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In the battletech novels, pilots are often described as "finding a weak spot" in a mech's armor and sending rounds through the weak spot to do damage to the interior of the mech. In the tabletop version of battletech these are represented as "through armor criticals" and it is my perception that theses are generally the bane of any pilot's existence. However, the fluff does make for a possible addition to MW:O that could add more options to the player's toolbox.
The Idea
A new type of ammunition is introduced for all ballistic and missile weapons. This Armor-Piercing (AP) Ammunition has the following characteristics:
- On a Successful hit, they generate a chance for subsequent hits (from any weapon, not just weapons with AP ammunition) to deal bonus damage to the section struck by the Armor-Piercing Round
- These bonuses stack if the same section is struck by subsequent Armor Piercing Rounds (IE: if I hit your left arm once with armor piercing ammunition, I create X% chance for bonus damage on hits to your left arm. If I hit it again with armor piercing ammunition I create a 2X% chance for bonus damage).
- Bonus Damage does not stack (in the above example, if another weapon struck the left arm after the second AP round, it would not deal double bonus damage)
- The % Chance for bonus damage is related to the type of round fired (such that AP rounds from an AC/2 have a different chance than AP rounds from an AC/20, or a SRM).
- Armor Piercing Rounds deal less damage than their Standard counterparts
- Armor Piercing Rounds have no effect on internal structure (they deal damage normally, without bonuses).
Armor Piercing Ammunition, while weak on it's own, has the potential to improve the performance of other weapons. While some would scream "RNG get out!", hear me out. The basis for this idea was inspired by LoL and DoTA2. In these games, there is a chance for you to deal a critical hit. While this at first seems like gameplay is being governed by a RNG, the system can be gamed to the player's benefit. Since each attack has a baseline chance to deal a critical strike, if you want to deal critical strikes you should increase your attack speed (so that you attack more often and thus have more chances to deal a critical strike). While the system still has RNG elements, it is controllable by the player.
Similarly, in the proposed system players can increase the chance to deal bonus damage by shooting the same part of the mech multiple times. Additionally, this system adds more player choice to the equation as pilots now have to choose between dealing raw damage (standard ammo) or boosting the damage of other pilots (AP ammo).
What do you think?
