8 replies to this topic

[Serpentine Shel Serpentine]

Several of my trial mechs show zero armor on one or two arms. The problem seems to be spreading. Is that a bug? Or some feature that degrades the Trial Mechs over time? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

The trial mechs are all the same for everyone.

They don't have arm armor if they have nothing in arms.

[PFC Carsten]

That's the minmaxing creeping in. Sacrificial components are worthless to keep (no economy in MWO) so they do not get armor. The silly thing is, Damage transfer from the rest of the arm to the torso is less than 100% - as if the "wound" would protect the rest of the mech.

[Serpentine Shel Serpentine]

Thanks for the explanation!

[Rogue Jedi]

PFC Carsten, on 19 February 2017 - 05:29 AM, said:

Damage transfer from the rest of the arm to the torso is less than 100% - as if the "wound" would protect the rest of the mech.

damage transfer is in fact 40%, so if you loose an arm or leg, then take damage to that destroyed arm 40% of it is transferred to the side torso, if you then loose the side torso and damage then hits the destroyed arm, 40% would get transferred to the side, then again would be reduced by 40% so 16% of the total damage would reach the Center Torso

[Koniving]

The trial mechs are community made designs that sometimes exploit game mechanics.
In this case,

"I want more weight for weapons and this arm is useless."

and

"If I lose my arm, the stub of a hitbox if hit, will reduce the damage going to my side torso by 60%, so only 40% of that total damage will go to my side torso... now I just need to trick people to shoot there when I torso twist."

[Snazzy Dragon]

There are plenty of reasons to have 0 armor on an arm but there are also plenty of reasons not to.

Armor weighs very little, especially with the ferro fibrous upgrade-- I am perfectly willing to drop a singular heatsink on most mechs to armor up both arms at least a little. When a component has no armor and has been damaged it starts smoking, which hurts your ability to move about undetected, and it gives your enemy a warning before you, say, poke around a corner or hill.

In mechs like the warhammer especially I have found it extremely beneficial to have ~20-30 armor on each arm, as the arms catch a lot of fire naturally and will protect your valuable side torsos, especially if you are emplying the armor rolling technique to spread damage. It can also be the difference from that guy that flanked you at range with gauss + PPC nailing your arm and having a lot of the damage creep into the ST, or just losing an arm instantly with minimal to no damage to anything else, and having a clear direction of where the attacks came from based upon the missing limb and damage direction indicators.

That said, you can save a lot of weight stripping arms with no value and the extra few heatsinks or extra ammo you get out of it can be huge. It really comes down to preference and what you are willing to go without (or, what you aren't willing to go without).

Edited by Snazzy Dragon, 20 February 2017 - 08:57 AM.

[Boulangerie]

It really comes down to what you gain by stripping the armor. Notice how the trials and most builds will happily strip an arm versus a leg. That's because losing a leg will cripple you, and the arm merely absorbs an alpha with some damage transfer from the shot taken. If you are able to mount another weapon or get in a significant boost to cooling or an extra alpha before overheating, I'd say strip it. If you are stripping it to add an unsustainable heat producing weapon, I'd probably say take the armor.

[Serpentine Shel Serpentine]

All really helpful explanations, thanks.