Ballistics

General Concept

World War II Online has a strong simulation of ballistics and damage in-game. Every time a shell is shot, velocity and energy are calculated by the ballistics engine. The successful impact of a shell fired at its target will result in various types of damage, depending on the type of shell fired and the composition of the target:

• Shell: the shell itself damages whatever component it hits, e.g. armor plating.
• Spall: when a metal projectile such as a shell hits armor, fragments are generated. The trajectory of every spall fragment is calculated.
• Concussion: If the shell is HE, APHE, or similar, it explodes and generates a concussive effect.
• Explosion: an explosive shell breaks into fragments, whose trajectories are accounted for.

Examples

In the examples below, yellow lines are spall, and red lines are fragments resulting from rupture of the explosive round. The colors of components are arranged so you can see different relative armour values in the same screenshot. They don't configure themselves to a specific value, but a general relative range, from thinnest to thickest. In that picture, purple is the thinnest and red the thickest. The other colors lie between those two extremes.

• Ballistics Example 88vsPanhard
• Ballistics Example M10vsTiger

Notes on damage system:

• An infantry avatar in game has the minimum value or armor (0.02mm purple color). Infantry can sustain 300 Joules of damage before dying.
• Some components (Cannons, wheels, etc.) have a damage threshold. For example 88mm cannon of a Tiger needs minimum 100,000 Joules to get damaged. Impacts under this energy won't do any damage. Example:"Insufficient energy 958.217967 J to damage 88mmcanon, threshold 100000.000000 J". So several low energy impacts, say rifle shots, will be ignored by the system.
• Components that get damaged start functioning more poorly or even cease to work at all. For example, hits to a wing of a plane will increase drag or even break the wing! Some components act uniquely when hit:
  • Hits to ammunition stores could make all ammo explode. The more Joules hitting ammo, the higher the chance it will explode.
  • Hits to fuel tanks have a chance of starting a fire. Firewalls in tanks avoid engine fires, but are not able to stop a massive fuel fire. Auto-sealing fuel tanks are modeled in game, but only in planes that actually had them.

More information can be found in this thread of playnet forums and in this youtube video in which Doc discusses the component driven damage model.