So apparently Punch Through has been broken for a long time?

[Zahnrad]

I got Qorvex today, and I wasn't aware of his Passive until I checked the Abilities tab to look for Tips.

Thinking "Oh, a flat +3 Punch Through on any gun?" I decided I had to test it to its limits and unearthed the Argonak.

Qorvex = 3m Punch Through

Amalgam Argonak Metal Auger = 3m

Primed Shred = 2.2m

Vigilante Offense = 1.5m

So that's 9.7 metres of Punch Through in total, and the Arsenal screen for the Argonak also lists a stat of 9.7

(You could technically go higher with a Riven)

 

Now I wasn't expecting to be able to shoot Assassination targets from spawn, or shooting through multiple tiles. But I was expecting to be able to shoot any target on the current tile, provided the bullet was able to penetrate a wall or surface less than 9.7m in depth.

Turns out? There's a lot of what I'm going to call "Dead Zones" where surfaces will just straight up absorb your bullets regardless of your Punch Through values, even in locations that are thin (relatively speaking) enough to shoot through.

I got some clips of it and posted them here: https://imgur.com/a/sb8farS

P.S. Ignore the cartoony gore, I run Amalgam Ripkas for fun

Edited March 16 by Zahnny

[sly_squash]

I'm fuzzy on the details, but IIRC there's two kinds of punchthrough.  One of them that does what you describe and goes through most barriers (like Ignis Wraith or Zenith punchthrough) and most other types of punchthrough that only penetrate soft targets like bodies.

I'd test again but using enemies as the blocker.

[taiiat]

it's intentional. there's surfaces that are Flagged for PT being disabled on them.
more than you might think even, when you have a very high amount of it and so would try to pierce things that normally you wouldn't bother trying.

plus there's special types like what some Weapons get, that has infinite on Corpses but none on Terrain. but Mods and Qorvex Passive wouldn't be that type (well, Mods definitely isn't, Qorvex probably isn't).

[Tiltskillet]

1 hour ago, Zahnny said:

Turns out? There's a lot of what I'm going to call "Dead Zones" where surfaces will just straight up absorb your bullets regardless of your Punch Through values, even in locations that are thin (relatively speaking) enough to shoot through.

Yeah.  It's been true for at least as long as I've been playing, and I'd guess probably since the beginning.  Although Zenith breaks through some barriers that 9.7m Argonak can't, even though they're clearly way less than that.

 

[0_The_F00l]

There are specific surfaces that do not allow punchthrough.

[Zakkhar]

1 hour ago, 0_The_F00l said:

There are specific surfaces that do not allow punchthrough.

Fluctus doesnt seem to care.

[Xzorn]

There is something going on with either Punch-Through or Ignis since I left. 2018-Present.

I use Ignis with Primed Shred years for "normal content". Between normal and Wraith it's like 50% usage on 6k in-mission hours.

When I got back I noticed a lot of spots in The Void where I normally just cheap shot the secret spots with punch-through where only half working. Something that normally took a simple sweep was now forcing me to angle just right to hit through glass and fake walls. It happens in other missions but I use the Void as an example because I doubt they've done anything to the tileset since I left. Leaving the issue with either the weapon or the effect.

Ignis is a weapon I kept very close track of over the years. When they "buffed" the weapon they nerf'd it's street sweeping capabilities.

Spoiler

 

Using Heavy Cal increases it's deviation. While adding Primed Shred mostly reverted the changes they made to it's Punch-Through. I also noticed there was a patch note claiming something like "You can't head-shot with a flame thrower" and thus head-shot arcanes and multipliers were no longer going to work. Funny since head-shots were how I got the weapon to still perform in Sorties and such back in the day. It's actually quite easy to do esp giving the changes in the pic above.

[Hexerin]

Punch through isn't really meant to shoot through solid walls or terrain, except for a few specific weapons revolving around that as a gimmick (Zenith, for example). It's more intended for getting through stuff like cover (blunts, doodads like crate piles, Orokin energy railings, etc) and other "lightweight" terrain (doors, etc).

[Zahnrad]

Huh, seems weird to be intentional. I wonder if DE would ever consider looking into changing it.

Given the average rifle can only reach about 3.7 punch through I don't think it would be meta shattering.

I understand in cases like the Ignis or explosives but I feel like most weapons...well...aren't the ignis. I'm not going to say there isn't other weapons like the ignis, but if this rule was made because of the Ignis...I'd rather other weapons were able to just use punch through consistantly.

[Tiltskillet]

56 minutes ago, Xzorn said:

When I got back I noticed a lot of spots in The Void where I normally just cheap shot the secret spots with punch-through where only half working. Something that normally took a simple sweep was now forcing me to angle just right to hit through glass and fake walls.

I don't use the Ignis, but I noticed a while back that PT wasn't working on it in the Sim.  But then the next time I tested it it was working, and it had the old AoE PT behavior where the radial damage instance was centered on the last target hit.   Make of that very useful info what you will, if you can make anything of it. :P

There was a large scale change to the way PT functions with AoE weapons around Veilbreaker.  With a few exceptions, PT does nothing for them, not even to the projectile.  Regardless of what the Arsenal says. 

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

I also noticed there was a patch note claiming something like "You can't head-shot with a flame thrower" and thus head-shot arcanes and multipliers were no longer going to work.

Many or most headshot triggers never stopped working with AoE.  It's easiest to see with Castanas and Talons, since there is no contact damage instance to muddy the waters.

[Xzorn]

10 minutes ago, Tiltskillet said:

I don't use the Ignis, but I noticed a while back that PT wasn't working on it in the Sim.  But then the next time I tested it it was working, and it had the old AoE PT behavior where the radial damage instance was centered on the last target hit.   Make of that very useful info what you will, if you can make anything of it. :P

There was a large scale change to the way PT functions with AoE weapons around Veilbreaker.  With a few exceptions, PT does nothing for them, not even to the projectile.  Regardless of what the Arsenal says. 

Many or most headshot triggers never stopped working with AoE.  It's easiest to see with Castanas and Talons, since there is no contact damage instance to muddy the waters.

 

With Ignis in particular. It's not radial damage which is what I recall them trying to tune with head-shots and going through walls.

It's a beam weapon. It still does Punch-Through like it did, it's just inconsistent now. I'll be aiming directly at a crate behind glass and nothing. I move slightly and it works. Ignis was always my "Street Sweeper" weapon. High fodder kill rate, break every crate and resource node in your path, easy to find Ayatan.

This was my testament to the farming power of Ignis. Ship capacity full of Ayatan 3 months after they were released.

Spoiler

 

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

4 hours ago, Zahnny said:

Huh, seems weird to be intentional.

I think what people are missing is that it's not so much 'intentional' as that there are two types of terrain on the tiles, they function differently not because of the punch through thing, but because of what they define on the map.

So objects that you can likely punch through are what you could call 'terrain objects', basically boxes with collisions on them that prevent you from clipping into them. The devs use these to make all the bits that can define the obstacles and set-dressing in the room, everything from crates and stairs to fences and cannons.

There are, however, what you can't pass through and that's what you could call a 'boundary definition'. These are the ones that define the absolute edges of the terrain, and if you pass out of those you are now in the skybox, outside of the defined map area. Unfortunately, DE sometimes sculpts some basic terrain objects out of this, giving the room some pre-defined shape, before they populate it with actual terrain. 

Now, what this means is that hitscan can't functionally calculate punch through that penetrates these areas. It reads them as dead zones or the same as you hitting the boundary wall and it going out into the skybox, so there functionally shouldn't be an enemy behind there, even though you can clearly see there is.

Projectile punch through, however, like the Fluctus, generates an object that has no clipping. So it can, and will, pass through that type of barrier and continue out to the skybox, or back into another part of the map on the other side of the external object. As long as it has 'duration' on its travel time, it'll keep going.

And the Zenith is a separate thing, yet again, as instead of a simple punch through calculation, it actually maps the enemies, giving you a target to aim for that is guaranteed inside the tile, so it doesn't even take into account any terrain that's part of the 'boundary' because you're ignoring the calculations for punch through in the first place.

See?

It's all DE spaghetti code, but there is some logic to it when you break it down.

[0_The_F00l]

9 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

Fluctus doesnt seem to care.

I havent used fluctus often enough to identify if it bypasses the punchthrough proof surfaces all the time or its more of a gimmick of its wave projectile.

[ominumi]

20 hours ago, Zakkhar said:

Fluctus doesnt seem to care.

Someone clearly never use a Fluctus to shoot a grineer on rampart. Or Shield carrier.