Damage model

[RIPper_SVK]

i've done some tests with Drusus and Sente and others. we were basically testing the damage model. i still think there are some things that just feel wrong. i'll write the things that i think that feel wrong, and post possible solutions....i hope others will post some things that feel wrong and that we find a common solution to them. i think the game is absolutely great, but the damage modelling should be better.

1) 120mm shot into the hull back side of the Thor (point blank range):

i needed usually 1 hit to kill the Thor with HEAT, in maybe in 1/4 or 1/3 of the tests i needed 2 shots. this feels quite right, maybe the damage to fuel cells is a little bit too big. the engine should be definitely dead after the 1st hit.

with AP, i needed usually 3 shots. looking in the logs, the AP always scored direct hit to the engine and fuel cells and did some frag damage to the driver...this definitely feels wrong, and it shows the problem with low component damage.

the engine and fuel cells should be destroyed by the 2nd shot at the latest, otherwise it's really innefective to shoot AP in the weakest part of the tank (the AP round basically goes through the whole tank, but you still need 3 penetrations). what i would like to see is that when i hit a component with AP, it has at least 50% change of being destroyed with the 1st hit. the 2nd hit should destroy it almost always (unless you're very very very lucky).

2) if you hit a thor in the side hull (from 90 degrees) with HEAT you MUST hit the vertical armor to penetrate. this makes longer distance shooting with HEAT innefective. you cannot reliably hit the vertical armor because of the shot dispersion.

now what causes this? i think it's because all armor on some side (e.g. front, side, back) etc is equally thick, independently from it's slope. this creates very tough spots in the places where the armor is sloped.

this doesn't really make sense to me. in reality the sloped armor on Thor's hull side would be most probably thinner than the vertical one, so that both have the same resulting effectiveness.

the thor's side armor looks like this:

/

|

\

it might make sense to have the upper sloped armor with the same thickness as the vertical one, so a partiall hull down position which exposes that part would be well protected. but it doesn't make sense for the lower sloped armor to have the same thickness as the vertical one, because that makes it tougher.

so now it's hard to hit a spot on thor's hull side where 120mm HEAT can penetrate at 90 degrees. hit from a lower angle makes penetration even harder.

3) side hits to a paladin (center mass) with 120mm HEAT sometimes don't penetrate. the paladin is a light vehicle, 120mm HEAT should penetrate always. i think it's caused by the same problem as the thor side armor. this also makes paladin's front armor very tough.

4) generally there are many situations when you hit a vehicle in a spot that should be weak with 120mm HEAT, and it doesn't penetrate (you can see the explosion when it doesn't penetrate). i go "WTF?" and get angry because my ambush is innefective. i think 120mm HEAT penetration should be higher (around 300, now it's 240 i think).

5) both HEAT and especially AP do too little damage to components. this makes long range (not extreme range, just more than 1.5 or 2 kms) gunery totally innefective, because you need many hits to the same component which takes many shots because of the shot disperion.

i understand that changing damage model or weapon effectiveness is a hard thing, which can unbalance the game. but i don't like ambushes being innefective, and having to hit the same spot many times to kill with the most effective weapon (120mm). you shouldn't be forced to extreme precission shooting into 1 component because this isn't posible at a bit longer ranges. 2 hits (at most) to a vulnerable side (e.g. thor's hull side or back) should do serious damage or kill the enemy without having to hit the same spot.

my suggestions to solve it:

1) armor on some part should have the total effectiveness (after calculating the influence of slope) at some value. so for example if Thor's constructors wanted to make it's hull side armor with some effectiveness, they will make the sloped armor less thick, but after calculating in the slope, it will have the same effectivenes as the vertical hull side armor.

2) give HEAT a bit more penetration

3) make it easier to damage components. 120mm HEAT is about right (but it has too little penetration now). give AP more direct damage to components (i think that hitting a component with AP should destroy it in at least 50% cases, probably like in 66%). give AP bit more frag damage

well sorry for the long post, i hope it makes sense to someone.....

[Drusus]

As the biggest whiner on this forum, I must say I agree to most of the things.

First, the penetration issue: Reading some of the post from the dev team & the DropTeam site I think it was meant to be so that the HEAT is the round you want to use at longer ranges and AP at shorter. At the moment it is actually quite the opposite. At shorter ranges AP is only usable against really fast moving targets and Thor front. The Thor front is also questionable after the angle modifier fix, as it is actually quite hard to penetrate now. In any other situation you want to use HEAT, as it is much more effective.

But at longer ranges getting a penetration with HEAT is hard, you need to be at almoust 90 degrees to the side of the target, and even then you need some luck. I would say that if you can't penetrate with AP, then it is propably not worth trying with HEAT. Except against stationary targets, then HEAT is actually useful at longer ranges. Anyways I think a paladin at 30 degree angle is pretty much safe (60 degree hit angle to the side, 30 to the front).

So, the solution to this problem: while the current system of just having a value for the whole side is a bit restrictive, it is still a working one. Maybe the sloping is at the moment a bit too much, or maybe there should be more penetration with HEAT. Anyways at the moment I don't feel that the 120mm is that useful at longer ranges. You usually hit at too big angle. But while sometimes annoying, this isn't that big a problem anyways.

About component damage: Maybe the Thor is fine as is, and Apollo too (this vehicle has enough problems already: ATGMs and Hurricane...), but the lighter vehicles should maybe be softer inside. Hitting a Shrike, Paladin or Hurricane is hard enough as is, but you are virtually guaranteed that even if you hit with 120mm AP, the vehicle will continue. You need a direct hit to a component, and if it is not the engine, the fighting ability of the vehicle doesn't change. Wheels are a different thing, but should I be aiming at a moving Paladins wheels with 120mm gun? Against these vehicles direct hits to components should be more effective. While it should also be possible that the AP shot passes through without doing much damage.

I heard somebody suggest this kind of solution: lower the HPs of components (maybe not the fuel cells, though) of the lighter vehicles. Direct hit with 120mm should have a good chance of disabling a component. Against Shrike about 100%. Make fragmentation of kinetic (AP) shots based on the amount of armor it penetrates and the amount left after penetration. Little fragmentation to light vehicles, a lot to heavier ones when firing from close range. If you could get both fragmentation damage and directhit damage to a component, then it should be possible to have ~50% kill chance from the side or rear of Thor when firing from close range with AP. At the front or longer ranges no chance of first shot kill. Thor is supposed to be tough. Keep fragmentation of HEAT shots as is. This means relatively more frag damage from HEAT to lighter vehicles, but that is not a problem IMHO, it is actually good.

The function of fragmentation damage doesn't need to be more complicated than this: At 100 points of armor penetrated you get a modifier of 0.5. At 150 you get 1.2. At 150 excess points of penetration you get a modifier of 1.0. All modifiers are linear, ie. 50 points of armor -> modifier 0.25, 125 points -> modifier 0.85 and so on. This is against the base armor.

Result:

Case 1:

You fire from close range at Thor side. There happens to be 150 points of base armor -> 1.2 modifier. You will have plenty left -> 1 modifer. The total modifier is then 1.2 times the damage it would have been with the current system. If you hit directly at the fuel cells & there is the possibility of both fragmentation and direct hit damage, there is possiblity of killing the tank with first shot.

Case 2:

You fire at the Thor side at mid range, hitting the upper sloped part. You still have 1.2 modifier from the amount of armor penetrated, but a lot smaller modifier from the excess penetration.

Case 3:

You fire from far away at the side of Thor. Same as the last one, but you only have 50 excess points. Result: 1/3 modifier from penetration left, 1.2 from amount penetrated = 0.4 times the current fragmentation damage. Not so good chance of killing anything.

Case 3:

You fire AP at a Shrike. You will have plenty of penetration left, but there is only 10 armor. You will get almoust no Frag damage. If the AP shell hits something, it will propably be destroyed, if it doesn't it just passes through.

Case 4:

Side hit at Paladin: What, this vehicle has 100 side armor? Well, this means a modifier of 0.5. Depending on how much you did penetrate, there will be some fragmentation damage, but not too much.

Also, this system would allow 20mm have a lot more base fragmentation damage. Situations where you get it all would be rare, 150 armor and 150 excess penetration = 300, the base penetration of 20mm is 300.

This might be just my feeling, but based on what I know about armor penetration, this is as in real life. Not too much armor -> the shot just passes through. A lot of armor -> a lot of fragmentation. There could be additional tuning to the directkill factor based on the amount penetration left. 0.8 at 50 excess and to 1.0 at 150 or something. And maybe additional multiplier of 2.0 when hitting from the rear.

As I have said before, I know making a change of this size at the moment is propably out of the question. But it doesn't stop me from suggeting it. Anyways, I don't think this would be too hard change from coding point of view (although not knowing the internal working of the game, it is hard to say), the bigger issue is balance.

Well, as this post is so long that nobody is reading at this point, I might as well add this: From my point of view, there are 3 things that should be right: Game balance, Realism and Feeling. While it might be somehow realistic that you have always hitting targeting computer, it isn't balanced or feel right. Something that is maybe realistic might not feel right. The fact that Thor is tougher from rear than sides for example. Short range ATGM effectivenes. It might very well be realistic. It might even not affect the balance too much. But it feels _so_ wrong.

Getting these three things in balance is the key to success, and I think the frag model is a step towards a more balanced and realistic game. And I think the overall feeling would be better.

[RIPper_SVK]

i also don't want this game to be totally realistic. i understand that it's not a simulator, but a game. i'm looking forward on the tactical opportunities of this game, the battlefield can get very fluid with good use of dropships (extracting/deploying somewhere else).

but it feels wrong when i penetrate a vehicle's side with 120mm (epsecially with AP) 3 times, and it keeps on going without much trouble. it feels wrong hitting light vehicles with HEAT and not penetrating. and last but not least it feels wrong that longer range gunnery is innefective.

[yurch]

If heat had more penetration, why would you ever use AP? You can already blow through the front of apollos (which nowadays seems to be just a paladin with a track - both have a respectable 'average' armor) with HEAT, and all of the light vehicles at that. Thors and fast targets would be it, and those with advanced gunnery skills would only need it for thor.

You're using the side armor of the toughest tank (that armor is equal to apollo front armor) in the game as a benchmark, and HEAT already does more than enough damage to enter from there and kill the toughest subsystems in the game in a single hit. You don't even need to go for the toughest subsystem (engine) as the fuel and ammo are both vulnerable from that direction and a HEAT hit on either effectively take the tank out. Against anything smaller it's more of an execution instead of a battle. HEAT really does not need the help.

I know all the bots take Thors and there's a bit of a saturation effect, but that tank needs some survivability going for it or there's very little reason to take it. I had a guy bitch at me because he wasn't consistantly one-shotting me in a Thor with his point-and-click hurricane (all he had to do is hit the structure behind me)... enough is enough. They did give the thing a 300 front armor rating, I suspect it's supposed to be a tad difficult to kill in the right hands.

AP does 50 damage(with apparently some reduction) to subsystems. Right now the fuel cell is 50 points on every vehicle I've checked. This means that with any increase in 120mm AP lethality you will be able to achieve one shot *total combustion* with it on every vehicle. You know, as opposed to two. When gunnery gets too effective, good positioning will hardly matter at all. We do have some crack shots on the servers. At what point then, does HEAT become obsolete? Right now in the balancing act between the two rounds, I see HEAT being the preferred weapon since now it's so easy to get penetrations, but it can very easily swing the other way if AP lethality enters the assured one-shot threshold.

Ammo, fine, driver or gunner or engines, fine. But I really don't think the fuel should be so volitile (does normal fuel do that?). I'd much rather see tanks assaulted with AP end up with empty crews, dead engines and burning turrets. Increasing the 120mm AP specifically does nothing to help the problems with the 76mm or 20mm, either. I'd much rather see crew members (which I presume, in the year xxxx are the weakest link in the vehicle... "irridium" tires anyone?) have low enough hitpoints to be killed through frag damage. AP makes holes in things, and it makes more sense to me that a tank would 'bleed out' instead of combust out of fuel damage every time. If you want to get technical, the carbon lattice that's used in the fluff has probably lost the pyrophoric properties of it's DU ancestor.

As said in the other thread, the 'green' map has a poor atmosphere for both the 120mm AP and HEAT. The inaccuracy for either at range and poor overall AP performance reduce thier effective range drastically... Ions dominate this map.

[Drusus]

AP does not do 50 damage. It does about 25. This means 2 to 3 _perfect_ shots to kill a tank. If you hit randomly around the tank, then it is more likely around 5 shots. Increasing this to 50% kill chance at close range means that it will be 50% one shot kill with AP if you know where you are shooting, when shooting at close range. Maybe that is too much, but I don't think so. Change it to 25%. But on the other hand if you are 10m away, and know where you are shooting, and it takes 2 to 3 hits _every_ time, it doesn't _feel_ right. Ok, there is the kinetic burn chance, but it is small and very random.

At the moment HEAT is already preferred weapon whenever you can target particular part of a vehicle. Except Thor front. At longer ranges I would use HEAT, but hitting with it is _really_ hard. Paladin, Shrike and Hurricane are way too fast to hit reliably with HEAT at anything more than 1.5km. Ok, 2km max. Ofcourse you might get lucky. Hitting with AP at a fast moving target isn't that great at the moment, because if you don't hit the engine, the first hit will propably have no effect at all to the combat effectiveness. And the second hit will propably have no effect either, as hitting two times at the same place against fast moving vehicles is hard.

You can hit with HEAT against static targets, Apollo and Thor. Static targets aren't that common, atleast when your enemy knows what he is doing. Thor has enough armor to survive. Hitting the | part isn't that easy, and you need a good angle even then. Suprisingly, Apollo is screwed.

Ok, after too much whining for one day, I must add this: I love the game and it is already better than most games. I just feel that there might be a possibility for some small improvements. The fragmentation damage model, well I know it isn't likely to happen. A bit more fragile components to the lighter vehicles, maybe. Improved 76mm, propably.

Hmm, maybe Ill try to clarify once more what would be the goal of the system: AP: great against heavily targeted vehicles at close & good at mid range. Depending on atmosphere, ofcourse. Good against fast moving vehicles at range (if you happen to hit a component). HEAT: Good against fast vehicles at close range. Good against heavier vehicles at long range. I don't know how realistic this is. But on the other hand, if we want to go for perfect realism, check out what DU shots are able to do today at 4km range. Penetration -> Kill.

At the moment it is more like this (I reserve the right to exaggerate): HEAT: Great at short range against anything except Thor front. Not too good at long range. AP: Not too good at any range.

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by yurch:

[QB] If heat had more penetration, why would you ever use AP? You can already blow through the front of apollos (which nowadays seems to be just a paladin with a track - both have a respectable 'average' armor) with HEAT, and all of the light vehicles at that. Thors and fast targets would be it, and those with advanced gunnery skills would only need it for thor.

i don't suggest HEAT being able to penetrate Thor front. but i think it's OK for it to penetrate apollo front, it's a light tank after all. i'd like to use AP at heavily armored targets (apollo front, thor any side) until medium range (think earth atmosphere). i'd like to use HEAT at light targets (any range if i can hit it) and at heavy armored targets but at long distances. if in some situation i'll have big problems hitting something with HEAT (e.g. fast light vehicle at 2.5km), i want to use AP against it (even though i know it's less effective against light targets)....i just basically said what Drusus said .

and btw it's like this in real life too from my talks with tankers (they use AP (well it called APFSDS in real life against tanks and HEAT against light vehicles). not that i think everything in drop team should be done as in real life, but i like using AP and HEAT this way.

You're using the side armor of the toughest tank (that armor is equal to apollo front armor) in the game as a benchmark, and HEAT already does more than enough damage to enter from there and kill the toughest subsystems in the game in a single hit.

usually it doesn't kill a component in a single hit. we tested this a lot of times, Drusus was my target at 2-3kms and i was shooting again and again at him. against Thor HEAT has problems penetrating the side armor as i wrote earlier. and anyway several penetrations were usually needed (i aimed at the center of the hull side) because of the gun's dispersion.

several penetrations usually are needed even to kill an Apollo from the side. if you don't hit the fuel cells directly, expect to need at least 3 hits with AP.... and that's 3 hits to the side of a light tank!

You don't even need to go for the toughest subsystem (engine) as the fuel and ammo are both vulnerable from that direction and a HEAT hit on either effectively take the tank out. Against anything smaller it's more of an execution instead of a battle. HEAT really does not need the help.

i had many situations where i hit a light vehicle (paladin) to the hull side with HEAT, and it didn't penetrate. that sure made me angry.

I know all the bots take Thors and there's a bit of a saturation effect, but that tank needs some survivability going for it or there's very little reason to take it.

i agree, Thor should be quite survivable. not not to the extreme like now. i can ambush a Thor from the side, i make 2 penetrations before he reacts...and he's still ok and shoots back as if nothing happened. Thor should take a beating from the front, but his sides and back shouldn't be that tough...and i repeat, the problem is not just that Thor's sides are tough, the problem is that it's hard to destroy components. and that applies to all vehicles

Ammo, fine, driver or gunner or engines, fine. But I really don't think the fuel should be so volitile (does normal fuel do that?). I'd much rather see tanks assaulted with AP end up with empty crews, dead engines and burning turrets.

i agree that i'd like to see mobility or mission killed tanks too, not just exploded. but i don't like having to penetrate him 5 times with AP from the side.

As said in the other thread, the 'green' map has a poor atmosphere for both the 120mm AP and HEAT. The inaccuracy for either at range and poor overall AP performance reduce thier effective range drastically...

i know that the green map has denser atmosphere. that's why i tested the 120mm on the ice map a lot too. there i can often shoot at Thors or other vehicles sides from 3kms....to no effect, thor's don't get penetrated with HEAT(unless i'm insanely lucky and hit the vertical side armor), and i need many penetrations with AP to kill anything.

i'll repeat after Drusus again . i'm "whining" because i really like the game. i just don't like the "WTF" moments when i think i should waste someone thanks to my good position, but he continues without any problems.

[Drusus]

Hmm, I already promised to myself that no more posts today. But just a small one, Okay?

Basically I'd like HEAT to be less effective against the Heavy ones when penetrating. And more effective against the light ones. Make it more fragmentation based and less about direct hit. If the components of the lighter vehicles would be adjusted, then the goal would be achieved. This way even if the HEAT penetration would be a bit more, it still wouldn't turn out to be the ultimate weapon at range, just a bit more useful against the heavy ones. But not a first shot killer, anyways.

AP would be a bit less effective or as effective as HEAT now at close ranges to the side and rear of Thor and to the front of Apollo and Paladin. About as effective as AP now when firing to Thor front, Apollo side or Paladin side. And a bit less effective against other targets overall but with a better chance of component kills.

[rune]

Drusus,

Then you would have tyo change the round itself. High Explosive Anti-tank works by the round causign a plasma stream,basically bburning a hole through armor. Very little fragmentation takes place outside the tank, and range does not change the weapon's effect itself.

HE or high explosive would be for fragmentation.

Simplified, but if you want more detail, there are armor experts here.

Rune

[Drusus]

I meant that the damage should be based on internal fragmenatation, not fragmentation from the shell. Sorry for the confusion. Anyways I don't know if that is realistic either...

[yurch]

Originally posted by Drusus:

AP does not do 50 damage. It does about 25. This means 2 to 3 _perfect_ shots to kill a tank. If you hit randomly around the tank, then it is more likely around 5 shots. Increasing this to 50% kill chance at close range means that it will be 50% one shot kill with AP if you know where you are shooting, when shooting at close range. Maybe that is too much, but I don't think so. Change it to 25%. But on the other hand if you are 10m away, and know where you are shooting, and it takes 2 to 3 hits _every_ time, it doesn't _feel_ right. Ok, there is the kinetic burn chance, but it is small and very random.

It's listed in my physicalobject group as having directkillfactor of 50, which is what I've been going by. I know it's not doing exactly 50 and is probably doing something well below this due to whatever modifiers are being applied. The way things have seemed to work for me has not lead me to disbelieve this theoretical maximum value; if you know a better script source please let me know. The point is that I'm of the notion that sweeping changes to AP will have drastic effects.

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

don't suggest HEAT being able to penetrate Thor front. but i think it's OK for it to penetrate apollo front, it's a light tank after all. i'd like to use AP at heavily armored targets (apollo front, thor any side) until medium range (think earth atmosphere). i'd like to use HEAT at light targets (any range if i can hit it) and at heavy armored targets but at long distances. if in some situation i'll have big problems hitting something with HEAT (e.g. fast light vehicle at 2.5km), i want to use AP against it (even though i know it's less effective against light targets)....i just basically said what Drusus said .

In a gameplay sense (and even real world), there has to be a penalty for using the higher penetration (easier to damage) round. Right now there's a slight risk of a no-penetration with the HEAT. I don't think that risk is high enough to be using AP instead in a very high amount of cases. Increasing HEAT's penetration will reduce this risk further, making AP (even if it had a slightly higher damage ability) the useless smaller cousin to HEAT.

and btw it's like this in real life too from my talks with tankers (they use AP (well it called APFSDS in real life against tanks and HEAT against light vehicles). not that i think everything in drop team should be done as in real life, but i like using AP and HEAT this way.

The comparison to real tanks may be a faulty one. Modern tanks are packed over every inch with items, to the point where the driver practically lays on his back. Under the turret is the crew compartment, which also extends up into the turret.

There's a nice picture of an abrams internal here but it apparently won't let me link to it.

Compare this to the diagrams of our internals. Looking at both the scaling of the crew doors and and crew compartments of these tanks (the gunner sits IN the Apollo turret?!), it's immediately apparent that these tanks are far larger and far less dense in thier subsystem arrangement and dependancy. The thor is of an utterly incredible size, and I'm starting to wonder if 120mm is a bit too small of a primary armanent for it. How the hurricane stays afloat is beyond me. This does kill the immersion a bit, doesn't it. :/

Going by the very loose subsystem arrangement, I think that either the components are protected for maximum survivability or there are some very wasteful engineers designing these things. I might make a composite image for laughs.

usually it doesn't kill a component in a single hit. we tested this a lot of times, Drusus was my target at 2-3kms and i was shooting again and again at him. against Thor HEAT has problems penetrating the side armor as i wrote earlier. and anyway several penetrations were usually needed (i aimed at the center of the hull side) because of the gun's dispersion.

several penetrations usually are needed even to kill an Apollo from the side. if you don't hit the fuel cells directly, expect to need at least 3 hits with AP.... and that's 3 hits to the side of a light tank!

Are you talking about HEAT or AP in the first paragraph? This is the problem with a hitpoint system with something doing X damage to Y. The difference between a two hit kill with two 90% damage shots and one with 101% is massive for player psychology. We could switch to having more statistical variance internals (but, nobody really likes random) or just weaker subsystems. Or, subsystems internals for the subsystems. Gameplay wise I'd just say use a heat for an apollo side shot, as it's side and rear armor is laughable.

Against a real tank I'd say you have a high chance of killing the crew located in and under the turret. Especially for a light vehicle that's even more crammed and lacking protections.

In game the vehicles don't seem to have this vulnerability.

i had many situations where i hit a light vehicle (paladin) to the hull side with HEAT, and it didn't penetrate. that sure made me angry.

Paladin has a respectable amount of armor for what seems a 'light' vehicle. The vital crap is located towards the belly, which is also where it's much easier to HEAT penetrate. It only usually deflects up at the top (I find players aim high for whatever reason), where you probably aren't going to do as much damage anyway. HEAT to the flat bit under the slope from the front of a paladin does catastrophic damage.

i agree, Thor should be quite survivable. not not to the extreme like now. i can ambush a Thor from the side, i make 2 penetrations before he reacts...and he's still ok and shoots back as if nothing happened. Thor should take a beating from the front, but his sides and back shouldn't be that tough...and i repeat, the problem is not just that Thor's sides are tough, the problem is that it's hard to destroy components. and that applies to all vehicles

Then you and I are in complete agreement. What matters now is what components are damaged and how.

i know that the green map has denser atmosphere.

Not everybody does. Just making sure.

[Bastables]

I think that the effects that Rip and Dru are asking for is AP shells. Which is solid full sized rounds with a HE charge with a delayed fuze to explode after penatration.

The thing is such AP shells fell out of favour once development of SABOT rounds continued apace becasue they could not match the penatration or overpowering aspect of smaller high strentgh sub penatrators traveling at 3 times the speed on the same amount of firing charge.

A ap shell would suffer even more on the "green map" with it's 2.3? atmosphere density than the sabot already does.

Now to examine the Sabot rounds, the whole development of this round is that you cannot use mere steel or iron as the speeds that sabot hit would overstress the steel or iron meaning it would fragment before penatration. So Sabot rounds have always been manufactured from metals that are much harder than steel such as tungstung and Dupleated urianium metals and won't fragment.

The basic properties of Sabot type rounds is that they don't fragment much at all so they can penatrate much more armour and after armour effects are genrally worse than AP shells and Heat rounds. Things are much worse becasue they don't fling as much mass into the targets because they're smaller sub calibre rounds.

The game does show this as AP rounds penatrate much more against greater thicknesses but are less insta kill as penatrating heat rounds. This of course is because the Armour in the game is so effetive and more importantly everything is in sealed compartments meaning fragments are less effective at hitting multiple objects both human and equipment inside.

Just personally the AP heat relationship vurses armour and post penatration seems fine. Espically when being in the light tank and recving heat rounds or sabot rounds as if there is a penatration the tank is hurt quite badly due to componate/crew damage. Turret penatrations espically as the gunner is dead on the first or second round of sabot or the turrent has exploded due to an ammunition hit.

This is a bit seperate to my feeling that crew seem a bit too survivable usually being wounded as opposed to killed but then this reflects real life too where even prior to fire control systems, blow off panels, seperate fighting compartments ect crews more often than not (unless the tank burned exploded) survived multiple penatrations and woundings driven off the battle field or continued fighting.

Maybe the problem we're dealing with is that there is this expectation and I experince this in game too of penatration should always equals a dead/exploding/burning tank. This is coupled with the hope that even on the ice ma if i can see the tgt and hit it at 5000metres the damn things should explode if I hit it at long range from the front or even at angles from the side.

[Bastables]

grr I should read the manual more closely.

Reading the thor's discription I gained the impression that the 12cm guns are firing sabot subcaliber rounds. Reading the weapons discriptions indicate that they're (ap 12cm) full sized AP shot rounds.

[Type98]

Just some ramblings/comments

If you dig around the mil sites you will find that the layout of the DT vehicle systems is rather weird and does not appear to have survivability in mind. Armor vehicles ususally trade off armor protection, systems, and weight. The weight is usually a large contraint so the more compact the system the better it can be protected given a max weight ( smaller volume -> easier to protect with more armor plus it is a smaller target). Of course there is the all egg in the basket syndrom.

Maybe the developers can spare some time to explain their design reasoning in regards to the damage system (or maybe not). For example, why manned turrets or manned vehicles at all ? CVT geared, Anti-matter engine with a top speed of 25km/h? Where is Scotty when you need to squeeze out more power .

Also current trend seems to be that passive i.e. armor is simply not going to be enough (the tank has to absorb something like over 18MJ of energy when hit by a mordern AP round).

[ April 12, 2006, 09:31 PM: Message edited by: Type98 ]

[Drusus]

The idea is not to have first shot kill weapons. Except if you know where you are shooting from point blank range, then you should have a 50% chance of first shot kill. Or non-zero chance anyways. But not at longer ranges.

As I understand, the modern SABOT rounds are extremely good at achieving first shot kills, I don't know if this is more about the pyrophoric effect than fragmentation, though. And a AP shot of DU would propably be even deadlier, given that it penetrated. Also, DU isn't too hard as a metal, it is just extremely dense and that is why it is used.

[Bastables]

hard equals denser.

nations without urainaim production (Germany) use Tungstung becasue it's a "harder" metal when hitting at such high speeds. Tungstung rounds do not have the pyro effects of du. The rounds in game should act more like (and do) this as there is no du componate to the ap rounds in drop team. Tungstung was used extensivily by all nations in the 40s as a subcaliber penatrator prior to the ability to split the atom and all that facinating du being created in the world. For solid shot British army, cezch ecct most nations during the war relied on AP shot ie Russia, Germany, USA, ect.

Modern sabot rounds also have much larger gap in penatration vurses armour thickness contest. punching through veh's that have 1970/80s era armour at ranges less than 2500metres or 2000 metres.

The Game shows the round having a intial penatration of 450mm vurses sloped thickness of 100mm up to 300mm of armour. The gun armour contest here is a lot closer. This ignoring what percentage the statment good first round kills means.

[ April 13, 2006, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: Bastables ]

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by rune:

Then you would have tyo change the round itself. High Explosive Anti-tank works by the round causign a plasma stream,basically bburning a hole through armor. Very little fragmentation takes place outside the tank, and range does not change the weapon's effect itself.

just a small nitpick, HEAT doesn't create a plasma stream. the metal jet it creates is still solid! but at the speeds (9km/s) and pressures it behaves like fluid....also the armor which is hit by HEAT is pushed away like a fluid. the max temperature of the HEAT jet is about 500 degrees celsius, not enough to melt most metals.

the same for APFSDS penetrators. they behave like fluids when they hit the armor, and the armor is pushed away like a fluid. this is why they use dense materials for the penetrators. because both armor and penetrator behave like fluids, the heavier one of the fuilds pushes the other one away more...

if you ask if both APFSDS and HEAT behave like fluid then what's the difference? the HEAT jet travels faster than the speed of sound of the material IN the HEAT jet. so only the tip of the HEAT jet "knows" or "feels" the impact, because the shock of the impact travels slower than the jet and thus cannot reach parts of the jet that are more distant from the impact point....APFSDS travels slower than the speed of sound of it's material, so shock of the impact travels through the penetrator, and can causi it to shatter etc

of course none of this has to apply in the game. i just wanted to use the chance to dispell the common knowledge that HEAT makes splasma streams, and got carried away

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by yurch:

In a gameplay sense (and even real world), there has to be a penalty for using the higher penetration (easier to damage) round. Right now there's a slight risk of a no-penetration with the HEAT. I don't think that risk is high enough to be using AP instead in a very high amount of cases. Increasing HEAT's penetration will reduce this risk further, making AP (even if it had a slightly higher damage ability) the useless smaller cousin to HEAT.

the penalty for using AP round would be that it's penetration ability decreases with range (especially in denser atmospheres), a bit lower component damage than HEAT, and if the fragmentation model would be like Drusus said (more fragmentation after passing through more armor) then it would be less effective against light targets than against heavy armored targets.

for the player it would be better to use AP against heavy targets until medium range (in earth atmosphere), and in longer ranges he'd use HEAT against the heavy targets (though it would be unable to penetrate heavy armored parts, like thor front turret and hull, and side turret)

Originally posted by yurch:

Compare this to the diagrams of our internals. Looking at both the scaling of the crew doors and and crew compartments of these tanks (the gunner sits IN the Apollo turret?!), it's immediately apparent that these tanks are far larger and far less dense in thier subsystem arrangement and dependancy. The thor is of an utterly incredible size, and I'm starting to wonder if 120mm is a bit too small of a primary armanent for it. How the hurricane stays afloat is beyond me. This does kill the immersion a bit, doesn't it. :/

i think i already wrote somewhere about this that the crew compartments are too small, no way a human would fit there. for example the gunner's compartment should protrude into the hull. alse the driver's compartment should be much bigger. if you compare the compartment's size with the gun size, the gun would have to be some gigantic naval gun.

Originally posted by yurch:

Are you talking about HEAT or AP in the first paragraph? This is the problem with a hitpoint system with something doing X damage to Y. The difference between a two hit kill with two 90% damage shots and one with 101% is massive for player psychology. We could switch to having more statistical variance internals (but, nobody really likes random) or just weaker subsystems.

yes, i was talking about HEAT. i wouldn't have a problem with it if there would be some random factor in the internal damage (only internal!). you cannot model the internal damage in big detail, so you have to use abstractions. and i don't think that hitpoints and penetrations with always the same internal damage are a good abstraction.

what effect i'd like to see is that if i directly hit the engine (of any vehicle) with AP, it has at least 50% change to be destroyed. second hit should almost always destroy the engine. the AP would also do more fragmentation damage than it does now. this could be achieved by a combination of component hitpoints and some slight random variation of direct and fragmentation internal damage.

this would make mobility kills and mission kills (e.g. dead gunner, blown up ammo etc) more likely. you'd see tanks that are innefective in battle (but still somehow alive) after about 2 (3 if they're lucky) penetrations (notice i said pentrations, not just hit, so you have to attack from a position where you can shoot at vulnerable side...but you'd need to aim just for the whole vulnerable side, not some tiny component and need to hit it several times). they'd have to extract or suicide. this would make longer range gunnery effective.

Originally posted by yurch:

Paladin has a respectable amount of armor for what seems a 'light' vehicle. The vital crap is located towards the belly, which is also where it's much easier to HEAT penetrate. It only usually deflects up at the top (I find players aim high for whatever reason), where you probably aren't going to do as much damage anyway. HEAT to the flat bit under the slope from the front of a paladin does catastrophic damage.

i think that paladin has too much armor. it's a light armored wheeled vehicle, isn't it? the non penetrating HEAT hits were to the side, which isn'totally vertical, but neither it's too sloped. but probably even that bit of slope stopped the HEAT from penetrating.

[yllamana]

I think the reason that things are as they are is, if these weapons could easily get first shot kills (as you seem to want) then the game would be dominated by Thors and Apollo tank destroyers sitting in spots where they could see for miles and snipe everyone.

I also don't get how "only" damaging components at 2+km makes the guns ineffective? It's not like having damaged components is no big deal, plus it means the next shots can do even more damage and cripple or destroy the components. Not to mention I've seen first-shot kills of the Apollo at over 3km with 120mm AP (ice map).

Basically I don't see a problem with how it is now. I think it's balanced on a very fine point at the moment, and even a slight movement either way could throw off the balance entirely.

Honestly I think the idea that a penetration that only damages components instead of killing them all outright is "useless" is quite silly.

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by Bastables:

I think that the effects that Rip and Dru are asking for is AP shells. Which is solid full sized rounds with a HE charge with a delayed fuze to explode after penatration.

no i'm asking for more damage to components that are directly hit by AP, and a more fragmentation damage from AP if it passes through a lot of armor.

Originally posted by Bastables:

Now to examine the Sabot rounds, the whole development of this round is that you cannot use mere steel or iron as the speeds that sabot hit would overstress the steel or iron meaning it would fragment before penatration. So Sabot rounds have always been manufactured from metals that are much harder than steel such as tungstung and Dupleated urianium metals and won't fragment.

nope that's not true, see one of my previous posts. tungsten or depleted uranium are definitely softer than steel. for example diamond is much tougher than tungsten, but it's much less dense (just look into some chemical tables).

Originally posted by Bastables:

The basic properties of Sabot type rounds is that they don't fragment much at all so they can penatrate much more armour and after armour effects are genrally worse than AP shells and Heat rounds. Things are much worse becasue they don't fling as much mass into the targets because they're smaller sub calibre rounds.

they do produce fragmentation by spalling. that means when they penetrate, they tear out bit of armor from the inside of the armor.

Originally posted by Bastables:

The game does show this as AP rounds penatrate much more against greater thicknesses but are less insta kill as penatrating heat rounds. This of course is because the Armour in the game is so effetive and more importantly everything is in sealed compartments meaning fragments are less effective at hitting multiple objects both human and equipment inside.

the problems is that even direct hits with AP are pretty innefective. in the test i described in my first post in this thread, i was shooting to the back side of thor's hull from point blank range. even after 2 direct hits to engine and fuel cells, they were pretty ok and the tank could still move...that's quite wierd that you have 2 120mm AP penetrators going through the engine and fuell cells and still be combat effective.

Originally posted by Bastables:

Maybe the problem we're dealing with is that there is this expectation and I experince this in game too of penatration should always equals a dead/exploding/burning tank. This is coupled with the hope that even on the ice ma if i can see the tgt and hit it at 5000metres the damn things should explode if I hit it at long range from the front or even at angles from the side.

no i don't think that penetration should always equal a dead tank. on the ice map i can hit a Thor's hull side (from 90 degrees) from 3kms with HEAT or AP repeatadly. but it's not effective. HEAT usually doesn't penetrate (because it hits the sloped parts mostly). AP penetrates more, but because i cannot hit the same component several times (because of gun dispersion and because the target is moving), i have to penetrate him with AP at least 5 times.

[Morat]

I'm a little suprised that the game seems to model AP causing so little damage once it has penetrated. Both types of round are streams of hot liquid metal once they have penetrated, and once they're through the armour they'll destroy anything they come up against. In todays tanks, nothing is really armoured inside the armour - there's a lot of heavy machinery for sure - but its quite vulnerable once its sitting in the open!

I vote for another round type - HESH. Its very effective against smaller/lighter armoured vehicles due to its massive fragmentation effects, and would be very useful when ambushing heavy vehicles from the sides/rear.

[RIPper_SVK]

well i'm on a posting spree, hopefully the devs don't get angry on me

Originally posted by yllamana:

I think the reason that things are as they are is, if these weapons could easily get first shot kills (as you seem to want) then the game would be dominated by Thors and Apollo tank destroyers sitting in spots where they could see for miles and snipe everyone.

no i don't want first shot kills, not at all. i want to cause some serious damage after not more than 2-3 AP penetrations. notice the "penetrations". that means that thor would be very tough from the front against AP, and other vehicles would be hard to penetrate at longer range (depends on air density).

by serious damage i don't necesarilly mean destroyed. i mean at least a mobility kill, or expoded ammo, or some crewmembers dead. basically i want to to be combat innefective. as it is now, after 3 AP penetrations he will most likely only be a bit slower, but able to fight. i still need several more AP shots.

now you need too many penetrations with AP to cause serious damage. HEAT damage is OK, but it has a problem to penetrate because of it's quite low penetration and that the sloped armor is very thick.

Originally posted by yllamana:

I also don't get how "only" damaging components at 2+km makes the guns ineffective? It's not like having damaged components is no big deal, plus it means the next shots can do even more damage and cripple or destroy the components. Not to mention I've seen first-shot kills of the Apollo at over 3km with 120mm AP (ice map).

the damage is too low. after 3 AP (if you don't luckilly score 3 perfect direct hits to 1 component) penetrations, usually most vehicles can still move (tough slower) and fire.

Originally posted by yllamana:

Honestly I think the idea that a penetration that only damages components instead of killing them all outright is "useless" is quite silly. [/QB]

no you didn't understand me. i really love that you can damage components etc. but when after 3 AP penetrations (that don't hit the exact same component) the enemy (any vehicle, not just thor) can still move (though a bit slower) and fight, i say that AP is innefective.

[ April 13, 2006, 03:05 AM: Message edited by: RIPper_SVK ]

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by Morat:

[QB] I'm a little suprised that the game seems to model AP causing so little damage once it has penetrated. Both types of round are streams of hot liquid metal once they have penetrated, and once they're through the armour they'll destroy anything they come up against. In todays tanks, nothing is really armoured inside the armour - there's a lot of heavy machinery for sure - but its quite vulnerable once its sitting in the open!

the AP damage should be lower than in real life for gameplay reasons, and i agree with that.

Originally posted by Morat:

I vote for another round type - HESH. Its very effective against smaller/lighter armoured vehicles due to its massive fragmentation effects, and would be very useful when ambushing heavy vehicles from the sides/rear.

HEAT would be effective enough against lighter targets if it didn't have the problem to penetrate the sloped armor. if HEAT penetrates, it's very effective (i'm talking about the game of course). HESH wouldn't be really effective against heavy armored vehicles sides, because the armor is not plain rolled homogenous armor. in real life it could damage sights, but sights aren't modelled in the game.

[yurch]

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

for the player it would be better to use AP against heavy targets until medium range (in earth atmosphere), and in longer ranges he'd use HEAT against the heavy targets (though it would be unable to penetrate heavy armored parts, like thor front turret and hull, and side turret)

Right, but the need for AP is already diminishing, and this is before your proposed increase of HEAT penetration. It's already impractical to penetrate (the only real heavy vehicle) the Thor close up from the front with AP because that means staring down it's cannon. So we attack from the sides or rear, where HEAT is incidentally more useful anyway. I'd expect the thor to have at least a minor bit of HEAT protection, which it does with the armor sloping. Although I don't think it's anywhere as near as effective as you seem to portray it.

I'm running out of HEAT waaay before AP.

i think i already wrote somewhere about this that the crew compartments are too small, no way a human would fit there. for example the gunner's compartment should protrude into the hull. alse the driver's compartment should be much bigger. if you compare the compartment's size with the gun size, the gun would have to be some gigantic naval gun.

Think they'll let us redo it?

yes, i was talking about HEAT. i wouldn't have a problem with it if there would be some random factor in the internal damage (only internal!). you cannot model the internal damage in big detail, so you have to use abstractions. and i don't think that hitpoints and penetrations with always the same internal damage are a good abstraction.

Nobody likes random. You say yourself you get furious when you can't hit with HEAT from range just from the minor deviations, why wouldn't it make you angry if you land 6 (still minorly statistically probable, but an obvious exaggeration) shots on the engine and it's still going?

what effect i'd like to see is that if i directly hit the engine (of any vehicle) with AP, it has at least 50% change to be destroyed. second hit should almost always destroy the engine. the AP would also do more fragmentation damage than it does now. this could be achieved by a combination of component hitpoints and some slight random variation of direct and fragmentation internal damage.

The lack of frag damage may have something to do with the fact that there is little to frag into from the side, the way the components are lined up.

this would make mobility kills and mission kills (e.g. dead gunner, blown up ammo etc) more likely. you'd see tanks that are innefective in battle (but still somehow alive) after about 2 (3 if they're lucky) penetrations (notice i said pentrations, not just hit, so you have to attack from a position where you can shoot at vulnerable side...but you'd need to aim just for the whole vulnerable side, not some tiny component and need to hit it several times). they'd have to extract or suicide. this would make longer range gunnery effective.

And short range gunnery positively brutal. I drove the 120mm apollo around like a psychopath last night, and achieved multiple 2 hit kills with AP on several different craft (a few at 1500-2500m!), all while driving at 40km/hr or whatever the apollo top speed is. Until of course, they started pounding me with the hurricane.

If we start making it easier to damage the tanks once we penetrate, I'm going to have to request that some of them recieve better protection. I can crest a hill and make penetrating snapshots very easily.

i think that paladin has too much armor. it's a light armored wheeled vehicle, isn't it? the non penetrating HEAT hits were to the side, which isn'totally vertical, but neither it's too sloped. but probably even that bit of slope stopped the HEAT from penetrating.

I would class the paladin as a wheeled tank, not an armored car or something. An apollo trading it's tracks for speed. If you want unarmored, observe what happens when a shrike meets an ion cannon. The paladin chassis would not be very useful at all in these game situations with any less armor.

[RIPper_SVK]

Originally posted by yurch:

Right, but the need for AP is already diminishing, and this is before your proposed increase of HEAT penetration. It's already impractical to penetrate (the only real heavy vehicle) the Thor close up from the front with AP because that means staring down it's cannon. So we attack from the sides or rear, where HEAT is incidentally more useful anyway.

my main proposal is to make AP better to make it more usefull. at this time i don't use it (unless i'm testing it). i don't want to give it better penetration, but to give it more direct damage to components (and a bit more frag damage to components).

the reason i suggested a bit better penetration for HEAT (it's component damage is OK), is to get arround the annoying "sloped armor has the same thickness as the vertical one". that problem makes very tough spots of armor on places where i think the designers didn't want them to be (on various vehicles, not just thor).

i think the designers wanted the thor hull side (not turret side) to be vulnerable to HEAT. HEAT penetration would really be OK if the sloped armor problem wouldn't be there, but if it's not possible to fix that (because it's not an easy problem), i suggest a bit better HEAT penetration.

Originally posted by yurch:

I'd expect the thor to have at least a minor bit of HEAT protection, which it does with the armor sloping. Although I don't think it's anywhere as near as effective as you seem to portray it.

do some tests with it. if you see the HEAT explode, then it didn't penetrate. try shooting from longer range on thor's side (from 90 degrees), and you'll see how hard is it to penetrate the hull side (unless you're lucky to hit the vertical armor).

Originally posted by yurch:

I'm running out of HEAT waaay before AP.

me too, and i think that indicates some problem in the damage (and armor) model

Originally posted by yurch:

Nobody likes random. You say yourself you get furious when you can't hit with HEAT from range just from the minor deviations, why wouldn't it make you angry if you land 6 (still minorly statistically probable, but an obvious exaggeration) shots on the engine and it's still going?

i don't mean THAT random. i'll make an example (i'll forget about AP frag damage for simplicity). and don't take the numbers too seriously, it's just an example:

AP direct hit does 30-45 HP direct damage

engine has 40 HP

that means that if you hit engine directly, you have 30% change of destroying the engine on first hit. you will definitely destroy it on 2nd hit (that is a 2nd perfect direct hit, only possible at short range, and with a lof of luck on moving targets at longer range).

compare to the current situation, where 2 direct hits with AP don't detroy an engine (i tried this many times, i shot at thor's back from point blank range).

now add some reasonable frag damage to the example, and you get this:

1) if you hit a component, you have some change to destroy it with 1st hit...not a big change, but it's there

2) 2 direct hits to a component definitely destroy it. but this can be only done at close distance. you need lots of luck for 2 direct hits to a component of a moving target in longer distance (more than 1.5 km)

3) with good tweaking of the frag damage, you would usually need 2-3 penetrations to make the target combat innefective (immobile, burning ammo etc). these penetration would NOT have to hit the same component.

that was a short example ... the exact numbers are up for some debate, but i hope it explained what i want to do to make AP usefull (but not too usefull)

Originally posted by yurch:

The lack of frag damage may have something to do with the fact that there is little to frag into from the side, the way the components are lined up.

several components get frag damage from a side AP penetration, but the frag damage is too low.

Originally posted by yurch:

And short range gunnery positively brutal.

well short range gunnery should definitely be more effective than long range.

Originally posted by yurch:

If we start making it easier to damage the tanks once we penetrate, I'm going to have to request that some of them recieve better protection. I can crest a hill and make penetrating snapshots very easily.

now when you see people play tanks, they don't use the terrain very well. one reason is the low acceleration, so it's hard to do berm drills with the tanks. the other reason is that there's no big need, the tank can take a punch.

Originally posted by yurch:

I would class the paladin as a wheeled tank, not an armored car or something. An apollo trading it's tracks for speed. If you want unarmored, observe what happens when a shrike meets an ion cannon. The paladin chassis would not be very useful at all in these game situations with any less armor.

the problem with paladin if it had less armor is generally the problem of light vehicles in this game. light vehicles' biggest advantage is their mobility. but you don't need the mobility in this game that much. dropships provide mobility. or there's some central target to assault where you don't have to rush so you can take heavier stuff.

only usefull light vehicles is the hermes and ATGM ones. you don't need others because you won't use their mobility.

what would enforce more use of lighter vehicles is if there would be better AA cover (but less deployable AA turrets so the attackers can make a DZ), and more objectives. so that you would know that with speed you could take some side objectives, and you'd use light vehicles.

now we've seen only 2 maps, i don't know how are the others. but in these 2 maps, you don't need the mobility of light vehicles that much.

[yurch]

Originally posted by RIPper_SVK:

my main proposal is to make AP better to make it more usefull. at this time i don't use it (unless i'm testing it). i don't want to give it better penetration, but to give it more direct damage to components (and a bit more frag damage to components).

the reason i suggested a bit better penetration for HEAT (it's component damage is OK), is to get arround the annoying "sloped armor has the same thickness as the vertical one". that problem makes very tough spots of armor on places where i think the designers didn't want them to be (on various vehicles, not just thor).

You won't make the AP round more useful by making HEAT better. Tanks have sloped armor for protection, that's what it's for. This effect is what keeps heat from totally dominating it from the side like it does the light tanks. The risk is still too great to leave the thor's sides open, this 'protection' isn't reliable at all.

i think the designers wanted the thor hull side (not turret side) to be vulnerable to HEAT.

It is vulnerable to HEAT. I would say it's not designed specifically so, given that the thor has higher side armor than normal and a very mild sloped protection. Didn't you say earlier you wanted to use AP vs heavy vehicles and HEAT versus light?

do some tests with it. if you see the HEAT explode, then it didn't penetrate. try shooting from longer range on thor's side (from 90 degrees), and you'll see how hard is it to penetrate the hull side (unless you're lucky to hit the vertical armor).

I murder Thors from the side with HEAT. So does everybody else, it's a one to two hit kill. If you're too far away to even hit the flat part of the Thor, the tank isn't much of a threat because it probably can't do the same to you. Part of an effective ambush is firing in effective range.

They also gave the thor five levels of zoom and the longest ranged weapons in the game. (heavy mortar, the ion and the 120mm, although experience varies by map) It's armor appears to be designed to stand up to fire for extended periods in a long range situation.

me too, and i think that indicates some problem in the damage (and armor) model

Let me break it down:

No matter what changes you make, HEAT should always do more damage than AP if it penetrates. Therefore, HEAT will be favored whenever it can penetrate. This has been an absolute so far in the discussion. If you make HEAT more likely to penetrate, it's going to be favored over AP more, no matter what changes you make to the damage model. HEAT is supposed to be good for light vehicles and at ranges where AP has no chance of penetrating.

HOWEVER, HEAT is a lower velocity round. This means it will suffer more from leading, scatter, dispersion, ect. Firing HEAT long range at a main battle tank at dubious angles is an act of desperation, not practicality. I fully support your right to do this, as I believe ammo is cheaper than lives, but I do not think it should be anywhere near effective as you seem to want it to be.

several components get frag damage from a side AP penetration, but the frag damage is too low.

What? I'm talking about the arrangement of internal parts - a shot down the front or rear has more potential of passing through multiple parts than from the side, doesn't it?

well short range gunnery should definitely be more effective than long range.

I'm not sure if I'm getting across how well some players can aim. Your 1.5km hitting-components-twice challenge is most likely not even a problem for some players, and they will only get better through time. At close range it's trivial. You can one-hit-kill with HEAT on thors with a fairly high ratio as it is. Light vehicles are even easier. Short range gunnery is most certainly already effective, and it doesn't need our specific help to be any more so.

now when you see people play tanks, they don't use the terrain very well. one reason is the low acceleration, so it's hard to do berm drills with the tanks. the other reason is that there's no big need, the tank can take a punch.

My favorite thing with the thor happens to be digging and using a defensive array to the side of an attacker advance. It's not effective against hurricanes, of course, but nothing really is. I really don't do it with apollos anymore, since the bots always spam enough heat at me to eventually get lucky from the front. I might have to set up an even higher wall to hide behind, but then it's easy to miss a paladin coming in. The bots are dumb about thier positioning, of course, and some players really don't have a clue. Give them time.

the problem with paladin if it had less armor is generally the problem of light vehicles in this game. light vehicles' biggest advantage is their mobility. but you don't need the mobility in this game that much. dropships provide mobility. or there's some central target to assault where you don't have to rush so you can take heavier stuff.

As a 76mm and hermes user, I call... LIES! I wish the hermes was faster, actually; and the 76mm user that doesn't drive doesn't survive.

only usefull light vehicles is the hermes and ATGM ones. you don't need others because you won't use their mobility.

You're bouncing all over the place here. You saying mobility isn't needed and you said earlier you think the HEAT should penetrate the paladin easier. The tradeoff is protection versus manuverability, is it not? If manuverability wasn't needed we could put heavier armor on the paladin...

What's the point of bringing up the usefulness of light vehicles in an armor discussion anyway? A vantage position that gives you a shot at the side of a busy thor is an objective in itself, and one I would expect only a fast vehicle to be able to do...

Main points:

Higher HEAT penetration is unnecessary and counterproductive. HEAT should not be considered an effective substitute for AP in ranged work.

I don't like high degrees of randomness in a damage system, both for the shooter and the shootee. My luck is crap, I know I'm just going to get 1 hit KO'd over and over.

I've been looking at the cob files and physicalobjectgroup files and I've figured how they work together, although I don't have a good .cob editor/converter. Through manual placement I can place the components (and I think the diagrams given to us are a bit misleading at times); given time I think I could devise more appropriate internals if necessary.