Post From NA (Continuous AA DPS Explained)

[Aaditya_AJ]

This post is from one of Community Contributors (LittleWhiteMouse)


Here is the link to the post (https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/192541-continuous-aa-dps-explained/)

And for those who cannot bother I'll just copy-paste whole thing. Thanks to him we kinda know how AA has been designed by WG.

(P.S. From next on forward when post says 'I' it means LittleWhiteMouse is talking)

This project explains why I haven't published my Lenin review yet.  I've been sidetracked -- namely understanding how Continuous AA Damage worked, why it appears more effective for some ships than for others.  I mean, how am I supposed to properly evaluate the relative effectiveness of AA firepower if I don't understand the fundamentals?  Well, now I do and it's all crap because of a bug.  But more on that later.  Let's talk about how continuous AA DPS is supposed to work!

A Throne of Lies

Oh, port stats... how I loathe thee.

For this article, I'm not concerning myself at all with flak explosions.  I'm just talking about the pulses of direct damage a ship's AA mounts deal to attacking aircraft.   For veterans of World of Warships, the following should come as no surprise:  The in-port information about your anti-aircraft defense is horribly misleading.  While technically correct, the values like "continuous damage per second" do not reflect the effectiveness of a given aura's damage output.  Here's why:

1. Each aura deals a fixed amount of damage per shot.
2. Each aura has its own reload time.

These are both hidden values and they're important ones.  They tell you how much damage you can expect to cause to aircraft an aura and how often you can expect to see those numbers appear.  The variance in these two numbers is tremendous and the difference between them dictate whether or not a ship has good anti-aircraft firepower or not.  A slow firing gun might deliver massive alpha strikes to aircraft but only manage to fire once (if at all) before aircraft sail out of their range.  This, in part, explains why ships can rack up some pretty impressive aircraft damage totals without shooting anything down.  It also explains why you can see your AA gun animations chattering away and yet you receive no tally of damage -- the planes got out of range before someone could line up the shot to fire.

In short, the "Continuous Damage per Second" value in port is a crock and isn't worth heeding.  Some of the ships you might consider to be excellent AA powerhouses because of high AA DPS values may, in fact, be pretty crappy.

Bringing the Thunder

So if we can't trust the client to tell us what we need to know, we have to go digging.  Unfortunately, you're not going to find the information you need anywhere except for third party sites or from your friendly neighbourhood dataminer.  I used gamemodels3d.com to pull the following values (and I highly recommend the site for anyone that's looking to learn more about World of Warships). 

Numbers made pretty with colours!

So there's a lot of numbers and not a lot of meaning here, so I MS Painted some brief explanations.  These are the values for the (still Work in Progress) HMS Thunderer, the upcoming tier 10 premium Royal Navy battleship.  She uses the same 133mm/50 dual-purpose guns as HMS Conqueror and her performance with these weapons has been cloned in this first iteration.  So, let's go over what we see here.

• Hit Chance is an accuracy coefficient.  You'll see this value repeated in port but how it gets used will throw you for a loop.  It has nothing to do with how accurate your Continuous AA DPS is.  Instead, it slows down the rate of fire of a given weapon.
• Area Damage is how much damage is done per hit.  This is the number you should see show up in the UI any time your Continuous DPS scores a hit against an enemy aircraft.  This value can be modified by skills, consumables and player actions as we'll discuss later.  However, if you were to populate a Training Room with active Conqueror bots and fly your unbuffed aircraft within the 3.5km to 6.0km reach of her 133mm guns while dodging flak perfectly, this would be the amount of damage done to your aircraft with every pulse.
• Area of Damage Frequency is ostensibly your reload time... except it's not.  This value gets modified by your Hit Chance -- specifically, you divide your Area of Damage Frequency by Hit Chance to get the actual time, in seconds, of each pulse.  In the case of Thunderer here, this means her long range aura only shoots once every 4.95 seconds.  This number can be modified through player actions.
• Area Damage Per Sec is where we get that useless in port AA-DPS stat.  This is imply the Area Damage divided by Area of Damage Frequency and it doesn't account for the Hit Chance coefficient which is hella important.

These are pretty damn important values to know and speaks a lot about how anti-aircraft firepower works in World of Warships.  The only way to find these values is to dig.  These values could also be changed without the players knowing and we're reliant upon dataminers making the discovery or Wargaming letting us know.

Modifications

Player actions can modify how much Continuous Damage a given aura does and how frequently it fires.  This is STUPIDLY IMPORTANT to understand in order to grasp how to make the most out of your anti-aircraft firepower and for evaluating the potential AA strength of a given ship.  This will also save you spending credits, doubloons and captain experience, so let's go over these thoroughly.

There are four ways to increase the amount of Continuous Damage done per pulse.  In order from lowest to highest:

• November Echo Setteseven signal adds 5%.
• Basic Fire Training commander skill adds 10%.
• AA Guns Modification 2 adds 15%.
• Defensive AA Fire adds 50% to 200% for select mounts.

These bonuses are multiplicative.  Let's take Thunderer as our example.  She normally deals 450 damage every 4.95 seconds.  Fully upgraded and using her (still WIP) Defensive AA Fire consumable which is oh-so rare on a battleship, she can increase this to 1,195 damage ever 4.95 seconds.  With DFAA inactive, this will drop back down to 597 damage every 4.95 seconds.

The rate at which pulses occur can also be modified through the use of Sector Reinforcement.  Sector Reinforcement greatly increases the number of attacks made and varies per ship type while aircraft are targeted within their aura.

• Cruisers and Battleships gain 25%
• Destroyers gain 50%
• Aircraft Carriers gain 60%
• These values can be increased by 20% (multiplicative) with the Manual Fire Control for AA Guns commander skill.  With this skill, cruisers and battleships fire 50% faster.  Destroyers fire 80% faster.  Aircraft carriers fire 92% faster (!)
• NOTE: using Sector Reinforcement slows down the rate of fire in the opposite sector.  Proper management is key.

Restating our example above, just through the use of Sector Reinforcement, our stock Thunderer now fires every 3.71 seconds.  Fully upgraded, this turns into 2.48 seconds.  However, if you've mismanaged your Sector Reinforcement, our stock Thunderer now fires 450 damage every 6.19 seconds.  Fully upgraded, this gets even worse with it dropping down to 7.43 seconds.

Zero Counterplay

Of course, the carrier player isn't going to let you have everything your own way.  They can mitigate the amount of Continuous Damage they receive in the following ways:

• Aircraft Armour commander skill reduces the amount of Continuous Damage received by 10%.  This skill is very commonplace so you can expect it to influence your numbers often.
• Attack Runs reduce the amount of Continuous Damage received by 50%.  Whenever planes begin their attack, the amount of damage they receive is slashed in half.  Left click your way to victory.
• Slingshot Dropping uses (and abuses) an immunity window provided to dive bombers after they drop ordnance.  They are completely immune to Continuous Damage for 5 seconds + the bomb drop time.
• Destroying AA mounts reduces the amount of Continuous Damage proportionately.  So if you started with eight medium-caliber AA mounts and three get destroyed, your Continuous Damage drops by 3/8ths. 

Similarly, they can increase or decrease how often they're hit by Continuous Damage by loitering in or speeding through a given aura.  Inexperienced carrier players are more likely to manoeuvre and come about while still within a ship's anti-aircraft aura, stacking Continual Damage (and how nice of them to be so obliging!).  Contrarily, you can expect expert players to minimize their exposure time to Continuous Damage through use of line of sight blocking mechanics and speed.  Speed is of particular concern, given the following amount of distance covered per second in World of Warships:

• 100 knots = 0.27km/s
• 120 knots = 0.32km/s
• 140 knots = 0.38km/s
• 160 knots = 0.43km/s
• 180 knots = 0.48km/s
• 200 knots = 0.54km/s

Looking back at our 133mm guns on Thunderer, they have a 2.5km range (6km to 3.5km).  160 knot aircraft can cover that distance in 5.8 seconds.  Boosting up to 195 knots, they'll cross that same span a full second faster at 4.8 seconds.  Proper management of your fire sectors can mean the difference between shooting something down and doing no damage whatsoever.

The Bug

Atlanta is one of the ships hit hardest by the bug currently as she's reliant upon her long range, slower firing 127mm/38s to do most of the heavy lifting.

"But Mouse," you say, "your last example sounded hyperbolic.  Surely there's no way for aircraft to pass through an aura and take zero damage.  Shouldn't the AA guns open fire the moment an aircraft comes into range?"  Yes, yes they should.  They don't, but they should.

This is one of the problems with anti-aircraft firepower right now.  It needs to be rectified.  Currently, ships don't preload their anti-aircraft guns.  Yep, someone has to go run and fetch the ammo hoppers before your guns will shoot.  This means, using Thunderer as our example, that aircraft can sit in her long-range aura for 4.95 seconds before they take Continuous Damage.  Before the boost nerf, it was all too easy for aircraft carriers to rocket through some of the slower firing auras without taking a lick of damage.  It didn't matter how many damage boosts you applied, if you hadn't reinforced your sectors to increase your rate of fire, they were in and out before your guns would shoot once. Graf Zeppelin and Indomitable could make 0.7km/s with some of their strike aircraft, meaning that even if you did reinforce your sectors, there was long range AA that simply couldn't touch them.

Now, I have it from Wargaming that this will be fixed in the future -- and this might very well be THE AA-fix they've been alluding to.  This won't have much impact on rapid fire weapons, but it will be a sizeable buff to slower-firing guns which will go from no-shows to providing some pretty chunkular damage.  I dunno how long we have to wait, though.

Feeling Weird and Weird Feels

Nyooooooom!

Looking this over, it's evident to me that Wargaming built the backbone of anti-aircraft defense around the Sector Reinforcement mechanic.  In theory, it's hella powerful if used correctly with the right buffs.  Manual Fire Control for AA Guns is, hands down, the best AA skill for a ship to be using if they want to improve their aircraft killing power.  In practice, well, the bug undermines Continuous Damage rather significantly, more than halving the effective damage output of large-caliber AA guns in some respects.  The faster firing medium and short range AA guns are much less affected by such things.  Unfortunately, small and medium caliber AA mounts tend to pop to loud noises, never mind direct fire from HE shells, British cruiser SAP and aircraft delivered ordnance. 

It's no surprise to me that, on the whole, Sustained Damage feels underwhelming right now.  However, I think the problem is further compounded by simply not understanding how much damage is done and how often.  There isn't a lot of consistency either.  It seems the values for rate of fire and damage are based on not only which guns are used by how many.  Here's an example of four tier 8 American ships, all using 127mm/38s, 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikons. 

127mm/38s - 5.8km to 3.5km

• Kidd:  340 damage every 3.91 seconds
• Cleveland:  440 damage ever 3.33 seconds
• North Carolina: 440 damage every 2.44 seconds
• Enterprise: 420 damage every 4.14 seconds

40mm Bofors - 3.5km to 1.5km

• Kidd: 210 damage every 1.54 seconds.
• Cleveland: 210 damage every 0.88 seconds
• North Carolina: 220 damage every 0.59 seconds
• Enterprise: 210 damage every 0.57 seconds

20mm Oerlikons - 1.5km to 0.1km

• Kidd: 110 damage every 0.73 seconds
• Cleveland: 150 damage every 0.28 seconds
• North Carolina: 140 damage every 0.32 seconds
• Enterprise: 180 damage every 0.26 seconds

There is a lot of variation here.  It means we cannot simply look at what AA mounts a given ship has, or what the DPS values are listed in port to appraise how good anti-aircraft firepower for a given ship is supposed to be.  The performance of Continuous Damage is currently flawed and this exaggerates some the disparities in performance we're seeing.  Ships reliant upon their long range AA to keep them safe aren't performing optimally right now -- German, battleships cruisers and Atlanta, I'm looking at you.  For those frustrated with the current AA mechanics -- you're right to feel that way.  Hopefully this information kindles some small bit of hope that the problems are recognized and some good changes are coming.

This is the reply from Sub_Octavian to LittleWhiteMouse

[Rina_Pon]

Yeah, this is a must read.

Basically, WG kept a whole bunch of parameters out of player sight so they could stealth-tweak individual ship AA without getting any blowback. As a result a significant bug took months to come to light.

[Lupis]

Just now, Aaditya_AJ said:

There is a lot of variation here.  It means we cannot simply look at what AA mounts a given ship has, or what the DPS values are listed in port to appraise how good anti-aircraft firepower for a given ship is supposed to be.  The performance of Continuous Damage is currently flawed and this exaggerates some the disparities in performance we're seeing.  Ships reliant upon their long range AA to keep them safe aren't performing optimally right now -- German, battleships cruisers and Atlanta, I'm looking at you.  For those frustrated with the current AA mechanics -- you're right to feel that way.  Hopefully this information kindles some small bit of hope that the problems are recognized and some good changes are coming.

Why do i get the sudden feeling of dread, like this'll cause even more radical hatred of CV's to arise and for their demagogues to spew lies and half truths.

 

Oof WG you dun messed up here.

[humusz]

The more consistent aa, got blasted by dozen of things not just aircraft. And it supposed to be the consistent part of aa mechanic.

Ofc some of the fix idea, like self repaired aa mount that I quite fond myself might lighten such a problem.

But some argument say its rare to lose much of it to cause significant AA defficiency. Which Apparently mouse through analysis agree that sustained aa were quickly degraded by battle damage and become unreliable quickly.

While flak system were flawed unreliable concept from begining.

Like what i post before, occasionaly check your AA status (when your hp is half or less). Half of your AA prob destroyed, and not have enough dps to shoot down anything 

[dejiko_nyo]

2 hours ago, Lupis said:

Why do i get the sudden feeling of dread, like this'll cause even more radical hatred of CV's to arise and for their demagogues to spew lies and half truths.

Oof WG you dun messed up here.

Ignoring group #1 like how I ignore PC/SJW groups.

#2. Did I not say that this "rework" was not fit for consumption/release after less than 6 weeks of "testing" only? I really do hate it when I am right about these things I make from casual observation from the start.
To the rest of the wows player base including myself: "Congratulations for working as beta-testers for a halfbaked rework. We should all get betatester badges for it".

Guarantee once this bug is fix, the AA system will get skewed to the overkill side.

[Mechfori]

in plain English : AA do not work , and worst AA is not consistent even on same gun, same nation, same line .. oh and all the AA crew in WOWS should face court martial ... clearly they do not understand what's the meaning of " Battle Station "

[BanditSE1977]

16 minutes ago, dejiko_nyo said:

Ignoring group #1 like how I ignore PC/SJW groups.

#2. Did I not say that this "rework" was not fit for consumption/release after less than 6 weeks of "testing" only? I really do hate it when I am right about these things I make from casual observation from the start.
To the rest of the wows player base including myself: "Congratulations for working as beta-testers for a halfbaked rework. We should all get betatester badges for it".

Guarantee once this bug is fix, the AA system will get skewed to the overkill side.

Gotta love how WG ignored a lotta players like you that said it wasn't ready for release,and it needed 'live testing' to finalise.

Then of course you folks were proved right.

About everyone being Beta testers for the CV rework,onr of the players on the NA forum said it best a few weeks ago,WG should know the game well enough be now to be able to doing this stuff internally then only go to PTS to fine tune it,not dump it on the players.

I like this post I just found on that thread:

https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/192541-continuous-aa-dps-explained/?do=findComment&comment=4516847

Quote

WG, three 'years of the carrier', three minutes spent on new AA mechanics.

Knowing the sector system is also acknowledged to be rancidly useless but won't be changed until soonTM... 11 of 12 ships use AA, one uses the plane mechanics but almost no effort has been made in that area.

Oh well.

 

[BanditSE1977]

Another post by Sub_Octavian over on that thread:

https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/192541-continuous-aa-dps-explained/?do=findComment&comment=4516762

Quote

6 hours ago, Brhinosaurus said:

Kind of sounds like you're saying that what Mouse is calling a "Bug" (ie AA guns don't begin to load until a plane enters the zone) is in fact "Chosen deliberately".  Is that right?  You're saying you're looking at future tweaks but you're not saying "yeah it's a bug hang on we'll fix it."

Mouse is calling it a bug, because my team member told her it's a bug. He was not entirely correct, nor her was wrong. And I'm sorry for miscommunication that happened. It is how mechanic works (guns start not loaded) and it was not considered a problem (because as I said above, DPS timer does not reset, so it basically matters only for the 1st damage tick).

However, as we strongly consider tweaking the DPS mechanics to be give more consistent results, it may be treated as a bug in some of the possible tweaks. But, for example (it IS just an example) if we introduce faster tick rates for all AA guns across the board, the fact they have to load first will not matter at all. 

So in the end, the real question will not be in this exact nuance, but in the result. We do want to make AA results more consistent, and there are several potential ways to achieve it.

Cheers.

Yeah,cos half you crew going to battle stations while the AA crew is still in bed makes total sense!

I gather they took "Its not a bug,its a feature" to heart!

From a response post to the above:

https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/192541-continuous-aa-dps-explained/?do=findComment&comment=4516880

Quote

OK Ships Captain< Crew,Battle imminent< Load Main Guns!, Load Torpedoes, Load secondary guns! 

 Sir do we load secondary guns for AA ?

No you Idiot! Did I ask you to load AA?

Well our secondary guns are DP and what about bofors?

Screw the AA, we dont load it! It makes no sense to preload it!!

Crew: secretly loads Bofors anyways (unless i misread  LWM but then again what about medium range AA does that have a tick delay??)

 

[dejiko_nyo]

18 minutes ago, BanditSE1977 said:

Gotta love how WG ignored a lotta players like you that said it wasn't ready for release,and it needed 'live testing' to finalise.

Then of course you folks were proved right.

About everyone being Beta testers for the CV rework,onr of the players on the NA forum said it best a few weeks ago,WG should know the game well enough be now to be able to doing this stuff internally then only go to PTS to fine tune it,not dump it on the players.

It's not about whether we were right or not. It's about people taking that information and using it properly. The writing on the wall was clear from the start: they take months to finish polishing off -one- new ship, send it to supertesting, tweak, retweak. This one was "okay, this is cv rework, this is what we have now, push to PTS, feedback is negative, do not resolve major issues, patch with bandaid, resend to PTS, same negative feedback, patch more bandaid, resend PTS (repeat once more for a total of 4 I believe), OKAY, it's going to be on public server!". How can it not go wrong. -_-

What is happening from my PoV, is they are working on fixed, inflexible deadlines and are not pausing to consider the ramifications of their halfbaked decisions. That is the issue I have with rework (it's tied into the incompleteness that I keep on parroting but you get the gist). The rework was not just "CV rework", it was the entire rework of nearly every ship. Come on, 200+ ships to tweak and you take less time to "balance" than releasing a new ship line. I would have to rethink what I would have done carefully in detail again, but roughly it would go:
1. "Not enough data on PTS"
2. Remove CVs from public server.
3. Pick a select pool of CV players.
4. Give said players CVs to test.
5. Get data and feedback.
6. Refine. Do remedial action.
7. Repeat until acceptable.
8. Prepare for public release.

Also, I do not envy suboctavian. His role is community manager right? He gets hit with the shit from the community and he has to release the official wg position without revealing the actual situation. He has to perform damage control(right now, he needs all the damagecon mods out there plus premium). He is the poor messenger that can get no rest.

[PGM991]

who care about AA when new DB drop distant can help your plane teleport forward for almost 10 km

well, as a DD those increase drop distant help me dodge some though....

[Thyaliad]

Great work by LittleWhiteMouse as always. This is the sort of constructive CV feedback that I like to see.

As usual, WoWs has all sorts of hidden but important stats that the player can never see without using some third party program.

Though I do disagree slightly with Mouse that the port info is useless. Damage is a pretty useful rule-of-thumb if you remember to factor in the hit chance. It is just that other big factors are hidden - like dispersion and sigma when it comes to gun accuracy. The port only shows dispersion but not sigma, but to say dispersion is useless is not entirely accurate.

Also imo she makes the "bug" to be a much bigger issue than it is, but that was probably due to misunderstanding of what WG told her. Sub_Octavian already clarified that the AA gun reload does not reset, so you should only be experiencing this "bug" on the very first time you get attacked by aircraft and only on that very first time.

If Mouse is asking for AA guns to be loaded first always, then I would have to ask for air concealment to be nerfed slightly. Reason being that your planes can take big chunks of damage from unavoidable AA before you could even see the ship firing at you and take action. Considering that WG wants CV squadrons to get a least one strike off,  I think it is safe to say that AA guns not being pre-loaded was by design.

In fact I am more interested in WG's definition of bug. Maybe something was lost in translation, but it seems their definition of bug is basically a "mechanic that was not considered an issue before but may be in future". Makes one wonder how many of the so-called "bug fixes" you see in the patch notes were actually intentional mechanics in the past that outlived their usefulness.

[Moggytwo]

This is a superb post, thanks for the repost @Aaditya_AJ!

Although we were aware before from dev posts that continuous damage was the damage listed in port multiplied by the hit percentage, I haven't heard mention before of the reload times of the guns.  It makes sense, but it's useful to know.  I can't see it being a big deal in terms of changing how you play though.

[j0e90]

Damn this was illuminating. 

[Aaditya_AJ]

Another example...

Different effects depending on the menu you're in?

[BanditSE1977]

2 hours ago, Aaditya_AJ said:

Another example...

Different effects depending on the menu you're in?

LOL,WG doesn't even know how it works!

 

[Blast_Radius1]

Consider these points:

1. CVs under the old system were played less and therefore sold less. Ergo, product is under-performing.

2. CV rework presents new play-style that is much easier and OP, from most player's standpoints. Product has massively increased market appeal.

3. Huge push on premium CVs. Product niche ready for exploitation.

4. Game queues and games saturated with CVs. Product push successful, units sold exceeded expectations. Promotions and bonuses all round!!!

5. Russian BBs ready for release. Execute CV nerf roll out. Continue until CV users are a small niche of good players while most CVs gather dust again.

6. Game queues saturated with Russian BBs. Product push successful, units sold exceeded expectations. Promotions and bonuses all round!!!

7. DDs under this system are played less and therefore sold less. Ergo, product is under-performing.

Anyone want to guess what number 8 will be?

SELL, SELL, SELL...

[BanditSE1977]

10 minutes ago, Blast_Radius1 said:

Consider these points:

1. CVs under the old system were played less and therefore sold less. Ergo, product is under-performing.

2. CV rework presents new play-style that is much easier and OP, from most player's standpoints. Product has massively increased market appeal.

3. Huge push on premium CVs. Product niche ready for exploitation.

4. Game queues and games saturated with CVs. Product push successful, units sold exceeded expectations. Promotions and bonuses all round!!!

5. Russian BBs ready for release. Execute CV nerf roll out. Continue until CV users are a small niche of good players while most CVs gather dust again.

6. Game queues saturated with Russian BBs. Product push successful, units sold exceeded expectations. Promotions and bonuses all round!!!

7. DDs under this system are played less and therefore sold less. Ergo, product is under-performing.

Anyone want to guess what number 8 will be?

SELL, SELL, SELL...

Thats something I have been considering,it seems they are chasing the money over gameplay.

I am unfortunately a Star Citizen backer,and they have been doing this for a while,and thats still only a tech demo.Before WoWs released I used to follow a thread on the SC forum about Mech Warrior Online ( I never played it myself ),and some of the stuff I read there is what WG seems to be doing as you have listed out.Launch OP stuff,rake in the money,nerf it then release the next money maker.Although WG would have to go a long way to get down to PGI levels!

Although if they do go with 8: Buff DD and sell premium ones,at least we will get back to the status quo BB vs DD fights we have come to love on the forums!

[dejiko_nyo]

Well, can someone provide an update summary whether the CV onslaught has abated since the introduction of a new line in regards to class player numbers? This would be interesting.

[Blast_Radius1]

20 minutes ago, dejiko_nyo said:

Well, can someone provide an update summary whether the CV onslaught has abated since the introduction of a new line in regards to class player numbers? This would be interesting.

I would like to see this, too. Anecdotally, I am seeing much larger BB numbers in queue, and far less CVs. In reality that could be a raft of things, an overall view would be nice.

[Mechfori]

Ranked ; many just are not in the Random queue

[Verytis]

I've looked at the post but the only conclusion I'm getting to is that:

• We got a breakpoint problem because some AA guns have long reload times.
• We got the dmg and reload combined together so we can't separate it inside the port.
• Sector switching alters the fire rate, while all other modifiers alter the dmg per hit.

 

Continuous AA dmg displayed in port isn't useless, but rather its not the entire picture. The continuous AA dmg seems accurate, aside from some rounding.

The sector switching example doesn't make sense because the Thunderer is firing at 150% fire rate under MFCAA, but the given number of 2.48 seconds implies its firing at 200% under MFCAA.

And then we got the mentions about CV's tactics at getting minimizing AA dmg, including a bug.

 

Is it the post or just me failing to grasp the information presented?

[humusz]

1 hour ago, Verytis said:

I've looked at the post but the only conclusion I'm getting to is that:

• We got a breakpoint problem because some AA guns have long reload times.
• We got the dmg and reload combined together so we can't separate it inside the port.
• Sector switching alters the fire rate, while all other modifiers alter the dmg per hit.

Is it the post or just me failing to grasp the information presented?

Half incomplete. 

Long Range sustained AA is especialy weakened. since the rate of pulse is especialy long (3-4s reload) - and it start in Unloaded state.

Fast aircraft can easly pass the Long Range AA aura and only hit by 2 pulses. - Hit coeficient also dictate that it might not do damage (miss)

Light and Medium AA have same flaw, but since its fast fire rate its way more reliable - but suffer from point 4 (easly destroyed by many source of damage)

I think Mouse forgot to mention this , but Long Range, Medium and Short Range aura dont Overlap with Each other (old AA Can - its replaced by new Flak I suppose)

 

this cause AA underperform, especialy on ship that rely on Long Range - AA Aura - (Above 85mm) -  like Atlanta, (all?) German Ships and others 

[Verytis]

14 minutes ago, humusz said:

Half incomplete. 

Long Range sustained AA is especialy weakened. since the rate of pulse is especialy long (3-4s reload) - and it start in Unloaded state.

Fast aircraft can easly pass the Long Range AA aura and only hit by 2 pulses. - Hit coeficient also dictate that it might not do damage (miss)

Light and Medium AA have same flaw, but since its fast fire rate its way more reliable - but suffer from point 4 (easly destroyed by many source of damage)

I think Mouse forgot to this mention too, but Long Range, Medium and Short Range aura dont Overlap with Each other

 

this cause AA underperform, especialy on ship that rely on Long Range - AA Aura - (Above 85mm) -  like Atlanta, (all?) German Ships and others 

According to the post, the rate of "pulse" is accounted for inside the port because the AA dmg value is based on the "dmg per hit" and "reload" combined. Also the image containing Sub_Octavian's reply has mentioned that AA guns do not reset itself to an unloaded state if aircraft leaves its aura before it can fire. It only starts in an unloaded state at the start of the match. It will stay in a partially loaded state until more aircraft enter.

The number of "pulses" is more of a breakpoint matter, which I addressed. So the 1st squadron might take 2 "pulses", but the 2nd squadron would expect 3 "pulses", this is what I meant by the breakpoint problem. Also the post mentions that "hit chance" is not what we would expect. "Hit chance" slows down the rate of fire rather than being a RNG factor in whether you hit.

Light and Medium AA have a faster fire rate, which makes it a more gradual form of dmg. Where as long range AA likes to do it in bursts.My intent was more focused on how the post explains continuous AA DPS. But I acknowledge that AA guns being destroyed as a match progresses is a problem, given the fact that sunk ships no longer provide any AA, a CV gains even more power as a match goes on.

As for the AA aura not overlapping, I don't see it as a problem in itself. For example, if you allowed overlapping, the developer could simply make short range AA much weaker to account for the mid and long range AA being also active at the same time. You could possibly argue for stronger short range AA instead of asking for overlapping AA to return. I think the current system is more flexible, since you're not forced to have a strong long range AA working at mid and short range as well.

As for long range AA being weak...this is probably related to the time that aircraft spends in long range AA (They can start an attack run there and boost their way through). I would also put it down to the "flak" system taking away a chunk of continuous dmg. Not to mention it is probably designed to be weaker because long range AA covers more area and is easier to share with allies.

[humusz]

2 hours ago, Verytis said:

According to the post, the rate of "pulse" is accounted for inside the port because the AA dmg value is based on the "dmg per hit" and "reload" combined. Also the image containing Sub_Octavian's reply has mentioned that AA guns do not reset itself to an unloaded state if aircraft leaves its aura before it can fire. It only starts in an unloaded state at the start of the match. It will stay in a partially loaded state until more aircraft enter.

Yep, It was. but it still cause first airstrike "safer from retaliation". normaly you would expect its ready to fire - rather than start Charging.

furthermore First airstrike usualy happen when surface ship still grouped, so you have impresion that the AA is defective somewhat (like you can rocket strike a DD in begining of game while poor fella still under AA cover of couple Cruiser)

Even if its only happen at first encounter - its a flawed mechanic

 

2 hours ago, Verytis said:

Light and Medium AA have a faster fire rate, which makes it a more gradual form of dmg. Where as long range AA likes to do it in bursts.My intent was more focused on how the post explains continuous AA DPS. But I acknowledge that AA guns being destroyed as a match progresses is a problem, given the fact that sunk ships no longer provide any AA, a CV gains even more power as a match goes on.

Nah, its not burst. The Long Range AA still deal continous tick. you mistaken it from Flak

its same gradual only the rate is slower. why I said its not burst. because aura distributed uniformly. the only case where you feel it "Burst" would be when your number of alive aircraft squadron in aura was few

 

2 hours ago, Verytis said:

As for the AA aura not overlapping, I don't see it as a problem in itself. For example, if you allowed overlapping, the developer could simply make short range AA much weaker to account for the mid and long range AA being also active at the same time. You could possibly argue for stronger short range AA instead of asking for overlapping AA to return. I think the current system is more flexible, since you're not forced to have a strong long range AA working at mid and short range as well.

As for long range AA being weak...this is probably related to the time that aircraft spends in long range AA (They can start an attack run there and boost their way through). I would also put it down to the "flak" system taking away a chunk of continuous dmg. Not to mention it is probably designed to be weaker because long range AA covers more area and is easier to share with allies.

You dont see a problem, but the next paragraph you correctly answered that its related to the time aircraft spend in Long Range AA. but you come to the wrong conclusion.

look at mouse word here "Looking back at our 133mm guns on Thunderer, they have a 2.5km range (6km to 3.5km).  160 knot aircraft can cover that distance in 5.8 seconds. "

 

What That means ? that means your 4s Reload Long range AA will only deal 1 Pulse of damage before the aircraft enter your next AA bubble (or 0 pulse if you slingshot it). If Majority of your Continous AA Power is on Long range - thats a huge trouble. of you are Atlanta after aircraft pass your long range AA - you left with 1/5 of continous AA Power. aint that great.

you can asume its because it easier to be shared. but it also mean its feel weaker and vulnurable (esp when operating independent) when they supposed to be AA Monster - which a common complain doesnt it ?

 

[Verytis]

3 hours ago, humusz said:

Yep, It was. but it still cause first airstrike "safer from retaliation". normaly you would expect its ready to fire - rather than start Charging.

furthermore First airstrike usualy happen when surface ship still grouped, so you have impresion that the AA is defective somewhat (like you can rocket strike a DD in begining of game while poor fella still under AA cover of couple Cruiser)

Even if its only happen at first encounter - its a flawed mechanic

Your original post said long range AA was especially weakened but never mentioned anything about it affecting only 1st strike. Also if we're stretching it that far, you should had been arguing that: AA guns should always fully reload themselves between engagements so that planes entering each aura will instantly take dmg.

3 hours ago, humusz said:

Nah, its not burst. The Long Range AA still deal continous tick. you mistaken it from Flak

its same gradual only the rate is slower. why I said its not burst. because aura distributed uniformly. the only case where you feel it "Burst" would be when your number of alive aircraft squadron in aura was few

It is "bursty" in comparison to med/short range AA, I mentioned this because you were referring to "X number of pulses" but without mentioning anything about the dmg of each "pulse". What you mean by "gradual only the rate is slower" is that you feel long range AA lacks dmg per hit given their long reload. I have no idea what you mean by "aura distributed uniformly" here.

3 hours ago, humusz said:

You dont see a problem, but the next paragraph you correctly answered that its related to the time aircraft spend in Long Range AA. but you come to the wrong conclusion.

look at mouse word here "Looking back at our 133mm guns on Thunderer, they have a 2.5km range (6km to 3.5km).  160 knot aircraft can cover that distance in 5.8 seconds. "

 

What That means ? that means your 4s Reload Long range AA will only deal 1 Pulse of damage before the aircraft enter your next AA bubble (or 0 pulse if you slingshot it). If Majority of your Continous AA Power is on Long range - thats a huge trouble. of you are Atlanta after aircraft pass your long range AA - you left with 1/5 of continous AA Power. aint that great.

Again with the number of pulses but without mentioning the significance of the dmg. Nitpicking, using atlanta as an example is especially difficult to check because someone might not own the ship, and the wiki is outdated. Is this ship an isolated case? Can you refer to more examples?

I've looked at some German ships and their short range AA are stronger than med/long range continuous. This means that, while their continuous AA isn't great, it is still somewhat effective in the surrounding area, hence making it more useful to teammates.

3 hours ago, humusz said:

you can asume its because it easier to be shared. but it also mean its feel weaker and vulnurable (esp when operating independent) when they supposed to be AA Monster - which a common complain doesnt it ?

You seem to be implying that any ship with efficient long range AA, must also be good at short range and med-range as well so that it can be independent. If your long range is so dangerous, it means that attacking nearby ships is more costly, so they should consider you as a priority target before other ships.