ix
08/04/11 01:47 PM
78.145.15.194
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For the sake of consistency shouldn't excess head damage transfer to the centre torso? Obviously most mechs would be dead but it makes a difference for torso-mounted cockpit mechs and shooting at dead mechs for whatever reason.
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Cray
08/04/11 08:42 PM
173.168.112.109
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Damage transfer for heads was pretty moot and not really considered Back In the Day when the damage transfer rules were invented.
Now, with torso cockpits? Well, it'd be an easy rule to invent for a home game. However, I'd argue it's unnecessary overkill and a rare event. Consider:
1) The Center Torso is already the bullseye for many attacks. From the frontal or rear arcs, the CT is regularly it 1-in-6 times; when you add in the CT (critical), you get a 7-in-36 chance of armor damage to the CT. The chance drops for side attacks, but remains significant at 5-in-36 from right or left.
2) Compounding point 1, just like all roads lead to Rome, all damage transfer paths lead to the center torso. Once a zombie 'Mech has lost an arm and associated side torso, a front/rear shot then has a 16-in-36 chance of hitting the CT - close to 50%.
3) Under current rules (which significantly altered punch hit location rolls), a head will only be hit by 1-in-36 shots. If you include damage transfer from the head, you're only increasing the rate of CT hits by 2.7%.
So, if you ignore damage transfer from the head, you're really only glossing over a rare event that is mostly overshadowed by the normal CT hits, and further overshadowed by regular damage transfer.
(Incidentally, because of points 1 and 2 I consider torso cockpits to be death traps. They need about 7 times the armor as the head to be equally survivable. You avoid the rare risk of decapitation in favor of the high-probability of losing the CT.)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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ix
08/04/11 09:15 PM
78.145.15.194
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"Incidentally, because of points 1 and 2 I consider torso cockpits to be death traps. They need about 7 times the armor as the head to be equally survivable. You avoid the rare risk of decapitation in favor of the high-probability of losing the CT."
I was just messing around with these figures, I don't think that's right. Possibly you're using the probability for two consecutive headshots? Torso cockpits massively increase surviveability, especially for heavier mechs with the extent of the improvement depending on what's being fired at you. Decapitation is really not that rare, a fully armoured 100 ton mech being repeatedly shot with a 7 damage weapon will die to headshots ~37% of the time. Given it means instant death for the pilot I think it demonstrates the absurdity of head armour not scaling with mech size. This rises to ~42% if it's a 15 damage weapon being fired at the mech.
This shouldn't be surprising as there's a 1/36 chance of a head hit, 50% of the time the headshot will occur in the first 18 hits (100 tonner dies after 15.4 shots at 15 damage on average). A torso-mounted cockpit increases the mech's average survival by around 25% (33% in this case from 15.4 to 20.6 hits average).
If you are comfortable with C++ (it may have bugs!) I'll send you my test program, though it doesn't account for criticals or falls yet. These would slightly reduce the benefit of a torso cockpit though the greater chance of becoming unconscious due to a non-lethal head hit combined with falling damage is a big threat to normal cockpit pilots).
My main reason for questioning the transferring rule is just that it's messier to create an exception (the head doesn't transfer) rather than have all locations transfer inward toward the CT. It doesn't need to have a large game impact to be a cleaner rule design.
Edited by ix (08/04/11 09:52 PM)
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Prince_of_Darkness
08/12/11 10:15 PM
75.163.118.134
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Massively increase survivability? Remember that losing the life support to a critical hit means you cannot build any extra heat without hurting the pilot, and that sensor crits absolutely smash piloting abilities (an thus, make it easier for your pilot to fall and take damage).
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ix
08/13/11 12:29 PM
78.145.15.194
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It is rather messy and life support criticals can't really be accounted for in a probability. I can obviously work out the odds of them happening, it's usually not far from the mech's destruction and the pilot could just choose not overheat at that point. What the torso cockpit does for survivability also depends on what you count as survivability. The previous numbers I gave can be ignored because they omitted criticals, the new numbers include engine and pilot death criticals as well as mech head hits damaging pilots. They've also been done using Clan XL engines and standard armour, if anyone's interested I can also give the numbers for other kinds of engine and other kinds of armour. Obviously IS XL dramatically reduces toughness and a standard engine increases it.
The lifespan benefit of a torso cockpit depends on the mech weight and what's being fired at you. A head cockpit is sometimes superior. The smaller the mech the better a head cockpit is and if most of the things getting fired at a mech do between 2 and 5 then the head cockpit is also better. If it does 1 damage (damage to the mech warrior directly via head hits) or 6 plus(two head hits to death) or 12 plus (one hit to death) then a torso cockpit is better. If you want the effect of a specific weapon mix I can test that too.
I have omitted the one ton weight difference from this test as there's no easy way of doing that, the mechs are just max armoured with whatever guns and whatever weight I put on them or fire at them from an unbeatable opponent. A 100 ton mech with a torso cockpit can take an average of 39.5 7 damage hits before death compared to 35.6 hits for a head cockpit 100 tonner. The torso mech is 11% tougher. If you do this is 15 damage weapons the gap is even greater- 14.2 hits for the head cockpit mech vs 18.2 for the torso, a 28% difference in toughness, if you pit the two versions of the mech against each other the torso cockpit mech wins ~65% of encounters.
Cray's original point about being a death trap for pilots is right under some circumstances, if you never retreat and only fight to the death and you also care about pilot survival after ejecting and assume those pilots aren't killed on the battlefield then head cockpit pilots survive more often. If however you retreat before death then a torso cockpit pilot is in a far better position, especially as they don't just instantly die to the first ER PPC shot of the game as head cockpit pilots sometimes do.
This is also imperfect because it omits the life support critical impact, the extra critical slot lost and the extra ton of weight lost as well as the 1 point piloting penalty. These should not be a major factor on the mechs where you would really want to use torso cockpits- big ones (with decent pilots).
"They need about 7 times the armor as the head to be equally survivable."
I'm not sure how Cray worked this out though, nor for what weights or weapons but I do not think it is correct. Also what does survivable mean? The mech or the pilot?
Edited by ix (08/13/11 12:31 PM)
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