Torpedoes do not penetrate armor

[Huita]

So, i've been flying with 2 med torps in my conda testing them at every opportunity. There weren't many opportunities because if you want to actually hit somebody with new 2.5 seconds of priming up, you need to be quite a bit away and anaconda doesn't really fly fast, but anyway.

Not a single one of them penetrated the armor. I kept sub-targetting powerplant and firing - they always damaged weapons and things like drives.

Is that working as intended?

Torpedoes ingame say they are at 10.000 armor penetration, whatever that is, and if you choose missiles, stats say they are 99% worse at penetrating armor. But they work just like missiles - worse missiles.

And yes, i know about the "guaranteed armor penetration" mod. But that implies that armor penetration with unmodded torps still happen, if not guaranteed, no?

 

[geoffrey.hdt]

You need to mod them via the engineers. They then gain some penetration factor.
If after that, they still do not damage multiple internal modules at a time, you should create a bug report with video footage.

 

[TuxedoSteve]

The 10 thousand armor penetration value given ingame is not for actually penetrating through armor and hitting the modules (that's assigned through the hull breach chance), it's instead works with the ship's armor hardness value (assigned per ship, no way to check the specific value). If the penetration value is higher than the armor's hardness value, it will do full damage. If it's lower, it will do less. Having such a high penetration value will just ensure the torpedos will always do their full damage no matter what ship it hits.

 

[Ranualf]

They have the armour pen of soggy potatoes...

And the spool up time of a dead sloth... /meh

 

[Alpha087]

I don't know what the state of torpedoes is suppose to be.. but if they work like seeker missiles (I can only assume they do?), then they only do surface damage to hull and exterior modules (weapons, drives, heat sinks, chaff launchers, ect). Like I said, not sure if Torps are meant to just be giant Seeker Missiles though.

 

[Bacalao]

I don't know what the state of torpedoes is suppose to be.. but if they work like seeker missiles (I can only assume they do?), then they only do surface damage to hull and exterior modules (weapons, drives, heat sinks, chaff launchers, ect). Like I said, not sure if Torps are meant to just be giant Seeker Missiles though.

That is my impression of them, yes.

 

[Red Anders]

The 10 thousand armor penetration value given ingame is not for actually penetrating through armor and hitting the modules (that's assigned through the hull breach chance), it's instead works with the ship's armor hardness value (assigned per ship, no way to check the specific value).

Allow me to summarise that:

Armour penetration doesn't mean armour penetration, it means something else. Unfortunately you have no way to understand the amount of 'something else' with reference to a specific ship because the 'something else' is compared to another something else whose value is unknown.
​

We can also infer from the above that even if the value of the other something else was known, we still wouldn't know the nature of the relationship between the two (percentage reduction, direct value comparison, scaled value comparison etc) so still couldn't extrapolate anything useful with which to make outfitting decisions.

But yeah, that's better because blindly choosing gear based on 'ooh this sounds cool, it does 100 more McGuffins than the other thing' (something which I may well still do anyway...) is clearly the way forward in the post-millennial gaming world.

 

[Tikigod]

But yeah, that's better because blindly choosing gear based on 'ooh this sounds cool, it does 100 more McGuffins than the other thing' (something which I may well still do anyway...) is clearly the way forward in the post-millennial gaming world.

Bingo.

All Frontier need to do is colour code equipment grades to conform to the Grey-White-Green-Yellow-Purple convention and all the information modern gaming needs will be there at your finger tips.

They totally goofed with the outfitting screen. All it needed was less numbers and more colour coding.

P.S. And NPCs when targeted need a little skull icon above their ship to let you know if your equipment colours aren't sufficient to deal with NPCs of that level. But providing you're flying with all-purple then everything should just politely die. Even from all purple class 1 mining lasers.

P.P.S In fact.. screw classes. Make equipment universal. So one type per item with just 5 colour grades. And all ships use the universal standard.

P.P.P.S Also narrow ships down to 3 ships. 'Truck', 'Shooter' and 'Scout'. Makes things less confusing and helps with balancing.

 

[Vasious]

Allow me to summarise that:

Armour penetration doesn't mean armour penetration, it means something else. Unfortunately you have no way to understand the amount of 'something else' with reference to a specific ship because the 'something else' is compared to another something else whose value is unknown.
​

We can also infer from the above that even if the value of the other something else was known, we still wouldn't know the nature of the relationship between the two (percentage reduction, direct value comparison, scaled value comparison etc) so still couldn't extrapolate anything useful with which to make outfitting decisions.

But yeah, that's better because blindly choosing gear based on 'ooh this sounds cool, it does 100 more McGuffins than the other thing' (something which I may well still do anyway...) is clearly the way forward in the post-millennial gaming world.

Isn't it Torpedoes have a high armour penetration value as it Torpedoes don't suffer damage reduction based on ship size, so torpedoes in a Size 1 Hardpoint do not suffer the Size 1 weapon vs Ship hardness X damage reduction a Say Beam Laser would

 

[Jukelo]

Allow me to summarise that:

Armour penetration doesn't mean armour penetration, it means something else. Unfortunately you have no way to understand the amount of 'something else' with reference to a specific ship because the 'something else' is compared to another something else whose value is unknown.
​

We can also infer from the above that even if the value of the other something else was known, we still wouldn't know the nature of the relationship between the two (percentage reduction, direct value comparison, scaled value comparison etc) so still couldn't extrapolate anything useful with which to make outfitting decisions.

But yeah, that's better because blindly choosing gear based on 'ooh this sounds cool, it does 100 more McGuffins than the other thing' (something which I may well still do anyway...) is clearly the way forward in the post-millennial gaming world.

Actually the outfitting screen clearly says that if armour penetration is lower than a ship's hardness, damage is scaled down proportionally. So a weapon with 10 armour penetration hitting a ship with 20 hardness would deal half its nominal damage. It's true that we don't know the hardness value for each ship, but we know how the two values relate to each other. From there it's entirely possible to empirically figure out the hardness values.

 

[Cablefast]

You can also compare the value to other weapons to infer information. For example, I think my huge b4 cannon has a penetration value of 90. Makes a value of 10 seem like crap. Don't know what my lasers get. I'm curious to check next time I get on.

 

[Huita]

You can also compare the value to other weapons to infer information. For example, I think my huge b4 cannon has a penetration value of 90. Makes a value of 10 seem like crap. Don't know what my lasers get. I'm curious to check next time I get on.

I did compare torps to missiles. Missiles say their "armour penetration" is 99% lower.

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But anyway. Am i getting this right: unmodded torpedoes cannot penetrate the outer layer of ship to damage internal modules at all, so they're basically bigger, slower missiles with very low ammo and 2.5 seconds to prime?

 

[V'larr]

I don't really "get" torpedos.

They're rather expensive to use, get only 1 or 2 shots apiece, have massive heat, and...and they only do some more damage than normal missiles.

Are they here just so you can nuke NPC Eagle wingmembers easily when outnumbered? I don't get the point.

On the other hand, it'd be hard to balance a costly "1-use-only" weapon, as the only way to make such a weapon useful, is to make it overwhelmingly powerful.

It feels like a holdover from older versions of Elite that no longer has a place...though surely there's possibilities in the future for it. (Like making it unaffected by PD or ECM, or bypassing shields entirely? Having some kind of side-effect? Give it more ammunition? There's options, and I figure Frontier likely already has ideas on the drawing board somewhere.)

Just, right now, I don't get it.

 

[Bzek]

I don't really "get" torpedos.

Same. I don't get them at all. The amount of hull damage is not actually that much either.

I took some for an assassination mission, where the target had a wing of five (Anaconda, wing was sidewinders or eagles, can't remember). My plan was to bring down shields fast with beams, then throw all torpedoes I could lob at the power plant before I had to bail and hope for the best.

Part 1 of the plan worked fine since I got the shields down before my ship started taking too much damage (Imperial Clipper). Part 2 sucked, since the torpedo damage was pitiful. Had to bail and just drop the mission.

 

[Frenotx]

So, i've been flying with 2 med torps in my conda testing them at every opportunity. There weren't many opportunities because if you want to actually hit somebody with new 2.5 seconds of priming up, you need to be quite a bit away and anaconda doesn't really fly fast, but anyway.

Not a single one of them penetrated the armor. I kept sub-targetting powerplant and firing - they always damaged weapons and things like drives.

Is that working as intended?

Torpedoes ingame say they are at 10.000 armor penetration, whatever that is, and if you choose missiles, stats say they are 99% worse at penetrating armor. But they work just like missiles - worse missiles.

And yes, i know about the "guaranteed armor penetration" mod. But that implies that armor penetration with unmodded torps still happen, if not guaranteed, no?

Armour penetration is not how well the weapon punches completely through the armour to attack modules. Armour penetration determines how effectively the weapon can apply its damage to larger hulls. See the armour thread in my signature. The APF value in that thread corresponds to the armour penetration value that now exists in-game.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Same. I don't get them at all. The amount of hull damage is not actually that much either.

I took some for an assassination mission, where the target had a wing of five (Anaconda, wing was sidewinders or eagles, can't remember). My plan was to bring down shields fast with beams, then throw all torpedoes I could lob at the power plant before I had to bail and hope for the best.

Part 1 of the plan worked fine since I got the shields down before my ship started taking too much damage (Imperial Clipper). Part 2 sucked, since the torpedo damage was pitiful. Had to bail and just drop the mission.

Three modded torps kill any shield. Two or three torps in a shieldless ship kill all its weapons and utility slots. You dont kill the ship with torps, you cripple it.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

I don't really "get" torpedos.

They're rather expensive to use, get only 1 or 2 shots apiece, have massive heat, and...and they only do some more damage than normal missiles.

Are they here just so you can nuke NPC Eagle wingmembers easily when outnumbered? I don't get the point.

On the other hand, it'd be hard to balance a costly "1-use-only" weapon, as the only way to make such a weapon useful, is to make it overwhelmingly powerful.

It feels like a holdover from older versions of Elite that no longer has a place...though surely there's possibilities in the future for it. (Like making it unaffected by PD or ECM, or bypassing shields entirely? Having some kind of side-effect? Give it more ammunition? There's options, and I figure Frontier likely already has ideas on the drawing board somewhere.)

Just, right now, I don't get it.

You need to take a look at some of the Engineer mods for Torpedoes. You'll get it then.

 

[StiTch]

I don't really "get" torpedos.

They're rather expensive to use, get only 1 or 2 shots apiece, have massive heat, and...and they only do some more damage than normal missiles.

Are they here just so you can nuke NPC Eagle wingmembers easily when outnumbered? I don't get the point.

On the other hand, it'd be hard to balance a costly "1-use-only" weapon, as the only way to make such a weapon useful, is to make it overwhelmingly powerful.

It feels like a holdover from older versions of Elite that no longer has a place...though surely there's possibilities in the future for it. (Like making it unaffected by PD or ECM, or bypassing shields entirely? Having some kind of side-effect? Give it more ammunition? There's options, and I figure Frontier likely already has ideas on the drawing board somewhere.)

Just, right now, I don't get it.

Only thing I don't get is why they're so hard to use for a two-shot wonder.

Otherwise, it's all good stuff. You're absolutely right from a "combat farming" point of view; even though weapons have changed, explosives just don't carry enough reusability to be viable.

On the other hand in the hands of a trader ship, mining ship etc. - much more sense.

You're much less worried about ammo count here. Chances are you're (un?)lucky to get in one or two fights between dockings, but with the disadvantage of not being combat fitted if you do get in that fight you just want the enemy to be gone. Torps are great in these situations because they ignore chaff, meaning the NPC needs to have other countermeasures to avoid if you know how to fire them, and when they they hit they cause a big chunk of damage and often crippling external module damage to either let you work around that combat build or let you get away. External damage is what it is though, as deliberately implemented - which I can't argue with, because it's (/sarcasm) arguably (/sarcasm ends) better than the previous explosive damage distribution of "sweet nothing at all".

Also once the mods are on...even better for pitching yourself against combat builds.

 

[Huita]

Three modded torps kill any shield. Two or three torps in a shieldless ship kill all its weapons and utility slots. You dont kill the ship with torps, you cripple it.

4 torps against bigger ships don't take out their weapons, no. I landed 4 CL2 hits on elite conda, some weapons got damaged, drives were down to 31%, that's it.

As for mods, yeah. But i'm talking about unmodded torps.

You need to take a look at some of the Engineer mods for Torpedoes. You'll get it then.

Again, this is not about getting 1/3 chance of 6% chance of special effect during modding, it's about the basic weapon that's sold in shops.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

4 torps against bigger ships don't take out their weapons, no. I landed 4 CL2 hits on elite conda, some weapons got damaged, drives were down to 31%, that's it.

As for mods, yeah. But i'm talking about unmodded torps.



Again, this is not about getting 1/3 chance of 6% chance of special effect during modding, it's about the basic weapon that's sold in shops.

You hit an Anaconda with 4 torpedoes? Let me guess how many of them had modules sub-targeted....

Torps have less of a blast radius than missiles. Learn a little bit more about what you're using before you criticize it.