About torpedoes

I'm sorry to nitpick, but do torpedoes in the game function in the exact opposite way that they do in real life? In the game, a single sub is an annoyance, unlikely to do very much damage on its own, and anything with any anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weaponry is going to send it to Davy Jones' Locker. However, studying torpedo hits on real vessels, one would see that a single torpedo can blow your average cruiser almost completely in half. And even if it didn't, it would cause massive flooding because it's below the waterline. Certainly does more damage than anti-naval weaponry situated on the decks instead of the other way around.
And the fact that experimentals and battleships can soak up hundreds of torpedoes is pretty ridiculous. Even though battleships are, by design, every buoyant to provide a safe zone for when they are fully loaded (and so they don't flop over when they fire those huge honking cannons), each one can suffer only a few torpedo hits a piece, tops. And experimental units, amphibious though they may be, still pack vital electronics and equipment which is exposed to water if parts of their armor are getting blown off by repeated torpedo hits. Really, taking an experimental through the waterways of a map where you suspect submarines might be present should be thought of a VERY risky move. They might not even make it.
I'm not saying that submarines need to be changed (though a mod to make subs the expensive, fragile glass cannons of the SupCom Naval World would be interesting), I'm just bringing up something that's been bugging me as of late.|||Contemporay warships also carry people, and need a lot of space to house them. If you had a ship that was solid-fuggin'-armour with a single cavity to create buoyancy (remember: it's a robot ship in SupCom) then you'd stand to survive impacts and explosions.
IINM, mechanical stiffness is proportional to the 4th power of thickness. So, say you have a piece of metal and it takes so much effort to bend it, then you acquire another piece of metal twice as thick; it'd take 16 times the effort to bend it as far.|||You could also argue something about materials etc.
I remember the excuse used for TA was that because of something-or-other, the armour effectively functioned as a giant molecule around the entire unit, which would be able to last a long time before failing suddenly and catastrophically. Something like that anyway, so I guess you could say it's something like that.|||Although in real life technology is advancing at a more rapid pace than materials, I suspect the materials and manufacture methods of the supcom time are so advanced it's plausible that it's exceeded torpedoes ability to do damage.
From a gameplay point of view though, I'd much rather fire 100's of torpedoes to sink a ship than just 1 and it be all over.|||Subs would be so overpowered if 2 torps could sink a battleship. Hello sub spam! It's the new ASF spam!|||Zataku|||Baron, I'm not sure where you got your information, but I've studied a bit about sonar, and I think you're incorrect.
For starters, You've got two kinds of sonar: Active and passive. Passive is just listening for a contact's engine noise. Active sonar throws out a powerful pulse of sound and then listens for the bounce back. Destroyers and Sub Hunters would probably use active sonar pings to look for subs, so.....there you are. Not to mention the fact that we have satellite technology that can lock onto a submarine's wake if its just putzing around at shallow-ish depths.
And as far as torpedoes go, the one the U.S uses is the Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo. It weighs 3,600 lbs, can accelerate to speeds up to 55 knots which slams into the target vessel, detonating 650 lbs of high explosives. Now, I know that probably wouldn't blow EVERY ship in half, but it would make a hole in the side big enough for my Dad to drive his truck through it. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y863lraJ3F4 (This link isn't meant to prove anything. I just thought it was cool)

X-Cubed|||Well, its also ina wany kinda hard to compare as things have progressed quite a bit in the last 50 or so years.
I'm not any kind of expert, but I'd laike to thing that a Battleship, focusing more on missiles rather than cannons, could still be a huge threat.
BUT ANYWAYS!
As far as subs VS ships go, one really needs to consider every aspect of SupCom.
Now its actually kind of funny, cause Supcom Subs(and i've sure this partially extends to other naval units as well) and actually pretty small compared to modern Subs, but a things things to consider(all or most already stated) are;
No human element/Automation
This can free up a lot of space inside a hull, and allow for things like thicker armor, more redundancy(aka able to take more damage) and just more space for the actually important parts.
Advanced Construction
The construction technique used in supcom(As far as I'm aware mind you) pretty much means they can make it out of wood, just as fast as they could make it out of whatever super advanced allow you care to name, so just because it's small doesn't mean its not built out of a super dense allow that could take massive amounts of punishment before being breached or whatever.
Ammo
I don't think its ever been clearly stated, but I like to think that Ammo is build using a mini fabricator unside the unit, exactly how a factory makes the unit. So in theory(depending on how large said fabricator needs to be) the entire weapon system could use much less space than conventional weapons.
All in all I think given the Context, the size/toughness of Supcom units isn't really unplausible. I just feel it takes a bit more tohught and some educated guessing to reach a conclusion.
Mike|||http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanolathe
Turns out wiki has an answer for everything. Actually, Orange, yours is the best answer I've heard thus far. Given the fact that SupCom has removed the human equation (with the exception of ACU's and SACU's, mind you) from war, I'd imagine you'd practically have to break a battleship in half before it goes down. Seeing that this is similar to breaking a brick in half, I understand their insane durability now.
Also, given how nanolathes (Protocrafters in the instruction manual) work, every unit is created molecularity perfect, creating armor VASTLY beyond anything we can make today. That does make me wonder how units could be inaccurate given how they are made, but that is a conversation for another day.|||Zataku|||Yes, I mean that.
With most units, not a big deal. But from what I've heard, Cybrans seem REEEEEEALLY bad about this.|||Well, I will say that I think that its one of the main areas of plausibility that had to take a hit for the greater good of gameplay, but at the same time, you only really think about it when you think about the Supcom universe at this scale, and not matter how perfect a system, it will never work 100% perfect in all situations, weird gravity, intense winds are things that could mess with projectiles.
I'd say they had to exaggerate it a bit, but even that far down the timeline it wouldn't be 100% perfect, and in a 'proper' battle its not like you'd always have perfect target info when the target and shooter are both moving around, including terrain and unti by unit EW systems and such, not to mention even as tough as they could be made, cannon barrels could still get rather easily damaged(I imagine energy weapons would be even more suseptible to this kind of damage), if only slightly, which could mess with accuracy, and even if you consider self-correcting aiming algorythms they still would need data to know how to correct, and theres no guarantee repeated firing cycles couldn't further mess with accuracy.
ect ect.
TL;DR
Accuracy had to be exxagerated for Gameplay, but its not liek it'd be 100% perfect either.
Mike|||You could say wind and stuff like that causes some inaccuracy. Also, don't forget that often you WANT inaccuracy. I can't remember the name and stuff like that now, but there was a rl case of someone developing a machine gun that was TOO accurate - one guy would get all the bullets, and the rest of his squad would be unharmed.|||xingbing1|||Zataku|||I actually agree, subs are totally opposite of what they used to be.
I think that subs should be slower than surface fleet.
They should have sonar stealth while stationary.
They should be undetectable from astern.
They should fire at closer range.
They should do significant damage, like taking out a frigate in a single volley or a destroyer in 2 or 3 volleys, But they should be heavily front loaded.
ASW vessels should feature Depth Charges that are rocket launched, to take them out at range.
Then you have an interesting dynamic :) If the sub is detected to early it looses, but if the sub gets in close it wins. At present, the T1 sub is little more than a reconisance unit and engineer killer.|||Torpedo turrets are going to be useless, or retardedly different to submarines then.|||Tbh, it don't see it mattering when you compare it to other, very similar game mechanics. For example, a monkeylord on 1% health is just as powerful as one on full health - in reality, if it's dropped that low, then it's pretty likely its engines have taken a hit, it's missing two legs and its microwave laser has snapped off.
Perhaps making subs have sonar stealth and making them more expensive+deadly would work out, but I don't really see the problem. |||Honestly, I like them how they are. I just dont like how the UEF is the only faction with a true subhunter whereas the other factions have T2 and T3 subs (respectively)|||retarded double post...|||The naval balance in FA is odd and irregular, and different to real life equivalents...
The UEF navy could best be defined as highly specialised, they get a good sub hunter because their destroyers are crap when it comes to ASW. The Cybran Destroyer is 2nd most crap. Aeon destroyer as the best; infact it is better than the Aeon T2 sub.
The difficulty with the UEF navy is that each of the units covers its strength really well, but for a fully robust fleet you need everything. You need Subhunter vs Sub, Destroyer vs Surface, Cruiser vs Air and Shield Boat. Most other fleets only need to spam 2 vessel classes (Derstroyer and Cruiser) and they are pretty much set. As a seraphim player, I can easily defeat a UEF fleet with T1 subs and T2 destroyers in submerged configuration. If I see a sub-hunter, I surface the destroyers, blow it to pieces and then submerge again. Dead easy... And when I get my T3 submarines he's got no chance.|||since we're on the subject of torpedoes, you guy ever notice that the torps from the UEF and Cybran Torp bombers act really weird? Like they're swimming through the air after a short drop. Wondering if these things had a much lower flight elevation and GPG forgot to correct for it when designing the projectile.