Fall of the Samurai Shell Types

[dandinks]

While using the warrior I have come to find that explosive shells in a small battle are quite useless, they obliterate anything they touch in a single volley but you need to take at least 2 volleys back before you can get a shot off, with standard shot I always win with no damage taken (21 shells despite doing pitiful damage each add up to sink any wood ship in under 2 volleys), I have yet to research advanced armor piercing so here is my question, while the advanced shell has more range, more damage than solid shot, and can damage iron plates, is the regular AP shell an upgrade over standard shot, does it have the range boost and does it do more or less damage to wooden ships than solid shot.

[doneduardo44]

Explosive shells are designed for Shore Bombardment, You want armor piercing shells for naval combat.

[Coiler]

it is true that you have a longer reload and less range with explosive, but wooden and even copper hulled boats may rout after a single salvo or two. just get in range with normal shells and then close in and switch to explosive, even if they dont rout then they'll absolutely catch on fire
AP is an almost straight upgrade over normal shells, sometimes it overpens wooden hulls and doesnt explode (pretty great if you are crossing the T though)

[Lack of Stuff]

Against wooden ships explosive has a chance to proc a fire and cause the crew to abandon ship.

AP is for use against metal hulled ships. The advanced AP is the best of both worlds.

There's also a niche use for explosive against ironclad ships like the Kotetsu. If you gang up on a Kotetsu with explosive you can break the crew morale and sometimes nab the ship after the battle instead of destroying it. Doing this I've gotten entire fleets of Kotetsu just roaming around owning everything.

Edit: Aside from some minor differences in range/reload speed both explosive and AP are superior to solid shot, in other words once you've upgraded there's not much reason to ever use solid again. Also researching explosive makes naval artillery support better in your ground battles.

[BastardSword]

99% of the time the AI will use wooden or copper ships, and if these ships set on fire they will almost instantly surrender. So you want to achieve that.

HE shot has a very high chance of setting enemy ships on fire with just one, maybe two hits. However it has much shorter range than normal shot. The AI really loves using HE shot and setting your ships on fire. I find that the AI always ALWAYS is able to fire once before I can fire if they are using the same shells as me, so my ships all end up on fire.

AP shot has the same range as normal shot, but a small (but quite decent) chance of setting wooden/copper ships on fire. If you are using wooden/copper ships you really want to be using AP shot. If you have three kaiyo maru using AP shot, they will set all the AI ships on fire before they can get in range to use their HE shot.

I would also point out that the US and French ships have longer range for all shot types. I think they can fire HE shot at about the same range that wooden/copper ships can fire AP or normal shot. So if you have a US or French ship and have it use HE shot, it will completely demolish entire fleets before they can fire a single shot.

The British ship has a zillion cannons but they have the same crappy default range that Japanese ships have. I guess with AP shot it's ok, but I really like the US and French ships way better.

Kotetsu has really long range but only one gun so it takes forever to do anything, I avoid them.

[Eddie G]

If you bother to read the description for explosive shells in the tech screen, it says "naval fire support" which means, shore bombardment. It no doubt does a number on wooden ships too, but that is not it's primary purpose. Makes me wonder if anybody actually reads anything in this game sometimes when I read the ♥♥♥♥ people post about. Now i"m ranting about everything, not just the topic of this post. Everything in the world today is instant gratification and me first. Think carefully if you are thinking about battling eddie G. You want to battle me, I'm better than easy....

[dandinks]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

If you bother to read the description for explosive shells in the tech screen, it says "naval fire support" which means, shore bombardment. It no doubt does a number on wooden ships too, but that is not it's primary purpose. Makes me wonder if anybody actually reads anything in this game sometimes when I read the ♥♥♥♥ people post about. Now i"m ranting about everything, not just the topic of this post. Everything in the world today is instant gratification and me first. Think carefully if you are thinking about battling eddie G. You want to battle me, I'm better than easy....

Take another look, nowhere on the ap shell description in the tech tree, in the manual, or the mid battle description of the shell type does it mention if it's more or less effective against wood than solid shot, it only mentions that it's anti armor and high velocity implying it has extra range

[MFD Suraj]

He mentioned explosive shots , anyway You can find in the section manual , battle fases , projectile types , or whatever it is translated in english version.
briefly it say penetrating shot < can penetrate also iron pannels > , that iplies also lower quality like copper and wood.

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by belisarius:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

If you bother to read the description for explosive shells in the tech screen, it says "naval fire support" which means, shore bombardment. It no doubt does a number on wooden ships too, but that is not it's primary purpose. Makes me wonder if anybody actually reads anything in this game sometimes when I read the ♥♥♥♥ people post about. Now i"m ranting about everything, not just the topic of this post. Everything in the world today is instant gratification and me first. Think carefully if you are thinking about battling eddie G. You want to battle me, I'm better than easy....

Take another look, nowhere on the ap shell description in the tech tree, in the manual, or the mid battle description of the shell type does it mention if it's more or less effective against wood than solid shot, it only mentions that it's anti armor and high velocity implying it has extra range

Explosive shell, and I am not the one that said it was better on wooden ships someone else did.I was addressing their comment. Next!

[BastardSword]

Originally posted by belisarius:

Take another look, nowhere on the ap shell description in the tech tree, in the manual, or the mid battle description of the shell type does it mention if it's more or less effective against wood than solid shot, it only mentions that it's anti armor and high velocity implying it has extra range

The smallish but decent chance of AP shot to set wooden/copper ships on fire is something I found out on my own by accident. It is kind of a drag to have to research it, but it makes Japanese ships so much more effective, and usually lets them set entire enemy ships on fire before they can instantly set yours on fire when they get in range to use HE shot.

But once you get the US or French ships you can just use HE shot with their superior range and never need AP shot again, unless you're still using a lot of Japanese ships.

[Eddie G]

Speaking of ships. When I was in the Navy I was on an oiiler (AOR) Our job was to fuel up other ships while underway, it's called underway replenishment, anyway, there were only two of us in the Pacific Fleet, the other one was called USS Roanoake, I was on the Wabash. Anyway, I saw that the Roanoake was in the game, so I did some research. It was an Ironclad from the civil war and we sold it to Japan during the Boshin War. I had no idea, The AOR ship Roanoake was commissioned in 1972. I had no idea the name went back to the Civil war. I know it was not the same ship, but they brought the name back. Cool huh?

[Coiler]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Speaking of ships. When I was in the Navy I was on an oiiler (AOR) Our job was to fuel up other ships while underway, it's called underway replenishment, anyway, there were only two of us in the Pacific Fleet, the other one was called USS Roanoake, I was on the Wabash. Anyway, I saw that the Roanoake was in the game, so I did some research. It was an Ironclad from the civil war and we sold it to Japan during the Boshin War. I had no idea, The AOR ship Roanoake was commissioned in 1972. I had no idea the name went back to the Civil war. I know it was not the same ship, but they brought the name back. Cool huh?

It is really cool. Unfortunately they didnt do justice to the most advanced ship in the game, the Roanoke ironclad should have been the only turreted ship in game, alas all her guns are fixed.

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by Coiler:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Speaking of ships. When I was in the Navy I was on an oiiler (AOR) Our job was to fuel up other ships while underway, it's called underway replenishment, anyway, there were only two of us in the Pacific Fleet, the other one was called USS Roanoake, I was on the Wabash. Anyway, I saw that the Roanoake was in the game, so I did some research. It was an Ironclad from the civil war and we sold it to Japan during the Boshin War. I had no idea, The AOR ship Roanoake was commissioned in 1972. I had no idea the name went back to the Civil war. I know it was not the same ship, but they brought the name back. Cool huh?

It is really cool. Unfortunaly they didnt do justice to the most advanced ship in the game, the Roanoke ironclad should have been the only turreted ship in game, alas all her guns are fixed.

I'm pretty sure (I auto resolve all my naval battles), that the HMS Warrior is the strongest ship in the game. TBH my campaigns never last long enough for me to get that deep into the naval side of the game. I'm working on a domination campaign right now, and going independent, I saved when I hit realm divide, I have the same problem in the base game. I have never gotten far enough in the tech tree to try matchlock samurai, geisha, or most of the hero units. I don't think I've ever had a campaign go farther than 1570. Even my very hard campaigns ended before I got that far. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, because I win, I just don't know how to go slow I guess. I am that way in real life too. I was a sprinter, and I suck at distance running.

[Coiler]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by Coiler:

It is really cool. Unfortunaly they didnt do justice to the most advanced ship in the game, the Roanoke ironclad should have been the only turreted ship in game, alas all her guns are fixed.

I'm pretty sure (I auto resolve all my naval battles), that the HMS Warrior is the strongest ship in the game. TBH my campaigns never last long enough for me to get that deep into the naval side of the game. I'm working on a domination campaign right now, and going independent, I saved when I hit realm divide, I have the same problem in the base game. I have never gotten far enough in the tech tree to try matchlock samurai, geisha, or most of the hero units. I don't think I've ever had a campaign go farther than 1570. Even my very hard campaigns ended before I got that far. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, because I win, I just don't know how to go slow I guess. I am that way in real life too. I was a sprinter, and I suck at distance running.

try this one out
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=150812711

[Eddie G]

Originally posted by Coiler:

Originally posted by Eddie G:

I'm pretty sure (I auto resolve all my naval battles), that the HMS Warrior is the strongest ship in the game. TBH my campaigns never last long enough for me to get that deep into the naval side of the game. I'm working on a domination campaign right now, and going independent, I saved when I hit realm divide, I have the same problem in the base game. I have never gotten far enough in the tech tree to try matchlock samurai, geisha, or most of the hero units. I don't think I've ever had a campaign go farther than 1570. Even my very hard campaigns ended before I got that far. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, because I win, I just don't know how to go slow I guess. I am that way in real life too. I was a sprinter, and I suck at distance running.

try this one out
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=150812711

Thanks but I don't use mods. Sometimes I'll subscribe to all clans playable. But I immediately unsubscribe and delete all related files. I like to do multi player against random opponents from time to time, so that's primarily why. Plus I fervently believe that players have no idea what they are talking about when they think their mod is an improvement. Besides I tried this mod years ago. I don't like it.

[Cato]

Originally posted by Eddie G:

Originally posted by Coiler:

It is really cool. Unfortunaly they didnt do justice to the most advanced ship in the game, the Roanoke ironclad should have been the only turreted ship in game, alas all her guns are fixed.

I'm pretty sure (I auto resolve all my naval battles), that the HMS Warrior is the strongest ship in the game. TBH my campaigns never last long enough for me to get that deep into the naval side of the game. I'm working on a domination campaign right now, and going independent, I saved when I hit realm divide, I have the same problem in the base game. I have never gotten far enough in the tech tree to try matchlock samurai, geisha, or most of the hero units. I don't think I've ever had a campaign go farther than 1570. Even my very hard campaigns ended before I got that far. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, because I win, I just don't know how to go slow I guess. I am that way in real life too. I was a sprinter, and I suck at distance running.

I can relate

I never got the acheivement for late game techs simply because i win or get bored long before that point

I think the problem from my perspective is the game has like a difficulty hill - once over it theres no real challenge

Believe it or not its a sign we are good at the game!