New Ammunition Type for Ballistic Weapons: Armor Penetrating

[XenoCow]

Basic Idea:
Add a new high penetration, ammunition to the game that trades off width of damage (better for hitting vital components) for penetrating power (better for getting through armor).

Problem:
Currently, there is only one type of ammunition that can be used for autocannons and rail cannons. The autocannons do very wide voxel damage (spalling?) before penetrating a plate and rail cannons do massive fracture damage and punch through many plates. On the autocannon side, the next best weapon for penetration is the laser cannon (but it has low damage). There is no choice for either ballistic weapon to give up width of damage for ability to go deeper.

Details:
These ammunition types would be more expensive than the normal "soft" rounds that are currently available as they would be made with depleted exorium. They would use the same weapons but be fitted in new magazines There could be some sort of color coding for easy visual distinction like real ammunition markings on the outside of the magazines (I propose a black or green stripe).

Autocannon
The armor penetrating ammunition for the autocannon would make a very small hole but be able to shoot through maybe one or two more plates (I'm going to leave balancing to the devs so this will be all qualitative). Think something like the hand-held rail gun but automatic and lower projectile speed.

Rail Cannon
CalenLoki has already talked about this so I'll let his words do the talking:

Rail-cannon makes very small hole - the size of current laser cannon. But it pretty much goes straight through most ships. It shouldn't detonate fuel rods or large tanks in a single hit (otherwise there is no time to react, and no way to defend)

For fans of the series expanse, you'll understand the feeling I (and CalenLoki) are trying to get from the rail cannons. One caveat I would like to add to CalenLoki's thoughts on the rail cannon is that I think it could take out fuel rods if it hits co-axially rather than perpendicular (longways rather than through the side so that many voxels are destroyed).

Effects:

• Players would have more choice in how they want to fit their ships with weapons (soft ammo for smaller targets, AP for big ones that have thick armor).
• Players that don't yet have access to xhalium could match the penetrating ability of those that can have laser cannons while still having the drawbacks of the autocannon (namely lower fire rate, rounds per magazine, and accuracy).
• This would help to support the economy around recycling fuel rods into depleted exorium.
• Ship designers wold have to spend more time designing around crew protection (may not be a plus, but could be an effect).
• Destroyed/disabled ships would be easier to salvage and refurbish since there could be less damage to fix if just the right wires or the crew were destroyed instead of turning the whole ship to cheese before finally getting through to the vitals.
• Time to kill would remain about the same since the small diameter of the penetrations would reduce the likelihood of critical hits compared to the soft round equivalent passing through the same location.

Conclusion:
Ammo types are super exciting to me and I would love to come out of a battle to see that I just nearly survived some rail cannon hits that passed through my whole ship. I think that this gives players lots more choice and that is always good in my book. The only worry I have is that they could outclass laser cannons, but as long as the hole that the AP autocannon ammo makes is small enough, I don't think this will be a problem.

Additionally, this idea may not work with the current per-plate system of damage as it would require that the AP rounds can deplete the armor values of more plates than the soft rounds can, making AP mixed with soft rounds the go-to pairing. A material/voxel only based method of damage may be necessary.

 

[MrRoboto]

If such a ammunition proves superior, it will join the meta and displace the current one. High costs would then only ensure that beginners would not be able to afford it and would thus have a further disadvantage compared to progressive/long-time players. In addition, light fighters could then become cannon fodder.

 

[XenoCow]

If such a ammunition proves superior, it will join the meta and displace the current one. High costs would then only ensure that beginners would not be able to afford it and would thus have a further disadvantage compared to progressive/long-time players. In addition, light fighters could then become cannon fodder.

I'm very aware of that possibility. I think that the small diameter of the AP rounds would balance since they would do less damage overall, just more pointed. The current rail cannon for example can one-shot most small ships because of it's crazy fracture damage. If it were using AP, then it would act just like a laser cannon that passes through the whole ship, rather than biting a big chunk out of it.

For Autocannons, the diameter would be something like that of the laser cutting tool, so any device besides maybe control devices like levers and YOLOL chips, would be able to survive a single hit even at the worst angle.

The place to balance these two different ammo types would be number of shots to destroy a device covered in armor. With soft ammo it would take two hits one to strip the armor and another to destroy the device. For AP two hits to deal enough voxel damage to destroy the device, but the armor would be relatively untouched.

P.S. Again, this ammo only works if plates don't have to lose all armor value before being able to take voxel damage. If no changes to the damage model were made before the addition of this ammo, then it would always be better since if it can go through more plates, then it must be doing more damage. I am assuming for this suggestion that penetrations can happen before armor value is depleted.

 

[XenoCow]

An additional note about how AP ammo might affect combat tradeoffs and balance:
If AP rounds can pass through all but the thickest armor, then if enemies are expected to use it, it may be better to save the weight and go with lighter armor since the heavy armor won't stop the rounds anyway. However, this would then make ships vulnerable to soft ammo that could then make even bigger holes and do some real damage. If ships go with tons of thick armor, then those using soft ammo would be hardly any worse off than they are now.

I can imagine those with low wealth having ships with super bulky armor since they cannot afford the really good armor and know that opponents of the same means will probably also be using soft ammo, but want some protection against AP too. Whereas the richer groups will be using tactics and speed to win and know that unless they bulk up, their armor is pointless anyways against similar opponents. So, poorer factions would be able to use their soft ammo against the top-teir combat ships since they would be optimized for battles where armor is only a suggestion.

Richer fleets would then have to either compromise with their designs, or have ships designed for rich and poor opponents. All this gets messier when mixed weapon types get thrown into the mix. As long as the innate characteristics of the two ammo types are balanced, then the ability to mix weapon/ammo types will be able to nullify any wealth differences provided players prepare propper strategies for their expected enemies.

TL;DR
Since ships can use both AP and non-AP (and other weapons), the necessary tradeoffs are available to anyone. So, strong expensive ships would be weak against poor ships and moderate expensive ships would be comparable to strong inexpensive ships.

I don't think this is a complete idea, and there may be some room for discussion when it comes to heavily armored expensive ships with AP against heavily armored inexpensive ships that don't have access to AP.