18 replies to this topic

[Chief 117]

Hi guys,
I have a question: according to rules if your ammo explodes it inflicts damage to you as if all the bursts/shots/rockets you have left (in the part of your ammo which suffered ammo explosion) automatically hit you and if the part in which the ammo exploded is destroyed any leftover damage moves according to the damage diagram.

So, does that mean that if say my ac20 rounds explode in my arm in a hunchback I die ? Since it is 200 damage and that will just tear me in half according to the rules.
Another problem I have is with machine guns, I never EVER take them because they have TOOOOO much spare ammo. I mean 200 bursts ? When will I ever fire 200 bursts ? I might fire off 5 before somebody hits my ammo stores for it and do a whoopin 390 damage to me (insta-kill even on an atlas....2 times) :/

Am I doing something wrong ?

[SnipGK]

Nope you got it right. That is where CASE comes in. Unless you have an XL engine, then you're still dead.

[Chief 117]

SnipGK, on 02 November 2012 - 02:59 AM, said:

Nope you got it right. That is where CASE comes in. Unless you have an XL engine, then you're still dead.

Ok, but there is no CASE in my rulebooks. Anyway, can I take less ammo if I want ? Say 10 bursts for machine gun instead of 200 ?

[Steinar Bergstol]

Chief 117, on 02 November 2012 - 03:59 AM, said:

Ok, but there is no CASE in my rulebooks. Anyway, can I take less ammo if I want ? Say 10 bursts for machine gun instead of 200 ?

Well, nothing says you _have_ to fill the ammobins all the way up. And in fact, the fluff for the Orion says its AC/10 tends to jam if the ammo bins are full, while if one leaves out the last round then it does not have this problem, so there's precedent for leaving out rounds in the TRO fluff at least.

There's also the fact that it's possible to dump ammo in mid-fight if you don't want it (weapon has been destroyed, for example). Of course, that's risky as a shot to the back torso (where the ammo spills out) during the round you spend dumping means ammo explosion. And of course, if you dump you dump all the ammo in that slot.

[Chief 117]

Steinar Bergstol, on 02 November 2012 - 04:07 AM, said:

Well, nothing says you _have_ to fill the ammobins all the way up. And in fact, the fluff for the Orion says its AC/10 tends to jam if the ammo bins are full, while if one leaves out the last round then it does not have this problem, so there's precedent for leaving out rounds in the TRO fluff at least.

There's also the fact that it's possible to dump ammo in mid-fight if you don't want it (weapon has been destroyed, for example). Of course, that's risky as a shot to the back torso (where the ammo spills out) during the round you spend dumping means ammo explosion. And of course, if you dump you dump all the ammo in that slot.

Dumping ammo is also not in my rulebook, but if you say it is okay to take less ammo I think I might give mgs another chance

[SteelWarrior]

Another tatic is to put ammo in places that if you get hit your screwed anyhow. I never really used machine guns but when i played combined arms against infantry and vehicles I would take half a ton of MG ammo (100 shots) and put the slot in my mechs head critical location. Because your mechs head armor is a max of 9 and 3 internal. So theres not a ton of situations where you'd be able to take 2 hits to the head and not be dead and actually risk the ammo explosion. Plus if say a ppc or ac10 hit the head, youd have to roll a 7+ for the crit to go through, and then youd still be fine unless the location rolled was 3. (and in most cases any crit in the head is going to basically **** your mech over).



And just to clarify the 100 round machine gun ammo thing. Your actually allowed to take half a ton of machine gun ammo, which is .5 tons and has 100 shots. Taking a full ton of machine gun ammo is a huge waste of weight IMO. But i should also mention that no rule book that ive read allows you to take a half of ton of ammo on any other weapon, just MG.

Edited by SteelWarrior, 02 November 2012 - 10:00 AM.

[Alex Iglesias]

this was always one of the things i never quite liked about the TT rules...

machine gun ammo being the most explosive compound in all of battletech.

Especially weird in that a ton of MG ammo blows for a massive 400 damage, while a ton of AMS ammo, (which pretty much IS machine gun ammo) explodes for a much more tame but still serious 24 damage.

Don't make no sense yo. Especially since machine gun gun ammo would by weight be mostly casing and ball relative to propellant. Especially compared to missiles which would have a considerable proportion of their weight dedicated to fuel and explosives. No way should a stack of machine gun bullets out-boom a stack of missiles.

sorry sorry, thinking too much into it, i'll shut up now.

[Chief 117]

No, you are not over thinking it Alex, that is what I am saying too. Why on earth would you need 100/200 bursts of MG anyway, its not like you are going to use that much. Even if you had 10 mgs it would take you 10/20 rounds to empty 0,5/1 ton of ammo for it :/
Also, I think that mg ammo is indeed the most dangerous, I don't recall any other ammo stack having more than 400 damage.

Edited by Chief 117, 02 November 2012 - 01:46 PM.

[Ranger207]

You say those rules aren't in your rulebook, so I'm assuming you have the Introductory rules from the Battletech website, or the Introductory Boxed Set. The ammo dumping rules and CASE are in Total Warfare, the "full" rulebook. If you are playing with MegaMek...

Spoiler

...click the button that says "Game Options" before your game, then scroll down and check the box that says "Allow Ammo Dumping in the Lobby," click "Okay," right-click the 'Mech you want to dump ammo, choose "Configure," go to the "Equipment" tab, and chech the boxes under the ammo bin you want to dump. Note that this does dump the entire ammo bin, so if you're dumping a full ton of MG ammo, you lose all 200 shots.

[SteelWarrior]

Chief 117, on 02 November 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

No, you are not over thinking it Alex, that is what I am saying too. Why on earth would you need 100/200 bursts of MG anyway, its not like you are going to use that much. Even if you had 10 mgs it would take you 10/20 rounds to empty 0,5/1 ton of ammo for it :/
Also, I think that mg ammo is indeed the most dangerous, I don't recall any other ammo stack having more than 400 damage.

Well theres good news. For one thing ALL table top wargames are open to alterations via House Rules. You could easily purpose a rule of your own stating that every MG round that explodes is only .25 damage multiplied by the total rounds left, rounded down for an example. That way 100 rounds of MG ammo explode for 25 damage.

My only theory behind why theres so much ammo for MG would be in a campaign style scenario. For example you and your freinds decide to make a multi game campaign, with damage and ammo use carried forward to the next game with perhaps a stage to repair and re arm. Well logically one would think that a mechs MG would be something along the lines of current day heavy machine guns and the ammo would be easy to come by and thus by loading your mech up with so much of it you could go several missions without needing to rearm, where as missiles and ballistics are harder to come by. In this sense it also explains alot of the mech designs in Battletech. Not all mechs were designed to enter a slug fest until the last man standing. Game elements like LOS give purpose to mechs that would otherwise be useless. Same as a mech with a MG may be next to useless vs another mech, but its day and night difference when shooting infantry.


lol. regardless, house rule is your best course of action IMO.

Edited by SteelWarrior, 02 November 2012 - 11:27 PM.

[Chief 117]

I have this one
I looked again through the rules and I can't find the ammo dumping mechanic, I will give it another look but there is surely no CASE here.
Thx again for your reply Steel Warrior, I have to agree with you on the campaign idea, MGs seem to be ideal for it especially if you play combined operations.

Edited by Chief 117, 03 November 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[RFMarine]

I remember in the novels an episode of dumping ammo. i think it was the yen-lo-wang in solaris. Hit disabled autocannon. so he hid and dumped ammo and since he's lighter he could move faster to get into melee range and punch the enemy. Or something like that, my memory isn't what it used to be

[SteelWarrior]

yea he dumped it cause his ac20 jammed.

[Alex Iglesias]

well, did some number crunching, and overweight, range, and accuracy issues aside, the ammo counts that lead to effectively 200 uses, or over half an hour worth of firing only makes sense if the MGs are firing really slow and really conservative. Which is pretty meh for a year 3000 weapon system weighting in at half a metric ton.

if i was running a group, i'd house rule em as such

effectively
range and accuracy wise treat them as an srm 2 where each ("missile" does 1 damage)
50 units of ammo per ton (only 1 unit is consumed per 2 potential impacts)
cannot rattle a pilot.
a full ton blows up for 25 damage
can get an extra impact, (3 clusters of 1) for 2 heat and 3 ammo
(edit) to avoid having them out lbx20 the lbx20 when stacked, give them 1 heat per use instead of zero)

as such you could conserve your ammo to 500 seconds (50 turns) worth of fire, or burn through in 160, (16 turns)

[Ranger207]

Chief 117, on 03 November 2012 - 12:40 AM, said:

I have this one

That's introductory rules - no CASE, and propably no ammo dumping rules. As I said earlier, Total Warfare has all those rules.

[Chief 117]

Ranger207, on 03 November 2012 - 03:38 PM, said:

That's introductory rules - no CASE, and propably no ammo dumping rules. As I said earlier, Total Warfare has all those rules.

Ok, i will look around for that book

[MustrumRidcully]

Yes, the ammo explosions rules are really weird...

Maybe the good thing in MW:O is that MGs don't really do any damage, so it might not matter if they all explode?

Or are they implemented differently? I don't think I've ever survived an ammo explosion without case, but I generally do not have many ammo explosions in the first place.

[Telecleez]

here try this link it should help out it's for the master rules and u don't need to buy the book just read it from there


http://www.scribd.co...r-Rules-Revised

[Keisuke Nagisa]

Thats the old rulebook but its mostly the same stuff. If you ever want the up to date one you can buy the pdf off catalyst game labs site for like 20 bucks The new rules have a lot of changes to vehicles and infantry but mech combat is mostly the same..