Question about citadel

[Penegrin]

Hi there,

new to the game but watched some videos about ship design. I still have some problems about how the citadel works though.

Let's say my main Belt has 10" and is hit by a shell with 25" penetration value. It penetrates the main belt and then hits the 1st inner belt. The tool tip says that at least 50% of the shells penetration power is lost at this point. Does that mean the shell in the example has only 12.5" (50% of 25") penetration power left? Or still 15" (25-10)?

Also what's the difference in damage output if all the layers of armor is penetrated? Is it like WoWS where it's like a huge damage bonus when the citadel is penetrated?
Thx!

[redhongkong]

i wanna know the same thing

but i dont think this game do WOWS citadel damage, the only thing that looks like wows citadel dmg is the "ammo rack animation" (turret flying away with huge firework)

i think the penetrated shell do "full damage" and not penetrated shell do "partial damage"?

[glythe]

So I don't want to complicate the equation further but it is important to note that armor in UAD is ablative.

So that means as you take fire from multiple hits your ship will have reduced effective armor compared to when it was "fresh".

So as an oversimplification you might get hit by 12 inch guns and they are penetrating the armor and at some point 8 inch guns can start hitting the same "weak point" even though normally 8 inch guns would not be enough to penetrate.

Another example might be that you "need" 13 inch guns to penetrate the enemy so you use HE to soften up the outer shell and then suddenly you can penetrate them with 12 inch guns.


This explanation is for understanding purposes and not to be taken as explicit fact.

[MasterFool]

We also don't know how granular the 'ablative' effect is. The game is granular enough to apply visual damage to a certain area of the ship that is hit, but we don't know if that same level is applied to armor damage. If the port main belt takes a hit, is it the entire length of the main belt that is compromised or just that one area where the strike took place?

Another thing is that nobody seems to know exactly how Citadels work. The text, as pointed out implies that half of the shell energy is lost for a penetration but that makes no sense from an actual armor perspective. If it's pen value - armor value and then 50% of what energy remains is applied to the next layer, that does make a sort of very simplified sense. It's not accurate but it's ballpark adjacent. I would think this would take into account that other 'armoring' items might be in place such as fuel tanks, armored compartments, or non-mission critical machinery spaces that are sucking up some of the damage. It goes to favor armor over penetration but this would allow the later era ships to have a chance at surviving those massive shells... somewhat.

I really wish we'd get some details on these things but I guess there are just some mechanics the devs want to keep to themselves. Don't blame them as they already take a lot of fire for things far more minor in the game.

[glythe]

World of Warships does an arcade like feature where penetrating the citadel anywhere is "super extra mega damage" for no real reason.

In UAD when you hit the engine then the ship massively slows down. If you hit the ammo then there's a big Kaboom.

If you hit other stuff then well there's some hull damage and maybe flooding but you won't get crazy extra damage. You will get "full damage" and that is very meaningful.

Originally posted by Penegrin:

Hi there,

Also what's the difference in damage output if all the layers of armor is penetrated? Is it like WoWS where it's like a huge damage bonus when the citadel is penetrated?
Thx!

So here's the coded lines for ammo damage:

ammo_detonation_maxdamage,15500,damage that totally depletes the exploded ammo,,,,,,,
section_damage_ammo_detonation,1950,basic damage to section if ammo storage detonated,1000,,,,,,
torpedo_damage_ammo_detonation,400,base damage caused by torpedo launcher detonation,,,,,,,

I am not 100% sure but I believe this is on top of the shell damage. I dont know if those are multiplied or what but quite often when these trigger it is death to the ship or it's basically a dead ship as you have no way to fight back or are nearly crippled (at least for normal ammo detonation). Anything before 1920 for example usually gets caught in a fire and the ship either dies or 95% dies.

What if you don't penetrate all the way? There is a line of code that tells us that information

armor_damage,0.375,damage multiplier due to partial penetration,0.33,,,,,,

What I find very unrealistic about UAD is that you only need 37.5% penetration to get 33% damage on armor you are not penetrating.

This allows for scenarios where you need 12 inches for full penetration but with only 4.5 inches of penetration you can get 33% damage.

This is a mechanic that lets a horde of small ships with small guns "bully" a lone Battleship. If you ask me such a mechanic already exists and these are called torpedoes. As a whole Torpedoes are very strong in UAD and they create a good balance.

Originally posted by redhongkong:

i wanna know the same thing

Hopefully this answers your questions.

Keep in mind that when we talk about ships shooting each other there is an added complication where you have X, Y and Z angles to consider which greatly complicates discussions of armor and penetration.

If you think about tanks shooting each other with only X and Y there is a big difference between 90° and 30° shooting angles.

Originally posted by Penegrin:

Let's say my main Belt has 10" and is hit by a shell with 25" penetration value. It penetrates the main belt and then hits the 1st inner belt. The tool tip says that at least 50% of the shells penetration power is lost at this point. Does that mean the shell in the example has only 12.5" (50% of 25") penetration power left? Or still 15" (25-10)?

I can't accurately answer that question and you would need to be able to see all the files for that (I mod a bit here and there and thats why I know some of what you asked).

I can add another question to complicate things. Is the end result going to be an over penetration?

What happens on an over penetration event?

over_penetration_threshold,2,penetration threshold over armor to over-penetration (ratio),
over_penetration_min_armor,12.7,minimal amount of armor always present to track over-penetration (mm)
over_penetration,0.2,damage multiplier due to over-penetration,

All this means effectively you get 20% damage if there is an over penetration.


So let's ignore that and say we have a perfect 90° shooting angle. My guess is that
25 inches goes into the 10 inch primary belt and then has 12.5 inches (at most) left over for the secondary belt.

You could recalculate this for a different angle if you want.

To complicate things more you need to remember that armor quality exists. So that if you have 150% armor quality then you are basically 1.5x your listed armor.

So then that initial 10 inches is actually 15 inches.

[glythe]

If you want to think about this in a really simple way then ask yourself : How can I armor my ships so that I could absorb a shell from my own gun?

1. Calculate the distance for the penetration ranges of your gun
2. Calculate armor quality
3. Give yourself more armor than penetration for that distance.

Remember that as time goes on there are different shells that can give you more or less AP power.

I also forgot to talk about the ricochet mechanic. In short some times there is just a RNG check where your shell bounced and this is because when you built the ship it had x amount of base ricochet chance and you increased that with a wider beam or more draught or perhaps something like a second bottom hull.

The ricochet chance is in addition to shooting at sharp angles; this means that if you shoot a ship at a 20° angle the ricochet chance from the hull will make that a more difficult chance to penetrate.

Something I dont know... but I suspect is that if you would normally overpen at the proper angle I *think* you can get a regular penetration if you shoot at a steep angle which will generally give you more effective armor for calculation puposes.

[MasterFool]

Originally posted by glythe:

So let's ignore that and say we have a perfect 90° shooting angle. My guess is that
25 inches goes into the 10 inch primary belt and then has 12.5 inches (at most) left over for the secondary belt.

You could recalculate this for a different angle if you want.

To complicate things more you need to remember that armor quality exists. So that if you have 150% armor quality then you are basically 1.5x your listed armor.

So then that initial 10 inches is actually 15 inches.

This is what is implied by the text of the Citadel tool tip. However, if it actually works this way then even 1" of belt would kill 12.5" of penetrating power of a shot and it would be ridiculous. So it can't be that simple as it's not what we see.

It would have to be something like I said before, 25" - 10" = 15", then 15" / 2 = 7.5" of penetration applied to the next layer. That seems to be more what we are seeing. I could be completely wrong, but like I said, we have NO confirmation from the devs about how it actually works.

[redhongkong]

so in this case, protecting ammo rack is more important than protecting citadel area?

i also wanna know for casemate guns, do they get 2 layers (deck armor+ top armor)

and if HE shell penetrating main/secondary turret's top armor trigger detonation ?

[Hidden Gunman]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

We also don't know how granular the 'ablative' effect is. The game is granular enough to apply visual damage to a certain area of the ship that is hit, but we don't know if that same level is applied to armor damage. If the port main belt takes a hit, is it the entire length of the main belt that is compromised or just that one area where the strike took place?

Another thing is that nobody seems to know exactly how Citadels work. The text, as pointed out implies that half of the shell energy is lost for a penetration but that makes no sense from an actual armor perspective. If it's pen value - armor value and then 50% of what energy remains is applied to the next layer, that does make a sort of very simplified sense. It's not accurate but it's ballpark adjacent. I would think this would take into account that other 'armoring' items might be in place such as fuel tanks, armored compartments, or non-mission critical machinery spaces that are sucking up some of the damage. It goes to favor armor over penetration but this would allow the later era ships to have a chance at surviving those massive shells... somewhat.

I really wish we'd get some details on these things but I guess there are just some mechanics the devs want to keep to themselves. Don't blame them as they already take a lot of fire for things far more minor in the game.

Real world terminal ballistics in general is something of an arcane art, whether it is for ships, tanks or service issue human bodies. I know that sounds implausible, but it is a reality in the trade. Getting a projectile, rocket or missile to go downrange is grounded in pretty solid mathematically derived and measurable factors, but what happens at the receiving end is extremely difficult to predict, due to the range of differing factors involved. Inevitably, most 'solutions' are based on simplified equations that boil down to a guesstimate measure of baseline overwhelming force to defeat X factors (whether armour or organic matter, etc).

I'm confident that the mechanic in the game is simply arbitrarily determined, and I can fully appreciate that if we were given an accurate explanation it would simply become a game of min-maxing. Best for us not to know, I think.

[MasterFool]

I don't disagree about the min-maxing at all, it's how I design ships. I'm not asking for full disclosure of the code behind the penetration formula, but a simple metric like I gave above, even a thumbs up if someone has stumbled across it, would be enough to help make things work... and changing the 'tool tip' would be how they should officially do it.

While I agree there are some variables in the penetration of materials by other materials, much of it is a known science today. The main variables that can't really be accounted for are manufacturing variances, maintenance and treatment variables, as well as environmental ones. Those variations actually account for only small % changes to actual results. The larger the armor and projectiles, the less those variables affect the outcome.

Having said that, I don't think anyone expects UAD to model to that level and it would be practically impossible to even come close. So, I'm okay with simple formulas and some RNG as well as tactical changes (Angle, Sea State, Damage state, Ship conditions (roll, pitch, etc.)) would be just peachy. They can keep the RNG and Tactical stuff under wraps but give us the basics so that we can be as close to what a Naval Architect would have in their data folders.