HE and HSSM massively underperforming, and HE overpenetrating

[christian]

During testing of the HE after the nerf i observed 14" guns failing to pen 1" of armor, i then upped it to 19" to test there
HSSMs with heat warheads failed to pen 3" belt armor

19" i saw penetrating about 40-50% of the time, the rest of the time it failed to pen the 1" BE, 19" HE also overpenetrated, despite seemingly being contact fused.




I consider this a bug because currently HE cannot, at any caliber, penetrate the minimum allowed amount of armor, 1" on an armor location will simply make it immune to any HE it will realistically see ever.
In addition to that, missiles are now incapable of penetrating cruisers



Keep in mind HSSMs were documented to pen 15" before and could reliably do 12"

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[christian]

here it can be seen HSSMs fail to pen 3" armor

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[christian]

This also turns HSSMs into the missiles we had in rtw-2, that is firestarters that are unable to pen even 2-3" armor
They, like 19" seem to mostly pen 1" armor most of the time.


Here is what 4 HSSMs did to my 12000 ton light cruiser with 3" belt, the armor simply shrugged off 2 missiles and it took no flooding damage.
It can also be seen here that HSSMs can infact fail to pen 1" of 1935 armor, in 1955 (this hit was scored on an older design)

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[williammiller]

Hello christian

Not seeing this in our internal testing...do you have any mods active by any chance?

[christian]

Apr 16, 2024 8:52:53 GMT -6 williammiller said:

Hello christian

Not seeing this in our internal testing...do you have any mods active by any chance?

Only using speed mod (which changes HP curve) and a personal rof mod, which changes rate of fire and range on guns by +2 range to all guns only file changed is gundata, nothing changing penetration (cross referenced pen table with other discord members and reinstalled backup VPEN and HPEN files just in case)
However if there is a way to change penetration of missiles i would very much like to know how.

I also uninstalled all mods and retested, same results, cross examined results with discord members, they are testifying the same issue, HSSMs failing to pen cruiser armor and less, and guns (HE) failing to pen even 1" most that i talked to seem to recommend using MSSMs for topside space and weight efficiency to increase hits as penetration (and damage) is no longer as relevant as just doing disrupting damage for systems, and causing fires to reduce enemy combat effectiveness, then closing to gun or SAM range to finish off ships with overwhelming firepower while enemy ships are wounded.

recommendation on discord is to use full AP for all guns, 4" to 20" as HE is unable to pen any armor, and most AI designs have atleast 1" on every part of their ship, except destroyers.



Also specifically which issue is not able to be replicated in internal testing, or are all unable to be replicated.


The missile penetration

Gun HE penetration

HE passthrough/overpen hits

?

[christian]

further logs from testing, along with the ship designs being shot at.

both these were done against this BB template in 1919

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[christian]

Additionally testing was also done in the same battle with the CA template

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[christian]

hits on the CA


Observe how 9" fail to pen 1" specifically on the CAs secondary battery and BE

Also see how the 14" in one instance pens 1" DE of the BB design, but in another does not, showing its on its limit penetration wise.

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[christian]

Additionally here is some heavy surface to surface missile penetration testing with the tech heat warheads unlocked, ive deposited it into a docs for ease of acces since the sample size is much larger.

docs.google.com/document/d/1JQS3weJ-e5gSr4JVNGGCCRhMMBhola20ogUmZQlOys4/edit

out of 34 hits, of which 19 hit armor.

Total penetrations of 0,5-1” armor: 6

total penetrations of 2+” of armor: 0
total pens on armor: 6, no pens over 1”

total non penetrations of 1” of armor: 8
total non pens on 1,5"+ of armor: 5
total non pens on armor: 13

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[umbaretz]

Just to add, lots of people have been seeing missile not penetration 1" of armor, including me.

[Fredrik W]

You are right, it seems that HE penetration was unintentionally lowered in connection with the change to splinter penetration. Will look at this. Thanks!

[christian]

May 2, 2024 11:20:24 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

You are right, it seems that HE penetration was unintentionally lowered in connection with the change to splinter penetration. Will look at this. Thanks!

Thank you for continuing to improve the game, its always lovely to read the beta patch notes and see the fixes and additions, its hugely appreciated, you have been doing good work and the recent additions/fixes have been very appreciated at least to me,

[williammiller]

christian and others - thanks for bringing this to our attention!