158 replies to this topic

[Lightfoot]

Some players new to MechWarrior have asked about Friendly Fire and why will MWO use Friendly Fire=On as a default setting and maybe a fixed setting. It occurred to me that Splash Damage from nearby explosions is also usually set to On in MechWarrior games, so probably will be in MWO. And, of course when your 'mech is next to a 'mech that suffers a core breach resulting in a fusion explosion there could be alot of splash damage.

So a good question to ask is how much damage?

I should add that I am guessing that 'mechs will sometimes have a core breach on defeat in MWO as would happen in previous MechWarrior games.

Edited by Lightfoot, 11 June 2012 - 12:05 PM.

[Freyar]

I considered moderate to minor based on proximity with sensor disruption. As long as any destruction is attributed to the guy that caused the breach, I'll be happy with it.

[Bloodycrow]

I enjoy the way these are handled in MWLL and would like to see the same, if not similar. Assuming they are implemented at all.

[Frostiken]

Better yet, let's not have random Stackpoling at all.

[Blu C]

My only problem with this is that the canon is very mixed about what exactly happens when the core is breached. For instance the tech manuel seems to imply that it really shouldn't cause much damage at all, if any, because the reaction gets quashed by the flood of cold air before it can run out of control. By contrast it is quite common in the books to read about some 'Mech exploding with horrible results.

Personally I think if they do put it in they should make it VERY rare and the damage very dependant on proximity with some sort of warning that it is going up (so people can try to clear out) but have the damage caused be significant. When I say very rare I mean it should be something that usually happens only once every 3 or 4 matches (assuming company on company battles).

[Oswin Aurelius]

Frostiken, on 09 June 2012 - 04:39 PM, said:

Better yet, let's not have random Stackpoling at all.

Agreed. Fusion cores don't "go nuclear".

[Dragon Lady]

Contrary to popular belief, reactors in the table top game don't blow up. They simply stop running. It's the ammo in a Battlemech that's the explosive component.

Mechs blowing up after being taken out of the battle (derisively called Stackpoling after a prolific BT author who just loved blowing up 'Mechs) was added to later Mechwarrior videogames because explosions are "cool."

[Jade Dragoon]

Instead of core breach how about when ammo explodes?

[Oswin Aurelius]

Jade Dragoon, on 09 June 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

Instead of core breach how about when ammo explodes?

Ammo explosions happen inside a mech, thus it tends to only damage the mech carrying said exploding ammo.

[Lt muffins]

Oswin Aurelius, on 09 June 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

Ammo explosions happen inside a mech, thus it tends to only damage the mech carrying said exploding ammo.

if there is no armor to contain it, how does it stay inside

[Frostiken]

Lt muffins, on 09 June 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

if there is no armor to contain it, how does it stay inside

[Freyar]

It can happen.

Edited by Freyar, 09 June 2012 - 05:16 PM.

[Oswin Aurelius]

Frostiken, on 09 June 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

How is an ammo explosion supposed to damage nearby mechs if an LRM doesn't do damage unless it hits a mech dead-on?

Freyar, on 09 June 2012 - 05:15 PM, said:

It can happen.

Dear god, there have been dozens of threads about this already, fusion reactors don't explode!

[Insidious Johnson]

it can happen randomly or, if kuritan, intentionally. Was also nice way to go out all over a raven swarm in MW4 during a team battle.

[William Petersen]

Voted none because they shouldn't occur.

[Teralitha]

I like how mech destruction was handled in MW4. It made you think twice about hugging an enemy mech. If there is no explosion from a downed mech, it gives way to a form of griefing. Picture a lance of light mechs, ramming into you, and you cant kill them because they are too low profile under your assault mech, and shooting the crap outa you, plus making you stop in your tracks, which makes you an easy target for other enemy mechs.

I say no, this is not a fun mechanic. Mechs need to explode, and do damage and spike your heat to high levels, even to the point of shutting you down if your too close. MW4 had this for a very good reason, and it should stay.

Edited by Teralitha, 09 June 2012 - 05:21 PM.

[Lightfoot]

Dragon Lady, on 09 June 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

Contrary to popular belief, reactors in the table top game don't blow up. They simply stop running. It's the ammo in a Battlemech that's the explosive component.

Mechs blowing up after being taken out of the battle (derisively called Stackpoling after a prolific BT author who just loved blowing up 'Mechs) was added to later Mechwarrior videogames because explosions are "cool."

Yes, I understand the physics behind fusion vs fission. With fusion you need to create a magnetic bottle to create enough pressure to cause hydrogen to begin fusing into helium. Presumably if the containment were to be disrupted the fusion would just cease, but I think not. Picture a balloon under intense pressure and then that balloon suddenly splits. Now imagine it is filled with a mass of fusing hydrogen. I think it would be quite an explosion with some nuke-like qualities.

And of course the original promo trailer for MWO has one of the best core breach scenes.

To continue, I think it could go either way. You could have an engine failure that just makes the fusion reactor inoperable or you could have a containment breach where the magnetic bottle ruptures suddenly and violently like a small nuke.

Edited by Lightfoot, 09 June 2012 - 05:32 PM.

[Frostiken]

Oswin Aurelius, on 09 June 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

How is an ammo explosion supposed to damage nearby mechs if an LRM doesn't do damage unless it hits a mech dead-on?

Actually it'd be a lot more interesting if ammo explosions weren't the massive ridiculous internal nukes they are in tabletop, but caused your ammo to constantly cook off like a burning ammo can. Much of it would burn and explode internally, but a decent chunk would be shooting AC/20 rounds and missiles out randomly.

Maybe only if the ammo in the torso is under a certain level. If you have like a thousand LRMs in there, you just blow right the **** up. But a small, conservative amount, maybe a single ton of AC/5 ammo, you start popping like you're making popcorn

[OJ191]

CBF looking for more credible sources but here is a quote from wikipedia to settle those looking for fusion explosions.

The most you can get is incidentals/secondaries when a fusion reactor fails, the reactor itself WILL NOT EXPLODE.
Shrink the below concept down to a mech-sized reactor and all you are likely to get is maybe a little fuel and a little ammo cooking off at most. None of which is likely to do significant damage outside the mech it occurs in.

Wikipedia said:

There is no possibility of a catastrophic accident in a fusion reactor resulting in major release of radioactivity to the environment or injury to non-staff, unlike modern fission reactors. The primary reason is that nuclear fusion requires precisely controlled temperature, pressure, and magnetic field parameters to generate net energy. If the reactor were damaged, these parameters would be disrupted and the heat generation in the reactor would rapidly cease.

Fusion reactors are extremely safe in this sense, and it makes them favorable over fission reactors, which, in contrast, continue to generate heat through beta-decay for several hours or even days after reactor shut-down, meaning that melting of fuel rods is possible even after the reactor has been stopped due to continued accumulation of heat.

There is also no risk of a runaway reaction in a fusion reactor, since the plasma is normally burnt at optimal conditions, and any significant change will render it unable to produce excess heat. In fusion reactors the reaction process is so delicate that this level of safety is inherent; no elaborate failsafe mechanism is required. Although the plasma in a fusion power plant will have a volume of 1000 cubic meters or more, the density of the plasma is extremely low, and the total amount of fusion fuel in the vessel is very small, typically a few grams. If the fuel supply is closed, the reaction stops within seconds. In comparison, a fission reactor is typically loaded with enough fuel for one or several years, and no additional fuel is necessary to keep the reaction going.

In the magnetic approach, strong fields are developed in coils that are held in place mechanically by the reactor structure. Failure of this structure could release this tension and allow the magnet to "explode" outward. The severity of this event would be similar to any other industrial accident or an MRI machine quench/explosion, and could be effectively stopped with a containment building similar to those used in existing (fission) nuclear generators. The laser-driven inertial approach is generally lower-stress. Although failure of the reaction chamber is possible, simply stopping fuel delivery would prevent any sort of catastrophic failure.

Most reactor designs rely on the use of liquid lithium as both a coolant and a method for converting stray neutrons from the reaction into tritium, which is fed back into the reactor as fuel. Lithium is highly flammable, and in the case of a fire it is possible that the lithium stored on-site could be burned up and escape. In this case the tritium contents of the lithium would be released into the atmosphere, posing a radiation risk. However, calculations suggest that the total amount of tritium and other radioactive gases in a typical power plant would be so small, about 1 kg, that they would have diluted to legally acceptable limits by the time they blew as far as the plant's perimeter fence.^[37]

Edited by OJ191, 09 June 2012 - 05:36 PM.

[Fabe]

Lightfoot, on 09 June 2012 - 05:20 PM, said:

Yes, I understand the physics behind fusion vs fission. With fusion you need to create a magnetic bottle to create enough pressure to cause hydrogen to begin fusing into helium. Presumably if the containment were to be disrupted the fusion would just cease, but I think not. Picture a balloon under intense pressure and then that balloon suddenly splits. Now imagine it is filled with a mass of fusing hydrogen. I think it would be quite an explosion with some nuke-like qualities.

From the Battletech wiki entry on fusion engines http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine

Quote

Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion" that is only a risk for unarmored infantry close to the destroyed 'Mech.

Such dramatic failures are rare, though. It is difficult to sustain the fusion reaction and very easy to shutdown. Safety systems or damage to containment coils will almost always shut down the engine before such an explosion occurs. The massive shielding of the engine (in the case of standard fusion engines, this is a tungsten carbide shell that accounts for over 2/3 of the weight of the engine) usually buys the safety systems the milliseconds needed to shutdown the engine when severe damaged is inflicted.

I say stick with that,we'll get a nice light show if and when a reactor goes but no damage.