15 replies to this topic

[hudsondinobot]

Total disclosure: This is 80% question, 5% "light rant", and 15% request for advice.

I've fought in a few QDs today and have had something happen to me several times. I've died from center torso damage while the rest of the mech is largely undamaged.

For example, In my last drop, I was yellow on all three torsos and undamaged everywhere else. We were MAYBE three minutes into the match. We're all staring at each other across lines and taking a few shots. I move forward to look over the ridge and take another shot.... BANG... I'm dead. Yellow Torso to Torso GONE in one shot from 900m+. I didn't see any tell-tale streaks or beams, so it was gauss. Cause of death "Engine destroyed", and the last item on the kill screen was "damaged by Gauss." So it was Gauss.

Light rant: WHAT?!?!?!?!

Question: But really.... I get crits, but even if the mech who hit me was doubled up on Gauss rifles... I don't understand the math. I thought you could only crit if you're through the armor and on the structure. Which wasn't the case at the beginning of the shot. So, how does it calculate to get through the center torso armor, AND crit me dead through the entirety of my center torso structure? Does the Jaguar have a hit box issue with this?

Moreover, this kind of death has happened to me three, maybe four times today... I think I've had ten drops or so over the course of the day. Once was (I'm pretty sure) an Alpha strike against my wounded mech which caught me dead center. Fine, I get that. ...but there was another time when I was largely undamaged, a mech turns the corner... BANG... center torso gone.

Is this a Jaguar Hit box deal? If so, why is this just becoming a recurring thing after around 150 drops of "Normal" combat? Can someone explain the math for me? I'm genuinely confused.

Request for advice: Sooo..... anything I can do about this? I'm not sure what actually happened, so I don't know what else I can do.

Thanks

[Lykaon]

What you describe is very odd and nothing I have experienced while piloting an Ebon Jaguar. That being said there are some common issues with the old EJ.

It's forward jutting nose exposes your CT and allows for easy isolation of the CT component. Always be mindful that you mech's geometry is sub optimal and your mech lacks quirking to compensate. The Ebon Jaguar is the very definition of the glass cannon.

Now about your specific issues.

There were mechlab bugs in the past that cause armor to be either missrepresented or removed when the mech dropped into a match. I have not heard of these (very old) bugs returning but you can try the fixes we used as a work around back then.

Step one: strip all the armor off the mech.
Step two: Save and exit mech lab
Step three: reload mechlab and reapply the mech's armor and save.

This should rectify the bug if it's at all similar to the old problem reasserting it's self.


Now another possible cause was simply being the first mech seen by the enemy team and as such the first mech focused. Your death report will only list the weapon that issued killing blow. So you may have been hit by several gauss/heavy gauss etc all at once since your mech was targeted by several enemy. The death report will not say you were hit by X number of Y weapons just the last hit that killed you.

Edited by Lykaon, 03 January 2018 - 03:59 PM.

[Humpday]

You SURE you didnt get your behind blown out? Because that's what this is sounding like.
Either that or you have an exorbitant amount of back armor such that you got cored through the front in one shot.

Remember now, gauss vomit can carrry 64-80pts of damage. Taking two hits like that with minimal back armor will core you, take a 3rd and you're dead. 2 shots and you're dead if you're running a stupid amount of back armor.

Edited by Humpday, 03 January 2018 - 04:27 PM.

[Bohxim]

Don't forget beam tapering is a thing now, so you might not be visually seeing the out of range erll hitting you. It might be further down your cause of death screen

[hudsondinobot]

Lykaon, on 03 January 2018 - 03:59 PM, said:

What you describe is very odd and nothing I have experienced while piloting an Ebon Jaguar. That being said there are some common issues with the old EJ. It's forward jutting nose exposes your CT and allows for easy isolation of the CT component. Always be mindful that you mech's geometry is sub optimal and your mech lacks quirking to compensate. The Ebon Jaguar is the very definition of the glass cannon. Now about your specific issues. There were mechlab bugs in the past that cause armor to be either missrepresented or removed when the mech dropped into a match. I have not heard of these (very old) bugs returning but you can try the fixes we used as a work around back then. Step one: strip all the armor off the mech. Step two: Save and exit mech lab Step three: reload mechlab and reapply the mech's armor and save. This should rectify the bug if it's at all similar to the old problem reasserting it's self. Now another possible cause was simply being the first mech seen by the enemy team and as such the first mech focused. Your death report will only list the weapon that issued killing blow. So you may have been hit by several gauss/heavy gauss etc all at once since your mech was targeted by several enemy. The death report will not say you were hit by X number of Y weapons just the last hit that killed you.

I'll try this, just in case.

Humpday, on 03 January 2018 - 04:08 PM, said:

You SURE you didnt get your behind blown out? Because that's what this is sounding like. Either that or you have an exorbitant amount of back armor such that you got cored through the front in one shot. Remember now, gauss vomit can carrry 64-80pts of damage. Taking two hits like that with minimal back armor will core you, take a 3rd and you're dead. 2 shots and you're dead if you're running a stupid amount of back armor.

What you're saying makes total sense, but we were barely three minutes into the match and there were NO mechs behind us. We have barely begun firing across lines at each other. I only fired my ER lasers twice before this happened.

Bohxim, on 03 January 2018 - 04:19 PM, said:

Don't forget beam tapering is a thing now, so you might not be visually seeing the out of range erll hitting you. It might be further down your cause of death screen

This makes some sense. Maybe I was alpha'd from a huge distance and they all collided with the center torso hit box.

I definitely SAW nothing. Just heard the Pop when I died.

Thanks

Edited by hudsondinobot, 03 January 2018 - 05:31 PM.

[panzer1b]

What you experienced is MOST likely a bug that occurs when you get hit hard enough by enough weapons simultaneously. Sometimes a high alfa build will damage you wityh no visual or audio cues when its a stupid number of weapons hitting at the same time.

Also, there are mechs out there that can reliably 1 shot all of your armor off in a single shot from the CT if you give them a good burn. The MCII deathstrike has a build with 94 alfa strike that can do all of that damage within 1.4s, all to a single location, and it can do so at 475m out. that is enough to remove ALL the armor from a clan 75t heavy's CT (and turn your EBON to orange or so internals), and all you need to do to let this happen is have bad luck where you expose just where hes aiming and dont move enough tos spread the damage.

The ebon has (with no skills at all) exactly 84 armor and 42 internals, which is a grad total of 126 HP to just the CT. While nothing can 1 shot you (discounting the 15 HLL direwolf build that has a grand total of 270 alfa strike), there are plenty of non deathstrike mechs that can 2 shot you consistently if they get over 90% of their fire into the CT. Any mech with 2HLL+6ERML/4HML, and mech with 2GR+2HLL+1ERML, and mech with 1GR+2HLL+3ERML, any mech with 2HGR+4ML/ERML. Basically any meta assault, meta clan heavy, and even a few clan medium builds should in theory be able to 2 shot you 100% of the time assuming you fail to spread any of the damage. Survivability tree would help a little bit, but even then you are looking at being 2 shotted by a good number of mechs with perfect accuracy.

Now i have a ebon and i do enjoy it, but you need to be aware that it is a absolute glass cannon. if you use the shoulderboxes, expect to loose at least 1 ST pretty damn quick, if you dont use the boxes, expect to get CT cored consistently. Its so glassy that if you expose against a prepared firing line you can expect to be dead instantly, and if not, so badly hurt that ur a 1 touch kill for the next thing that hits you. The ebon (and most clan mechs foir that matter) need to rely on range and good trading, preferably against enemies that arent aware of your presense or that lack weapons to hit you at a distance. My favorite build is 1GR+3ERLL, good combo of sustained DPS, range, alfa strike, and no stupid arm mounts so whatever you see can be shot at. Its also tankier then the boxless versions at a distance since people are more likely to not shoot the CT, and id rather loose one of my STs and be left with ~50% firepower then be dead (and ofc if i do loose a ST that side is a free shield).

[El Bandito]

Weapons crit internals. Sometimes luck happens.

[hudsondinobot]

panzer1b, on 03 January 2018 - 05:43 PM, said:

What you experienced is MOST likely a bug that occurs when you get hit hard enough by enough weapons simultaneously. Sometimes a high alfa build will damage you wityh no visual or audio cues when its a stupid number of weapons hitting at the same time.

Also, there are mechs out there that can reliably 1 shot all of your armor off in a single shot from the CT if you give them a good burn. The MCII deathstrike has a build with 94 alfa strike that can do all of that damage within 1.4s, all to a single location, and it can do so at 475m out. that is enough to remove ALL the armor from a clan 75t heavy's CT (and turn your EBON to orange or so internals), and all you need to do to let this happen is have bad luck where you expose just where hes aiming and dont move enough tos spread the damage.

The ebon has (with no skills at all) exactly 84 armor and 42 internals, which is a grad total of 126 HP to just the CT. While nothing can 1 shot you (discounting the 15 HLL direwolf build that has a grand total of 270 alfa strike), there are plenty of non deathstrike mechs that can 2 shot you consistently if they get over 90% of their fire into the CT. Any mech with 2HLL+6ERML/4HML, and mech with 2GR+2HLL+1ERML, and mech with 1GR+2HLL+3ERML, any mech with 2HGR+4ML/ERML. Basically any meta assault, meta clan heavy, and even a few clan medium builds should in theory be able to 2 shot you 100% of the time assuming you fail to spread any of the damage. Survivability tree would help a little bit, but even then you are looking at being 2 shotted by a good number of mechs with perfect accuracy.

Now i have a ebon and i do enjoy it, but you need to be aware that it is a absolute glass cannon. if you use the shoulderboxes, expect to loose at least 1 ST pretty damn quick, if you dont use the boxes, expect to get CT cored consistently. Its so glassy that if you expose against a prepared firing line you can expect to be dead instantly, and if not, so badly hurt that ur a 1 touch kill for the next thing that hits you. The ebon (and most clan mechs foir that matter) need to rely on range and good trading, preferably against enemies that arent aware of your presense or that lack weapons to hit you at a distance. My favorite build is 1GR+3ERLL, good combo of sustained DPS, range, alfa strike, and no stupid arm mounts so whatever you see can be shot at. Its also tankier then the boxless versions at a distance since people are more likely to not shoot the CT, and id rather loose one of my STs and be left with ~50% firepower then be dead (and ofc if i do loose a ST that side is a free shield).

This makes a lot of sense. I think it explains what happened. I’m pretty sure we got rolled after i died, so meta mechs make sense.

I have a follow up question on that matter. I’m just getting back into the game, and am becoming halfway decent (aside from the story at hand), but I’m winging it on loadout design. Where do I go to find the meta builds? I’d like to be more competitive, and I’d enjoy seeing the builds that get it done.

[Bohxim]

hudsondinobot, on 03 January 2018 - 07:14 PM, said:

This makes a lot of sense. I think it explains what happened. I’m pretty sure we got rolled after i died, so meta mechs make sense.

I have a follow up question on that matter. I’m just getting back into the game, and am becoming halfway decent (aside from the story at hand), but I’m winging it on loadout design. Where do I go to find the meta builds? I’d like to be more competitive, and I’d enjoy seeing the builds that get it done.

Personally I find most of my meta builds spectating ppl who are alive towards the end of a match

[Tarogato]

What you describe sounds impossible to me. It is only possible to fire two gauss at a time, so you got hit with dual gauss, which is 30 damage. Your EBJ has 42 points of structure in the CT, it will survive that. Maybe if he got a triple-crit with both gauss, it would have dealt 43.5 damage? (mcgral will have to pitch in, I'm not solid on my numbers for individual crit damage), so you would only die if you had less than 1.5 armour or less.

Are you sure that "gauss" was the only thing on the death report? You didn't see "heavy gauss" or maybe some energy "clan er large" or anything like that? (keep in mind blue beams can appear almost invisible on cold maps, so you might not see them clearly)


I could do a hitbox check on the EBJ, i'm sure it will come up with something tiny. There's lots of mechs that are possible to hit their rear armour from the front, so I probably won't bother unless you REALLY want me to check it out. I've not heard of this happening with the EBJ in particular before, but like I said it can happen with loads of mechs because mechs have weird shapes.

[FalconerGray]

hudsondinobot, on 03 January 2018 - 05:30 PM, said:

What you're saying makes total sense, but we were barely three minutes into the match and there were NO mechs behind us. We have barely begun firing across lines at each other. I only fired my ER lasers twice before this happened.

As a career backstabber, seeing this dangerous and misguided attitude pleases me greatly

Serious though, depending on the map and the mech, it is extremely plausible to end up behind the enemy team undetected within three minutes.

Another thing regarding the "cause of death" screen - it is possible that you were hit with a full gauss vomit alpha and the gauss is just the last thing shown on the list (lasers being hitscan will register damage before the gauss, if fired at the same time).

Edited by legatoblues, 04 January 2018 - 04:33 AM.

[hudsondinobot]

legatoblues, on 04 January 2018 - 04:33 AM, said:

As a career backstabber, seeing this dangerous and misguided attitude pleases me greatly

Serious though, depending on the map and the mech, it is extremely plausible to end up behind the enemy team undetected within three minutes.

Another thing regarding the "cause of death" screen - it is possible that you were hit with a full gauss vomit alpha and the gauss is just the last thing shown on the list (lasers being hitscan will register damage before the gauss, if fired at the same time).

No one was behind us, I spectated. But I hear where you're coming from. Looking back on it, and reading the various comments here, I'm pretty sure it was a combo of simultaneous Gauss and Laser vomit, with the gauss being the last item showing. Maybe two mechs hit me at once. I have no idea. But it was a comical and catastrophic amount of dmg in one moment.

Tarogato, on 03 January 2018 - 09:53 PM, said:

What you describe sounds impossible to me. It is only possible to fire two gauss at a time, so you got hit with dual gauss, which is 30 damage. Your EBJ has 42 points of structure in the CT, it will survive that. Maybe if he got a triple-crit with both gauss, it would have dealt 43.5 damage? (mcgral will have to pitch in, I'm not solid on my numbers for individual crit damage), so you would only die if you had less than 1.5 armour or less.

Are you sure that "gauss" was the only thing on the death report? You didn't see "heavy gauss" or maybe some energy "clan er large" or anything like that? (keep in mind blue beams can appear almost invisible on cold maps, so you might not see them clearly)


I could do a hitbox check on the EBJ, i'm sure it will come up with something tiny. There's lots of mechs that are possible to hit their rear armour from the front, so I probably won't bother unless you REALLY want me to check it out. I've not heard of this happening with the EBJ in particular before, but like I said it can happen with loads of mechs because mechs have weird shapes.

After hearing from all of you, I'm positive I was hit by a lot of vomit, with the Gauss showing up as the final hit. The bug mentioned earlier about not seeing the graphical representations of the shots would explain why it felt like only gauss.

Bohxim, on 03 January 2018 - 09:22 PM, said:

Personally I find most of my meta builds spectating ppl who are alive towards the end of a match

Same. But collected sources are swell, too.

[Mcgral18]

Tarogato, on 03 January 2018 - 09:53 PM, said:

What you describe sounds impossible to me. It is only possible to fire two gauss at a time, so you got hit with dual gauss, which is 30 damage. Your EBJ has 42 points of structure in the CT, it will survive that. Maybe if he got a triple-crit with both gauss, it would have dealt 43.5 damage? (mcgral will have to pitch in, I'm not solid on my numbers for individual crit damage), so you would only die if you had less than 1.5 armour or less.

CritDamMult of 0.5 means half Crit damage, or normal crit calculations with 7.5 dam


There's also only the ability to get a single Crit, but a 42% chance to get it

Spoiler

-<Weapon faction="InnerSphere" HardpointAliases="Ballistic,LargeWeapon,GaussRifle,ISGaussRifle" name="GaussRifle" id="1021">
<Loc iconTag="StoreIcons\GaussRifle.dds" descTag="@GaussRifle_desc" nameTag="@GaussRifle"/>
<WeaponStats maxDepth="10.0" volleydelay="0" speed="2000" lifetime="10" duration="0.0" tons="15" ammoPerShot="1" ammoType="GaussAmmo" cooldown="5.0" heat="1.0" impulse="0.05" heatPenaltyID="1" minheatpenaltylevel="3" heatpenalty="8.5" heatdamage="0" damage="15" numFiring="1" projectileclass="bullet" type="Ballistic" slots="7" Health="10" critDamMult="0.5" critChanceIncrease="0.17,-1.0,-1.0" chargeFizzleTime="2.0" chargeTime="0.75" InternalExplosionDmg="20" ExplodeChance="0.9" groupedlocally="1"/>

So, Dual Gauss has a maximum potential of 32.25, 1.125 damage per Crit maximum

[panzer1b]

hudsondinobot, on 03 January 2018 - 07:14 PM, said:

I have a follow up question on that matter. I’m just getting back into the game, and am becoming halfway decent (aside from the story at hand), but I’m winging it on loadout design. Where do I go to find the meta builds? I’d like to be more competitive, and I’d enjoy seeing the builds that get it done.

I wont go into alot of detail, because it depends specifically on the mech and even the player, certain players do well/dont do well with any particular weapon system. That said, most "meta" builds on clan side involve combining ERML, HLL, ERLL, LPL and or GR in various quantities to create something that has incredibly high alfa strike (60+ is possible on almost all decent clan heavys), workable to good sustained DPS (GRs are heat-free, and anything that doesnt use them has 25-30 DHS to keep it going even on terra therma), and above average mobility (so any clan heavy that goes 81, assaults that go high 60s low 70s).

For the ebon specifically, a few builds ive ran myself include:

1GR (right or left arm depending on preference), 6 ERMLs, no shoulder box mounts, 2-4t ammo (4 for faction, 2-3 for QP depending on how much you rely on teh gauss while you are cooking, if you never fire it without lasers: 2t, if you fire it at every opportunity including a bit outta optimal range: 3t). Everything else into DHS and a little bit of armor stripping from legs (i like to strip 5-10 per leg). I didnt use it, but you vcan always dump 1 DHS for a TC1 to get a hair more range at the expense of sustained DPS. Also, if you want to go all out on damage at the expense of DPS, you can replace 1 of the ERMLs with a HLL and drop 3 DHS. That gives you 68 alfa strike, but obviously a bit less sustainability. Still, i prefer the HLL model since its just so glassy id rather do the absolute maximum damage per exposure and limit teh number of opportunites the enemy has to hit me at all

1GR (RT mount), 3ERLL (LT mount). Ultimate clan heavy sniper imo, its got very good alfa strike of 48 (this isnt crazy but consider that its 100% effective at over 700m is a huge deal), its fast, mobile, and while it does have weaknesses (easily destroyed STs), it doesnt really present an easy to focus profile at a longer range especially when you move side to side a teeny bit. It actually spreads damage a bit better then the de-boxed versions since the boxes attract fire away from your CT, so you are more likely to loose weapons, but far less likely to be instantly CT cored and die.

Now moving away from gauss, you have the older meta ebon which carries 2LPL and 6ERML. Its more alfa strike then anything but the HLL+GR chohce, but its insanely hot, and due to locked endo/ferro, you dont really have the ability to exceed ~24-25 DHS total if all you bring is energy weapons. Ofc, raw damage is still important, and with short burn duration (LPLs are super inefficiency nowadays but they are so nice with the 1s burn timer), most of the damage is applied exactly where desired. All things said, i do feel that the gauss is a tad superior since you just cant swap the 2LPLs for HLLs and gain 4 extra DHS out of teh deal, locked slots are a pain.

Finally, the last "meta" build that i see (although i dont like it myself) is 8-9 MPLs with every remaining ton and spot into DHS. Its a extended range brawler, that can hit very hard and very precisely (fast rate of fire, super short for clan burn time, heat efficient weapons). The biggest issue though is lack of versatility with the 500m or so range cap. You CAN hit farther, but because of the shorter range damage falloff, you cant really use it well past 500m, and being unable to hit past 500m (where skilled up ERMLs do almost 100% damage) is just too big a drawback for me to consider them as effective on all maps and situations. Still i have to reccomend trying it, as its the only way to effectively use the ebon at shorter ranges (if brawling is your thing ofc).

[Humpday]

Ebon meta?

HLL + some enumeration of mpl and/or erml
Gauss + 6ml
Gauss 2HLL + 2erML, careful with this one, cooldown and heat are an issue, so make sure you stay back or you'll get pushed.
9 mpulse

I personally run gauss 6ml
and bought another one for 9mpl...

Keep in mind, though they are meta, they require quite a bit of skill to use since you're juggling heat, gauss, and Ghost heat(9mpl).
Sooo you may not see an immediate improvement in your stats right away till you learn how to use the weapons effectively.

Edited by Humpday, 04 January 2018 - 12:48 PM.

[H Seldon]

I have also experienced lag in the paperdoll updating.