Assumptions:
If you have 2 tons of LRM ammo on your mech, you can either place it as 2x1 ton bins, or 4x0.5 ton bins (or some combination). Let's say for the sake of example that they are all in one place.
If you take a hit to the internal structure, you have a 10% (I think) chance of taking a critical hit.
If that hit deals 10 damage it destroys the thing that got hit. If the hit deals less than 10 damage, then the item has to get hit again.
If an ammo bin gets destroyed it has a 10% chance of exploding.
If I'm very wrong on any of this, please let me know. I think I'm close on the numbers, but not certain.
Conclusions:
- Having more ammo bins means that they will cause less damage if they explode.
- More ammo bins means that they are less likely to get hit again. In the above example you go from a 50% chance of the same bin getting hit again, to a 25% chance of the same one getting hit again.
- More ammo bins means more crit padding for other components. You have a greater chance of the ammo getting hit than the weapon.
- In a location with only ammo and empty crit slots, you are better off taking 0.5 ton ammo bins. For instance a torso with 2 tons of ammo and nothing else, you should have 4x0.5 ton bins because of #2.
- Gauss rifle ammo should always be divided up into as many crit spaces as possible since it can't explode.
I probably won't try this anytime soon. I'm space-poor, and I would prefer to spend my cbills on that radar deprivation module rather than buying all of my ammo again.
Obviously you should use things like heatsinks (that can never explode) as crit padding. I'm just pointing out that the math shows that you will take fewer hits to another component with more ammo bins.
This really only works because there is a fairly low chance of an explosion. If the explosion chance is increased, then this becomes a worse idea. I'm sure one can do some mroe specific calculations to determine what the best method is, but I have no motivation to do so.
If my logic is flawed, please point it out (preferably in all caps ). If you have any in-game experience with this that would be great to hear as well.
EDIT: clarity
Edited by Darwins Dog, 09 October 2014 - 11:12 AM.