rookie player confused by armor penetration and "anti-tank" terms

[Valhach]

Armor pen by itself is easy to understand. High pen beats med armor, etc. But the rail gun is "anti-tank" (which to me seems like it should be the highest class of armor pen) but it can't pierce charger or hulk armor? But the autocannon sentry is anti-tank and it will pierce their armor (not sure if this is correct as I just read about it while trying to figure this out)?

And how do rockets play into this? Is the difference between the rocket types (EAT, RR, commando, etc) just the delivery system and they all do the same damage? But they also don't seem to pierce hulks and chargers as you still have to hit their weakspots?

I haven't even gotten to more difficult levels yet. Does it get more or less confusing? :D

[blankitosonic]

There was and are armor tiers in the game but in the game just is explained like you said
Pen 1-2 light penetration
3-4 medium penetration
5 and above anti tank

[Five™]

armor penetration has 4 levels
level 1- no armor penetration.
level 2- low armor penetration.
level 3- medium armor penetration
level 4- high armor penetration.
you can read those by choosing your primary, secondary and stratagem in stratagem menu, of course you can upgrade then to make them mor powerfull but i like use primarys and secondarys, the senator is an good example about armor penetration, shield bugs (level 2-10) has medium armor and weak spots, chargers has high armor and you need an senator for it, or, an anti-tank. anti-tanks are powerfull weapons designed to take down heavy enemies in name of democracy, we have comando, anti-tank descartable, spear, recoiless rifle (the best of all) and maybe auto-cannon.
the most example of heavy armor is the AT-AT from the bots (remember me the name please) this is all, i hope help you.

[Tryryke]

Originally posted by Five:

armor penetration has 4 levels
the most example of heavy armor is the AT-AT from the bots (remember me the name please) this is all, i hope help you.

Factory Strider

[Mahjik]

https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Damage#Armor_Penetration_&_Armor_Values

[Valhalla Awaits]

Originally posted by Valhach:

Armor pen by itself is easy to understand. High pen beats med armor, etc. But the rail gun is "anti-tank" (which to me seems like it should be the highest class of armor pen) but it can't pierce charger or hulk armor? But the autocannon sentry is anti-tank and it will pierce their armor (not sure if this is correct as I just read about it while trying to figure this out)?

And how do rockets play into this? Is the difference between the rocket types (EAT, RR, commando, etc) just the delivery system and they all do the same damage? But they also don't seem to pierce hulks and chargers as you still have to hit their weakspots?

I haven't even gotten to more difficult levels yet. Does it get more or less confusing? :D

Some bad info floating around in the comments here, let me clarify.

The game tells you there are 3 armor levels. Light, Medium, Heavy. But this a lie, and one of the dumber things the devs have done. In actuality there are "10" armor levels. (11 if you account for 0 armor)

Light/med/heavy is just a range of those armor values. And the game does not tell you what the ACTUAL armor pen is, just gives you a general idea. This is important because say an enemy has a armor value of 5. Which is heavy armor. But you have a gun with 4, that means you do not do damage. If you have a gun with 5, then you do half damage. And if you have a gun with 6+ pen, you do full damage.

It's honestly a badly designed system and is as obtuse as you can get since we don't actually see the REAL numbers, we have to datamine the game code to actually find them.

Anti-tank btw just means it's in the heavy armor pen range. Anywhere from 5 to 10.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Valhalla Awaits:

It's honestly a badly designed system and is as obtuse as you can get since we don't actually see the REAL numbers, we have to datamine the game code to actually find them.

Anti-tank btw just means it's in the heavy armor pen range. Anywhere from 5 to 10.

The system itself isn't bad, but AH is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful at presenting information to the players, so like basically everything else in this game, if you want a full understanding, you have to go outside of the game to player-made sites to get accurate info.

[melta]

Interesting question. Are those rockets the same projectile?

[Dudebro171]

* The Railgun's AP rating is wonky as it doesn't do a lot of damage, yet has the highest AP out of any handheld weapon, yet you need to charge it up to get the most out of it. If you're new to using it, I recommend using Fortified armor so it won't instantly kill you if you break it. Don't undermine it though, what it makes up for consistency and a learning curve, it makes up for versatility with its high pen and large ammo reserve allowing it to shoot down anything that isn't nailed to the floor

* All the rockets differ by damage and delivery method.
From most damage to least:
The FAF-14 Spear does a whopping 4,000 damage per rocket, yet has a miniscule amount of rounds in its ammo pack, requires a lock-on and distance from the target for any chance to hit, doesn't work well against mobile targets, and exclusively top-attacks.

The Recoilless Rifle does 3,200 per HEAT rocket and has an HE mode that boosts its explosive damage and radius in exchange for projectile damage, yet it requires a seated reload and a tac-pack to use, and has no compromises for accuracy.

The Quasar and EATs both do the same damage at 2,000. The Quasar has infinite ammo and needs no tac-pack to work, yet needs a lengthy wind-up to fire and a long cooldown after. The EATs come in pairs and have an incredibly fast cooldown, yet are single-use and still take a support weapon slot to wield and fire.

The Commando does the least damage out of the portable anti-tank rockets, only doing 1,100 per, and it's disposable like the eats with a slightly longer cooldown, yet has 4 rockets per launcher that can be fired in rapid succession, and it has laser guidance for long-distance shooting and aerial targets.

For non-portable weaponry, the Patriot's left arm does 1,250 damage, the Missile Turret does only 525, and the AT Emplacement does 1,300

All AT launchers have an AP value of 6, meaning they can damage every target and every part in the game. for full damage, bar stationary objectives. Their durable damage value is also the same as their regular damage, making them immune to damage reduction from part durability.

* To break down some complicated stuff, all parts on all enemies have an armor rating, a durability value, and a health pool.

Armor rating determines what weapon is needed to hit that part. If you're under, the round will bounce off and do no nothing. If you're equal, the round will do about 70% damage, indicated by a grey hitmarker. If you're over, you do full damage, indicated by a red hitmarker

Durability determines how effective it is to hit that part. Every projectile has a regular damage value and a durable damage value, usually lower than regular damage. Part durability is a percentage value, that percentage determines how much of an effect your durable damage does. Due to how the calculation works, if the durable and standard damage are equal, durability has no effect.

And each limb has its own health pool that must be depleted to break the part. Some parts instantly kill the enemy on breakage, some parts will cause a bleedout, constantly doing damage to the enemy's main health until it dies, some parts will disable an attack or ability of an enemy, and some parts break off to reveal a more fragile part. Each enemy has a main health pool, and damage to their parts also hurts the main healthpool by a listed percentage, some parts even doing over 100% to the main healthpool.

Some damage effects ignore all of this. Fire, gas and explosives do direct damage to main health, avoiding parts.

Helldivers has its own unofficial wiki listing all kinds of damage values and hidden mechanics, here's the link:
https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Helldivers_Wiki

Just be aware that it's pretty slow to update, so it doesn't have much on the illuminate nor the killzone guns.

[⛑️💉zidj]

Railgun on unsafe mode has limited AP, I think up to AP4. (heavy)
If you want anti-tank pen you need to use unsafe mode and overcharge it.
Just be careful, charging it too far will blow it up.

[⛑️💉zidj]

Originally posted by Hassel:

the 0-10 system is how it USED to be, there is only 0-4 now after the latest armor rework

0 no armor, 1 light, 2 medium, 3 heavy and 4 tank

How can you be so confidently wrong?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xA_wuSuV6NORqUCt1aZ203raG4HuUJ85btqmn0ld56U/
Enemies tab
The 10 armor levels still exist
0 is unarmored
1 is basically unarmored
2 is light armor
3 is medium armor
4 is heavy armor
5 and above is tank armor

[Tahla]

Originally posted by Valhach:

Armor pen by itself is easy to understand. High pen beats med armor, etc. But the rail gun is "anti-tank" (which to me seems like it should be the highest class of armor pen) but it can't pierce charger or hulk armor? But the autocannon sentry is anti-tank and it will pierce their armor (not sure if this is correct as I just read about it while trying to figure this out)?

And how do rockets play into this? Is the difference between the rocket types (EAT, RR, commando, etc) just the delivery system and they all do the same damage? But they also don't seem to pierce hulks and chargers as you still have to hit their weakspots?

I haven't even gotten to more difficult levels yet. Does it get more or less confusing? :D

Armor levels: If your weapon matches the armor you shoot at it can penetrate but will deal reduced damage (65%).

Not all AT weapons are the same since there is more to damage than just armor levels, which is why the railgun might not always perform as well as rocket launchers since it matches armor of a lot of heavy enemies (most heavy enemies are a mix of armor 4 - 5) while rocket launchers will always exceed them (railgun AP5, rocket launchers AP6 or 7, everything 5 and up is classed as anti tank though). There's also a whole other can of worms called durable damage where the railgun does a lot less than AT rockets and most heavy enemies have durable parts.

https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Damage#Enemy_Durability

Tiers of AT launchers:
Commando 1100 damage
EAT / Quasar 2000 damage
Recoilless Rifle 3200 damage
Spear 4000 damage

[LoveTruffle]

Some enemy targets are designed to be more resistant to anti-armor or anti-tank weapons. Most targets have weak points that AT weapons can exploit and many have areas that are more heavily armored allowing them to better deflect incoming attacks.

Chargers for example have thicker armor on their front side and much lighter armor on their butts. A strong enough AT weapon can still hurt them from the front, but there's at least a chance of the attack being completely deflected.

On the bot side you have things like the Shredder Tanks that have stronger armor on the hull but only the front half of the turret is heavily armored. If you engage the turret from the sides or rear where the armor looks more thin, you can damage it with weapons with lower armor penetration values.

[McFuzz]

You will notice that weapons like the Heavy Machine Gun and Anti Materiel Rifle, which have the highest penetration, can penetrate heavy armors (but will still bounce at an angle.) Despite having the highest penetration, they will still bounce of Vehicle armor, which currently only high level bots have.

Explosives penetrate everything. They still do more damage on weakspots (heads, exposed parts, etc) but you don't need to worry about penetration for them.

[Trig_Zero]

Originally posted by McFuzz:

You will notice that weapons like the Heavy Machine Gun and Anti Materiel Rifle, which have the highest penetration, can penetrate heavy armors (but will still bounce at an angle.) Despite having the highest penetration, they will still bounce of Vehicle armor, which currently only high level bots have.

Explosives penetrate everything. They still do more damage on weakspots (heads, exposed parts, etc) but you don't need to worry about penetration for them.

eh, i have instances where even anti tank bounced off angles
i once had RR bounced off a titan's leg and upper body shell, and squid dropships' sloped sides
same goes for the anti tank placements' shots

[Koala 4peace]

Just remember that penetrating the armor does not equal killing what's behind the armor. The Railgun does penetrate both hulk and charger armor. But unless you are shooting the hulks in the eye, you'll need a lot of shoots. With the charger i imagine is still best to just destroy the leg armor with it.