That’s precisely why I’m against this. Since it will go down to 2 rounds.
Purely AP or HE.
Name me one vehicle were this change would make the vehicle suddently unbalanced.
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My aim sucks, i need some tracer belts to support a full belt of SAPHEI in my MAUSER cannon
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Im the opposit, i want more no tracer belts, especailly Mg FF/M and MG 151/15 and /20 without any tracers. (Ap-I and HVAP mainly.)
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Probably over 90% of the in-game belts are fictional. I get that it’s for balancing purposes currently, but if the pure HE or AP (+ Favorable Tracer composition) belt is gonna make certain aircraft stronger than where they sit currently, they can just go up in the BR. That’s like having 1 more cannon grants 1 or 2 steps higher BR. So it’s okay for few guns to get more valuable, that’s exactly what the custom ammo belts are for. Maximizing the efficiency by having belts specialized for different purposes. The current presets are supposed to fill the role, but they are not always representing the supposed purposes.
The ratio of the tracer rounds are inconsistent for guns, M2 Browning and French Hispano 20mm cannons as examples.
Talking of real life belt composition. If having just 1 or 2 types of shells grants a higher firepower, they would have done that. I know Post war US military investigated the effectiveness of the different shell types afterward. AP-I would be the most efficient for 50 cals, just like in the game. I don’t know how few grams of incendiary fillers in the modern 50 cal rounds are calculated in this game, pure incendiary rounds don’t act like an explosive rounds in this game. It feels so underwhelming.
If a specific bullet type is more favored, they would have done that. I’m pretty sure having different rounds in the belt played a significant role in making the guns allrounder when fired at the same area of the enemy aircraft.
Few documents suggest a proper ammo composition for the aircraft guns of the era. Like Ho-103, they got AP-t, IAI(Ma-102), HEF(Non-Italian type fuse) in repeat. The in-game representation got the “default” AP-T, AP, HEF. And air target "AP-T, HEF, IAI, HEF. Which is all wrong. US 50 cal turrets got AP and I, but the late war B-17s and probably other bomber types of the era got no tracers, for tracers actually hindering the gunner’s ability to aim properly. They are not even AP-I. So US bombers would be nerfed to death until Post-war jets if they introduced the “Real life ammo composition”. I’m definitely against it for obvious balancing reasons.
US fighters got more tracers as they are near the empty magazine, to avoid they run out of ammo during a heated action. As they got no floating HUD showing the ammo count. The functionality is nowhere to be seen with the props only having pure API-T.
Speaking of which, some guns got pure API-T like Brezin & M2.
Noted, the Japanese M2 copy chambered in 13.2mm doesn’t even have a tracer belt.
And Pure FI-T(the most damaging soviet 20mm rounds) for most Soviet cannons. What boggles my mind are the Soviet ammo belts for pretty much all machineguns and cannons, like they got the best of them all. I wonder if that’s for the so called “Softcore Balancing purposes” If you look at Shkas, you can guess how much firepower decrease could be expected with a belt comprised of “Ap, ball, Ap, t, t” Something like that.
If they change how the game is played based on the nationality of the guns, the decision to make some guns weaker intentionally is racist. It’s a bias(racism) straight up. I’d say they’ve done the job rather fair so far. Though they’ve ignored the similar reports on the existence of Ma-102 for years. Gaijin left it as a copy of the Italian 12.7mm, the gun’s data used to be exactly 1 to 1. So there is no consistency in the gaijin’s effort to make the ammo belt follow the documents, or keep it “balanced”. As they basically meant nothing, I say it again, over 90% of the WW2 era guns we have in the game are having completely fictional belts. To begin with, real life airforces won’t even have multiple belt templates for the same ordinance unless it’s specific for tank busting activities.
If Soviet 20mm ammo belt compositions are justified, French and British 20mm cannons deserve better. They even got a lower fire rate. British SAPI round is not even functioning like supposed to. If they got the certain “Weak” rounds realistically valuable, the “mixed bag” belts could be actually good enough. Still, it’s the gaijin’s modeling issues in the round types, making certain rounds stronger than others.
If I could make a custom belt for my own deed, I would setup something like this.
For Type 99 Mark 1, HEF HEF-T HEF HEF-T (A good tracer composition with the HEF’s higher destruction capability)
For 13.2mm Navy API-T (It’s obviously easier to aim)
I know Japanese 20mm belts are not too shabby either, APHE deals damage, the pure HEF-T belt is welcome. But the extra customizability doesn’t harm the game’s functionality. It doesn’t change the firepower too much for the guns I listed anyway. You can either say “If it doesn’t aid in the power, the custom belt doesn’t have to be introduced” or “If it changed the fire power of the certain guns, it could change the game balance drastically” though the unbalance caused by the improper BR could be temporarily.
And I don’t see a difference from the current M2 20mm (US) & ShVak 20mm belts.
Look at the French 20mm, the gun has SAPI round. But it’s limited in a stealth belt, and it’s just 1/4. How relevant is that. I just don’t think it’s fair. Except the VB.10 family, 60 rounds magazines are common for most French fighters. Meaning every rounds count.
M4 & M10 37mm cannons for P-39, P-63. It’s historical that they got AP in the belt for the ordinal usage. Even they I’d rather have 100% HE round, It’s nice to have a realistic ammo belt just to roleplay, but does it make sense to force players the bit of the realism. This game is already filled with unrealistic elements just make the game a little bit more fun as a game. I still remember it, the gun got a pure HE belt for once. But a consecutive patch booted it back to the current state. I don’t know why they would do that.
Hope you guys get the point.
1, It doesn’t break the balance anyway. Because the BR can catch up the damage increase.
2, It doesn’t increase the firepower that much anyway. Guns usually have 1 or 2 “Highest DPS loadout” already. Almost everyone uses that one outside Ground RB.
3, The possible meta loadouts are just “Only AP-I” or “Only HE”. Which is already available for certain guns. And some guns don’t have access to the possible highest DPS.
4, APHE rounds and pure incendiary not getting favored by the players, is partially Gaijin’s fault in modeling some types of rounds “weak” than they should be. Some rounds are underperforming compared to the real life counterparts.
5, Fragments went through so many changes, the functionality of the rounds are just so random throughout the years of developments. The gun damages are not reflecting the real life. Which is understandable, Gaijin is at its effort. I think it comes down to the fact it is just hard to define a damage model. I don’t blame Gaijin for this part.
6, Some guns are forced to be historic, while others are not. So having less customizability is just a disadvantage for players at this point. Most ammo compositions are not following the documents even if they are available.
7, Favorable Tracer ratio for each player. Instead of having one stealth belt, “CAS tracer” “ATA tracer” “CAS stealth” “ATA stealth” can be made. I don’t know how relevant the “CAS stealth” belt is, though.
8, Turret belts are weird.
9, Having different types of ammo is valid anyway. You get a wider range of damage sources. Some aircraft parts are more valuable to certain damage types, if few rounds hit the same location, the chance of critically injuring the target would be increased. The problem in this game’s damage model is that, the damage charges up even if the damage source is small caliber. So that if you keep hitting the target, more or less they would fall down. In real life, if the target is immune to 7.7mm, no matter how much you hit the same vicinity, it won’t matter. You are not digging a hole in the armor plate, unless you are precisely hitting the bullet hole. If it’s not the vital spars, the 7.7 bullets to the same spot shouldn’t be chewing the aircraft like they do now. This game doesn’t have small spars modelled, they should be separated form the skins. Like, the pure AP should get a chance of passing through the skins, to simulate the chance of hitting the fuselage spars in the area. I seriously don’t think the holes to the skins alone could cut the aircraft in half. In short, damage model is not reflecting the real life. In real life, having different types of ammo is a practical method to increase the chance of crippling the target when the gun is fired at the small vicinity in the target plane.
10, I really love to remove the rounds of dubious firepower from the magazines. I really wish balls and practice rounds gone, they don’t have to exist in my belts when we got AP for the same gun. Why do we even have balls. Speaking of which, no balls.
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Anyway, what the □▽✗◯ with the German 20mm velocity. Protection Analysis says they change the velocity based on the belt. But why.
Most likely bugged. I don’t even understand why protection analysis shows “belts” becaus it should just show the individual shells and bullets.
I think it’s because protection analysis doesn’t necessarely show what ammo the weapon uses.
It’s some weird implementation but the MG FF/M for example shows the muzzle velocity for the 20mm Mineshell being identical to the MG 151/20 with 785m/s but in the actual game it of course fires them at a velocity of 675m/s.
Sure, it seems like a listing bug more than a reflection of how they actually behave in the game.