21 replies to this topic

[John Stryker]

I've been playing mw o for only a week or so. Is there a way to dump ammo that belongs to a broken weapon? I checked the keyboard command lists and didnt see anything like that. So i'm guessing the answer is no.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Yes, you cannot do that.

[HimseIf]

Not in this edition of the game but in the old games you could, as you may have known.

[TheCaptainJZ]

No so place it somewhere relatively safe, buffer it with other equipment, and /or use it all up.

[MechWarrior3671771]

How does that work with ammo explosions anyway? Two scenarios:

I'm carry 4 tons of ammo, (400 rounds). I use up 300 rounds before someone crits one of my 4 ammo blocks. Does the game decide 3 of them are empty and 1 has the remaining 100 rounds? Or 25 rounds left in each of the 4?

And how does amount of ammo determine chance for ammo explosions? Is a pod with two 1/2 ton ammo blocks more likely or less likely to explode a pod with a single 1 ton block?

Edited by Fenrisulvyn, 26 May 2015 - 05:03 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Ammo bins are consumed in a special order on a mech from full to empty one at a time. When a section is unarmored, any additional damage has a chance to crit one of the slots In that component. If the ammo is gone nothing happens. Otherwise there is a 10% chance of it exploding once the bin's 10 health is gone. Then whatever ammo is left is multiplied by a certain amount (which is not exactly the same as the damage that weapon does) and applied to the internal structure. It bleeds any additional damage inward to the internal structure of the next component. If your ammo explodes, you are almost certainly dead. By adding more items into a component with ammo, you increase the number of slots for crit rolls thereby decreasing the chance that any one item is destroyed. Actuators and engines are also counted in the slots but not ferro fibrous or endosteel slots.

If using a standard engine you can use case in the torso to protect your ct from explosion damage. Clan mechs come with case in every component so ammo explosions will only destroy one component.

[MechWarrior3671771]

Is there any order to ammo consumption? Arm slots first, then legs, then head, then torso?

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Fenrisulvyn, on 26 May 2015 - 06:16 PM, said:

Is there any order to ammo consumption? Arm slots first, then legs, then head, then torso?

Head - Center Torso - Left Torso - Right Torso - Left Leg - Right Leg - Left Arm - Right Arm

if I recall correctly. Possibly the other way around between left and right.

Also, keep in mind that if any ammo in a component explodes, all ammo in that component explodes.

I've always assumed that shots are consumed from ammo bins in top-down order on the CHS list, much like the order in which weapons are assigned to hardpoint locations.

Edited by Quickdraw Crobat, 26 May 2015 - 06:28 PM.

[JC Daxion]

I thought the arms went before the legs.. but i could be wrong.

BTW, i really think there should be an ammo dump ability.

Edited by JC Daxion, 26 May 2015 - 07:59 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Omid Kiarostami, on 18 June 2014 - 05:46 PM, said:

Hey Li Song,

I can confirm that internals (actuators, gyros, sensors, etc) are supposed to be accounted for in the critical hit distributions. They are great crit-buffers!

Prior to clans, the default health value of internals was a constant in the code base. When we moved internals to the xml game data, we didn't need that anymore and started specifying hit points on them like every other item. This doesn't represent a change in functionality, though - everything should still be the same as it was before.

In lieu of a formal post going over crits, here's an image of a CN9-YLW with the debug crit table showing: http://imgur.com/G6EmMky

The percentage next to each item in the image above is the likelihood the game uses when determining what item is hit by a crit. Internals factor into the crit distribution (at least until they are destroyed), so having internals in a component definitely improves the survivability of items you slot there.

Hope that clarifies!

Omid Kiarostami, on 25 November 2014 - 10:49 AM, said:

They are counted in the crit roll. An empty ammo slot will act as a crit buffer until it is destroyed.

Omid Kiarostami, on 20 June 2014 - 09:19 AM, said:

Good question, they don't work the way you'd expect. As far as the Crit Table is concerned, the additional heatsinks are treated like extra items equipped to that component. That means it's possible for them to get crit and destroyed independently of the engine they are slotted in, and that each extra engine-slotted heatsink impacts the overall crit distribution of items in that component.

Omid Kiarostami, on 19 June 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

That's correct. CASE and structure/armor slots aren't critable.

Omid Kiarostami, on 07 July 2014 - 05:26 PM, said:

Hey Siri,

Whether we get selectable ammo draw is up to design and their priorities for getting stuff into the game. I can't really answer for them. Ammo draw ordering is fixed for all mechs and independent of faction. It's presently: Center Torso -> Right Torso -> Left Torso -> Right Arm -> Left Arm-> Left Leg -> Right Leg -> Head. No exceptions are intended, so if the the draw ordering is any different from that it's a bug.

Cheers,
Omid

[TheCaptainJZ]

^^^ There. That's the official word.

[MechWarrior3671771]

Good info. Much thanks!

"That means it's possible for them to get crit and destroyed independently of the engine they are slotted in, and that each extra engine-slotted heatsink impacts the overall crit distribution of items in that component"

Hang on. I've been spreading heat sinks around the torsos to crit pad, but this is saying that engine-slotted heatsinks will crit pad the CT the same way? Am I reading that right?

[Tiamat of the Sea]

Apparently. Which is senseless and doesn't seem to have an actual reason to happen either, but it does happen. I've lost CT DHS a number of times in IS 'mechs.

[Elizander]

I rarely lose arms these days so after legs/head that's where I dump the rest of my ammo.

[HimseIf]

Ammo used to keep burning toward the other ammo bins.
i know it happened to me a few times, something would be destroyed and it was still burning and i'd lose the engine about 5-10 seconds later.

[Tiamat of the Sea]

HimseIf, on 26 May 2015 - 10:25 PM, said:

Ammo used to keep burning toward the other ammo bins.
i know it happened to me a few times, something would be destroyed and it was still burning and i'd lose the engine about 5-10 seconds later.

Not exactly. See, when an ammo explosion destroys a component without CASE, the damage transfers inwards. In most cases, this is enough damage to destroy the whole 'mech many times over, because ammo explodes for a damage total equal to being hit with every single round left for full damage. So that bin of 7 AC/20 shots that you haven't fired that exploded? That's 140 damage. A tonne of SRMs is 200 damage.

However, it takes the game a moment to track ammo explosions at times. So it's not that it continued to burn, it's that it took time to finish registering properly. This mostly happens with ammo explosions, but I've seen the delay strike once or twice when someone was just hit really hard in a pre-destroyed component.

[Satan n stuff]

Quickdraw Crobat, on 26 May 2015 - 06:28 PM, said:

Head - Center Torso - Left Torso - Right Torso - Left Leg - Right Leg - Left Arm - Right Arm

if I recall correctly. Possibly the other way around between left and right.

Also, keep in mind that if any ammo in a component explodes, all ammo in that component explodes.

I've always assumed that shots are consumed from ammo bins in top-down order on the CHS list, much like the order in which weapons are assigned to hardpoint locations.

The paperdoll on one of the in-cockpit screens will cycle through the different locations in the order the ammo is consumed. That screen also shows the total amount of ammo left in each bin, not all mech cockpits have that screen though.

Fenrisulvyn, on 26 May 2015 - 10:02 PM, said:

Good info. Much thanks!

"That means it's possible for them to get crit and destroyed independently of the engine they are slotted in, and that each extra engine-slotted heatsink impacts the overall crit distribution of items in that component"

Hang on. I've been spreading heat sinks around the torsos to crit pad, but this is saying that engine-slotted heatsinks will crit pad the CT the same way? Am I reading that right?

The engine itself will crit pad the CT, and so will the gyro and any other fixed equipment anywhere else. I've tested this quite extensively. The engine heat sinks replace engine slots for the purpose of critical hits.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 28 May 2015 - 06:33 AM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Satan n stuff, on 28 May 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

The paperdoll on one of the in-cockpit screens will cycle through the different locations in the order the ammo is consumed. That screen also shows the total amount of ammo left in each bin, not all mech cockpits have that screen though.


The engine itself will crit pad the CT, and so will the gyro and any other fixed equipment anywhere else. I've tested this quite extensively. The engine heat sinks replace engine slots for the purpose of critical hits.

Not according to the dev posts I've quoted above.

[Satan n stuff]

TheCaptainJZ, on 28 May 2015 - 07:43 PM, said:

Not according to the dev posts I've quoted above.

I'm not seeing the part that disagrees with my post?

[TheCaptainJZ]

Satan n stuff, on 28 May 2015 - 06:29 AM, said:

The engine heat sinks replace engine slots for the purpose of critical hits.

They don't replace, they add to the number of slots. Or that's how I interpret it. So instead of 12 (?) crit slots in the CT, if you add a double heat sink, there are now 15 which decreases the chance that any one slot receives a critical hit.