22 replies to this topic

[MountainCopper]

Why did a critical hit destroy my head stored ammunition after 2 PPC hits?

head armour: 18
hit points ammo: 10
damage taken: 2 * 10

After both hits, 2 points of damage should have gotten through. Why did I get critical 10 damage to the ammo?

Edited by Egomane, 14 May 2014 - 06:20 AM.

[Khobai]

Only 2 points of damage DID get through (actually 2.3 damage since crits do 15% more damage to internals). But that was enough to cause the game to roll for a critical hit. Since PPCs do 10 damage, they do 10 crit damage, which critted your ammo and caused it to explode.

This is one of the many reasons why PPCs are overpowered. Because even if a PPC only does 1 point of damage to your internals it can wipe out one (25%), two (14%) or even three (3%) items in a location, assuming those items have 10 health each. Obviously critical damage should be limited to how much internal structure damage was actually done, but its unlikely PGI will ever fix that.

EDIT: Oh and for future reference the head is not a good place for ammo. Arms/legs work better for ammo because you get a 50% damage reduction for each location damage transfers through. So theres actually a chance of surviving an ammo explosion in your arm/leg if you have a STD engine (generally if you have an XL you wont survive). Also if an arm is severed through a torso destruction it wont detonate ammo in the arm.

Edited by Khobai, 13 May 2014 - 11:25 PM.

[MountainCopper]

Khobai, on 13 May 2014 - 11:04 PM, said:

Only 2 points of damage DID get through (actually 2.3 damage since crits do 15% more damage to internals). But that was enough to cause the game to roll for a critical hit. Since PPCs do 10 damage, they do 10 crit damage, which critted your ammo and caused it to explode.

This is one of the many reasons why PPCs are overpowered. Because even if a PPC only does 1 point of damage to your internals it can wipe out one (25%), two (14%) or even three (3%) items in a location, assuming those items have 10 health each. Obviously critical damage should be limited to how much internal structure damage was actually done, but its unlikely PGI will ever fix that.

Thanks for the answer. That's a blatant mathematical error then, to apply the full damage potential of a shot for critical hits, when only partial damage gets through the armour.
What happens with beam weapons inflicting a critical hit? My guess would be, that because the damage is being dealt in parts over the full beam duration, it would still be wrong for the 1st beam damage going partly through the armour?

Edited by GoldenFleece, 14 May 2014 - 12:16 AM.

[Curccu]

Quote

EDIT: Oh and for future reference the head is not a good place for ammo. Arms/legs work better for ammo because you get a 50% damage reduction for each location damage transfers through. So theres actually a chance of surviving an ammo explosion in your arm/leg if you have a STD engine (generally if you have an XL you wont survive). Also if an arm is severed through a torso destruction it wont detonate ammo in the arm.

Have to disagree with that one... headshots are very rare, also if you lose a leg you might lose rest of your ammo also with that leg and become defenseless (legging is quite common).
and since closed beta I have died ONCE by headshot ammo explosion so I wouldn't call it great risk.

Edited by Curccu, 14 May 2014 - 12:21 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

What happens with beam weapons inflicting a critical hit? My guess would be, that because the damage is being dealt in parts over the full beam duration, it would still be wrong for the 1st beam damage going partly through the armour?

I imagine the full damage of the beam weapon is applied as critical damage. So if a beam does a fraction of damage to internals it does crit damage equal to its full damage.

Quote

Have to disagree with that one... headshots are very rare

Regardless of how rare you think they are or arnt (I tend to think theyre not all that rare, since artillery quite often damages head internals) its safer not to put ammo in your head. Why play russian roulette on the off chance you do get shot in the head when you can avoid it entirely? Arms/legs are a safer place to put it because its shielded by more armor, in a location thats less likely to get hit, and if it does get hit you might at least have a chance of surviving.

Of course on a light mech you can get away with it because a headshot on a light mech is pretty unlikely except from an artillery strike. And generally you dont want ammo in your legs on a light.

Edited by Khobai, 14 May 2014 - 12:29 AM.

[Curccu]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

Regardless of how rare they are or arnt its safer not to put ammo in your head. Why play russian roulette on the off chance you do get shot in the head when you can avoid it entirely?

How can you avoid it entirely if you still have ammo somewhere?
and this was really the part I was disagreeing with you it is safer to have it in head than leg.
Most AC ammo explosions do ~150 dmg for a full ton and missile weapons 250++, so usually when it happens mech is gone no matter where ammunition is stored... unless mech has C.A.S.E. (with XL dead anyways)

[Khobai]

Quote

it is safer to have it in head than leg.

not really since people dont normally aim for your leg. people actively aim for heads and CTs.

[MountainCopper]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

I imagine the full damage of the beam weapon is applied as critical damage. So if a beam does a fraction of damage to internals it does crit damage equal to its full damage.

I thought about that possibility as well. But if that were the case, critical damage while strafing a laser over armour-less components would inflict way more damage than it should...

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

Regardless of how rare you think they are or arnt (I tend to think theyre not all that rare, since artillery quite often damages head internals) its safer not to put ammo in your head. Why play russian roulette on the off chance you do get shot in the head when you can avoid it entirely? Arms/legs are a safer place to put it because its shielded by more armor, in a location thats less likely to get hit, and if it does get hit you might at least have a chance of surviving.

I'm also leaning towards, that apart from Arty strikes, the head is safer for ammunition than the arms/legs... Simply because of the number of times the relevant components gets destroyed/hit. And I can't avoid it entirely. I have to store the ammo somewhere...

Out of 50 games, how many times does one die because of a destroyed head? Is it even once? And I have yet to die from an ammo explosion in my head.

Edited by GoldenFleece, 14 May 2014 - 12:57 AM.

[Curccu]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:31 AM, said:

not really since people dont normally aim for your leg. people actively aim for heads and CTs.

Easiest and fastest way to take down most Light and Medium mechs is to take their legs out.

[Kmieciu]

I would hazard a guess that the head is the safest place to store ammo, just because it's the first place ammo is taken from.

http://mwomercs.com/...mmo-being-used/

Lately, I survived a match in my XL Thunderbolt. I had 19% health left (I've received the achievement for that), and cockpit was the only component with some armor left.

With the ammo explosion chance at 10%, you have to be extremly unlucky to get one hit killed with a 2xPPC headshot. The exact chance is 0.1*0.42= 4.2%

http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

[Curccu]

Kmieciu, on 14 May 2014 - 03:25 AM, said:

I would hazard a guess that the head is the safest place to store ammo, just because it's the first place ammo is taken from.

I don't know if something has been changed but IMO head goes last...
... have to check it later at training grounds later when I get back to home.

[CDLord HHGD]

I sometimes put ammo in my head.... If you're gonna go to a headshot, go with style!

[Ultimax]

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:19 AM, said:

Regardless of how rare you think they are or arnt (I tend to think theyre not all that rare, since artillery quite often damages head internals) its safer not to put ammo in your head. Why play russian roulette

Because russian roulette is a 1/6 or 16.67% chance of getting a headshot ammo explosion.



Do you get headshot ammo explosions 16.67% of the time you die? How about 16.67% of the time you are even shot in the head, do you die from an ammo explosion?

My answer for myself is no, since it has not yet happened to me once.



Therefore neither I, nor anyone else is "playing russian roulette".


It is a minimized, calculated risk that has more benefits than disadvantages.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 14 May 2014 - 11:00 AM.

[Trauglodyte]

Curccu, on 14 May 2014 - 12:17 AM, said:

Have to disagree with that one... headshots are very rare, also if you lose a leg you might lose rest of your ammo also with that leg and become defenseless (legging is quite common).
and since closed beta I have died ONCE by headshot ammo explosion so I wouldn't call it great risk.

Riding hot is the only way to ride.

Currently, the critical hit system in this game is drastically broken. If, because of the amount of armor you have in a location, you only do 0.1 damage to internals because you did X.9 damage to the external armor of that location, you still do full damage on the critical hit. In other words, critical damage is calculated on the damage of the weapon doing the damage and not actually the damage done. Furthermore, you take 15% of that full weapon listed damage back to the internal structure for each critical hit you achieve (1, 2 or 3). It is essentially what makes the massive weapons in game so deadly and why the weapons that have +critical hit chances are so pathetic - having a 99% chance to cause a crit when the damage done is only 0.1-1.0 isn't worrisome at all.

[Deathlike]

If at ANY point the damage is high enough to remove the external armor (20 damage from 2 PPCs, 2 AC10s, or 2 Gauss Rifles is enough), it has a chance to apply the RNG/dice roll for the internals. Head armor is 18, so it will damage part of the internal armor as a result.

This is rare as it is, so it's kind of a non-issue for the most part, but the problem is that the FULL value of the weapon damage (just 1 AC10, PPC, Gauss Rifle) is enough to destroy the item outright (remember, most components are 10 HP) and that coupled with the rarity of triggering of an ammo explosion (it's like a 10% shot, after a somewhat low probability of generating a crit).

So... pretty much you could be one shot at random, but it's unlikely to occur naturally.

[DEMAX51]

First off, criticals have the chance of doing anywhere from 1 to 3 times the weapon's damage to internal components, so a PPC that scores a crit could do 10, 20, or 30 damage depending on the luck of the die roll. This very likely explains the OPs situation.

Khobai, on 14 May 2014 - 12:31 AM, said:

not really since people dont normally aim for your leg. people actively aim for heads and CTs.

Unabashedly wrong. On Lights and Mediums legs are incredibly vulnerable - and even on some Heavies and Assaults a lot of people will reduce their leg armor to save tonnage, which can make legging in general a very viable tactic. It's very commonly used by many comp. teams.

Curccu, on 14 May 2014 - 03:46 AM, said:

I don't know if something has been changed but IMO head goes last...
... have to check it later at training grounds later when I get back to home.

Head ammo most definitely gets used first, followed by Center Torso, then Left Torso, the Right Torso, then Left Arm, then Right arm, then Left Leg, then Right Leg.

There's a dev post from a long while ago that explains this, but I'm not going to dig it up. Just trust me on it.

The head is, by and large, one of the safest spots for ammo. It gets used first, and very few people actively try for headshots. True, you may occasionally get hit by an arty/air strike on your head, but this is more of a problem for certain 'Mechs than others (like the Stalker, for instance, with it's head sitting right on top of the 'Mech). Ammo in the head is a calculated risk, and one that's often worth taking.

And on Lights and Mediums in particular, ammo in the Legs is a TERRIBLE idea.

[MountainCopper]

What I don't get is, with many other players having noticed this faulty calculation before me, why is it still in the game at it is...?

[Curccu]

GoldenFleece, on 14 May 2014 - 11:20 PM, said:

What I don't get is, with many other players having noticed this faulty calculation before me, why is it still in the game at it is...?

Because.... PGI.
some things that are clearly broken are working as intended from their POV.

[MountainCopper]

Curccu, on 15 May 2014 - 01:25 AM, said:

Because.... PGI.
some things that are clearly broken are working as intended from their POV.

...

[Shlkt]

Kmieciu, on 14 May 2014 - 03:25 AM, said:

With the ammo explosion chance at 10%, you have to be extremly unlucky to get one hit killed with a 2xPPC headshot. The exact chance is 0.1*0.42= 4.2%

http://mwomercs.com/...-a-brief-guide/

The odds might be even be smaller than that. The other 5 slots in your head (life support, sensors, etc..) might act as additional crit buffers, reducing the odds of an ammo explosion to just 0.7%. AFAIK the devs have not commented on whether fixed equipment slots, like actuators and sensors, actually absorb critical hits. But they should according to TT rules.

In 6000 matches I've never been killed by an ammo explosion in the head. Ammo explosions are usually fatal anyway; I've survived maybe 2 or 3 that I can remember, probably due to the ammo being partially depleted.