Best 200mm shell?

[SS-310]

I'll be honest, I suck at making good shells for my cannons, so I was wondering what the most damaging shell is for a 200mm that has 16 shell part spaces. My current shell is 3 gunpowder casings, 4 stabilizer fins, an inertia fuse, 7 HE warheads and a squash head

[FourGreenFields]

First off, it seems like you chose the wrong number of parts. If I'm not mistaken, your shell is 3.2m long - go either for 4m or 3m to use as much of the loader as possible.

Stabiliser fins are generally not necessary. If you really need more accuracy, tracers are usually the better option (or just using rail-assist/longer barrels).

Your shell is also very slow (how slow exactly I don't know, didn't check in-game) - good if the target doesn't evade, but hitting small, fast, and agile stuff will be a pain.



And what the best kind of shell is depends a lot on the target as well. At 20cm calibre, HE starts to become an alternative to frag, but having loads of warheads the diminishing returns may make a HE-frag mix better, and a hollow-point head might also be helpfull. Both is more for "simply destroying blocks" though.

HESH and HEAT may also work at that calibre. HESH is countered by shields, HEAT deals little post-pen damage unless hitting ammo.

Pure AP can work too, but is countered by shields even more than HESH is. APHE is too weak at that calibre.

Against DWG you'll prob want HE and/or frag with either a hollow-point head, or a weak high-pen HEAT or a HESH effect. Should be decent enough at destroying them.

[SS-310]

Thanks

[XIII]

I'd say, if you can fit 16 pieces, then rather double or so the diameter of the barrel and go with a shorter shell. Increasing diameter generally gives an overproportional advantage in firepower, although it will also slow down rate of fire and increase recoil. Still, generally a big improvement, and 16 is too long.

As for shells, HESH is about the best projectile in the game if the enemy has no shields. You can remove the inertial fuse, though; while squash head is great, the pure HE effect is completely useless against armor, so I'd rather replace it with something useful.

Against shields, I can't really recommend HEAT, which is a bit weak and ineffective against heavy armor. Frags with inertial fuse are much better in that regard, and generally the best general purpose/mass destruction shell.

EMP shells can also be pretty fun and is fantastic when it comes to capturing ships! Give it a try, particuarly the easier/medium difficulty enemies have very little protection against those. High speed Sabot/Solid can be useful for small miniguns. Although again, both get countered hard by shields; and disruptors-EMP aren't very effective.

I'd like to be able to recommend more types of shells, but in reality everything else just doesn't seem good enough against well protected enemies. Hope a balance pass in a later patch will increase variety again.

If you do encounter shields, EMP missiles and (at least against ships) explosive torpedos with ballast set to 6m depth are good fire support.

[SS-310]

Best cone angle for the frag shells? I rarely use frag, sorry

Originally posted by XIII:

I'd say, if you can fit 16 pieces, then rather double or so the diameter of the barrel and go with a shorter shell. Increasing diameter generally gives an overproportional advantage in firepower, although it will also slow down rate of fire and increase recoil. Still, generally a big improvement, and 16 is too long.

As for shells, HESH is about the best projectile in the game if the enemy has no shields. You can remove the inertial fuse, though; while squash head is great, the pure HE effect is completely useless against armor, so I'd rather replace it with something useful.

Against shields, I can't really recommend HEAT, which is a bit weak and ineffective against heavy armor. Frags with inertial fuse are much better in that regard, and generally the best general purpose/mass destruction shell.

EMP shells can also be pretty fun and is fantastic when it comes to capturing ships! Give it a try, particuarly the easier/medium difficulty enemies have very little protection against those. High speed Sabot/Solid can be useful for small miniguns. Although again, both get countered hard by shields; and disruptors-EMP aren't very effective.

I'd like to be able to recommend more types of shells, but in reality everything else just doesn't seem good enough against well protected enemies. Hope a balance pass in a later patch will increase variety again.

If you do encounter shields, EMP missiles and (at least against ships) explosive torpedos with ballast set to 6m depth are good fire support.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by SS-310:

Best cone angle for the frag shells? I rarely use frag, sorry

180° for damage. 1° for maximum pierce. Something in between 1° and 90° for a tradeoff.

[XIII]

Yep, the bigger the angle, the higher the damage. A high angle still works well if the frag shell hits the enemy hull, but a medium angle does better when they get dotonated by shields a few meters apart from the hull.

I don't really know what's best, I'm lazy and keep it on the standard 60 degrees. Seems fine; any bigger is too bad against shields, and lower would prolly hamper the damage. Gotta experiment a bit more in that regard. edit: Nope, 30 degree frags lose too much damage, so 60 it is.

I really hope they are going to nerf shields in some way. Currently, using APS against strong opponents comes all down how to work around shields, because all strong vessels use insane shield protection hidden behind layered armor and crazy shield systems. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ butterfly shields xD

[Eggie84552]

Originally posted by SS-310:

Best cone angle for the frag shells? I rarely use frag, sorry

Originally posted by XIII:

I'd say, if you can fit 16 pieces, then rather double or so the diameter of the barrel and go with a shorter shell. Increasing diameter generally gives an overproportional advantage in firepower, although it will also slow down rate of fire and increase recoil. Still, generally a big improvement, and 16 is too long.

As for shells, HESH is about the best projectile in the game if the enemy has no shields. You can remove the inertial fuse, though; while squash head is great, the pure HE effect is completely useless against armor, so I'd rather replace it with something useful.

Against shields, I can't really recommend HEAT, which is a bit weak and ineffective against heavy armor. Frags with inertial fuse are much better in that regard, and generally the best general purpose/mass destruction shell.

EMP shells can also be pretty fun and is fantastic when it comes to capturing ships! Give it a try, particuarly the easier/medium difficulty enemies have very little protection against those. High speed Sabot/Solid can be useful for small miniguns. Although again, both get countered hard by shields; and disruptors-EMP aren't very effective.

I'd like to be able to recommend more types of shells, but in reality everything else just doesn't seem good enough against well protected enemies. Hope a balance pass in a later patch will increase variety again.

If you do encounter shields, EMP missiles and (at least against ships) explosive torpedos with ballast set to 6m depth are good fire support.

I don't know if this is the most effective but for frag shells I have most of them at the 1 then a few at 180 to incrase the damage a bit
also for shelds a rapid fire low mm distruptor shell is good the gun I used was some where above 1000 rpm and around 100mm shells

[XIII]

Originally posted by rotgtie:

*snip*

Interesting approach, bit different to mine. What would you recommend against fast targets with heavy armor, PDS and excessive shielding?

Haven't yet seen the endgame factions, but the Lightning Hoods got some crazy stuff. Say the Terawatt, a very fast, long+thin boat with excessive shielding and armor in certain places? Or the Tachyon, a reasonable well protected, 130m/s flier with some PDS that'll bombard you with laser and missiles from medium altitude?

I'm mostly going with reasonably fast (400m/s thanks to rails) max size frags, which works for the fast sea-level targets from LH or WF, when backed with EMP missiles, but not so much against fliers. For them I mostly use pure missiles, which just about works for not super high targets, since their fliers tend to be tightly packed and hence vulnerable to EMP/frags.

And not even sure how to hit their Hypathos with anything but laser-cannons. Well, or just wait until it runs out of fuel and then bombard it once it's down. What's your take on that absurdity?

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by rotgtie:

I've narrowed my APS shell types down into three options, all low-velocity (enough powder charges to bring the velocity to around 200 m/s), high-payload types.

For general purpose and anti-air, I use timed fuses with 180 cone angle frag loads. The 166x1000mm example would be powder-powder-fuse-frag-frag-fraghead. These are great for ensuring at least something hits the target even on a near-miss. They tend to get around shields because most ships put their shields around the armor belt angled upward, so they bounce the shells up and over the shield wall they've set up, showering their decks with the frag. It's not the best round for specific enemies, but it always works.

For slow targets with shielding or LAMS protection, I use inertial fuses with 30 cone angle frags. The 166x1000mm would be powder-powder-fuse-frag-frag-fraghead, like the timed variant. I find this cone angle tends to get the most fragments on target consistently through shields without having to go tighter (and sacrificing frag damage in the process). If I know my targets aren't going to be Flying Squirrels, these are my go-to round for main deck guns, unless I've got a more specialized weapon setup in mind.

If I really want the guns to hit hard and heavy targets, I will make them low-velocity HESH rounds and support them with missiles bearing heavy EMP loads. Most enemies use LAMS instead of CIWS for anti-missile duty, so if I fire a cluster of missiles with no delay, there's a reasonable chance that some can break through and fry the shield generators. From there, a low velocity HESH shell can wreck anything it touches in short order, and again, all you need is enough powder charges to get the shell close to 200 m/s velocity, then just go all HE warheads (special factor cranked all the way up) and tip it off with the Squash Head. While these can still work at 166x1000mm, they work a lot better starting from 250x1950mm and up.

For effectiveness, these are the only round types I can recommend. You can always build rapid-fire sabot guns or other things if you want, but when it comes to defeating the enemies you'll most commonly encounter on Neter, I would stick with the above three options.

I would not reccomend these shell types. Mostly because the second that the enemy starts layering shields, they become completly worthless. Without a smoke gun LAMS can still nullify your EMP missile barrage(A 0Q laser will eat them for breakfast) and even then proper shield isolation will make EMP missiles do nothing to shields. Also as they are slow they will be very inaccurate. I like 300 m/s as a minimum for all of my shells and often use accuracy boosting railguns ontop of that to ensure effectiveness at long range.

Also APS frags have a cap of 500 being spawned in the world at a time. If you are spamming too much high gauge frag it can cause them to be less effective as fragments will despawn before they can do their full damage.


The shell types I often use are
200mm Smoke. Sabot Smoke Warhed intertal fuse 2x GP. Shuts down LAMS systems to allow shells and missiles to get through

300+ mm HPHE. Hollow Point Head + HE bodies+Inertial Fuse. Does a lot of thump damage which ignores armour stacking and also HE to destroy the blocks that the hollowpoint did not. It tends to peel off large sheets of armour
300mm+ HESH. Squash Head + HE bodies+ Inertial fuse (Optional). Does a lot of damage to internals once shields are down however against properly spallined ships it is less effective.
Mid Gauge Disruptor Shells. Disruptor Conduit Head + EMP bodies Strips the shielding off of enemies allowing HESH and HPHE to destroy the hull


For low gauge frag is still great but it is not somthing I would use for a main gun on a large craft

[XIII]

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Also APS frags have a cap of 500 being spawned in the world at a time. If you are spamming too much high gauge frag it can cause them to be less effective as fragments will despawn before they can do their full damage.

WTF for real? My current standard "frigate" uses 3 turrets shooting 400m/s max size frag rounds, which are 750 frags per projectile? Only a quarter of their damage actually happened?

I mean, I noticed some inconsistency, but they still did a lot of damage and could take out well shielded godlikes like said Terrawatt.

SUPER interesting comment though, I think I'm gonna completely revamp my frigates shells right now. It was already quite powerful, at 245k ressources and being able to kill all LH/WF godlikes, but if what you say is right, then it could be much better with some minor adjustments.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by XIII:

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Also APS frags have a cap of 500 being spawned in the world at a time. If you are spamming too much high gauge frag it can cause them to be less effective as fragments will despawn before they can do their full damage.

WTF for real? My current standard "frigate" uses 3 turrets shooting 400m/s max size frag rounds, which are 750 frags per projectile? Only a quarter of their damage actually happened?

I mean, I noticed some inconsistency, but they still did a lot of damage and could take out well shielded godlikes like said Terrawatt.

I am not sure, but at least for CRAMs the number of fragments reduces with calibre (or well, increases less than you'd expect), while their damage increases (with total damage increasing with calibre). I think I remember reading that it's the same with cannons - but obviously on a per-shell basis, so a large volley may still lose damage that way.

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by XIII:

WTF for real? My current standard "frigate" uses 3 turrets shooting 400m/s max size frag rounds, which are 750 frags per projectile? Only a quarter of their damage actually happened?

I mean, I noticed some inconsistency, but they still did a lot of damage and could take out well shielded godlikes like said Terrawatt.

I am not sure, but at least for CRAMs the number of fragments reduces with calibre, while their damage increases (with total damage increasing with calibre). I think I remember reading that it's the same with cannons - but obviously on a per-shell basis, so a large volley may still lose damage that way.

I know that for CRAMS after a certain point they stop increasing frag count and instead increase frag damage further. This saves on performance as the game has less frags to calculate.

APS does not do the same thing and I am 99% sure that the cap is 500. After 500 frags are spawned into the world the game despawns the older fragments to make room for any new ones that are spawned

[XIII]

Man, i cannot believe someone actually convinced me to use pure HE(HP). It is soooooo much weaker than actual frag. Even the frag shot with only 66% of the frag spawning did more damage.^^'

At least I got some reason to use HESH again. Also got myself to switch one of the big cannons to disruptor. Feels like throwing away firepower, but it's pretty good vs shields.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by XIII:

Man, i cannot believe someone actually convinced me to use pure HE(HP). It is soooooo much weaker than actual frag. Even the frag shot with only 66% of the frag spawning did more damage.^^'

At what calibre, against which target, and with how many warheads? HE is bad at low calibres, and if having loads of warheads.
Also, exploding how far from the target. Frags have huge AoE, but a HE-shell will likely do more on direct hits.

[XIII]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by XIII:

Man, i cannot believe someone actually convinced me to use pure HE(HP). It is soooooo much weaker than actual frag. Even the frag shot with only 66% of the frag spawning did more damage.^^'

At what calibre, against which target, and with how many warheads? HE is bad at low calibres, and if having loads of warheads.
Also, exploding how far from the target. Frags have huge AoE, but a HE-shell will likely do more on direct hits.

Max caliber, 500mm-8m, 8 warheads+1 inertial. You don't get more firepower than that, without slowing down the shot speed/hurting accuracy (using 4x powder, 2x raill, bleeder).

Tested it against the side of a warden. To break through, HE needed ~4-5 shots, while Frag usually needed about 3. HE blackens skin on first hit, destroys blocks on second. Frag destroys starting with the first hit, limited to a smaller space, but better at piercing.

In that example, Frag does benefit from more frags hitting the same spots, which is what makes direct hits so devastating.

A more practical example, which I just encountered ingames, was fighting a Terawatt. Super-fast, heavy godlike of the LH. Yet at the end there is a custom jet, the main engine, only protected by one or two shields and a layer of heavy armor.
Frag shots would pierce that armor relatively fast, even if they hit the shield, before the Terawatt can move past my frigate, while HE(HP) has little effect on the HA.