overpenetrate & that's worthless to us. Whether that's a semi-ballistic AP shell or a high cap HE doesn't really matter. All that matters is you get through that belt/aft armor and blow up in the ship. When this happens, you'll deal up to several 100s of points of damage, and quickly destroy all stern/bow hull sections.

This kills the ship. Yes, you heard me right, you can completely destroy a 100,000+ ton superbattleship, killing its engines, entirely tearing the whole thing apart, by blowing up its stern & bow. They don't even have to flood. Why is this possible? Well, the kind of hits which in real life would punch a huge hole in the front (which would, of course, slow the ship) can bleed through the thousand-foot length of the ship thanks to the newish (as of the past year) damage model, which lets damage dealt to completely destroyed sections transfer to adjacent ones. This means that somehow, by poking holes in the front, you can completely ruin the engineering sections sheltered behind 25+" of Krupp steel, because the damage bleeds around it.

In all likelihood, dealing such damage would probably make the front fall off! I'd guess there wouldn't be much left to hit, much less sink the ship.

In short, damage bleed is kind of a problem for big ships. The fact that we can now select super juicy shells just makes this clear.

My suggestion: either tune damage bleed to be a factor which decreases with displacement × number of bulkheads × bulkhead reinforcement (as a proxy for hull strength), or make it so you can only damage adjacent sections, but when adjacent sections are destroyed due to damage bleed, it does not bleed beyond that to the next-adjacent ones.

Thanks for reading!

Edited March 4, 2022 by neph

[Spitfire_97]

A quick fix would be to make damage bleed dependant on angle, if you're firing into a ship facing you bow on, yeah shells will penetrate deep into the ship once they get past the armour. If you're firing broadside to broadside, you're just going to over-pen out the other side of the bow

Beyond that though, if the front has been hit so much it would fall off, any shells that would have hit the bow would now be striking deeper into the core of the ship. It's not like destroyed sections would offer any resistance to an incoming shell once the armour and structural integrity have been degraded to zero, the shell will pass through with all of its energy intact. And once the core of the ship has been destroyed (ie bulkheads have been breached, structural elements have been torn and broken) the shells will pass even further through the hull into the machinery spaces. I don't think it's unreasonable for a 15in+ shell to travel all the way through a severely damaged ship, the machinery spaces aren't protected by 25 inches of Krupp steel anymore, they're protected by the shattered remains of what once was 25 inches of Krupp steel.

What would make the difference is having proper citadel simulation. In ships with the required citadel level an additional internal bulkhead should be simulated that offers the full thickness of armour that would've historically been in place deep within the ship. That way shells have to destroy the bow armour first, destroy the forward sections completely, and THEN have to wear down, degrade and eventually breach the transverse armoured bulkhead protecting the citadel. That way, just like you said, even after the front falls off shells still have 25 inches of Krupp steel to deal with before the machinery spaces are breached

[Littorio]

On 3/4/2022 at 11:16 AM, Spitfire_97 said:

A quick fix would be to make damage bleed dependant on angle, if you're firing into a ship facing you bow on, yeah shells will penetrate deep into the ship once they get past the armour. If you're firing broadside to broadside, you're just going to over-pen out the other side of the bow

Beyond that though, if the front has been hit so much it would fall off, any shells that would have hit the bow would now be striking deeper into the core of the ship. It's not like destroyed sections would offer any resistance to an incoming shell once the armour and structural integrity have been degraded to zero, the shell will pass through with all of its energy intact. And once the core of the ship has been destroyed (ie bulkheads have been breached, structural elements have been torn and broken) the shells will pass even further through the hull into the machinery spaces. I don't think it's unreasonable for a 15in+ shell to travel all the way through a severely damaged ship, the machinery spaces aren't protected by 25 inches of Krupp steel anymore, they're protected by the shattered remains of what once was 25 inches of Krupp steel.

What would make the difference is having proper citadel simulation. In ships with the required citadel level an additional internal bulkhead should be simulated that offers the full thickness of armour that would've historically been in place deep within the ship. That way shells have to destroy the bow armour first, destroy the forward sections completely, and THEN have to wear down, degrade and eventually breach the transverse armoured bulkhead protecting the citadel. That way, just like you said, even after the front falls off shells still have 25 inches of Krupp steel to deal with before the machinery spaces are breached

Very nice description of citadel armoring. I think that is the solution to this "juicy" issue - properly modeled citadels. I believe that right now all they do is add stats. I think we are still a long way off from actual ship model changes however. I think this would require a lot of code. Are magazines or engine spaces actually even physical, or is there just a certain chance that any one hit will cook off the mag or crack an engine?

[neph]

8 hours ago, Littorio said:

Very nice description of citadel armoring. I think that is the solution to this "juicy" issue - properly modeled citadels. I believe that right now all they do is add stats. I think we are still a long way off from actual ship model changes however. I think this would require a lot of code. Are magazines or engine spaces actually even physical, or is there just a certain chance that any one hit will cook off the mag or crack an engine?

It's definitely at least constrained to only certain sections of the ship, but I think it's more than that. I'm pretty sure that putting turrets on the extreme fore or aft (past the main belt) means you're really likely to blow up when you get penetrated below that turret. Not sure about engineering--it might just be "middle 4 waterline sections" of the ship.

Edited March 6, 2022 by neph

[slightlytreasonous]

56 minutes ago, neph said:

It's definitely at least constrained to only certain sections of the ship, but I think it's more than that. I'm pretty sure that putting turrets on the extreme fore or aft (past the main belt) means you're really likely to blow up when you get penetrated below that turret. Not sure about engineering--it might just be "middle 4 waterline sections" of the ship.

The devs said that machinery location is based off of where you put your funnels, but ive never really tested it and I don't know how it works when they're all spread out.