I hate to bring these rules up again, but I read through the history on the forums and did not find anything specific to my case, so here it goes.
I played a game many moons ago that had two pilots with Buffered VDNI and Pain Shunts piloting some Celestials. During the game one of the pilots suffered, I believe, a single head hit from an enemies weapons-fire after also taking some internal damage (engine hit and weapon destroyed I believe). According to my teammate, who was piloting the Celestials, that pilot died instantly due to the head hit, even though it did not blow off the head.
Is this an accurate statement?
I have poured through the rules (Jihad 3072) to figure out what happens when the pilot takes internal structure damage (weapons, engine hits, gyros, etc.); what I have found is that the player rolls 2d6, and on an 8 or more they take piloting damage, but do not have to roll for consciousness. Head hits, falling, and ammo explosions are handled normally.
Let me know what your thoughts are. If the other player is correct it seems like it would be more BV efficient and safe to just have pilots with very low skills (1 gunnery and 2 piloting, increased to 3 due to the small cockpits). I am going to keep pouring over these rules, but I wanted some additional feedback.