Cram Cannon radius

[Sick Puppy]

Is the max aoe radius 26 or is the wiki out of date?

[Javelin99]

The wiki is like SE's.

If I cared enough, I'd make an account or something and do what they seem entirely bad at doing: Writing.

You make Crams better or worse, but it is better to experiment with it personally to find the answer than relying on people who may not even use the weapon much in question. I for example want to do more crams and made techniques to make compact versions which are competent than before, but I just make giant bomb chutes instead of actual weaponry. And now that I know how to make vertical bomb bays with large and huge missiles, that too is space-inefficient and nolonger favorable for my smaller and smaller as well as detailed microcraft.

I think it can go up to 30, but by the time I get enough guage for the 2, and I insert enough systems to make a HEAT shell with it which would be even better than APS, it is the size of the new york state building, so I never cared to see the actual explosive distance on it. The targets I build to fight against demand more than area of effect to cause a dent.

[Silamon]

I have been experimenting with crams as a main weapon myself. How do you get them to damage strong active defenses?

For example with 10 2000mm crams they don't even scratch the LH wonder. Do you just have to make them pure AP?

What about the flash hider? It lowers shell detection range but it makes the shell so much slower that it gives defenses more time to deal with them anyway. Is it still better than no hider?

[Javelin99]

Originally posted by Silamon:

I have been experimenting with crams as a main weapon myself. How do you get them to damage strong active defenses?

For example with 10 2000mm crams they don't even scratch the LH wonder. Do you just have to make them pure AP?

What about the flash hider? It lowers shell detection range but it makes the shell so much slower that it gives defenses more time to deal with them anyway. Is it still better than no hider?

My guy if you're using something like a 2,000mm cram cannon, stealth should be the least of your concerns unless you want the gun covered in rubber too.

Strong active defenses? Like a LAMS or an APS? Just like APS guns, the higher guage and more hardeners gives you AP and health. That is the only real advantage to it. View it like trying to get an APS through a dedicated defense platform. It isn't about tanking it alone, you actually have to get it there. CRAM isn't good for speed, but you can get it up there. Somewhere in the 100 range maybe unless the update lessened it. You want it to get in on target, get the craft closer and give it as many hardeners you can. Alternatively:

If you are making a cram that pierces a hull and then explodes inside of it, look at my ancient ravager to see how well that attempt went just to penetrate an OG-style castleship but if it was made in space. [Though nowadays and with the fact that it can mimic naval artillery via being mortar-like, it certainly is better.] With a mortar-like weapon, you can penetrate the vulnerable weaker verticality of a ship, or a low-flying hovercraft or airship.

Pure APs hit harder and can yeet out blocks, but I don't view it as anything noteworthy when an APS railgun with pure kinetics and a heat secondary can beat the Tyr.

Slower shell is not good except for a bomb chute because the accuracy is as if you built 900 barrel segments onto it. But if you make a plane, bomber, airship like an atlas with it, you can spam these good looking crams down onto the vulnerable topsides of targets and all.

Now there is this, if you make a vessel, then use subconstruct stuff to hold it in place, you can make a dedicated AI-CRAM gun that is hyper stable and accurate. That could also help.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Javelin99:

Originally posted by Silamon:

I have been experimenting with crams as a main weapon myself. How do you get them to damage strong active defenses?

For example with 10 2000mm crams they don't even scratch the LH wonder. Do you just have to make them pure AP?

What about the flash hider? It lowers shell detection range but it makes the shell so much slower that it gives defenses more time to deal with them anyway. Is it still better than no hider?

My guy if you're using something like a 2,000mm cram cannon, stealth should be the least of your concerns unless you want the gun covered in rubber too.

Strong active defenses? Like a LAMS or an APS? Just like APS guns, the higher guage and more hardeners gives you AP and health. That is the only real advantage to it. View it like trying to get an APS through a dedicated defense platform. It isn't about tanking it alone, you actually have to get it there. CRAM isn't good for speed, but you can get it up there. Somewhere in the 100 range maybe unless the update lessened it. You want it to get in on target, get the craft closer and give it as many hardeners you can. Alternatively:

If you are making a cram that pierces a hull and then explodes inside of it, look at my ancient ravager to see how well that attempt went just to penetrate an OG-style castleship but if it was made in space. [Though nowadays and with the fact that it can mimic naval artillery via being mortar-like, it certainly is better.] With a mortar-like weapon, you can penetrate the vulnerable weaker verticality of a ship, or a low-flying hovercraft or airship.

Pure APs hit harder and can yeet out blocks, but I don't view it as anything noteworthy when an APS railgun with pure kinetics and a heat secondary can beat the Tyr.

Slower shell is not good except for a bomb chute because the accuracy is as if you built 900 barrel segments onto it. But if you make a plane, bomber, airship like an atlas with it, you can spam these good looking crams down onto the vulnerable topsides of targets and all.

Now there is this, if you make a vessel, then use subconstruct stuff to hold it in place, you can make a dedicated AI-CRAM gun that is hyper stable and accurate. That could also help.

I was referring to the flash hider, not stealth. It reduces shell detection range right? I was wondering if that is worth using vs active defenses like the Wonder has. The shells were at 300m/s without flash hider but had much longer detection range, 240 with it. My shells never got close to the wonder even with 10 of them, with or without the flash hider. It seems like having a lot of hardeners is basically required just to have shells reach it.

To be honest the other points you raised seem completely irrelevant to the question, but I suppose it might help someone else?

[Javelin99]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by Javelin99:

My guy if you're using something like a 2,000mm cram cannon, stealth should be the least of your concerns unless you want the gun covered in rubber too.

Strong active defenses? Like a LAMS or an APS? Just like APS guns, the higher guage and more hardeners gives you AP and health. That is the only real advantage to it. View it like trying to get an APS through a dedicated defense platform. It isn't about tanking it alone, you actually have to get it there. CRAM isn't good for speed, but you can get it up there. Somewhere in the 100 range maybe unless the update lessened it. You want it to get in on target, get the craft closer and give it as many hardeners you can. Alternatively:

If you are making a cram that pierces a hull and then explodes inside of it, look at my ancient ravager to see how well that attempt went just to penetrate an OG-style castleship but if it was made in space. [Though nowadays and with the fact that it can mimic naval artillery via being mortar-like, it certainly is better.] With a mortar-like weapon, you can penetrate the vulnerable weaker verticality of a ship, or a low-flying hovercraft or airship.

Pure APs hit harder and can yeet out blocks, but I don't view it as anything noteworthy when an APS railgun with pure kinetics and a heat secondary can beat the Tyr.

Slower shell is not good except for a bomb chute because the accuracy is as if you built 900 barrel segments onto it. But if you make a plane, bomber, airship like an atlas with it, you can spam these good looking crams down onto the vulnerable topsides of targets and all.

Now there is this, if you make a vessel, then use subconstruct stuff to hold it in place, you can make a dedicated AI-CRAM gun that is hyper stable and accurate. That could also help.

I was referring to the flash hider, not stealth. It reduces shell detection range right? I was wondering if that is worth using vs active defenses like the Wonder has. The shells were at 300m/s without flash hider but had much longer detection range, 240 with it. My shells never got close to the wonder even with 10 of them, with or without the flash hider. It seems like having a lot of hardeners is basically required just to have shells reach it.

To be honest the other points you raised seem completely irrelevant to the question, but I suppose it might help someone else?

To lessen detection is indeed an act of stealth, which is anything covert against a target in FTD. With the systems available to counter incoming ordnance that is not hitscan/instant like a PAC, it doesn't help you against competent targets, but smaller and weaker ones it will. As a continuation:

Shell detection range is irrelevant because like rubber to make a craft out of instead of to hide things with like AI or detection equipment, once it gets in range of something akin to a LAMs even if it isn't one, let us say one set up at between 100 - 247 meters, unless it is traveling fast enough or with intensive enough healthpool, all fast firing weapons, usually already pointed at what it is engaging with, and is an option with defense controllers, will automatically target the incoming fire and destroy it. LAMS however are the only direct instant-means to do it but are the weakest type in terms of damage by default and the room needed to make a defensive system with it which isn't lackluster. Thus the solution to the problem is only four: You make it harder to get rid of, you make it faster, you get closer to the target, or all three of the above to any degree. The hider, and as you have stated, is yet again irrelevant like I mentioned with the stealth comment about it.

The rest of the points are examples, references, and counters that build onto the answer which is also used to give more information to not need to experiment or question into. I guess the best way of displaying that is kind of like this:
So you had three questions that are direct and simple. You asked about damage or bypass strong defensives, would you need it as a pure hardener CRAM, and then the hider. You asked in the first how to get it strong enough to defeat strong defenses. This was answered with the same premise above by stating you need more hardeners for AP to break through blocks as well as it giving your shells more health. I don't think there is a problem with this but the rest there might be. I made an example to go off in detail with where I presented a CRAMs only ship designed to fire into a target with hardener spam, and then use the remaining room for fusing and HE to detonate internally. This was also displayed as a counter, because to make a cram that is effective like that, just like an APS HEAT shell, it required at the time of it's posting to be the size of a cruiser just for an interior like the riverhome's frontal gun cram, to house all the HE and hardeners needed to hit the target, pierce into the target, and then explode and gut the target. Meaning it wouldn't be very good if viewed as a tiny resource efficient weapon if one cared about that factor.

As repeated in that part however then the spew of mortar crams, it takes home what was also described there: Basically because the tops of vehicles, and sometimes their bottoms for certain airship designs and ships have minimal to zero armor, CRAMs can destroy them, which I think was mentioned at the start somewhere with the "get in on target, get close, and hardener spam." Which basically stated this. It is the easiest means to kill most targets in FTD via crams. Then because an update long ago enabled CRAMs to act as real life naval guns, so like a mortar, this basically said that even at a distance you can lob a shell out the muzzle, potentially even into orbit, and have it ram down, potentially faster but I don't know that part, into a target, bypassing their defenses by a blindspot, and kill it that way.

Then there was the line about pure hardener CRAMS no problem here I think.

The next was the example with bomb chutes. It repeats the start with getting in on target which is accuracy. Bomb chutes are the most accurate tiniest CRAMS, but hyper slow. This forces you to get closer to the target to have it actually hit them or survive the trip. Which also goes in hand with the get closer to target saying.

The final one was an example of a way to make a massive, accurate, none-pure hardener, fast moving cram shell. Basically just make a giant box with an AI inside of it to use the gun, make the CRAM, then have it hover in place next to, above, or under the craft you make using a one axis turret, a sub-vehicle spawner, and a docking station. Which would allow you to more accurately see the target and if using detection equipment on it, keep seeing it if your main got too damaged, point always at it, use it's own gun for accuracy to get the shell onto the target, lob a giant fast moving shell at the target, then with hardeners, ram it into the target and destroy parts of it. All without having to sacrifice room for the same sized gun in an actual vehicle like a more restricted airship. So yes, it was relevant.

Though I would like to add a new thing onto this conversation:
It seems having HE pellets added to a CRAM removes some arbitrary numbers, so if you had enough hardeners to beat over 40AP which is a full metal beam, then added HE, it wouldn't be able to get past the beam. So if you are trying to build a CRAM which does more than rip off external parts, it might be too big to fit into a conventional turret. Combined with how every added fuse also removes from the numbers and lowers the health of a shell, it might indeed be better to try making rapid fire CRAMs to pepper the surface. To actually destroy active defenses however, you might be more interested in high explosive-only CRAMs if you get in close to the target, or a high health/hardener CRAM with enough explosives that if the shell can survive the trip to the target, it will rip all defenses off if in the blast radius. For example you want a pure Hardener against anti-missile/anti-shell APS guns which tend to be armored, you want pure HE - to high health HE shells to blow apart LAMS, and if you go against just missiles, you want a pure Hardener shell again which survives most interceptors, unless people start making large interceptor missiles.

[Silamon]

.... Okay. I'm gunna say you put way too much information there. As you said my question was quite simple and could have been answered without the massive walls of text or tangents onto bomb chutes etc.

I did gather that the flash hider is pointless though.

[Major0Noob]

yup, best to use syncro, smoke spoofer, LAMS drain, and smoke shells (last one's iffy)

tie the main guns to a high health shell
use a weaksauce laser to get the enemy's smoke to weaken it's own LAMS
a tracer autocannon to let the enemy LAMS drain their charge (they'll use 1000 damage vs a 50 health shell)
and smoke autocannon, this one's best used vs LH. the smoke shell component is self nerfing with low health and a 300mm lower limit. pretty much everything is better than it, even grav-rams; they have a chance of knocking out a LAMS node if they hit it (no bonuses, just simple damage)

if you want a example check out my Baltimore refit, i left a bunch of notes on the ship too

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Major0Noob:

yup, best to use syncro, smoke spoofer, LAMS drain, and smoke shells (last one's iffy)

tie the main guns to a high health shell
use a weaksauce laser to get the enemy's smoke to weaken it's own LAMS
a tracer autocannon to let the enemy LAMS drain their charge (they'll use 1000 damage vs a 50 health shell)
and smoke autocannon, this one's best used vs LH. the smoke shell component is self nerfing with low health and a 300mm lower limit. pretty much everything is better than it, even grav-rams; they have a chance of knocking out a LAMS node if they hit it (no bonuses, just simple damage)

if you want a example check out my Baltimore refit, i left a bunch of notes on the ship too

Now those are some good tips.

I will have more secondaries on the ship when it's done, I assumed the ai was going to be smart enough to focus on the cram shells though, if I can distract the lasers with aps secondaries that should work out. I was really scratching my head on how to get crams to actually hit the godly LH designs....

I am currently working with a 15x15 dual cram turret in a rather large battleship (probably too large, but eh) with 921 connections.
http://prntscr.com/GiQGPTY8dn7I
http://prntscr.com/McRHWhc56DIF

These are my first attempts building cram main guns since.... well since advanced cannons came out.
I am sure it could be more efficient on the inside but it's the best I got for now

The ship is already at 1.4m cost and only has the hull, about half the secondaries, batteries, ammo and material storage steam engines and the main guns done. I figure it will probably be close to 2m completed...

I reckon she will be a force to be reckoned with when done though
http://prntscr.com/QgVDZHAFcSdW

On a related note, did they ever add a way to have midships gun constraints? Or a way to have fail safes hold fire if there is a sub object in front of it? That center turret might be an issue if not...

[Guardian Talon]

Originally posted by Silamon:

On a related note, did they ever add a way to have midships gun constraints?

You could use ACBs or a breadboard to turn the wireless connection to the weapon controller on and off based on the bearing to the target.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Guardian Talon:

Originally posted by Silamon:

On a related note, did they ever add a way to have midships gun constraints?

You could use ACBs or a breadboard to turn the wireless connection to the weapon controller on and off based on the bearing to the target.

You can do that now? Definitely something I need to look into then.

[Javelin99]

Originally posted by Silamon:

.... Okay. I'm gunna say you put way too much information there. As you said my question was quite simple and could have been answered without the massive walls of text or tangents onto bomb chutes etc.

I did gather that the flash hider is pointless though.

Actually again all information was valid to the question and designed to not need further questioning into the process, or keep time from being wasted, a normal process but okay.

Have a nice day though.

[Eudaimonia]

This thread really went wild o.o

-The wiki is outdated by many years and many versions, most of the things in there are completely wrong. Stay away from it, it will only hurt you.

-Max damage radius for explosions is 30m. The stated radius can go above this and will be beneficial, but you won't be able to damage two blocks 61m apart.

-The gauge of a cram cannon doesn't say anything about how strong it is. Smaller guns optimize at lower gauges, larger guns optimize at higher gauges. For a small 1000 gauge gun you usually want about 20 seconds of reload for optimizing DPS/cost, while for 2000 gauge guns this is around 40 seconds. For getting through active defenses more effectively, you want even higher. Cram is not meant to be a rapid fire weapon. So the reason why silamon is having issues is a lack of compactors.

-Firing restrictions have always worked for midship turrets, that's a feature that was in there from the start. You set one limit on the turret, and another on the firing pieces. This leaves two fields of fire, one on each side of the craft.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Eudaimonia:

This thread really went wild o.o
-The gauge of a cram cannon doesn't say anything about how strong it is. Smaller guns optimize at lower gauges, larger guns optimize at higher gauges. For a small 1000 gauge gun you usually want about 20 seconds of reload for optimizing DPS/cost, while for 2000 gauge guns this is around 40 seconds. For getting through active defenses more effectively, you want even higher. Cram is not meant to be a rapid fire weapon. So the reason why silamon is having issues is a lack of compactors.

-Firing restrictions have always worked for midship turrets, that's a feature that was in there from the start. You set one limit on the turret, and another on the firing pieces. This leaves two fields of fire, one on each side of the craft.

You really have a 40 second reload on 2000mm cram? I... admit I had not even considered such a long time, I thought 14 seconds was pushing it. I will try giving it a longer reload cycle then.

As for firing restrictions, to be honest I had never considered having different restrictions for the gun and turret either. I don't often do midship turrets like that because I had never managed to get it to work, I remember asking about it years ago and never got answer to just use different restrictions on the gun.... Now that you mention it though it seems quite obvious

[Major0Noob]

i'd say 30-40 if there are a lot of cannons
2x - 3x longer if they're small or less than 5

also, i think frag pellets are better caise when the shell dies it'll spray the enemy w/ shrapnel. i haven't used cram or frag in awhile, not sure if this is still the case.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Major0Noob:

i'd say 30-40 if there are a lot of cannons
2x - 3x longer if they're small or less than 5

also, i think frag pellets are better caise when the shell dies it'll spray the enemy w/ shrapnel. i haven't used cram or frag in awhile, not sure if this is still the case.

The last time I experimented with cram was probably about 2018 or so so it's been a bit haha.

It's been a couple years since I played at all now, a lot of things have changed again. One thing I noticed is that I need fewer ammo barrels and they are significantly more explosive.... Gone are the days of only needing a 3 meter gap around ammo to keep the explosion in check....

Pretty much all my ships will need a pretty significant redesign to account for that.

Out of curiosity, which is generally considered better? Ring shields or the old style shields? I know the older ones got nerfed but I'm not so sure if the ring shields are doing enough to be worthwhile either.