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We continue to test the modified plating for cruisers and Tier VI-VII battleships as well as the updated "Inertia Fuse for HE Shells" skill. Today we would like to tell you about the upcoming changes and the reasoning behind them.
We are going to closely monitor the impact of these changes on both the general game balance and the individual battle efficiency of certain ships. If necessary, the IFHE skill and some ships may yet be subject to additional balance corrections to maintain their efficiency.
The main goals we want to achieve with these changes:
The interaction between cruisers of the same Tier should be obvious. For example, cruiser HE shells with a caliber of 152 - 155 mm should penetrate the armor of cruisers of the same tier without additional conditions. This will make gameplay on certain cruisers more comfortable and make the "Inertia Fuse for HE Shells" skill optional for them;
Increase cruisers' survivability: changes to plating thickness will make cruisers more resistant to battleship salvos if the positioning is correct;
Use differences in armor to maintain the uniqueness of cruisers with a gun caliber of 190 mm or more compared to those with a caliber of 139 to 189 mm: the first group of ships will have a central "box" of increased armor plating and the second one will have only an improved deck;
Maintain inter-class interaction in its current state: cruisers with 152-155 mm caliber will still not be able to penetrate the plating of same-Tier battleships without the "Inertia Fuse for HE Shells" skill.
Rebalance the "Inertia Fuse for HE Shells" skill so that the combination of its positives and negatives affects player choice, thereby making the skill non-essential and encouraging variation in cruiser commander builds.
Changelog:
The "Inertia fuse for HE shells" skill is changed as follows:
HE shell armor penetration boost will depend on the Tier of the ship.
Tier I-VII ships: +25% HE shell armor penetration;
Tier VIII-X ships: +30% HE shell armor penetration.
Now the skill will reduce the chance to cause fire by 50% instead of subtracting 1% or 3% depending on the caliber. The penalty only affects the basic chance to set fire. Other bonuses, like, for example, from the "Victor Lima" signal or the "Demolition Expert" skill, will increase the chance to set fires in the same way as before.
The skill gave a sizable boost without a correspondingly significant penalty, which made it almost mandatory. The new variant will bring the efficiency of the skill back to normal.
The rule for calculating armor penetration of all HE and SAP shells was changed: currently, an HE shell will only penetrate armor thicknesses lower than the shell's penetration value. With the change, an HE shell will not only be able to penetrate armor thicknesses that are lower than its penetration value, but also those that are equal to it. In this way, 152 mm shells on a Tier VII cruiser will be able to penetrate 25 mm plating, whereas currently, the penetration is 24 mm.
For Tier VIII - X ships with 152-155 mm caliber guns, the rule of 1/5 of the caliber will be applied when calculating their HE shells' armor penetration. The above change will let HE shells of these ships penetrate up to 30 mm of plating on Tier VIII-X cruisers.
With the changes, cruisers with 152-155 mm guns will be able to penetrate each other's armor without the need for the "Inertia fuse for HE shells" skill.
Changes in the armor plating of cruisers and battleships
Changes in plating will increase the survivability of cruisers: if positioned properly, they will become more resistant to battleship fire at range, because AP shells hitting at an acute angle will ricochet off the plating. Tier X cruisers already benefit from this. Meanwhile, cruisers with guns of a 190 mm caliber and higher will have their hull and deck armor increased, and cruisers with smaller caliber guns will only have the central part of the deck armor increased, which is done to emphasize the difference between light and heavy cruisers.
Detailed values of the thickness of cruisers' armor plating are available in the table at the end of the text.
Due to the change of the rule for calculating armor penetration of all the HE and SAP shells, the plating of Tier VI-VII battleships is changed to 26 mm - so that interclass interaction remains unchanged.
Please note: the table shows the minimum plating thickness for each tier!
Please note that the information in the Development Blog is preliminary and subject to change.