46 replies to this topic

[Joe Mallad]

Im not talking about Mech core meltdowns as the Devs already said that would not happen.

I mean Ammo explosions.

Yes we already have ammo explosions in the game and you do have them happen, but we need different levels of explosions.

For example, If a missile mech is caring 6 tons of ammo and something causes that Ammo to cook off, chance hit by enemy fire, pilot error and running too hot... whatever! If 6 tons of any ammo cooks off, why dont we see a mech explosion that rips throughout the mech?

Yes we have some light and mediums that can be missile mechs but for the most part, your dedicated big boy missile mechs are in the heavy and assault classes. And whats usually the best way to kill them? Get within their minimum range where they cant be that effective right? Now... what if you run up on a missile or even ballistic boat that WE ALL KNOW is filled to the brim with as much ammo as they can carry, and you are hugging it and laying into it and kill it? BUT... there is that chance that you hit his ammo and a catastrophic explosion ripps through him and the explosion can actually do damage to you or even take you down?

Would you not think twice before ALWAYS getting in close to kill that missile or ballistic boat?

I think different levels of explosions in the game, like engine, Ammo or even flamer fuel should be present and have a chance to happen and even do damage to other mechs too close to the explosion.

People brawl and HUG each other because there are NO real threats or repercussions for doing so. No explosions to do damage to anyone caught in the blast and no knockdowns.

Put these two things in the game and watch how fast the brawling tactics change up and how cautious some people get with the smash mouth brawling we see SOOOOO MUCH OF!

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 13 October 2014 - 02:49 PM.

[Dock Steward]

I'd vote for it.

That's how this works, right? We vote on things?

Edited by Dock Steward, 13 October 2014 - 02:47 PM.

[Mcgral18]

You do see ammo explosions, but it's more a yellow line of sparks that suddenly destroy the leg. Then the ST. Then the CT.


All 1.4% chance of a leg ammo explosion from a 10+ damage FLD source will likely kill you, from a single ton, since the damage isn't halved unlike when you shoot a destroyed component. You can survive a used ton, in some cases.

[Joe Mallad]

Mcgral18, on 13 October 2014 - 02:44 PM, said:

You do see ammo explosions, but it's more a yellow line of sparks that suddenly destroy the leg. Then the ST. Then the CT.


All 1.4% chance of a leg ammo explosion from a 10+ damage FLD source will likely kill you, from a single ton, since the damage isn't halved unlike when you shoot a destroyed component. You can survive a used ton, in some cases.

oh i know we "see" them. But im saying we need greater variations of them and explosions that not only harm the mech the explosion happens in, but can possibly harm other mechs in a "so many" meter area "if too close" to the mech that has the explosion happen.

[Rebas Kradd]

It's on the level of fluff, unfortunately.

[Rhaegor]

Explosions are cool. Good visuals are good. Sure, I'd take some more and/or better.

Edited by Rhaegor, 13 October 2014 - 02:56 PM.

[GreyNovember]

I'm confused.

Are you implying that brawling up close, taking advantage of your enemy's design weakness, and braving his backup weapons / the attention of his brawler buddies still needs more risk against it?

[Joe Mallad]

Rebas Kradd, on 13 October 2014 - 02:55 PM, said:

It's on the level of fluff, unfortunately.

level of fluff?

[Gauvan]

How is this not Stackpoling by another mechanism?

[Joe Mallad]

Eonai, on 13 October 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

I'm confused.

Are you implying that brawling up close, taking advantage of your enemy's design weakness, and braving his backup weapons / the attention of his brawler buddies still needs more risk against it?

yes. Im not saying DONT do it, but i mean come on... they (PGI) take away knock downs and have mech explosions that some how magically only hurt the mech that the explosions happen to? When a ammo stockpile cooks off... it should be SEEN and in some cases, even felt by some too close to the exploding mech.

[Dock Steward]

Eonai, on 13 October 2014 - 03:00 PM, said:

I'm confused.

Are you implying that brawling up close, taking advantage of your enemy's design weakness, and braving his backup weapons / the attention of his brawler buddies still needs more risk against it?

It could obviously go the other way. No one said the attacker causing the explosion had to be in Brawl range. You could just as easily cause the explosion from long range and blow up him and a bunch of his buddies. MG's aren't even the best crit'ers...

[Joe Mallad]

Dock Steward, on 13 October 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

It could obviously go the other way. No one said the attacker causing the explosion had to be in Brawl range. You could just as easily cause the explosion from long range and blow up him and a bunch of his buddies. MG's aren't even the best crit'ers...

this too. And im not even saying other mechs "have" to die if caught in an explosion, but maybe still take some damage. Now if they already are very damaged, then they take a chance by standing too close to a buddy who is filled with ammo lol

[GreyNovember]

Yoseful Mallad, on 13 October 2014 - 03:04 PM, said:

yes. Im not saying DONT do it, but i mean come on... they (PGI) take away knock downs and have mech explosions that some how magically only hurt the mech that the explosions happen to? When a ammo stockpile cooks off... it should be SEEN and in some cases, even felt by some too close to the exploding mech.

Sounds reasonable to a point. I would think that the target mech's remaining internal structure behaves like a case of sorts that contains the explosion within itself, and the visuals we see are the bits that escape out.

[Dock Steward]

Yoseful Mallad, on 13 October 2014 - 03:07 PM, said:

this too. And im not even saying other mechs "have" to die if caught in an explosion, but maybe still take some damage. Now if they already are very damaged, then they take a chance by standing too close to a buddy who is filled with ammo lol

I think it sounds fun. I don't think it will happen, but it sounds like a blast...bah dum ching!

[Joe Mallad]

Eonai, on 13 October 2014 - 03:08 PM, said:

Sounds reasonable to a point. I would think that the target mech's remaining internal structure behaves like a case of sorts that contains the explosion within itself, and the visuals we see are the bits that escape out.

exactly. I mean if a mech only has 1 ton of ammo and it cooks off, there is a great chance that the mech it went off "in" will take the brunt of it. But if a mech with 6,7, 8 tons of ammo has some sort of ammo cook off, id think that would be one hell of a fireworks show where most would not want to be too close if you understand lol

[RedDragon]

Although I am all for more and better ammo explosion effects (actually, just give us back the audio and visuals we had in Beta, is it really that hard, PGI?) I don't think this is a good idea.
As has already been said, it basically would reward missile boats for boating ammo and dis-encourage brawlers from doing the thing they are supposed to do - getting close to the boats. Also, it is unlikely that an ammo explosion would deal that much damage to surrounding things - the ammo is stored under the armor, so most of its blast would be contained inside the mech (thus why it's so devastating to have your ammo blown up) and the bins would explode one after another, resulting in many small explosions and not one big blast. For a mech to get damaged by another mech's ammo explosion, they would have to literally hug each other.

[SweetJackal]

Ammo explosions doing damage to mechs around it? No.

In terms of the game we do not needed the kamikaze locust. A build that takes a locust and stuffs it with AC20 ammo. This also places close in brawlers at more risk, a type of combat that is already punishing of any form of mistake. Worse is that this would in essence be a damage tax for doing well at that. This is why Mech Stackpoling isn't a thing in MWO, it was bad in Mechassault and will be bad everywhere else.

In terms of physics explosive munitions do not work that way. The ammo and fuel cooking off will always be a threat to unamored infantry but modern armor is highly resistant to proximity high explosives. Ammo explosions are a threat when they happen inside the armor compartment but outside the force would be dispersed without any real damage. In reality the use of explosives to defeat armor is done with shape charges, directional explosive force often employing metals to form jets of molten metal to cut through armor.

So it's bad from a mechanics standpoint and makes no sense from an immersion standpoint. So once more: "No."

[Impyrium]

I'd like this. If I remember correctly the closed beta visuals had actual debris that was blown out of your 'Mech and even had physics when they hit the ground. Then again I wasn't in closed beta, so...

Also I think that a lot of players have become increasingly lazy when it comes to piloting their 'Mechs. We can fling most 'Mechs off of high ledges (and yes they ARE high, these aren't human sized machines), we can ram each other, we can do all sorts of things with no consequence to screwing up your 'Mech. Having a little more danger would be nice- right now piloting is little more than moving, there needs to be more challenge in that moving rather than just treating it like a FPS.

Edited by AUSwarrior24, 13 October 2014 - 03:51 PM.

[KamikazeRat]

i say nope, and a 2nd to SuckyJack's comment, people would strip off all the armor and max out tonnage of a locust, add in 1 weapon just to make sure people just don't ignore it and go face-hugging until people shoot him.

as far as cooler looking visuals...yeah, im all for anything that looks pretty.i would love to have ammo cook off slower, i.e. "warning ammunition detonation detected" and pop, pop, pop, BAM, pop, pop BBBAAA-BOOOM, each time internals taking a substantial, but not crippling amount of damage, until it kills you, or...runs out of ammo, and just leaves you almost dead.

also with that the ability to jettison ammo, the ammo crit that was hit would still cook off(dump mechanism is destroyed when the crit is hit), but you could stop any chain reaction if you're quick enough.

[Joe Mallad]

SuckyJack, on 13 October 2014 - 03:18 PM, said:

Ammo explosions doing damage to mechs around it? No.

In terms of the game we do not needed the kamikaze locust. A build that takes a locust and stuffs it with AC20 ammo. This also places close in brawlers at more risk, a type of combat that is already punishing of any form of mistake. Worse is that this would in essence be a damage tax for doing well at that. This is why Mech Stackpoling isn't a thing in MWO, it was bad in Mechassault and will be bad everywhere else.

In terms of physics explosive munitions do not work that way. The ammo and fuel cooking off will always be a threat to unamored infantry but modern armor is highly resistant to proximity high explosives. Ammo explosions are a threat when they happen inside the armor compartment but outside the force would be dispersed without any real damage. In reality the use of explosives to defeat armor is done with shape charges, directional explosive force often employing metals to form jets of molten metal to cut through armor.

So it's bad from a mechanics standpoint and makes no sense from an immersion standpoint. So once more: "No."

let me give you a lesson in physics. I'm an industrial inspector for the US government. I test welds and armor types of different military vehicles. Have you seen what a crude but effective IED can and will do to a APC or a light combat vehicle? I have, its not a nice sight. Now have you seen a M1 Abrams tank filled with 40 to 50+ high penetration rounds and 500 gallons of fuel take a hit that cooks off its ammo? Iv seen that very ammo and concussive force of the explosion rip through a second tank sitting next to it. Physics is a *****!

The second tank had 3 of the exploding tank's HP rounds rip into its side, disabling its track and engine and would have killed crew in the second tank. So yes, it does happen.

I was not suggesting it happen ALL THE TIME in the game but there should be a chance for it.

And for those worried that someone would use a mech as a kamikaze mech, that's why I suggested to put knockdown a back in. Mech should fall and should be able to be knocked down. And if someone was willing to try this tactic, I say let them. More times than not, the ammo would not cook off by way of ramming. But ramming to an extent is and should be a viable tactic. In cannon Battletech/MW lore, factions like Liao had fanatical units that did just this.

Edited by Yoseful Mallad, 13 October 2014 - 04:34 PM.