201 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

MustrumRidcully, on 20 January 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

Note that it's an 1 % respectively 11 % explosion chance for every time you shoot at the torso dealing 10 damage or more. If you deal less damage, thnigs become more complicated, as the damage will be "scattered".

Oh yes.

Think of the example of a LL firing at an exposed section that is otherwise fresh: The LL does its damage in ten 0.9-damage packets over 1 second, each of those 0.9-damage packets has a chance to crit, but when they do, they only do 0.9-2.7 damage - which means you need 4-12 of those hits to actually destroy a 10 HP internal component.

In essence then, a LL firing at the AS7-D in my above post has zero chance of causing an ammo explosion (well, in theory the chance is actually non-zero, but so close to zero it's irrelevant - you'd need to have four of your ten ticks do triple crits, which is a 3% chance each, or 0.000008%)

Zero chance to cause an ammo explosion then, for a single hit by a LL. An AC/10 or PPC though, has the 4.2% chance we calculated above, for each and every shot on the Atlas' side torso.

Another reason, of course, why the instant-damage weapons are so effective, and therefore so popular.

[Tesunie]

Stjobe, I think you miss read what I was refering to what at which points... I'm going to separate your quote out to better approach each section.

stjobe, on 19 January 2014 - 10:44 PM, said:

The health of an item has nothing to do with us needing extra ammo.

This wasn't in reference to "the health of the item" but in reference to "we all have double armor (and double Structure), with only a small boost to ammo levels". This means, we have to pack much more ammo than would be considered sane in TT.

I'll share my Stalker build: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...96a221aea6eb8d2
I have 8 tons of LRM ammo, and I need that much just to make sure I can get through a game without running out. In TT, that would probably be closer to 2-4 tons of ammo, we shall say 4 tons to make it easy. That's twice the ammo needed in MWO as I would need in TT. And this is just to be able to make the build work for the most part (though this design I probably could drop it down to 6 tons and be safe for a match), I know of other LRM builds that have even more ammo than I do!

Having twice the ammo means I have twice the crit slots that can explode on me, and when they do it's going to hurt more, as I believe the detonation rolls over from one bin to the next. Even if it doesn't, the ammo in each crit slot contains more ammo than in TT as well, making it hurt that much more when it does explode.

Increased ammo has to do with "lasting a match" and being able to "have enough ammo to actually drop my target" much more so than "killing all their items in their mech". The increased ammo amounts also means increased chance a crit will hit an ammo crit slot than another crit slot. If it could be made were I could take 2-4 tons of ammo (half the crit slot worth of ammo) and still last most of or an entire match, then I'd be more likely to agree, as I have less ammo crit spaces/chances then anyway.

- In MWO, to help counter the extra ammo needed, they made it have 10 health, but many weapons can quickly deal 10 damage to it in a crit.

Because we have more ammo (and other reasons), they made it have more health. Every component has 10 health, including ammo bins. This was to stop crits from being overly too much. I recall a small time in the game when they did increase the crit chance. When they did that, every match as soon as my armor was breached all weapons where gone too. I was very happy I was running energy builds at that time...

This isn't TT. TT is a great starting and referencing point. However, not every rule in TT is going to work in a First Person Shooter. (If you want more TT rules, then why isn't everyone clamoring for weapons to recycle every 10 seconds between shots too?)

stjobe, on 19 January 2014 - 10:44 PM, said:

If you hit an exposed section in TT, the crit chance is 45% (8+ on 2d6). Please notice how that is not "much lower" than the MWO number of 42%. In fact, it's higher.

TT also had through-armour crits at the rate of about 4% (you needed to roll 2 for your to-hit roll, and then 8+ on the crit table), which MWO does not have.

I said "last I knew". I only recently got back into TT, and even then I never played TT much before now. However, in TT, you could only ever apply a single crit (maybe two on a roll of double 1's on the to hit chart in an exposed CT?). In MWO, we have a chance to cause up to 3 crits, they do increased damage to the internal structure of a mech now, and they can hit 3 different crit locations. An AC20 that manages to get the 3 crits would destroy 3 crit locations. That could be 3 ammo bins, an ammo bin and a weapons, etc. If ammo exploded 100% of the time, then that could easily be 3 ammo bins blowing up at once, with a single hit.

With the increase ammo we have to take to function (My Dragon has only an AC5, and I have to take at least 3 tons to make sure I don't always run out in a single match, TT I would need only a single ton, maybe 2 tops), we need to do something else to reduce the danger associated with it. Otherwise owning a single AC would become so dangerous to your own health, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

Can I agree that ammo probably should explode more often? I can agree to that. 100% more often? No. Do recall this isn't TT where one player will have many mechs on the table. If one pops from ammo, it's okay, they can continue to play still. Here, we have one life to live and control one mech. If you popped from the first hit in a match, with armor, and died because of a "super rare critical" that happened to hit ammo, it's going to lead into frustration and problems (Crits cutting through armor rule). If every time a section got stripped of armor, and everything basically "exploded" in that section every time, it's going to lead to frustration. (Recall when I said they increased crit chances for a short while, I got highly annoyed with running around with yellow internal sections, no missing parts, yet didn't have a single weapon to my name. I was still rather healthy, but was useless.)

We need to have a balance between crit chances, crit damage, and component health/ammo explosions. Right now, we aren't too bad, but that doesn't mean that the system is perfect. A slightly higher explosion chance, or maybe lower health on ammo bins, might be a good idea for balance.

stjobe, on 19 January 2014 - 10:44 PM, said:

So to "counter" MWO's lower crit chance and no through-armour criticals plus health mechanic for components, they also lowered the chance to go boom with 90%?

You're not making sense, but then you are making things up as you go along, aren't you?

You aren't connecting the dots in my post. Does each bullet point have to be taken "literally" as "separate ideas that don't connect to each other"? You missing the point and seem to be connecting things in a very strange way.

In MWO:
- We need to take more crits worth of ammo just to function. This increases the chance that an ammo bin will get hit with a crit over something else.
- We can cause up to 3 crit hits with a single weapon. If it's large enough/does enough damage, that can be 3 crit slots destroyed (because crit slots have 10 health). However, the chance to cause just a single crit seems to be the same as TT if your numbers provided are correct. (I thought it was a lower chance in TT, thanks for being SO polite to me and clearing that up in as rude a way as possible.)
- Components have 10 health to help balance out the fact that many of us have to use "more" of something to get it to work. Energy weapons, you normally need "more" heat sinks than you would in TT to make them work. Balistics? You normally need "more" ammo to not run out, or end up with a heavy club you can't even use to club someone with, as well as "more" weight for the ammo as well, which can relate to slower engine, or XL. Missiles? These are slightly different. SSRMs need very little ammo, similar to TT. SRMs need "more" ammo to function, but is light enough that Endo and/or FF can help balance that out. LRMs? They need "MORE MORE" ammo to function, which means massively more chances a crit will hit an ammo bin, and many LRM users take XL so they can have even "MORE" ammo, just so they don't run out. (I personally like to try and keep my weapons balanced between LRMs and something else.)
- Larger weapons, such as the AC10, Gauss, AC20, can take out a slot in a single crit, where as lasers (any), MGs, smaller ACs, missiles, all can't so easily, but normally make up for their lack of "hard hitting" with "lots of chances" as they tend to shoot and hit more often, and each shot has a larger chance to crit.
- Weapons shoot faster here, meaning more chances to get a crit in the first place. A single shot may have 42% chance on it's own to cause a crit, and it might not cause 10 damage to a component, but when each "shot" (Lasers would be per tick of damage) has a chance to crit, and you can throw several in the time a larger weapon reloads, that can add up. This also means "crit damage spreads more across more components".

Imagine if the Crits works in a similar manner in MWO as it did in TT, but it would be per tick. A single crit "takes out" the crit it hit, no health. A laser is a "hit scan" weapon, making it deal damage in "ticks". If 42% (I'll round to 50% chance for ease of numbers, so the result will be a little high) of the "ticks" of damage caused a crit, and it sent out (for example) 10 "ticks" of damage, that would be 5 crit slots destroyed from a single laser, and I'm not even counting the x2-x3 chances, as that could be upwards of 10-15 crit slots taken out then. This would result in a single laser, of any type, clearing any exposed structure of all components inside, and ammo would be "POP" done. All from a single laser...

Same could be said of ACs too. An AC2 shoots off every 0.5 seconds (basically). If it hits an armorless section, and components didn't have health, imagine what they could be like then. An AC20 shoots off every 4 seconds (and could get 1-3 crits every 4 seconds), where as in that 4 seconds, the AC2 shoots 8 times! That could be 4 crits, or 12, or upwards of 24 crits possible! (If the power of the Dice is with you.) They HAD to add in item health to balance out fire ratings, among other things.

I'm not making this up. Many of the game mechanics are there for a reason. Could some be changed? Sure. Going from 10% to 100% I think would be a bit too much of a jump. Try 20-30%ish, see how it would work. We don't need to "jump" from one extreme to another. 100% would probably be VERY bad, as we can cause more than 1 crit when we shoot.

stjobe, on 19 January 2014 - 10:44 PM, said:

The chance of ammo explosion with a single ton of ammo in an otherwise empty side torso currently is 4.2%. Put another ton in there and the chance increases to ... 4.2%. Hell, fill the side torso up with 12 tons of ammo and the chance is *still* 4.2%. It never gets higher than 4.2%, no matter how much ammo you pack in.

Pack non-volatile components in there though, and you can get he ammo explosion chance down to 0.3% (in the case of 1 ton of ammo in a side torso with 11 non-volatile components)

So please, let's give the "oh but we need more ammo in MWO" argument a rest, shall we?

What are you...? What math are you using? Can you show me how having "additional crit slots filled with ammo doesn't increase the chance of an explosion" please?

If (using your numbers here) it's 4.2% chance of an ammo explosion, then shouldn't that increase as the slots get filled up with more ammo? Recall, you can cause more than one crit per shot... That can be 3 crits applied, and 3 crit slots damaged/destroyed. I also tend NOT to get shot at with a single weapon, but groups of weapons at once. If two weapons hit you at once, that can be a total of 0-6 crits. The 42% chance of criting includes the chance of causing several crits in a single hit. It's like, (for example purposes only, not actual literal numbers) 30% for a single crit, 10% for two crits, 4% 2% to cause three crits? Something like that? (Eidt: I can't add apparently.)

More ammo still means more chances. Here is another way to think of it:
- You shoot, hit and cause a single crit. I have 5 ammo (even with only single crits possible, to match you line of thought). You destroy that ammo, but it doesn't explode.
- You shoot, hit and cause a single crit. I have 4 tons of ammo now. You crit my ammo AGAIN. Instead of being safe from my ammo already being destroyed, you get another chance to detonate my ammo. It fails this time again.
- Again, same thing, 3 tons of ammo left. You crit. Boom...

My point is, each slot of ammo is a chance you can cause a crit to that ammo, and is a chance it will explode. You can also cause several crits in a single shot (unless they changed this and I don't know about it). This means that, yes, having several pieces of ammo in a single section can increase chances of a crit being applied to them, and increases the chance it will explode. If I have 2 tons of ammo, you have 2 crit chances to make it explode. If I have 4 tons of ammo, that's 4 chances to crit and make me explode.

If, I have 4 tons of ammo in that side torso, and fill in the rest with "non-volatile components", as I need 4 tons and not 1 ton, it now shifts the numbers from 1-12 (1 ammo, 11 other filled crits) to 4-12 (4 ammo, 8 other filled crits). Of course, this is also presuming that one has the weight and crits (endo/FF take up crits slots, but I don't believe they will take crit chances) to "fill in" a section like that.

PS: Guess why it comes highly NOT recommended to place ammo in high hit areas of your mech still.
PS: Whenever a section is destroyed by damage (not just falling off EX: Arm falls off because Side Torso was destroyed, arm doesn't count), all components in that section has to take a "roll" as though they where crit destroyed. That means that, if a mech has 8 tons of ammo in a side torso, and you blow off that side torso, then that is 8x10% chances that some ammo will explode. This means that, when that side is destroyed, your ammo contained within has a chance to still explode. This means that needing MORE ammo is a LARGER risk of it exploding.
This means that, if it was given a 100% chance to explode, as soon as a mech lost a section containing ammo, BOOM. I had ammo in that arm with the AC? And you blew off the arm? BOOM! If it was enough ammo, BOOM, goes the side torso too. If I didn't have case, then BOOM, goes my CT. All because you took an arm off.
Also, if CASE is crit shot out and destroyed, and then your side torso is destroyed, and you had 8 tons of ammo still sitting there, BOOM goes your CT still, 100% of the time.

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 03:51 AM, said:

I reffer you to the maths earlier in the thread. A 100% explosion chance only produces between 10 and 20% chance of actual damage explosion when an unarmoured ammo-containing location is shot. That's not 'devastating'. Thats 'and actually present disadvantage' to a weapon group that has it's downsides largely neutered.

You forget the "crit hits" when a section is destroyed. When a section is destroyed (unless I am seriously mistaken here), every crit slot is destroyed, with the same chances of bad things going on when they are destroyed. A Guass has it's chance to explode. Any remaining ammo has a chance to explode. You may have only a small chance of detonating ammo with a crit shot, but you also get another chance with a section destruction. If ammo went 100% of the time... yeah...

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 04:10 AM, said:

Let's take a real example and see if it gets through this time:

The stock Atlas AS7-D has the following items in its Left Torso:
LRM-20: 5 crit slots
SRM-6: 2 crit slots
LRM ammo: 2 crit slots
SRM ammo: 1 crit slot
Std Heat Sink: 1 crit slot

Now what is the chance of having an ammo explosion if that location gets hit?

There's three ammo bins and eleven crit slots, so the chance of an ammo bin getting hit is 3/11, or 27% (0.27).
The chance to crit is 42% (0.42), and the chance of ammo explosion is 10% (0.1).

Putting all that together, we get 0.27 * 0.42 * 0.1 = 0.011, or almost exactly 1% (1.1%).

So as you can see, the current system makes it a 1 in 100 chance to cause an ammo explosion on that Atlas (and that's without taking into consideration that it's only the shot that actually destroys the bin that gets the ammo explosion chance - the numbers above assume that the crit does 10 damage or more, which is the exception, not the norm).

Now, would it suddenly become "way too devastating" if the ammo explosion chance was 100%?

Let's do the math:

The chance to crit is still 42%, and the chance of hitting an ammo bin is still 27%, so we end up with 0.42 * 0.27 * 1.0 = 0.11, or an 11% chance of an ammo explosion.

1 in 10 is a lot riskier than 1 in 100, but I really don't think it's enough to make everyone stop using ammo-based weaponry.

Edit: With a 100% rate of ammo explosion, the actual chance of causing said explosion would be somewhere between 42% (only ammo in the location - use CASE!) and 3.5% (one ton of ammo + eleven non-volatile items in the location) instead of what it is now - between 4.2 and 0.35% chance.

And when the section gets destroyed? What then?

Don't forget, those other components you are tossing off as "dross" tend to have a purpose, like weapons, heat sinks, etc... It could be the weapon that needs that ammo. You could destroy that weapon, making the "undumpable" ammo sitting there as a useless bomb in their chest... You have a 42% chance of doing damage to "something useful" on the mech. It might not always be ammo, but I doubt someone will fill 11 tons of sinks just to protect 1 ton of ammo... Unless they take nothing but CASE, for 5.5 tons of filler... to protect one ton of ammo...

Edited by Tesunie, 20 January 2014 - 11:38 AM.

[Tesunie]

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 09:51 AM, said:

Another reason, of course, why the instant-damage weapons are so effective, and therefore so popular.

That I can see as a better argument. Maybe Instant-damage weapons need to have their crit rate adjusted, or other weapons that don't deal as much crit damage need their rates adjusted... instead of just trying to "punish" ammo based designs with "100% explosion success!" rates.

[Yiazmat]

Holy **** wall of text! good arguments though.

[Tesunie]

Yiazmat, on 20 January 2014 - 10:23 AM, said:

Holy **** wall of text! good arguments though.

Sorry. However, when you are trying to explain an idea/concept, you sometimes have to really go into a lot of detail...
(I also tend to ramble a bit I think... )

[Gaan Cathal]

Galenit, on 20 January 2014 - 06:33 AM, said:

Thats why i say together with 1/2 tt ammo and 2x range.

If its only exposions to tweak, take the 100%.

100% ammo explosion and 2x range. The former is a soft impetus to carry less ammo, meaning you have less ammo, accomplishing the goal of 1/2 ammo, but still allowing you to increase your risk by taking more. Choices are good. 2x range is just a complete no brainer, it doesn't just harm energy weapons, but several ballistics (the AC/10, for example).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

You forget the "crit hits" when a section is destroyed. When a section is destroyed (unless I am seriously mistaken here), every crit slot is destroyed, with the same chances of bad things going on when they are destroyed. A Guass has it's chance to explode. Any remaining ammo has a chance to explode. You may have only a small chance of detonating ammo with a crit shot, but you also get another chance with a section destruction. If ammo went 100% of the time... yeah...

I'm fairly sure that isn't the case, I know I've lost legs with ammo in without an ammo explosion. It's possible it's been changed at some point, but it's also fairly moot, it can easily be disabled if the core ammo explosion system is improved.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

Don't forget, those other components you are tossing off as "dross" tend to have a purpose, like weapons, heat sinks, etc... It could be the weapon that needs that ammo. You could destroy that weapon, making the "undumpable" ammo sitting there as a useless bomb in their chest... You have a 42% chance of doing damage to "something useful" on the mech. It might not always be ammo, but I doubt someone will fill 11 tons of sinks just to protect 1 ton of ammo... Unless they take nothing but CASE, for 5.5 tons of filler... to protect one ton of ammo...

That isn't 42% chance of destroying something useful, though. Lasers will almost invariably burn through IS before they crit anything, for the reasons Stjobe described above, and a lot of pinpoint weapons don't have the damage to guarantee an item destruction (the AC/20s hitpoints were, wisely, increased to counteract it's number of crits, for example).

Infact, given the way lasers crit, you'll be hard pressed even with 100% explosion chance to destroy ammo with anything but an AC/10/20 or PPC, given the likelyhood of causing enough crit damage to one crit slot before the compartment dies.

[stjobe]

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

I said "last I knew". I only recently got back into TT, and even then I never played TT much before now. However, in TT, you could only ever apply a single crit (maybe two on a roll of double 1's on the to hit chart in an exposed CT?). In MWO, we have a chance to cause up to 3 crits, they do increased damage to the internal structure of a mech now, and they can hit 3 different crit locations. An AC20 that manages to get the 3 crits would destroy 3 crit locations. That could be 3 ammo bins, an ammo bin and a weapons, etc. If ammo exploded 100% of the time, then that could easily be 3 ammo bins blowing up at once, with a single hit.

I'm not saying you should know this by heart, but you could at least look it up (e.g. on sarna) before making claims on how TT works or not works. For future reference, you can get 1, 2, or 3 crits in TT, with 3 crits only possible in torsos (if a limb, it will be blown off, if head it'll insta-kill you).

I'll leave it as an exercise to work out the actual odds of the very first MG bullet to hit a pristine TT Atlas to actually kill it. It is small, but not so small it never happens (as I know for a fact; funny anecdotes and all that).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

With the increase ammo we have to take to function (My Dragon has only an AC5, and I have to take at least 3 tons to make sure I don't always run out in a single match, TT I would need only a single ton, maybe 2 tops), we need to do something else to reduce the danger associated with it. Otherwise owning a single AC would become so dangerous to your own health, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

3.5% - 42% chance if ammo explodes 100% of the time. Well worth the benefits if you ask me, but less of a no-brainer than the current 0.35% - 4.2%.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

- We need to take more crits worth of ammo just to function. This increases the chance that an ammo bin will get hit with a crit over something else.

See my example of the stock Atlas side torso. 1.1% chance to get an ammo explosion from a single hit. The absolute maximum risk you currently can run of ammo explosion is 4.2% per hit.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

- We can cause up to 3 crit hits with a single weapon. If it's large enough/does enough damage, that can be 3 crit slots destroyed (because crit slots have 10 health).

As I noted above, TT also has 1-3 crits, with a risk of insta-kill if the head is hit, and every crit meaning a component destroyed (no 10 HP to chew through).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

However, the chance to cause just a single crit seems to be the same as TT if your numbers provided are correct.

In every instance, the chances to crit are higher in TT than in MWO.

The chance to crit at all in TT is 5/11 (45%), you have to roll 8 or higher on two dice. In MWO it's 42%.

The chance for one crit in TT is 3/11 (27%), two crits is 2/11 (18%), and the chance for 3 crits is 1/11 (9%),
The corresponding numbers for MWO is 25%, 16%, and 3%.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

- Larger weapons, such as the AC10, Gauss, AC20, can take out a slot in a single crit, where as lasers (any), MGs, smaller ACs, missiles, all can't so easily, but normally make up for their lack of "hard hitting" with "lots of chances" as they tend to shoot and hit more often, and each shot has a larger chance to crit.

MGs, LBX, and Flamer are the only weapons that have larger chances to crit. All lasers, all ACs, all missiles have the same 42% chance as anything else, which makes weapons doing less than 10 points of damage or doesn't do all their damage in one hit less effective than those that do; it's a systemic flaw in MWO, and one that exasperates the problem with weapon balance.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

What are you...? What math are you using? Can you show me how having "additional crit slots filled with ammo doesn't increase the chance of an explosion" please?

A single shot is a single shot, no matter if it's fired against a location with one or twelve ammo bins, it can only hit one of them.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 09:55 AM, said:

If (using your numbers here) it's 4.2% chance of an ammo explosion, then shouldn't that increase as the slots get filled up with more ammo? Recall, you can cause more than one crit per shot... That can be 3 crits applied, and 3 crit slots damaged/destroyed.

I'll give you that, the 4.2% chance we were talking about was to crit at all and have an ammo bin explode, there is actually a lesser chance of doing more than one crit: 0.5% to crit two bins and explode one of them, and 0.09% chance to crit three bins and explode one of them (0.03 * (0.1 * 3) = 0.009). The chance to crit three bins and explode all of them would be 0.03 * 0.1 * 0.1 * 0.1 = 0.00003, or 0.0003 percent, or 0.3 permille.

That's not a very real risk, if you ask me.

Look, I'm not actually saying we should alter the way the crit system or ammo explosion mechanic is working, I'm just trying to show the actual math involved, so everyone can at least argue from facts and not FUD.

Personally, I think MustrumRidcully has the right ideas but I also think he's erring on the side of caution a bit. I wouldn't mind at least trying a straight-up 100% chance of ammo exploding when it's destroyed - remember, the more damaged you get the less ammo you generally carry (since you tend to shoot it off), and as I've tried to show, a 100% chance is still a maximum of 42% in actuality, since you have to crit to even damage ammo.
.
Edit:Dammit, it turned into a wall of text anyway, even though I cut out most of it. Sorry all.

Edited by stjobe, 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM.

[Tesunie]

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

100% ammo explosion and 2x range. The former is a soft impetus to carry less ammo, meaning you have less ammo, accomplishing the goal of 1/2 ammo, but still allowing you to increase your risk by taking more. Choices are good. 2x range is just a complete no brainer, it doesn't just harm energy weapons, but several ballistics (the AC/10, for example).

So, let me see if I get your intentions right. As I'm saying this, just letting you know this is how we are taking it: You want people to be forced to either take less ammo, making a 6+ tons piece of weaponry to quickly become useless (we have double health) or make them have to risk exploding very easily to be able to use said heavy weapon for the entire game?

I mean, yes, I can agree that ammo probably doesn't explode enough, but we can't have it explode too much either. There needs to be a balance between the two.

Also, a lot of people get upset when they change numbers by large amounts, and there as already been rage on the forums about how balance could be better achieved by "not swinging it from one side to the other in drastic steps" and instead "we need to make small changes and see what happens in the data, then adjust with more small changes till the data matches the intended results". I tend to agree with the latter, with making small changes. Maybe, after jumping up slowly, we might find that 100% is the right answer, however, we might find out that 20-30% is best for balance. If we jump from "0-100%" extremes, we can't gauge balance as well, as it's too much of a drastic change.

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

I'm fairly sure that isn't the case, I know I've lost legs with ammo in without an ammo explosion. It's possible it's been changed at some point, but it's also fairly moot, it can easily be disabled if the core ammo explosion system is improved.

And I've lost an arm, just to have the ammo explode after the arm was destroyed.

Watch closely:


Shots hit, blows off the arm/side torso. After the side is destroyed, ammo explodes. Not while the side is still intact. After a section is destroyed, there is a chance that any crit in there that can "go bad" gets a chance to do so. With legs, recall that legs only have 2 crit slots, so that is only 2x10% chance, if there is still even ammo in that specific leg.

I have long since placed ammo in the arms of my Stalker, as I always lose a side before the ammo in my arms can become threatened. However, I have had the ammo in my head cook off a few times, with spectacularly disappointing results on my end.

(I still love how that Dragon gets two steps back before "POP". It's dead and it doesn't even know it yet...)

I do not believe that this system has been changed as of yet. (I wished they kept more information here on the forums, so we can accurately read up about it, and redirect people. It would help prove things one way or another.)

PS: If I am wrong here, then I would like some evidence to prove me wrong. I don't claim to be 100% all knowing about everything, and I can/do tend to be wrong from time to time. However, I'd like to be able to read up for my own better understanding...

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 12:18 PM, said:

That isn't 42% chance of destroying something useful, though. Lasers will almost invariably burn through IS before they crit anything, for the reasons Stjobe described above, and a lot of pinpoint weapons don't have the damage to guarantee an item destruction (the AC/20s hitpoints were, wisely, increased to counteract it's number of crits, for example).

Infact, given the way lasers crit, you'll be hard pressed even with 100% explosion chance to destroy ammo with anything but an AC/10/20 or PPC, given the likelyhood of causing enough crit damage to one crit slot before the compartment dies.

Agreed. It's a 42% chance to cause damage to something. The concept was though, was it's "a 4.2% chance of destroying a crit", and I was debating under those "terms".

Maybe, instead of 100% chance, what about a 10% chance "every time the ammo bin it hit with a crit" instead of only "10% chance when ammo bin is destroyed"? Think that might balance it out? This would give lasers/MGs/Flamers a bit more power over ACs (especially the larger ones). Most ACs will probably destroy the bin (crit slot), making it have less chances of actually exploding the ammo, but a laser might "slowly cook the ammo" as it hits (crits a few times)...



I'm just saying that, there are other ways to make crits more viable and ammo more hazardous other than giving it "the max chance possible to explode". I disagree with making it 100% chance, but I don't disagree with the underlining idea of "it needs to be a little more risky". It helps to enforce the "high risk, high reward" concept.

(Maybe, with LRMs, as they typically need either lots of launchers/ammo, or lots of ammo to run, they could be immune/lower chance? After all, the ammo doesn't arm till it's 180m out, and inside my mech is closer than 180m... Also, if LRMs ramming into a target doesn't set them off when inside 180m, why would an exploding projectile do it? (Some sarcasm here, just trying to make a funny point.))

[Krystof Morva]

Granted, some TT mechanics do not translate well to a FPS, however the TT rules have decades of balance work behind them and they were a great game that lasted to become such a valuable IP because of it. Sometimes the exact mechanic is less important than the reason behind the mechanic and that the flavor should always be preserved to try and make sure that BT as a meaningful game is not lost to convenience or biased player demands that may only suit a specific style of play. I have a few comments in that regard about several of the concepts being discussed here.

That said ammo explosions should be increased a bit. Leaning on my interpretation of AC's not just from the raw TT rules but the BT fiction tends to also describe AC's as high ROF burst DPS weapons. They are a tradeoff, low heat, good range, good damage, with the possibility of jamming , ammo explosion, and finite amounts of ammo. (yes I think all AC's should have a jam possibility just lower than ultras.

CASE IMHO was not just about allowing a mech to fight on after an ammo explosion it was about having something able to be repaired after and fewer dead pilots. Ammo explosions should be catastrophic events.

A game mechanic that might be interesting to pursue both from several angles. Free ammo tends to be prone to go BOOM say 30% vs current 10%, c-bill paid ammo, lower chance to BOOM, but at a cost (say 15-20%, or about 50% fewer ammo explosions, MC ammo (kinda like world of tanks) could have something like our present ammo BOOM rate. That said, it should be cheap in MC as we spray the stuff like water. Maybe 1-2 MC per ton or something like that. Its not a PTW scheme as you still have to be hit, armor breached, and take an ammo hit via current mechanics. It does not do more damage, fly faster or further, or cycle faster. PGI than has another revenue stream that depends on players actually PLAYING the game, more players, more money, more development.

Mech battles were often long engagements taking hours to unfold. There is no effective way to carry ammo allowing you to fight like that for long periods of time. The whole reason the clans were defeated was their propensity for ammo based weapons and short decisive firefights. Long grinding battles left them with empty magazines and reduced firepower allowing forces with more energy weapon centric loadouts to overpower them. Many of the arguments about ammo and ammo based weapons are based in wanting to fight like the clans.

The canon builds existed for a reason, they were a balance of speed, firepower, and logistical needs. There are very few totally ammo dependent mechs and those that were, were billed as specialized platforms in support roles, not main line fighters. MWO's mechanic would result in a Regiment of mechs to have dozens of dropships just carrying ammo to keep them in the fight for more than a few hours.

A properly designed community warfare system will bring ammo and repair logistics into play and more of the appeal of ammo heavy builds will lost to a combination of raw ammo costs and additional repair costs from ammo explosions.

[Tesunie]

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

I'm not saying you should know this by heart, but you could at least look it up (e.g. on sarna) before making claims on how TT works or not works. For future reference, you can get 1, 2, or 3 crits in TT, with 3 crits only possible in torsos (if a limb, it will be blown off, if head it'll insta-kill you).

I'll leave it as an exercise to work out the actual odds of the very first MG bullet to hit a pristine TT Atlas to actually kill it. It is small, but not so small it never happens (as I know for a fact; funny anecdotes and all that).

Half the time, I can't find it on Sarna without having to try and find the exact terminology. I also tend to find Sarna doesn't mention numbers/rules so much as generalizations. After all, they don't want you to be able to play TT with free Sarna, do they? (I also didn't have the time to, sorry. )

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

3.5% - 42% chance if ammo explodes 100% of the time. Well worth the benefits if you ask me, but less of a no-brainer than the current 0.35% - 4.2%.

So, going with max numbers, you want to have an ammo dependent design blow up 42% of the time as soon as it's armor is breached? (Just throwing this to the complete extreme, so don't take it too literally.) That becomes a chance. does it not?

I'm not going to argue that the current crit/exploding system is perfect, but I don't think jumping from one side of the pendulum to the other is "the best solution" either. I just suggest that one slowly works up the chance till it seems more correct.

There are also other mechanics that can be changed other than "exploding ammo chance" that could help balance out crits and ammo. One can be increasing the chance of critting itself. Another can be increasing the chance ammo will explode when destroyed. Another can be to decrease the health of ammo bins, making a crit more likely to destroy them (robbing ammo, even if they don't go POP). Another option available is to have it so whenever an ammo bit is crit, it has a chance to explode weather it is destroyed or not. Etc.

My point being, even if I disagree with the "make it 100% chance" I do agree that it should be a little more risky than it probably currently is. (It seems at one point that they were higher/worse, as my wingman regaled me last night about how he use to always get ammo explosions to the point he took CASE. They must have changed it, as he doesn't do that anymore.)

We also want to avoid it seeming to be an "ammo tax". Enough people already complain that the SHS to DHS change is "nothing but a required tax on all mechs".

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

See my example of the stock Atlas side torso. 1.1% chance to get an ammo explosion from a single hit. The absolute maximum risk you currently can run of ammo explosion is 4.2% per hit.

That's Stock. We are talking MWO here. That Atlas isn't going to get far stock with only a single ton of ammo, unless it wants to have several more tons (the weapon it is feeding) to quickly become useless. Most people have these amounts for ammo on weapons (from my knowledge):
MG: 1 ton for 2 MGs.
LRMs: At least 1 ton for every 5 LRM tubes, if not more.
ACs: At least 3 tons a gun, if not more. (Have more than on AC, that's even more ammo.)
AMS: 1 ton per AMS, sometimes 2 tons depending upon preference and intended mech design.
SSRMs: 1 ton for 2 launchers, more if your role is light hunting or it's a primary weapon. (And these still have trouble registering hits since I picked them up a short while ago.)
SRMs: I honestly have no idea anymore...

In TT, we are normally looking at half or less of this ammo for the same weapons.

(And technically, isn't it 100% chance of an Ammo explosion, when it happens to you?! It's a joke a nurse told me when I was being prepped for surgery, about possible complications. There was a 10% chance of something, but if it happened to me, it was a 100% chance... I think you had to be there... )

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

As I noted above, TT also has 1-3 crits, with a risk of insta-kill if the head is hit, and every crit meaning a component destroyed (no 10 HP to chew through).

We still kinda have insta-kill when the head is hit, if it'***** hard enough. It also was the one component to not get full double armor last I recalled? Could be wrong here. But I do know what you mean, as you could have the cockpit crited out in TT, but not in MWO.

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

In every instance, the chances to crit are higher in TT than in MWO.

The chance to crit at all in TT is 5/11 (45%), you have to roll 8 or higher on two dice. In MWO it's 42%.

The chance for one crit in TT is 3/11 (27%), two crits is 2/11 (18%), and the chance for 3 crits is 1/11 (9%),
The corresponding numbers for MWO is 25%, 16%, and 3%.

45% to 42%. Seems close to me...
27% to 25%. Seems close again.
18% to 16%.
9% to 3%. Not so close here...

I do get your point here, however do recall the "fun" factor. This isn't TT, but a FPS. That is going to change the mechanics, as we also don't have "random hits" either and our skill helps to determine where we hit, making it "more" likely we will "hit and crit" that weak section of armor...

I think our ability to properly aim helps to balance out some of the lower crit chances, as with TT you can't aim at specific parts as easily as we can here.

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

MGs, LBX, and Flamer are the only weapons that have larger chances to crit. All lasers, all ACs, all missiles have the same 42% chance as anything else, which makes weapons doing less than 10 points of damage or doesn't do all their damage in one hit less effective than those that do; it's a systemic flaw in MWO, and one that exasperates the problem with weapon balance.

You missed the point here. Lasers, missiles (lots of them) and faster shooting ACs have "more chances to crit" not "better chances to crit". Weapons that shoot/hit more often have more chances to cause a crit, where as slower shooting weapons have less chances. It's like, having a target placed the same distance from two people of equal skill. You give one person a MG, and another a Pistol. The MG user has 1,000 bullets, the Pistol only will have 12. See who hits the target more... Of course the MG with more ammo will probably hit more, as it has more chances to do so. The Pistol shoots slower, and will probably have better accuracy, but overall, the MG has more chances to hit just because it can shoot faster.

Is it possibly a better idea to increase the crit damage or crit chance of smaller/weaker weapons? Instead of making ammo explode at 100% chance? Could we maybe increase those weapons a little, and then make ammo explode just a little more often (30% to start)? I'm just saying, we don't have to jump to 100% right off the bat. Smaller jumps might be a wiser course of action instead.

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

A single shot is a single shot, no matter if it's fired against a location with one or twelve ammo bins, it can only hit one of them.

It can hit up to 3 of them, which means if there are more bins of ammo, there are more chances that one of the 3 will hit one. If it's large enough to destroy it, there is an improved chance, just because there are more crit hits, that one will find the ammo and either deny it or explode it. If there are more bins, the multiple crits might take out more than one ammo bin at once, increasing the chances of one of them exploding, and if nothing else, possibly denying up to 3 tons of ammo from the victim...

Either I'm not understanding your math (I'm very good at math), or something isn't right with it. You might maybe expanding upon your math, as it isn't making sense to me... (or are we just talking two different things and bypassing each other?)

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 01:02 PM, said:

I'll give you that, the 4.2% chance we were talking about was to crit at all and have an ammo bin explode, there is actually a lesser chance of doing more than one crit: 0.5% to crit two bins and explode one of them, and 0.09% chance to crit three bins and explode one of them (0.03 * (0.1 * 3) = 0.009). The chance to crit three bins and explode all of them would be 0.03 * 0.1 * 0.1 * 0.1 = 0.00003, or 0.0003 percent, or 0.3 permille.

That's not a very real risk, if you ask me.

Look, I'm not actually saying we should alter the way the crit system or ammo explosion mechanic is working, I'm just trying to show the actual math involved, so everyone can at least argue from facts and not FUD.

Personally, I think MustrumRidcully has the right ideas but I also think he's erring on the side of caution a bit. I wouldn't mind at least trying a straight-up 100% chance of ammo exploding when it's destroyed - remember, the more damaged you get the less ammo you generally carry (since you tend to shoot it off), and as I've tried to show, a 100% chance is still a maximum of 42% in actuality, since you have to crit to even damage ammo.
.
Edit:Dammit, it turned into a wall of text anyway, even though I cut out most of it. Sorry all.

You don't need to "explode all of them", just one will do, thanks.

Do consider the fun aspect as well. Is it fun to just barely get an armor breach and "DEAD". Then, having to sit back and watch the rest of the team play, as a dual Jager hit you once, and crited your ammo in a single shot? It's not fun when you die too quickly. I stopped playing some FPS games, as I got tired of "Spawn, run, aim, I'm dead before I could even shoot, repeat". (I'll admit I'm not the greatest FPS player.) I know in Dust (the game based on EVE for PS3), I got tired of being a sniper, finding someone, shooting them, them not dieing, and then another sniper one shot, killed me. If ammo went too easily, it could be like that, without respawn.

I can understand your point, I'm just still leery of a 100% chance. I think it'd be too high. Not saying I wouldn't try it, as I would and see how it would work, but I wouldn't want to sign on and say "it's the solution" without a few tests first. I think I could agree with 30% (a x3 increase, instead of a x10 increase) to start and see how that works a lot easier as a solution. At least at this time.


Face it, we are debating numbers and theories. We need to be clear, clean, and precise or people can misunderstand or just not get the concept at all. This normally leads to "wall o' text" responses. I don't think we could get around that...

[Tesunie]

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

A game mechanic that might be interesting to pursue both from several angles. Free ammo tends to be prone to go BOOM say 30% vs current 10%, c-bill paid ammo, lower chance to BOOM, but at a cost (say 15-20%, or about 50% fewer ammo explosions, MC ammo (kinda like world of tanks) could have something like our present ammo BOOM rate. That said, it should be cheap in MC as we spray the stuff like water. Maybe 1-2 MC per ton or something like that. Its not a PTW scheme as you still have to be hit, armor breached, and take an ammo hit via current mechanics. It does not do more damage, fly faster or further, or cycle faster. PGI than has another revenue stream that depends on players actually PLAYING the game, more players, more money, more development.

You had me, and I could agree, with your post, till I got here. This part here I disagree with. People already complain that Cool Shot, Hero mechs and other things in this game are "P2W", we don't need "less risky ammo" being another thing. Everything else paid for doesn't really effect actual game play that much (can be matched with a c-bill version and some work on a skill). Ammo that reduced explosion risk would be an in game advantage...

Everything else I can agree fairly well with as concepts and ideas.

[DrxAbstract]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 19 January 2014 - 01:24 AM, said:

you mean make CASE useful?

Mech has XL...

[Gaan Cathal]

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

So, let me see if I get your intentions right. As I'm saying this, just letting you know this is how we are taking it: You want people to be forced to either take less ammo, making a 6+ tons piece of weaponry to quickly become useless (we have double health) or make them have to risk exploding very easily to be able to use said heavy weapon for the entire game?

I mean, yes, I can agree that ammo probably doesn't explode enough, but we can't have it explode too much either. There needs to be a balance between the two.

Also, a lot of people get upset when they change numbers by large amounts, and there as already been rage on the forums about how balance could be better achieved by "not swinging it from one side to the other in drastic steps" and instead "we need to make small changes and see what happens in the data, then adjust with more small changes till the data matches the intended results". I tend to agree with the latter, with making small changes. Maybe, after jumping up slowly, we might find that 100% is the right answer, however, we might find out that 20-30% is best for balance. If we jump from "0-100%" extremes, we can't gauge balance as well, as it's too much of a drastic change.

Answering in reverse order.. we're not actually talking about 100% though. We're talking about ~15% at the highest in any realistic fit.

And I don't want to limit the amount of ammo people can choose to bring, that's why I dislike the idea of halving ammo/ton. I do however think that it's far too easy right now to pack more than enough ammo to last a match comfortably, with no real associated risk. Making ammo more explosive still allows you to bring lots of ammo, but adds a risk factor to it. Your other option is, obviously, to combine your big guns with energy weapons to assuage that, leading to the mixed loadouts people always rave about wanting (though 90% of the time for utterly stupid reasons, but that's a different topic).

Currently ballistics are just too good relative to other weapons systems. Flat damage downgrades won't really work, convergence is untouchable because PGI are scared of netcode, burstfire is highly unlikely for the same reasons. The best solution, IMO, is a buff for non-pinpoint weapons, mostly via the heat system, and some minor adjustments to ballistics to actually enforce the opportunity costs they are advertised as having, like ammo explosions (and removing that moronic x3 range boost that has no reason to live).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

And I've lost an arm, just to have the ammo explode after the arm was destroyed.

Watch closely:


Shots hit, blows off the arm/side torso. After the side is destroyed, ammo explodes. Not while the side is still intact. After a section is destroyed, there is a chance that any crit in there that can "go bad" gets a chance to do so. With legs, recall that legs only have 2 crit slots, so that is only 2x10% chance, if there is still even ammo in that specific leg.

I have long since placed ammo in the arms of my Stalker, as I always lose a side before the ammo in my arms can become threatened. However, I have had the ammo in my head cook off a few times, with spectacularly disappointing results on my end.

(I still love how that Dragon gets two steps back before "POP". It's dead and it doesn't even know it yet...)

I do not believe that this system has been changed as of yet. (I wished they kept more information here on the forums, so we can accurately read up about it, and redirect people. It would help prove things one way or another.)

PS: If I am wrong here, then I would like some evidence to prove me wrong. I don't claim to be 100% all knowing about everything, and I can/do tend to be wrong from time to time. However, I'd like to be able to read up for my own better understanding...

It's quite possible that that ammo explosion is caused by the shot that kills the section critting (or, less likely but potentially possible, that the ammo explosion kills the section and it's being displayed 'out of order'). It's an artifact of gaming, really, but things don't always appear to occur in the right order because it all comes down to job priorities, free of the logical constraints imposed by reality, especially when you add lag into the picture. It's also quite possibly I'm wrong and you are right on this, if so - as I said - it's both simple and wise to disallow compartment destruction from triggering crits within said compartment.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:04 PM, said:

I'm just saying that, there are other ways to make crits more viable and ammo more hazardous other than giving it "the max chance possible to explode". I disagree with making it 100% chance, but I don't disagree with the underlining idea of "it needs to be a little more risky". It helps to enforce the "high risk, high reward" concept.

Giving it the "max chance possible to explode" would be giving every weapon a 100% crit rate, ammo a 100% explosion chance and ammo bins 1hp. That would, I agree, be really, really dumb.

I just don't buy that a reasonable maximum chance of ammo explosion if you're using a ten damage weapon of ~15% is too high.

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

Granted, some TT mechanics do not translate well to a FPS, however the TT rules have decades of balance work behind them and they were a great game that lasted to become such a valuable IP because of it. Sometimes the exact mechanic is less important than the reason behind the mechanic and that the flavor should always be preserved to try and make sure that BT as a meaningful game is not lost to convenience or biased player demands that may only suit a specific style of play. I have a few comments in that regard about several of the concepts being discussed here.

BT was not a brilliantly balanced wargame, it also wasn't a particularly prolific or popular one within the broad hobby, and it's main appeal has always been due to the fiction surrounding it (similarly with Games Workshop's IPs, infact). It's also untrue that most people likely to be drawn to a modern Mechwarrior game are basing their expectations on TT BT, or that that is their first point of contact with the IP - I imagine the majority are drawn by association with earlier Mechwarrior titles, as opposed to the TT game.

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

A game mechanic that might be interesting to pursue both from several angles. Free ammo tends to be prone to go BOOM say 30% vs current 10%, c-bill paid ammo, lower chance to BOOM, but at a cost (say 15-20%, or about 50% fewer ammo explosions, MC ammo (kinda like world of tanks) could have something like our present ammo BOOM rate. That said, it should be cheap in MC as we spray the stuff like water. Maybe 1-2 MC per ton or something like that. Its not a PTW scheme as you still have to be hit, armor breached, and take an ammo hit via current mechanics. It does not do more damage, fly faster or further, or cycle faster. PGI than has another revenue stream that depends on players actually PLAYING the game, more players, more money, more development.

Gold ammo is hands down the worst idea I've heard suggested in a long time, sadly it's also the mostly likely to be picked up by PGI.

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

Mech battles were often long engagements taking hours to unfold. There is no effective way to carry ammo allowing you to fight like that for long periods of time. The whole reason the clans were defeated was their propensity for ammo based weapons and short decisive firefights. Long grinding battles left them with empty magazines and reduced firepower allowing forces with more energy weapon centric loadouts to overpower them. Many of the arguments about ammo and ammo based weapons are based in wanting to fight like the clans.

A TT round is 10s. To simulate a battle taking a single hour would require 360 turns. Assuming each round takes five minutes on average to execute (which I understand to be very generous given the convoluted nature of many BTech rules) that means you're looking at 30 hours of real time to play an hour long battle.

Ergo, I call ******** on "taking hours to unfold".

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

The canon builds existed for a reason, they were a balance of speed, firepower, and logistical needs. There are very few totally ammo dependent mechs and those that were, were billed as specialized platforms in support roles, not main line fighters. MWO's mechanic would result in a Regiment of mechs to have dozens of dropships just carrying ammo to keep them in the fight for more than a few hours.

Completely incorrect, they are largely haphazard, badly designed and with intentionally crippling weakness introduced where they aren't badly designed initially. That's been stated by the game designers. You can easily see the shift in attitude in that regard with the post Helm Memory Core mech designs, which are designed sensibly, with the emphasis on actual effective ingame use, as opposed to being built around a loose fluff description irrespective of how well the resulting unit (didn't) perform in actuality. The post-HMC mechs are light years ahead of their predecessors even where they don't use newtech.

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 01:52 PM, said:

A properly designed community warfare system will bring ammo and repair logistics into play and more of the appeal of ammo heavy builds will lost to a combination of raw ammo costs and additional repair costs from ammo explosions.

There is absolutely no indication whatsoever that PGI intend to reintroduce R&R with CW, as far as I am aware. Infact, they were quite vocal when they removed it about the near-impossibility of ever seeing it again.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

So, going with max numbers, you want to have an ammo dependent design blow up 42% of the time as soon as it's armor is breached? (Just throwing this to the complete extreme, so don't take it too literally.) That becomes a chance. does it not?

Yes. If you have taken a side torso with a Std Engine and there is nothing whatsoever in that side torso but ammo then yes, I think a 42% chance of it blowing up is a suitable stupidity tax. It's on a commensurate level as taking the minimum ten heatsinks, not dubbing them, and then complaining when your 6-ERPPC Stalker nukes itself as soon as you fire.

I have yet to devise a realistic loadout whereby you have worse odds as the ammo-carrier than the "two tons in the foot" setup that returns a 14% chance of nuke. Maybe, maybe if you were somehow forced to put a gauss+AC ammo in the same side torso. But frankly you're smoking all sorts of crack if you do that.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 20 January 2014 - 02:34 PM.

[Tesunie]

I find it funny how we are talking about ammo blowing up, and yet I just died from that same situation with my Battlemaster, after my side torso was destroyed and I took a few steps. Then went POP! http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d83edc6e97ad3eb

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Answering in reverse order.. we're not actually talking about 100% though. We're talking about ~15% at the highest in any realistic fit.

And I don't want to limit the amount of ammo people can choose to bring, that's why I dislike the idea of halving ammo/ton. I do however think that it's far too easy right now to pack more than enough ammo to last a match comfortably, with no real associated risk. Making ammo more explosive still allows you to bring lots of ammo, but adds a risk factor to it. Your other option is, obviously, to combine your big guns with energy weapons to assuage that, leading to the mixed loadouts people always rave about wanting (though 90% of the time for utterly stupid reasons, but that's a different topic).

Currently ballistics are just too good relative to other weapons systems. Flat damage downgrades won't really work, convergence is untouchable because PGI are scared of netcode, burstfire is highly unlikely for the same reasons. The best solution, IMO, is a buff for non-pinpoint weapons, mostly via the heat system, and some minor adjustments to ballistics to actually enforce the opportunity costs they are advertised as having, like ammo explosions (and removing that moronic x3 range boost that has no reason to live).

I'm not talking 100% crit rate and 100% exploding ammo rates, but I suspect you knew that. I'm talking "If you get the ammo, it explodes 100% of the time". The crit rate is 42%, with an exploding rate of 100%. This would actually reward taking larger weapons (AC10s, PPCs, Gauss, AC20s), as when they crit, they will basically be blowing a crit up. Hit a crit that's ammo, and 100% (when you crit and hit ammo) of the time BOOM. PPCs would become a more dominant weapon again. (No ammo risk to themselves, and if they do crit and happen to hit a bin of ammo, instant BOOM.)

Most people place ammo in the legs, because they are "safest" there. Very few people place any ammo in the torso. Most of our talks about ammo in the torso is theoretical, and honestly being used to place "crit seeking chances" to the lowest to "make the numbers look worse and my proposition look better". It's been stated already that ammo in legs have a better chance of being crited on, so if anything we should go where the numbers normally rest, as most people place the ammo in the legs where if it does get crited, it's actually more likely to be the ammo to get crited. (I also don't think ammo should be placed rattling around in your legs, but that's just me.)

By the numbers being displayed here, I should shove all my ammo into my arms and torsos, as they have the "least chance of getting a crit on the ammo" there, compared to the legs. Yet, everyone (within reason) places ammo in the legs. Why? Because legs are less often hit, and they do this to try and prevent it from going pop.

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

It's quite possible that that ammo explosion is caused by the shot that kills the section critting (or, less likely but potentially possible, that the ammo explosion kills the section and it's being displayed 'out of order'). It's an artifact of gaming, really, but things don't always appear to occur in the right order because it all comes down to job priorities, free of the logical constraints imposed by reality, especially when you add lag into the picture. It's also quite possibly I'm wrong and you are right on this, if so - as I said - it's both simple and wise to disallow compartment destruction from triggering crits within said compartment.

Just had it happen to my with my Battlemaster (read above). I was fighting lost one side, nothing. Lost my other side torso, I thought nothing. I got a few steps down the road, and POP. Death by ammo explosion...

I believe that is how it works, but as you stated, I could also be wrong. I don't believe I am, but the possibility is always there...

And you have a point. You would have to disable explosions from when a section is destroyed, if that is the case in the current game. Otherwise, we'd have far too many explosions to be sane...

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Giving it the "max chance possible to explode" would be giving every weapon a 100% crit rate, ammo a 100% explosion chance and ammo bins 1hp. That would, I agree, be really, really dumb.

I just don't buy that a reasonable maximum chance of ammo explosion if you're using a ten damage weapon of ~15% is too high.

Responded to this above. Kinda merged the two responses together.

I just want to point out that we have more than ammo exploding chances we can alter to make the system more balanced and better. I still don't believe that a jump to 100% chance of ammo exploding if destroyed would be very balancing or fair. Without actually being able to test this, the most I can say is this is my opinion as of this moment.

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

BT was not a brilliantly balanced wargame, it also wasn't a particularly prolific or popular one within the broad hobby, and it's main appeal has always been due to the fiction surrounding it (similarly with Games Workshop's IPs, infact). It's also untrue that most people likely to be drawn to a modern Mechwarrior game are basing their expectations on TT BT, or that that is their first point of contact with the IP - I imagine the majority are drawn by association with earlier Mechwarrior titles, as opposed to the TT game.

I got into the IP through the novels. I wanted to play TT, but no one did around where I lived/didn't know where to go to play, and I couldn't afford to buy the mechs. My allowance wasn't large enough, and I could barely get the books. So I made a choice and bought the books instead. Then I bought the MW games as I could too. Now that I can kinda afford to (slowly) buy the mechs, I'm getting some TT stuff bought and trying to get into that.

(I'm also into Warhammer and Warhammer 40k too... )

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Gold ammo is hands down the worst idea I've heard suggested in a long time, sadly it's also the mostly likely to be picked up by PGI.

Agreed.

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

A TT round is 10s. To simulate a battle taking a single hour would require 360 turns. Assuming each round takes five minutes on average to execute (which I understand to be very generous given the convoluted nature of many BTech rules) that means you're looking at 30 hours of real time to play an hour long battle.

Ergo, I call ******** on "taking hours to unfold".

He might be referring to the books and lore, not the TT. In the books, battles could last for hours, or days even sometimes. TT matches were much... faster. At least by translation of turns into seconds...

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

Yes. If you have taken a side torso with a Std Engine and there is nothing whatsoever in that side torso but ammo then yes, I think a 42% chance of it blowing up is a suitable stupidity tax. It's on a commensurate level as taking the minimum ten heatsinks, not dubbing them, and then complaining when your 6-ERPPC Stalker nukes itself as soon as you fire.

I have yet to devise a realistic loadout whereby you have worse odds as the ammo-carrier than the "two tons in the foot" setup that returns a 14% chance of nuke. Maybe, maybe if you were somehow forced to put a gauss+AC ammo in the same side torso. But frankly you're smoking all sorts of crack if you do that.

Most people wouldn't, but the concept remains at least. My Battlemaster has ammo there, and lots of it. It's starting to become a bit of a problem as of late. I think I need to find a new hiding spot for the ammo...

PS: I can see someone placing the Gauss in a torso (don't have a choice) and then decide, "Heck, if my Gauss explodes, I'm gonna be hurt anyway" and just tosses the rest of their ammo there too. (Then, I would place CASE on it if I have a Std engine in. Then, if I go POP, I just loose everything on one side.) Can't say it's a good reason, but I can see someone thinking on those lines...

[stjobe]

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

Half the time, I can't find it on Sarna without having to try and find the exact terminology. I also tend to find Sarna doesn't mention numbers/rules so much as generalizations.

Well, now you have a link to the CBT tables (and individual equipment pages often list the game rules as well).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

So, going with max numbers, you want to have an ammo dependent design blow up 42% of the time as soon as it's armor is breached?

Simplification to the point of obfuscation.
1. Not every location has ammo.
2. Some of that ammo will be gone, since you seldom get armour-breached without firing a single shot.
3. As has been alluded to numerous times in the thread, the 42% is a simplification, disregarding the fact that not all shots do 10 or more damage.

So yes, as I stated in my previous post, I'd like to try it. I think the mitigating factors mentioned above will make ammo explosions a rare thing still, even though the scary "100%" number is in there.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

I'm not going to argue that the current crit/exploding system is perfect, but I don't think jumping from one side of the pendulum to the other is "the best solution" either. I just suggest that one slowly works up the chance till it seems more correct.

And to that I say why not go to 100% and dial it down if it's too much? Tomato, tomato.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

My point being, even if I disagree with the "make it 100% chance" I do agree that it should be a little more risky than it probably currently is.

I agree.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

That's Stock. We are talking MWO here. That Atlas isn't going to get far stock with only a single ton of ammo, unless it wants to have several more tons (the weapon it is feeding) to quickly become useless.

And as I noted in a previous post, the chance of ammo explosion never rises above 4.2% per hit, no matter how many tons you stick in there. More ammo does not equal higher chance of ammo explosion.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

45% to 42%. Seems close to me...
27% to 25%. Seems close again.
18% to 16%.
9% to 3%. Not so close here...

You claimed MWO had higher crit-chances than TT. My point was, that was erroneous. MWO has a lower crit chance than TT any way you look at it.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

You missed the point here. Lasers, missiles (lots of them) and faster shooting ACs have "more chances to crit" not "better chances to crit". Weapons that shoot/hit more often have more chances to cause a crit, where as slower shooting weapons have less chances.

Yes, but the point is moot since those more frequent hits have correspondingly lower damage and therefore there's lots of zero chance to get an ammo explosion in there, with a single chance tacked on at the end. You have to fire those weapons more often to get an ammo explosion, as I showed above in my example with the LL. It has such a slim chance to generate an ammo explosion it is all but non-existant, even though it hits ten times (or rather, because it hits ten times).

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

It can hit up to 3 of them, which means if there are more bins of ammo, there are more chances that one of the 3 will hit one.

You must not have seen the numbers I provided. 0.5% chance to crit two bins and explode one of them, and 0.09% chance to cirt three bins and explode one of them.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

Either I'm not understanding your math (I'm very good at math), or something isn't right with it. You might maybe expanding upon your math, as it isn't making sense to me...

It's not hard:
The chance to crit is 42%, or 0.42
The chance of an ammo explosion is 10%, or 0.1.
0.42 * 0.1 = 0.042, or 4.2%

That's if there's just one component to hit, and that component is an ammo bin.

Now say there's 12 ammo bins. the chance to hit one of them with one shot is 1/12, but the chance to hit any one of them is 12/12, or 1, so the chance to get an ammo explosion is
0.42 * 0.1 * 1 = 0.042, or 4.2%, same as if there was just one.

Finally, let's add some padding: let's have one ammo bin and eleven non-volatile components (say, 11 SHS). The chance for a single shot to hit the ammo bin is now 1 in 12, or 0.08. The chance to get an ammo explosion then becomes:
0.42 * 0.1 * 0.08 = 0.00336, or about 0.35%

Hence why I said that we have a 0.35% - 4.2% chance of an ammo explosion currently, and why the amount of ammo carried does not matter.

Now if you want to get into multiple crits, the chances are as follows:
1 crit: 25%, or 0.25
2 crits: 14%, or 0.14
3 crits: 3%, or 0.03

The chance to crit three different ammo bins in a location, and to set one of them exploding is:
3% chance to do a triple crit
3/12 (25%) chance to hit three different bins
30% chance of an ammo explosion (10% per bin)
0.03 * 0.25 * 0.3 = 0.00225, or 0.23%

Even if you were guaranteed a hit on a different bin for each crit, the chance to set off a single ammo explosion would still be
0.03 * 0.3 = 0.009, or 0.9% - less than 1%

Edited by stjobe, 20 January 2014 - 03:17 PM.

[Gaan Cathal]

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

I'm not talking 100% crit rate and 100% exploding ammo rates, but I suspect you knew that. I'm talking "If you get the ammo, it explodes 100% of the time". The crit rate is 42%, with an exploding rate of 100%. This would actually reward taking larger weapons (AC10s, PPCs, Gauss, AC20s), as when they crit, they will basically be blowing a crit up. Hit a crit that's ammo, and 100% (when you crit and hit ammo) of the time BOOM. PPCs would become a more dominant weapon again. (No ammo risk to themselves, and if they do crit and happen to hit a bin of ammo, instant BOOM.)

Most people place ammo in the legs, because they are "safest" there. Very few people place any ammo in the torso. Most of our talks about ammo in the torso is theoretical, and honestly being used to place "crit seeking chances" to the lowest to "make the numbers look worse and my proposition look better". It's been stated already that ammo in legs have a better chance of being crited on, so if anything we should go where the numbers normally rest, as most people place the ammo in the legs where if it does get crited, it's actually more likely to be the ammo to get crited. (I also don't think ammo should be placed rattling around in your legs, but that's just me.)

Larger weapons invariably require more ammo, and the PPC needs..adjustments...anyway.

And there's a reason I keep touting my 14% number for two-tons-in-the-legs. Not only is it the highest reasonable chance at 100% explosion chance, but it's the single most common ammo setup. For reference I also keep hammering the point about 100% explosion chance not meaning 100% chance of an explosion because whilst you get what we mean, others clearly haven't. It also makes more sense when talking about what "feels reasonable" to use the most accurate odds of it actually happening.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

Just had it happen to my with my Battlemaster (read above). I was fighting lost one side, nothing. Lost my other side torso, I thought nothing. I got a few steps down the road, and POP. Death by ammo explosion...

I believe that is how it works, but as you stated, I could also be wrong. I don't believe I am, but the possibility is always there...

And you have a point. You would have to disable explosions from when a section is destroyed, if that is the case in the current game. Otherwise, we'd have far too many explosions to be sane...

I think we're basically in agreement here. If situation A is true, all is fine. If situation B is true, compartment-loss-crits need turning off.

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

He might be referring to the books and lore, not the TT. In the books, battles could last for hours, or days even sometimes. TT matches were much... faster. At least by translation of turns into seconds...

I'll grant that most of my knowledge of the IP/Lore is from earlier MW games and Sarna/forum research to counter "TT diehards" who make things up, but my impression is that the days-long "engagements" are, effectively, campaigns. Forces engage, fight, disengage, rinse repeat until one is destroyed, forced to retreat or completes some random genocidal objective. These are conjoined strings of TT "battles", and the real ammo concern is around in-field resupply between engagements

Tesunie, on 20 January 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

Most people wouldn't, but the concept remains at least. My Battlemaster has ammo there, and lots of it. It's starting to become a bit of a problem as of late. I think I need to find a new hiding spot for the ammo...

PS: I can see someone placing the Gauss in a torso (don't have a choice) and then decide, "Heck, if my Gauss explodes, I'm gonna be hurt anyway" and just tosses the rest of their ammo there too. (Then, I would place CASE on it if I have a Std engine in. Then, if I go POP, I just loose everything on one side.) Can't say it's a good reason, but I can see someone thinking on those lines...

Under a 10-14% ammo explosion rate system, both these situations would be fine. The player is taking a risk, because they believe the benefits outweigh the risks (piles and piles of ammo for your quad CUAC/5 is a nice advantage), or they're intentionally banking on being able to protect one high-risk location (the gauss-plus-ammo-plus-case) situation, and will probably be largely disarmed by loosing it anyway (hunchbacks come to mind, in principle).

[Krystof Morva]

Gaan Cathal, on 20 January 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

A TT round is 10s. To simulate a battle taking a single hour would require 360 turns. Assuming each round takes five minutes on average to execute (which I understand to be very generous given the convoluted nature of many BTech rules) that means you're looking at 30 hours of real time to play an hour long battle.

Ergo, I call ******** on "taking hours to unfold".

TT BT turns were 1 minute....solaris games rules were 15 seconds and did not allow some weapons to fire every turn.

Edited by Krystof Morva, 20 January 2014 - 03:53 PM.

[Tesunie]

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

Simplification to the point of obfuscation.
1. Not every location has ammo.
2. Some of that ammo will be gone, since you seldom get armour-breached without firing a single shot.
3. As has been alluded to numerous times in the thread, the 42% is a simplification, disregarding the fact that not all shots do 10 or more damage.

So yes, as I stated in my previous post, I'd like to try it. I think the mitigating factors mentioned above will make ammo explosions a rare thing still, even though the scary "100%" number is in there.


And to that I say why not go to 100% and dial it down if it's too much? Tomato, tomato.


And as I noted in a previous post, the chance of ammo explosion never rises above 4.2% per hit, no matter how many tons you stick in there. More ammo does not equal higher chance of ammo explosion.


You claimed MWO had higher crit-chances than TT. My point was, that was erroneous. MWO has a lower crit chance than TT any way you look at it.


You must not have seen the numbers I provided. 0.5% chance to crit two bins and explode one of them, and 0.09% chance to cirt three bins and explode one of them.

I can respond to all these without breaking them up.

- No, not every location has ammo. Neither would it in TT.
- True, you use ammo as the game progresses. But I've had many a match where I hadn't been able to unload a single shot of LRM fire before some enemy light mech (usually with ECM) gets into my face. That's 8 tons of full ordnance ready to ******* up! Basically, we have to consider that most of that ammo is probably still there, as we can't assign a real number to how much was used and how much wasn't.
- Yup. We simplify to make it easier. It's easier to just say "42% of the time you crit" than "25% something something, if you have ammo something something, 10% something else, if you weapon is x, it'll do something something"...

I can't say I would be against trying it, like in a test server, but to just arbitrarily "chance" it for the masses and "see what happens", I'd be very hesitant. For the masses, I'd rather slowly bump up the numbers till my data sheets agrees with what the intended threat should be. This way, you don't have "LRMapocalypse" like situation, except with ammo crits and exploding...

How does it never rise above 4.2%? Individually, yet. Per crit slot, it can never have a single crit destroying an ammo bin have a greater chance than 4.2%. However, you aren't shooting a single weapon most times, and you also can (even if chances are still low) score more than one crit. This increases the chance that a single hit might cause an explosion (especially with more than one crit taken by ammo) by up to x3. This should (if my math is correct, doing percentages can be tricky) increase your chance of causing an ammo explosion with a triple crit (removing the chance of the triple crit for now, for simplicity) up from 4.2 to 12.6% chance for a single shot. If I only had a single crit filled with ammo there (and seen as you only chance explosion when it is destroyed), THEN the most you can get no mater how many crits possible (assuming a crit takes out the crit slot for simplicity) would become 4.2%, as once the bin and ammo is destroyed, the other crits can't apply any farther risks.

As far as MWO having high crits, I was mistaken and chanced my response accordingly. I changed it to "about the same", which a total of 3% (if the numbers you provided was accurate) less chance to score a crit between TT and MWO isn't as large of a deal. However, also recall that, in TT most times your weapons will not hit where you wish, and will normally seem to dance around the armor less area (if you have my luck). In MWO, when you shoot your weapons at once, if one weapon hits an exposed area, more than likely all of your weapons are as well. Each weapon doing so has the same 42% total chance. Stack that for each weapon hitting the same location... we technically (in a round about way) do have a higher chance of scoring a crit compared to TT. We can actively aim for an exposed spot to create the chance of a crit in the first place, compared to TT where the weapons hit where you roll.

I think, you are doing those percentages wrong. It shouldn't "decrease" the chances of making a bin explode if more crits are applied, it should increase the chance. It looks like you are doing the math for "the chances of getting 2-3 crits and have all crits detonate an ammo crit", instead of "The chance of getting 2-3 crits and having one of them detonate a single ammo bin". I know the chances of scoring multiple crits drops the more crits you are asking about, but if you do score 3 crits (3% chance of scoring the 3 crits and assuming that these crits will destroy the crit they hit), if all 3 hit ammo (lets just say there are 3 ammo bins to crit on, and each one scored a hit on a single bin, for simplicity), then not only are you depriving the target of 3 ammo bins of ammo, but also each bin will have 10% chance to explode. That least to a 30% total chance a thing of ammo will explode from a crit from that single shot.

stjobe, on 20 January 2014 - 03:09 PM, said:

It's not hard:
The chance to crit is 42%, or 0.42
The chance of an ammo explosion is 10%, or 0.1.
0.42 * 0.1 = 0.042, or 4.2%

That's if there's just one component to hit, and that component is an ammo bin.

Now say there's 12 ammo bins. the chance to hit one of them with one shot is 1/12, but the chance to hit any one of them is 12/12, or 1, so the chance to get an ammo explosion is
0.42 * 0.1 * 1 = 0.042, or 4.2%, same as if there was just one.

Finally, let's add some padding: let's have one ammo bin and eleven non-volatile components (say, 11 SHS). The chance for a single shot to hit the ammo bin is now 1 in 12, or 0.08. The chance to get an ammo explosion then becomes:
0.42 * 0.1 * 0.08 = 0.00336, or about 0.35%

Hence why I said that we have a 0.35% - 4.2% chance of an ammo explosion currently, and why the amount of ammo carried does not matter.

Now if you want to get into multiple crits, the chances are as follows:
1 crit: 25%, or 0.25
2 crits: 14%, or 0.14
3 crits: 3%, or 0.03

The chance to crit three different ammo bins in a location, and to set one of them exploding is:
3% chance to do a triple crit
3/12 (25%) chance to hit three different bins
30% chance of an ammo explosion (10% per bin)
0.03 * 0.25 * 0.3 = 0.00225, or 0.23%

Even if you were guaranteed a hit on a different bin for each crit, the chance to set off a single ammo explosion would still be
0.03 * 0.3 = 0.009, or 0.9% - less than 1%

I understand the top math, and for a single scored crit, it is accurate.

You are diminishing the return of the multiple crit chances. Yes, the chance to score the triple crit is low on it's own, 3%, however if one is scored the chance it will hit an ammo bin, even if there is only 1 out of 11 other components, increases by 3. You now have 3 chances instead of 1 to get the ammo bin out of all the other crits. Also, if all 3 crits hit an ammo bin (lets say all that was there was ammo), you now have 3 chances to have that ammo explode.

The returns shouldn't deminish. You are gauging the chances of scoring a triple crit, and then diminishing the "return" of having 3 chances. You also forget, the other chances of scoring a single crit, or a double crit, also need to be considered as well, as you don't "only score a triple or nothing". The chances of scoring a triple crit is low, but once you do score it, your chances of finding ammo and making it explode increase 3 fold.

Remove the 0.03 (3%) from your math (I know, this is your chance of scoring a triple). Now, work the math from there. Lets say, you hit my Battlemasters( http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d83edc6e97ad3eb ) Right torso. 5 crit slots are ammo, out of 12. That's a 5/12 41% chance that a single crit will hit ammo. Actually, I have two blank slots, so it's actually a 5/10 chance, which is 50% chance to hit ammo with a single crit. Each of the triple crit will have a 50% chance to hit an ammo, and a 10% chance to hit the same ammo twice. Those are good odds there. Then, each possible hit has a 10% chance upon destroying an ammo bin to cause an explosion. So, I see it as (when a triple does occur) 50%+50%+50% for each crit to get "the right thing". Due to the possibility of hitting the same crit twice, we shall call it 50%, 40%, 30% (these aren't right and I know it, but for reference sake. My brain doesn't want to do these numbers anymore ). Then, if each crit hits ammo, there is a chance it will explode. So, each crit from the triple crit should be 5%, 4%, 3% of causing a crit and ammo explosion to a single ammo slot on my Battlemaster. (Multiple crits can hit the same thing, right? I'm not sure on this.)

Of course, that is presuming I have a build that needs lots of ammo, such as my Battlemaster. Most people tend to not place only one crit of ammo if they are dependent on it, and with multiple crits of ammo sitting there, the chance of critting and exploding one goes up. Instead of only have a 4.2% chance of it happening (with one ammo) if I have 12 crits of ammo in a single section that got crit on, it's a 50.4% chance total that a crit (if you got enough of them on me) will blow up some ammo in a rather spectacular way. Per shot is still 4.2, but I have enough ammo that if enough crits are applied, I have a larger chance that one bin will explode at some point, diminishing as I use ammo or ammo crits get destroyed. Most of your numbers are based on a single shot hitting and critting a single thing of ammo. However, once that ammo is destroyed, it no longer threatens any farther explosions. That means that for every crit of ammo, I have another 4.2% chance of it exploding. Stack them together, and the chances of one piece of ammo will explode starts to look rather high, and I only need one to detonate most times and I'm just a smoking husk of a warmachine...



I think the issue we are having is, I'm looking at it as per slot chance, you are looking at it as per shot chance. Per slot, the more ammo I have, the more likely one will get hit and explode. Per shot, I only have a low chance of getting an explosion, as I can only have an X chance of critting, critting ammo and getting it to explode in a single shot.

PS: Per slot, my Battlemasters right side has a (5x4.2%=) 21% chance that someone will get an ammo bin to explode, at some point during the match once my armor is gone (if I don't lose that side first). Giving some variance for ammo being used, and the chance of that side torso surviving that long, it is less than that. But, if I am correct about the "when a side is destroyed, everything in side it takes it's normal destruction chances", then if someone pops a fully loaded side torso, and doesn't crit a single side, I have a 50% chance of (5 tons of ammo x 10% chance each = 50% chance total) getting an ammo explosion result, and instead of being able to continue the fight with half a mech, I might be a crater in the ground, smoldering and sizzling a little...

Edited by Tesunie, 20 January 2014 - 04:41 PM.

[wanderer]

RW Phelinx, on 20 January 2014 - 03:43 AM, said:

How about the rule about having ammo in same or adjacent sections? If ammo was mounted the way it had to be in BT we might see more balance of these gun boats. The ammo would take up critical slots in torsos and arms and help push builds to different weapons because of reduced space for heat sinks, engines, and larger weapons. The increased risk of ammo explosion with this addition might just shift builds closer(I know it will never be perfect) to BT.

That isn't a rule in tabletop in the least. Ammo can go in any location you like relative to the weapon. See this fellow right here, the Eyleuka? Jihad-era design. See where the missile launcher is on the shoulder? The ammo? HEAD.

Krystof Morva, on 20 January 2014 - 03:46 PM, said:

TT BT turns were 1 minute....solaris games rules were 15 seconds and did not allow some weapons to fire every turn.

TT turns are 10 seconds of "real" time, actually. Solaris was in 2.5 second intervals.

Does nobody here actually own a real rulebook and just quotes someone else doing it wrong?

Edited by wanderer, 20 January 2014 - 06:20 PM.

[Trauglodyte]

I would say that the point of making ammo explode more often, even if it did less damage when it does ignite, is to make people make the choice of taking CASE. One of the biggest issues in this game is that people aren't afraid of consequences. Nobody fears running hot, even when you take internal damage because of it. And nobody fears ammo explosions because everyone tosses it in their legs and it is far quicker to kill someone by way of their CT (or ST if there is an XL engine in play). For that matter, people have bitched and moaned about needing/wanting more ammo because they feel the need to be able to fire it as much as they want as often as they want. The whole point of ammo and heat is conservation for when you really need it. That is why mechs are built with supplementary weapons so that you don't always have to rely on that primary weapon. But, the community doesn't want to do that because of this danged self entitled "I want it my way" generation - dang blasted kids!

Anyway, CASE needs a function and increasing the likelihood of ammo cooking off is a good way to get there. It doesn't need to be 100% but it needs to be something that happens more than once in a while. Furthermore, the crit system needs to be redone because the game is supposed to support all weapons and not have it so that the bigger the weapon the better. As JoeMal likes to say, he wants his BFG. But, that shouldn't be at the loss of everything else (ie, Lasers aren't nearly as effective causing crits as PPCs, AC10s, GRs, and AC20s).