APS Help

[Alcates]

So I've discovered how magical 10 degree frags are, but I'm still lost on the other munitions. What calibers should I use HE at? How should I use HE? Is EMP any good on APS? What's this "shaped charge" stuff? What the heck are Sabot good for? They don't damage anything I shoot them at. What velocities should I use all these for? What munitions are railguns good for?

[Formicidae]

So, first, remember that the damage of the frags goes down with a smaller angle, so you can have higher damage frags at 180 degrees than 10. You really should only bother with HE at 250 millimeters or higher. I honestly don't know too much about regular HE. For EMP, I would say the best way to use it is on missiles, but it might do decent on APS. The shaped charge stuff, well I take that as talking about HESH and HEAT. HESH (Squash Head) uses high explosive warheads to explode and then create interior spalling. Basically fragments inside a ship. HEAT (Shaped Charge Head) uses HE warheads to blast very fast armor piercing fragments into the target, which can absolutely annihilate things. You should see the Piriaba explode. Sabot is an armor piercing shell. They are meant to really only have a few sabot warheads and like one solid. The whole point of sabot is to pierce a target and go straight into the internals. Everything above except sabot doesn't really care what velocity it's going, but I suggest a little over 400 m/s. Sabot you should keep as fast as physically possible. Rail-guns are awesome for shooting incredibly fast sabot shells which go in one side of a target and out the other.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

What calibers should I use HE at?

As above, high calibres. HE only really gets strong above 30cm, but can be useable starting at 20cm.

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

What's this "shaped charge" stuff?

HEAT and HESH (High Explosive Anti-Tank = shaped charge; High Explosive Squash Head).

HEAT deals relatively little damage, but practically ignores unspaced armour. Good if you're hoping for a "lucky hit", or for use against very compact but tough designs. Generates all fragments at the first airgap (including wedges, slopes, etc.) or non-structural block.

HESH deals more damage. Fragments are also generated at the first gap, but not on non-structural blocks. Fragment AP depends on the last material's AC. Unlike HEAT, HESH needs direct contact, so it's useless against shields.

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

What the heck are Sabot good for? They don't damage anything I shoot them at.

Try to maximise AP * kinetic_damage. Sabot should allmost allways be used alongside normal AP parts.

And they're good for sniping stuff that's protected against HEAT and HESH (-> spaced armour).

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

What velocities should I use all these for?

Depends a lot. AP of all kinds generally as fast as possible (which just comes naturally, due to maximising damage). Payload shells 200-600m/s depending on target, range, and your personal doctrine.

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

What munitions are railguns good for?

Most usefull for AP and APHE. Allthough all shell-types profit from having to use less propellant.

[Alcates]

But what does AP actually do? And which explosive do I use to just put a big hole in the target?

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

But what does AP actually do?

The AP-value sets an effective damage multiplier.

min{1, AP/(2 * AC)}. With other words, you need twice the target material's effective AC to deal full damage, below that it's a linear decrease.

[Alcates]

Gotcha

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

And which explosive do I use to just put a big hole in the target?

Had missed the edit.

HE or Frag. HE's damage will be more spread out, and "seek" weak-spots in the armour. Frag, on the other hand, will get through armour quicker.

Also, Hollow-Point heads. They convert the kinetic damage into thump damage - fixed AP (don't know how much), and they ignore armour-stacking, making them good vs layered armour (and the low AP-modifier of payload-shells matters little to them, as only kinetic damage matters). They are not quite as OP as they used to be, but still an interesting choice for payload-shells.

[Formicidae]

Hollow point does great against DWG. Also remember that you do not need to put a big hole in a target to do damage. That's what HEAT and HESH are for.

[3 Crab Fish Sauce]

HESH GAAANG

Enough high RoF 200~ mm HESH will wear ♥♥♥♥ down like wind against the mountain.
Especially if you're fighing stuff that has alot of fancy structural work because the HESH hits the little ridges and then sprays frags fekkin everywhere.

[Rampant Rabbit]

Also EMP.. That can be effective against metal armoured foes, especially if they're packed with EMP-sensitive stuff, like the Lightning Hoods. If an EMP warhead detonates against metal, it'll send a pulse through a number of blocks causing damage. So if an AI's sitting on metal, that may get fried.

Downside is much like HE, it benefits from shell size. And it's countered by non-conductive blocks and EMP absorbers, hence why a lot of designs build their AIs inside wood, stone, rubber rooms. It also won't jump airgaps.

I like using EMP on large/medium torpedoes as those can pack a large EMP pulse, less often on guns because I think there's better use of warhead space. If enemie's shelds are down though, EMP can disable enemy ship's systems and help.. Things like shield projectors and LAMs are pretty EMP sensitive, but often protected by surge protectors for that reason.

So I tend to stick with HESH or Sabot shells. Rate of fire is also important, ie 500mm shells pack a nice punch, but might get deflected, so you may get more DPS from a fast-firing <250mm gun instead. I also tend to have several shell customisers with different loadouts so I can swap guns or a gun over to a different shell if an enemy's proviing awkward.

[Alcates]

So does this HE stuff mean 500mm flak shells would one-shot almost anything? Just given that they do enough damage to destroy a mainframe, have about a bajillion meter blast radius, and the enemies have no spaced armor.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by n2galaxy:

So does this HE stuff mean 500mm flak shells would one-shot almost anything? Just given that they do enough damage to destroy a mainframe, have about a bajillion meter blast radius, and the enemies have no spaced armor.

Flak is terrible at destroying armour. If the enemy has an exposed mainframe it'll kill it allright, but if you're fighting that kind of design it doesn't matter what you shoot anyway...

Also, explosion-radius is capped at 35m. Flak "snaps" onto vehicles if it's exploding further than that, but will still only damage blocks 35m from the closest point.

[Admiral Obvious]

It's been a VERY long time since I played for real. HE is also pretty bad at busting armor, but it's better than nothing.

As said above, explosives are capped to 35 meters, but if you have a big enough payload, that damage at the edge can be about the same amount of damage that's delivered to the center of the explosion.

Large missiles are very good examples of payloads that get hard capped, but have almost full damage against everything they touch.