13 replies to this topic

[sir Koala]

Am I reading this wrong? It shows all my armour on torsos is still intanct, so how did my engine blew up? I did not overheat, so how else? I was piloting a trial King Crab, image below

[Fobhopper]

"Destroyed by: Ammo Explosion"

Sounds pretty clear to me how you died. But Since you are asking the how/why and arent familiar with the specifics of the game (trying to not sound condescending, but the loading screen tool tips tell you exactly what happens to ammo when shot).

It looks like you had ammo in your torso slots somewhere, and potentially in your arms/legs. In this game, all ammo except for gauss ammo can be 'critical hit', which does its damage directly to the section of body the ammo was housed in. If the ammo destroys a section, the damage can travel to the next connected section. That damage is then target at your internals, if it lands on a slot that also has ammo in it (AC, missile, AMS) there is a chance that you can get a chain reaction critical which blows that ammo up, which can then damage another slot. That other slot happened to be your engine. If you are running an XL engine ( which it looks like you were, or you had ammo in your CT) it means that a critical hit on the engines can instantly kill your mech.

A word of advice to bypass this issue in the future is to store your ammo either in the legs, arms or head. Try your best to avoid putting ammo in your side or center torso if you can, and failing that, make sure you have a C.A.S.E. installed, which will prevent damage traveling when you have ammo exploding from critical hits.
[Edit]
Another thing came to mind that I forgot about (because it very rarely, and I mean its very rare) that if you overheat your mech (especially if you are overriding) the heat can cause any ammo you have stored to explode. So try to manage your heat, because heat damage is dealt directly to your internal structure. That damage can land on your ammo and cause it to explode, which can also create a chain reaction of criticals that can instantly kill your mechs engine.

Edited by Fobhopper, 14 March 2016 - 12:22 PM.

[Bilbo]

If you weren't stripped of rear armor on left and center torsos, I'd guess the ammo explosion transferring damage inward did it.

[Roland09]

Ammo in your leg blew up. Damage from the ammo explosion is transferred directly through the internal structure, leaving your armour outside intact, but killing you nonetheless.

[Exard3k]

Ammo in your legs exploded and transfered damage to your Torso. This kind of damage affects the structure directly and doesnt take armor into account.

Ammo in legs is always risky for IS Mechs. You can't put C.A.S.E. there. There are several players out there specifically aiming for legs to trigger ammo explosions (some players have low leg armor too).

[MyriadDigits]

The ammo in your leg or your side torso exploded, and the damage spread to the center torso.

[sir Koala]

Thanks! Misread the C.A.S.E. tooltip and did not know ammo explosion can hit other sections as well, nor that it can be severe enough to one shot a perfectly healthy engine. The trial King Crab has ammo in both legs and right torso, all unprotected by case.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

sir Koala, on 14 March 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Thanks! Misread the C.A.S.E. tooltip and did not know ammo explosion can hit other sections as well, nor that it can be severe enough to one shot a perfectly healthy engine. The trial King Crab has ammo in both legs and right torso, all unprotected by case.

Yep. Each unfired shot of ammunition does damage equal to its normal impact damage if it explodes - and leg ammo is always spent last. Meaning that if leg ammo goes boom, it will most likely be the full blocks of ammo. By the looks of it, the trial KGC has AC/5's, meaning that each ton of ammo in the legs will go boom for 150 damage, ignoring armor. A KGC's leg has 42 hp, which means that if there were two tons of ammo, there would be 300 damage applied against 42 hp = 258 damage left over. Damage is transferred at 50% rate to the adjacent component, which is the LT from the LL; 129 damage applied to LT vs 42 hp of a KGC's LT = your LT goes boom, with 87 more damage remaining. This is transferred across to your LA and CT, split evenly; and if I'm not mistaken, there is more ammo yet in the LT, which probably did explode as well.

So yeah, legs on assaults and heavies are legit targets if boating ballistics or missiles. Clan ones less so, because of inbuilt CASE II, but IS ones? Hell to the yes. Nothing is more amusing than a KGC with 16 leg armor getting absolutely wrecked by a MPL-MG locust because of an ammo explosion.

[IraqiWalker]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 14 March 2016 - 01:57 PM, said:

Yep. Each unfired shot of ammunition does damage equal to its normal impact damage if it explodes - and leg ammo is always spent last. Meaning that if leg ammo goes boom, it will most likely be the full blocks of ammo. By the looks of it, the trial KGC has AC/5's, meaning that each ton of ammo in the legs will go boom for 150 damage, ignoring armor. A KGC's leg has 42 hp, which means that if there were two tons of ammo, there would be 300 damage applied against 42 hp = 258 damage left over. Damage is transferred at 50% rate to the adjacent component, which is the LT from the LL; 129 damage applied to LT vs 42 hp of a KGC's LT = your LT goes boom, with 87 more damage remaining. This is transferred across to your LA and CT, split evenly; and if I'm not mistaken, there is more ammo yet in the LT, which probably did explode as well.

So yeah, legs on assaults and heavies are legit targets if boating ballistics or missiles. Clan ones less so, because of inbuilt CASE II, but IS ones? Hell to the yes. Nothing is more amusing than a KGC with 16 leg armor getting absolutely wrecked by a MPL-MG locust because of an ammo explosion.

I believe it was made 40% instead of 50% back in January, or December?

[Rogue Jedi]

sir Koala, on 14 March 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Thanks! Misread the C.A.S.E. tooltip and did not know ammo explosion can hit other sections as well, nor that it can be severe enough to one shot a perfectly healthy engine. The trial King Crab has ammo in both legs and right torso, all unprotected by case.

One ammo explosion sill cause damage to another component, that damage can trigger another ammo explosion, but that is extremely unusual.

I am one of the people handling basic training for my unit, one of our drills is shielding with a missing leg to protect the healthy leg and teach about damage mitigation using a missing componant, so we shoot off the one leg then try to shield with the nonexistent leg to mitigate damage, on one occasion I shot the unarmored leg on a fresh trial Atlas, that triggered an ammo explosion in the leg, which then must have triggered an ammo explosion in the left torso because the otherwise undamaged trial Atlas was destroyed without being hit anywhere except the left leg.

[Rogue Jedi]

IraqiWalker, on 14 March 2016 - 02:08 PM, said:

I believe it was made 40% instead of 50% back in January, or December?

yes, 40% would be transferred to the side torso then 16%^{(40% of 40%)} of the remaining damage would be transferred to the CT

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Rogue Jedi, on 14 March 2016 - 02:13 PM, said:

yes, 40% would be transferred to the side torso then 16%^{(40% of 40%)} of the remaining damage would be transferred to the CT

Yup. But still, something big multiplied by something not really small is still something quite big. A double ammo explosion easily kills a mech...

Funny thing happened in a SRM lolcust the other day. Had a ton of SRM ammo in the head, got hit by the last stray bomb of an airstrike. Happens to hit the head, and I blew up; head was missing, but it wasn't a headshot.

It was a SRM ammo explosion. In the head.

[Rogue Jedi]

Fox With A Shotgun, on 14 March 2016 - 02:24 PM, said:

Yup. But still, something big multiplied by something not really small is still something quite big. A double ammo explosion easily kills a mech...

depends on the Mech
I did the maths, an 85 ton Mech with a standard engine should survive a 400 point ^{(2 ton SRM ammo)} explosion in the leg, an 80 ton Mech could survive depending on how much structure was left on the leg when the ammo went, but even a 100 ton Mech would have damage to the CT internals after such a large explosion.

[Koniving]

sir Koala, on 14 March 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Thanks! Misread the C.A.S.E. tooltip and did not know ammo explosion can hit other sections as well, nor that it can be severe enough to one shot a perfectly healthy engine. The trial King Crab has ammo in both legs and right torso, all unprotected by case.

If you had an XL engine, you'd be dead. Even with a standard.

Assuming a single ammo explosion and full ammo in that one drum, you'd have:
30 uses / ton = 30 * 5 = 150 damage to deal with.
BLAM. Leg is gone (if in perfect condition, that's 42 health; it's never in perfect condition when the ammo is destroyed).
Transfer! -60% = 90 to side torso! 42 health if in perfect shape. Blam! Gone. 48 damage left. Transfer! -60%. = 19.2. You'd still be alive. Note your leg is probably closer to 20 or less before the boom. In which case there'd be around 60 or more when the next transfer comes, severely damaging you.

In this case, both tons of ammunition must have gone boom. See trial King Crab layout. Note horrible ammo placement and lack of CASE.
With both tons... You're screwed. That's 300. Royally screwed.
Then there's the fact that ammo explosions lead to secondary ammo explosions. This boom makes this ammo go boom makes that ammo go boom makes this other ammo go boom which makes that one over there go boom. A CASE can stop this chain reaction at the side torso, but it can go boom anywhere else, and that side torso is gonna go too.

The end result? Boom. The moment one ton of ammo sparked you were dead.
Shame it isn't like the old ammo explosions. Hear that sweet popcorn.

How they are now.

Old ones had this lovely popcorn sound effect...and took a bit longer (this was usually lag related, though).

Edited by Koniving, 14 March 2016 - 03:27 PM.