40 replies to this topic

[Serapth]

... and this sucks. It was the one map where smurfvision wasn't king.

Please tell me this is a bug and will be resolved. I already hate how thermal is already pretty much mandatory on every other map.

[MoonUnitBeta]

I really liked caustic for that reason. Thermal still worked, enemies were a little bright yellow/green, everything else was green.
Only used it to scan tree lines and the side hills, and I liked that.

[Serapth]

MoonUnitBeta, on 05 March 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

I really liked caustic for that reason. Thermal still worked, enemies were a little bright yellow/green, everything else was green.
Only used it to scan tree lines and the side hills, and I liked that.

Yeah, now it works just like on any other map. There is no background noise and the only thing that affects thermal is a bit in the middle of the cauldron and some fires way off to the side nobody ever goes to.

[Kaspirikay]

Lame that they calibrated thermal to Caustic's ambient temp.

[Vahnn]

Yeah, I would really like for Thermal to get a re-tuning. Add heat signatures to buildings, light sources, insides of caves should have increased background heat compared to outside the cave, any pipes/wiring which may be carrying hot gases/electricity, etc...

Adding more interference with the Thermal vision would allow more chances for mechs to hide in the noise and avoid being instantly spotted from 1000m+. Also, adding more noise would have more varied heat signatures between the observer and enemy mechs, reducing its effectiveness at long ranges.

I like a lot of things about Thermal, but I just hate that 9/10, it's superior to standard vision. I have even recently found myself using it on daytime maps to spot enemies amongst the trees. Shouldn't areas of think foliage be warmer than the surrounding area?

I don't know, maybe it's a programming nightmare?

Also, wtf is night vision?

[Chavette]

It wont stay like that for long, it was messed up on purpose, and the guy who adjusts it said he will keep it that way, along with the desert map.

[Elkfire]

It's unfortunate that Thermal is so much better than normal vision in pretty much any situation. ECM is a big part of the problem, since before you'd at least detect the person if they showed up and were able to be targeted. It's a disservice to PGI's art/animation/whatever team that we are pretty much required to use the vision mode that turns mechs and terrain into fuzzy blobs of color.

[Corwin Vickers]

How about more sensors with each one telling you different information. Right now you go on a night map and you turn on heat vision (probably should be nigh vision but it blows atm), you get on an ice map and you turn on heat vision, etc.

What if you were in some buildings and you turned on your mag vision to see through them. Or you were on a huge mountainous map and you turned on seismic sensors to see across the map.

Each sensor type should deliver different information for not just different maps but different situations. For example you could make mag sensors short range making them useless once you leave the urban section of the map. Seismic sensors could be great for telling you where movement is but not what team or what kind of mech or exactly where they are (rather than where they are in general.)

In this way you'd have to cycle through your different sensors during combat in order to obtain different, necessary information.

"Thermal imaging, light amplification, radar, laser tracking, uv tracking, and magnetic anomaly sensors are generally used as primary sensors, supplemented by seismic sensors, motion detectors, chemical analyzers, microwave, tracking, and many others, depending on what equipment a 'Mech mounts."

http://www.sarna.net...Mech_Technology

There's lots of lore to play with and could make the game just that much cooler.

[Broceratops]

yes thermal is op and takes away much of the point of different maps and painting your mech

[Theevenger]

Serapth, on 05 March 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

... and this sucks. It was the one map where smurfvision wasn't king.

Please tell me this is a bug and will be resolved. I already hate how thermal is already pretty much mandatory on every other map.

I don't see why this is a problem. This is how it's done in real life. You scan in thermals even in the daytime, and they work great in the desert.

[Serapth]

Theevenger, on 05 March 2013 - 06:22 PM, said:

I don't see why this is a problem. This is how it's done in real life. You scan in thermals even in the daytime, and they work great in the desert.

Caustic is either 70 or 90 degrees C. That enough to cook with. In real life thermals wouldnt do a damned thing.

[Asmosis]

how hot do you think a mini nuclear reactor gets?

[TheGreatNoNo]

Hate Thermal, can`t see **** with it and it drops my fps. I only use it on river city night (because the second you get hit with a MG you go blind from black smoke or a small laser grazed you and the light blinded you) and frozen colony day because well....trading one blindness for another, but at least I can see the mechs......but not the ground....

[Theevenger]

Vahnn, on 05 March 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Yeah, I would really like for Thermal to get a re-tuning. Add heat signatures to buildings, light sources, insides of caves should have increased background heat compared to outside the cave, any pipes/wiring which may be carrying hot gases/electricity, etc...

Adding more interference with the Thermal vision would allow more chances for mechs to hide in the noise and avoid being instantly spotted from 1000m+. Also, adding more noise would have more varied heat signatures between the observer and enemy mechs, reducing its effectiveness at long ranges.

I like a lot of things about Thermal, but I just hate that 9/10, it's superior to standard vision. I have even recently found myself using it on daytime maps to spot enemies amongst the trees. Shouldn't areas of think foliage be warmer than the surrounding area?

I don't know, maybe it's a programming nightmare?

Also, wtf is night vision?

In real life, the thermal imagers on tanks don't really care about the ambient temperature. Just turn the contrast up a little. Trees and stuff don't really throw off much of a "glow", nor do most caves or even buildings. You will see hotspots for sure, but those pipes wouldn't be much of a distraction.

Serapth, on 05 March 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Caustic is either 70 or 90 degrees C. That enough to cook with. In real life thermals wouldnt do a damned thing.

Yes, they would. They work great in the desert at 140 F, so unless your electronics fail outright due to the heat (a distinct possibility with our real world tech, but unlikely if our Mechs are built for this kind of thing) they will do fine.

Edited by Theevenger, 05 March 2013 - 09:17 PM.

[Thirdstar]

Theevenger, on 05 March 2013 - 09:17 PM, said:

In real life, the thermal imagers on tanks don't really care about the ambient temperature. Just turn the contrast up a little. Trees and stuff don't really throw off much of a "glow", nor do most caves or even buildings. You will see hotspots for sure, but those pipes wouldn't be much of a distraction.



Yes, they would. They work great in the desert at 140 F, so unless your electronics fail outright due to the heat (a distinct possibility with our real world tech, but unlikely if our Mechs are built for this kind of thing) they will do fine.

And we're making an argument vis a vis RL thermal vision why?

[Theevenger]

Kaspirikay, on 05 March 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

Lame that they calibrated thermal to Caustic's ambient temp.

Could you explain this? What I think you are hinting at sounds really cool but I don't understand.

[Karr285]

Theevenger, on 05 March 2013 - 09:17 PM, said:

In real life, the thermal imagers on tanks don't really care about the ambient temperature. Just turn the contrast up a little. Trees and stuff don't really throw off much of a "glow", nor do most caves or even buildings. You will see hotspots for sure, but those pipes wouldn't be much of a distraction.



Yes, they would. They work great in the desert at 140 F, so unless your electronics fail outright due to the heat (a distinct possibility with our real world tech, but unlikely if our Mechs are built for this kind of thing) they will do fine.

when the day temp is 90C on earth then we can talk.

[Theevenger]

Thirdstar, on 05 March 2013 - 09:18 PM, said:

And we're making an argument vis a vis RL thermal vision why?

Because this is a simulationist shooter, based upon a tabletop game that simulated what warfare could look like in a universe that used Mechs.

[Thirdstar]

In case people haven't noticed, this is a game about Giant Stompy Robots. Features within the game should first pass the gameplay test before we even THINK about making real life comparisons.

Is it engaging gameplay? Does thermal invalidate normal vision and night vision? These are pertinent questions. Not, "well that's how it works on current tanks".

Edited by Thirdstar, 05 March 2013 - 09:22 PM.

[Theevenger]

Karr285, on 05 March 2013 - 09:19 PM, said:

when the day temp is 90C on earth then we can talk.

140 F = 60 C. That's plenty close enough to prove the concept. The only thing that actually matters is a contrast.