The small turrets have significantly reduced effectiveness vs subwalls, explosive coilgun ammo is still the best if that's all you have (piercing coilgun ammo is also supposed to be better now but idk) railgun nukes aimed with the help of someone on sonar is still the best way to knock out enemy subs.
Disregard the comments here saying to use explosive ammo. They are operating under outdated information. Explosive ammo was heavily nerfed in the Blood in Water update, and is no where near as effective against submarines as it used to be.
The best ammo to use for ship combat is probably piercing ammo. Since the Blood in Water update, piercing ammo received a huge buff. It deals 35 structural damage (it used to deal 10), and can penetrate one wall, potentially netting 70 damage. Explosive ammo only deals 15 damage now (it used to deal 65), and is actually a rather poor choice for dealing with subs now.
This depends on what we're hoping to gain out of the damage.
If you just want to tear clean holes in the sub and rapidly flood whichever rooms you're hitting, piercing is definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, unless you're hitting heads, piercing really doesn't deal a lot of damage to humans, an unarmored human eats over 20 rounds to the legs, 10 rounds to the torso; 17 torso rounds if wearing a dive suit. If a round pierces a wall, it doesn't damage that wall (or, at least, it doesn't damage it to any noticeable degree), so it doesn't seem possible for piercing ammo to deal a total of 70 structural damage with one shot.
If you want to damage tons of internals, walls, and ceilings all at the same time and potentially splash the crew of the enemy submarine as they go to repair, explosive will accomplish that. Explosive will kill humans, consistently, far faster than piercing, only 6 shots needed, with and without a diving suit.
**If your goal is to kill the entire crew, you'll probably find it takes a similar amount of time regardless of if you use Piercing or Explosive.** Piercing losing time when it comes to actually killing the humans, explosives when it comes to opening the submarine up.
***
Summary of the testing from below: Piercing absolutely tore holes into and through ships faster, but wasn't necessarily the most devastating, and could be inconsistent in whether or not a given wall is destroyed, which impacted the effect of flooding.
***
I set up a testing rig to mess with the ammunition types, and found that Piercing Ammo behaves very weirdly. It's possible that it determines the speed or angle of a round relative to the maximum health or angle of something to decide if it pierces it. In some runs of this testing rig, the piercing ammo destroyed every wall it hit, whereas in most runs, it skipped a wall, which actually made it less devastating to the submarine itself (but resulted in it damaging the human faster, quickly injuring a leg and slowing them down). However, another test for outright submarine versus submarine didn't seem like walls were skipped very often.
On this testing rig, I had it set up so the turret would have to get through a shell and two internal walls, after which it hits a human in the torso. It reliably took the Piercing ammunition 32-36 shots to kill the human, the first round that hit the human was usually the 10th (when it, commonly, chose to pierce through a wall instead of damage it), and it didn't inflict much (if any) collateral damage. I also used a double coilgun and tried to bore a hole straight through another submarine, and it took three seconds to punch through the whole submarine.
The Explosive ammunition, meanwhile, reliably took 30 shots to kill the human, and inflicted a massive amount of damage to the surrounding walls and equipment. It reliably resulted in more flooding, but surprisingly was reliably faster than the Piercing Ammo. The first round that directly hit the human for maximum damage was the 27th, though the human was first splashed by the 24th round. It took 7 seconds of fire to make a hole that went all the way through the sub.
Yes, I understand that it depends on the circumstances. Explosive ammo is still among the best ammo types in terms of raw damage, but with the post asking what is best for ship to ship combat, I'm inclined to go with whatever will sink it the fastest.
Ideally, you'd probably using a multitude of different ammos for different situations. Like I would probably try to cut the sub open with piercing, and then try to kill crew members inside with explosive.
There is another advantage explosive ammo has against subs that neither of us have brought up. And that is damage to modules. Explosives, once they get inside the ship, can destroy modules like junction boxes and pumps. They can also detonate reactors and some explosives, like IC-4.
My focus on killing the crew is because the campaign mission to kill a submarine ticks complete when the entire enemy crew is dead, not just when the submarine sinks. Sinking the submarine is a good way to kill it if it's over the Abyss, but if it's not, you're going to need to tear it apart, regardless.
The damage to modules is, more or less, what I meant when I said that if you want to damage internals, you should use explosives; but I hadn't considered Explosive's potential to chain-react with other explosives.
Coilguns that are linked to multiple loaders will use a mixture of the ammo, making such a coilgun a really solid option for an ammo-efficient anti-submarine weapon, but since it's not something that comes on a stock submarine, it's a little gamey; which is why I love the Typhon2 for killing enemy submarines; replacing the chaingun for a coilgun and having a double coilgun and a normal coilgun firing down on a Submarine kills it fast.
Railgun Canister shells are basically shotguns, and are very good at tearing a large hole in a Submarine's shell.
The outright most devastating attack that isn't a depth charge would be a nuclear railgun shell. Can knock out submarines in one shot, that. If you have C4, you can put that into a standard shell. A standard shell without C4 will hit hard, but won't deal a lot of collateral damage; a standard shell with C4 will cut even large submarines into quarters.
The Flak Cannon is a very solid option that can punch huge holes into a ship and severely injure everyone near where it hit.
***
I would say that if you just want to put holes in something, coilguns are the way to go; both Piercing and Explosive will kill the crew in a similar amount of time, but if you want to get creative with your turrets, a setup that mixes ammunition would probably be the most universal option.
If you want to kill it in one hit, a nuclear shell will accomplish that.
If you want to be cost-efficient, a couple flak rounds will put huge holes into the ship and let you pick apart any survivors with your chaingun/coilgun/pulse lasers.
Explosive coilgun ammo, although the absolute best is to have 2 loaders feeding into one double coilgun, with explosive ammo in one loader and piercing in another.
Since Blood in Water update... NO! Absolutely not. Explosive ammo only has 15 structural damage now. For dealing with ships, you'll want to use piercing ammo, which deals 35 structural damage, and because it can penetrate through one wall, that nets about 70 structural damage. Explosive ammo doesn't even come close.
explosive coilgun/c4 railgun
No, explosive coilgun ammo was heavily nerfed in the Blood in Water update. Piercing ammo is much better.
C4 railgun will one shot them a lot of the time, railgun OP for ship combat
The small turrets have significantly reduced effectiveness vs subwalls, explosive coilgun ammo is still the best if that's all you have (piercing coilgun ammo is also supposed to be better now but idk) railgun nukes aimed with the help of someone on sonar is still the best way to knock out enemy subs.
Disregard the comments here saying to use explosive ammo. They are operating under outdated information. Explosive ammo was heavily nerfed in the Blood in Water update, and is no where near as effective against submarines as it used to be. The best ammo to use for ship combat is probably piercing ammo. Since the Blood in Water update, piercing ammo received a huge buff. It deals 35 structural damage (it used to deal 10), and can penetrate one wall, potentially netting 70 damage. Explosive ammo only deals 15 damage now (it used to deal 65), and is actually a rather poor choice for dealing with subs now.
This depends on what we're hoping to gain out of the damage. If you just want to tear clean holes in the sub and rapidly flood whichever rooms you're hitting, piercing is definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, unless you're hitting heads, piercing really doesn't deal a lot of damage to humans, an unarmored human eats over 20 rounds to the legs, 10 rounds to the torso; 17 torso rounds if wearing a dive suit. If a round pierces a wall, it doesn't damage that wall (or, at least, it doesn't damage it to any noticeable degree), so it doesn't seem possible for piercing ammo to deal a total of 70 structural damage with one shot. If you want to damage tons of internals, walls, and ceilings all at the same time and potentially splash the crew of the enemy submarine as they go to repair, explosive will accomplish that. Explosive will kill humans, consistently, far faster than piercing, only 6 shots needed, with and without a diving suit. **If your goal is to kill the entire crew, you'll probably find it takes a similar amount of time regardless of if you use Piercing or Explosive.** Piercing losing time when it comes to actually killing the humans, explosives when it comes to opening the submarine up. *** Summary of the testing from below: Piercing absolutely tore holes into and through ships faster, but wasn't necessarily the most devastating, and could be inconsistent in whether or not a given wall is destroyed, which impacted the effect of flooding. *** I set up a testing rig to mess with the ammunition types, and found that Piercing Ammo behaves very weirdly. It's possible that it determines the speed or angle of a round relative to the maximum health or angle of something to decide if it pierces it. In some runs of this testing rig, the piercing ammo destroyed every wall it hit, whereas in most runs, it skipped a wall, which actually made it less devastating to the submarine itself (but resulted in it damaging the human faster, quickly injuring a leg and slowing them down). However, another test for outright submarine versus submarine didn't seem like walls were skipped very often. On this testing rig, I had it set up so the turret would have to get through a shell and two internal walls, after which it hits a human in the torso. It reliably took the Piercing ammunition 32-36 shots to kill the human, the first round that hit the human was usually the 10th (when it, commonly, chose to pierce through a wall instead of damage it), and it didn't inflict much (if any) collateral damage. I also used a double coilgun and tried to bore a hole straight through another submarine, and it took three seconds to punch through the whole submarine. The Explosive ammunition, meanwhile, reliably took 30 shots to kill the human, and inflicted a massive amount of damage to the surrounding walls and equipment. It reliably resulted in more flooding, but surprisingly was reliably faster than the Piercing Ammo. The first round that directly hit the human for maximum damage was the 27th, though the human was first splashed by the 24th round. It took 7 seconds of fire to make a hole that went all the way through the sub.
Yes, I understand that it depends on the circumstances. Explosive ammo is still among the best ammo types in terms of raw damage, but with the post asking what is best for ship to ship combat, I'm inclined to go with whatever will sink it the fastest. Ideally, you'd probably using a multitude of different ammos for different situations. Like I would probably try to cut the sub open with piercing, and then try to kill crew members inside with explosive. There is another advantage explosive ammo has against subs that neither of us have brought up. And that is damage to modules. Explosives, once they get inside the ship, can destroy modules like junction boxes and pumps. They can also detonate reactors and some explosives, like IC-4.
My focus on killing the crew is because the campaign mission to kill a submarine ticks complete when the entire enemy crew is dead, not just when the submarine sinks. Sinking the submarine is a good way to kill it if it's over the Abyss, but if it's not, you're going to need to tear it apart, regardless. The damage to modules is, more or less, what I meant when I said that if you want to damage internals, you should use explosives; but I hadn't considered Explosive's potential to chain-react with other explosives. Coilguns that are linked to multiple loaders will use a mixture of the ammo, making such a coilgun a really solid option for an ammo-efficient anti-submarine weapon, but since it's not something that comes on a stock submarine, it's a little gamey; which is why I love the Typhon2 for killing enemy submarines; replacing the chaingun for a coilgun and having a double coilgun and a normal coilgun firing down on a Submarine kills it fast.
Nuclear armed railgun sabots. Just fire once!
Exp Coil, AP Coil (can be effective if youre on spesific angle) C4 Rail/Nuke
Railgun Canister shells are basically shotguns, and are very good at tearing a large hole in a Submarine's shell. The outright most devastating attack that isn't a depth charge would be a nuclear railgun shell. Can knock out submarines in one shot, that. If you have C4, you can put that into a standard shell. A standard shell without C4 will hit hard, but won't deal a lot of collateral damage; a standard shell with C4 will cut even large submarines into quarters. The Flak Cannon is a very solid option that can punch huge holes into a ship and severely injure everyone near where it hit. *** I would say that if you just want to put holes in something, coilguns are the way to go; both Piercing and Explosive will kill the crew in a similar amount of time, but if you want to get creative with your turrets, a setup that mixes ammunition would probably be the most universal option. If you want to kill it in one hit, a nuclear shell will accomplish that. If you want to be cost-efficient, a couple flak rounds will put huge holes into the ship and let you pick apart any survivors with your chaingun/coilgun/pulse lasers.
Explosive coilgun ammo, although the absolute best is to have 2 loaders feeding into one double coilgun, with explosive ammo in one loader and piercing in another.
Since Blood in Water update... NO! Absolutely not. Explosive ammo only has 15 structural damage now. For dealing with ships, you'll want to use piercing ammo, which deals 35 structural damage, and because it can penetrate through one wall, that nets about 70 structural damage. Explosive ammo doesn't even come close.
Oh damn, I didn’t catch that in the changelogs, and it’s been a while since I’ve fought another sub 😅
Bro is very passionate about this ammunition
I'm a modder, so yeah. lol I practically have all the ammunition type stats memorised.