4 replies to this topic

[Mole]

Hey everyone. So I'm not exactly a new player, but this seemed like a fitting forum to ask this question in. I don't make heavy use of missile systems. I enjoy mechs with lots and lots of energy hardpoints. A while ago I noticed that many clan mechs were capable of bringing some pretty heavy laser vomit while also incorperating some modest LRMs as just kind of closing weapons to soften targets while I bring myself into range, so I've used some LRMs. SRMs up until recently only ever saw use on some of my light mechs which sport a single SRM 6 launcher to compliment their lasers. Recently, I've been making heavy use of SRM launchers when I decided to master the Catapult and now as well with my Warhammers. My favorite Catapult was the C4 with 4 SRM 6 launchers and thus far my most effective Warhammer sports 6 medium lasers and 3 SRM 6 launchers. But I'm having a bit of a difficulty with these builds for one reason; every time I lose armor on a component that has one of my SRM 6 launchers it seems about 80% of the time I lose the weapon as well even if the component is nowhere near destroyed. This is further baffling me because the following situation has played out multiple times in my Warhammer. I lose armor on one side torso. That side torso has an SRM 6 and two medium lasers. I got hit just enough to shave off my armor. Internals are mostly fine and are only displaying yellow. Both medium lasers remain intact, but the SRM 6 is instantly criticaled and destroyed. Almost every time. Do SRM 6s have a high chance to be critted out or something similar to the gauss rifle minus the obvious weapon explosion that comes with the guass rifle? Or am I just being incredibly unlucky? This seemed to happen in my Catapult too when I would lose armor on an arm and I'd instantly lose one or even both SRM launchers even though the component had taken minimal internal damage.

[Rogue Jedi]

Mole, on 31 January 2016 - 03:15 PM, said:

Do SRM 6s have a high chance to be critted out or something similar to the gauss rifle minus the obvious weapon explosion that comes with the guass rifle? Or am I just being incredibly unlucky? This seemed to happen in my Catapult too when I would lose armor on an arm and I'd instantly lose one or even both SRM launchers even though the component had taken minimal internal damage.

no higher crit chance that I am aware of.

What is usualy in the component with the SRMs?
If the component is otherwise empty then all crit damage goes to the SRM6, perhaps use non volatile items, like heatsinks, to "crit pad" the SRM if there is 1 SRM6 and 1 Double Heat Sink in the component then there is 5 space used so any crit damage has a 2/5 chance of hitting the SRM, 3/5 chance of hitting the DHS

[Fox With A Shotgun]

If you have nothing else in the component with the SRMs, then they will have 100% chance to be critted out. Put DHS in the same components to protect them.

Also keep in mind that while the SRM6 and 2x ML have the same crit space size, they don't have the same health pool. A SRM6 has 10 hp, and each ML has 10hp. You could have been hit by 4 crits of 5 damage each, hitting every crit space exactly once. So each ML is now on 5hp (10 - 5), but the SRM6 is destroyed (10 - 5 * 2). And depending on what sort of damage hit you to begin with, it may destroy components much more easily.

Consider that most internal components have 10hp. An AC10, AC20, or a PPC cannot split the crit damage it deals and therefore will always do enough damage to destroy a single internal component with a crit. You say you are in a WHM, which happens to be a big target which is likely to draw the attention of big ballistics and the occasional PPC, which further contributes to having things being critted out.

It's also important to note that crits do their damage independently of armor or structure damage. You could have 21 armor, and take an AC20 hit, and your internal stuff is fine because your mech cannot be critted (as long as more than 0 armor remains AFTER the struct/armor damage is done, you cannot take internal crit damage). But if you have 20 armor, take an AC20 hit (armor is now 0) and it crits, you will lose something and take additional damage from the AC20. This is how a component can lose its armor, be barely damaged on structure, but have things destroyed: the last hit happens to be from an AC10, PPC or AC20 that crits just as your last point of armor evaporates.

Edited by Fox With A Shotgun, 31 January 2016 - 03:39 PM.

[Mole]

Rogue Jedi, on 31 January 2016 - 03:22 PM, said:

no higher crit chance that I am aware of.

What is usualy in the component with the SRMs?
If the component is otherwise empty then all crit damage goes to the SRM6, perhaps use non volatile items, like heatsinks, to "crit pad" the SRM if there is 1 SRM6 and 1 Double Heat Sink in the component then there is 5 space used so any crit damage has a 2/5 chance of hitting the SRM, 3/5 chance of hitting the DHS

I've got all slots used in the Warhammer with SRM6s in the side torsos. Each side torso has one or two SRM 6s accompanied by two Medium Lasers and two Double Heat Sinks. Not like there's nothing else in those components for them to crit, but the damn SRM 6 launchers always go first and always go almost instantly. And I'm not even getting shot with high crit chance weapons like AC/2s or Machine Guns either. I'm talking about crap like "Oh look, someone just raked a medium laser across my entire torso. There goes my SRM 6."

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Mole, on 31 January 2016 - 03:31 PM, said:

I've got all slots used in the Warhammer with SRM6s in the side torsos. Each side torso has one or two SRM 6s accompanied by two Medium Lasers and two Double Heat Sinks. Not like there's nothing else in those components for them to crit, but the damn SRM 6 launchers always go first and always go almost instantly. And I'm not even getting shot with high crit chance weapons like AC/2s or Machine Guns either. I'm talking about crap like "Oh look, someone just raked a medium laser across my entire torso. There goes my SRM 6."

That's just pure bad luck then. Assuming these are standard 2-slot SRM6 launchers, that's 2 or 4 slots out of 10 or 12 total used crits respectively, or 20% and 33% chance to get hit on the SRM6.

High crit chance weapons are actually far less likely to destroy a specific piece of equipment, actually. It's far more likely to get an equip destroyed by an AC10, PPC, or AC20 than an AC2 or MGs because these do damage to a single equip at a time, rather than all of them (when MGs destroy equips, it tends to break everything all at once). But for a single ML to destroy an equip, it's actually impossible unless that equip has been damaged by something like an AC5 or a reduced-damage PPC before that.