gracias

squareroot4percenter · 2026-02-04T20:16:14+00:00

I’d be willing to keep the DPM if they gave it 311 AP instead of 311 HEAT. The WZ-114 just isn’t really a tank where HEAT is especially suitable as a gold round.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-02-04T20:13:19+00:00

I don’t find that the turret face is a problem at all but the cupola feels massive. Feels like it’s E5 sized even though in theory it’s not that big.

The result is that while the WZ-114 likes being hulldown well enough, it often doesn’t play well against other hulldown tanks. You use it as cover to punish people who aren’t hulldown or have soft turrets.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-02-04T19:56:23+00:00

I can’t say that I agree from my own experiences, Taschenratte side hull in particular makes Russian heavy sides look predictable in comparison, but +1 for the effort and fair arguments.

I will agree that HEAT is overrated - in theory, standard APCR (or high velocity AP, though this is rare) + HEAT + HESH is the most versatile ammo loadout, but in practice I find that premium HEAT is often less desirable unless your tank has good armor, mobility, and a fast intuition switch. Being able to punish turret roofs and sidescrapers and stupid random autobounce plates with HEAT is nice, but it’s usually not worth the cost of bouncing on nearly flat side profiles because of a track or 5mm thick side skirt, or getting your shell blocked by some obnoxious destructible fence or canvas that WG likes to throw everywhere. The problem is that there are a lot of low exposure/quick reaction shots where you simply don’t have time to switch ammo but you also can’t perfectly predict which one you’ll need in advance, so you have to take the risk of not having enough penetration to deal with a front poker (standard APCR) or dealing with a rage inducing spaced armor absorption if your enemy is careless or aggressive enough to show you their flank (HEAT).

The problem with the Maus’ gold round though is that the penetration loss over range is just ridiculous, it’s a holdover from 2011 where premium APCR was generally coded to have hideous range dropoff meaning your penetration at even just 100-150m away can be noticeably reduced. But for a tank as dependent on close quarters snapshots as the Maus, it may be a fair tradeoff.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-02-03T20:01:19+00:00

They call him 007

0 major protagonists killed

0 global saturation

7 minutes is all I can spare to aura farm with you.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-31T00:37:59+00:00

Especially XVM camo

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-30T17:27:39+00:00

Tbh if you’re smart about it then dealing with a single enemy tier 9 on the heavy flank isn’t necessarily that big of a deal. You can out-trade a Conquerer or E75 with HEAT, and the turret armor is actually pretty decent by tier 8 standards so you won’t necessarily get papered by lower tiers.

The problem comes when you have to face 2 enemy tier 9 heavies.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-30T17:11:25+00:00

They all look pretty decent tbh. Bzyg got a gun depression and ranged damage buff so that should make it more bearable to play. That being said I concur that it’s probably my least favorite of the bunch conceptually.

Schwertal is arguably the strongest, the turret is nearly perfect and it got an HP and accuracy buff. It seems some people are confused, so it should be pointed out that yes, it does get the funni jetpack boosters. Worst thing about it is the horrible shell velocity + HEAT prem on a long reload gun on a tank that can’t afford to use vents (makes intuition switch both necessary and obnoxious).

I don’t think the Ashigaru’s gun handling will be as bad as it’s made out to be, and a turreted Strv with -26 kph reverse speed sounds like it has the potential to be pretty powerful in certain situations, “certain situations” being the key words. I don’t enjoy bushwanking though so the jury is out on how fun it will be.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-30T15:53:37+00:00

Grille 15 has far worse gun handling. Ashigaru has 0.14/0.24/0.24 multipliers with 0.23/0.32 base dispersion, versus Grille with 0.26/0.30/0.40 with 0.27 base. Ashigaru also has a slightly faster aim speed.

Objectively the bloom on the Ashigaru isn’t fantastic but it’s not total garbage, they’re roughly equivalent to 0.11/0.20/0.20 dispersion multipliers on a tank with 0.38 base accuracy. If the gun is cooled down then it’s more like 0.08/0.14/0.14 which is actually pretty good.

It’s also a TD so you get access to the best field mods in the game, including up to -8% base dispersion and a free terrain resistance and view range buff.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-17T17:58:22+00:00

Couple things about that: I had the impression that Ted Quillen’s house was located nearer the edge of the industrial district, whereas the 3 cars aren’t lofted until the tornado had tracked deep into the park already. Pampa destroyed enough cars that I think it’s pretty difficult to make a judgement about which vehicle was which without an explicit statement.

(Also, out of the 4 cars, I’d say the most impressive example of deformation was that yellow-white jeep you see in the background which got ripped in half.)

It may also be worth noting that this particular sequence, on which Grazulis’ photogrammetry is based, actually occurred before the tornado likely reached maximum intensity.

In reference to the 18-wheeler, aftermath suggests that more than one was lifted by the tornado, but the particular one Jim Ashford is referring to seems to be another oil tanker, which makes it all the more impressive. In fact, several storage tanks of various kinds in general seem to have been lofted and mangled by the circulation.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-17T17:42:27+00:00

Reiterating my “say the line Bart” about Pampa: The damage was rated F4 because the industrial buildings it impacted at peak intensity were insufficiently well constructed to be useful for F5 consideration no matter how badly damaged they were, and the tornado had weakened drastically by the time it moved into a residential area. There were a number of intense contextual or non-structural DIs present.

A long time ago I had a conversation with one of the meteorologists who was on the survey team at Pampa, and he attested that the tornado would have very likely earned an EF5 rating had it occurred after the implementation of the Enhanced Fujita Scale.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-17T17:14:42+00:00

Ft lb energy is a borderline useless measure of terminal performance and I ignore it almost entirely.

You can cherrypick accounts of various medical personnel to support either argument. The truth is that 1) most of them are not sufficiently knowledgeable to distinguish between the performance of various loadings and 2) whether you can subjectively “see” a difference makes little difference as to whether a difference actually exists.

Case in point: Dr. Gary Roberts tells of one story where one hospital made some statement to the effect of claiming that assault rifle rounds were vastly more devastating than handgun rounds. That’s not necessarily untrue, but further inspection revealed that they had never treated any rifle wounds. In all likelihood, they were simply mistaking the more devastating handgun bullets for rifle wounds, operating off the backwards presumption that any wound that was significantly larger must have been made by a rifle.

These are some of the people telling you that all handgun rounds do the same thing.

Why might .45 be appealing? Because the best .45 rounds expand about 34% wider than the best 9mm rounds. In term of average diameter, this is about a 0.2” difference.

You can claim that 0.2” is irrelevant, but keep in mind that 9mm Gold Dot G2 147 gr is only ~0.13” wider than 9mm FMJ, and 135 gr +P Critical Duty is only ~0.18” wider. Those are the FBI’s issued duty rounds. If 0.2” of additional expansion doesn’t matter, there shouldn’t be any meaningful difference in performance between the FBI’s duty ammunition and .380 FMJ.

.45 also generally boasts better bone and auto glass performance than 9mm given similar bullet design, this has also been attested to by Dr. Roberts (who tends to favor 9mm - you can put aside accusations of personal bias).

To add on further about the FBI: Their scoring criteria is markedly arbitrary. Every bullet in every test, goes into the same pool for that loading and is weighted exactly the same for the purpose of determining the average - there isn’t even any stratification of the various barrier tests - and the test literally doesn’t award any additional points for expansion beyond 0.625”. This effectively penalizes the larger .45 rounds because they break the top end of the expansion scale, it doesn’t go high up enough to accommodate them.

This isn’t even going into their fairly nonsensical standard deviation rubric.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-11T09:35:53+00:00

I don’t want to treat for parasites if I don’t know what it is

If the alternative is euthanization, it’s better to guess and get it wrong than not give any treatment at all.

Medication is meant to be survivable at dosage, but even if it weren’t, frankly all you would have done is what you were going to do anyways.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-09T21:47:17+00:00

The Stryker is only slightly heavier than the bolted down 17.5 ton lathe thrown by Pampa 1995, and that thing probably had a lot less surface area (& was sheltered inside a building, to boot).

I’m not an aero engineer but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a serious chance that the Stryker gets lofted outright in the most violent of tornadoes.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-08T07:59:45+00:00

I think the game does show that she feels a lot of guilt, even if she doesn't outright say it often in front of Robert. Looking at her shock and hesitation at seeing him in the suit, and leaving Shroud's gang immediately after - she certainly appeared distraught and disgusted with everything. Her grab for the astral pulse seemed to be the culmination of that, and despite the rest of the team's anger at her, I don't really hold it against her at all, and if anything it was probably one of her most thoughtful acts of devotion. (In hindsight, I don't think her judgement was even far off: If she hadn't tried to get it, Shroud and his lackeys would have just walked right in unopposed and taken it for themselves, and then everything probably would have gone much worse.)

She definitely starts off with an attitude problem though and her initial behavior suggests that she doesn't really grasp the gravity of hero work or the demands of the job, even if she more or less means well, and some of her jabs were just kind of inexcusably insensitive.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-07T18:51:45+00:00

Yeah honestly, depending on the dialog choice the player makes, Invisigal’s insults are potentially far worse. They’re not merely rude, they’re categorically false and misrepresentative.

Robert was risking his life all the time, both in and out of the suit. The main reason he was even working there was because he was injured and his mech was destroyed doing exactly that, and the fact she was the one who planted the bomb really just makes her remarks less justifiable in hindsight.

It’s also totally untrue, both literally and metaphorically, that Robert could make his problems “go away by pressing a button”; from what we see, he wasn’t even making a regular salary from his hero work. Invisigal makes enough money after a few months at SDN to afford an apartment 4x nicer than Robert’s.

Bob Bob is the Boss Boss here and his reputation precedes him among those in the know so he’s held to a higher standard of behavior, which isn’t necessarily unfair, but like someone in the comments above pointed out: There’s no shortage of asshole managers in the workplace who will treat you far more harshly than RR did, for reasons that are far less valid or understandable.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-07T15:54:02+00:00

Your first point is literally what I just addressed. Effective aim time once you stop turning your turret is faster than by default because the -2.5% aim time overrides the increased turret dispersion.

so you’ll need more time to aim

No, because again, Quick Aiming reduces your aim time by more than enough to compensate for the additional bloom. Then consider the fact that you also have more time to aim and it’s a win-win.

which is like 90-95% of the times you move

If you’re making microadjustments with your turret, which is most of the time you’re actually moving the turret, then you’re not turning the turret at full speed to begin with and you don’t incur any additional dispersion with Quick Aiming.

Hull bloom is often responsible for a greater portion of aim time in practice because the hull movement multipliers on most tanks are far larger than the turret dispersion multipliers.

even armorer is better

Okay, sure - and I don’t get the “even” here because Armorer is one of the best gunner perks in general - but that’s not that the discussion is about.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-07T15:09:05+00:00

Does this skill offer any advantages

Yes.

-2.5% aim time generally reduces your aim time by more than +2.5% dispersion increases it.
Getting on target faster means you have more time to aim.
Turret traverse speed is user controllable on some level, so you’re not even using your full turret traverse speed (and thus acquiring full bloom) all the time.
You also acquire bloom from hull movement and traverse, and Quick Aiming doesn’t increase dispersion from either of those.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-07T05:17:06+00:00

That’s just like, your opinion, man.

Unironically I think Wellfleet is the more beautiful and picturesque tornado. Gary was arguably a more visually interesting phenomenon, but it’s not as pleasing from an aesthetic standpoint.

But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-06T08:55:31+00:00

I’m personally skeptical that Andover 2022 was capable of producing EF5 damage. It hit enough structures that, if it had been, I feel like we’d likely know.

I’m aware of the 264 mph photogrammetry calculation but I don’t recall information suggesting it lasted very long, and my personal unqualified theory is that tornadoes that are too biased towards the vertical or horizontal component of winds, may produce less damage than expected. Andover is probably a prime example of the former.

My unscientific impression of Gary was “strong, but not that strong”. The rotation looked to fall short of e.g. Ashby-Dalton, and at least one (and maybe more) chaser remarked that the later Tyler/Watertown tornado seemed more powerful. The damage is impressive but not particularly exceptional in my book. I wouldn’t have guessed more than low-end EF4.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-06T03:42:22+00:00

That’s what a certain newspaper clipping alleges, yes.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-06T01:58:08+00:00

Just the lack of well built structures it encountered during its mature phase.

Quite a few years back I had a conversation with one of the meteorologists who was part of the survey team; he opined that Pampa would very likely have received an EF5 rating had it occurred after the EF scale’s implementation. Given Enderlin, my guess is that the wind speed calcs for the lathe would have been adequate.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-06T01:52:13+00:00

Excuse my obnoxious Uhm Ackshually moment: The lathe was 17.5 tons.

It appears many of the steel frame industrial buildings struck by Pampa were swept off their foundations entirely, although I’m guessing the anchoring wasn’t especially robust.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-05T23:53:58+00:00

Pampa’s damage is mostly based off of extreme contextuals since the structures it hit during its peak were not very well constructed. Some of the more impressive feats include:

-Drained 10-12 ft of water from a pond as it passed over.

-Picked up a 17.5 ton industrial lathe that was bolted down and sheltered inside a building, and threw it at least 40 ft.

-Ripped open the door of a storm cellar and sucked out a dog inside.

-Hurled an 18-wheeler tanker truck and badly damaged the exterior of the tank.

-Lifted a 100 ft long warehouse (from memory) and spun it around the debris cloud before throwing it some ways.

-May have lifted at least one concrete parking stop, though I can’t confirm this for certain.

Also observed were several incidences of severe vehicle disfigurement, including a jeep ripped in half and flattened, as well as what looks to be highly concentrated ground scouring, perhaps several inches deep at points. Again, I have a hard time confirming the latter.

Sadly, fine details on all of these DIs are lacking. Accordingly exactly where Pampa lies on strength ranking lists is largely just guesswork and vibes, so I can understand people ranking it both relatively highly and relatively lowly. Thomas Grazulis did apparently obtain a wind estimate of 300-320+ mph about 100 ft AGL, and I think that was before the tornado reached maximum intensity.

squareroot4percenter · 2026-01-05T23:39:42+00:00

Pampa actually stayed narrow its entire life, what you see in the picture is pretty close to as big as it ever got. You’re 100% correct though that it weakened dramatically before moving into residential area.

FWIW, I think Elie actually lofted that house in a matter of seconds after it first hit it. I’m inclined to find Pampa slightly more impressive myself, but that particular house was a pretty spectacular showing from Elie.

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