13 replies to this topic

[Fairseas]

Gauss projectiles are non-explosive, solid metal slugs, so CASE shouldn't be necessary for something that won't explode when hit with weapons fire. That said, in the TT game, it was possible to shield your gauss with CASE, in case it's capacitors went off, preventing it from blowing the side of your 'mech out. I don't know if it has been implemented this way within MWO, I was wondering if anyone has actually determined if this was the case or not?
Additionally, I'm not sure if Gauss ammo actually can go off in the game, I've experienced things that seemed like ammo bursts with them, which ends up defeating one of the reasons I pick a Gauss over an AC.

[Card]

PGI doesn't believe in talking about changes in their patch notes, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. All of it may have changed, or none of it may have changed.

Last I heard, gauss ammo is non-explosive, but the gauss rifle does explode - just like it should. However, CASE doesn't protect all the other items in a given location yet. CASE only prevents damage from ammo explosions from spreading to other locations.

So if you've got ammo in a side torso and you're running an XL engine, CASE is useless there - because an ammo explosion there will take out engine sections and destroy the 'Mech. But if you're running a Standard engine, CASE would be good, because it will prevent the damage from an ammo explosion from spreading to the CT and taking you out.

I suppose if you had a gauss rifle in a side torso you'd want CASE with it. I'm a Dragon driver so I wouldn't know much about that - but I will say that when the gauss rifle in my right arm gets destroyed, I've never noticed it spreading the damage to the right torso, and I don't put CASE with it. *shrug*

[Watchit]

Also, you can only put CASE in your side torsos.

[Saber Avalon]

Card, on 03 November 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

PGI doesn't believe in talking about changes in their patch notes, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. All of it may have changed, or none of it may have changed.

Last I heard, gauss ammo is non-explosive, but the gauss rifle does explode - just like it should. However, CASE doesn't protect all the other items in a given location yet. CASE only prevents damage from ammo explosions from spreading to other locations.

So if you've got ammo in a side torso and you're running an XL engine, CASE is useless there - because an ammo explosion there will take out engine sections and destroy the 'Mech. But if you're running a Standard engine, CASE would be good, because it will prevent the damage from an ammo explosion from spreading to the CT and taking you out.

I suppose if you had a gauss rifle in a side torso you'd want CASE with it. I'm a Dragon driver so I wouldn't know much about that - but I will say that when the gauss rifle in my right arm gets destroyed, I've never noticed it spreading the damage to the right torso, and I don't put CASE with it. *shrug*

The only thing that confuses me about CASE and XL engines is why the Atlas AS7-K comes with an XL engine and a CASE in each side torso. It must prevent the ammo explosion from hitting the other components in the torso as well or why else would they have put 2x CASE on an XL equipped variant? The other Atlas I have seen do not have CASE.

[coolnames]

Saber Avalon, on 03 November 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

The only thing that confuses me about CASE and XL engines is why the Atlas AS7-K comes with an XL engine and a CASE in each side torso. It must prevent the ammo explosion from hitting the other components in the torso as well or why else would they have put 2x CASE on an XL equipped variant? The other Atlas I have seen do not have CASE.

Could be that the CASE contained ammo explosion prevents that side torso from being destroyed altogether...not just 'spread.'

[Watchit]

Saber Avalon, on 03 November 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

The only thing that confuses me about CASE and XL engines is why the Atlas AS7-K comes with an XL engine and a CASE in each side torso. It must prevent the ammo explosion from hitting the other components in the torso as well or why else would they have put 2x CASE on an XL equipped variant? The other Atlas I have seen do not have CASE.

Mostly for lore reasons, and to save on repair bills. CASE prevents ammo explosions from extending to your CT meaning it takes less damage even if you die and therefore theoretically save on repairs. The lore reason was to improve pilot survivability.

coolnames, on 03 November 2012 - 06:23 PM, said:

Could be that the CASE contained ammo explosion prevents that side torso from being destroyed altogether...not just 'spread.'

Nope the side torso is destroyed. It just prevents spreading.

[Cest7]

Does CASE protect the CT from the gauss rifle detonation?

[Watchit]

Cest7, on 09 January 2013 - 10:51 PM, said:

Does CASE protect the CT from the gauss rifle detonation?

If the gauss rifile is in say your Left Torso with CASE and exploded, then yes it should protect your CT.

[Bigchunk1]

CrazedGunman, on 03 November 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

Gauss projectiles are non-explosive, solid metal slugs, so CASE shouldn't be necessary for something that won't explode when hit with weapons fire.

How do you know that? A chemical bullet is a metal slug wrapped with explosives to propell the projectile. Perhaps a gauss projectile has a capacitor attached to it to produce a strong opposing charge to the electric propulsion of the coils of the gun. Who says gauss projectiles are just bunches of shaped metal? Technobabble can resolve all of your concerns.

Quote

I've experienced things that seemed like ammo bursts with them, which ends up defeating one of the reasons I pick a Gauss over an AC.

The Gauss rifle has plenty of advantages to it. From a balance standpoint I don't think it needs a nerf, but it certainly does not need a buff.

[phanteh]

I thought that the reason they put CASE in with any standard mech carrying an XL engine was to protect the engine from ammo detonation.

Always seemed a bit useless to me. In my experience (limited, admittedly) if your torso is hit hard enough to make your ammo explode, having CASE just means you'll take one more hit to that side before it gives way and your XL engine goes super nova.

It would be nice to get some clarification from the devs. Does it help you to survive overriding heat shut down, for instance?

Edited by phanteh, 12 January 2013 - 09:27 PM.

[Watchit]

Bigchunk1, on 12 January 2013 - 05:47 PM, said:

How do you know that? A chemical bullet is a metal slug wrapped with explosives to propell the projectile. Perhaps a gauss projectile has a capacitor attached to it to produce a strong opposing charge to the electric propulsion of the coils of the gun. Who says gauss projectiles are just bunches of shaped metal? Technobabble can resolve all of your concerns.

Mostly from BT canon. And how gauss rifiles themselves work, they propel metal slugs with electromagnetic force.
Like this:

phanteh, on 12 January 2013 - 09:26 PM, said:

I thought that the reason they put CASE in with any standard mech carrying an XL engine was to protect the engine from ammo detonation.

Always seemed a bit useless to me. In my experience (limited, admittedly) if your torso is hit hard enough to make your ammo explode, having CASE just means you'll take one more hit to that side before it gives way and your XL engine goes super nova.

It would be nice to get some clarification from the devs. Does it help you to survive overriding heat shut down, for instance?

CASE was typically put in XL engine mechs in TT in order to save the pilot. It works exactly as it does in TT. It doesn't help you survive from overheating itself, only if overheating blows up your ammo and you have CASE. Other than that all other negative effects of over heating such as failing equipment and heatsinks still apply.

I'm pretty sure the devs have stated how it works somewhere, I'll look into that later when I have more time.

[War Council]

I use to play the table top game many years ago, but I'm no expert on the lore. Having said that I do remember one of the books mentioning that they did adhere to mainstream gauss rifle engineering theory. The projectile fired from a form of gauss rifle is deadly because it is supposed to be an exotic heavy element (Uranium 238 or heavier) accelerated to an insane speed. The explosive damage done is by sheer kinetic energy, and not an explosion of the round itself. The gauss rile uses a series of magnetic coils to accelerate the shell (as others have illustrated above) and not a chemical explosion of the round like in conventional rifles. At least this was the theory and explains why the rounds are not explosive in of themselves. However, it never really did explain why a gauss rifle itself would explode when hit. Magnets and magnetic coils shouldn't really explode. That actually seems very unlikely if such a weapon really existed. My guess is that this is a limitation that was added just for balance and not for realism.

Edited by War Council, 13 January 2013 - 03:12 PM.

[RenegadeMaster]

Card, on 03 November 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

PGI doesn't believe in talking about changes in their patch notes,

Quote

PATCH NOTES - 1.1.161 - 04/12/2012
Change Log
________________________________________
GAMEPLAY
* Set the health of the Gauss rifle to 3 points
* Set the chance that the destruction of a Gauss rifle will cause it to explode to 90%

Let's break this down:
-All ammo can explode, including Gauss ammo.
-CASE can prevent ammo from exploding when hit.
--So if ammo is hit, additional damage won't occur for the affected side torso or spill over into the center torso.
-Gauss rifle can explode.
-CASE is only for ammunition containment, unless its in-game description is inaccurate).
Therefore...
-CASE does not prevent Gauss Rifle (or any other weapon) from exploding.

Feel free to reply with corrections from other Dev sources.

[Watchit]

RenegadeMaster, on 13 January 2013 - 03:53 PM, said:

Let's break this down:
-All ammo can explode, including Gauss ammo.
-CASE can prevent ammo from exploding when hit. nope
--So if ammo is hit, additional damage won't occur for the affected side torso or spill over into the center torso.
-Gauss rifle can explode.
-CASE is only for ammunition containment, unless its in-game description is inaccurate).
Therefore...
-CASE does not prevent Gauss Rifle (or any other weapon) from exploding.

Feel free to reply with corrections from other Dev sources.

Almost correct

- Gauss ammo is NOT explosive.
- CASE does NOT prevent ammo explosions, only contain them inside the CT.

As for Gauss and CASE, I haven't found any mention from the devs that CASE protects from gauss rifle explosions, but I haven't found any proof that it doesn't either, so I'm more inclined to believe it DOES prevent the spread of gauss rifle explosions towards the Center Torso, in accordance to Table Top rules and BattleTech canon.

From Sarna:
"CASE, short for Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment, was created by the Terran Hegemony in 2476[1] as a system designed to reduce the hazards of carrying volatile or explosive equipment, usually ammunition. CASE is essentially a specialized container structure for housing the equipment, and redirects explosive force in the event that the equipment explodes. While this makes it invaluable for preventing excessive internal damage, CASE does not actually stop the explosion, it merely contains and redirects the explosive force, so after an explosion units likely will be crippled or nonfunctional, though not destroyed outright."

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/CASE

"Some 'Mechs employ CASE in the section containing the Gauss Rifle to protect internal components in the event the weapon explodes."

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gauss_rifle

edited for clarity, and some additional corrections.

Edited by Watchit, 13 January 2013 - 06:07 PM.