65 replies to this topic

[Daggett]

Acierocolotl, on 10 February 2014 - 05:07 PM, said:

I have occasionally put ammo in the legs, there just wasn't room anywhere else. Of course I'm driving lights, and after endo, ferro fibrous and double heat sinks I just don't have room anywhere else other than a tonne in the head. But of course my legs have max armour, because of course everybody shoots there. I might be an idiot, but I'm not dumb.

Endo and FF-crits are dynamically assigned. It should be no problem to put your ammo anywhere you want when using these.

Acierocolotl, on 10 February 2014 - 05:07 PM, said:

But I also thought that if I got legged despite all that, I was as good as dead anyway, my lifespan drops to seconds when I'm gimpy. So I don't care if I go up in a glorious cloud.

The important thing to consider here is the time between "leg armor gone" and "leg is blown off". In my lights i survived many games on orange or even red legs for either several minutes or even until the end. But with ammo in your legs you are significantly dropping your chance of getting these extra-minutes after your armor is stripped because each following hit could cook your ammo (edit: especially if your enemy uses a light with MGs like the currently popular Ember).

Edited by Daggett, 10 February 2014 - 05:23 PM.

[Devil Fox]

I'm an ammo in the leg player... but then every mech I run doesn't have less the 90% of the maximum armour there, and ammo will always go to the head and CT before the legs if I can afford it. The problem I find is most go for my torso's so the content there is crit and destroyed, if I had ammo stored there I would most likely die more often from an ammo explosion then I do when my legs get blown off (ammo deaths for myself only occur when I haven't spent enough rounds down range).

It's player preference, I myself will typically go for ammo in the legs, I would also use guass ammo to pad the crit slots of a guass rifle section (to try and give it a longer life). It all comes down to someone's playstyle, experience in the field and preference.

Personally it isn't a build mistake, I hate ammo in torso's because it makes me feel much more vulnerable.

[Kjudoon]

Another OP proclimation meant to cover all occasions, but really only covers a rare few and expected to be followed like law.

[Unnatural Growth]

I routinely put ammo in my legs. I also run either max or very close to max armor on all my mechs, be they light or assault. It cracks me up when some light runs up and sweeps my leg with med lasers when I'm in my Highlander. BOOM goes the light!

And yes, if your ammo is only in your legs, guess what gets used first?

I think folks that take their armor down to paper mache levels deserve every crit ammo explosion they get.

[Phantomime]

Victor Morson, on 10 February 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

Bad Idea #1: Lowering leg armor by more than a few points.
Bad Idea #2: Putting ammo in the legs, as it is used last and will transfer explosion into the side torso directly.
Bad Idea #3: Mixing Bad Idea #1 and #2.

This is actually kind of shocking; many builds provided to help new players have this glaring failure in them from even experienced pilots.

You folks really need to stop doing this, and stop recommending it. It's a horrible idea. When I go pugging I kill so many people through leg shots ; the second I realize their leg armor is bad it's like blood in the water, followed generally by ammo explosions.

You are not protecting your side torso by jamming it in the leg. If your leg ammo is hit, it will transfer to the internal parts of the side torso and heavily damage it, plus even if you survive, you will be legged and that is generally borrowed time anyway.

It is a lose-lose scenario.

So seriously folks - start armoring your legs. A couple points here and there can be fine, but that's it. And stop stuffing them full of explosive ammo, in particular when that armor isn't max!

depends seriously on the meta.

dont run XL cause like, your side torso can die easier than your CT... does it matter if youre getting CT cored every bloody match? there are times when both are good. team comp is another consideration...

I agree leaving ANY part of your mech paper thin is never in your best interests, and that compounding this by, it being a leg, AND putting explosive ammo in it is really really not a good idea..

..but, from my... hundreds of games as a heavy pilot, i can probably count all the times ive lost 1 leg on maybe two hands. Ive died to being legged maybe twice out of hundreds of games.. so the argument for keeping full armor in your legs I feel to be misleading.

EXCEPTION: LIGHTS and MEDIUMS. run basically full armor or die. heavy's can get away with 2/3's armor in their legs because its still like 30+ points (30 or less is really really low and not recomended, im a fan of 35-45 in legs, and CT around 60-70 depending on tonnage... this is all for a HEAVY)

Lights/Mediums get hit with the same weapons as a Heavy. There is no DR, and at best you can cause them to 'paint' your mech with lasers, but everything else does single location damage and thus surviving Alpha's becomes a Huge issue. So PLEASE armor your mechs!

(arms can block shots when twisting, taking away hits from RT/LT - this matters if you are an XL. If you are a standard you can afford to reduce the armor on unused arms because, well, they are ONLY there to block shots. That's really the only place I would strip armor.)

HEAD: DONT DO IT. ya, the hit box on some mechs is hilariously small (atlas' eyeball), but why risk being killed outright to a sniper to save 0.2t ?? its NOT worth it. (if you are a catapult or catafract pilot and you do this, its suicide.)

[Kiiyor]

Victor Morson, on 10 February 2014 - 04:03 PM, said:

Kiiyor, on 10 February 2014 - 04:01 PM, said:

Also hills are OP, and i'm a dirty, behind-a-hill-advanced-zoom-lurking coward.

Ironically the 'mech that can do this the best is the Gauss Jager, which actually has nothing to fear from ammo in the legs because Gauss rounds don't explode.

The gauss-every-1.5-seconds 3xAC5 Yager is more along the lines of what I was thinking. Shoehorning all that ammo into my mech can be require a little 'legwork' (bah-doom-TISH) as i'm quite leery of putting ammo into ST's. I tend to run those builds as close to the bleeding edge as I can though - lowered arm and leg armour, minimum exposed silhouette, maximum dakka, maximum boned if anything gets a clear shot at me.

Having the ammo in the legs on those builds (longer ranged support) isn't as big an issue on the Yager as it is on...well, any brawler, though I have been legged and ammo-KERBLAMMOED enough times for it to leave an impression. Oddly, over a thousand or so drops of experimentation, i've found the safest place to store ammo on the Yager... is in it's svelte little arms.

[xengk]

Victor Morson, on 10 February 2014 - 03:37 PM, said:

Bad Idea #1: Lowering leg armor by more than a few points.
Bad Idea #2: Putting ammo in the legs, as it is used last and will transfer explosion into the side torso directly.
Bad Idea #3: Mixing Bad Idea #1 and #2.

#1
I think this depends on the mech the pilot is driving.
For Lights and fast Medium(Cicada, BJ), leg amour is life and should not be lowered.
But for Heavy and Assault, you usually can get away with lowering your leg armour to as much as half your side torso. Plus people generally don't shot assaults in the leg except the few devious one.
(a TBolt have 60 side torso amour, 30~40 for each leg is safe, enemy still have to burn through at least 60 amour to kill)
Some chassis have a bullet magnet component that everyone goes for before even considering aiming at your legs. (Atlas' RT, Orion's RT, hunchback's RT)
Shooting Awesome in the legs instead of the torso is greatly frown upon and will have you ridiculed at the local pub.


#2
Ammo in Leg + Jump Jet = extra bad idea
Especially for medium mechs who use JJ to spread damage should not store ammo in the legs.
If you have JJ, your leg amour should be as much as your side torso.

Ammo in the torso/arms must also be store in a well padded component (DHS and weapons) to reduce the chance of getting critical.
It is safe to even store ammo in the CT, if your weapons are ammo hungry like U/AC5, AC2, AC20 since the ammo bin is depleted quickly. AMS, MG, AC10, LBX10 ammo are generally bad idea to be place in CT and ST because of slow consumption.

Edited by xengk, 10 February 2014 - 10:01 PM.

[RickySpanish]

There are strong cases for putting ammo in your legs:

1. You can protect your legs with cover, since legs do not need to be exposed to shoot as weapons are not mounted on them.
2. When fully armoured, legs are quite difficult and costly to destroy in lieu of prioritizing the damage dealing components of your target.
3. Ammo exploding elsewhere is just as catastrophic, and will also take out your weapons. If you are legged, you can still put out a few more points of damage. Lose your Big Gun (RT on how many Mechs...)? You may as well be dead.

There are caveats to these statements:

1. Light Mechs are easier to hit in the legs and practically demand legging when they jump jet to avoid damage.
2. Light Mechs have few points of internal structure health, so even a machine gun ammo explosion can leg and side torso crit their XL if present.

In general, deciding upon ammo placement after the safe 1 ton head slot equip comes down to the chassis in question; no set rules apply, however one should understand the consequence of doing so.

[Deathz Jester]

Its not exactly an instant "you're screwed", I do agree you shouldn't shave leg armor off to the extreme, however I think its less punishing the heavier your mech is & the situation you're in.


While you're busy attempting to leg that Atlas, that you just discovered has (had after you shot him) leg armor, he's hitting you with a very punishing alpha strike.


Or, for example I played a match today where a Jenner tried to leg me in my Jagermech, normally I run a Rifleman build, but today I had used the 2 Gauss, 2 ML build, while he was busy trying to leg me I put 2 Gauss rounds into his cockpit.



So another rule/amendment whatever you wanna call it, you could add that its a high-risk, high-reward, when trying to see if they under-armored their legs.

[ImperialKnight]

Victor Morson, on 10 February 2014 - 04:03 PM, said:

Crit chances changed and so did some things with the damage transfer and ammo usage pattern, as well as people more and more catching on to "Hey, those legs are probably filled with explosives and aren't armored very well."

So basically the game has changed.

It was still never a good idea to lower your leg armor much, though!



Ironically the 'mech that can do this the best is the Gauss Jager, which actually has nothing to fear from ammo in the legs because Gauss rounds don't explode.

EDIT for new newbies reading this: In fact I highly endorse stuffing Gauss rounds into your leg, that's entirely safe. It's the only ammo type that is.

Wrong. Gauss ammo should ALWAYS go where the Gauss is. Along with whatever you can put in the Gauss rifle location like DHS.

It's called crit padding. You WANT the ammo to be destroyed instead of the Gauss Rifle. The rifle is useless anyway once your weapon is anyway, so might as well use it to prevent crit against the rifle, which explodes

[Mycrus]

Everything is situational... play with your config until you find your personal sweet spot.

At the end of every drop, study why you died.. which components got blown off and more importantly how much ammo is left or do you have too many heatsinks.... then optimize your build...

Example - for my play style I have learned to run 3 pts of arm armor for lights (except commando) the rest of the armor weight I use to optimize other parts... doesn't mean all of you should run 3 pts arms it just means it works for me...

Or in atlai I run 1pt of rear armor because I know how to pilot well and I am situationally Aware Enough To Keep My Front Towards Fire. ..

[Deathz Jester]

Mycrus, on 10 February 2014 - 09:20 PM, said:

Everything is situational... play with your config until you find your personal sweet spot.

At the end of every drop, study why you died.. which components got blown off and more importantly how much ammo is left or do you have too many heatsinks.... then optimize your build...

Example - for my play style I have learned to run 3 pts of arm armor for lights (except commando) the rest of the armor weight I use to optimize other parts... doesn't mean all of you should run 3 pts arms it just means it works for me...

Or in atlai I run 1pt of rear armor because I know how to pilot well and I am situationally Aware Enough To Keep My Front Towards Fire. ..

Now your secrets are mine.

Edited by Iron Harlequin, 10 February 2014 - 09:26 PM.

[Furiel]

The one argument I would use for why a new player can and should put ammo in their legs is simply because with who they are fighting the legs are probably the safest spot on the mech to put them in.

When you are brand new your ELO is going to be pretty bad and as such you are going to be getting to go against a lot of lower skilled players who just aim center mass hoping for a hit. Which means the likelihood of you getting legged is pretty remote and you are much more likely to lose an arm or side torso first. As you play longer and get better then hopefully you learn more about mech config and figure out how to design to your strengths and where best to put ammo which may or may not be your legs then.

As for stripping leg armor, I'm a firm believer in keeping my armor close to max in all areas, and while it may cost me a ML or two I personally feel that the sacrifice of a little firepower is worth the added longevity I get from the extra armor. Dead mechs do no damage.

[Rovertoo]

I don't think it is such a bad idea. I mean, really, since people rarely shoot at legs it can be worth the extra tonnage. It's a game of trial and error. Lower leg armor until you routinely die from legging/ammo explosions, then raise appropriately. Then just judge yourself if the extra rates of leg death is worth the tonnage.

Clearly, if you think the slightly raised rates of deaths (even the explosive ammo ones) are worth the tonnage, it's worth the armmo and leggings.

[Victor Morson]

xengk, on 10 February 2014 - 08:41 PM, said:

But for Heavy and Assault, you usually can get away with lowering your leg armour to as much as half your side torso.

If you want to explode horribly.

The sad part is you probably don't realize how many times you've been killed by people destroying your leg ammo, since it'll show you a side torso death.

Rovertoo, on 10 February 2014 - 09:44 PM, said:

I don't think it is such a bad idea. I mean, really, since people rarely shoot at legs it can be worth the extra tonnage.

The problem with your logic is assuming these shots are rare.

sneeking, on 10 February 2014 - 09:37 PM, said:

I don't at least make these three mistakes ( though the list I do is long ) I don't even put jj' in the leg if I can help it.

I'm a big fan of BAP-in-the-leg. Good use of that 2-crit space.

[Scurry]

I don't know. I find that I'm usually safe enough running leg ammo in heavies, especially those with no jump jets, since I never go below 50 armor in legs. In my personal experience, I find people going for my side torsi more than my legs, too. Add that to my usually piloting stuff with big arms and XL engines, and there really isn't much place to put them after head and CT slots are full.

Both stripping armor and keeping armor in legs is pretty lethal. However, if you just do one or the other, you're usually safe enough.

[Watchit]

It depends on the situation really. Poptarts and Scouts will want full leg armor, non-jumping snipers and LRM boats could probably safely drop some points. For brawlers and Fast Mediums, it depends on the build and how you play it.

Ammo in the legs
1. If I'm running an XL engine putting them in my side torso's is just as bad, if not worse.
2. Even if I shave a few points off my legs, they're still more armored then my arms usually.
3. If they're only in my legs, it doesn't matter if they get used up last or not.
4. Some mechs don't get legged focused as bad as others. Like Dragons.

[xengk]

Victor Morson, on 10 February 2014 - 10:40 PM, said:

If you want to explode horribly.

The sad part is you probably don't realize how many times you've been killed by people destroying your leg ammo, since it'll show you a side torso death.

Actually no, I more often die to CT/XLST death like every one else.
I have better chance at loosing an arm or ST than losing a legs in an assault.

[aniviron]

It really depends quite a lot on the mech. In a Victor or Shadowhawk, I've found that cutting leg armor is a suicidal idea (not that it has stopped me on some of my builds). In an Awesome or Atlas, not so much. Pretty much anything under 45t or with jumpjets you need leg armor, and anything without you can probably shave at least a few points off. I don't know if it's just that the mechs we have pitch up and down so slowly or a quirk of the netcode, but when you're jumping all that damage goes straight to the legs.

In that vein, storing ammo in the leg is actually fairly safe if you don't get legged often. The best place to put ammo is the location you lose the least often. You're still generally better off putting the munitions in the legs than the side torsi unless you're running STD + CASE thanks to the reduced damage transfer, and the fact that destroyed ammo only has a 10% chance to blow up anyway.

[Cyborne Elemental]

If we didn't have triple slot heatsinks, I could actually put the ammo in C.A.S.E. in my freaking torso where it belongs.

Generally speaking though, I get cored alot more than I get legged except in a couple of mechs.

Jager, Hunch, Blackjack, Atlas, Vic, Catapult are almost always torso smashed long before a leg blows off, with all the XL engines on the field.

You either try a leg and still get shot in the face trying to get around him after, or go for a good torso hit and get the kill right there.

Its a gamble, and typically it pays off.

Edited by Mister D, 11 February 2014 - 03:07 AM.