9 replies to this topic

[Soldier91]

How does damage spread to components?
Like if I shot someone for 5 damage if some of it went to the component would it reduce the damage the armor takes from that hit?
Sometimes shooting stuff damage just disappears but I was thinking if it splashed to the components it would explain why it doesn't show up on the after action report.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Not sure EXACTLY what you're asking. Here's a kinda-sorta basic rundown of how damage propagates...

First, your weapon's damage is done to the armor on the component that it hits (arm, leg, head, torso segment--these are what we call 'components'). When the armor is gone from that component, the damage is done to the internal structure of that component. When weapon damage hits a component that has no armor, it has a chance to do critical damage to the equipment in that component. Weapons, actuators, heat sinks, etc. Anything that takes a critical slot in the mechlab, can be hit for critical damage. In the case of ammo, it has a 10% chance to explode, in which case it does as much damage as that of all the remaining rounds (if any) in that location. Gauss ammo doesn't explode, but Gauss RIFLES may. In the case of anything other than non-gauss ammo and gauss weapons, the equipment has a health number. When the damage to that piece of equipment reduces its health to zero, that item is considered destroyed and can no longer be used.

Once a component (again, arm or leg or torso segment or head) is destroyed, damage transfers inward. From arms and legs to the respective side torsos, and from side torsos and head (kind of a moot point, as destroying the head destroys the mech) to the center torso. In the case of an ARM, the component falls off of the mech, and can no longer be hit as part of the mech. Legs can be destroyed, too, but they still appear to be connected to the mech. When a component is destroyed, any equipment remaining in that component is considered destroyed even if it was not otherwise critically damaged. It is, at any rate, no longer available for use to the pilot of the damaged mech.

A couple of weapon-specific points. Clan PPCs do splash damage in addition to their regular damage. Hit an enemy mech in the CT with a cPPC, and it will also do some damage to each side torso.

Lasers do their damage spread over the duration of the beam. If a Rabbi's laser does 10 damage, and has a beam duration of 1.00 seconds, then it does essentially 1 point of damage every 0.10 second while firing. If the beam isn't held on target for the duration, then not all of its damage may be realized on that target.

Missiles don't like to all hit in one spot. Equipping Artemis IV FCS can make SRM and LRM spreads tighter, more like a LB-X autocannon, but there is still a shot pattern to it. Each missile has its own damage, and may hit or miss depending on a few factors. In the case of STREAK SRMs, they WILL all hit, assuming no AMS or obstacles. They hit in various locations, though, to spread damage. (Used to be that SSRMs all homed on CT, and they were BRUTAL that way, so THAT got nerfed quick, fast, and in a hurry.)

LB-X autocannons, rather than fire a single projectile that does full damage, fire like a shotgun, with individual pellets that do 1 point each and add up to the weapon's number rating for damage. A LB-10X AC fires 10 individual projectiles, each doing 1 damage, for a total of 10. Also, IIRC, those have a slightly higher chance to inflict critical damage to equipment once armor is stripped. Clan LB-X ACs come in every flavor (2, 5, 10, and 20).

Ultra Autocannons (UACs, NOT Union Aerospace Corporation) fire differently depending on the technology base. IS UAC/5s fire a single AC/5 round, and can be refired during the weapon's cooldown. In that event, there's a chance the weapon will jam and be unavailable for several seconds. Clan UACs fire multiple projectiles in rapid succession, the damage of which add up to the weapon's number rating (2, 5, 10, or 20). Like IS ones, they can be refired during cooldown, at the risk of jamming.

I mention these, because in each case there is a possible explanation for why the damage you've done doesn't add up to the sum total of the damage numbers of the weapons you fired and hit your targets. If it was LRMs or SRMs, some of the missiles may not have hit their mark. If it was lasers, you may not have had your beams on target for the duration. If it was an LB-X AC, like with missiles, you may not have gotten EVERY projectile on target. Same for Clan UACs.

ALSO, remember that ballistic and energy weapons do reduced damage beyond their effective range. Say a Rabbi's Laser, like in the above example, has an effective range of 270 meters. Firing at a target 270m or closer will give the potential of full 10 points of damage. Firing at a target beyond 540 meters will have ZERO effect, other than to give away your position. At 405 meters, you can expect to do a maximum of 5 damage if you have the beam on target for the duration. If that beam is only on target for 0.6 seconds of the 1.00 second beam duration, at that range (1.5x effective range), it'll do a total of 3 damage (10 * 0.6 * 0.5 = 3).

Keep all this in mind, mechwarrior. While it may sometimes be useful to engage an enemy beyond the effective range of your weapon, it WILL result in lower-than-max damage.

Have a look at your profile. From that page, go to Stats, and then to Weapon Stats. Look at each weapon. Compare how many hits to how much damage done. For lasers, if the damage divided by hits equals less than the weapon's listed damage, then you either haven't been keeping it on target, or you have been engaging beyond effective range. For simple ACs, it's solely a range thing--damage/hits < weapon_damage means that you're engaging beyond effective range. For SRMs, it means you're not getting all of them on target. Try using Artemis IV FCS, or firing at closer range to reduce the spread. For LB-X ACs, same thing--closer-range will improve damage per hit. And with LRMs, also be sure to engage targets that your allies have firmly locked up for you, preferably with NARC or TAG (rare as those are in game these days), and be aware of the potential cover the enemy has with respect to the flight path of your missiles.

Catch any of us on TeamSpeak, and we'll gladly walk you through figuring out how to increase your weapons' effectiveness on target. After all, you can line up the greatest shot in MWO history, but if you're not doing as much damage as the weapon can produce, you're just not as effective for your team. Sometimes, a single shot CAN make the difference between a win and a loss. In fact, it happens daily around here.

Good luck! And welcome to the MWO forums!

[IraqiWalker]

Yeah, Rabbi summed it up.

Also, keep in mind that the netcode isn't perfect, sometimes hit registration swallows up a shot or two, and they disappear into the ether.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

^^^ Amen.

Though it's been VASTLY improved since open beta, three years ago when I started playing, it's still not perfect. More likely to be a problem, the higher your ping to the game server. If in Europe, I recommend selecting the Euro server and deselecting the others. Australia, or south or east Asia, Oceanic only. North America, NA only. At least until you're comfortable with hitting your targets solidly.

Or just look around older reddits, and search for the words "lag shield". The struggle was REAL.

[Soldier91]

Thanks for the write up, Rabbi.

TheRAbbi, on 29 August 2015 - 07:55 PM, said:

Not sure EXACTLY what you're asking. Here's a kinda-sorta basic rundown of how damage propagates...

Partly like say you have a Right Arm with 36 Armor and like 3 medium lasers. If you shoot the arm with 4 medium lasers in optimal range and say you hit it for full duration is that going to take 20 armor off or like 5 armor and spread to the lasers that have 10hp of their own so it'd be like 20 dmg 9 armor, 3 to medium lasers 1, 3 to medium laser 2, 5 to medium lasers 3, or does that only happen when the armor is fully off? Sort of like when ammo explodes. Sometimes that stuff goes off before armor does.

[Rogue Jedi]

TheRAbbi, on 29 August 2015 - 07:55 PM, said:

Once a component (again, arm or leg or torso segment or head) is destroyed, damage transfers inward. From arms and legs to the respective side torsos, and from side torsos and head

one thing Rabbi did not mention in excelent his write up is that if your damage passes through a destroyed component the damage is reduced, by I think something like 60% so if you hit the torso through the stump of the arm you loose more than half the damage, now if the torso is also destroyed that means that less than a quarter of the damage is transferred to the center torso, that contributes greatly to the durability of some Mechs, and often makes it worthwhile to shield with a missing side

Soldier91, on 29 August 2015 - 10:55 PM, said:

Thanks for the write up, Rabbi.


Partly like say you have a Right Arm with 36 Armor and like 3 medium lasers. If you shoot the arm with 4 medium lasers in optimal range and say you hit it for full duration is that going to take 20 armor off or like 5 armor and spread to the lasers that have 10hp of their own so it'd be like 20 dmg 9 armor, 3 to medium lasers 1, 3 to medium laser 2, 5 to medium lasers 3, or does that only happen when the armor is fully off? Sort of like when ammo explodes. Sometimes that stuff goes off before armor does.

Armor protects your internal structure, and any equipment stored within the component
when you hit a component which has no armor you can do damage to any equipment within the component and the odds of hitting a specific piece of equipment are the number of slots the item uses divided by the number of used slots in that component (I am not sure if armor and structure shots are counted). for a laser beam each tick of the beam is calculated individually,for missiles or Clan AC/UAC and all LBX ACs each projectile is calculated separately however for a Front :Loaded Damage weapon (PPC, Gauss, IS Autocannon) the whole hit is calculated as one, so any FLD weapon doing 10 or more damage has a very high chance of removing some equipment when hitting an "open" component.

I believe most items have 10 health, but some have less (e.g. the Gauss Rifle has much less)

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 30 August 2015 - 01:11 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Soldier91, on 29 August 2015 - 10:55 PM, said:

Thanks for the write up, Rabbi.


Partly like say you have a Right Arm with 36 Armor and like 3 medium lasers. If you shoot the arm with 4 medium lasers in optimal range and say you hit it for full duration is that going to take 20 armor off or like 5 armor and spread to the lasers that have 10hp of their own so it'd be like 20 dmg 9 armor, 3 to medium lasers 1, 3 to medium laser 2, 5 to medium lasers 3, or does that only happen when the armor is fully off? Sort of like when ammo explodes. Sometimes that stuff goes off before armor does.

Basically here's how it works. Armor doesn't mitigate damage. It flat out blocks it. So when those 4 MLs hit a section that has 36 armor, they will deal 20 damage total to that section. However, since the section has more than 20 armor, only the armor will be damaged. The internals will remain perfectly safe. You'll end up with that arm having 16 health left.

Now, if it had 16 heatlh, and you hit it with all 4 MLs, 16 damage will apply to the armor, and the rest will now start hitting the internals of that arm. Lets' say you have weapons and heatsinks in there. The remaining 4 damage is applied in many ticks over the course of the beam burn, and each tick has a chance at scoring a critical hit, where it will damage the items within the arm directly. At that point, those weapons, and heatsinks run the risk of being destroyed. Though if you lose the arm, they are destroyed anyways.

[Soldier91]

That all makes sense now.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

A couple things that could use some clarification:

Since each equipment item has 'health', I wonder, does critical damage ONLY apply to that component (if it hits critical), or does it apply to structure AND that component. If so, does each get the FULL damage of the hit, or what? For instance, say my RAbbi's Widget in my RA gets critical-hit. It's hit in the RA by an enemy Gauss, and the RA has exactly 16 (so a single Gauss won't blow it off, rendering the point moot) structure left. Does the Gauss round A.) do 15 each to the arm AND the Widget, or B.) do 7.5 to each, or some other split of the 15 damage of a Gauss round in effective range, or C.) only damage one or the other, not counting overkill damage?

AMMO! Other than Gauss ammo, ammo CAN explode if critically hit. Here's the question. Will it only have that chance (10%?) to explode if critically hit and DESTROYED, or for any critical hit? IIRC, each ammo location has 'health' same as any other internal equipment, so it COULD be hit by, say, a IS SL, for well less than its 'health' with no crit multiplier in effect. Will THAT hit still have a chance to cause an ammo explosion, or ONLY a crit that destroys the component? (Obviously, an ammo explosion destroys the ammo location itself, and all remaining rounds within it.)

NARC! I'm sure there's a value for NARC missiles in an ammo location, that were the location to be critted and the ammo explosion chance realized, it would do ammo explosion damage. What IS that damage per remaining round?


Advice to new players: At least against Inner Sphere mechs, if you see a location is open that likely houses an exploding component (Gauss rifles are obvious, ammo is more intuitive), you should try to hit it. The damage you do won't likely be enough to kill the mech, but causing that ammo/Gauss explosion chain reaction will likely screw its day up.

ALSO, if you see a fast-moving IS mech, you can bet it's carrying an XL engine. Destroying THREE critical slots of an XL engine, destroys the engine itself. Thus, with only 2 crit slots per side torso, a Clan mech can survive losing a side torso with an XL, but with THREE crit slots per side torso, losing a single side torso WILL destroy an XL-equipped IS mech. YOU see that 90+ KPH Griffin has an open LT, you focus that LT if at all possible. It WILL go down when that side torso blows.

Damage from critical hits! Especially ammo explosions, and multiplied damage from certain weapons (LB-X autocannons come to mind). You may actually do MORE than your weapon's listed damage in a single hit, if it's a certain type of weapon and hits an unarmored location. Open torsos and legs are DEFINITELY worth focusing your attention on. Legs, being more armored than arms and a little harder to hit than torsos (generally), are a popular ammo storage space on IS mechs (Clanners don't have to worry, as Omnimechs are automatically CASE-equipped at every relevant location, so they often pack the ammo in with the weapon that uses it). That chain-reaction ammo explosion damage? Used to be, and might still be, that YOU, the mechwarrior whose shot caused that explosion, got credit for all that damage as well! Tell it to the mechwarrior carrying a full ton of AC.20 ammo, that you just blew up--20 * 7 = 140 damage, ALL in addition to the damage of your MG that caused it!. Match score accounts for damage done, by the way. #JustSayin' #YOLO #CriticalHitsForTheWin #CanYouTellIWorkAtAUniversity

Every component you destroy carries a little extra C-Bill payout, win or lose, live or die, kill or not. If it's exposed and reddish, especially if there's nothing else really vulnerable, go ahead and peel off the exposed component. Might be a Centurion's worthless (left) shield arm, but that's a little extra money for your trouble. Not sure, but I THINK it might also count in XP and match score. Ought to research that.

Okay, let's put it in IRL terms. There goes RAbbi, in Afghanistan (#BTDT #GotTheTshirts), trundling around outside the wire (not knowing it to BE so, but that's another story) on a john Deere 4x6 Gator, wearing IBA w/SAPI plates, nut plate, throat/choker, etc., and ACH (Army Combat Helmet, not a 30-ton futuristic robot death machine, cool as THAT would have been), over the ACU (2007, was lucky not to still be in DCUs). Say Taliban Joe picks that day to rock the AK on me. If he hits center-mass (unlikely), that round has to hit the SAPI plate in my IBA first. Assuming the SAPI does its job, it stops the round. Yeah, I feel it, and I immediately develop 'acute respiratory distress' for a bit, and maybe even a couple bruised ribs. But I'm fine. My ex-wife weighed 126 pounds, half what I did, and did worse to me than that. Now, if that round hit me in the LEG, where my IBA DIDN'T cover, that's gonna hit stuff. Probably a muscle or two (actuators), maybe bone (internal structure), maybe even open a blood vessel (heat sink?). If I'm carrying a spare magazine full of 5.56mm NATO green-tips in my right cargo pocket, and that bullet happens to hit THAT, there's a very SLIGHT chance that it could set off one of those rounds in there, which might also cook off OTHER rounds, causing up to THIRTY rounds of 5.56mm to explode on the side of my thigh, surely wreacking havoc, and all but certainly leaving me with quite a strange gait for the rest of my life. Say that SAPI plate takes a couple rounds, especially 12.7 or 14.2 millimeter ones from a heavy machinegun. OR a particularly nasty 7.62mm one from a SVD sniper (really, oversized (aren't ALL Russian weapons?) precision) rifle. That might crush that SAPI plate, and allow some or all of the projectile to continue on and damage the soft flesh beneath. Might pass through relatively harmlessly (save a hole in the chest and some not-isignificant bleeding), might puncture a lung (treat for pneumothorax), might hit that aorta (wife wins the SGLI sweepstakes), or might just shred some heart muscle (nice knowing you, world).

Keep those (admittedly graphic) images in mind, when picturing the difference and progression between armor and internal damage in components.

Edited by TheRAbbi, 30 August 2015 - 10:01 PM.

[IraqiWalker]

Here's how critical damage applies:

ML deals 4 damage to the section (for example, an arm with no armor, and 8 internal health left), lets say all 4 damage crit for double, on a heatsink, aside from the 4 done to the arm it's in. 8 damage will be dealt to the heatsink itself (the arm doesn't get hit by that 8 though). HOWEVER, crit damage will also deal 15% of it's value to the section (so basically the arm receives 4.6 damage from that ML, and the heatsink receives 8 damage to it's own HP)

That is how critical damage works in this game.