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Are 1/2 Ton Ammo Bins Safer?


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#1 Darwins Dog

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 11:10 AM

I think that you should spread your ammo out as much as possible, using 1/2 ton bins. Here is my logic on this:

Assumptions:
If you have 2 tons of LRM ammo on your mech, you can either place it as 2x1 ton bins, or 4x0.5 ton bins (or some combination). Let's say for the sake of example that they are all in one place.
If you take a hit to the internal structure, you have a 10% (I think) chance of taking a critical hit.
If that hit deals 10 damage it destroys the thing that got hit. If the hit deals less than 10 damage, then the item has to get hit again.
If an ammo bin gets destroyed it has a 10% chance of exploding.

If I'm very wrong on any of this, please let me know. I think I'm close on the numbers, but not certain.

Conclusions:
  • Having more ammo bins means that they will cause less damage if they explode.
  • More ammo bins means that they are less likely to get hit again. In the above example you go from a 50% chance of the same bin getting hit again, to a 25% chance of the same one getting hit again.
  • More ammo bins means more crit padding for other components. You have a greater chance of the ammo getting hit than the weapon.
  • In a location with only ammo and empty crit slots, you are better off taking 0.5 ton ammo bins. For instance a torso with 2 tons of ammo and nothing else, you should have 4x0.5 ton bins because of #2.
  • Gauss rifle ammo should always be divided up into as many crit spaces as possible since it can't explode.
Some additional thoughts:

I probably won't try this anytime soon. I'm space-poor, and I would prefer to spend my cbills on that radar deprivation module rather than buying all of my ammo again.
Obviously you should use things like heatsinks (that can never explode) as crit padding. I'm just pointing out that the math shows that you will take fewer hits to another component with more ammo bins.
This really only works because there is a fairly low chance of an explosion. If the explosion chance is increased, then this becomes a worse idea. I'm sure one can do some mroe specific calculations to determine what the best method is, but I have no motivation to do so.


If my logic is flawed, please point it out (preferably in all caps :P ). If you have any in-game experience with this that would be great to hear as well.

EDIT: clarity

Edited by Darwins Dog, 09 October 2014 - 11:12 AM.


#2 Torgun

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 11:53 AM

Well you have to consider that since you use twice as many slots for a bit less amount of ammo that you would with 1t bins, you also double the chance of getting an ammo explosion. Overall I don't think it's really worth it.

#3 Mad Dog Morgan

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 12:08 PM

You're able to spread it out more. I wouldn't dare concentrate multiple .5 ton bins in one spot. The idea is that what would normally be one lethal ton of machine gun ammo becomes less hazardous if it's spread to other components. It's really dependent on how many extra slots you have. Some ammo types are better in 1-ton increments, but AMS and Machine Gun ammo is best when it's spread around the mech instead of concentrated in one tiny spot. LB10X and AC-20 ammo should be done in 1-ton increments due to the loss of a single shot per ton if you do it by 0.5t increments.

#4 Konril

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Posted 09 October 2014 - 05:32 PM

There is a little known rule in place here. If any ammo in a location explodes all ammo in that location will explode. I'm not sure if it is all ammo of the same type, or simply all the ammo in the location period. But either way ammo explosion can do huge damage to a mech not protected by CASE. Also, the odds of a critical hit are a lot bigger than your stated 10%. For normal weapons, it's 25% chance of one critical hit, 14% chance of 2 critical its, and 3% chance of 3 critical hits. So overall if you get a structure hit from a PPC, Gauss rifle, inner sphere AC/10, or AC/20, that is a 42% chance that something is getting broken. Although thankfully, if it's an ammo bin that breaks then it is still only a 10% chance of it exploding. Lasers and most clan weaponry tend to split damage into tiny chunks each with their own critical hit roll. So in effect everything in the location gets cooked evenly once the armor is gone. In this case, the more ammo locations in the area means the ammo can take more damage without anything breaking (on average). However, once things start breaking, all those locations are going to start rolling that 10% chance of explosion individually. So the risk of explosion is about the same facing most weapons, and much worse when facing PPCs and the big cannons. Overall, it feels like it's a bad idea to split ammo into 1/2 ton lots.

#5 Metus regem

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 07:45 AM

View PostVaskadar, on 09 October 2014 - 12:08 PM, said:

You're able to spread it out more. I wouldn't dare concentrate multiple .5 ton bins in one spot. The idea is that what would normally be one lethal ton of machine gun ammo becomes less hazardous if it's spread to other components. It's really dependent on how many extra slots you have. Some ammo types are better in 1-ton increments, but AMS and Machine Gun ammo is best when it's spread around the mech instead of concentrated in one tiny spot. LB10X and AC-20 ammo should be done in 1-ton increments due to the loss of a single shot per ton if you do it by 0.5t increments.


heh, 1 ton of MG ammo, the most lethal explosive in table top...

#6 Redshift2k5

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 07:53 AM

Seems like a good plan in the case of gauss ammo, which can pad crits more effectively (at the risk of the ammo itself being critted more often) while not presenting a greater risk of explosion.

I think we'd need a math major to really crunch the numbers though, as well an hard confirmation on things such as does all ammo explode in a location or not, if halfd tons have the same chance to be rolled as any other item, etc

#7 RazorbeastFXK3

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 07:57 AM

Also keep in mind which ammo storage gets used first and which gets used next. http://mwomercs.com/...mmo-being-used/

#8 DONTOR

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Posted 10 October 2014 - 08:02 AM

Ya my triple gauss DW has around 12 half tons and 6 full tons to crit pad the hell out of the gauss rifles and such.





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