28 replies to this topic

[G4LV4TR0N]

Lets say we got a mech, like this one:

KFX-D

Where would it be best to put 2x0.5t of ammo of each kind? I tend to hold weapon ammo in exactly same spot where my weapon is, but is it good? I am also often using same side of torso if there's no room left. So in this case my missile ammo would be on right side of mech and autocannon ammo would be on left side. Should I load all ammo onto single omnipod, or should I spread it all around?

[Tesunie]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 06:11 PM, said:

Lets say we got a mech, like this one:

KFX-D

Where would it be best to put 2x0.5t of ammo of each kind? I tend to hold weapon ammo in exactly same spot where my weapon is, but is it good? I am also often using same side of torso if there's no room left. So in this case my missile ammo would be on right side of mech and autocannon ammo would be on left side. Should I load all ammo onto single omnipod, or should I spread it all around?

For Clan mechs, placing your ammo where your weapons are is a valid build concept. If your weapons are spread out, than it may not be as advisable, because if you lose one location, you may lose what's left of the ammo for that weapon.

IS is a different matter altogether. You want to hide your ammo, either in places unlikely to be hit (legs, head, and sometimes sidetorsos and/or arms depending upon the mech). However, no matter where you hide it, don't underarmor the locations that you do place it in. AKA: If you hide your ammo in your legs, don't underarmor your legs.


I've been seeing you placing a lot of quick and simple questions on the forums. Instead of creating so many new threads, why not just ask in the Short Question, Short Answer thread? You'll probably get a faster response on average.

[G4LV4TR0N]

I'm piloting Clan mechs only. What if I would use something like this with one arm just for shielding?

DWF-A

Lets say I do have to have total 8t of ammo. Wouldn't it be better to dump all to right torso? Or up left arm armor and spread it between areas where I have no weapons to prevent crit damage explosion? Or it's better to keep it with weapons still?

[Tesunie]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 06:49 PM, said:

I'm piloting Clan mechs only. What if I would use something like this with one arm just for shielding?

DWF-A

Lets say I do have to have total 8t of ammo. Wouldn't it be better to dump all to right torso? Or up left arm armor and spread it between areas where I have no weapons to prevent crit damage explosion? Or it's better to keep it with weapons still?

I would place ammo first in the head. From there I would place what ammo I could in the legs (being a 100 ton assault, your legs should be rather safe). After that, I'd fill in ammo where the weapons are located. If you lose your weapon, the ammo is useless anyway, isn't it?

Clan mechs gain CASE in the locations where any ammo is placed, for free and for no crit cost. This protects you a fair amount of potential damage, and even death.

Overall, I don't like one sided mechs, because too often I'll lose the side with all my weapons, making me completely useless (or nearly so). However, I also recognize the advantages of such a build, as you twist your shield side towards your opponents, and hopefully lose that side instead of your weapon side, letting you min-max your weapons to armor abilities.


Edit: I also would have to question the build itself. A single LBx20, SRM6 and LRM5? Doesn't seem like much for a 100 ton mech...

Edited by Tesunie, 25 March 2017 - 07:10 PM.

[Koniving]

Tesunie, on 25 March 2017 - 07:09 PM, said:

Edit: I also would have to question the build itself. A single LBx20, SRM6 and LRM5? Doesn't seem like much for a 100 ton mech...

I'd do the same... but earlier today... I saw a mech with a single LBX-20, SRM-6+Artemis and a single large pulse laser carry us through 7 kills, two of them fresh.

Interestingly, it was also a Dire Wolf.

[G4LV4TR0N]

It's not a build just example of ammo placement. Can be used on any mech at any tonnage. In general I am just wondering should I be putting my ammo in places where it can get destroyed by critical damage after those critical damage chances have been modified by latest patch. This means exactly area with weapons where you can lose weapon to ammo explosion.

[Koniving]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 06:49 PM, said:

I'm piloting Clan mechs only. What if I would use something like this with one arm just for shielding?

DWF-A

Lets say I do have to have total 8t of ammo. Wouldn't it be better to dump all to right torso? Or up left arm armor and spread it between areas where I have no weapons to prevent crit damage explosion? Or it's better to keep it with weapons still?

So much free tonnage.
You actually want more items and slots in the same places as ammo -- even weapons -- so that they protect your ammo and prevent it from taking damage / being destroyed.

This said..
Whatever limb the ammo is in will explode even with CASE II.

Also a downfall about CASE II is since it doesn't have a crit, it won't play part of protecting other slots against crits.

And removing the armor is always a bad idea, especially for a shield arm. Only if you're desperate for the weight.

Edited by Koniving, 25 March 2017 - 07:33 PM.

[G4LV4TR0N]

Yeah but in this case you got much ammo on one torso. If that torso blows up then arm will also blow up and weapon will be lost. So how to put those 8tons assuming head is taken already.

[Koniving]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 08:27 PM, said:

Yeah but in this case you got much ammo on one torso. If that torso blows up then arm will also blow up and weapon will be lost. So how to put those 8tons assuming head is taken already.

Lots of ammo in the arm.





Several tons less ammo but bigger engine.

Engine explosion on first run.

So load the arm until it overflows. Distribute to the rest to legs, or fill the torso to the brink. The more the better.

Why is more better?
Each successive crit requires a new roll to see where it hits.
A roll will always land on a crit slot that is occupied (if it isn't, it rerolls until it does).
This means slots will always take damage when crits occur.
The fewer the slots consumed in a location, the more often a specific slot will take damage from crits.
The more often the slot takes damage, the faster it is destroyed.
The faster it is destroyed, the more likely it will trigger an explosion.

Edited by Koniving, 25 March 2017 - 08:51 PM.

[G4LV4TR0N]

I see. What if something like this happens:

TBR-PRIME

Assuming that this is all the ammo I want to use. Is this good spread or should I remove ammo from arms and put it in torsos? By what I understand as there is just 1 ammo crit occupied in arms there's 1/3 chance of getting it critted. Then right torso has 2/6(1/3) chance of getting critted but if I would move one crit of ammo from right hand to right torso, the torso would be 3/7 crit chance. So it could be good to actually spread ammo across whole mech if many criticals are being occupied, right or not?

[Rogue Jedi]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 09:16 PM, said:

I see. What if something like this happens:

TBR-PRIME

Assuming that this is all the ammo I want to use. Is this good spread or should I remove ammo from arms and put it in torsos? By what I understand as there is just 1 ammo crit occupied in arms there's 1/3 chance of getting it critted. Then right torso has 2/6(1/3) chance of getting critted but if I would move one crit of ammo from right hand to right torso, the torso would be 3/7 crit chance. So it could be good to actually spread ammo across whole mech if many criticals are being occupied, right or not?

first I hope this is not a build you are planning to use, for reasons explained in the spoiler

Spoiler

how do you plan to handle 10 diferant fire groups, you most certainly do not want to be wasting SRM2 ammo when holding a lock for the SSRM as they will not hit, the LRM5 has much longer range than the SSRM so you do not want to be wasting SSRM ammo when firing the LRM5, and the LRM5 does minimal damage up close. I suppose you could fire the Machine Gun with the Flamer, and the TAG could go on all weapon group but you need at least 8 fire groups to avoid wasting heat and ammo on shots which cannot hit, and you are limited to 6 fire groups.

also why is there 2 tons for the MG but only 1 for the AC2? a MG needs .25-.5 tons, about 1 game in 10 will I manage to use .5 ton per MG, while I tend to use about 2 tons per AC2

Your theory about spreading the ammo is not wrong, the issue is that an ammo explosion will still usualy take out a componant, you are usualy better off crit padding which means putting something bulky, like heatsinks, in to reduce the chance the ammo will take a hit, rather than spreading the ammo.

[G4LV4TR0N]

Crit padding sounds interesting. Is using (1/2) ammo packs considered better or worse than using full ammo packs? Take a look at 6t of ammo on left and right side of mech:

SCR-A

Also I know Gauss ammo does not explode but do NARC ammo explode?

[Void Angel]

All non-Gauss ammo explodes; Gauss ammo is nonexplosive because it's just a ferrous slug, and the Gauss Rifle's near-certainty of blowing itself up if destroyed helps balance this mechanic. This allows you to use it to shield locations that have things like ECM which you would really rather keep.

As for your original question, I store ammo in the head first, then the legs or torsos on the same side as the guns, often in the same location. There's only a 10% chance any ammo hit will go up, in which case you've lost your hit location - or your 'mech, if you're inner Sphere. But you don't want to lose the guns in your right arm because someone bleww off your left torso.

Edited by Void Angel, 25 March 2017 - 11:24 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

G4LV4TR0N, on 25 March 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:

Crit padding sounds interesting. Is using (1/2) ammo packs considered better or worse than using full ammo packs? Take a look at 6t of ammo on left and right side of mech:

SCR-A

Also I know Gauss ammo does not explode but do NARC ammo explode?

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.

splitting ammo into half tons doubles the chance of an ammo explosion because there are twice as many ammo to crit, ok it will be a lesser explosion than the full ton but 100 damage to structure will still kill that componant just as effectively as 200 damage.

the only time you want to use half tons of ammo are if you are out of tonnage so cannot put on a full ton, if you do not need more than half a ton ^{(e.g. a single machine gun, of course single MGs are not very effective anyway)} or if you are using Gauss ammo for crit padding.
I can think of no other times a half ton of ammo would be better than a full ton.

on which of thise builds are you more likely to have ammo take a hit, and thereby explode?
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f6027f4e24fa3f9
or half ton
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...a40b04e23b348e7

if there are other good reasons someone else will probably point them out.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 26 March 2017 - 02:07 AM.

[G4LV4TR0N]

Take a look at this mech's arms:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...21e791a0aa56b10

If you would be forced to store 4t of ammo like this then but either on left or right arm, then where would it be more effective? Because if we take crit padding into account then it seems that right arm has better placement because more damage gets spread around 8 crits.

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 26 March 2017 - 05:32 AM.

[TercieI]

G4LV4TR0N, on 26 March 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

Take a look at this mech's arms:

ADR-D

If you would be forced to store 4t of ammo like this then but either on left or right arm, then where would it be more effective? Because if we take crit padding into account then it seems that right arm has better placement because more damage gets spread around 8 crits.

Ammo placement depends heavily on how a particular mech and build plays. These theoretical examples don't help when they're mechs so silly there's no good way to play them. Put up some real ones and you'll get better insight.

[G4LV4TR0N]

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?

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 26 March 2017 - 05:31 AM.

[TercieI]

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?

The question may be simple but it is meaningless without real specifics.

[G4LV4TR0N]

Here you go, the build is locked and fixed and only thing that can change is ammo spread (1t vs 1/2t) on right arm:

First setup:
KFX-C

Second setup:
KFX-C

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 26 March 2017 - 05:57 AM.

[Rogue Jedi]

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.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 26 March 2017 - 06:09 AM.