[Suggestion] AP, HEAT, and Tank Armor Improvements

And what about HE weapons?

So far, I've felt that HE is too plain. It's just a larger AOE weapon on all 3 factions. I would like some better weapons specifically for AI work. Having a bigger splash is all great and all, but if you have a good aim the splash is only good for groups, and maybe it's just my playstyle, but I don't often fight large groups packed enough for HE to work, and the few times I do find groups packed that tight I don't think even a Vanguard with shield should attack them with the risk of C4 and lots of HA rockets.

Anyway, I would like to see some new types of AI weapons.
Vanguard: Shotgun primary canon. Could be an altered AH for instance. Good for killing groups of infantry in CQC. Possibly allowing the pellets to bounce once so you can shoot into buildings. Alternatively maybe have the bullets be able to pass through multiple infantry in a row.
Prowler: Pounder-type of weapon? Massive chaingun? Both could work. Pounder type still retains a nice portion of damage against vehicles, but require close range to work. Massive Chaingun could work for hosing down an area against infantry, but would sacrifice a lot of damage vs vehicles.
Magrider: I always have a bit of trouble thinking of something good for Vanu. Shooting a few PPA-like spheres that bounce around several times? Each bounce gives off a small AOE dealing damage to nearby infantry? A DOT effect on the area you hit to temporary block enemy passing through?

Lots of good ideas in this thread. Most of the credit for the inspiration of my idea come from Chingles though.


An interesting tank factoid I read a while back is that the higher velocity a gun is, the thicker the wall of the shell has to be, and therefore the less explosive filler it can carry.

So a high velocity gun has great AP performance, but fires poor HE shells, compared to a low velocity gun, which has poor AP performance, but fires a powerful HE shell.


/Begin TLDR

This means that we could have 3 versions of the same cannon which can all fire AP, HEAT and HE, but have very different performance with AP and HE, with HEAT as a common bench mark.

The different versions could (and should) have different barrel lengths to make them easy to identify by sight.

Essentially, AP/FPC cannons become HV(High Velocity) with an elongated barrel, HEAT/PC cannons become GP(General Purpose), HE/VPC cannons become LV(Low Velocity) with a shortened barrel.

/End TLDR


/Begin Wall of Text

Ammo type selection could be via:

a) The 1, 2, 3 keys, i.e. sort of treating the ammo types like 3 separate weapons.
b) Fire mode selection.

Seperate ammo pools for each shell type might be a problem to implement, if in doubt, use 1 ammo pool and say the shell types are changed by nanites



I've put together a basic example of relative balance between weapon and ammo types:


Note: These stats would be a fairly big step up in power, particularly if the driver doesn't have to make sacrifices by having to limit supplies of each shell type. A rate of fire nerf might be in order. A blanket damage nerf might work too, but I'm using current damage values as a reference.

HEAT shells - Standard damage across all barrels, Same as current damage, blast more similar to AP, with a larger area
e.g. AP Blast = 500@0.5m, 1@1m, new HEAT blast = 500@0.5m, 1@2m
Long range Anti-Tank performance of HEAT is limited by accuracy on the GP and particularly the LV barrels.
i.e at ranges where the GP and LV barrels can match the HV's DPS with their HEAT shells, the HV has higher effective DPS due to better accuracy.


HE - Standard direct hit damage across all barrels, much less than current. Blast varies between barrels



HV Barrel - Highest velocity, No COF - Perfect Accuracy (assuming correct elevation)

AP - Highest MAX damage, MAX damage out to 150m, Equals current damage @200m, EFFECTIVE damage VS MBT=HEAT @400m (ALSO MIN Damage)
i.e. AP is never worse against Tanks than HEAT at any range and better at <400m, and better than HEAT against other targets at (depending on resistances) <300m or so

HE - Same blast as current HEAT (can't 1 shot with splash, but you don't lose any accuracy compared with AP)


GP Barrel - Medium velocity, Small COF - Reliably hit MBT Front cross section (assuming correct elevation) @300m

AP - MAX damage = Current AP damage, MAX damage out to 100m, EFFECTIVE damage VS MBT=HEAT @200m, MIN damage @300m
i.e. AP is better against Tanks at <200m, and better than HEAT against other targets at (depending on resistances) <150m or so

HE - Same blast as current HE


LV Barrel - Low velocity, Largest COF - Reliably hit MBT Front cross section (assuming correct elevation) @200m

AP - MAX damage = Current HEAT damage, Max damage out to 50m, EFFECTIVE damage VS MBT=HEAT @100m, MIN damage @150m
i.e. AP is better against Tanks at <100m, and worse than HEAT against other targets at all ranges

HE - Blast slightly larger than current HE


I think most of this could be done through database changes, the only code changes would be required for the shell type selection.
I wonder if adding firemodes can be done through the DB, without a code change?

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