Author Topic: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?  (Read 2747 times)

Frabby

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Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« on: 20 March 2018, 03:46:48 »
The BattleMech Manual clearly states that a critical hit to an ammo slot will only explode the total ammunition in this slot (which may be zero, in which case there are no explosion effects).
Does this mean that ammunition is ticked off for each slot individually? Taking the ARC-2R Archer as an example, it has altogether four slots (tons) of LRM ammunition for its two launchers, with 6 shots per slot. Does the player get to chose from which slot the ammo is fired?

That's how we've been playing it for decades, but I'm looking for an official statement.

The counter-argument is that, since ammo of the same type can cross-feed all over the 'Mech, you determine the ammo per slot by dividing all remaining shots by the number of slots. But imho this approach breaks apart when, say, the Archer from the example above is down to only two salvos across its four ammo bins.
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ColBosch

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #1 on: 20 March 2018, 04:06:24 »
Easy-peasy: you've been playing it right. Total Warfare (2nd Printing), pg. 103: "The player should keep a tally of shots fired using the Critical Hit Table, making a hash mark [...] next to the appropriate ammo slot every time he fires the corresponding weapon. When the number of marks equals the amount of ammo carried in that slot, that ammo bin is empty."
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Frabby

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #2 on: 20 March 2018, 05:27:09 »
Ah, thank you.
I was so fixated on critical hit results that I didn't look under "Ammo expenditure"... doh!
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The Eagle

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #3 on: 20 March 2018, 07:42:07 »
I started doing it this way a long while back when i suffered a critical hit to an ammo bin after the Mech had expended all its ammo.  My opponent still wanted it to detonate despite my argument that I was Winchester.  To avoid confusion, I started marking expenditure by bin.  I'm happy to see that's actually the right way to do it!
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garhkal

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #4 on: 20 March 2018, 14:20:17 »
The BattleMech Manual clearly states that a critical hit to an ammo slot will only explode the total ammunition in this slot (which may be zero, in which case there are no explosion effects).
Does this mean that ammunition is ticked off for each slot individually? Taking the ARC-2R Archer as an example, it has altogether four slots (tons) of LRM ammunition for its two launchers, with 6 shots per slot. Does the player get to chose from which slot the ammo is fired?

That's how we've been playing it for decades, but I'm looking for an official statement.

The counter-argument is that, since ammo of the same type can cross-feed all over the 'Mech, you determine the ammo per slot by dividing all remaining shots by the number of slots. But imho this approach breaks apart when, say, the Archer from the example above is down to only two salvos across its four ammo bins.

I've always done it like you.  Mark off each shot overall (on the area tracking all ammo) and tick which slot it comes from.  That way you KNOW what has what when an ammo crit is made..

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #5 on: 21 March 2018, 09:33:26 »
i often find myself incapable of remembering to tick off ammo. it's resulted in more than one "well i guess i'll count it as a full bin" explosion.

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #6 on: 21 March 2018, 12:37:30 »
I often write the amounts under the weapons in the upper right to more easily track it.
(eg:
LT LRM20 (6) ||
LT LRM20 (6) |||
RT LRM20 (6) |
No-Dachi has a counter-argument. Nothing further? Ok.
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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #7 on: 21 March 2018, 23:08:45 »
Yeah, been doing that for a tournament my TT group is doing . . . I am using a Hammerhands 5D which has 4t ammo, 1t in each arm.  Those arm tons end up as Precision and it was SOP to fire the arms down since they had thinner armor.  My opponent pushed 1 arm into single digits of armor, I was very glad to be able to shift to that bin to empty out the last 2 rounds in the next salvo.
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garhkal

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Re: Ammunition: Ticking off per slot?
« Reply #8 on: 22 March 2018, 02:10:42 »
I usually empty one full bin at a time.  Which is why i dislike having multiple LARGE ammo bins, (12 or more shots a ton) on certain mechs, unless i've multiple launchers.

IE at 24 shots a ton for LRM5 ammo, having 1-2 launchers, its not worth it to have multiple slots of ammo.  BUT if you had say 4-5 launchers, then it is..
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