I Wanna Be A Bomb Ammo Placement?

[House Davie Merc]

There were actually 2 changes made very early in the game that
IMHO warranted altering the canon mechs within the game .

#1 .H/S  is being discussed in this thread .
Putting the original 10 heat sinks that came with the engine into the
side torsos of the Marauder and Crusader make them so much
tougher that it can change how they are used in a game .

#2. Allowing MG ammo to be used in half ton lots .

If that doesn't sound like a significant change as well ,
then try playing the Phoenix Hawk or Stinger with 8 more
armor points .

A Stinger that can take a PPC hit to the leg is almost a different mech .

A Phoenix Hawk that can take 20 points of damage to the right arm
without loosing it is a major change as well .

[bakija]

More to the point, even those with the HS as padding which were then later changes were often changed non-optimally. Even with the 'heat sinks can be in the engine' rule, the -3R Marauder should have 4 crit-filling HS; so why not leave all of the ones in the torso with the ammo?   :D

Yah--like, the Marauder has 16 heat sinks. Originally, it had 10 in the engine, 2 in each foot, and presumably one in each side torso. It then had to make two of those heat sinks disappear into the engine. So rather than leaving 1 in each side torso (so it at least it only blew up *half* the time when it was crit in the LT...) and taking one out of each foot, they took out the side torso heat sinks. Gah.

I mean, yeah, it is handy to be able to stand in the water and suddenly have enough heat sinks. But not so much that it is worth blowing up over.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The point here is that I don't think it is an intentional "simulation". It likely is the result of the evolution of the game rules. And mostly unintentional. Or accidental. Especially given the evidence that pretty much every mech designed in the last 10-15 years avoids these problems. Even the ones that are retroactively attributed to the same time frame as the mechs that suck like this.

Yeah, but at least part of that is due to the increase in low mass but crit intensive gear.  And there are still mechs with serious torso bombs- check out the VTR-10D Victor: it's a Civil War era Victor variant that's got seven tons of ammo stored in the Right Torso with no padding at all.  Yes, it's got CASE, but unless you were really pumping the Ultra 20 that's still not going to stop your pilot's brains from leaking out his ears in the event of a crit.  And there's plenty of designs that only have one or two slots of padding with twice that in ammo.  So saying that the problem's been avoided ever since is something of an exaggeration.

[massey]

The solution for the Crusader, of course, is that you stay back and shoot LRMs every round no matter what.  Need 10s and 11s?  Fire away.  You want to drain those ammo bays as quickly as possible.  If you don't get close, you've got a decent shot of emptying those bays before anyone penetrates your armor.  If you take a few big hits in one torso, the next round you start firing 2 rounds from that bay until it's empty.  It's not the perfect solution, but it's workable.

Background-wise, there's probably little difference between left torso/center torso/right torso.  Our game mechanics don't perfectly represent what happens in the story.

[Sabelkatten]

I've lost the Chameleon record sheets that came with the 2ndEd box, but the Merlin example in the rule book allocates all SHS on the record sheet (well, 15 out of 18, but that probably has more to do with the designer being bad at math... ::) ).

And in TRO3025 at least the Scorpion pretty explicitly notes that it carries SHS in the legs (IIRC it says that it gets more benefit from water than a biped, implying at least 5 SHS in the legs).

[bakija]

Yeah, but at least part of that is due to the increase in low mass but crit intensive gear.  And there are still mechs with serious torso bombs- check out the VTR-10D Victor: it's a Civil War era Victor variant that's got seven tons of ammo stored in the Right Torso with no padding at all.  Yes, it's got CASE, but unless you were really pumping the Ultra 20 that's still not going to stop your pilot's brains from leaking out his ears in the event of a crit.  And there's plenty of designs that only have one or two slots of padding with twice that in ammo.  So saying that the problem's been avoided ever since is something of an exaggeration.

So here is the thing with the idea that all these mechs are built with intentional suicide bombs for “flavor” or something—if that were the case, it would be incredibly bad game design. Having suicide bomb ammo placement is incredibly debilitating to a mech. And makes it really undesireable to use. And makes mechs with ammo based weapons, which are already at a general disadvantage over mechs with primarily energy based weapons (i.e. That they can run out of ammo. And can blow up even without intentional hamstringing by virtue of bad ammo placement) even worse. With no corresponding balancing advantage. Having a suicide bomb ammo placement doesn’t make a mech cheaper, BV wise. It doesn’t provide any balancing advantage while arbitrarily saddling mechs with an arguably crippling disadvantage. The Hunchback, for example, in all ways costs exactly the same if it has ammo hidden under its 10x AC20 slots as it does if it has its ammo sitting all by itself in the other empty torso location. And putting it in there is giving the mech an arbitrary significant disadvantage with no corresponding price break or balancing advantage. Which is bad game design.

The end result of this is that mechs with suicide bomb ammo placement are just not used (unless due to factors outside the context of the ground combat game rules force you to use them, like random allocation or campaigh situations). As why would you use a mech that might randomly explode when you look at it crosseyed when you could use a mech that has no ammo at all. Or at least ammo that is reasonably protected and hidden under other weapons and heat sinks?

We all know how mechs are built in the game. We all know what works and doesn’t work, in terms of allocating ammo. So seeing instances where the game designers either randomly hosed a given design, or intentionally hamstrung it stand out as obvious dumb. And “flavor” or “fluff” doesn’t really excuse it, in terms of “this is a game”.

So in the instances being discussed here, that they are possibly the result of the game evolving around the old, original designs and no one caring enough to fix it, at least makes it all make some sense. And suggests that it isn’t just intentional bad game design. Given that *most* of the mechs designed post 1987 don’t have these problems (there certainly are some, but they tend to be the exception, rather than the rule like with the original set mechs), even the ones that are retroactively applied to the early in game time frame (i.e. the Merlin and the Lineholder or whatever don’t have random suicide ammo bombs in them when they certainly could), it seems likely that most of the time, it is the result of factors other than “Ooh! We really want this mech to arbitrarily suck!”

[Kovax]

The alternative to having the old 'Mechs with the bad ammo placement is to redo the sheets and have the old record sheets beccome "obsolete".  I can picture making "updated" variants and publishing them in a new book, like "Tech Readout 3035", but after all these years the old "torso bomb" models are canon for the timeframe up to at least 3025, or 3050 unless you do a bit of retconning.

[Orion]

So in looking at the various Fight Night threads and sussing out how mechs will do in various fights, the issue of stupid ammo placement came up with the Marauder vs Archer fight. Which is a significant issue, as the Marauder just blows up if it takes a LT crit at any point in the game. And then investigating the Orion vs Zeus fight, it turns out that the Zeus has the exact same problem. Unprotected ammo in the RT, just waiting to get shot and blow up. So I went looking through record sheets and was baffled by how many stock mech designs have random slots of unprotected ammo, just waiting to blow up. For no logical reason at all. Is there any insight into *why* all these mechs were designed (in the sense of "why the game designers did this") with suicide bombs attached?

My assumption has always been that they did not design them from a optimized tactical gamer standpoint, but from a more real-word standpoint.
1. Good design would balance the weight across the torso, not stack it all in one spot.
2. Leaving a torso completely empty makes little sense from a functional design view - put something in that empty space.
3. What the original game designer thought, I have no idea, but BT armor was seen as an abstraction by many of us in the early days, not a reflection of how it actually worked.  That it, it was no more than a simple mechanic to make game play easy. 
4. Real-world tanks and aircraft don't put the ammo next to a bunch of important equipment so that the non-ammo stuff sucks all the damage away from it.
5. Large explosions blowing up mechs left and right can be seen as a game feature just as much as a game flaw.  I prefer mechs and vehicles to suddenly blow up when a round penetrates, rather than having to sandpaper away every bit of armor, internal structure, and equipment.

[bakija]

My assumption has always been that they did not design them from a optimized tactical gamer standpoint, but from a more real-word standpoint.

Which can work fine, if you actively factor it into the game rules. But that isn't the case here. If, for example, you got a significant BV savings by having a suicide bomb ammo placement? Sure. Do that then. As it is a risk-reward situation that balances out.

5. Large explosions blowing up mechs left and right can be seen as a game feature just as much as a game flaw.  I prefer mechs and vehicles to suddenly blow up when a round penetrates, rather than having to sandpaper away every bit of armor, internal structure, and equipment.

Also reasonable. But if this is the case, then make this a consistent "feature" in the game. Give *all* mechs with ammo bad ammo placement. Make a rule so that mechs without ammo *also* have a way to occasionally randomly explode due to a larky hit. Don't just, ya know, randomly hose some mechs with ammo, randomly don't hose other mechs with ammo, and leave mechs without ammo completely free of any of this worry.

Like, if the game designers want things to randomly blow up once and a while, fine and awesome. But make the "I randomly explode" factor a consistent one that isn't something you can easily avoid simply by choosing mechs for your force intelligently.

[Greywind]

BV didn't exist when those designs were created.

[Firedrake]

True, we balanced forces by tonnage, unit count, and occasionally cost. Which, again, aren't affected by this vulnerability. (And rather than being the cheap option it is under BV, something like the JagerMech simply never got played at all, at least in the groups I knew.)

[Greywind]

Jagers were always the last off the bench when sides were chosen.  ;D

[bakija]

BV didn't exist when those designs were created.

Sure. But these designs existed when BV was created. So if the designers plan was "Let's make some designs randomly blow up sometimes while others don't have to worry about that" (as opposed to it just being random lack of paying attention), they should have built it into the BV system. But they didn't (they built ammo explosion into the system, sure, but the difference between having 1 ton of ammo tucked under 11 heat sinks and 1 ton of ammo all by itself in an otherwise empty torso location is *huge*, and nothing accounts for that).

My point is this--if suicide ammo bomb placement is intentionally used to make some designs more vulnerable to explosions than others (as some are suggesting in this discussion), then there should be some concrete balancing factor to make up for it. i.e. you got a 10% BPV deduction if you have an unprotected ammo bomb and no CASE, for example (that isn't something I'm actually advocating for--it is just a convenient example of how to address such a thing) built into the game. Or "if you put ammo in an otherwise empty torso location, it counts as weighing half as much, due to it "balancing" better. Or something. You can't, as a reasonable game designer, just arbitrarily hamstring some units while not similarly hamstringing other units and expect that folks will just be "Oh. Ok. That works." 'Cause it doesn't.

As it stands, you have:

A) Some mechs that blow up willy-nilly 'cause of stupid ammo placement (see: Marauder, Hunchback, Zeus, etc.)

B) Some mechs that can blow up, but aren't that likely too, due to having ammo that is hidden under things like heat sinks and guns (Griffin, etc.)

C) Some mechs that have zero chance of blowing up at all, due to not having any ammo using weapons.

Mechs in category "A" are incredibly risky to use. And as such, best avoided if possible. Mechs in category "B" are generally reasonable, but often avoided all together anyway due to the existence of mechs in category "C". And there is no logic that dictates why some mechs are in "A" and some are in "B". And nothing built into the game that justifies why some mechs are in category "A" and some are in "B". Which is a problem, as mechs in category "C", again, exist.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Sure. But these designs existed when BV was created. So if the designers plan was "Let's make some designs randomly blow up sometimes while others don't have to worry about that" (as opposed to it just being random lack of paying attention), they should have built it into the BV system. But they didn't (they built ammo explosion into the system, sure, but the difference between having 1 ton of ammo tucked under 11 heat sinks and 1 ton of ammo all by itself in an otherwise empty torso location is *huge*, and nothing accounts for that).

BV is a pain in the backside to calculate as it is.  I'm guessing that the thinking was something like "let's not bother making this even more complicated or we'll have fans whining about how there's no difference between having 1 non ammo crit slot in a location with ammo and having 2."

[bakija]

BV is a pain in the backside to calculate as it is.  I'm guessing that the thinking was something like "let's not bother making this even more complicated or we'll have fans whining about how there's no difference between having 1 non ammo crit slot in a location with ammo and having 2."

Sure. Which is certainly understandable. But the end result is still that some mechs randomly and arbitrarily have a high likelihood of blowing up due to badly allocated ammo. And others don't. And some don't have any chance at all. And it is all incredibly random and capricious. And there is no cost:effect benefit for the incredibly debilitating problem that sometimes is randomly dropped on a mech design.

I mean, yeah, there certainly is something to be said for mechs being able to blow up. But the difference between "A high likelihood of accidentally blowing up" (Marauder, for ex.) and "No chance at all of accidentally blowing up whatsoever" (Flashman, for ex) is a very large one. And the practical application of all of this is that the mechs that have a high chance of blowing up? People just avoid using them. Like, for example, a buddy and I are playing a 3039 era lance on lance fight this week. I want to use a big mech with a couple PPCs. I could use the Marauder, but I'm gonna use the Thug instead, as the Thug has a vastly smaller chance of accidentally blowing up (as well as more heat sinks and armor, but still).

The issue is not that some mechs can blow up. It is that some mechs can blow up, and there is no logic or reason why some are very likely to blow up and some aren't.

If the game designers wanted mechs to blow up occasionally, there were plenty of ways to do that that *aren't* randomly applied and capricious. For example, rather than having some mechs have random suicide bombs in them, why not change the rules as follows:

-There are no ammo explosions. If ammo is hit, it just destroys that ammo bin (or conversely, treat all locations as if they have CASE; treat existing locations with CASE as if they have CASE II). Any time a mech takes an engine crit, roll a die. On a 6, the fusion reactor is breached and that mech blows up.

This gives *all* mechs a equally smallish chance of blowing up on a single random critical. It doesn't punish mechs with ammo more than mechs without ammo. It gives all energy weapon armed mechs an equal chance to explode. Mechs will randomly blow up sometimes, but not due to capricious, random bad ammo allocation. And heck, if using the CASE rule, it wouldn't even make any existing record sheets unusable.

Like, that would be a totally reasonable way to have mechs blow up on a regular basis that wasn't capricious and arbitrary and didn't stick out with examples of things that are obviously just dumb (i.e. putting ammo in an otherwise empty torso location). I mean, like, I'm not actually agitating for this to happen (I can just as easily continue to simply not use the mechs with the inherent suicide bombs in them) or anything. But that would be an example of *good* game design that helps mirror the envisioned game environment (i.e. where occasionally mechs just blow up), as opposed to just random, arbitrary mech hosing.

[Scotty]

I think there's just a little too much emphasis placed on ammo bombs, to be perfectly honest.

Yes, they happen.  No, they don't happen at the drop of a hat.  A Marauder is not going to spontaneously combust because someone is lobbing LRMs at it unless the person lobbing LRMs gets very, very, very lucky, or digs through enough armor that it's not about luck any more than it is about how many LRMs you've been firing.

Are they more vulnerable than designs that mount no ammo, or heavily crit-padded ammo?  Yes.  Is it as significant as you're trying to make it?  Absolutely 100% not.

[bakija]

Are they more vulnerable than designs that mount no ammo, or heavily crit-padded ammo?  Yes.  Is it as significant as you're trying to make it?  Absolutely 100% not.

It is not a completely insignificant issue (I played two games with a Marauder last week. In both games, the Marauder blew up from an ammo hit. It happens). And one that is easily avoided by either having ammo placed somewhere in a rational fashion *or* by simply not using mechs that suffer from this. Which, in either case, is a problematic game design issue.

Do they blow up all the time? No. But they certainly do blow up. And there is no *good* reason to voluntarily subject ones self to a mech that has a significant chance of blowing up.

It is a random and capricious penalty applied with no logic or reason. Which isn't a good thing.

Does it destroy the game? No, of course not. Just don't use those mechs. But it is silly that it is an issue.

[House Davie Merc]

Are they more vulnerable than designs that mount no ammo, or heavily crit-padded ammo?  Yes.  Is it as significant as you're trying to make it?  Absolutely 100% not.

We'll have to agree to disagree this time .

I can't count the number of players I've met that have unseen MAD miniatures in their
carry case that won't field the MAD-3R in a BV balanced game .

When I ask them why it's almost always the same response or some variation of it .

"They only have 17 armor over the torso bomb" .

To  me the frequency of this answer IS an indicator that it is a significant issue .

IMHO part of the reason the MAD-3R is so often connected to this issue is that with
20 rounds of ammo it will be carrying that torso bomb for a long time with thin
armor to protect it .
The Crusader can empty it's torso bombs quickly with just 8 ammo per launcher
and it has more armor protection in the front .

[Mohammed As`Zaman Bey]

I've lost the Chameleon record sheets that came with the 2ndEd box, but the Merlin example in the rule book allocates all SHS on the record sheet (well, 15 out of 18, but that probably has more to do with the designer being bad at math... ::) ).

  I had my copy on the bookshelf:

Merlin example...with 15 of 18 Heat Sinks...


Chameleon training sheet.

[bakija]

That first guy is *super* protected from ammo explosions, what with, ya know, not having any ammo placed anywhere :-)

[Alexander Knight]

It is not a completely insignificant issue (I played two games with a Marauder last week. In both games, the Marauder blew up from an ammo hit. It happens).

Conversely, I played dozens of games with a CRD-3R and never suffered an ammo explosion.  Ironically, it was always the TDR that exploded on me.  Ammo explosions (MG, LRM, SRM), Engine crits, Gyro crits.....you name it, my poor Thunderbolt suffered from it, regardless of the variant.

[CrossfirePilot]

It seems that since there has been a madcatII rewrite of the record sheets, there could be a few here as well.  Along with the SRM4 for the Orion that is in the left arm in artwork but in the LT in the record sheets.  I do remember having the original Reinforcements but it must have been revised because I also remember the record sheets having HS placement that reflected the engine/25 rule (I know this because it took a bit of brain scratching to figure out what they were doing and an explanation in the Compendium).

[Greywind]

Also don't discount the overly-critical thinking of something that's intended to be a game.

[Ryumyo]

I remember those two record sheets. First time I seen them was over 20 years ago. Brings back memories of learning to play and Metallica was the soundtrack to play to.

[bakija]

Also don't discount the overly-critical thinking of something that's intended to be a game.

Something being intended as a game is no excuse for random, sloppy design that is easily avoidable.

[Scotty]

Your dislike of the particular design decision is not universal.  The acknowledgement that the design decision is bad is not universal.  If you don't want to use any of the dozen or so designs (out of what, 800?) that mount a singular torso bomb, that's your perogative.  I, for one, am going to keep using Crusaders and Marauders to my heart's content because it's not near as significant as you're making it, and I actually happen to like the added challenge of protecting a certain section of the 'Mech instead of charging in guns blazing with little regard for damage sustained.

If you don't like them, don't use them.

EDIT: Alternately, given your previous posting history on the site indicating a definite willingness to use customs, simply perform a C or D class refit to move the ammo.  Heck, it might even be a lower class refit than that.

[mbear]

Some time ago one forum member asked TPTB what they think about changing record sheets according new rules from TW, TacOps etc.
(in a sense, that something was useful or reasonable under old rules when those 'Mechs were originally created, but makes no sense today under current rules).

The answer was akin: Yes we thought about it, but we decided not to do that.

IIRC, the answer had some more info in it. The production of record sheets is the single most time consuming task facing CGL, and redoing all of them was prohibitive. (As in, CGL could either assign their layout guys [all 2 of them] to new products that bring in money to pay bills, or assign them to recreate each and every record sheet.)

[evilauthor]

From an in universe perspective, it would have made more sense to always put the ammo in the same section as the weapon it's feeding (barring crit space restrictions of course). After all, it makes sense that you'd want to minimize the distance and complexity of ammo feeds.

And from a game playing perspective, the weapon itself would make for a crit sponge. If the weapon gets take out, its ammo becomes useless anyway.

So from both of those perspectives, it makes no sense to say on a Marauder put the AC in one torso and the ammo in the other, even back when heat sinks weren't hidden in the engine.

[CrossfirePilot]

Conversely, I played dozens of games with a CRD-3R and never suffered an ammo explosion.  Ironically, it was always the TDR that exploded on me.  Ammo explosions (MG, LRM, SRM), Engine crits, Gyro crits.....you name it, my poor Thunderbolt suffered from it, regardless of the variant.

I have had the same exact problem.  The CRD usually has its ammo depleted by the time i am getting that beat up.  The Tbolt however is always getting nailed with some screwy shot.  Same with a blackjack, i have had more goofy TACs on a BJs gyro than i can count.

[bakija]

Your dislike of the particular design decision is not universal.  The acknowledgement that the design decision is bad is not universal.

So you would defend the idea that randomly placing ammo in empty torso locations is a good idea, both in a tactical sense and in a game design sense, given that there is nothing in the rules that indicates that doing such a thing is necessary or in any way beneficial? And that it is in no way silly that some mech designs are randomly cursed with suicide bomb ammo placement while others aren't, with no logic or reason behind it?

  If you don't want to use any of the dozen or so designs (out of what, 800?) that mount a singular torso bomb, that's your perogative.  I, for one, am going to keep using Crusaders and Marauders to my heart's content because it's not near as significant as you're making it, and I actually happen to like the added challenge of protecting a certain section of the 'Mech instead of charging in guns blazing with little regard for damage sustained.

That is fantastic for you, and I'm glad you enjoy the extra challenge. Such an extra challenge would be just as entertaining if there was something in the rules that justified doing things like adding ammo to empty torso locations.