111 replies to this topic

[Nakir]

Nakir, on 01 December 2011 - 10:52 AM, said:

The crest in the head and LMR in the torso center makes me think of a centurion ... although I do not understand what it (The targeted mech) has on his left shoulder ... a rocket launcher,another LMR? And in the right? a sharp shoulder?

This is the Centurion ,considerations to you :

It may also be a Charge CGR-1A5 :

Edited by Nakir, 01 December 2011 - 01:39 PM.

[brave]

Nice cockpit, really cool design!
I like it !!!

[GrimJim]

Has a Syd Mead feel as opposed to Steve Jobs. The chunky-blocky-lo/tech feel of the cockpit definitely goes with that whole retrotech thing the series started with in the 1980's.

Even at this point in the inner sphere timeline, the majority of 'Mechs were leftovers from decades, sometimes centuries of fighting. Being repaired by techs who knew less and less each passing generation, with less and less sophisticated technology.

The baseline cockpit fits well. For those looking for more of an "iMech" feel, i'm sure the devs will be happy to supply mods for a nominal fee...

[Buffalo Six]

Holy crap an X52......man please dont send me into combat with that hunking P.O.S

Can we not have the controls based off a HOTAS setup that lasted on average 20 days of hard use in MW4 before all the pots went to hell and the springs snapped?

Other than that.......looks awesome

[xhrit]

Mchawkeye, on 01 December 2011 - 01:27 PM, said:

Sorry Xhrit... BT/Mechwarrior doesn't equal real life.

BT/Mechwarrior != Reality

I am well aware that it is not reality. But science fiction must be based on science, otherwise it is fantasy. Back in the 80s battletech seemed futuristic. Now it seems dated It could use a real reboot, imo. Get rid of the unseen designs, get rid of the top heavy boxes on legs, get rid of stackpoleing reactors, get rid of windows in the head.

Mchawkeye, on 01 December 2011 - 01:27 PM, said:

So since the minis are canon, as is the lore...i figure no score draw and pick one good for the VG. having windows lets you contact the environment much more so than if you were aware you were watching something on a screen on a screen...perhaps.

The virtual world pods took precedent over the miniatures in my mind.

[feor]

xhrit, on 01 December 2011 - 01:14 PM, said:

I was hoping the reboot and redesign would do away with the more retarded design elements that have plagued the series since its inception.

Bad enough we have blocky top heavy shot traps on legs, but come the **** on, windows and led mfd screens? I was hoping for something at least comparable to modern technology.

In a universe where we have neural interfaces, we do not even need viewscreens, but lets for the sake of argument say we have them. The cockpit should be a sealed system incased in armor at the center of the battlemech, The main screens should have the same interface and composition as the secondary screens, and be fed data from sensors covering the mech.

I used to run p&p mechwarrior game and the same kid every time would always say he aims for the glass. No, that isn't glass, battlemech's don't have windows. I don't care if the picture shows them with windows, whoever drew that is retarded, mech's don't have windows. They just don't. And even if they did they would not be made of glass.

A mech cockpit should look more like this...

or better yet, this...

One of the most important phrases to remember: battletech is not the future, battletech is the future of the 80s.

But even if we assume it's just the future, there are various reasons for not putting the cockpit buried in the core of the mech such as your describe. Many of them the same reasons that a modern bomber doesn't have the pilots buried sown somewhere beside the bomb bays, and why modern tanks still have vision slits and a single hatch between the driver and the outside world.

Electronics fail, cameras get shot, wiring shorts out, and circuit boards melt. If your entire perception of the outside world is reliant on those elements, then you're just as dead inside the mech when they get eliminated as you are if the cockpit itself gets shot. All you're really doing is costing your opponents a few more bullets to actually put you down once you can't see, dodge, or retaliate. And if you're buried in the core of the mech, and something happens where you need to eject, there's that much more material between you and the outside world to eject through. A single cockpit canopy can easily be blown away, several tons of armour plating not so much, especially if it's been damaged.

You are right in saying that a mech's cockpit is not glass. It's basically just made out of a transparent variant of the material they normally use for mech armour. It's often been depicted as having survived laser, autocannon, and even PPC blasts relatively intact.

And the "neural interfaces" you reference, I assume refers to either Clan Enhanced Imaging, or the ComStar/WoB developed Direct Neural Interface. While those do preclude the need for the standard cockpit, the procedure to give a pilot those systems has an extremely low success rate, and often results in permanent brain damage or death when the procedure fails. In addition, at least with EI, those who do survive have much shorter lifespans due to the system, and have to take a highly addictive drug just to counteract the system's negative effects on their psyche. The Neurohelmet that pilots typically wear is not a neural-control system. It's a simple bio-feedback device, comparable to the stuff that was on the news a few years ago where they had developed "a flight simulator you could run with your thoughts". It was just a biofeedback loop that would let people keep a plane level in a flight simulator based on their brain activity.

There are some developments in game that go towards what you're thinking. Torso-Mounted cockpits exist in the board game (research started 3044, first prototyped in 3053). A pilot in a torso cockpit cannot eject, his life support is in the side torsos (which get hit much more often than the head), and he actually takes damage when the mech overheats, whether his life support is intact or not, since he's so close to the engine.

Quote

get rid of stackpoleing reactors,

They actually covered the physics of how that happens very well on pages 37 & 38 of the techmanual.

Most of the time a mech "Explodes" it jsut that the reactor has had a hole punched in it, and the vacuum they keep inside the reactor sucks a bunch of air in, which kills the fusion reaction, but gets super heated in the process and shoots back out as a fireball while the mech falls over.

The only time a mech will "stackpole" is if enough of the engine's shielding has been blasted away that it can't sink the heat released by the fusion reaction anymore. (or alternately, what Kai did in the Gash, which is basically "rev up" the engine to well beyond it's rated temperatures so the reactor walls couldn't deal with it) When you get to that point the reactor walls (and often a good portion of the mech's torso) flash-vaporize, and the "Stackpole" explosion is actually just the sudden and violent escape of the gases created when that happens.

Edited by feor, 01 December 2011 - 05:01 PM.

[Armageddon]

There is far more well thought out mechanical & scientific processes in Mechwarrior than I ever thought could be LOL... I am learning so much on these Forums lately.

[Joachim Viltry]

Trust me, there are people who have (for fun) worked out everything in the BT universe. From probable weapon yields, and armor strength, to how/why certain designs function mechanically . For every person who has ever said "well that's stupid" in their best whiny nerd voice, there is one other (often an engineer) who can explain the how and why; and often justify things that on the face of it make little sense to the layman.

This is one of the reasons I love the Battletech universe most of all. And we are very lucky to have so many knowledgeable fans here on this forum who can explain these things.

[feor]

Joachim Viltry, on 01 December 2011 - 05:27 PM, said:

Trust me, there are people who have (for fun) worked out everything in the BT universe. From probable weapon yields, and armor strength, to how/why certain designs function mechanically . For every person who has ever said "well that's stupid" in their best whiny nerd voice, there is one other (often an engineer) who can explain the how and why; and often justify things that on the face of it make little sense to the layman.

This is one of the reasons I love the Battletech universe most of all. And we are very lucky to have so many knowledgeable fans here on this forum who can explain these things.

Note, there's also people who have used their powers for evil. One guy on the official forums one time worked out that a warship using all of it's internal space for fuel, jumping as far from a planet as possible could accellerate for something like 3/4 of a year, and when it hit the planet would impart enough kinetic force to said planet to crack it's crust. (as it would be doing well over 75%c by the time it impacted)

Only problem he could find is that it would be a suicide run, as there isn't a dropship in existence that could carry enough fuel to decelerate a crew from those kinds of speeds before it ran out of fuel.

[Joachim Viltry]

feor, on 01 December 2011 - 05:37 PM, said:

-

Hehehehe, whats Nivens rule? ''any drive system that is powerful enough to be interesting is a weapon''.

Really there is no shortage of possibilities once you can accelerate multi-billion ton starships to an appreciable % or c.
i think it was Ad Astra games that had a shirt with a diagram and equation for accelerating a trojan asteroid to 50%c and hitting earth... the additional force imparted by Earths gravity well was considered ''negligible'' - despite equaling a sizable nuclear stockpile.

[Odin]

Adridos, on 01 December 2011 - 12:56 PM, said:

That is made in Russia. Americans cannot handle so much at the same time.

No offense, just kidding.

Sure it is!
Russian standard stick. A real mean peace of hardware, love the way it is cranked to the left to be ergonomic. For starters, thats the Mig-29 office - you gotta love all those dials.



edit//
I know the one in the concept is only a placeholder;

Edited by Odin, 01 December 2011 - 06:06 PM.

[Krono Arrius]

Can I just point out that the cockpit image shows waves cresting and an open ocean, yet both side views show what would appear to be open ocean also. Just to echo the idea that the view is a bit misleading.

[Helmer]

If you look at the Media section of the forums ( http://mwomercs.com/media ) and take a look at the concept art ,it's not Glass on the Hunchbacks head. It looks armored. Suggesting the "windows" are video feeds from the outside. Easy to explain fluff wise.

And I'd agree, the JJ indicator seem to be added for the sake of showing where it would be. And the view from the mech ( Ocean view ) is incongruous with the data on the monitors. It appears there is an enemy mech that should be off to the left, but still visible.

So far none of the artwork for the mechs we know about do not suggest anything but armored cockpits. Which always bothered me when looking at mechs like the MadCat.

Edited by Helmer, 01 December 2011 - 09:48 PM.

[GI Journalist]

Odin, on 01 December 2011 - 06:04 PM, said:

Sure it is! Russian standard stick. A real mean peace of hardware, love the way it is cranked to the left to be ergonomic. For starters, thats the Mig-29 office - you gotta love all those dials.

This is a good example of how design methodologies can differ. In comparison to the heavy duty mechanical controls and instrumentation on the Mig, American jet fighters splash everything up on the HUD and everything is tied to the computer. A BattleMech could end up anywhere in between the two.

[Odin]

GI Journalist, on 01 December 2011 - 10:03 PM, said:

This is a good example of how design methodologies can differ. In comparison to the heavy duty mechanical controls and instrumentation on the Mig, American jet fighters splash everything up on the HUD and everything is tied to the computer. A BattleMech could end up anywhere in between the two.

I wouldn't mind a HUD in my Mech, a monocle or an iron sight - if all goes bad, the lights go down. Your right of course. The good thing is, being the first time a Mech sim with a real cockpit will be made, they have the liberty to pick up whats best for the task. Can be anything - within reason and BT lore, from WWII fighter to space shuttle.

[Iron Horse]

Just wanted to point out one more thing that I noticed which no one has pointed out. On the radar MFD we see a viewing cone and a fainter line to the right of the viewing "pie". This could indicate the direction on the feet, or vice-versa the direction of viewing (which wouldn't make as much sense, but would explain why we can't see the sensor contact through the canopy).

I personally believe those who speculate the BG is placeholder are correct, but still food for thought!

Edited by Iron Horse, 02 December 2011 - 12:29 AM.

[Mchawkeye]

Buffalo Six, on 01 December 2011 - 02:59 PM, said:

Holy crap an X52......man please dont send me into combat with that hunking P.O.S

Can we not have the controls based off a HOTAS setup that lasted on average 20 days of hard use in MW4 before all the pots went to hell and the springs snapped?

Other than that.......looks awesome

My x52 has lasted ages at the hands of a hulking stupid ogre of a pilot. As far as I am concerned, If I get shot at in real life, I'm hiding behind my bullet proof joystick. I even dropped it from three metres once. Not a scratch. Damn thing will out last cockroaches. Being so close to a fusion reactor, that might not be a bad thing.

Anyway, back to the windows. Correct me if I am wrong as this is but a vague memory, but was there not a TT infantry unit -mech hunters or something- than singled out the pilot with high powered sniper rifles? Without windows that would have been impossible, surely?

[xhrit]

feor, on 01 December 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

One of the most important phrases to remember: battletech is not the future, battletech is the future of the 80s.

That is the point of a reboot. Looking at oldschool battletech is like watching an early 80s movie where everyone has big hair, tight jeans and members only jackets. It is time to modernize it. Bring it up to date. Make it the future.

feor, on 01 December 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

But even if we assume it's just the future, there are various reasons for not putting the cockpit buried in the core of the mech such as your describe. Many of them the same reasons that a modern bomber doesn't have the pilots buried sown somewhere beside the bomb bays, and why modern tanks still have vision slits and a single hatch between the driver and the outside world.

Sixth gen combat vehicles are designed to operate in 3 modes of control - local direct control by a pilot inside the vehicle, remote control by operators using data piped to a command center, or autonomous control using on board processing. In all 3 cases the command entity is fed the same data stream collected from external sensors, regardless of if the command entity is a local pilot, remote operator or autonomous processor.

Edited by xhrit, 02 December 2011 - 02:55 AM.

[feor]

xhrit, on 02 December 2011 - 02:54 AM, said:

Sixth gen combat vehicles are designed to operate in 3 modes of control - local direct control by a pilot inside the vehicle, remote control by operators using data piped to a command center, or autonomous control using on board processing. In all 3 cases the command entity is fed the same data stream collected from external sensors, regardless of if the command entity is a local pilot, remote operator or autonomous processor.

Sure, but that F-22 still has cockpit glass. Like I said, electronics fail, and there's alot to be said for the mk1.0 eyeball targeting system when that happens.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

What is that cockpit based on?
Imo, it isn't similar enough to the canon cockpit views.