14 replies to this topic

[Gaussfather]

So... after playing this game for way to long I realize I don't really know if my 1 armor point = 1 point of weapon damage absorbed.

I just know more armor is better so I try to max it if at all possible. But it seemed like that DW ripped my 100 points of armor off in 2 seconds and killed me. So what gives? How does armor versus weapons damage really work in this game?

And once the armor is gone, there is a chance for critical hits, right? But how does "structure" count once the armor is gone? I don't see structure numbers for mech sections in the mechlab... only additional structure bonuses with the quirks.

Thanks for enlightening me!

Edited by Jman88, 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM.

[DONTOR]

Yes indeed they are.

Also did it happen to have quad UAC10s? Those will literally kill another assault mech in a few seconds.

Edited by DONTOR, 14 July 2015 - 02:50 PM.

[Koniving]

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

So... after playing this game for way to long I realize I don't really know if my 1 armor point = 1 point of weapon damage absorbed.

Thanks for enlightening me!

Short of quirks, yes.

Some quirks give additional armor points. "Additional armor."
Some quirks give additional armor strength. "Armor strength."

Additional armor. X (say 50) armor + quirk of +6 additional armor = 56 armor.
Additional armor strength: X armor (say 50) + 15% additional armor strength = 57.5 armor (assuming you have all 50 points of armor in use).

Additional Armor Strength applies to both front/back armor in use if it is applied to that body part.
Just Additional Armor (points) applies to only the front unless otherwise specified.

Then there's structure point quirks too (only additional points, no 'strength' ones).

[Koniving]

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

I just know more armor is better so I try to max it if at all possible. But it seemed like that DW ripped my 100 points of armor off in 2 seconds and killed me. So what gives? How does armor versus weapons damage really work in this game?

And once the armor is gone, there is a chance for critical hits, right? But how does "structure" count once the armor is gone? I don't see structure numbers for mech sections in the mechlab... only additional structure bonuses with the quirks.

Thanks for enlightening me!

Clan ACs depend on the type, but typically 1 shot doesn't necessarily mean full damage. Start spreading and don't let them focus in. Dire Wolves usually carry 6 autocannons. UAC/2s that's about 4 damage every half second per gun (24 damage per half second, 48 damage every second [until jamming starts].) Approx mind you, too lazy for the exact math but very close. That's just 6 UAC/2s.

Basically "Don't get in front of it."

Far as structure... Look here. See the "HP"? That's basic structure values -- does NOT include Quirks. Generic for each mech of each weight class. Crit chances start with any damage taken without armor on the section hit (to include the shot that removes the armor if it does more damage than armor left over).

If this helps:
The smaller "booms" are 2 damage per shot. The larger ones I use do 5 damage per bullet. Watch things get rekted.

That's IS AC/s.

Here's Clan. Note: Shot counts and damage have been reduced. 2's from 2 shots to 1 shot. 5's from 3 shots to 2 shots. 10's from 4 shots to 3 shots. 20's from 5 shots to 4 shots. As such all Clan ACs will seem a little deadlier than they used to even if they still pale compared to the overpowered IS ACs.

The macro I use is to Slooooooooooooow down my shots. Without it I'd be shooting a lot faster (and overheating faster).

(Sorry for so many edits -- each time I went to add the video it'd remove the other.... then again... and so this time I readded both vids so lets hope it takes.)

Edited by Koniving, 14 July 2015 - 03:08 PM.

[stjobe]

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

So... after playing this game for way to long I realize I don't really know if my 1 armor point = 1 point of weapon damage absorbed.

Yes. 1 point of damage strips 1 point or armour (or 1 point of internal structure if armour is gone).

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

And once the armor is gone, there is a chance for critical hits, right?

Yes. For normal weapons, there's a 42% chance to crit anytime you damage a section without armour. For more detail, see this excellent post: Crits and you - a brief guide.

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

But how does "structure" count once the armor is gone?

Same as for armour; 1 point of damage strips 1 point of internal structure. If you reduce a section to 0 internal structure, it is destroyed along with all the components in it.

The components, such as weapons, heat sinks, actuators, ammo and the like, all have health points as well (usually 10, but it varies - see the link above for details), and are destroyed when they reach 0 health. They also lose health at a ratio of 1:1 with damage done (although, to be fair, it is a bit more complicated than that, but it's all explained in the guide I linked to).

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

I don't see structure numbers for mech sections in the mechlab... only additional structure bonuses with the quirks.

Yes, the mechlab is bad that way. But since the max armour value for any section is 2x internal structure, you can figure it out by just halving the maximum armour you can mount (count both front and back for torso sections).

Jman88, on 14 July 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

Thanks for enlightening me!

You're welcome

Edited by stjobe, 16 July 2015 - 01:32 PM.

[YueFei]

You can use a destroyed body part to soak hits and reduce damage.

For example, if your left shoulder is gone, you can still turn to let the shoulder take hits instead of your center torso. Hits that land on your left shoulder will transfer to your center torso (the damage doesn't just "disappear" simply becausethe left shoulder is already destroyed), but this damage transfers at 40% only.

So, your left shoulder is gone, someone lines up a shot on your CT, you twist hard to the right and his Inner Sphere PPC hits your left shoulder. PPC does 10 damage, hits your shoulder, the shoulder is already gone, it transfers inward to your CT after being reduced to 40% of its original damage, and thus deals 4 damage to your CT. If your CT has armor, it will subtract 4 armor from your CT (it does not transfer directly to your internals).

Damage transfer goes inward. If your left leg is destroyed, someone who continues to shoot at it will end up damaging your left torso, again after a damage reduction to 40%.

[stjobe]

YueFei, on 18 July 2015 - 11:43 AM, said:

You can use a destroyed body part to soak hits and reduce damage.

For example, if your left shoulder is gone, you can still turn to let the shoulder take hits instead of your center torso. Hits that land on your left shoulder will transfer to your center torso (the damage doesn't just "disappear" simply becausethe left shoulder is already destroyed), but this damage transfers at 40% only.

Unless they changed something recently, it's 50% damage transfer.

And that's per destroyed part, so hitting the destroyed remnant of an arm that's on a destroyed side torso only deals 25% of the original damage to the CT.

[InspectorG]

Similar tangent:

How do LRMs register damage. I assume its not 5 point chunks like BT.

And how does the 'spread' quirk work???

[stjobe]

InspectorG, on 24 July 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

Similar tangent:

How do LRMs register damage. I assume its not 5 point chunks like BT.

And how does the 'spread' quirk work???

LRMs do individual damage (1 damage per missile), and they travel in a "cloud", the size of which is supposedly determined by the "spread". I.e. the distance between missiles in a salvo is the spread value:

.x-x
x-x-x
.x-x

'x' is a missile, '-' is the spread between them.

Any missile that survives to reach the target AND hits it does its full damage to the location it hits (there used to be splash damage but that has been removed since it was buggy and they couldn't get it to work properly).

Edited by stjobe, 24 July 2015 - 12:04 PM.

[InspectorG]

stjobe, on 24 July 2015 - 12:03 PM, said:

LRMs do individual damage (1 damage per missile), and they travel in a "cloud", the size of which is supposedly determined by the "spread". I.e. the distance between missiles in a salvo is the spread value:

.x-x
x-x-x
.x-x

'x' is a missile, '-' is the spread between them.

Any missile that survives to reach the target AND hits it does its full damage to the location it hits (there used to be splash damage but that has been removed since it was buggy and they couldn't get it to work properly).

Interesting. I thought they would have a way to make it 'simpler' and easier to process??? No wonder my potato struggles so.

[stjobe]

InspectorG, on 24 July 2015 - 01:09 PM, said:

Interesting. I thought they would have a way to make it 'simpler' and easier to process??? No wonder my potato struggles so.

The missile code is a piping hot mess; always was. It took them over a year from the (player-discovered) splash bug to actually managing to remove splash damage completely from all missile systems.

LRM uses the same lock-on mechanic as Streaks, which means Artemis lowers lock-on time for Streaks as well, even though it shouldn't.

LRM flight pathing and clustering has been broken and "fixed" more times than I can even remember.

Streaks used to have limited turn ability; when it was removed it wasn't uncommon to see Streaks circling a target like a Catherine Wheel before finally impacting. It also removed any chance of dodging Streaks aside from intervening terrain...

And, as we all know, LRMs are still, three years later, a feast-or-famine weapon, with more counters than you can shake a dead Clanner at.

I don't think we'll ever see missiles as a peer of lasers and ballistics (as they should be) until they rip out the missile code and re-write it from scratch, sadly.

[InspectorG]

stjobe, on 24 July 2015 - 01:28 PM, said:

I don't think we'll ever see missiles as a peer of lasers and ballistics (as they should be) until they rip out the missile code and re-write it from scratch, sadly.

I wonder why they dont treat missiles like ballistics, travels on an arc but instead of one shell, make is a template(can be randomized) that is the diameter of the missile spread and applies damage to the components it 'overlaps'??? Clan missiles can be like Clan AC, a series of templates X space apart from each other in sequence.

I know almost nothing about coding but something like that seems more efficient, at the expense of realism of course.

Dunno if that makes sense but tracking each missile seems...wasteful.

[Luscious Dan]

Guided missiles wouldn't use a cone of fire, they need to be able to arc over terrain and correct their path as the target moves.

What you're describing is sorta how unguided SRMs work, basically a shotgun blast similar to LB-X slugs.

[stjobe]

InspectorG, on 24 July 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:

Dunno if that makes sense but tracking each missile seems...wasteful.

They would have to track the cross-section of the "template" anyway to see if it collided with anything; and if it did, they had to then calculate if there was any missile at that point on the template and if so remove it and possibly assign damage to a target. It probably wouldn't be all that much of a performance improvement over just tracking each missile individually from the get-go. The game engine is a shooter engine, after all, and is hopefully somewhat optimized for tracking fast-moving objects like projectiles.

I actually don't think it's a performance issue at all, it's more likely to be a ... how should I put this ... skill-set issue within the small dev team combined with a rather heavy focus from management on the economic aspects during task prioritization.

Put bluntly, had they had the time, money, and competence to fix it, they would have done so years ago. Instead, they've kept the missile code largely as-is and just patched around the leaking bits. That does not suggest to me that they think it's a major issue - or if they do, they just don't know how to fix it. Either way, we're stuck with the crap missile code we have, and everyone uses ballistics or energy instead.

[InspectorG]

stjobe, on 24 July 2015 - 02:22 PM, said:

Put bluntly, had they had the time, money, and competence to fix it, they would have done so years ago. Instead, they've kept the missile code largely as-is and just patched around the leaking bits. That does not suggest to me that they think it's a major issue - or if they do, they just don't know how to fix it. Either way, we're stuck with the crap missile code we have, and everyone uses ballistics or energy instead.

Pretty much how i view PGI. Likely too small/underskilled/resource limited to fix LRMs into something good.