Kiskatona, on 11 February 2013 - 05:28 PM, said:
A gauss/ammo explosion will be applied directly to the internal structure and if that is destroyed the section is destroyed regardless of how much armour remains. But you shouldn't be taking crits until either the front or back armour on that location is gone and receive hits to an unarmoured location. Though I am fairly sure I have taken critical damage whilst still having armour on all parts, so I'm not sure if MWO adheres strictly to that.
No if I have it right. Then a critical hit will cause 2x normal weapon damage to internal components, regardless of the remaining armour. This in turn can cause an ammo/GC explosion even with remaining armour, which in turn will take out any internals left (including more ammo which also explodes), and the armour. And any additional damage transfers inwards to the next section. Given that a few tons of ammo will do several hundred damage this is usually a death sentence.
Although I'm not sure what exactly happens if you have ammo in an arm and case in that side torso. Does the case stop explosion damage from the arm entering the side torso? Or stop it leaving into the CT? Or none of the above?
GCs can be quite a liability, as the very low hit points means a crit from many different weapons can kill/explode it. But on the plus side the damage of a GC exploding is very small compared to ammo. Smurfy has it down as 20, that seems roughly right from what I've seen.
Long story short, always store ammo in the Left or Right torso, with case. In a non-light mech, legs can be okish as they are rarely shot, But if they are, the damage drops straight into the CT, bypassing the sides. And it will happen often enough to be annoying in my general experience.
I think there's been a few more ammo explosions since the last patch, but mainly due to increased accuracy from improved netcode.
Edited by GhostFacedNinja, 15 February 2013 - 09:01 PM.