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A Guide To Armor And Critical Hits


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#1 Vlad Ward

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Posted 03 December 2012 - 09:53 AM

So, I've noticed that this is an area where information has not diffused into the community as well as it could. I wrote up an explanation of these topics in response to a thread in General Discussion asking about them last night, but it has already fallen to page 6 so I doubt it really reached many people. To help remedy that, I'll repost this information in the Guides section so that new players have access to it.

Okay, here goes.

There are 3 different types of Hit Points on your Mech:

Armor Hit Points
Internal Hit Points
and Equipment Hit Points.

Your Armor Hit Points are what you assign in the Mech Lab. 1 Point of Armor corresponds to the ability to take 1 point of damage. Armor will always take damage before the Internals. Damage dealt to a section of Armor that exceeds that section's remaining Armor Hit Points will bleed into the corresponding section's Internal HP.

Your Internal Hit Points are set for each Chassis at a value equal to 1/2 the Maximum Armor Value for that component. For example, the Cataphract chassis has a Maximum Center Torso Armor value of 88. This means that the Internal Hit Points of the Center Torso of the Cataphract will always be 44 points. The only exception to this is the Cockpit section, which has an Internal Hit Point value of 18, equal to its Maximum Armor hit points on all Chassis.

Internal HP is never split between Front and Rear portions on the Torsos the way that Armor is.

Damage dealt to a section of Internals that exceeds that section's remaining Internal Hit Points will destroy that section.

Damage dealt to a Leg section's Internals that exceeds that section's remaining Internal Hit Points will destroy that section and bleed into the corresponding Side Torso. For example, dealing 20 damage to a Left Leg that has 5 Internal HP remaining will destroy that leg and deal 15 damage to the Left Torso's Armor (or Left Torso Internals if the Left Torso's Armor Hit Points have reached 0).

Damage dealt to a section of Internals that exceeds that section's remaining Internal Hit Points will also set the Equipment Hit Points of each component in that section to 0.

Your Equipment Hit Points are the individual HP values assigned to every weapon and piece of equipment loaded on your Mech. This means your Lasers, your Autocannons, your Beagle Active Probes, your Engines, and all that jazz.

Aside from destroying an Internal section (which sets all contained Equipment HP to 0), the only way to damage Equipment is via Critical Hits.

Each time the internal structure of a Mech takes damage, there is a chance that the hit will cause at least 1 critical hit. There is a 25% chance of causing 1 critical hit, a 14% chance of causing 2 critical hits, and a 3% chance of causing 3 critical hits (for a total of a 42% chance of any sort of critical hit). Each critical hit will randomly hit a weapon or piece of equipment in that location; the chance of a particular piece of equipment being hit is proportional to how many critical slots it occupies. Each critical hit damages the weapon/equipment an amount equal to the damage that caused the critical hit.

To clarify, a "Critical" in Mechwarrior is the name given to a "Slot" on the frame of a Battlemech. Thus, when using the term "Critical Hit", it literally means that a shot "Hit" a "Critical Slot". When saying that larger equipment and weapons are more likely to be damaged by Critical Hits, that just means that said weapon has a chance to be hit for each Critical Slot it occupies.

Example: A 10-slot Autocannon/20 is 10 times more likely to receive a Critical Hit than a 1-slot Medium Laser because any Critical Hit on any of the 10 slots the AC/20 occupies will deal damage to the cannon.

At the moment, nearly all Weapon and Equipment Hit Points are set at a static 10. Engines have 15 Equipment Hit Points. Gauss Rifles will have 3 Equipment Hit Points after the 12/4 patch.

When a Critical Hit deals damage exceeding the remaining Equipment Hit Points of a component, that component becomes inoperable. Weapons will no longer be available. Ammunition will be destroyed and have a chance to explode. Engines, currently, have no penalties associated with having their Equipment Hit Points reduced to 0 aside from an increased repair bill.

If you still have Armor on a section, there should be no chance for Critical Hits and thus no chance for Ammunition Explosions outside of overheating and/or overriding a heat shutdown.

Sources:
http://mwomercs.com/...get-back-to-us/

#2 beniliusbob

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Posted 03 December 2012 - 10:07 AM

Awesome! Thank you for this.

I'm wondering if you can extrapolate a little on ammo. Here's the thing: on my Dragon, I don't C.A.S.E. my ammo because I keep it in my torso with my XL engine. I figure, if I lose the torso, I'm dead anyway. But, am I actually increasing my chance of being fatally critted that way?

Thanks, Vlad!

#3 Vlad Ward

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Posted 03 December 2012 - 10:24 AM

View Postbeniliusbob, on 03 December 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

Awesome! Thank you for this.

I'm wondering if you can extrapolate a little on ammo. Here's the thing: on my Dragon, I don't C.A.S.E. my ammo because I keep it in my torso with my XL engine. I figure, if I lose the torso, I'm dead anyway. But, am I actually increasing my chance of being fatally critted that way?

Thanks, Vlad!


At the moment, no. CASE doesn't increase your survivability when you have an XL engine.

When ammo (or a Gauss rifle) explodes, it can cause large amounts of damage (20 for Gauss, presumably the same for Ammo). If the explosion destroys the internal structure of a location, any remaining damage is transferred inward, to the internal structure of the next location. Arms and legs transfer to the appropriate side torso, side torsos transfer to the center torso. CASE prevents the explosion from transferring past the location in which it is installed.

In other words, CASE won't prevent an Ammo explosion starting in the Side Torso from destroying said Side Torso - and thus your Mech. It would only prevent any excess damage from being dealt to your Center Torso, which is a moot point with an XL engine as you're already dead.





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