24 replies to this topic

[Tarl Cabot]

For most of the mechs, besides the quirks (which are due to be changed 9-22-15), one of the primary things that, offensive, makes a chassis better than others are the hard point locations.

For the chicken walkers, their frontal chassis have a smaller area than humanoid mechs. All humanoid mechs, to utilize their arm-mounted weapons, have to expose themselves more.

There are a few humanoid mechs, that either due to their default arm construction (blackjacks/jags), do not have this issue, and there are a few humanoid mechs that some of their torso mounted weapons are mounted higher than most other mechs (some tbolts/shadowhawks/executioners).

Now, I am not proposing allowing a mech's entire arm be allowed to be temporarily moved to a parallel position to the ground (90degrees from default setting) but to at least allow the upper arm to come to at least a 60-75 degree position from default.

And to not leave out the chicken walkers, allow their arms to come forward at a 45 degree angle from default setting.

PGI also said they would be modifying the skill tree, this could be one of the areas that could be added to allow further arm extension, as it currently does with the torso twist.

Thoughts?

Edited: Also make it so the chassis determined the speed the arm can be raised w/associated skill tree component.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 09 September 2015 - 07:17 AM.

[Night Thastus]

I agree. Especially on the Dragon. Take a look at it's picture here:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dragon

In almost every depiction I can find, that right arm was raised and compact. I much prefer it to the one we get now. :c

[Tarl Cabot]

(nods) And PGI could have different options to how it could be toggled, and whether it would be a timed up/down motion with a cooldown timer in default position. Simply looking at it in different ways.

With the Clans, which a majority of their mechs are chicken walkers, one of the major counters are the quirked mechs (soon to be changed) with viable hard points. This would possibly make more IS mechs viable, as well as a few of the Clan's humanoid mechs more viable, particularly those without a heavy weaponload.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 07 September 2015 - 08:01 PM.

[ChapeL]

Press "R" to target the enemey and as long as your reticle is on target ( or close to it ), your mech tries to adjust the elevation of the arms to avoid hitting obstacles between your mech and the target. This can be slow or fast depending on the chassis weight.

How does that sound ?

[Tarl Cabot]

ChapeL, on 07 September 2015 - 09:19 PM, said:

Press "R" to target the enemey and as long as your reticle is on target ( or close to it ), your mech tries to adjust the elevation of the arms to avoid hitting obstacles between your mech and the target. This can be slow or fast depending on the chassis weight.

How does that sound ?

I like that idea but the implementation of it may be difficult. Add ECM where you can not target a mech and ya would be SOL. I do like the idea of the chassis determining how quickly the arms can come up, and again make the both speed and range be part of a future skill tree.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I was thinking just as we have multiple zoom options, we could possibly see different Arm Lock Options, so that different Mechs can move their arms to different positions based on what the player selects / toggles between.

And the articulation can be based on the number of available actuators, so that a mech like the Atlas would have more Arm Position options than a Dire or King Crab for example.

And on a side note, it would nice to see mechs tuck their elbows in on the current arm positions of most mechs (I'm guessing the shoulders on the skeleton are what need the tweak to tuck those elbows in!).

[Hoffenstein]

More actuators = more arm movement... we can finally have a trade-off for the wasted critical space

[SkyHammyr]

I vote YES!
With the provision that the mech still has it's shoulder and upper arm actuator there.

[Ultra-Laser]

Tarl Cabot, on 09 September 2015 - 06:59 AM, said:

I like that idea but the implementation of it may be difficult. Add ECM where you can not target a mech and ya would be SOL. I do like the idea of the chassis determining how quickly the arms can come up, and again make the both speed and range be part of a future skill tree.

Depending on how easily and quickly you can toggle between arms locked/arm obstacle avoidance it could make an entire armful of knuckle dragging chassis much more comfortable to pilot while requiring no more brainpower then torso lock/arms free does now.

Spoiler

Although I am amused at the idea of ECM fields causing a mechs' arms to flap in the air like a feral muppet.

ChapeL, on 07 September 2015 - 09:19 PM, said:

Press "R" to target the enemey and as long as your reticle is on target ( or close to it ), your mech tries to adjust the elevation of the arms to avoid hitting obstacles between your mech and the target. This can be slow or fast depending on the chassis weight.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't weapon convergence work like something close to this?

Edited by Ultra-Laser, 10 September 2015 - 04:54 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Ultra-Laser, on 10 September 2015 - 04:52 PM, said:

Depending on how easily and quickly you can toggle between arms locked/arm obstacle avoidance it could make an entire armful of knuckle dragging chassis much more comfortable to pilot while requiring no more brainpower then torso lock/arms free does now.

Spoiler

Although I am amused at the idea of ECM fields causing a mechs' arms to flap in the air like a feral muppet.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but doesn't weapon convergence work like something close to this?

Thoughts on it that it should not be a permanent setting but an actual toggle with a timer, and the chassis should determine the speed to raise it and lower it.

[Nightshade24]

Night Thastus, on 07 September 2015 - 07:25 PM, said:

I agree. Especially on the Dragon. Take a look at it's picture here:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dragon

In almost every depiction I can find, that right arm was raised and compact. I much prefer it to the one we get now. :c

The problem is the other arm still has full movement while the high arm only goes up and down, PGI hasn't made a way that makes 2 seperate arm movements and it is to much effort+ remodelling ALL the S config clan mechs (kitfox S, Direwolf S, Timberwolf S- let me tell you now 2 of those are considered on the bare line between okay and OP- having high mounted arms will make it chalalnging to ballance) as well as remodelling the Dragon and other mechs.

it isn't worth it... in the long run.

[Tarl Cabot]

Nightshade24, on 12 September 2015 - 02:49 AM, said:

The problem is the other arm still has full movement while the high arm only goes up and down, PGI hasn't made a way that makes 2 seperate arm movements and it is to much effort+ remodelling ALL the S config clan mechs (kitfox S, Direwolf S, Timberwolf S- let me tell you now 2 of those are considered on the bare line between okay and OP- having high mounted arms will make it chalalnging to ballance) as well as remodelling the Dragon and other mechs.

it isn't worth it... in the long run.

This is not able bringing arms up so they are parallel to the ground, while for the chicken walkers their arms would not come up as far as humanoid mechs. And you have pointed out three CLAN mechs which are chicken walkers. See the issue? And PGI are currently looking at resizing mechs. Some of the mechs should be re-sized but part of their issues have been hard point locations, weapons set lower on the torso and the arm-mounted weapons also at the same level or even lower. And humanoid mechs tend have even a larger frontal profile, and with low slung weapons, when cresting over a ridge they have to expose themselves longer to bring their low slung, arm-mounted weapons to bear.

PGI is going through re-evaluating mechs, their quirks and such but one of the bigger issues is how a mech plays on the battlefield. They can number crunch everything and try to rebalance but, imho, that will still one of the single factors that will determine if a mech is played and how often. We are not playing on a flat battlefield.

Before Clan mechs the IS has very few chicken walkers and those tended to be specialized mechs. The Cataphract for sometime the most popular heavy and was primarily due to its high mounted torso weapons, but the queue was always high on assaults. Nowadays it has been high on heavies (prior to the mauler fever). The T-bolts, especially after being quirked, with the start of the CW and how it played out due to its high-mounted torso weapons.

And for the Clans, the few humanoid mechs they do have most of them have been short changed due to low slung weapons. The intent is to make more mechs, especially humanoid mechs, viable instead of being an occasional show piece that shows up on the battlefield.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 12 September 2015 - 12:44 PM.

[FireDog]

I'm good to go as long as recoil is worked in. No high stiff arm shooting of high recoil weapons, i.e. No AC20s for Assault, no AC10/20s for Large, no AC5/10/20s for Meds, and no AC2/5/10/20 for lights. No restriction on Machine Guns. That is except when mech is configured with the high arm mounts already, Jagers, BlackJack, etc.

[Nightshade24]

Tarl Cabot, on 12 September 2015 - 12:43 PM, said:

-snip-

I think you have a little bit of confirmation bias there...

[Quelldrogo]

Night Thastus, on 07 September 2015 - 07:25 PM, said:

I agree. Especially on the Dragon. Take a look at it's picture here:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Dragon

In almost every depiction I can find, that right arm was raised and compact. I much prefer it to the one we get now. :c

YES. Excellent point about the original dragon design. The PGI mechs are beautiful, but as a new player I get the feeling they have been homogenized quite a bit. That youtube video of the spanish man laughing about the new mechs being all the same comes to mind. It would be lovely if PGI could work a bit more towards making each mech unique, both with the quirks and in visual design. Thanks!

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to add that when the STEAM release happens, there will be lots of players with little to no Battletech/Mechwarrior experience. Due to lack of speed many mediums, heavies and assaults will be DOA due to be humanoid mechs with low weapon place in the torso with arm weaponry.

As someone else posted elsewhere, the Battletech game did care about weapon placement or size of mech, only if the mech was walking, running or jumping and the distance traveled as well as what the heat level was on that round.

And with the amount of hill humping that is done, unless a mech is fast and has some really decent quirks it will be rarely used. That also generally means it will not be purchased as often, such as the Hero Mech, and one thing PGI needs to continue the game is cash flow.

A current example is the Black Knight. Many have noted they are glad they did not buy the package or the full package simply at the time due to the low slung weapons. PGI could concentrate on the Hero mechs and the next batch of mechs then filter it down, so that the even the mech packages in the store would look more attractive to potential buyers.

To put a tad more light on it, depending on the gun, would you shoot a gun from your hip or raise it up and shoot it, either extended or from your shoulder?

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 17 September 2015 - 06:09 AM.

[Telmasa]

I disagree with a temporary arm height adjustment.

Rather, it should be a permanent remodeling (Dragon case in point).

[Ialdabaoth]

Telmasa, on 17 September 2015 - 08:22 PM, said:

I disagree with a temporary arm height adjustment.

Rather, it should be a permanent remodeling (Dragon case in point).

I respectfully disagree; I think that it should be an animation change rather than a model change.

The easiest thing to do is to make 'lock arms to torso' also raise the arms to just below shoulder level, if the mech has lower arm actuators.

[NNQM]

I think it would be also great to have some number of predefined moves with the 'Mech's arms binded to a keyboard. For example: One key to raise and lower the hands, as the original poster suggested. One key to make a block for a chance to protect the torso from fatal damage. And maybe some number of keys to perform taunts, greetings and other optional moves.

[Vellron2005]

ChapeL, on 07 September 2015 - 09:19 PM, said:

Press "R" to target the enemy and as long as your reticle is on target ( or close to it ), your mech tries to adjust the elevation of the arms to avoid hitting obstacles between your mech and the target. This can be slow or fast depending on the chassis weight.

How does that sound ?

I like this idea, since it seems most fair. I would make it so you don't need to lock on, only target, but if you lock on, it raises your arms faster..

Most mech depictions show humanoid mechs in various "humanoid" poses with arms not solidly locked at torso level, So I see no problem with this Lore-wise.

The only problem might be a technical one, since there are a lot of mechs that should get this feature, and they should all get it at the same time to keep balance, so PGI would put this on the far backburner..

I only wonder should Chicken Walkers also get this, since I don't exactly see them as being able to do that..

Edited by Vellron2005, 23 October 2015 - 03:55 AM.