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Post by scheerpower on Jun 30, 2019 7:46:39 GMT -6
I'll just post something I said in the last thread about shell damage (quote isn't working right but here's what the devs said):
Jun 5, 2019 11:11:27 GMT -4 williammiller said:
"I don't believe I can get much into the internals at this time, my apologies.
It takes a huge amount of time, research, statistical analysis, number crunching, testing, and frankly expertise to create the formulas/data/systems used in our games, and there are other companies (i.e. competitors) that would love to be able to utilize all that in their own products."
While I appreciate that you guys do a ton of research into source materials and think carefully about how to make the systems in-game work in a realistic way...90% of that is wasted on the player if we don't have any idea how it's calculated. We might as well be playing a game that splits hits into a few categories (near miss, light hit, and heavy hit, for instance) and just assigns them to one of those at random. I know that's not what you guys are doing, and I trust you to model things with the highest practical degree of fidelity, but as a player I need to be able to understand the mechanics of the game if I'm going to play it intelligently. It's not enough to just say, "Things will be realistic, now design your ships" because RtW2 is not a perfect simulation, and often players will wonder about something that could work well in real life but may rub against the edges of the game's parameters.
If you tell the players, "Here's how bomb hits work, maybe I'm not going to paste our exact formula in here but it's a 10% chance of this, and a 30% chance of that..." none of your competitors is going to have proprietary information that'll be of any practical value to them. The value is in making formulas that work coherently in the context of your particular game engine and tying that to a detailed battle simulator, ship designer and world politics system...not the formulas themselves. It's not like other naval game designers don't go read history books and come up with decent approximations for their own hit systems. Hell, you can do it in an afternoon, depending on how much you care about realism and balance.
I have to say that I'm disappointed in the "proprietary information" mindset...I think designers of historical games tend to overestimate the importance of their particular formulas and underestimate the importance of the rest of the game. Let me give you an example of another approach: the Dominions series, by Illwinter. Currently on their fifth game in the series, the designers have created a huge mythical universe, starting with rules based on DnD but moving into something much more realistic and intricate, with detailed formulas for everything from magical fatigue to the parry chance of weapons with different lengths, to the petrifying aura of a Gorgon. This is a multiplayer game, so players are constantly trying to use the exact rules for hundreds of different mechanics to get an edge. Over the course of the 18 years the series has been around, players have figured out basically every mechanic in the game. The devs provide details when they can, but the community is a good size and plenty of players have gone out on their own to run the numbers on nearly every system in-game, not just the actual mechanics but their implications for players. There are a couple of mechanics that we still don't fully know, but well over 95% of the mechanics are well-understood.
And the result is...it's my favorite series of all time. When I understand the laws of the in-game universe and can use them to my advantage, it makes playing so much more satisfying than when I can only guess and design something that seems like it should work. I feel like I know the world, I understand it, and therefore I can take meaningful actions within it. I treasure the nearly 400-page manual for its detailed descriptions, and the online forums for their own analyses of strategy. And nobody, not one developer, has aped the Dominions series because all of their formulas are out for anyone to see. Because the reality is, nobody loves your game more than you do. Everyone has their own spin they want to put on things, nobody wants to make a copycat of a niche product and maybe get sued. I love RtW, but I can't help but think it's shooting yourselves in the foot to keep knowledge of the game mechanics on lockdown. The kind of person who plays RtW cares so, so much about detail that they would hugely benefit from a deeper understanding of the game world.
That's why I ended up on this page instead of the endless forum posts talking about good ship design - I need to know how different guns work if I'm deciding which ones to give my ships! I now have a much better idea, so thanks for that. And I'd still love to hear more precise formulas for the difference between, say, SAP, AP, and HE, because I might want to change my ammo usage! Now that I know the rough difference in bomb strength, I might want to change my bombers' loadouts! What's the difference between medium and long range to raiding effectiveness? How does that interact with raider speed, or size? I have questions about this stuff constantly, and when I don't know, I'll mostly ignore those parts of the game and stick with the bits I do understand. I just hope we can learn more over time.
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Post by rodentnavy on Jun 30, 2019 9:07:23 GMT -6
The thing is that in real life we still do not know exactly how bullets wound and shells cause damage. The problem with an enclosed universe like RTW2 is that all the fundamental laws (ignoring bugs) are understood. I would rather understand roughly what is going on and try and enhance my grasp by observation of results than understand completely what is going on and instead plan and play according to massaging the probabilities.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 30, 2019 14:28:00 GMT -6
Also, in the strict mathematical sense of proportionality, f(y) = k * y is a function expressing a directly-proportional relationship between f(y) and y. That y = x 2/3 is irrelevant; f(y) is directly proportional to y. [/div][/quote] OK. I'm a mathematician so feel free to totally ignore this pedantry. F(y) is a function of y. That does not mean y increases (or decreases) in a linear fashion. The function is just that - a function. Y is directly proportional to a function of y... That does not prove your point. Y is also equal to a different function of y according to the same logic. The a function of damage (y) is proportional to a function of calibre (x) ^2/3. Y is not directly proportional to x and can therefore cannot be plotted to show direct proportionality with the two given dimensions. In this, Capsized is correct. Neither does the linguistic definition hold true - it derives from the mathematical and therefore also strictly means a linear relationship between 2 variables. Sorry - just got to put it out there.
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Post by aeson on Jun 30, 2019 15:09:37 GMT -6
"Damage is proportional to shell weight to the two-thirds power" declares a proportional relationship between the variables [damage] and [shell weight to the two thirds power]. It does not declare a proportional relationship between the variables [damage] and [shell weight]. The sentence "damage is proportional to shell weight - or more specifically to shell weight to the two thirds power" is equivalent to the one at the start of this paragraph - the hyphenated clause "more specifically to shell weight to the two-thirds power" overrides the earlier "to shell weight."
If you want to express this functionally, you are arguing that d = k * w2/3 does not show a proportional relationship between d and w while I am arguing that d = k * y does show a proportional relationship between d and y. That y happens to be defined such that y = w2/3 is irrelevant to whether or not d is proportional to y.
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Post by christian on Jun 30, 2019 17:06:35 GMT -6
I just want to add that shell weight can be seen in the files with the abbreviation "sw" (eg in Gundata.dat and hpen.dat and so on). And to point out the great jumps from 12'' to 13'' and from 16'' to 17'' (nearly 50% increase in shell weight). rather unrealistically i might suggest for some reason the shell weights are alot higher than they should be with each 20 inch shell coming in at 6.6 tons at 80 rounds and at 100 rounds 6.8 tons per granted a bit of that probably goes to storing the shell but 2/3rds of it going to storing the shell i doubt (most irl 20 inch shells were 1.9-2 tons) if the sw in the game files could be in kg (and likely is) but the shell weight still seems way wrong because of the fact the 20 inch shell weights twice as much as a 16 inch shell while in real life a 20 inch shell at most weighted around 800 kg more at maximum (assuming its a light 16 inch shell and heavy 20 inch shell)
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Post by christian on Jun 30, 2019 17:13:27 GMT -6
Here's a table including damage per shell and damage over time: how does explosive filler research advancements effect this ? what does damage over time mean ? why does 2 inch shells do the same damage as 3 inch shells should a shell twice the weight not deal twice the damage due to more material to fragment once the bursting charge which is presumed to be twice as big explodes ? also presuming the bursting charge is only twice as big is unrealistic if we look at real life big guns we find that even at a less than 2x shell weight increase the explosive filler increased more than 2x in size this i can not stress how much it feels like absolute total quesswork when you need to decide wether to send mostly torpedo or dive bombers against a battleship because you have absolutely 0 idea how the torpedoes perform or the bombs perform all you know is one has large bombs and the other just has a torpedo with no stats attached exact same thing goes for guns is it worth firing only sap for the secondaries against light cruisers ap or high explosive what does sap even do and same goes for he shells all we know about he shells is they set fires and cause 2 inch penning splinters sap we have litteraly no idea what does while i perfectly understand keeping the formulas hidden and some very specific information having absolutely NO INFORMATION AT ALL on diffrent weapons performance outside of looking at bomb or shell size and we cant tell if airborne torpedoes differ from seaborne WHAT DOES OXYGEN TORPEDOES DO ?
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Post by yemo on Jun 30, 2019 17:54:45 GMT -6
I just want to add that shell weight can be seen in the files with the abbreviation "sw" (eg in Gundata.dat and hpen.dat and so on). And to point out the great jumps from 12'' to 13'' and from 16'' to 17'' (nearly 50% increase in shell weight). rather unrealistically i might suggest for some reason the shell weights are alot higher than they should be with each 20 inch shell coming in at 6.6 tons at 80 rounds and at 100 rounds 6.8 tons per granted a bit of that probably goes to storing the shell but 2/3rds of it going to storing the shell i doubt (most irl 20 inch shells were 1.9-2 tons) if the sw in the game files could be in kg (and likely is) but the shell weight still seems way wrong because of the fact the 20 inch shell weights twice as much as a 16 inch shell while in real life a 20 inch shell at most weighted around 800 kg more at maximum (assuming its a light 16 inch shell and heavy 20 inch shell) The US 16'' AP Mark 3 shell for the Colorado class had a weight of 2110 pounds, which fits nicely with the "sw" game value of 2048. Iowa fired 16'' 2700 pound shells.
Yamatos 18.1'' AP Type 91 had a weight of 3220 pounds, somewhere between the in game 17'' 3000 value and the 18'' 3500 value.
When assiging shell loadouts, don't forget you need more than the shell, something has to accelerate that shell.
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Post by christian on Jul 1, 2019 6:13:58 GMT -6
rather unrealistically i might suggest for some reason the shell weights are alot higher than they should be with each 20 inch shell coming in at 6.6 tons at 80 rounds and at 100 rounds 6.8 tons per granted a bit of that probably goes to storing the shell but 2/3rds of it going to storing the shell i doubt (most irl 20 inch shells were 1.9-2 tons) if the sw in the game files could be in kg (and likely is) but the shell weight still seems way wrong because of the fact the 20 inch shell weights twice as much as a 16 inch shell while in real life a 20 inch shell at most weighted around 800 kg more at maximum (assuming its a light 16 inch shell and heavy 20 inch shell) The US 16'' AP Mark 3 shell for the Colorado class had a weight of 2110 pounds, which fits nicely with the "sw" game value of 2048. Iowa fired 16'' 2700 pound shells.
Yamatos 18.1'' AP Type 91 had a weight of 3220 pounds, somewhere between the in game 17'' 3000 value and the 18'' 3500 value.
When assiging shell loadouts, don't forget you need more than the shell, something has to accelerate that shell.
thats assuming the weight is in pounds granted i assumed it was in metric due to tons so powder bags dont actually weight much compared to the shell usually weighing 1/4th of the shell if shell weight is in pounds it becomes a little wonky the 20 inch shell and powder bag is around 5100 pounds in total while the total weight for each 20 inch round is 6600 pounds that means that only 1500 pounds goes to actually expanding the magazine capacity for shells now the big reason i dont think shells is in pounds since 5 20 inch shells and powder bags devided by 5 comes in at 6.6 tons (free tonnage) that would mean that of those 6.6 tons (13200 pounds) only 5100 pounds is used for the shell while 8100 pounds is used for other things which seems a bit unrealistic
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Post by scheerpower on Jul 1, 2019 13:34:45 GMT -6
Who cares if it's in pounds or kilograms? We don't know how the system works. It'd be great to have a better sense of how e.g. explosive filler tech affected damage, or the general parameters that influence whether a shell hits B, BE, T, secondaries, etc. Or for that matter to have a better explanation of SAP's relative armor-piercing ability and explosive charge.
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Post by dorn on Jul 1, 2019 14:00:09 GMT -6
Who cares if it's in pounds or kilograms? We don't know how the system works. It'd be great to have a better sense of how e.g. explosive filler tech affected damage, or the general parameters that influence whether a shell hits B, BE, T, secondaries, etc. Or for that matter to have a better explanation of SAP's relative armor-piercing ability and explosive charge. We know, that it is based on history information, calculation etc. But as it is game, a lot of thing is simplified, so there are a lot of randoms to simulates such things.
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Post by aeson on Jul 1, 2019 14:58:28 GMT -6
The US 16'' AP Mark 3 shell for the Colorado class had a weight of 2110 pounds, which fits nicely with the "sw" game value of 2048. Iowa fired 16'' 2700 pound shells.
Yamatos 18.1'' AP Type 91 had a weight of 3220 pounds, somewhere between the in game 17'' 3000 value and the 18'' 3500 value.
When assiging shell loadouts, don't forget you need more than the shell, something has to accelerate that shell.
thats assuming the weight is in pounds granted i assumed it was in metric due to tons so Why would you assume that anything in the data files uses SI/metric units? The units that the game uses are: - Speed: knots - Distance (aircraft range, travel): nautical miles - Distance (maximum weapon range, range to target, sight range): yards - Distance (torpedo diameter, gun bore, thickness of armor, penetration depth): inches
- Weight/mass (bomb load): pounds - Weight/mass (displacement, weights listed in design menu): tons - Power (engines): horsepower
Of those, only the ton could indicate a metric/SI unit, but as all the rest are very clearly either US Customary or Imperial units it seems likely that the ton in use is the long ton (2240 pounds) rather than the metric ton or tonne (1000 kilograms).
Also, we can check whether the Gundata sw numbers make more sense as pounds or kilograms fairly easily: The sw entry for 20" shells in Gundata.dat is "4100." If this number is in kilograms, then it represents 4.52 short tons, 4.03 long tons, or 4.1 metric tons; if it is in pounds, then it represents 2.05 short tons, 1.83 long tons, or 1.85 metric tons.
Every weight in the design menu - including the ammunition weight indicated under the list of main battery turrets - is in units of unspecified tons. The example 3x2x20" battleship shown above has 80 rounds per gun, meaning that it carries a total of 480 shells; the ammunition weight listed is 1,836 tons. This indicates that the ship's ammunition stowage costs 3.825 tons per shell. 3.825 tons ammunition stowage weight per shell is incompatible with a shell weight of 4.03 to 4.52 tons per shell, therefore the sw entries in Gundata.dat are not in kilograms. 3.825 tons ammunition stowage weight per shell is, however, compatible with a shell weight of 1.83 to 2.05 tons, if the ammunition stowage weight listed in the designer includes a half ton or so of propellant per 20" shell, ammunition and powder handling equipment weights, and structural elements necessary to support the shells, propellant, and handling equipment and create the magazine spaces without compromising the overall structural integrity of the ship.
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 4, 2019 19:21:50 GMT -6
I think considering everything at an balance, it’s peobably justifiable to not release the entire formula. Regarding the dominion system, while I am a huge fan of that game it’s not same issue at play there. Dominion is not a historical simulation, it’s numbers does not need to worry about how accurately it reflects the realistic chance of 6 spearmen to take down a griffin. RTW’s number needs to at least create results that appears realistic to its main audience, namely players with an interest in naval war gaming.
did this admirably, it’s not perfect, especially with some new changes in rtw 2 that needs to be smoothed out, but the damage system always “felt” right to me.there fore I understand why the underlying formula is of commercial value and why the team wish to keep it hidden.
What I do think the team needs to show the player is that what FACTORS are at play in the formula. Player shouldn’t have to guess that the game models angling or not. Nowhere in game is it made clear to the players that angling would have any effect on penetration, our intuition tells us that it should, and the forum discussion confirms it. This should be made clear to the player either in the game or in the manual.( I think the manual may have a passing remark on this, but more detail will be nice)
The rtw description of air combat resolution is nice since it clearly identified the stages of calculation that is happening, and what each variable contributes to the calculation in each scenarios. We don’t even know the relative magnitude of each factors, but at least we know these things matter.
Therefore I think the game needs to be more forthright with what is actually being taken into account with calculating damage. There are things rtw models in detail and there are things rtw deals with in abstraction, to make meaningful choices the player should at least know what factor is being modelled.
One example is transverse bulk at the front of a ship. We were told in another post that shells hitting the ship’s front arc may hit that bulkhead. This was completely new to me since the manual never mentions this. This raises further question like how is the thickness of that bulkhead determined? By belt edge? Fraction of Belt? Some middle point? We don’t need to know the behind the scene equation that calculate what numbers are needed to achieve successful penetration on a ship’s transverse bulkhead. But we need to know what factors are at play to consider our plans.
If I build a all forward ship and knew that transverse bulk head can be penetrated, I would want to reinforce that area. But I have no way as of yet in knowing if I am even able to do that(directly or indirectly) in game. Player shouldn’t be made to guess what the game models. If the game doesn’t model transverse bulkhead Armor thickness, or just force it to be a fraction of main belt, etc...that’s totally fine. But we need to know that.
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Post by Fredrik W on Jul 4, 2019 23:50:56 GMT -6
The thing is that in real life we still do not know exactly how bullets wound and shells cause damage. The problem with an enclosed universe like RTW2 is that all the fundamental laws (ignoring bugs) are understood. I would rather understand roughly what is going on and try and enhance my grasp by observation of results than understand completely what is going on and instead plan and play according to massaging the probabilities. This is actually the intention in the game. It nicely describes the design philosophy regarding information to the player about what is going on.
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Post by alkiap on Jul 5, 2019 4:31:24 GMT -6
Regarding impact of shell weight vs free tonnage: a single 16" shell adds 4.6 tons of weight Assuming 1.5 tons of weight for the shell + powder, that gives a ration of about 2:1 between "ancillary" weight and shell weight. Considering that more rounds means larger magazines (for both shells and powder), and that magazines are the most armored part of a ship, this seems quite justified The Italian navy went with a reduced ammo load on the Littorio class, 74 shells per gun, to save weight
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Post by theotherguy3 on Jul 6, 2019 5:55:22 GMT -6
In my (statistically unsubstantiated) experience the damage model is okay, but is sometimes limited by the locations model. I have seen 500t destroyers shrug off battleship gun hits by taking a 14" shell to the turret. You would realistically expect such a nuke to do damage beyond the one open gun mount, but it does not seem to happen that way. According to the logs of the DDs that got away they had lost that turret but not taken any floatation damage.
I have thus changed my build strategy to a more King George V-type, valuing quantity of guns over size. 14" or 15" will often suffice, as long as you have many, thus ensuring more hits and greater chance for a critical blow. That way you have fewer incidents of 20" shells hitting one secondary turret and then calling it a day.
I would agree, though, that the lack of information is sometimes vexing. On the other hand, most naval build strategy was historically driven by guesswork. When designing a new ship people had no way of fully appreciating the effects of new technology, nor did they get much data, as naval battles were rare. The proof of the dreadnought was in the sinking, so to speak. I would therefore opine that the developers not worry about transparency too much.
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