28 replies to this topic

[TercieI]

Ok. I give up.

[G4LV4TR0N]

Rogue Jedi, on 26 March 2017 - 06:06 AM, said:

if you are only taking ammo, nothing else, then all equipment including actuators and engine crits are taken into account for a crit roll, so having a total of 4 crits for arm and hand actuators + 6 crits for ammo vs 4 and 3 for taking full tons means the ammo is less likely to take the hit.

there is a new critical hits system in the pipeline, but I think the old system is still in place.

most items have 10 critical health, so anything doing 10 or more damage in a single impact will crit a single componant, so if you split the ammo into 1/2 ton slots and an unarmored componant takes the hit you have a 60% chance of recieving 100 crit damage from the ammo explosion if you are hit by an IS AC10 or AC20, any PPC or a Gauss.
if you take full tons of ammo you have a 42% chance of taking 200 crit damage.

100 damage or 200 damage makes absolutely no diferance on a Clan Mech because the CASE stops it from traveling inwards, so I would much prefer to have a 42% chance of loosing the componant than a 60% chance.

by splitting the ammo into half tons you almost double your chance of an ammo explosion from the heavy hitting weapons.

If you are taking damage from missiles, lasers, machine guns or clan ACs having more in the componants does indeed spread the damage more, but the high damage single hit weapons are common enough that I persionaly would much prefer to have fewer, tons of ammo padded by weapons, heatsinks or other equipment.

I see. I was just wondering should I alter my normal ammo placement in relation to recent critical damage changes. Gauss and PPC criticals are reduced but still very deadly.

Also which hardlocked mech parts can take critical damage? Jump Jets, Heatsinks, Engines, MASC and all Actuators, right? But what about Life Support, Sensor, Cockpit, Gyro, Hip, Shoulder? It seems that spreading ammo in (1/2)t way would be better if there would be none of those hardlocked parts, but since they always exist, chances are almost always in favor of full 1t. Exceptions do exist however, for example when you know that you won't face Gauss/PPC/big IS Autocannons, ammo spread could be considered viable?

What about IS XL Engines, I've heard they have 15hp total and even when destroyed by critical damage, there is no effect on mech and 15hp gets evenly transfered to two remaining XL sides, so in total while each IS XL engine crit has 15hp, their total of 3 crits makes it 45hp? I mean - whole IS mech side with XL must be destroyed to score a kill?

Also, do engines that have hardlocked internal heatsinks count those heatsinks separately? What about engines which can use extra heatsinks? Are they always considered 5/6 criticals in center torso?

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 26 March 2017 - 06:51 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

any equipment which takes crit slots can take a critical hit, as far as I am aware the only exception are armor and structure slots.

critical hits to most required equipment (engine, Giro, Life Support, cockpit, actuator) do not at current have any effect, but if other equipment like ECM, Active Probe, Targeting Computer, Heatsink, weapon, MASC or Jumpjet is destroyed in a critical hit it stops working

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 06:39 AM, said:

What about IS XL Engines, I've heard they have 15hp total and even when destroyed by critical damage, there is no effect on mech and 15hp gets evenly transfered to two remaining XL sides, so in total while each IS XL engine crit has 15hp, their total of 3 crits makes it 45hp? I mean - whole IS mech side with XL must be destroyed to score a kill?

the componant health is health of the componant, so 5 damage each on the 3 critical slots in a side torso for an IS XL engine would kill it just the same as 15 damage to a single slot, and yes an engine can be "destroyed" by critical hits but the Mech keeps functioning as if nothing has happened, unless the Mech looses a side torso I guess they must have a capacitor or battery backup sufficent for 13 minutes in combat..

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 26 March 2017 - 07:00 AM.

[G4LV4TR0N]

So for example when in RT Heat Sink is destroyed or Ammo stored there gets depleted then it stops count towards total number of critical slots in RT, making it easier to hit remaining components in RT?

Also in what order Ammo gets depleted when stored in same mech area? From top to bottom, meaning that in such case as below it would be used in this order: (1/2)t - (1/1)t - (1/2)t - (1/1)t?

ACH-B

[Rogue Jedi]

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 07:42 AM, said:

So for example when in RT Heat Sink is destroyed or Ammo stored there gets depleted then it stops count towards total number of critical slots in RT, making it easier to hit remaining components in RT?

Also in what order Ammo gets depleted when stored in same mech area? From top to bottom, meaning that in such case as below it would be used in this order: (1/2)t - (1/1)t - (1/2)t - (1/1)t?

ACH-B

I am not certain about ether of those.

I am pretty sure when something is used up or destroyed it no longer counts for crit calculation, but not certain

I have no idea how ammo is used from within the componant.

[Void Angel]

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 06:39 AM, said:

I see. I was just wondering should I alter my normal ammo placement in relation to recent critical damage changes. Gauss and PPC criticals are reduced but still very deadly.

PGI is working to make crits matter more - which is good because they usually... don't. M<y advice on ammo storage is to store it in locations that aren't destroyed often, and otherwise not to worry about it. If ammo goes up in a non-Clan 'mech, you're almost certainly dead like disco. A Clan 'mech will simply lose that location, so if you can fit all the ammo for an arm weapon in the arm, why not? Most often the limb/torso will be destroyed without ammunition actually exploding, so you're in good shape no matter what you do.

Whenever possible, store ammo in the head and legs, then in the location actually containing the weapon (or the arm on that side, if you always lose the torso first, like with Atlases.) Theorycrafting beyond that is possible, but unnecessary. Particularly in the high-alpha meta we have right now, by the time ammo gets destroyed in most 'mechs, you were losing that torso in the first place, and most people have an XL.

[Tesunie]

Rogue Jedi, on 26 March 2017 - 01:59 AM, said:

NARC does not do damage, so a NARC ammo explosion would do nothing anyway as an ammo explosion deals the damage potential of all remaining ammo in that slot even if NARC ammo did explode it would do 0 damage.

Last I recalled, NARC ammo can explode, and when it does it deals I believe 2 damage per missile (like an SRM missile). As NARC ammo has such low count per ton, this will often be rather little damage.

Of course, they could very well have changed this without my knowledge...

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 05:25 AM, said:

This example which actually stores 3 not 4t of ammo(my typo) is good, question is simple. If you would have to go to fight with ammo in just one arm stored like there, then which arm would you pick? Left or Right? No matter of missile launcher placement, assuming there are no other existing criticals. Because if crit padding is real, then right one will spread damage much better.

Here is example again, previous one for some reason stopped to work, I have updated old post:

ADR-D

Also like in this Adder torsos, are criticals locked for engine and non-removable heat sink. I guess they both account for critical padding? But those fixed structure/armor slots do not? What about parts like shoulder, lower/upper arm actuator, hand actuator, leg actuators, gyro, cockpit, sensors, etc? Do they share crit area?

Every crit in the mech counts as a viable place for a crit to damage. This includes engine, gyro, heatsinks, weapons, actuators, etc. If it's labeled, it's basically able to be crited. (This I believe excludes Ferror and Endo crits though.)

Also, using 1/2 ton ammo to "crit pad" may be able to spread the damage to more crit slots (meaning less likely a single crit location will take a crit more than once), there are enough ways to destroy a crit slot with a single crit hit. So, in actuality, you only increase the chance that you will get a crit to land on ammo, destroy said ammo, and have said ammo explode. Also, 1/2 ton ammo slots tend to have a little less ammo per ton than full ton slots. Use only when you have 1/2 ton left to fill, or to maybe balance ammo between two different components. (AKA: I have 2.5 tons of ammo in each side torso of my Adder, so if I lose a single side torso, I have a chance to lose less ammo.)

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 07:42 AM, said:

So for example when in RT Heat Sink is destroyed or Ammo stored there gets depleted then it stops count towards total number of critical slots in RT, making it easier to hit remaining components in RT?

Also in what order Ammo gets depleted when stored in same mech area? From top to bottom, meaning that in such case as below it would be used in this order: (1/2)t - (1/1)t - (1/2)t - (1/1)t?

ACH-B

Even if a bin of ammo is empty, it is still a legal place that a critical can land on and destroy. However, being without any ammo remaining, it can no longer explode and has no ammo to deal damage with. When an ammo bin does explode, it deals damage to the internals of your mech equal to the remaining potential damage of that ammo that remains in the bin. If you had, for example, only two shots remaining in an AC20 bin when it explodes, it will cause 40 damage to your mechs internals, baring damage reduction from transference to another component of your mech, ei: From your arm to your Side torso. This is also true for any damage (but non-ammo explosions will apply to armor) dealt to your mech. If someone, says, hits your destroyed arm, the damage will still transfer in to the next inward component (the side torso attached to that arm). For each component this damage travels through, it reduces the damage. I believe it's by 60% for each step...

This is why twisting to try and get damage to land where you want can be an important skill sometimes. Get someone to hit your arm hit box on a destroyed arm/side torso, and you can reduce damage by 60% and then again by another 60% by the time it gets to your CT...

[G4LV4TR0N]

This actually gets more interesting. If I would split (1/1)t of ammo into (1/2)t and (1/2)t and put it on mech that I am sure won't get hit early on while being able to use ammo(like LRM boat), then thanks to those depleted (1/2)t ammo bins mech will have increased survivability? Also in what order is ammo being used when stored in single mech part? Like I've shown on that smurfy's ACH example.

[Tesunie]

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 05:03 PM, said:

This actually gets more interesting. If I would split (1/1)t of ammo into (1/2)t and (1/2)t and put it on mech that I am sure won't get hit early on while being able to use ammo(like LRM boat), then thanks to those depleted (1/2)t ammo bins mech will have increased survivability? Also in what order is ammo being used when stored in single mech part? Like I've shown on that smurfy's ACH example.

That, I guess, is a valid option for crit padding, but you are taking the risk and hoping that all those bins will be empty by the time you run out of armor in that location. From my years of playing, I have found that to be... unlikely. Depending upon the location and mech of course. (Such as a Stalker's arms are rather safe places to store your ammo, as they almost never take enough damage before a side torso falls off. However, in relation to that, the Stalker's side torsos are easy targets, and not exactly ammo safe locations...)

Do recall though that most 1/2 ton ammo bins have less ammo per ton than a full ton ammo bin. This may be a shot or two shorter, and for some weapons that can be a lot of damage potential lost. That loss of ammo just keeps stacking as you place more and more 1/2 tons of ammo on your mech. I know each 1/2 ton of UAC2 ammo has one less bullet in it. So, for each 1/2 ton of that ammo type, you lose out on a single shell. Might not be much for UAC2s, but if that was true for the AC20? That's 20 damage potential that is just missing per ton... (Not sure if it is or not true with that ammo type.)


As for which order of ammo consumption within the same location? Completely unknown to me. I don't have a clue, as it never came up and/or has largely been irrelevant to most game play considerations. It's largely been a non-issue, and I've never noticed any post on the forums indicating this information (or none that I can recall).