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Post by JagdFlanker on Jun 18, 2018 16:55:39 GMT -6
Also from looking at this chart, is it just me or are 10" guns almost worthless? It seems the 9" gun has comparable range and penetration to the 10" at all quality levels and era. It seems like the best strategy would be to forgo 10" guns entirely and just use more lighter 9" guns. although not listed in the chart, the weight of the shell counts for something as well. somebody posted a list of shell weights a looong time ago but i couldn't find it |
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 18, 2018 17:26:00 GMT -6
Also from looking at this chart, is it just me or are 10" guns almost worthless? It seems the 9" gun has comparable range and penetration to the 10" at all quality levels and era. It seems like the best strategy would be to forgo 10" guns entirely and just use more lighter 9" guns. Early game you are probably right since close range penetration is pretty similar for equal quality 9 and 10 inch guns. However, as the range increases the 10 inch gun penetration pulls away (or rather doesn't drop off as fast) so later on, as fire control improves and you can consistently get hits as longer ranges, the 10 inch will be more and more superior. Also, to expand on JagdFlanker 's point, damage is proportional to shell weight (modified by tech level of course) and is independent of gun quality so assuming the shells are not duds, a 10 inch shell that penetrates will always do more damage than a 9 inch shell that penetrates regardless of the respective qualities of the two guns. |
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largo4545
New Member
Ballistics, Celestial Navigation, Torpedo Runs... Big trigonometry fan.
Posts: 20
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Post by largo4545 on Jun 19, 2018 7:11:56 GMT -6
Hey largo4545 , welcome to the forum. Like dorn stated these are not absolute numbers. If I recall from what the Fredrik stated these numbers are actually more of a best case scenario with the shell hitting the armor perpendicular for maximum penetration. Since the game takes that into account (as well as numerous other behind-the-scenes factors) you will usually see penetration numbers a little less then the numbers given in game. Keep in mind too though that the armor values in game are also the best case thickness for that part of the ship at least in the case of belt and deck armor and it's possible that the shell will strike a part of the belt that is thinner. Also, the 5K, 8K, 12K, etc out to 25k ranges are just arbitrary points selected by the developers for consistency to give examples and actual penetrations are more like a continuous curve based on range so inside of 5K yards, belt penetration will continue to go up as range decreases until the guns theoretical maximum for the muzzle velocity at the exit of the barrel. Same in the opposite direction with continuously decreasing penetration values outside of 25K yards for guns with ranges that far. Deck penetration also continues to increase outside of the ranges posted up to the guns maximum range. Thank you! Also out of curiosity, is it possible to extract the data from the calculations the computer makes for penetration, shot trajectory, etc? Ballistics is extremely fascinating to me, and before I discovered this game I had been writing a Python program to simulate naval gun trajectories. I'd like to see what goes on behind the scenes. |
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largo4545
New Member
Ballistics, Celestial Navigation, Torpedo Runs... Big trigonometry fan.
Posts: 20
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Post by largo4545 on Jun 19, 2018 7:15:10 GMT -6
Also, to expand on JagdFlanker 's point, damage is proportional to shell weight (modified by tech level of course) and is independent of gun quality so assuming the shells are not duds, a 10 inch shell that penetrates will always do more damage than a 9 inch shell that penetrates regardless of the respective qualities of the two guns. Ah okay good to know. I'm gonna have to revert back to my more realistic traditional thinking rather than game exploitation haha. Last campaign I focused heavily on 9" guns because of this chart, glad to know that there is a lot more behind the curtain than just the few numbers presented. |
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 20, 2018 8:57:30 GMT -6
Thank you! Also out of curiosity, is it possible to extract the data from the calculations the computer makes for penetration, shot trajectory, etc? Ballistics is extremely fascinating to me, and before I discovered this game I had been writing a Python program to simulate naval gun trajectories. I'd like to see what goes on behind the scenes. Not that I'm aware of, no. Sorry. |
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largo4545
New Member
Ballistics, Celestial Navigation, Torpedo Runs... Big trigonometry fan.
Posts: 20
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Post by largo4545 on Jun 22, 2018 11:40:34 GMT -6
Also from looking at this chart, is it just me or are 10" guns almost worthless? It seems the 9" gun has comparable range and penetration to the 10" at all quality levels and era. It seems like the best strategy would be to forgo 10" guns entirely and just use more lighter 9" guns. although not listed in the chart, the weight of the shell counts for something as well. somebody posted a list of shell weights a looong time ago but i couldn't find it ----TLDR trying to figure out how the ballistic mechanics work in game---- After digging through the .DAT files in the Data folder I found several tables that are a bit cryptic at times but clearly display a shell weight value. I also modified some of them to observe in game changes. ***Note of caution! If you modify these tables be sure to backup an original copy of the file so you can restore your game to defaults, these values are modified by the actual program in uncertain ways and can have some really wacky effects by changing some of the numbers (I.E. 2" guns shells weighing like 15" gun shells on ship tonnage etc) Apologies ahead of time, the formatting of these tables it not well preserved. "Gundata" One table, "Gundata" lists "c" (Caliber) "sw" (Shell Weight) "ROF" (Rate of Fire) and "mr" (Max Range in thousands of yards). These are base values I believe before other factors.
c sw ROF mr 2 15 25 4 3 15 25 8 4 32 20 10 5 63 19 11 6 108 18 12 7 172 16 13 8 276 15 14 9 365 14 15 10 500 12 16 11 666 11 18 12 864 10 20 13 1200 09 21 14 1372 09 22 15 1688 08 24 16 2048 08 26 17 3000 08 30 18 3500 08 32 "Ordnance Table" Another table, "OrdnanceTable", lists caliber, category, two values for weight (gun weight in tons and shell weight in pounds?), cost, and then a few mysterious lists, "TF1, TF2, TF3, TFC" as well as a blank column of "SW" Cal Cat Weight Cost TF1 TF2 TF3 TFC SW 2 S 1 5 3 4 5 3 4 3 S 2 10 6 8 10 5 10 4 S 3 15 8 10 15 7 25 5 S 6 20 12 18 24 9 50 6 S 8 30 18 25 30 14 60 7 M 14 50 20 28 35 17 90 8 M 18 80 22 30 40 19 145 9 M 28 100 25 35 60 23 180 10 M 35 120 30 40 66 x 220 11 H 44 160 35 56 82 x 400 12 H 67 190 40 56 85 x 530 13 H 80 230 44 66 92 x 670 14 H 85 260 48 78 98 x 870 15 H 101 290 52 82 105 x 1100 16 H 108 340 56 85 112 x 1320 17 H 124 370 66 98 123 x 1500 18 H 148 400 82 105 138 x 1800 Any ideas of what the "TF" series values might be, let me know. Only thing I could think of is variations of shell type, AP, HE, APBC etc. Also not sure why the heavy guns have x's in the TF3 column. "Penetration" Last of the gun tables I could find are, "hpen" and "vpen". I'm assuming that from the name and the nature of the tables its a form of determining penetration? I came to the conclusion that "hpen" is Horizontal Penetration, and "vpen" is Vertical Penetration (not positive though). Modifying these did change penetration values in game so I'm confident it definitely has to do with penetration, but I'm not sure exactly the effect of the values (I had 2" guns penetrating like 15" guns however the damage from the shots did not seem to go up, presumable because I had not modified other tables). I'm not going to bother posting the penetration tables here because they are much larger and also the formatting is critical to its structure and it just becomes a jumbled mess on the forum. However I will include a picture of a portion of the "hpen" table to provide a reference for what I'm about to describe.  This table however is the most interesting and mysterious one to me though, it lists caliber and shell weight yet again (implying it may be possible for ship tonnage shell weights and ballistic shell weights to vary, it would appear the 2" shell varies while others remain consistent throughout the tables). What baffles me is it would appear that after the "c" and "sw" columns is a "30p" followed by numbers 1 - 30. I can only conclude that this establishing the formatting of the table for the program to read. Each caliber takes 3 lines of the document and its values are placed among the positions within these "30 positions". The reason this is so strange to me though is that the values increase as the positions increase, however they don't all begin at the same position in the format. Small guns have no values at all, which may mean no armor penetration is possible? Stranger still, the "vpen" data seems to start consistently at the "zero position" of "30p" however the numbers quickly shoot up to a maximum within the first few positions and then drop as it progresses. Also now small guns have a single value.  Also in my 2" guns to 15" guns experiment, I modified the the "Gundata" and "hpen" alone, and it changed some values on the penetration table in game, however it was definitely strange, like 9" of belt pen at 5000 yards, and then 0 at the next range increment shown. However, after modifying both "hpen" and "vpen" it became more consistent and the values were much more similar to the 15" gun. It would appear that these two tables must work in tandem, which supports my Horizontal/Vertical theory. As for what the table means, I'm still not sure. Clearly the positions of the values in the formatting make a difference, so the 30 total positions must represent something. I was originally thinking groups of angles, I.E. 90 Deg divided into 30 positions of 3 degrees. But the constant increase on "hpen" and the sharp increase/decrease of "vpen" seem to contradict that. I also have no idea what these numbers mean either, if they are some kind of actual quantity or just a dimensionless modifier. *Conclusion*
None of this really matters regarding generally enjoying the game, but it would be interesting to solve the workings of these tables for modding purposes. With a personal interest in ballistics, I've just been curious to see how the game works and models these sort of things.
The reason for this post is to show what I've come up with to other people who are interested, and mostly so people can help me figure out what it means, because ever since I opened this pandora's box, it has been driving me crazy! (Hint, hint, that's you developers! Or other people who probably already figured this out.)
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imryn
Full Member
Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 8, 2019 8:18:42 GMT -6
...
Any ideas of what the "TF" series values might be, let me know. Only thing I could think of is variations of shell type, AP, HE, APBC etc. Also not sure why the heavy guns have x's in the TF3 column. ... I think TF1, 2, 3 might be Turret Facing Front, Side, Top (possibly in a different order) and TFC might be Turret Facing Casemate - used for calculating armor weight. I could be wrong but isn't 9" the biggest gun that can be mounted in a casemate? I am at work so I can't check. |
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Post by bcoopactual on Feb 8, 2019 8:52:43 GMT -6
Heavy caliber guns (11 inches+) can be used on casemates in the secondary. Heavy caliber guns in secondary casemates have a 10% rate of fire penalty and must be smaller than than the main gun caliber.
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Post by aeson on Feb 8, 2019 12:01:03 GMT -6
Heavy caliber guns (11 inches+) can be used on casemates in the secondary. Heavy caliber guns in secondary casemates have a 10% rate of fire penalty and must be smaller than than the main gun caliber. You can put main battery guns into casemates. Additionally, casemated main battery heavy guns apparently don't have the rate of fire penalty that casemated secondary battery heavy guns do, or at least the warning about it doesn't show up for or mention them... ... even when the entire main battery is in casemates. |
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Post by dorn on Feb 8, 2019 15:07:50 GMT -6
Heavy caliber guns (11 inches+) can be used on casemates in the secondary. Heavy caliber guns in secondary casemates have a 10% rate of fire penalty and must be smaller than than the main gun caliber. You can put main battery guns into casemates.
Additionally, casemated main battery heavy guns apparently don't have the rate of fire penalty that casemated secondary battery heavy guns do, or at least the warning about it doesn't show up for or mention them...
... even when the entire main battery is in casemates. I used it sometimes for legacy fleet protected cruisers.
But the difference to single guns are questionable because of protection. The wight of gun change if top turret armor is change even for casemate gun - a little strange. Casemate gun have higher weight than single guns however I feel that casemate gun has better protection (speculation).
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Post by aeson on Feb 8, 2019 16:10:03 GMT -6
Casemate gun have higher weight than single guns
Casemated guns are lighter than guns in full turrets (2.5" or more turret face armor on individually-mounted 6" or lighter guns; any armor on heavier guns or multi-gun mounts) but heavier than shielded guns (individually-mounted 6" or lighter guns with no more than 2" turret face armor):
For casemated guns, the turret top armor presumably represents an armored deck plate over the top of the casemate. Remember that at least when using the sloped deck and protected cruiser armor schemes - and possibly even with a flat deck over belt scheme - a casemated gun is above the main armored deck, so the deck armor isn't going to offer it much, if any, protection against plunging fire or splinters.
Casemated guns are probably better protected than shielded guns given equally-thick armor, but I doubt if they're meaningfully better protected than guns in full turrets - especially using the protected cruiser armor scheme since there's no real possibility of the belt or deck armor providing any protection to the casemates.
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Post by ddg on Feb 8, 2019 17:59:01 GMT -6
In the absence of more information, I would assume that casemated secondaries follow the rules laid down here: I checked this. If secondary guns are unarmoured, it assumes there is no top armour either. If there is any SEC armour the game uses DE as top armour for secondary guns. Not ideal perhaps, and I will change that for RTW2, but that's the way it works right now. |
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Post by aeson on Feb 8, 2019 18:35:31 GMT -6
In the absence of more information, I would assume that casemated secondaries follow the rules laid down here The casemated guns which dorn and I were discussing are main battery guns. |
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Post by avimimus on Apr 5, 2019 17:05:15 GMT -6
Central battery ships?
So... those RoF values... how do they make sense? The big guns should be getting about 0.5-2 rpm (depending on era), while "medium"/"small" guns should be getting 5-6 rpm... (with the exception of a few outliers anyway)?
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Post by aeson on Apr 5, 2019 17:43:11 GMT -6
So... those RoF values... how do they make sense? The big guns should be getting about 0.5-2 rpm (depending on era), while "medium"/"small" guns should be getting 5-6 rpm... (with the exception of a few outliers anyway)? My guess is that the rate of fire values are in units of shells fired per five or ten minutes.
I believe that there is a quote somewhere on the forums from either Fredrik W or williammiller indicating that the in-game rates of fire are based on research into the rates of fire which were actually attained under battle conditions, whereas the rates of fire most easily found online - and probably most frequently quoted - tend to be in essence theoretical values that come out of training exercises and test firings conducted in near-perfect conditions.
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