14 replies to this topic

[Night Thastus]

Hello!

A (relatively, I hope) quick question for you all.

If a section of a 'mech, for example, a torso, is without any armor, will it die quicker if ammo is inside due to said ammo possibly exploding?

Phrasing that is difficult for me. I think that about puts it how I'd like. I mean to say "Should I keep ammo out of parts that I want to keep alive for a long time, even when damaged?"

I know that ammo can explode, but I'm not sure if that happens in general, on exposed parts, or only on the death of a part (0% health for a torso, for example).

So would this build's (with the ammo in the arms + legs instead of the torso) side torsos
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d264b5216197651

Live any longer than this build's (with all ammo in the torso) side torsos
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c72b81c414d64b0

Edited by Night Wind, 31 December 2014 - 10:14 PM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Clans have built-in CASE for all sections so those builds should be fine as-is.



Edit:

So the most that will happen is if a torso ammo gets crit'ed, that section is gone with the corresonding arm and no ammo explosion damage transfers to CT.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 31 December 2014 - 10:19 PM.

[Monkey Lover]

Few things, never use two 1/2 ammo. You don't get as much are more of a change it can explode.
Like P knight said you have cases on you clan mech so its more of a question what drops off you mech first
I would put the ammo in the legs. If you drop a leg you're already in bad shape.

You can move the active probe and computer into the sides for crit buffers for your srm6 then move 1 ton of ammo to an arm. There is a risk you drop a side of your probe or computer is gone but it not like they matter much anyway.

Edited by Monkey Lover, 31 December 2014 - 10:43 PM.

[EgoSlayer]

Since nobody else answered your basic question:

Ammo can only be hit when the armor in that location is gone.
Ammo only explodes when two things happen - 1 )The ammo is critically hit and 2 ) the 15% chance for it to explode is triggered.

It doesn't explode when the section is destroyed, only a 15% chance when it's critically hit. Unlike the Gauss rifle which if I recall correctly has a 90% chance to explode when critically hit.

Edited by EgoSlayer, 31 December 2014 - 10:54 PM.

[Equalizer]

I'd use the first of these builds, my reason being that if a ST gets stripped of armor, there won't be a chance for an ammo explosion there so it may last a bit longer. Although MDD generally seems to lose side torsos very easy so not sure if that's all that relevant.

That being said, there is priority in how ammo is consumed - don't exactly remember whether LT or RT goes first but it's something like this Head -> CT -> RT/LT -> RA/LA -> RL/LL.

[Mcgral18]

Equalizer, on 31 December 2014 - 10:57 PM, said:

I'd use the first of these builds, my reason being that if a ST gets stripped of armor, there won't be a chance for an ammo explosion there so it may last a bit longer. Although MDD generally seems to lose side torsos very easy so not sure if that's all that relevant.

That being said, there is priority in how ammo is consumed - don't exactly remember whether LT or RT goes first but it's something like this Head -> CT -> RT/LT -> RA/LA -> RL/LL.

At some point, ammo consumption changed. Head is now last. Don't know when that happened.


It's CT, RT, LT...then I think left arm, right arm? Then onto the legs and head last.

Not entirely sure on arms or leg order.

[Equalizer]

Mcgral18, on 31 December 2014 - 11:06 PM, said:

At some point, ammo consumption changed. Head is now last. Don't know when that happened.


It's CT, RT, LT...then I think left arm, right arm? Then onto the legs and head last.

Not entirely sure on arms or leg order.

Ah, good to know, thanks - missed that somehow.

[Night Thastus]

Thanks for all the help everyone!

So, if the torso is exposed and has ammo and gets a critical hit, it has 15% chance of exploding, taking the torso with it. Therefore, if the ammo isn't in the torsos, it should decrease the chance of losing them in a fight prematurely.

Thank you all very much! I'll need to post here about my MW4 woes knowing that you all are so knowledgable.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

How does one "crit" a component? Been playing for a couple years now, and I still don't understand. Also, difference between crit slots and regular slots?

[Equalizer]

You have a chance to crit a component when shooting a section on the mech that is stripped of armor - think chances are 25% to crit one slot, 14% to crit two slots and 3% to crit 3 slots (for a total of 42% crit chance). LBX, machine guns and flamers have a higher crit chance than other weapons, I believe it is 67% total for LBX and Flamer, 52% for machine guns.

Each installed component has individual HP, usually 10hp with a couple of exceptions, and when critically hit it takes the same damage as the shot that hit it. For example, a PPC critical hit does 10 damage to the internal structure and 10 damage to 1, 2 or 3 random slots (depending on % above), which is sufficient to destroy any component besides AC20 (unless you crit 2 or 3 of the slots it takes).

Since each torso section and arms have 12 critical slots, you basically get 1 in 12 to 1 in 4 chance to crit any one of those, again depending on crit % above. So, if you only have a ML in that section, which only takes 1 slot, it is much less likely to get critically hit than an AC20 which takes 10 slots. Pre-installed equipment can't be destroyed by criticals (i.e. gyro, actuators, etc.) and neither can engines.

Edited by Equalizer, 01 January 2015 - 02:32 AM.

[EgoSlayer]

Shiroi Tsuki, on 01 January 2015 - 01:40 AM, said:

How does one "crit" a component? Been playing for a couple years now, and I still don't understand. Also, difference between crit slots and regular slots?

Every weapon hit on an exposed (no armor) section has a chance to inflict a critical hit. Base chances are 1x Crit = 25%, 2x Crit = 14%, 3x Crit = 3%, No crit = 58%, some weapons (LBX, MG, Flamer) and Equipment (Targeting computers/CC) can increase the chances.

Not sure what you mean by crit slots and regular slots. They are all critical slots - if something is there that can take a critical hit it's in the list of the random determination of what is hit. Empty slots and Structure/Armor slots don't take critical hits and so are "rerolled", and currently actuators don't either.

EDIT - Ninja'ed by Equalizer

Edited by EgoSlayer, 01 January 2015 - 02:15 AM.

[Mcgral18]

Equalizer, on 01 January 2015 - 02:05 AM, said:

You have a chance to crit a component when shooting a section on the mech that is stripped of armor - think chances are 25% to crit one slot, 14% to crit two slots and 3% to crit 3 slots (for a total of 42% crit chance). LBX, machine guns and flamers have a higher crit chance than other weapons, think it was 67% total for LBX and Flamer, 52% for machine guns.

Each installed component has individual HP, usually 10hp with a couple of exceptions and when critical hit it takes the same damage as the shot that hit it. For example, a PPC critical hit does 10 damage to the internal structure and 10 damage to 1, 2 or 3 random slots (depending on % above), which is sufficient to destroy any component besides AC20 (unless you crit 2 or 3 of the slots it takes).

Since each torso section and arms have 12 critical slots, you basically get 1 in 12 to 1 in 4 chance to crit any one of those, again depending on crit % above. So, if you only have a ML in that section, which only takes 1 slot, it is much less likely to get crit than an AC20 which takes 10 slots. Pre-installed equipment can't be destroyed by criticals (i.e. gyro, actuators, etc.)

To add, an empty slot is considered a re-roll, or if it's empty it will simply deal the 15% crit damage to the IS again.

Not sure if it's been mentioned in this thread, but 15% of crit damage will go back into the internal structure. So, 1 crit with an AC20 will deal 23 damage if it was unarmoured to begin with, or 29 damage for 3 crits.


As a result, dual gauss technically has a 17% chance to one shot a max armoured cockpit, since it requires 2 crits to deal 34.5 damage.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Shiroi Tsuki, on 01 January 2015 - 01:40 AM, said:

How does one "crit" a component? Been playing for a couple years now, and I still don't understand. Also, difference between crit slots and regular slots?

In general, I've tried to keep this guide in mind and it seems to still fit extremely well to current mechanics still. If not other players can provide better info on the matter.

---

So allow me to try to provide an answer to your situation: So say for example, a Centurion has equipped one ton of SRM ammo in the Right Torso.

During the sequence of a match that section has been previously stripped of armor and gets hit by an AC/10 or PPC where the damage rolls on the ammo critical, a 15% chance.

At that point whatever ammo left in that slot there explodes and deals damage to the section (so if empty, nothing happens).

Being on a Centurion, the section can at most absorb 24 damage total to Internal Structure before being destroyed. So to disable that section requires at least 16 SRMs left or ~10 ASRMs in that section with an Ammo Crit. Numbers base on Smurfy's info here (Expl dam): http://mwo.smurfy-ne...ment#ammo_types

[Mcgral18]

Here's a nice chart from Karl's master thread:

[Pjwned]

Explosions from ammo are so rare that they're pretty much always a non-issue because multiple things need to happen:

1) The mech needs to take critical damage to the component.
2) The critical damage needs to apply to the ammo container, which is often enough not the case if you have for example an AC10 or multiple jumpjets or whatever else in that same component as well, i.e "crit padding."
3) The ammo container needs to be destroyed, and unless the component was breached by a weapon that does 10+ damage that may not happen even if the ammo container does take damage; I'm not even sure if something like a large pulse laser would do this.
4) There needs to be some ammo remaining in that container for it to explode and do any damage, and you can manipulate this because ammo containers are used in a certain order depending on what component they're placed in.
5) Finally, when all of that happens, it's only a 10% chance for ammo to explode.

This results in death by actual ammo explosions being pretty rare, and as others have pointed out it's even less of a concern for clan mechs due to their innate uber CASE on every component, so even if you are quite unlucky and some ammo explodes it will be contained to that component, which just means you might lose your side torso slightly faster.

Edited by Pjwned, 01 January 2015 - 08:38 AM.