7 replies to this topic

[Absaint]

So, why exactly do people jump when arty is dropping on them? What is the advantage?

[ScrapIron Prime]

Jumping won't help unless you have enough jump jets to get out of the area quickly. Some might use it to climb over an obstacle to get moving quickly, and those with lots of jump jets might be able to get high enough to be out of the explosion area.

Otherwise, no. If you're in the area, it doesn't matter if your feet are touching the ground or not. (Though I do reserve the right to be wrong!)

[PocketYoda]

I wonder if it still hits you if you are high in the air above it, never thought to try it.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

I know for sure that UAVs can be hit by artillery shells.

[Koniving]

Its entirely situational. If it was an airstrike, if you locate the plane and leap sideways you'll completely evade the attack; but you'd be able to do that without jumping anyway, though specific mechs with jumpjet quirks give the impression of accelerating a little better by jumping

For artillery, well faster mechs could potentially jump out of the line of fire. For slower mechs it largely wouldn't do much, but I would assume that the idea is if the shell doesn't hit you directly when you leap you're trying to keep the "splash" damage to your legs, or if jumping high enough, evade the splash damage altogether since the 'splash box' has a set max-height.

As for whether or not it actually works well enough to be worth the effort, who knows? The approach I take is if I am too close to the smoke to get away and don't see a plane in the sky in the same direction as the enemy, is I just stand on the smoke. If it isn't an advanced/improved artillery strike, it's extremely unlikely to hit you dead-center of the smoke. And if it is, you'll probably get hit by one. Most of the time the artillery strike does a circular pattern around the smoke and very little actually goes in that center.

[Tesunie]

It is very possible to jump out of a strike's bombing space by going up. It wont work in all cases, but it can be better than nothing when the shells start dropping.

For this, there are two things to really keep in mind.
- The bombs explode in a radius, not a pillar. Going up can get you out of the radius of danger.
- The damage isn't a set value for the entire radius of danger, but dwindles off the farther from the center of the explosion you are. Going up can at least mitigate the damage caused by getting you farther from the center of the explosions of shells hitting the ground.
So, even if you aren't able to completely escape all danger by going up with jump, you can often reduce the damage you might take otherwise by standing still. It's a good idea, especially if you can't vacate the area otherwise.

I will make note here, the shells from a strike can still land directly on your, instead of the ground. In those cases, jumping wont help you as you ARE the center of the explosion. However, that is only on a shell direct hit. Jumping up can help with the indirect splash damage from ground hits. Most shells hit the ground near you causing their damage, not directly hitting you...

[TheCaptainJZ]

I actually did this in a couple matches and at least in those cases, this seemed to help, or I was just lucky regardless which is equally as likely. But in principle, it could help because of the radius and splash damage thing. Or you could jump into enemy fire as well, so keep that in mind.

[Meep Meep]

If you can jump high enough you remove yourself from the splash damage. Won't save you from a direct hit though.