Forbid to kill underwater without weapons used that purpose

Hello everyone

I don't know if what I am asking is technically possible, but I wanted to know if it is possible to restrict the damage done underwater by weapons which are not supposed to attack underwater.

For instance, killing coms that are underwater with strategic bombers, or killing t3 torpedoes defense by using battleship shooting at them.

For me it is very weird that this is made possible on the game.

Of course it would change quite a bit the gameplay.

What would you think about this?

Thanks a lot.

I'd have though it'd be possible via a mod. It's been suggested as a balance suggestion a few times in the past but from memory people were either split or slightly in favour of keeping the 'ground fire to kill subs' option, so I think the only realistic option would be creating a sim mod that does it for games you host.
Might also need balance tweaks if you were to do in a mod - e.g. the Cybran T3 torpedo defence would become a lot stronger otherwise.

@maudlin27 alot stronger? Bro the t3 torpedo defense would become unkillable almost

We addressed this issue several years ago in LOUD - it was a rather simple fix - and it hasn't made the HARMS, or other T3 torpedo defense units, awesome or unkillable. What it has done is properly framed the submarine, torpedo and anti-torpedo units in a way that makes them viable, and a meaningful portion of the naval game. If you don't properly compose your fleets with the appropriate units, you should expect to be defeated.

Already argued about it in many threads and FAF doods want it to stay the way it is.

Technically it wouldn't be difficult. But as far as I am aware the balance team wants to keep it as it is.

I still have flashbacks of my thread about battleship balance being hijacked B(
read at your own risk:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1489/make-t3-navy-more-exciting

I think we should look for a compromise.
As you know the water depth is not the same on the maps. So maybe se should use the depth as a reference point. If it is close to shore of in shallow area the underwater object should be killable by let's say the battleship. But if it's under a deep water there is no logic...

why is there no logic?
projectiles go underwater in real life as well,
in theory, you could kill a sub by shooting on the surface under the correct angle, also units don't take damage if they are deep underwater, aka seton's depth

Always loved people bringing up logic in sci-fi game, like there can't be intelligent ammunition that would detonate at certain depth in future... hey it's not like we already have depth charges or anything better than it right?

@randomwheelchair thats called quantum/nano/AI tech explains everything

Indeed - commit one way or the other. Either make the underwater game believable, or dispense with it entirely.

Of course this makes sense to do damage to units that are just under the surface of the water, but i would think its at what depth does it stop doing that damage, maybe a visual marker to say that your com is deep enough and therefore safe from surface weapons would help.

Water depth is one of the factors that is involved here, but the effect is mostly related to AOE effects. A lot of weapons, strat bombs, battleship main guns, etc - all have great AOE range - and it's perfectly normal, above ground. However, the game mechanics don't know the difference, so these AOE effects reach down below the waves, to full effect.

For shallow waters, these are perfectly understandable, as many units are quite tall, and often, the water just isn't that deep - but - when we talk of submarines, the issue is one of their standard depth, which is specified in each submarines blueprint, and in most cases that depth is only 2 - which is insufficient to protect them from these surface-based AOE effects.

The correction, is a combination of things - first, make the submarine depth a bit greater, and second - introduce a reduction to AOE range when normal projectiles impact water.

I am with Sprouto on this.
Rezy-Noob mentioned that "units don't take damage if they are deep underwater, aka seton's depth".
That is not actually correct.
I did a simulation on FAF with Cybran's and yes battleship can't hit harm's from mid depth and below. Only close to shore.
However T2 static arty, T3 boomer can do it at any depth.
But static T2 tactical missile launcher can't do any damage at any depth.
With sub's it is the same story.
Simulation done on Seton's map.

i am correct
harms,sub don't change their "depth" level
acu/sacu do,and those don't take damage underwater from projectiles and aoe damage

But static T2 tactical missile launcher can't do any damage at any depth.

Odd. Why not allow TML to snipe T2 mexes or a parked ACU underwater? Is there a reason the missile detonates on contact with the water's surface?

Yes - the missile is actually set to do that - and are just about all projectiles.

@cyborg16 said in Forbid to kill underwater without weapons used that purpose:

But static T2 tactical missile launcher can't do any damage at any depth.

Odd. Why not allow TML to snipe T2 mexes or a parked ACU underwater? Is there a reason the missile detonates on contact with the water's surface?

Yes, the missile detonates on the surface. This isn't a problem for other missiles (nuke subs can fire non-nuclear tac missiles with 3 splash radius, UEF cruisers have tac missiles with 3 splash radius). Those missiles can kill fully-built HARMS if you just ground fire.

Whether or not to boost the splash radius of the TML is a balance decision. There are probably good reasons not to (it's already pretty strong, with extra splash it would be harder for ACU to dodge and maybe you could kill more buildings in 1 shot).

On some maps, there are mexes close together, separated by only 1 spot for a mass storage. If the TML had a bigger splash radius, it would probably be easier to kill 2 with one shot. I don't even know whether that's hard to do now, but it would be easier if the splash was bigger. It would also make TMLs a lot better at firing into armies. If you kill a percy 1/3 of the time, it's viable to use TMLs to shoot at armies, but if you kill a percy 2/3 of the time because of bigger splash, it would become very viable to use TMLs against armies. I don't know if we want to open that whole can of worms just to try to balance an unlikely situation (trying to use static TML to kill HARMS just doesn't seem like it would happen that often)