conductiv

you can say that again... nah this game is far from realistic or even close to that...so it wouldn't be a very good simulator for wannabe admirals

Lol, have a +1...I got a "in soviet russia..seal clubs you" picture in my head.

dunno about "melting", but kerosine fire can certainly weaken them enough to snap. talking about the "standard" construction H and U profiles.. if you want to know more about the impact of heat on metals, you would have to find a site that delves into steel metalurgy

on a side note, steel does need a good deal of energy to burn..but atomic weapons are a bit overkill...its mostly the acquisition of oxygen that prevents steel fires to propagate..steel with lots of oxygen around it (wools and sharpenings) can be burned with a battery of a few volts. I dunno if ship-steel slabs are immune to the impact of a fire of the non-critical parts, you don't need to melt or burn the steel to weaken it, steel gains most of its strength through its crystal structure and this structure is compromised in its elastic state. meaning you just need to stress it enough through heat or pressure and it will start to pit or crack...this temperature isn't extremely high either for the most common sorts of steel, as steel "weakens" all the time by common house and barn fires. but again..that's not relevant to the discussion, they can burn by HE shells..the balance should be on the frequency or magnitude of HP damage to balance the ammo for the game..realism has fairly little to do with it.

fire can burn practically anything, the question is only how hot it can be to propagate its reaction. but the realism of fire isn't all that relevant with regards to game balance.

if he dropped the smoke after he attacked he should have closed about 7KM already or be at 7KM, and as soon as he starts dropping smoke he has to turn into the fog to gain the benefit otherwise he will outrun his concealment and remain visible. anyway..as soon as you see a DD set up his killzone, its important to get the hell out. he has a massive advantage in that area...on top of that he is armed with weapons specifically suited to take on big ships in close range, regardless their HP total. the way DD's work make them great to capture bases, they are hard to spot from range and their smoke or "killzone" is a strong deterrent should something approach.

don't sail into the fog cloud...death awaits any who enter. and I'm talking from a cruisers perspective..I "counter" DD's...but if you enter their cloud, you are dead. HE or AP, a destroyer is like 60%+ non critical hitzone..tiny, agile and fast. one moment you 1 hit pop them..the next you keep hitting them for hardly any damage.

are you absolutely sure this is supposed to be a action simulation? ships go about at race car speeds in this game (just look at the distance you travel on average per game..that would take hours on the actual listed ship speed), shells go about 3 times as fast as in reality, ships have instant repair and healing options, we have team color coding and ships literally pop in and out of existence based on fictional stealth stats....we can also win games by sailing circles in empty patches of water marked on a insta-update minimap. our AA works like a aura and can shoot through mountains or the ship itself, the ship has a HP total, planes can be insta repaired and restocked, scout planes launched by catapult land on the ship upon return (IRL they had to land on water and be recovered) ship ramming damage is minute on friendlies and devastating on enemies, we have magic flags that give combat bonuses, we only have 1 crewmember that applies magic boosts to things like weapon range. I could go on and on and on (as there are quite a few more arcade features)...this really looks like a arcade where the models are about the only realistic thing.

well yes, while you do counter them, its not a easy win. the DD is well aware that he is far more fragile and badly outgunned, so he is going to use its 2 strong pionts..agility and stealth to avoid the guns. and while the torp isn't really effective against a cruiser. (as in chance to hit is about 1:12-1:16 or such) spam enough and you will eventually get a hit and they do hurt. (unlike a BB vs cruiser..a cruiser isn't really resistant against the DDs main weapon damage, being the torpedo..cruisers are just more agile then a BB so they have a easier time avoiding it, but this line has blurred a bit in the last patch) does this need fixing?...I don't know to be honest, maybe the cruiser scout needs a minor buff in its ability to find destroyers in smoke. but other then that, I don't know.

wait...if thats the case all the BB's claiming they suffered 1K+ dps from fire alone where talking BS, because no ship has 100K or more HP. personally I estimated the DPS around 0.5% every 2 seconds..so my initial guess was reasonably close..later on I changed that to 0.5% per sec because people claimed every tick was a second. ...I really want a testing room so I don't have to guess all the time....got any hit-location data? do hull hits have reduced fire chances like I suspect?...do all the fire chance manipulators work additively like I suspect? is there a minimum fire chance bracket for the 5-12% fire chance range HE shells?

slightly less gunpower, armor and AA for torpedo's IJN cruisers and a few mid tier USN cruisers (phoenix, omaha) can effectively use all ammunition types, AP, HE and torpedo. ready to blow up, burn or sink your target. each ammo has its up and downsides, with currently the torpedo and AP being on the "light" side compared to HE..but I'm sure that will be fixed soon enough..hopefully without neutering HE in the process. -AP should be the go to cruiser ammo when fighting other cruisers showing you their broadside, lone carriers and some DDs, deals a ton of damage with proper aiming deu to citadel hits and comes with good standoff properties. pick too flimsy a DD or too tough a target like a BB and its damage potential plummets. -HE is the current go to ammo due to its reasonable impact damage and fire potential..should be the ammo you use in desperation against well armored targets unwilling to close into torpedo range (heavy cruisers or battleships), hoping to cook them with good fire-setting options. against carriers you really fear the aircraft of or against flimsy DDs with its ability to punch the engine out of the ship -torps are slow and clucky and should be used in close range against big targets, main armor buster of the pack dealing monster damage on any ship...downside is its optimal range...being point blank as its relatively easy to avoid on typical artillery ranges. being a IJN cruiser means you keep all these options, but you will feel the downsides of having a bigger citadel spot, less AA guns and no healing option in the higher tiers (as pensecola+ USN cruisers get the repair crew option like battleships.)

I know that, but it would have made the wall of tekst a bit too big...I did catch all the points that had to do with the ammo though..roughly...most of them. it is one of the few suggestions that doesn't nerf HE ammo into oblivion again

about the complete immunity bit...that is where we vary greatly then, from a game aspect I feel immunity should not exist. otherwise people will flock to the class that is immune to the majority of attacks and ditches the rest, this would outright destroy any resemblance of game balance. a ships resistance to damage is measured mainly by HP counts and to a lesser extend by its weak-zones and attack type weaknesses. 0-HP should not mean that it would actually be sunk IRL, (much like you can kill almost any HP based unit by repeatedly hitting a non critical part, like stomping a guy repeatedly on its toes in fighting games, shooting a guy a dozen times in his hands in a shooter etc.) about the fire aspect, I'm well aware of the reality...however reality and games don't mix too well, imagine not being able to repair engine damage within a reasonable amount of time. for me though its important the ammunition and its fire aspect get nerfed to the balance piont and hence remain useful. so we don't get consistent "always load X" ammo choices. if it cannot be penetrated the main gun cannot be destroyed, it can however be jammed, warped or disabled by other means. to my knowledge ship turrets don't have any explosive material inside (when unloaded, as the charge is brought in by the loading elevator) so it won't just blow up by fire. I also didn't ask for outright destruction, I was wondering if you thought these modules should be out-right immune to damage from lower caliber shells..I'm pleased to read you did not imply this.

The underlined bit is already the case, but the current impact damage for HE is too high. allowing it to stack up to insane damage totals. if like chaplainDMK stated, HE damage would be severely reduced on armor (to the point of being 0 when hitting BB belt armor) the impact problem would be dealt with the downside of the current HE module damage is, is that it mainly hits the AA batteries, something that isn't all that important in a ship to ship engagement. on the other hand, you don't really want it to be very effective at disabling the primaries either so this is best left alone for now. the last part is the HE fire chance, low caliber spam guns have a low chance (~5% for the 120mm range guns) high caliber guns have a high chance (31% for the yamato) prior to 0.3.1. this was bugged and all fire chances where significantly lower. now the listed HE fire chances seem to be correct if the shots hit superstructure or deck. the big problem seems to be in the mid-caliber guns that have high rates of fire (6+ RPM), are available in droves (8-12 guns on target), and have fire chances in the 12-16% region where a 8 shots hit volly at medium long range (drops on the deck and structure mainly) has a insane chance of igniting the target. while the low chance guns are hampered a lot by the damage prevention equipment (the one that decreases fire chance by 5% ) and their generally few guns (most of these guns are on DD's, who carry 3-4 of these) and the high caliber guns are hampered by the lower rate of fire (~2 RPM) and relatively low accuracy. now when looking at chaplainDMks suggestion, HE would deal 0 on impact to battleships, meaning fire would be the only source of damage. and he suggests making the current fires "minor fires" that can grow to serious fires in time. on its own not a bad idea if you keep in mind that mid calibers light stuff on fire in a amazing frequency and its major fire is truly devastating for the ship (even if it would take almost 2 full minutes for this damage to occur, minor fire 40 secs>douse>minor fire 45 secs>major fire 10 secs...total damage about 60%-25% healing=~35% HP damage in 95 seconds per minor fire escalation) for these 2-4 minutes though, the cruiser (or DD with 12% range guns..who are few and far between) will have to keep avoiding the shots of the BB and keep fire on the BB for BB's they would be able to either citadel-maul CA's, or use their larger HE shells to instantly cause a major fire on penetration on the hull (and succesfull fire roll) basically 1 shotting any small ship. his suggestion keeps HE useful, something I like. and seems to focus on the 2 aspects that seem to be the biggest problem at the moment (the fact that larger caliber HE seems completely useless compared to mid caliber HE spam due to fire chances) but naturally it would still need tweaking the bold part is something I agree with, some BB's just end up with the short stick there, having both a weak short range pew-pew secondary..and a mid range scattergun that shoots once every 30 seconds. but I do feel that's a completely different issue altogether

I'm against complete immunity of any ship, so the underlined bit is what I'm worried about. especially with regards to ships with low/mid caliber guns and no access to torpedoes. (low/mid tier USN cruisers, CV's with only DBs as anti-ship weapons) I'm also worried about the way you seem to handle fire, you are adamant some parts arn't flammable...okay...but does that mean that when a flammable part is hit that it also requires an additional fire roll? (basically meaning every ship becomes practically invulnerable to fire as it will take 40+ hits to get ignition that will be subsequently insta-doused) or will a good hit on said spot ignite and do its work on the whole of the targets HP on top of that you seem to imply that the ships main battery should be immune to critical damage by smaller caliber shells. (naming secondary and AA armament, but ignoring its primaries..the only worthwhile superstructure module to damage)

I wasn't talking about you, so I apologize if this seemed to be the case. you are not the only one asking for BB secondary improvements...and while I do not agree with you, you are at least willing to compensate in some area's. there are quite a few people that make very reasonable suggestions in this thread, and there are posts that...well...don't. Some of the suggestions that seem off might become reasonable if explained in more detail..others are obviously geared to improve a class and use the worst of said class to enforce the suggestion.

hey thread necromancer, I replied to this thread on the first day that I entered the beta, the shell mechanics have changed a bit since then.

if you have plenty of money to spend why not, if you are generally a stingy person that rather uses its well earned money on quality goods, I'd wait. main reason is that its a closed beta, so it will have a reset prior to open beta so even if you like it, progress will be wiped. (you will keep any goods you bought with real money) second main reason is that its a closed beta game still tinkering with the rough balance, meaning that you will see some blatantly OP ships and game aspects that people are abusing like crazy at the moment.

so because a few BB's don't have insane range the entire class doesn't have it...I love that argumentation, you can nullify any position with it as long as at least 1 member of the class doesn't obey the status quo. but when making a argument against the class, you use the most overpowered ship in the line and make it sound like every ship of that class behaves exactly like that one...clevelands...every single person making a claim against cruiser HE uses the cleveland as the example to beat. and the atlanta oddly enough, while I hardly see any atlantas around.... HE was useless before, and now its overbuffed...great...this should mean it should be somewhere in the middle, yet some people make the distinct impression they want HE to be useless against armored ships. and they want AP to be...just as useless because armor has to mean something. on top of that they want 8KM safezones so anything that has torps can't get close enough without being pulverized on top of having ballerina like agility so they can dodge any torps launched from far away or coming in by plane... if that's what you want just say you want to play "world of battleships" rather then "world of warships".

the current fire deals about 0.5% HP damage per second per level and lasts roughly 30 seconds, it cannot escalate and only level up when another section of the ship is hit with a successful HE fire roll. what would be your suggested stats for major and minor fires its hard to talk about "very short time" and "escalate" when this can encompass anything between 10 minutes and 10 seconds. what does this 25% encompass? I fail to see how secondary armory range ties in to HE balancing if the only connection they have is a RNG factor (one in accuracy the other in trigger chance) chaplainDMK is talking about fire chances on armor by HE ammo, so doing it has a connection to the topic at hand..and I do agree with him for a fair bit (the impact damage of HE is ludicrous at the moment, and should be reduced by armor.), but knowing the sorry state HE ammo was in before, I do feel it needs to maintain some good aspects...since damage is not an option..its mod-damage and fire chances should remain a threat and not instantly clickied away..or simply ignored because of lack of impact ...you are right to a degree, the BB secondaries have pitiful range compared to their historic counterparts..but the main problem is that it would completely wreck the game if the ranges became much longer, DD's already have a very hard time engaging battleships with torpedos, BBs have very high agility now and still hit like a truck, and with the DDs petty HP they can't even take a lot of secondary fire, making a bigger danger zone where DD's and torpedo cruisers would have to go through to use their weapons would definitely buff the BB well beyond "better HE protection" ideology. on top of that I feel the suggestion is too focused on improving the HE protection of the BB, and has no impact on armored cruisers who should also suffer from the current HE state (though significantly less as cruisers have always been quite fragile)

okay let me get this straight...HE would deal no damage to BB's and would only knock out a few of the 40-50+ secondary guns and cause "minor fires" (basically the current fire that deals 0.5% per second per level but weaker)...in exchange BB's get terribad accuracy at point blank range..this would generate the weak-zone a CA could exploit ?! well unless the HE shell instantly mows down all the secondaries and the BB simply would be unable to fire at point blank range its basically suicide...you deal NO damage..and you rely only on a weaker variant of fire that can be instantly doused by a clicky and out-healed by another clicky. even now fire takes several minutes...if left untreated.... to kill a battleship. that just doesn't work... this is just a blatant "buff my BB" request and has nothing to do with HE shells. with skills and equipment you can extend secondary range to 6-7KM already, the secondaries already make it hard for surface ships to torpedo the BB as at 6 KM BBs can readily dodge them, closing in means pain for surface ships as a BB outguns and out-armors any other surface ship class.

While I do get the issue that training rooms add additional stress to the server, but its very frustrating to test stuff in game, as you are handicapping yourself and your team when doing so. (either because you are not using a optimal setup, or you are inflicting team damage as the platoon mate is the only reliable test partner) and I do agree that the (beta) community is a horrible source for balance information, but that is hardly a surprise.

they should never have removed the training room in alpha, no clue why they did that... is any Q&A thread by developers still active?...because the last one I saw had its last answers late march of this year and the developers blog died around the same time.

as far as I know they where, but they had to test different things...apparently WG is quite specific about what aspects are to be tested by the super testers, and very impatient with the supertesters to deliver a in depth bug report on these features...it doesn't seem to involve balance in any way, it seems to be mostly trying to find bugs, clipping and graphical isseus. so I think you are trying to blame the wrong group of testing-volunteers.

torpedo's are intended in this game to engage slow lumbering ships with tons of HP, the battleship and aircraft carrier are prime targets for torpedo strikes. but even then, the game is balanced that torpedo's have a long reload, are painfully slow, give you a warning on approach and have short range (relative to equal tier guns), making them easy to dodge on all but shotgun-in-your-face range. torpedos generally hit like a truck and cause a nasty status DoT...the problem is the hitting bit..with hit rates at 5-10% on average post 0.3.1 patch their power is practically nullified. there is really no need to nerf them as a ammo.