201 replies to this topic

[Yiazmat]

Who'da thunk, eh? Here's how they did it: when your armor was breached, your ammo was exposed. when your ammo was hit/crit out, it detonated 100% of the time. None of this sissy-footing around that PGI has done with mwo's *EDIT not 20* 10% ammo detonation chance when crit out.

Think about it. "Oh. {Scrap}. here's a [insert most hated ammo dependent mech here]. he probably puts his ammo in his legs. he probably runs an xl engine to support all dem guns. and he probably shaved off a ton of armor off those chicken legs to fit 'moar' ammo." *gnaws on mechs legs*

BOOM!

suddenly the monsters with hella guns are walking time bombs about to go off. this should apply to all ammo types: ballistic, missile and ams.

"but, but Yiazmat, that wouldn't be fair, my ballistic mech is already paying the price for its guns with the xl, why make them weaker? " I'm not. I'm bringing them into line with the rest of the game. you want pinpoint damage and no heat? here, have an AC, but get ready to pay with weight and ammo EXPLOSIONS (inner Mr. Torgue popped out there sorry) If you want pinpoint damage and little weight, go with ppc's, but be prepared to pay for it in crippling heat and dead zones (or no dead zones and worse crippling heat) And if you want great weight and decent heat management, go for medium and large lasers (and be prepared to spread ze damage all over the target and that bs ghost heat).

TLDR, we need this little shift back to the game's roots to help balance out the game (I hate saying that but whatever). the best part is its really really really easy to do! An afternoon of shifting through the ammo crit code and changing all the values to 100%. nothing added. nothing new to program. ****, gimme access and I'll do it for free!

Edited by Yiazmat, 19 January 2014 - 10:38 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

you mean make CASE useful?

[Yiazmat]

oh yeah, would also give some validity to CASE.  Ok n I'm out of scotch and its late.
man colonel, you're fast lol

Edited by Yiazmat, 19 January 2014 - 01:26 AM.

[Toong]

A good rule of thumb is this: If you see a problem, and think the solution is

A: a simple value change that, somehow, no one came up with before, or
B: to change said values by more than a couple percent,

then you have almost certainly not given the problem enough thought, and are probably wrong.



Making ammo explode 100% of the time is too far in the other direction. No matter where you store your ammo, with a 100% explosion rate, you'd see explosions as the cause of death shoot waaay past acceptable limits. I have no idea how to do the math, but probably something in the 30-40 percent range? Considering that ammo explosions are typically fatal to a 'mech that could have otherwise kept going, you'd also see a huge spike in premature deaths.

Carrying a CASE can stop the immediate death sentence, but it won't stop the explosion from taking off enough of your 'mech to make death a foregone conclusion. Basically you'd be removing structural hitpoints altogether, since the first crit would spell the destruction of that section.

If this were implemented, most people would probably stop using them altogether. That's the opposite of balance.

Edited by Toong, 19 January 2014 - 08:00 PM.

[stjobe]

It's 10% chance to get an ammo explosion, and to damage ammo you need to crit it (which is a 42% chance for most weapons).

So, to get that ammo to explode you need to:
* fire at an exposed section with ammo in it.
* crit (42% chance).
* have the crit do damage to the ammo bin and not e.g. the hip actuator (crits are randomly distributed).
* have that crit do enough damage to destroy the ammo bin.
* then, and only then, do you have a 10% chance to get an ammo explosion.

In practice, the chance of ammo explosion is way, way below 10%.

[Auzen]

Or... just make people buy their ammo.

[Gaan Cathal]

stjobe, on 19 January 2014 - 03:54 AM, said:

It's 10% chance to get an ammo explosion, and to damage ammo you need to crit it (which is a 42% chance for most weapons).

So, to get that ammo to explode you need to:
* fire at an exposed section with ammo in it.
* crit (42% chance).
* have the crit do damage to the ammo bin and not e.g. the hip actuator (crits are randomly distributed).
* have that crit do enough damage to destroy the ammo bin.
* then, and only then, do you have a 10% chance to get an ammo explosion.

In practice, the chance of ammo explosion is way, way below 10%.

Assuming we're talking about a leg with two tons ammo in it, and a weapon that does enough damage to nuke ammo in one hit...

42% chance of crit
33% chance of crit being applied to an ammo critslot
10% chance of critted ammo exploding

So... 0.42*0.33*0.1 = 0.01386

So ~ 1.4% chance of ammo explosion from a given shot, given the fairly generous two-tons-in-a-leg circumstance. A single ton in a crit-padded side torso will cause the chance to plummet far below 1%.

If critted ammo always exploded, per the OP's suggestion, the odds of the leg being blown off in the above example would be just shy of 14% - not exactly hyper-lethal, especially when you factor in that a lot of weapons don't have enough damage to guarantee a crit big enough to destroy ammo anyway.

So, the maths there explains why ammo explosions are an irrelevant gimmick with current numbers, not - as often suggested by "don't make energy worth fitting" campaigners - an impactful balancing consequence of running ballistics.

Auzen, on 19 January 2014 - 04:14 AM, said:

Or... just make people buy their ammo.

They did. People cried.

Edited by Gaan Cathal, 19 January 2014 - 04:35 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

You know what the table top rule really meant - that ballistics were never really a good idea. The devastation wrought by ballistic and missile ammo was so extreme that you were better off picking the equivalent in range or damage energy weapon.
Only Gauss and the various AC/20s didn't have an equivalent damage-wise, and could still be interesting. (And Gauss is only true for IS, the Clan ER PPC dealt also 15 damage per shot. But of course, Gauss also has the advantage that it didn't use explosive ammo and only exploded for a small amount of damage, compared to the 100 damage possibly by a ton of AC/20 ammo).

I am all for increasing ammo explosion chance in M:WO, actually, but the damage must be dialed down significantly - a ton of ammo shouldn't explode for more than 10-15 damage (but then even a 100 % explosion chance could be fine.)

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Oh I wish they would implement this, the tears would be delicious. This from an AC and missile user.

[SirLANsalot]

it just needs to be in. Ammo used to explode a lot more often back in CB (cool animation too) to the point that running without case, was AN ACTUAL RISK you were taking. Knowing full well that a blown leg, could end you (unless you used up that legs ammo). If you were a true Dakka Dakka build, you took CASE in BOTH torsos to stop the explosion from moving on.

Non XL mechs were the ones that could risk not running CASE, as long as ammo stayed in the Arms/Legs and Head/CT (if your CT gets opened up, your dead anyways). Since an ammo explosion only took the next component with it, so losing a leg, could cause you to lose your side torso too along with the arm. So it was a tradeoff, as XL mechs, had to run CASE or just die as soon as they lost the arm/leg.

[sC4r]

while i really doubt this would magically "solve" balistic problems it would be nice if the ammo if destroyed would explode 100% of time... same goes for gauss

the way it is now is just way too random and lucky/unlucky

[LoneMaverick]

Gaan Cathal, on 19 January 2014 - 04:34 AM, said:

Maths.

I had never known the actual numbers, but yeah ammo explosions are definitely an insignificant danger, compared to what they should be.

Ammo at 10HP with a near 1% chance to crit per roll is silly, drastically making CASE useless, and the danger of cooked off ammo silly. If this was changed, crit seeking weapons would see better performance, and hell couldn't we give the Flamer bonus damage to Ammo...perhaps make it useful?

Seeing a couple anklebiter lights running around with Mlas and flamers trying to make peoples legs explode would be pretty neat! And a step away from the current Light-sniper setup most lights have to run(unless you're a Jenner).

[Lord Perversor]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 January 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

You know what the table top rule really meant - that ballistics were never really a good idea. The devastation wrought by ballistic and missile ammo was so extreme that you were better off picking the equivalent in range or damage energy weapon.
Only Gauss and the various AC/20s didn't have an equivalent damage-wise, and could still be interesting. (And Gauss is only true for IS, the Clan ER PPC dealt also 15 damage per shot. But of course, Gauss also has the advantage that it didn't use explosive ammo and only exploded for a small amount of damage, compared to the 100 damage possibly by a ton of AC/20 ammo).

I am all for increasing ammo explosion chance in M:WO, actually, but the damage must be dialed down significantly - a ton of ammo shouldn't explode for more than 10-15 damage (but then even a 100 % explosion chance could be fine.)

Or just restrict the dmg to a single impact of such weapon. on the internals and the ammo gone.

Right now i recall some Atlas losing a Leg and the following explosion taking of a ST and almost all the Ct internals wich should acoount for more than 50ish dmg easily. On the days of ammo explosions.

[Gaan Cathal]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 January 2014 - 04:56 AM, said:

You know what the table top rule really meant - that ballistics were never really a good idea. The devastation wrought by ballistic and missile ammo was so extreme that you were better off picking the equivalent in range or damage energy weapon.
Only Gauss and the various AC/20s didn't have an equivalent damage-wise, and could still be interesting. (And Gauss is only true for IS, the Clan ER PPC dealt also 15 damage per shot. But of course, Gauss also has the advantage that it didn't use explosive ammo and only exploded for a small amount of damage, compared to the 100 damage possibly by a ton of AC/20 ammo).

I am all for increasing ammo explosion chance in M:WO, actually, but the damage must be dialed down significantly - a ton of ammo shouldn't explode for more than 10-15 damage (but then even a 100 % explosion chance could be fine.)

Lasers didn't spread damage over more than one location in TT either. They have massive opportunity costs compared with ballistics, and one of the supposed costs of using ballistics is, as I've shown, a complete nonissue. Frankly I couldn't give a damn that it was 100% on TT, or how much impact that had on fitting. In MW:O it needs to be 100% with significant damage to give ballistics the weaknesses they're supposed to have. If the right number was 50%, then I'd be arguing for that irrespective of the 100% TT number.

[MustrumRidcully]

Gaan Cathal, on 19 January 2014 - 06:00 AM, said:

Lasers didn't spread damage over more than one location in TT either. They have massive opportunity costs compared with ballistics, and one of the supposed costs of using ballistics is, as I've shown, a complete nonissue. Frankly I couldn't give a damn that it was 100% on TT, or how much impact that had on fitting. In MW:O it needs to be 100% with significant damage to give ballistics the weaknesses they're supposed to have. If the right number was 50%, then I'd be arguing for that irrespective of the 100% TT number.

It doesn't matter whether lasers spread. Fundamentally putting in a weapon system that can be more dangerous to your own mech then to the enemy is bad design, especially if you also attach such incredible randomization with it.

If, for example, as a designer I have the choice between ballistics that deal 20 % less damage then they do now to balance them with spreading lasers or to add a likely explosion chance for 200 damage to them, I would pick 20 % less damage in every time.

Uncontrollably power-shifting random effects are the enemy of skilled play.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 19 January 2014 - 06:24 AM.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Think this post migrated to the wrong thread some how.

Edited by Nicholas Carlyle, 19 January 2014 - 06:38 AM.

[Reitrix]

I'm still of the opinion that ammo should be loaded in the same Section or Adjacent section. In the 'Mech loadouts i read in Sarna (All of them) i never once saw a 'mech that stored it's ammo in legs.

Alternatively, cut the ammo counts. Heavily. Ballistics in BattleTech were powerful, but never meant to be used for long missions without constant resupply. 'Mechs that were AC/Missile heavy in Lore were never able to operate long without supply lines feeding them ammo. The A1 is a prime example.
Lasers were always 'backup' weapons in BT, yes there were 'Mechs that used them for their primary weapon system, but in doing so gave them extreme longevity in the field over ammo based 'Mechs.

Reduce ammo counts across the board, suddenly your jagerbomb can kill maybe 2 'mechs with perfect accuracy, but you're down to SL/MLs after that. That or we need a gamemode that lasts longer than 15 minutes.

[WildeKarde]

That would be great fun especially as IS mechs only get CASE in torso as per TT. So you could get legged, ammo goes off taking off the leg, torso and arm in one. XL engine and it's game over for you.

There also was a pilot feedback from ammo going off and you could pass out, maybe we should add that where your screen goes black for 10 secs as well

[Gaan Cathal]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 January 2014 - 06:23 AM, said:

It doesn't matter whether lasers spread. Fundamentally putting in a weapon system that can be more dangerous to your own mech then to the enemy is bad design, especially if you also attach such incredible randomization with it.

If, for example, as a designer I have the choice between ballistics that deal 20 % less damage then they do now to balance them with spreading lasers or to add a likely explosion chance for 200 damage to them, I would pick 20 % less damage in every time.

Uncontrollably power-shifting random effects are the enemy of skilled play.

We're talking about reducing the randomness, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly if we had through-armour crits, but we don't. Infact, we already have a less safe version of the same mechanic with the XL engine. Ballistics would simply make your mech more fragile, you'd still have to loose all the armour on the relevant section and sustain enough damage (combination of raw damage and 14% crit chance) to have the location explode. And you could avoid propagation by using CASE, which is supposed to have a reason to exist. If you're running CASE, and ergo only loose the compartment containing the ammo, then how much faster do you think that compartment will die due to ammo explosion compared with pure hitpoint loss? Not only would it make carrying ammo an actual risk, as it's supposed to be, but frankly anything that increases the importance of gets hit when armour is stripped is good. Currently there's essentially no difference between armour and IS, it's just one big hitpoint pool to wear down.

[Intruder]

sC4r, on 19 January 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

while i really doubt this would magically "solve" balistic problems it would be nice if the ammo if destroyed would explode 100% of time... same goes for gauss

the way it is now is just way too random and lucky/unlucky

Gauss ammo is entirely inert so it cannot explode and should not do in the game.