Overlord_Prime's Ultimate Gun Mechanics Guide

[Overlord_Prime 63]

Hello,

Many of you already know who I am. Some of you may know me from my WGLNA days, others may recall I'm one of the sponsored streamers, and some may remember that I was the creator of the Equipment 2.0 document.

I have recently finished a guide for gun mechanics for World of Tanks. I figured I'd share it with this community as I was once as fairly active reader.

Click the text to access the Ultimate Gun Mechanics Guide.

If it doesn't work from being overloaded, feel free to read the Google published version (poor formatting warning).

 

Warning: it is a massive document at over 130 pages.

 

I don't expect the community here to be too active. But I figured it's good to have a resource like this in WoTLabs at the very least.

[Panzergraf 68]

Thank you! I actually looked up your EQ 2.0 document the other day to see if it had been ammended with the field mods stuff. I had a feeling the Aiming Gears Lapping and Suspension Tuning mods were traps, and the Accuracy mod would be flat out better in pretty much every case, and from your work it seems to be the case.

Also thanks for showing the differences between Snap Shot and Smooth Ride. Makes it easier to know which (if any) crew directive should be used to double the effect of the skill.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

Parallax Adjustment vs. Aiming Gears Lapping

Is for me most interesting, what i suspected, that base accuracy is more important, seems to be true.

Only thing thats not really adressed i think, is vents vs the others, v-stab seems better as vents, i suspect IAU and GLD are also better (pure for gun handling) but is that true?

[kolni 69,670,872]

i skimmed a bit of it, most of it's stuff i pretty much had a grasp on - not the maths or the why's but pretty close to "how"

i was willing to die on the hill that final acc > aim time several years ago but nobody believed me until the SConq and Grille got into the game

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

14 hours ago, kolni said:

i skimmed a bit of it, most of it's stuff i pretty much had a grasp on - not the maths or the why's but pretty close to "how"

i was willing to die on the hill that final acc > aim time several years ago but nobody believed me until the SConq and Grille got into the game

Grille, and other tanks with insane bloom, have bad accuracy due too 2 things:

• Terrible bloom (hue hue)
• Server lag

Long ago (2010-2012??), you could turn on server recticle, aka the real place you are aiming, you could see that there is a delay between where u think u aim and where u are really aiming, this same delay is also there when you zoom in, on a tank with very high bloom, en fast aim time, this difference is a very big. while on tanks with low bloom and slow aim time, like ruskie heavies, this difference is minimal.

Hence why russian heavys can snipe better as grille, its just latency, high ping, if you just aim half a second longer (even if it looks like your fully zoomed) then its fine

Richardnixon posted some math topic about this long ago, and it showed that the effectiveness of GLD depends more on bloom as on aim time, so an Grille with insane bloom will benefit more from GLD as an IS-4 with very good bloom stats (hence why i always put GLD on tanks like Conway, Charioteer and Cromwell)

ps: this is also why imo IRM is overrated, tanks like cromwell, which are already very mobile benefit way more from GLD as IRM, just play them side by side and compare the real effective aim time, in say a training room, IRM wont do anything, while GLD does help a lot, despite cromwell already having rly good aim time...

ps ps: in general, it seems mechanical knowledge in this game has dropped A LOT over the years, triple overmatch everyone knows i assume, but what about double**? (if WG didnt remove that...)

**: if caliber is >2-3< the armour plate, you get double normalisation, i think, but sure, this in the past also prevent autobounce (so an E100 with 150mm wont autobounce on a 60mm plate, even with stupid angles) but not 100% sure, this is something for training room (and E100 is 149,5mm gun and not 150mm, so 50mm is not overmatch, makes testing easier)

 

[WhatTheSkara 345]

Not to bring down OP's work, but it was rather obvious that final accuracy > aim time.

In this game you fire half your shots fully aimed, and you snap the other half, so aim time (and aim speed) become somewhat irrelevant.

But anyway, I think a similar document focused on field mods only would be awesome to have, focusing on the traps WG put in there.

Like the traverse speed vs terrain resistance field mod, I see way too many people picking traverse speed when the actual traverse (and actual top speed) is effectively nerfed by worse resistance.

P.s. server reticle is a must imo, it's a bit annoying to look at but it gives real time info on lag and where your tank is actually aimed. I have it on all the time.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

9 hours ago, WhatTheSkara said:

Not to bring down OP's work, but it was rather obvious that final accuracy > aim time.

In this game you fire half your shots fully aimed, and you snap the other half, so aim time (and aim speed) become somewhat irrelevant.

But anyway, I think a similar document focused on field mods only would be awesome to have, focusing on the traps WG put in there.

Like the traverse speed vs terrain resistance field mod, I see way too many people picking traverse speed when the actual traverse (and actual top speed) is effectively nerfed by worse resistance.

P.s. server reticle is a must imo, it's a bit annoying to look at but it gives real time info on lag and where your tank is actually aimed. I have it on all the time.

There is however 1 important thing people always forget about aim time and what it is (not the math definition, but the ``in-game`` definition)

Aim time = The property of your gun, that tries to reduce your bloom to zero.

In other words, everytime you change your speed / turn and you gain bloom, your crosshair becomes bigger, till it reaches its maximum size (for that movement speed) and the moment you lower speed / stop turning, your bloom will reduce to the new maximum value for that speed, the time needed to go from 80% bloom to 50% bloom is depending on aim time, so when your drive around, see an enemy, aim at him, slow down and shoot, GLD will already help, since the moment you start slowing down and stop moving gun you will already zoom in, and you do so faster with a GLD.

On other note, does GLD also increase the time your crosshair need to get bigger? (so if 2 cromwell stand still, next to eachother, and both start driving, will the cromwell with GLD have a longer ``zoom out time``?

[Overlord_Prime 63]

On 1/6/2022 at 5:27 AM, GehakteMolen said:

ps ps: in general, it seems mechanical knowledge in this game has dropped A LOT over the years, triple overmatch everyone knows i assume, but what about double**? (if WG didnt remove that...)

**: if caliber is >2-3< the armour plate, you get double normalisation, i think, but sure, this in the past also prevent autobounce (so an E100 with 150mm wont autobounce on a 60mm plate, even with stupid angles) but not 100% sure, this is something for training room (and E100 is 149,5mm gun and not 150mm, so 50mm is not overmatch, makes testing easier)

I don't think game knowledge has gone down. The resources are still there for the relevant game mechanics. However, these resources are so spread apart that you can never find everything you want at one location. This leads to fractured knowledge on high depth subjects. It's a major point for why I even put this together.

Overmatch is broken into two different components. I call them Partial Overmatch (>2x armor thickness) and True Overmatch (>3x armor thickness).

Partial overmatch increases your normalization by 40%, this means 5 degree normalization AP rounds become 7 degrees and 2 degree APCR becomes 2.8 (I don't know if they round to 3) and then multiplied by the ratio between your caliber and armor thickness. However, the downside to partial overmatches is that it still ricochets at normal ricochet angles (>= 70 degrees).

True overmatch increases your normalization by the ratio between your caliber and armor thickness; 122mm against 40mm becomes 122/40 or 3.05, 150mm against 30mm becomes 150/30 or 5.0. The biggest benefit of true overmatch is that it cannot ricochet and will force a calculation even if the angle is basically 90 degrees before normalization.

PS: I'm fairly certain partial overmatch was never removed. It's very hard to test because of RNG to accuracy and pen.

12 hours ago, WhatTheSkara said:

Not to bring down OP's work, but it was rather obvious that final accuracy > aim time.

In this game you fire half your shots fully aimed, and you snap the other half, so aim time (and aim speed) become somewhat irrelevant.

But anyway, I think a similar document focused on field mods only would be awesome to have, focusing on the traps WG put in there.

Like the traverse speed vs terrain resistance field mod, I see way too many people picking traverse speed when the actual traverse (and actual top speed) is effectively nerfed by worse resistance.

It doesn't matter how obvious or common knowledge a particular aspect of the game is if there's no way to prove it without a reasonable doubt. Just as you say that accuracy is the better option, I can also instantly point out the better field mods. Your understanding of the game should not be used as a reason to refute the creation or inclusion of documentation of game mechanics regardless of how simple or obvious the answer is (the same could be said about VStab vs GLD).

The things such as traverse vs terrain resistance was also discovered by me (and promptly updated through tanks.gg since I have a direct line to their programmer) and was incorrect on their website for weeks. I had a head start and even told people on my stream that it was wrong on tanks.gg and how it actually functioned. To me it was obvious. To everyone else, they kept choosing the wrong option. If you discovered such a mechanic through tanks.gg or anyone who has done so through that website, you would have been incorrect.

For me, most of the game is obvious and I would be out of line to assume the same could be said for everyone. Even if it's clear that accuracy > aim time (this is not always true), as long as at least one person finds it useful enough to change their mind, it was worth putting in. Otherwise I cannot say it was an ultimate guide. At least according to my beliefs.

Definitely considering field mods but it takes quite a while to put one of these together. Also, just like equipment in the early days, the other players will just copy better players and use them as a reference for what is good or bad.

2 hours ago, GehakteMolen said:

On other note, does GLD also increase the time your crosshair need to get bigger? (so if 2 cromwell stand still, next to eachother, and both start driving, will the cromwell with GLD have a longer ``zoom out time``?

GLD has no impact on bloom size. It only affects closing rate. Both tanks will have the exact same reticle size. There is some "smoothing" effect that WG implements into reticles to make it look visually clean when it blooms and nothing changes that.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

16 minutes ago, Overlord_Prime said:

GLD has no impact on bloom size. It only affects closing rate. Both tanks will have the exact same reticle size. There is some "smoothing" effect that WG implements into reticles to make it look visually clean when it blooms and nothing changes that.

ah, well, was expected it wouldnt work on ``zoom out``

  

16 minutes ago, Overlord_Prime said:

Definitely considering field mods but it takes quite a while to put one of these together. Also, just like equipment in the early days, the other players will just copy better players and use them as a reference for what is good or bad.

Here you also go into playstyle territory, imo padding removal (more top speed on super heavys) is 100% worth it, yet some streamers / guides say its not worth it (which i rly cant understand)

But your right in that most will follow good player (how many choose optics over vents, pure because garbad said so? lats years (partially due to Kolni i guess?) vents became rly popular, but optics beiing ``default on meds`` was for years the opinion by many (and a silly one imo...)

Current overrated equipment is IRM, on certain specific tds it has use, but most of the time vents / GLD will be the superior option (and rammer is default on anything imo, except Fv 4005, because ur slow anyway and atrocious bad gun handling, aim time AND accuracy)

[Snoregasm2 646]

Firstly, thank you for the amazing content.

Secondly, I've been catching up with field mods myself and in many cases so far i've gone for the mode that reduces bloom but decreases accuracy by 0.01. Based on the comments, I'm guessing that's wrong? Should I get the other mod, or leave it entirely? Take the Vz. 55 as an example of where i've been doing this.

[Ham_ 434]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:46 PM, GehakteMolen said:

ah, well, was expected it wouldnt work on ``zoom out``

  

Here you also go into playstyle territory, imo padding removal (more top speed on super heavys) is 100% worth it, yet some streamers / guides say its not worth it (which i rly cant understand)

But your right in that most will follow good player (how many choose optics over vents, pure because garbad said so? lats years (partially due to Kolni i guess?) vents became rly popular, but optics beiing ``default on meds`` was for years the opinion by many (and a silly one imo...)

Current overrated equipment is IRM, on certain specific tds it has use, but most of the time vents / GLD will be the superior option (and rammer is default on anything imo, except Fv 4005, because ur slow anyway and atrocious bad gun handling, aim time AND accuracy)

Apart from the the obvious use on low tier tanks that can't mount vstab, it's one of two things that reduce bloom after firing, there's probably some use on shit autoloaders like the AMBT where you can cut the tragicly bad 7 bloom down between 4-5  with vstabs+irm which is closer to non arty bloom and can use the mobility slot.

Autoloaders just happen to have some need for better bloom after firing and can't mount rammer so it warrants at least a thought as an addition to stabs, I agree it's far less desirable for most tonks otherwise.

 

[WhatTheSkara 345]

On 1/8/2022 at 12:24 AM, Overlord_Prime said:

Your understanding of the game should not be used as a reason to refute the creation or inclusion of documentation of game mechanics regardless of how simple or obvious the answer is (the same could be said about VStab vs GLD).

Tbf mate, nobody here refuted your work.

I just pointed out that anyone with a single working brain cell wouldn't pick bloom over accuracy because the bloom decrease is marginal while the accuracy penalty is actually relevant. Larger reticle > higher chance of missing the weakspot.

With that being said, I appreciate the time and effort you put in these documents.

Hopefully it'll come by some poor pleb and he'll have a better understanding of the game mechanics instead of filling up the general chat with "WG cheetos rigged game!!1!one!"

[Snoregasm2 646]

11 hours ago, WhatTheSkara said:

Tbf mate, nobody here refuted your work.

I just pointed out that anyone with a single working brain cell wouldn't pick bloom over accuracy because the bloom decrease is marginal while the accuracy penalty is actually relevant. Larger reticle > higher chance of missing the weakspot.

With that being said, I appreciate the time and effort you put in these documents.

Hopefully it'll come by some poor pleb and he'll have a better understanding of the game mechanics instead of filling up the general chat with "WG cheetos rigged game!!1!one!"

I feel seen and attacked haha.

Seriously, on the Kran it's better to increase accuracy for worse aim time? 

[WhatTheSkara 345]

I took accuracy and for FM 8 I took 15% smaller reticle after firing.

Currently sitting at 0.32 accuracy, 2.53 aim time without food, with it 0.30/2.43. standard equipment (vents grousers stab).

It kills aim time but usually you're so close to the enemy and you have so much armour that a slightly longer aim time doesn't really matter.

Just my permablue €0.02 though, I'm pretty sure someone with more experience will be able to give a more detailed answer.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:26 PM, Snoregasm2 said:

I feel seen and attacked haha.

Seriously, on the Kran it's better to increase accuracy for worse aim time? 

Only if u can still dump clip full speed without extra aiming, with autoloader being able to dump clip in minimum time is imo essential (autoreloaders excluded perhaps) so dunno if kranv with worse aim time can still do it, but otherwise its not worth it (i still have GLD on amx 50B, and that one has better a tad better gun handling (but faster intra clip))

[lt_lolcat 305]

This is the most gloriously autistic thing I've ever seen.  It's brilliant.  

[Overlord_Prime 63]

On 1/20/2022 at 5:26 PM, Snoregasm2 said:

I feel seen and attacked haha.

Seriously, on the Kran it's better to increase accuracy for worse aim time? 

WARNING: Massive Theorycrafting ahead.

For things like the Kranvagn (and autoloaders in general) the optimal field mod is the one that reduces firing bloom. Everything else is personal preference but there's a heavy lean towards the accuracy field mod. 

As an example, when fully gearing up a Kranvagn at full field mods, you'll find that the combination players use will be Parallax Adjustment (FM4) and Heavyweight Gun (FM8).

Parallax:

• +5% aim time
• -3% aiming circle

Heavyweight:

• +6% aim time
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2% health pool

What you care about is the final combined field mod.

Combined:

• +11% aim time
• -3% aiming circle
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2% health pool

All of the good effects are in bold. In general, this gives the Kranvagn better accuracy, bursting consistency, and health at the cost of hurting the first shot reliability. This is because the firing bloom/penalty reduction more than negates the increase in aim time when bursting; however there is no benefit when aiming your first shot.

There is an alternative set-up you can use where you opt for aim time neutralization but you need to use equipment to negate the accuracy effect; this is generally only useful if you build the tank around it and if you have a spare equipment slot. This involves the use of Aiming Gears Lapping instead of Parallax Adjustment. And using a Bounty Improved Aiming Unit as a counterbalance to the accuracy nerf.

Aiming Gears:

• -5% aim time
• +3% aiming circle

We'll still use Heavyweight gun (Lightweight gun is suboptimal due to HP loss and requiring bounty IRM to counteract bloom increase, which is again, an extremely niche but worse (IMO) than the following set-up).

Combined w/ BIAU:

• +1% aim time
• -5.24% aiming circle
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2%  health pool

As you can see, this is much more appealing to a lot of players as you effectively leave the first shot reliability intact (only +1% aim time) but the consistency of the burst from Heavyweight gun is still maintained. The only real downside to this is the requirement that you will be using BIAU to counteract the +3% aiming circle though it's not entirely necessary.

On 1/31/2022 at 8:04 AM, lt_lolcat said:

This is the most gloriously autistic thing I've ever seen.  It's brilliant.  

Weaponized 'tism. God gamer knowledge for the plebs.

[GehakteMolen 2,063]

Whats also interesting is that GLD is 10% aim time, while IAU is only 5%, while aiming gears is 5% / 3%, so if u want to improve aim time, ur better of with an IAU and field mod aim time, as with GLD and field mod accuracy, this seems an small oversight, WG made either IAU too weak, or aim time penalty to small (from field mod)

TL:DR: the field more is now 50% of GLD and 60% of IAU

[Snoregasm2 646]

On 2/4/2022 at 6:06 AM, Overlord_Prime said:

WARNING: Massive Theorycrafting ahead.

For things like the Kranvagn (and autoloaders in general) the optimal field mod is the one that reduces firing bloom. Everything else is personal preference but there's a heavy lean towards the accuracy field mod. 

As an example, when fully gearing up a Kranvagn at full field mods, you'll find that the combination players use will be Parallax Adjustment (FM4) and Heavyweight Gun (FM8).

Parallax:

• +5% aim time
• -3% aiming circle

Heavyweight:

• +6% aim time
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2% health pool

What you care about is the final combined field mod.

Combined:

• +11% aim time
• -3% aiming circle
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2% health pool

All of the good effects are in bold. In general, this gives the Kranvagn better accuracy, bursting consistency, and health at the cost of hurting the first shot reliability. This is because the firing bloom/penalty reduction more than negates the increase in aim time when bursting; however there is no benefit when aiming your first shot.

There is an alternative set-up you can use where you opt for aim time neutralization but you need to use equipment to negate the accuracy effect; this is generally only useful if you build the tank around it and if you have a spare equipment slot. This involves the use of Aiming Gears Lapping instead of Parallax Adjustment. And using a Bounty Improved Aiming Unit as a counterbalance to the accuracy nerf.

Aiming Gears:

• -5% aim time
• +3% aiming circle

We'll still use Heavyweight gun (Lightweight gun is suboptimal due to HP loss and requiring bounty IRM to counteract bloom increase, which is again, an extremely niche but worse (IMO) than the following set-up).

Combined w/ BIAU:

• +1% aim time
• -5.24% aiming circle
• -15% firing bloom/penalty
• +2%  health pool

As you can see, this is much more appealing to a lot of players as you effectively leave the first shot reliability intact (only +1% aim time) but the consistency of the burst from Heavyweight gun is still maintained. The only real downside to this is the requirement that you will be using BIAU to counteract the +3% aiming circle though it's not entirely necessary.

Weaponized 'tism. God gamer knowledge for the plebs.

This is amazing, thank you for the detailed response.

 

I'd never considered stacking mods 4 and 8 like that. I'm going to trial it today to see how bad the first shot penalty is vs the bloom benefits and accuracy increase.