Monitors eating HEKP missiles

[Theo]

While testing some missile designs against Monitors I couldn't help but notice a significant number of missiles failing to penetrate frontally.

Please take a look at this short 40 second compilation: https://youtu.be/f4qHyQpToCY

Hit #1 strikes a monitor to the top left of its spinal mount, no effect.
Hit #2 strikes a monitor between its spinal mount and the left front thruster, no effect.
Hit #3 strikes a monitor in roughly the same location as hit #2, no effect.
Hit #4 strikes a monitor directly onto its spinal mount, no effect.

I tested this with HEKP missiles up to 556cm of penetration and the higher penetration values seem to make no difference when trying to penetrate the Monitor's front. It either penetrates or goes 'poof' and deals no damage. Appearently there is a large area around the spinal mount where HEKP simply can't go through, no matter how ridiculous the penetration values are.

My best guess would be that the spinal mounts and thrusters eat the HEKP warhead but it just doesn't feel right when the missile has such a high penetration value, especially when these surface features don't take any damage by eating the warheads.

Thoughts?

[ulzgoroth]

While I don't fully understand it, that theory doesn't seem to fit with how HEKP are reportedly supposed to behave. (Which doesn't make the outcome less of an apparent problem.)

Originally posted by NotSoLoneWolf:

HEKP warheads are really weird. They are like carpet bombers, laying explosions at set distance intervals. If they get stopped by armour, they can't drop bombs anymore. If they overpenetrate, they can't drop bombs anymore. Meaning there is no such thing as "too much penetration" for HEKP. For any given impact point and angle, getting stopped inside the target is strictly inferior to overpenetration. Total distance travelled inside the target is the measure of their effectiveness, and overpenetration means they spent the maximum distance and were maximally effective given that particular impact point and angle.

(Lots of good information in that post and some followups.)

[Theo]

Originally posted by NotSoLoneWolf:

HEKP warheads are really weird. They are like carpet bombers, laying explosions at set distance intervals. If they get stopped by armour, they can't drop bombs anymore. If they overpenetrate, they can't drop bombs anymore. Meaning there is no such thing as "too much penetration" for HEKP. For any given impact point and angle, getting stopped inside the target is strictly inferior to overpenetration. Total distance travelled inside the target is the measure of their effectiveness, and overpenetration means they spent the maximum distance and were maximally effective given that particular impact point and angle.

Yes, I can confirm this from the testing I've done with HEKPs, ripping straight through a ship and hitting as many components as possible due to high pen is the best use of HEKP. Preferably from bow to stern.

The problem here is that the HEKP can't penetrate the Monitors frontally on a large portion of the frontal plate in the first place. The area around the spinal mount extending to the thrusters to both sides appears to be an impenetrable area. According to the description and stat card Monitors have 40cm of armor so a HEKP warhead with, say, ~120cm of penetration should be able to travel through the entire length of the ship and possibly exit out the back dealing good damage. But even 556cms of pen can't make it through the frontal plate in certain spots. I have not noticed this behaviour with HEKPs fired at other ship types yet, so I'm guessing this is a bug with the Monitors spinal mount / surface features / hitbox / something else.

[Etrigast]

are you sure those are hekp? i haven't had any issues testing hekp missiles on monitors.

[Vengos]

Monitors have "weird zones" near their front thruster where they just "eat" anything without taking dmg.

[Martyr_of_Kharak]

Do you see armor damage for any other types of weapons? Our armor damage is done using a compute shader, which is how we get the precise positional damage, and older graphics cards don't support those. There will be a fallback armor system for older computers to use in the next minor update.

[Theo]

Originally posted by Martyr_of_Kharak:

Do you see armor damage for any other types of weapons? Our armor damage is done using a compute shader, which is how we get the precise positional damage, and older graphics cards don't support those. There will be a fallback armor system for older computers to use in the next minor update.

I'm playing the game on a GTX 1660 (2019), is this one supported?

I don't think this issue persists with other weapons for me. I tried hitting those spots (spinal mount, thrusters and area in between) with 250mm AP and they definitely dealt damage. Just HEKP seems to fail to penetrate these spots.

[Martyr_of_Kharak]

Originally posted by Theo:

Originally posted by Martyr_of_Kharak:

Do you see armor damage for any other types of weapons? Our armor damage is done using a compute shader, which is how we get the precise positional damage, and older graphics cards don't support those. There will be a fallback armor system for older computers to use in the next minor update.

I'm playing the game on a GTX 1660 (2019), is this one supported?

I don't think this issue persists with other weapons for me. I tried hitting those spots (spinal mount, thrusters and area in between) with 250mm AP and they definitely dealt damage. Just HEKP seems to fail to penetrate these spots.

That card should be more than recent enough. I'll look into it a little more. Thanks for the report.

[Vengos]

Originally posted by Martyr_of_Kharak:

Originally posted by Theo:

I'm playing the game on a GTX 1660 (2019), is this one supported?

I don't think this issue persists with other weapons for me. I tried hitting those spots (spinal mount, thrusters and area in between) with 250mm AP and they definitely dealt damage. Just HEKP seems to fail to penetrate these spots.

That card should be more than recent enough. I'll look into it a little more. Thanks for the report.

there was report in #bug-report channel in discord with videos where monitor just eats shells with his front thrusters without dmg.