MJPIA

Highly doubt anyone remembers me its been so long but I came back from retirement to say o7, good luck and fair seas mouse. Your reviews got me interested in some ships that I ended up acquiring and I'm more of a [edited] player nowadays but in the past I put more than $400 into this game and as part of TBLF I join Bo and crew on stream sometimes in many games and have been debating picking up some of the new premiums when they play but this has sealed the deal for me. WG clearly has some toxic culture going on and a lot of empty promises which are cheap for management to make and my interest in coming back is shattered pretty hard right now.

A long time ago I was throwing AP at a South Carolina and noticed on a salvo of shatters I destroyed a aa module but I didn't take any screenshots for proof and it slipped my mind until recently so I decided to run some tests in the training room. I used the Tachibana for this test because her AP is unique, a while back when they did global changes to AP normalization her values were changed from roughly 62 degrees to 10 which removed her ability to pen anything at any angle but she still has one unique thing left over. With the exception of high tier US cruisers on most ships their AP starts ricocheting at 45 degrees and will always ricochet at 60 degrees. Tachibana's always richochet numbers are normal at 60 degrees but her start richochet numbers are 91 degrees which apparently override the other numbers and you can see the result here: Her AP will always shatter or pen, it is impossible for them to bounce. Couple that with her low penetration and very high arcs at 9km with reasonable accuracy it makes her the perfect ship to do this test which just involved firing AP until something happened. Given Yamato is slathered with secondaries and AA mounts she made the perfect target for this test and it did not disappoint. It took 180 hits to accomplish but I managed to take out a AA mount with a shatter. Now the question is how? My first assumption is that AP shells have a small bursting charge in real life and even on a shatter it still explodes which could cause it but here's most of the data on her AP and there's nothing like that in-game. This is her HE shell in comparison: The splashCubeSize is the size of the explosion and all AP shells in-game is set to 0 so I don't think that's it. I can see several possibilities. 1. Despite what I can find AP shells on shattering do actually have a small bursting charge that go off that can effect things in a small radius. 2. A very long time ago AP shells had spalling damage which was brokenly overpowered and was taken out in 0.3 or so, there's nothing in the client files that I can find and its unlikely but there's a small possibility that some spalling code involving modules was left behind in the server files which is what took out the mount. 3. Ribbons might be bugged and a shell actually penetrated. Or AA module damage is still not fully understood and its something entirely different. I welcome anyone's elses pet theories on this. On way or another this isn't going to effect anyone's gameplay but I find it to be a mildly interesting fact considering everything we know about AP in-game says it won't do any damage unless the shell penetrates so there it is.

Nicely done as always. Just to note she does have a bunch of armor plating and decks covering her steering gear that's not viewable with the in-game armor viewer so despite that effectively nonexistent bulkhead it is reasonably protected and at the very least harder for the Yamato to citadel her through her stern than her bow. Although if you've somehow managed to get in a position where you've got a Yam putting shots into your stern you've got bigger issues to deal with.

This ship seems like one I'd enjoy. Gotta treat it like the Kuma, it does well working with your team but run off on your own or attract attention and get targeted by a group of enemies and you will die very very quickly.

Didn't do a search and have not experimented due to lack of time so forgive me if already been asked but is the autospy ship stat mod incompatible with any other mods? Tried using it and nothing happened, it was just the stock plain ship stats.

Dispersion seems to change greatly between firing broadsides and at a angle forwards or aft. Shot grouping is a lot tighter at say your 8 o'clock position due to all the guns firing at the same angle compared to broadside with the large distance between the front and rear guns. I've managed to beautifully line up shots at long range firing broadside to broadside at cruisers only to have a group of shells splash in front of its bow and a group land behind its stern without a single hit. Close range brawls are so fun in the zucchini. This morning after two cv torp squads came after me I dashed up to and engaged a myogi in a close range dual for more than a minute going full speed circling around each other pounding away with the bombers constantly circling waiting for me to move away to drop torps. Ended up losing that one due to starting with less health but it was so much fun. Secondaries seem to average around 15-25% hit rate and the 76mm ones that fire HE with 3.5 sec reload and 5% (or 8%, not sure if demolition expert applies to secondaries) fire chance will generally set a fire or two to inflict a fair bit of damage unless they use repair. The 152mm secondaries are near useless though since they only fire AP which is not very helpful against bbs and while they work well against cruisers (assuming they hit) if you're that that close to a cruiser you're probably already doomed. Although the zucchini's 152mm AP fuse is .01 whereas the st louis's 152mm AP is .025 so its less likely to overpen thinly armored ships that close. Woo up to 270 battles now and in the stats average damage is up to 46k so just crossed over the amount of health a zucchini has. I play this ship too much..... Also random note, I've found right at 13km shells hitting a new york right above its waterline have a tendency to citadel as long as the ny isn't angled. It'll only be one or two pens out of a entire salvo if fortunate so I'm mixed as to whether to go for AP there and hope rng favors you or just ravage the superstructure with HE and constantly set it on fire until you get closer. {E} Just went looking for info on the 152mm/50 41st year and as far I can tell this gun never had a AP shell. It fired a Common type 4 HE shell which honestly would be of more use.

Yeah I always forget about that. Early British AP shells didn't perform very well, would be interesting to see how the Greenboy shell would perform in game. It'll be interesting to compare when the RN's line of ships come out and I can compare the in game Dreadnought guns. Yeah that portion of citadel that sticks out of the water can be a weak point especially against south carolina's at close range. SC guns are lower down compared to the zucchini, combine that with the generally new players driving them that will generally aim for the center of the ship and frequently hit just behind the center when I'm moving and it can be trouble. 8km definitely seems to right around there for the shell angle to start inflicting damage (other than the myogi which I have trouble doing anything at range with ap other than bouncing shells, although that far out I love just putting salvos of he on the stern to jam their rudder every time then closing in while they spin in circles), right at 8km seems to be a sweet spot for the occasional citadel of a wyoming as well. Turret rotation with the captain skill is wonderful, I mean I still preaim but its so nice to have especially when engaging dds. Faster turret rotation and superintendent are invaluable for her. I'm at a 62% win rate and overall average of 45K damage so it can definitely hold its own with most anything once it gets in range provide cvs don't ruin your day and as long as you angle your armor properly you can shrug off most shells flung your way.

As someone with 250'ish matches in the zucchini and is quite fond of her that depends on how well you are at reading the battle, acting and reacting and angling your armor. It is unforgiving and you'll have to understand that no matter how good you are or what you do you will occasionally be killed due to things you cannot control. You've gotta know when to push, when to stall, when to turn, when to retreat and when to run away screaming. If bombers are coming you've gotta turn while keeping track of any ships targeting you so you don't dodge all the torps but end up being slammed by ap and citadels. dd's aren't anywhere near my worst enemy since you'll be constantly changing speed and zig zagging to bring your guns to bear on ships and the zucchini can deal with most that chase you but you've still gotta keep track of them so you don't run into a nasty surprise. Its very good at destroying cruisers but against battleships its ap is weak and weird. Like in the training room I've tested firing on all the bbs you'll see in matches and at 2km with no angling firing broadsides straight into the side of a south Carolina I've seen 2 or 3 of the shells ricochet and bounce off. Might just be due to the length of the ship leading to the guns firing at a slight angle but its weird nonetheless watching that happen. Was dueling with another zucchini several days ago and I had to turn so I gambled and I presented my side to him while turning and he fired a broadside of ap 5km away into me. Did 12k damage. And then I burned him to death. I'll get a occasional citadel and inflict a fair bit of damage but I find its much easier to inflict damage by using he on most bbs if they have any angle at all. And with 5x2 turrets and 35% chance of fire with the captain skill you can burn anything to the ground and you can start fires faster than they can be put out and even more so with the next update. I find the ship fairly good at earning the flags Dreadnought, fireproof, confederate, kraken unleashed, devastating strike, arsonist and high caliber. A fun tip, if you want to know just how bad the armor is I've had multiple knifefights at 3km or so with NY's and Kongo's broadside to broadside with no angling at all and won because their 14" guns overpen. And I'm not talking the superstructure or bow or stern here, their guns punch right through the thickest part of the ship and come out the other side. First time it happened I thought it was a fluke and the guy was aiming too high and raking the superstructure but I've done it multiple times now and come out on top every single time. I wish I could test this further in the training room but you don't seem to be able to select premium ships to test against. I wanna know what would happen if a kongo fires he from 3km away into the side. Will it explode on the side or hit the citadel? Also its shot grouping seems to me to be a lot better when I'm firing at a ship at my 2 o'clock or 5 o'clock position rather than a broadside which I'm assuming is related to how far apart the 2 turrets on the front and the 3 on the rear are.