23 replies to this topic

[n r g]

IraqiWalker, on 21 September 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

No problem with dropping the armor down. We usually use these as "shield arms" The best example being the entire Centurion chassis. Every single variant has a big left shield arm.

dropping the armor down to 1 on the arm, negates the purpose of it being a shield arm. If it has 1 armor, and get's blown off with 1 hit than it's not a shield arm.

Nevertheless, the downside to dropping your armor to 1 is that if you are running an XL engine, if you turn sideways, your XL engine can be hit (on most mechs), since you will have no shield arm.

Furthermore, in big games or 1v1s, mechs can see your arm smoking quickly behind hills and be able to target you easily.

I tend to avoid dropping the armor to 1, although dropping it a little to get an extra heatsink or weapon is fine, but I would avoid 1, especially on XL engines where you want to use the arm to shield you from side hits.

[Satan n stuff]

Keith Youngblood, on 21 September 2014 - 02:11 PM, said:

Yes. Damage transfers from one location to the next toward the center torso. So if your arms are blown off... instantly in the case of 1 armor, all further damage transfers to the side torso. With no weapons or equipment in the arms, think of them as shields for the rest of your mech.

Also note that the stumps of the arms can still get hit after an arm has been destroyed, any damage dealt to a destroyed section will be transferred inward, meaning limb to sidetorso to center torso, each time it is transferred the damage will be reduced by half.
This was the cause of the zombie Centurion's extreme survivability before it's hitboxes were adjusted, large arm stumps combined with a small torso meant that you would often have to deal several times as much damage to put one down as you would with any other 50 ton medium. A hit to an arm would transfer twice before the damage reached the center torso, meaning it would only deal 25% of it's normal damage if both the arm and the adjacent sidetorso are destroyed.

[Andross Deverow]

W00DSTER, on 21 September 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

max all the armor!

I do personally. I like extra armor in my arms and stuff. Helps keep that XL alive a bit longer in hairy situations.

Regards

[Fire and Salt]

A decent starting point for the armor on a shield arm is 50%.



There are several factors that may want yo make you go above that:
-large arm, or arm that blocks the torso well from the side (ex: Victor, Cataphract)
-squishy side torso, due to containing an XL, gauss rifle, ammo, etc.
-high value components in the adjacent torso, ex your primary weapon
-you, as a player tend to be very quick to twist away from incoming fire (people often find themselves increasing the armor in their shield arm as their skill increases)
-you have weapons that facilitate shooting, and then looking away (ex: ac20, srm6, ppc)

There are several reasons to go lower, also:
-small arms (ex: blackjack) or arms that do not block the torso that well (ex: catapults)
-you have not yet developed the skill or awareness to effectively block
-the weapons you have require you to stare at the target a lot so blocking is not always an option (ex: ac2/ac5, mgs, clan large lasers, weapons that require maintaining a lock - SSRMs and LRMs)



Personally, most of my mech have fairly heavily armored shield arms.

Here are a few of the exceptions, mech that have less than half.
-One if my blackjacks has only 10, because they have small arms.
-My summoner with dual gauss in the torsos has 0, because the mech only has 3 tons of total armor, and the unarmored arms seem to last long enough due to the mech being a deathtrap anyways.
-My 3x ac2 shadow hawk because it requires you to stare at the target.

Edited by Fire and Salt, 25 September 2014 - 07:28 AM.