S3 Series

Trigr=, Timos, Kapsyl, Rock and Crommm took off from F28 in A6M3s at T + 0 and grabbed out to rendevous with Sentai 23. We had a brief fight with 352nd near F50 and then headed out to support our strikers over the enemy ships at 5 1 5. The ships were sunk and we rtb'd to F28 to refuel at T + 95

Trigr=, Timos, Kapsyl, Rock and Crommm took off from F28 in A6M3s at T + 96 and headed northeast to support friendlies who were contesting a strike on F33 by 4th FG. Okdoc of The Knights joined us in flight and picked up a kill on an F4F4 south of F33. The fight moved southeast, 352nd arrived and we lost Kapsyl and Timos. As we were moving out Okdoc spotted a low SBD attempting to finish F33. Okdoc was out of cannon so he did a good job of staying above the NOE SBD that was canyon running southeast and guiding us in. Trigr= shot down the SBD and we rtb'd to F40 at T + 165 and stood down.

Kills: 1 (Trigr=.)

Losses: 2 (Kapsyl and Timos.)

Thanks to Sakai, the IJN CO and Jabo and Roan, the S3 guys, for a fun first frame.

Comments: The guns on the A6M3 seem unusually weak, it took 92% of my cannon rounds to chip the elevator off of the SBD at D2 despite the bufftuff of 1.0. We also hit several F4F4s on the previous sortie and got no parts at all. We might want to take a look at the weapons and damage files just to make sure that something isn't out of whack there.

For planning purposes it should be noted that the A6M3 has extraordinary fuel duration of 73 minutes on 100% fuel and 118 minutes with the drop tank. The F4F4s don't have a drop tank and their fuel duration is 48 minutes on 100% fuel. This means that we don't necessarily have to shoot them down to get air superiority, we can park over them, mess with them, run them short of fuel and then call in the strikers when they leave the area to run home to refuel. This will make the F4F4s less and less effective as they close our fields that are closest to their bases and have to fly further to get to the action in future frames. The other consequence of this is that we can park our carriers out of their fuel range but they have to bring their carriers in relatively close and we saw that in this frame where we found and sank both of their carriers and they never got near ours. If we continue to scout and sink their carriers they will have to decide whether to let us have those points every frame or move their carriers so far back that they are no longer a factor and use those carrier fighters as carrier CAP instead of strike support giving us free shots on their strike aircraft.

~S~ Sentai 100 Heizu!

Elements of Lf6 were coming into that late frame Furball mess in the Slot and could not get down to you quick enough to help Kapsyl. It wasnt until then that we saw the first of the 4th and AE in addition to the 352nd. Great work and communication from you guys and I appreciate you guys taking the Knights into the shipping lanes and back.

I agree with your comments in whole.

~S~ Gents.

I do have ACM of my encounter near F51 with a Wildcat and D2 or less strafe stem to stern and lots of sprites but no pieces. Also pretty much point blank at the cockpit and nothing.

Discouraging it is....

Ditto weapons power. When we initially engaged the F4Fs that hit 33 Loo had one drug straight up. I started shooting with center mass at impact point from about D5, with nothing happening and Loo in danger I pressed in to get anything to come off and nothing. I broke too late and clipped his wing. I'm in a chute and he continued to climb merrily unmolested. Looboy also viewed multiple hit sprites at close range (less than D2) on three different F4Fs, again no visible damage.

yep, the guns won't work.

Well, something in particular with the F4F perhaps. SBDs were shot down just fine it seems, and CVs were gunned down. The guns may work, maybe something is goofy with the armor settings?

Jabo has posted the plane and weapons damage values on the s3 page. Its a hard read but, I been reading em for a while now. The only thing missing might be a sampling of the ke value any weapon puts out, meaning that, that's the figure that penetrates the armor value of any part of an airplane. So, its a combo of both a weapons KE at any given range ( it flies slower at longer range) and the armor of the part its got to hit. Then there are the points assigned to a weapon, and those count against the points assigned to an airplane to damage it.
right now its posted that a type 99 mk 1 20 mm ( a6m3 gun) has a point value of 6.29 per round.(German 20mm have a point value of 11.99) To kill an engine on a f4f-4 takes 20 points.
50 cals do 2.35 points and it takes 15 points to kill a zekes engine.
To be fair, a cannon has a flag of 6 meaning that it has burst flag, which ignores any armor, no matter the range it hits at. That flag was the big issue for ships, which are all armored up, but with a low damage point value ( assumed). Took flag of 6 off cannons in the MA which fixed strafing ships issue, but armor has a much lower ke value in main so penetration of any cannon shell on a airplane became a non issue.
MG's on the other hand cannot ignore armor value, so we can strafe ships down with canon, but mg's cannot.(IN s3 arena)
50 cal are very powerful and can penetrate any armor value on bout any airplane, at any range. 7.7's generate a KE value at 309 ft of .572., so at d 1 your 7.7's cannot kill an engine that has an armor value of 1. Vators and stabs have a armor value of .15, so they are easy meat even at long range as a 7.7 does a KE of.17 at d 7
Muzzle velocity, projectile weight, rate of fire are not subjective numbers, they can be real life. Points assigned to plane armor and points assigned to weapons to inflict damage as wella s points assigned to kill parts ...is however, somewhat subjective. To hard to measure, and this is where subjectivity comes in...does the player see results that he can reasonably hope to see within these parameters.
I can attest to how hard it is to get everything into a "proper" balance, if sucha thing can exist. 3 months of almost daily tweaking and testing in the training arena, with continuedtesting in MA. ( you can find out in a hour if it works or not in theMA)
but, this is not theMA, nor do I think s3 players expect that. S3 is SUPPOSED to be harder. With limited testing, and only playing on sunday nights, well, the process moves a bit slower.
so, its a combo of both weapons settings and planedamage settings as these go hand in hand.
I ain't looked at the sbd damage file yet, the buffs were hard as they were set low at the very beginning and buff tuff was a code invented to up them. I had to up values on buffs to get a proper reaction for a buff tuff of 1. ( I realy wanted to get away form using that feature).
that this stuff needed redone was obvious to us working on stuff, looking at the numbers. Could be its the ke armor value in the damage file that needs tweaked
Its difficult.
Hell, I may not reading them right, but you gotta start somewhere.
Bout all the above info can be read on the main s3 page.
Hope this helps.

Vnslp so are you agreeing that according to the "file se" that IJN 20mm are to "soft" for damage purpose?

Well, conferred with one of my counterparts, retested some things to confirm, fired off a afew e-mails getting our heads together. I believe a fix is in the works.