107 replies to this topic

[Gaius Cavadus]

Table of Contents
1. Armor Section
--1.1. Armor Value
--1.2. Meta-Sections
--1.3. Sub-Sections
----1.3.1. Destroyed Sub-Sections Influence on Adjacent Sub-Sections
--1.4. Armor Weight Accommodation for Pelvis Section
2. Internal Equipment Modeling
--2.1. Internal Structure, Myomers, and Actuators
--2.2. Weapons
--2.3. Equipment
--2.4. Modeling Internal Hitbox Damage and Structural Damage
----2.4.1. Destruction of Internal Equipment Which Occupies More Than One Sub-Sections
--2.5. Technical Feasibility
3. Penetration
4. Conclusion

-------------------------------------------------------

► 1. Armor Sectioning
One of the single largest failures of TT rules translation has come in the form armor sectioning. In the TT game there are rules which universally dictate the chance to hit a particular section of a mech. In the video games mechs which have hitboxing issues can be unfairly buffed or nerfed depending on the ease or difficulty of hitting a particular section.

Examples include Mw4's Templar, Zeus, and Black Knight mechs. The Templar and Zeus both suffered from having outlandishly large side torso hitboxes while the Black Knight's center torso was enormous and disproportionate.

Some mechs were buffed by the hitboxing and ended up tougher than they probably should have been like the Mauler and Bushwhacker.

Additionally, the TT armor sections covered huge portions of mechs which, when considering the parts which took damage, caused a lot of visual confusion in the damage applied.

For instance, why would shooting an Atlas in the forehead and shooting an Atlas in the crotch both damage the center torso? The space between these two points is larger than some of the smaller mechs!

▼ 1.1. Armor Value

The following concepts are based on interpreting TT armor values in a different way. Or to be more precise, how those values are applied to a particular section in different way.

Moving forward from this section I will predicate the following on the basis of armor value being a function of thickness rather than a catch-all hitpoint pool though as you read on you'll see I haven't deviated much from the traditional armor sectioning and armor values as one might think.

▼ 1.2. Meta-Sections

Meta-Sections are the traditional 11 armor sections plus one major addition: the pelvis section. Meta-sections would now be an "administrative" grouping that serve no other purpose but to define the armor value of sub-sections contained therein.

Basically, this armor section classification exists to keep armor customization, if we even have any, relatively easy.

▼ 1.3. Sub-Sections

Sub-sections are exactly what they sound like: sections within sections; sections inside of a meta-section, to be precise.

Remember when I said to think of sectional armor values as a thickness rather than a lump sum? That's because each sub-section maintains the full armor value of it's meta-section's amor value.

For instance, if an Atlas' leg has 41 points of armor on it than that value will now become the armor thickness for the leg meta-section.

Each invididuval sub-section of a meta-section will inherit the full armor value of the meta-section's listed thickness.

If we took that Atlas' leg and broke it into four sub-sections all of the sub-sections will have an armor value of 41.

This does not mean, however, that the armor from the leg's four sub-sections would quadruple the weight of the traditional leg armor.

But what would all of this look like? Using the concept art for the Atlas I've roughly modeled a large portion of what the Atlas' armor could look like using the meta/sub armor system.



A mockup of the meta/sub-section armor model.

Please bear in mind that sub-section distribution is relatively arbitrary. The quantity of sub-sections per meta-section can be difficult to define. Do all mechs receive an equal amount of sub-sections per meta-section? Should a sub-section be defined by a rough yet pre-defined size so that larger mechs have more than smaller mechs?

These are questions I don't know the answer to. Again, this is something that obviously needs play-testing.

▼ 1.3.1. Destroyed Sub-Sections Influence on Adjacent Sub-Sections

This only makes sense to me for limbs since the torso is really a single solid object with a contiguous frame but destroying a sub-section would render everything "below" it completely inoperable/non-functioning.

For a quick example, looking at the picture above one could imagine that completely destroying the bicep sub-section would server the arm at that point, or destroying the shin section of the leg would take the foot with it, et cetera.

The new pelvis section leaves a lot to think about. Would destroying the right pelvis section cost the mech it's leg? Should it? Would that be fun or frustrating?

I personally believe play-testing is the solution to that.

▼ 1.4. Armor Weight Accommodation For Pelvis Section

With the addition of a pelvic section to mechs and it's associated armor the weight of all other sections' armor must be reduced to compensate for the addition of the weight added by the pelvis armor.

Using an AS7-D as my example the total weight of the armor for the traditional TT sections is 19 tons for a total of 304 armor points. This means each individual point of standard armor weighs exactly 0.0625 tons (19/304=0.0625).

If we add a pelvis and give it an armor value of 32, which matches the side torso though I'm being arbitrary, we'd be adding 2 additional tons of armor for a total of 21 tons of standard armor. We need to reduce this weight by 2 tons to maintain the original armor weight.

The total armor value of the Atlas with the pelvis armor hitpoints is raised to 336.

336x=19, where x is the weight of each individual point of armor. Using some simple algebra we can simply divide 19 by 336 for ~0.05655.

1 point of armor now weighs ~0.05655 tons. Obviously this can be increased or decreased in the name of a more simple weight-per-point value.

Of course, all of this assumes the canon armor values would be maintained. This may or may not be the case and if not this entire section is completely moot.


► 2. Internal Equipment Modeling
Up until now all internal equipment damage has been modeled through a random number generator or simple internal damage calculations (i.e. internal structure reduced by 50% and all equipment inside is considered destroyed).

Mw4 began to somewhat address this, at least with weapons, in the form of the S1 and S2 weapon sections. An example of them would be the Mad Cat's two shoulder mounted missile boxes. They were not part of the side torso but independent hitboxes which could be destroyed.

MWO needs to go one further and start to include internal hitboxes which model all internal stuctures and equipment. This means that if a section is stripped of armor or an attack penetrates armor it's not some RNG which dictates that component X or weapon Y is destroyed, it's whether or not that shot continued on it's trajectory to actually strike an internal hitbox meant to represent something like a gyro, weapon, or actuator.

▼ 2.1. Internal Structure, Myomers, and Actuators

Internal structure will function as it always has: as a hitpoint pool that can only be damaged after the armor pool has been depleted. Depletion of structure integrity will destroy that section and everything inside of it.

Myomers are a mech's muscles. Destruction of myomers will reduce the movement speed of the limb they reside in.

Actuators are joints. For the sake of gameplay I'd make actuator destruction simply freeze that joint solid. I suppose you could have actuator destruction allow the joint to swing freely though that could get complicated with legs

I feel like this would be definitely be a play-testing issue to determine what is or isn't frustrating to a player.

But how would these systems be internally modeled? Below is a quick mock-up of what an Atlas' right leg could look like (forgot to put some myomer in the foot, oops!).


A mockup of internal structure, myomers, and actuators.

▼ 2.2. Weapons

As you may have seen in the first photo, which went over armor sections, all weapons are either independently modeled as their own sub-section (like the LRM launcher or SRM launcher) or grouped with a sub-section (like the two center torso mounted Medium Lasers or the left arm mounted Medium Laser).

Depending on the artwork some weapons might be modeled as a sub-section though if the section they're attached to is destroyed the weapon sub-section would be destroyed as well. A good example of this would be the arm mounted medium lasers on the Atlas.

Though they can be destroyed independently of the forearm the forearm cannot be destroyed independently of the lasers. Destruction of the forearm means destruction of the lasers.

This is very similar to Mw4's S1 and S2 sections which were arm mounted. For instance, the flamer hitbox on the Uziel's right arm. It could be destroyed independently of the arm leaving the arm and everything inside it intact though if the arm was destroyed that flamer section was also destroyed.

▼ 2.3 Equipment

Like weapons equipment such as heatsinks, targeting computers, engines, gyros, and so forth need to be physically modeled inside of the mech as internal hitboxes.

For the sake of easy display I have created "heatsink pods" in the various mech sections. These pods would allow multiple heat sinks to utilize the same internal hitbox.

In other words, if the left leg of an Atlas had two heat sinks in it they would share the same hitbox. I didn't think tracking individual heat sinks was worthwhile enough to be modeled.

Please keep in mind that in the picture below I've placed the engine's heatsinks arbitrarily.


NOTE: Center torso mounted medium lasers are not shown due to the engine graphic.

▼ 2.4. Modeling Internal Hitbox Damage and Structural Damage

Internal hitboxes' hitpoint pools can only be damaged once the armor covering them is depleted or an attack penetrates and damage is transferred. Once an equipment hitbox is destroyed all further damage to that hitbox is transferred directly and fully to the sub-section's internal structure hitpoint pool.

▼ 2.4.1. Destruction of Internal Equipment Which Occupies More Than One Sub-Section

This really only relates to the engine but obviously any internal equipment hitbox can be fully destroyed through a single sub-section so long as that internal hitbox receives enough damage to destroy it.

▼ 2.5. Technical Feasibility

Some posters may argue the technical feasibility of the above but World of Tanks' damage modelling is just as, if not more, robust than what I'm proposing. WoT tracks the armor thickness of every piece of surface on a tank. Additionally, it internal models with hitboxes engines, transmissions, radios, commander's viewports, the weapon, the turret ring, ammunition, both tracks, fuel tanks, as well as each individual crew member (up to 6 I believe).

Additionally, each component listed above may have more than one hitbox.


► 3. Penetration (Revised: 02 DEC 2011)
BT/MW has always used an ablative armor model. Critical hits have been the TT's solution to penetration but they're completely RNG based which bugs me. RNG-based elements remove skill by putting facets of gameplay beyond a player's control.

I'm not a fan.

What I've been thinking about lately is perhaps giving some weapons penetration. I say some because many weapons have absolutely no penetrative power like lasers. They can't bypass armor and transfer damage to stuff underneath because they're melting armor with heat. They must burrow fully through the armor before they can begin to damage what lies beneath.

I think there's some weapons which should be able to penetrate and I'm looking at ballistics because it would be a way to compensate them for inefficient space consumption, weight, ammunition, and ammunition explosions.

So what I would propose to start with is allowing ballistic weapons, in our case just autocannons, to fully penetrate armor when their armor value is less than the damage of the autocannon's round striking it.

I'm basing this off the "cassette" method of autocannons as they are described in source material and novels.

A quick explanation of the "cassette" style autocannons is that each TT "shot" is actually a 5-round burst. These 5 rounds are loaded into a "cassette" and that "cassette" is loaded into the AC. The AC can fire automatically and pilots have full control over how many rounds they can expend per trigger squeeze.

All 5 rounds in the cassette constitute a single TT shot from that weapon. This means that the "per bullet" ammo count for each AC would be multiplied by 5.

Once the cassette is depleted it's ejected and a new one is loaded.

Rules
-Rounds Per Cassette: 5 (for all AC calibers)
-Penetration = The amount of armor that the AC can completely defeat and bypass.
-Damage increased +25% from TT values

What's Not Taken Into Account
-Rate of fire for rounds in a cassette.
-Reload time between cassettes.



I think this buff to autocannons is needed anyways but in context of the armor model I described above and all of the Cone-of-Fire possibilities it seems like mechs could be getting much tougher if Piranha institutes some type of shot dispersal along with more localized damage.


► 4. Conclusion
The path to a more localized and detailed damage model has been slow and without much progress. Mw4 was the first game to take a step in this direction with it's S1 and S2 sections but MWO doesn't need to be constrained by TT limitations. In this case, the mech sections were a byproduct of having a detailed damage model that's easy enough to be used with some dice for quick calculations.

Players don't want to die in just a few shots and there are threads upon threads complaining about how pinpoint accuracy ruined previous MW titles.

Well, that's not entirely true. The large and extremely easy to hit mech sections contributed just as much, if not more, to easy kills than pinpoint accuracy.

Even more than a CoF I think this is the single biggest step MWO needs to take. It's been a long time coming and it's about time we get the level of detail in terms of damage that we deserve.

Edited by Cavadus, 02 December 2011 - 09:51 AM.

[Alistair Steiner]

Wow. This is some good stuff. Very detailed, but I do like that you left each point open for playtesting. After suffering through... certain console games, I'll just be happy to see armor sections at all again. But yes, I agree with this post and give it my full support.

[Damocles]

This is totally one direction Mechwarrior games must go if they want to advance.
I was a bit apprehensive when I saw you would be talking about armor penetration because I was afraid it would turn into a real-world physics mess but you didn't go there!
Your ideas on auto-cannon dmg-dealing and penetration are spot-on imo.

A Battlemech should have more ways to bring it down than just -Core the CT-
In a way the ability to know where internal components (heatsinks etc) are on a mech and have them be targetable could support a limited customization model. I doesn't have to; but if we had canon design variants in-game you would know exactly where to aim on that Ostroc 3C to make it even more of a heating mess and reduce its combat efficiency.
With full critical customization then it might become guesswork and random again unless your entire mech model in-game changes internally to represent the customization made.

But that is steering OT hard so im gonna stop.

/Damo

[Cyote13]

well the more specific they make the models the better

[CobraFive]

I wouldn't mind the standard TT damage model that's been in every game, if that's what they put in. But the more detailed, the better! Having to aim for particular armor blow-throughs would be fun, as well as trying to angle my wounded areas away from the enemy...

[EDMW CSN]

I believe blow through damage has happened before just that not in the same context. Basically if your arms taken too much damage, it would transfer to the side torso ??? It has being awhile though since I did my last TT or Megamek game though.

Although what you are proposing is basically a "free floating critical" model for autocannons but with a set condition. A free floating critical allowed an AC/2 to 1 shot an Atlas even if the Atlas was pristine condition which was not funny for the Atlas pilot but side splitting if you were running mechs with AC/2s.

I can see that AC blow through to internals being fine though. At least it does not interfere with possible Armor Piercing AC/20 ammo that does BOTH armor damage and an instant critical hit.

[Gaius Cavadus]

[EDMW]CSN, on 29 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

A free floating critical allowed an AC/2 to 1 shot an Atlas even if the Atlas was pristine condition...

Using what I outlined above the AC-2 would not be able to damage the internal structure until there was less than 2 points of armor on it. And even if it was a CT section which housed a portion of the engine hitbox you'd still have to deal X amount of damage to destroy the engine, gyro, heatsink pod, weapon, et cetera, and/or the internal structure.

From what I outlined above it would be impossible for an AC-2 to one shot... well, anything. Internal hitboxes would have their own independent hitpoint pools. It's not just "...hit it and destroy it" like in BattleTech. You'd still have to chew through that hitbox's hitpoint pool to destroy the piece of equipment it's meant to represent.

Edited by Cavadus, 29 November 2011 - 08:50 PM.

[Ansel]

I like your idea of penetration but I have a few things I would add to it.

An ac-20 striking a section that has 19 armor should cut the damage of the round in half, then apply to both armor and internals. Ex: ac-20 would do 10 damage to the armor and 10 to internals.

When armor is less than half the value of damage, ex: ac-20 striking an armor value of 9, It should reduce damage by 1/4th meaning armor takes 4 points of damage if 20 were done and internals take 16 until mech is destroyed or the armor is fully destroyed.

Thats pretty much all I would add to what you have.

[CaveMan]

I too was expecting an unreasonable mess with lots of math overhead, but this is quite nice actually.

One quibble though: your autocannon penetration system would make AC/20s and Gauss rifles way overpowered. Something like half of all 'Mechs would see some of their limbs instantly lopped off by these weapons. Combined with any sort of unforgiving leg damage model, the Gauss rifle would make light 'Mechs unplayable. I like Ansel's suggestion/modification better.

Second, I love how you made the Atlas' cockpit hitbox tiny, but I think it's actually too tiny. A hitbox of that size appears to reflect a height of about 20 meters for the 'Mech, which is consistent with the overinflated assault 'Mech heights from MW4, but not consistent with earlier canon which puts 'Mechs in the 10-12m range. I for one don't want 6-story tall BattleMechs. Too Gundamy.

[Dlardrageth]

I have to partly agree with CaveMan here, nice write-up, but... I don't really like the penetration system either. Apart from the all too obvious balancing issues it would cause, I don't think it's really the solution for "AC issues" in former MW games. I'd rather have a higher critical hit chance for ACs than that. Also would raise the question why BattleMech construction companies didn't change the armor specs in centuries to adapt better to penetrating projectile weapons?

And to consequently change armor as well... I think that would bring us too far away from BT/MW...

[Yeach]

This brings back memories Heavy Gear.

"If you hit a vehicle with a weapon and hear it ricochet off the hull then you know that weapon isn't powerful enough to penetrate the vehicle's armor.
You need to learn the penetration value of different weapons.
Timmons, what is the penetration of an anti-personal grenade launcher at 400m
"9mm sir"
"Very good Timmons"

At 7:35

[Paladin1]

While I think you're too biased against the TT rule set, I have to admit that this is generally a well thought out suggestion Cavadus. The only things I would point out is that the penetration model that you have suggested has a serious flaw in that it could easily allow AC/20's and Gauss Rifles to become a "God-Gun" type of system. I think that Caveman has the right idea here if you're going to go with the idea of adding penetrating power to ballistic weapons.

Also, you have to remember that the standard autocannon round isn't what we'd call an armor-piercing round, although those do exist in the game. From what I can recall, the standard autocannon ammo is akin to a High Explosive Shaped Charge round while the A-P rounds are actually more akin to Long-Rod Penetrators. How do you suggest handling the A-P variant ammo or is that something that you'd consider dealing with? You have a solid idea, but some of the alternate ammo loads might mess with your calculations if taken at face value.

[Gaius Cavadus]

One thing to consider about penetrating hits with what I mentioned above is that unless a hitbox lies underneath the armor and in the path of the attack's trajectory it's feasible the round could sail right through a section for a 0 damage penetration.

Remember, pretty much every actual component of the mech has a hitbox.

I do see what y'all are saying about gauss rifles and AC-20s but.... aren't they supposed to be that badass?

The inspiration for the penetration model came from the "AC-20 vs 4X Medium Lasers" thread and, well, four MLs pretty much always wins that due to the weight and space saved and lack ammo explosion chance.

Ansel's idea is good though. I'd be happy with either penetration models so long as ACs get a boost of some sort.

I do not want to see critical hits in the game, though. There's no need to pretend to hit and destroy things when you can actually hit and destroy things, right?

CaveMan, on 30 November 2011 - 05:16 AM, said:

Second, I love how you made the Atlas' cockpit hitbox tiny, but I think it's actually too tiny. A hitbox of that size appears to reflect a height of about 20 meters for the 'Mech, which is consistent with the overinflated assault 'Mech heights from MW4, but not consistent with earlier canon which puts 'Mechs in the 10-12m range.

I never really have any idea where the cockpit on the Atlas is supposed to be so I just went with where Mw3:PM put it. It was arbitrary.

The Atlas is 17m tall though, isn't it?

Dlardrageth, on 30 November 2011 - 06:05 AM, said:

And to consequently change armor as well... I think that would bring us too far away from BT/MW...

That's the point! This ain't the boardgame and we can have as detailed damage as we'd like; and I want detailed damage. I'm sick of a shot to the toe and a shot to the hip damaging the same location. They're not the same locations.

Paladin1, on 30 November 2011 - 06:47 AM, said:

Also, you have to remember that the standard autocannon round isn't what we'd call an armor-piercing round, although those do exist in the game. From what I can recall, the standard autocannon ammo is akin to a High Explosive Shaped Charge round...

According to the source materials the default munition for ACs is High-Explosive, Armor-Piercing.

So it sounds like it would be pierce armor to me...

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Autocannon

Edited by Cavadus, 30 November 2011 - 10:56 AM.

[MagnusEffect]

When I read the topic, I was worried this was going to be another "make MWO like WoT" thread... glad I was wrong

Totally agree that a revamped hitbox system might be the best solution to deal with "coring" issues.

Just for clarification, the "critical hit" in BT and MW2 essentially functioned as "penetrating" hits. A better version of this could be used as an easier solution.

Edited by MagnusEffect, 30 November 2011 - 11:11 AM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

MagnusEffect, on 30 November 2011 - 11:01 AM, said:

Just for clarification, the "critical hit" in BT and MW2 essentially functioned as "penetrating" hits. A better version of this could be used as an easier solution.

I know but that was RNG based. I'm trying to get away from that. World of Tanks has critical hits as well and they're hugely frustrating because they do zero damage to the hull, which when depleted destroys the tank, and instead damage module or crew member.

It's really F'ing annoying when you're in a life and death battle, the other tank has 2 hitpoints left, and the RNG decides your awesome kill shot is instead going to be a 0 damage critical that knocks out the radio.

And then you die.

It's sad.

[Raeven]

Cavadus, on 29 November 2011 - 02:02 PM, said:

► 3. Penetration
BT/MW has always used an ablative armor model. Critical hits have been the TT's solution to penetration but they're completely RNG based which bugs me. RNG-based elements remove skill by putting facets of gameplay beyond a player's control.

I'm not a fan.

What I've been thinking about lately is perhaps giving some weapons penetration. I say some because many weapons have absolutely no penetrative power like lasers. They can't bypass armor and transfer damage to stuff underneath because they're melting armor with heat. They must burrow fully through the armor before they can begin to damage what lies beneath.

I'm with you up to here. Penetration is a terrible model for Battletech. It's frustrating enough in WoT to be in a tank that is 2 tiers below the top tier and not being able to penetrate the tank at all. Penetration would make Light 'Mechs useless in a fight and Assault 'Mechs all but invulnerable. Also, I feel the loving your giving AC's!, but I can hear the outcry now when someones Atlas gets stripped bare from criticals by a blackjack at long range.

I love the idea of each hit location being broken down into subsections with an equal armor value as the "meta-section". It gives real longevity to 'Mechs in a videogame that the to-hit tables of the board game doesn't transfer. It also solves the age old problem of legging. This model would work best with Pin Point Accuracy or very tight Cone of Innaccuracy. It'll pay off for pilots to be able to not only hit a 'Mech, but consistently hit the 'Mech in the same spot over and over again.

One other thing I think should be left out of 'Mech critical hits is damage transfer. If you shoot a location that is already destroyed, the damage from that hit transfers towards the CT. I think that should be left out. Only internal explosions, such as Ammo or gauss rifle criticals should cause transferable damage. External hits to the same location that is already destroyed should be ignored*.

*Unless that hit would have hit the next location anyway. So if aiming at the side of a 'Mech and it's torso is destroyed, the shot would still hit the CT.

[VYCanis]

I love the hell out of this idea, goes a long way to make mechs feel more like proper machines with actual working parts.

To differentiate AP AC ammo from standard HEAP ammo, make AP ammo better at penetrating, worse at actually damaging armor. Considering they pack less ammo per ton and recoil harder/are less accurate, should be a fair trade off.

In so far as making gausses and AC20s god guns, keep in mind, if you are actually trying to hit something that is inside a mech rather than just delivering clean hole punches, you might be better off with a smaller gun with a faster rate of fire to increase your chances of actually knocking something out.


In regards to critting stuff, a suggestion, but just as you have certain weapons better able to penetrate armor than others, it would probably make sense to have weapons that can crit better than others once they bypass the armor. Either by virtue of how they logically behave, (missiles and weapons that use submunitions generating a lot of individual hits) by certain weapons getting some inherent bonus (energy weapons having bonuses to destroying certain types of stuff better, myomers, ammo bins, heatsinks) or simply having certain weapons apply splash damage internally to increase chances of destroying equipment near the impact site.

EDIT (in so far as balancing the system vs light mechs) Interesting thing how weapons based off of penetrating composite armors work. The average APFSDS round that an abrams fires, if it were to say hit a bus along its broadside. Assuming no poor ******* was in the way to get liquified and the round didn't cross paths with any important bits, it would just punch 2 neat little holes in the bus, 1 in, 1 out, and leave the bus and its occupants otherwise unharmed.

If it were to do the same to a heavily armored tank, the fact that the armor is just strong enough to resist the round allows the round to dump a whole lot of it's kinetic energy into the poor tank, ruining its day something fierce.

What i'm saying is, under such a penetration system, you could technically have it where having very little armor could allow for certain weapons to overpenetrate such as gausses or ac20s. Though conversely you'd be much more vulnerable to high explosive type weapons

Edited by VYCanis, 30 November 2011 - 12:14 PM.

[MagnusEffect]

Cavadus, on 30 November 2011 - 11:17 AM, said:

I know but that was RNG based. I'm trying to get away from that. World of Tanks has critical hits as well and they're hugely frustrating because they do zero damage to the hull, which when depleted destroys the tank, and instead damage module or crew member.

It's really F'ing annoying when you're in a life and death battle, the other tank has 2 hitpoints left, and the RNG decides your awesome kill shot is instead going to be a 0 damage critical that knocks out the radio.

And then you die.

It's sad.

Not very familiar with all that, but in BT & MW2 you received the normal damage PLUS a critical hit to one of your systems. I agree though, that RNG largely needs to go away. Obviously, this is going to be an online action-y type game though so for performance reasons it may still need to be in place to some degree (i don't know). Still, if I can purposefully aim for a mech's kneecap to increase my chances of severing the leg entirely, that is a bonus in my book!

One VERY big point I need to make is that bouncing rounds are incredibly annoying, but also have no place in MW. An AC/2 already does minimal damage to begin with. Even if I'm in a light mech, I should still do *some* damage. Normal damage or penetrating/critical damage is okay though.

Edited by MagnusEffect, 30 November 2011 - 12:12 PM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Raeven, on 30 November 2011 - 11:57 AM, said:

I'm with you up to here. Penetration is a terrible model for Battletech.

You should have kept reading.

[VYCanis]

AC2s could still work as chipping weapons, they just wouldn't start punching through armor until it was already thinned out considerably.

However considering their potential rates of fire, they could prove more dangerous than a much larger gun at tearing critical components to shreds once the armor levels got softened out by missiles and such.