13 replies to this topic

[Hunka Junk]

I get the basic concept, but are people really running a shield arm when they have its armor down to 0?

And there's just putting a couple of points into it. How much better than 0 is 1? 3? 6?

If you have, say, a 6 armor shield arm, is it actually a shield or more just an expendable appendage flopping around?

Sincerely,

Keeps His Shield Arms Meaty

[Koniving]

Hunka Junk, on 18 August 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

I get the basic concept, but are people really running a shield arm when they have its armor down to 0?

And there's just putting a couple of points into it. How much better than 0 is 1? 3? 6?

If you have, say, a 6 armor shield arm, is it actually a shield or more just an expendable appendage flopping around?

Sincerely,

Keeps His Shield Arms Meaty

The long story made short is that "Shield arm" technique is actually abusing PGI-contrived mechanics.

Have you noticed if a side torso is destroyed, sure the arm falls off but the side torso is still there?
If you hit it, damage is reduced by 60%.

Mechs have varying degrees of "Arm hitbox" that remains after the arm is blown off, which also reduces damage by 60%.

Lets take a Kintaro for example. The arm is freaking huge, particularly if you loaded it with an LRM-20 + LRM-15 combination.
Now consider this:
What if the hitbox for the arm that "still exists" after the arm is destroyed is as large as the entire upper arm? And this magical hitbox is reducing damage by 60%.

So that AC/20 that just hit you? 20-60% = 8 damage.

Wait, you're smart enough to use a STANDARD engine + the shield arm technique? And you lost the side torso too!
AC/20 hits you in the arm hitbox. 20-60%=8 -60% = 3.2 damage!
AC/40 combo hits you! 6.4 damage!

[Koniving]

To add:
This only works if the enemy actually hits the arm hitbox, meaning you still have to "shield arm" by torso twisting and making sure they do. Some mechs have large arm hitboxes. Some mechs have miniscule tiny arm hitboxes. The Blackjack and Jagermech for example would make awful shield arm mechs.
The Rifleman however...

[Roughneck45]

@Koniving I wish we had dynamic explosions and could actually see the parts getting blown off.

Or if arms that were legitimately shield arms like the cent had damage reduction quirks.

[Rogue Jedi]

I know at one point the CN9 had extra armor and/or structure on the "sheild arm" but I do not remember seeing a damage reduction quirk

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

Here are some terms that might help the TC.

Shielding: torso twisting in a way that one side of your mech is facing toward your opponents in hopes to hide the opposite side of your body.

This has many applications like (but not limited too):
1) protecting the side of a mech where the most of the mechs weapons are housed.
2) protecting a heavilly damaged side of a mech (in hopes to spread as much damage as possible, thus maximizing total armor value (this is especially valuable for protecting XL engines)
3) protecting the Center Torso by hiding it from view

Shield arm: an arm designated in an A-sym mech used to block incomming damage. This arm is expendable since it houses no weapons.

There are two different types of shield arms:
1) Arms with hand geometry capable of easilly catching bullets usually tend to have high armor value.
2) Arms with limited hand geometry generally have less armor value; especially if they have good arm-to-torso attachment. These types of arms generally go straight to Dead-Arming since their armor value doesnt really help as much as allocating tonnage to different things.

Dead-Arming: this technique is used to abuse the damage transfer mechanic implemented in MWO. What this means, is after a component is destroyed, its connecting sprite that connects that component to the adjacent component (example Arm to Side Torso) transfers incoming damage to said adjacent component at a reduced amount (some say 60%, others say 50%, i dont know which is correct, but either way, its a lot). Because of this damage reduction, huge amounts of damage can be disapated if both the arm and its connecting torso are easilly expendable.

Please keep in mind, Dead-Arming with an XL equiped Inner Sphere mech fan be quite dangerous and isnt really recommended unless the mech has no other choice for survival.

Also please keep in mind, Dead-Arming is a blanket statement that can be used to explain any mech shielding with a destroyed component, even if the mech doesnt have a shield side.

Edited by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, 18 August 2016 - 09:37 AM.

[Spike Brave]

Rogue Jedi, on 18 August 2016 - 08:25 AM, said:

I know at one point the CN9 had extra armor and/or structure on the "sheild arm" but I do not remember seeing a damage reduction quirk

Just checked. Armor bonus to Right Arm which protects the main gun from crits. Structure bonus to both arms making them tougher to blow off.

[Rayvn26]

Ok so if they are "shield arming" would I be able to hit the legs instead to kill them?

[General Solo]

Also an arm/leg or torso includes internal structure which is half the maximum armor value.
For example if an arm has a maximum armor value of 20 hitpoint, then it will also include 10 hitpoints internal structure. For 30 hitpoints total.

Thus if you only place one point of armor on that arm, you will still need 11 hitpoints to destroy that arm.

Internal Structure 10 + 1 armor = 11 hit points total.

Rayvn26, on 18 August 2016 - 06:02 PM, said:

Ok so if they are "shield arming" would I be able to hit the legs instead to kill them?

Yes

Or just avoid the destroyed area for maximum damage.

Edited by OZHomerOZ, 18 August 2016 - 06:06 PM.

[Void Angel]

Hunka Junk, on 18 August 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

I get the basic concept, but are people really running a shield arm when they have its armor down to 0?

And there's just putting a couple of points into it. How much better than 0 is 1? 3? 6?

If you have, say, a 6 armor shield arm, is it actually a shield or more just an expendable appendage flopping around?

Sincerely,

Keeps His Shield Arms Meaty

Whether or not you're actually trying to use the destroyed location damage reduction, many players will pull the armor off of unused arms in order to save weight. The reason they'll sometimes put a small amount of armor onto it is that arms which have taken structure damage smoke, giving away your location. Obviously if you are actually trying to actively shield with the arm (such as with the specially-shaped Centurion shield arm,) your armor should be maxed out.

[Void Angel]

Rayvn26, on 18 August 2016 - 06:02 PM, said:

Ok so if they are "shield arming" would I be able to hit the legs instead to kill them?

Legging zombie (STD engine, MLaser in the CT) Centurions used to be the preferred method for killing them.

[Koniving]

Roughneck45, on 18 August 2016 - 08:22 AM, said:

@Koniving I wish we had dynamic explosions and could actually see the parts getting blown off.

Or if arms that were legitimately shield arms like the cent had damage reduction quirks.

The shield arm had some for a bit. Problem is it was in the form of a 10% bonus to any armor you had on it... and if you had zero you had no bonus like it should be.

Now you have X amount of additional armor (I think it is 16 which is half a ton in MWO for free).

----

Battletech interestingly does have a shield rule, as well as a modular armor rule.

Modular Armor takes 1 slot per ton of additional armor. All I can recall about it.

A shield took 1-3 slots (it's been 3 years since I read it) but had different sizes. A small shield took half a ton plus the ton of armor you got. A medium shield took a ton plus the two tons you got.

Meh... something sounds off I will look it up later. Modular Armor is added on top of your normal armor if I recall correctly, allocated to either front or rear arc. Shield armor is a separate entity and takes damage in place of that limb until destroyed, but only if hit from the front arc and the side arc it is mounted on.

Anyway I prefer things to come with a drawback or cost like weight. Too many mechs getting free stuff.

[Koniving]

Hunka Junk, on 18 August 2016 - 06:10 AM, said:

I get the basic concept, but are people really running a shield arm when they have its armor down to 0?

And there's just putting a couple of points into it. How much better than 0 is 1? 3? 6?

If you have, say, a 6 armor shield arm...
Keeps His Shield Arms Meaty

Thought of something else too. Yes it is better to have more protection but remember the average player is shooting between 20 to 55 damage per "shot". 1-6 won't matter that much.

But, Centurions have quirks which adds about half a ton to a ton of armor (free) on top of the existing armor (even if zero). This is to make up for how big the arm is.

If the quirk gives ---

Actually never mind. PGI in its infinite wisdom removed them in favor of structure quirks, and gave the gun arm additional armor on top of equal structure quirks..

I can't face palm... this is so bad it's not worth it.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

Shield arm = dead arm.
Sometimes the main advantage is just having the extra tonnage to focus armor and equipment elsewhere. This is especially true with asymetric builds that focus their entire weapons payload on side.
Take a typical Hunchback 4G or 4P for example. Unless you are nuts and running an XL motor, then your left torso and arm are not anywhere near as valuable as your right torso. So the idea is to use your entire left side (dead side) to soak up damage and protect your precious right torso hunch with all your weapons.