140 replies to this topic

[IceSerpent]

Omigir, on 19 December 2011 - 07:36 AM, said:

Recoil.
I would like to see something like it. When you fire an AC20, whole mech would shutter. If you have other wepaons goups with the AC20, like lasers, perhaps they are a little off the mark. Same thing with a Gauss, when it fires, other weapons in the same group get jared by a sudden force put onto the battlemech and it shifting. Something like a holinder really should feel some kind of fluctuation. I know its a magneticly accelerated round but a basketball sized slug of nickle going form 0 - OMG fast i figure should do a little. Correct me if im wrong.

All the same, fireing off an AC20 or a missle system should have some kind of variable/unpredictable kick. That way an Alpha strike would not be deadly accurate.

I really like the idea of recoil in general, but it won't do much to fix the boating issue - if anything, it would make laser boat even more attractive (no recoil).

[Omigir]

IceSerpent, on 19 December 2011 - 09:09 AM, said:

I really like the idea of recoil in general, but it won't do much to fix the boating issue - if anything, it would make laser boat even more attractive (no recoil).

Boating is a topic totaly seperate from aiming. Aiming is not gonig to fix/break boating. Customization restraints how ever is good for that and there are sevearl other topics talking it over...

Or, instead of having lasers deliver thier pay load all at once, go more for hte MW3 lasers where the damage was split up over a second or two regular and then three of four seconds for pulse.

in this way it is very hard to put all that damage in one place.

Edited by Omigir, 19 December 2011 - 09:15 AM.

[Mchawkeye]

IceSerpent, on 19 December 2011 - 09:01 AM, said:

That's a very good question



This is what I suggested, part of the suggestion actually. This is not where the problem is though. I used "stationary shooter, stationary target" scenario in my post for a reason (assume that you have a proper lead on moving target if you want - it's the same thing). The question is what should happen if my crosshairs are in the right spot when I pull the trigger, in other words my shots are going to be on target as a given, but what should be done about damage?



That would certainly help, but won't fix the problem. It's the path MW4 took - rebalancing via playing with heat/armor/weapon weight/damage values. Problem was that people were still boating weapons with the same projectile travel time. It wasn't as bad as in MW2/MW3, but still was an issue.



This is good in theory, but given the size of a mech and weapon range you won't be able to make it useful and look realistic at the same time. First, it would give an extra incentive to put all weapons into CT (thus decreasing the base). Second, a mech is roughly 10m tall - let's say (just to keep it simple) that it's also 10m wide. So, I have medium lasers in the arms (10m base, 270m range), set them to converge at max range (270m), and aim for CT of the target (3-4m wide, I guess). At what distance would they miss CT and hit RT+LT instead?



That's irrelevant as it only affects aiming (i.e. do I hit or do I miss), instead of the spread. Regardless of the aiming mechanics, a situation where boating multiple small weapons does more damage to the single location than a single large weapon would make those large weapons useless. In BT AC20 is a deadly weapon because it does a lot of damage to a single location as opposed to a bunch of lasers that may do more damage overall, but that damage is spread all over the place. If damage is not spread at all, people will boat whatever weapons give the most overall (combined) damage.



As I see it, there are 2 ways to do it - to mimic what MW4 did and change the weapon characteristics (heat, damage, weight, etc.) or to introduce randomness. Former would allow for pinpoint accuracy, but will require a lot of work to redesign the whole rule set. Latter is easier to implement and is closer to canon BT, but your accuracy would not be picture-perfect.

uhhuh.

Firstly, I don;t think that being closer to BT canon is a good enough reason when faced with accuracy of simulation or game balance. Randomisation for the sake of it is anathema to simulation. This isn't what I, and quite a lot of people, want to see. This isn't COD.

Secondly, all of those things work, in combination, to make boating significantly less attractive and effective. The heat issue, especially, is no where near as crippling as it should be in MW4. I am also a proponent of scraping coolant flush. Just because something is longer or harder to do is no reason not to do it. I also think that balancing randomisation properly would take as long as just getting the guns right in the first instance.

Thirdly, you are assuming we will have complete control over our mechlab. While that isn't long odds, we have no idea how they are going to deal with the mechlab. It's probably not best to base your worries over something we have little/no information over. you'll end up getting an ulcer or something.

Fourth, I agree with Omigir, this thread is about aiming, not boating.

Incidentally, I did some maths (actually, I drew 1-1 scale drawing) and for lasers to show significant divergence of 1m (assuming your lasers are set at 500m, and are in the arms 10m apart) your target needs to be at 450m.
a 10% bracket seems reasonable to me, especially since 50m in the battletech world is pretty much equal to exactly nothing.
My mech can spit further.

Edited by Mchawkeye, 19 December 2011 - 10:12 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Omigir, on 19 December 2011 - 09:13 AM, said:

Or, instead of having lasers deliver thier pay load all at once, go more for hte MW3 lasers where the damage was split up over a second or two regular and then three of four seconds for pulse.

in this way it is very hard to put all that damage in one place.

DOT lasers are a good start.

I also like the idea that most mechs don't have enough power to fire all their weapons at once. It happens in the books (The novels, not the TT) So it would limit alpha, especially with energy weapons.

[Mchawkeye]

TheRulesLawyer, on 19 December 2011 - 10:13 AM, said:

DOT lasers are a good start.

I also like the idea that most mechs don't have enough power to fire all their weapons at once. It happens in the books (The novels, not the TT) So it would limit alpha, especially with energy weapons.

Actually, I really like the idea of power management. That would be an excellent addition.

[IceSerpent]

Mchawkeye, on 19 December 2011 - 09:57 AM, said:

uhhuh.

Firstly, I don;t think that being closer to BT canon is a good enough reason when faced with accuracy of simulation or game balance. Randomisation for the sake of it is anathema to simulation. This isn't what I, and quite a lot of people, want to see. This isn't COD.

Remind me, what are we trying to simulate here? Is it canon BT, as developers already stated or WWII fighter with legs attached to it? If we are simulating classic BT, it stands to reason that result should mimic the original as closely as possible, correct?

Quote

Secondly, all of those things work, in combination, to make boating significantly less attractive and effective. The heat issue, especially, is no where near as crippling as it should be in MW4. I am also a proponent of scraping coolant flush. Just because something is longer or harder to do is no reason not to do it. I also think that balancing randomisation properly would take as long as just getting the guns right in the first instance.

True, playing with the numbers (heat, damage, range, etc.) would certainly help, but then again this would diverge from the rule set that we are trying to simulate.

Quote

Thirdly, you are assuming we will have complete control over our mechlab. While that isn't long odds, we have no idea how they are going to deal with the mechlab. It's probably not best to base your worries over something we have little/no information over. you'll end up getting an ulcer or something.

I have two reasons for that - first, having limited mechlab along the lines of MW4 as opposed to MW3 certainly helps and I would love to see that sort of a restricted mechlab in game, but doesn't resolve the issue completely. Second, if there's no mechlab at all, it would be an absolute deal breaker for me personally and I prefer not to entertain that thought.

Quote

Fourth, I agree with Omigir, this thread is about aiming, not boating.

Aiming by itself is not a problem - you have crosshairs that move around appropriately when you move,overheat,have recoil, etc and you have a moving target, what's there to talk about?

Quote

Incidentally, I did some maths (actually, I drew 1-1 scale drawing) and for lasers to show significant divergence of 1m (assuming your lasers are set at 500m, and are in the arms 10m apart) your target needs to be at 450m.
a 10% bracket seems reasonable to me, especially since 50m in the battletech world is pretty much equal to exactly nothing.
My mech can spit further.

1m divergence is also nothing - how wide do you expect a CT to be?

[MaddMaxx]

here is a crude visual on how Ballistics would differ from lasers when it comes to surface damage types.



The top panel represents a Lasers damage with a "on time" for a laser. The bottom panel shows a ballistics type pattern.

Now if the Dev can show this graphically, (done 1000% better) I think it would be a good representation. Slag the armor off with lasers vs blast it off with Ballistics. Do Missiles as they see fit.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 19 December 2011 - 12:17 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Missiles are ballistics, just not AC's

[TheRulesLawyer]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 19 December 2011 - 12:24 PM, said:

Missiles are ballistics, just not AC's

Most missiles aren't really ballistics. They are powered flight, but I get your meaning.

[Mchawkeye]

IceSerpent, on 19 December 2011 - 12:07 PM, said:

Remind me, what are we trying to simulate here? Is it canon BT, as developers already stated or WWII fighter with legs attached to it? If we are simulating classic BT, it stands to reason that result should mimic the original as closely as possible, correct?



True, playing with the numbers (heat, damage, range, etc.) would certainly help, but then again this would diverge from the rule set that we are trying to simulate.



I have two reasons for that - first, having limited mechlab along the lines of MW4 as opposed to MW3 certainly helps and I would love to see that sort of a restricted mechlab in game, but doesn't resolve the issue completely. Second, if there's no mechlab at all, it would be an absolute deal breaker for me personally and I prefer not to entertain that thought.



Aiming by itself is not a problem - you have crosshairs that move around appropriately when you move,overheat,have recoil, etc and you have a moving target, what's there to talk about?



1m divergence is also nothing - how wide do you expect a CT to be?

As far as I am concerned, we are trying to simulate in a computer what the TT tried to simulate on a kitchen table. this means they are similar but not that same, and what works for one will not (necessarily) work for the other. random weapon spread is an example of this.
The rule book is a basic guide and nothing more. I think ranges should be altered, weapon powers changed and frankly whatever else it takes to make an effective, fun, immersive game that has plenty of the flavour of BT, but is not slavishly crawling at it's pedestal. So no, I don't think you are correct.
Consequently, your second postulation I also disagree with. I say they use what ever numbers they like, if it makes the game good.
There is plenty to talk about as far as aiming goes. that is the whole point of this thread. if you don't think there is any thing else to talk about, you might want to check out some other threads.
And the CT could be meters wide; the appropriate hit boxes that some people here think they will use (like me) will probably be less than a meter wide. even if they don't use hit boxes, it still increases the chance of spreading damage without abusing the relative sense of realism. However it goes down, it's a changing level of inaccuracy that helps, in part, to negate the impact of boating and alpha strikes.

Edited by Mchawkeye, 19 December 2011 - 12:38 PM.

[IceSerpent]

Mchawkeye, on 19 December 2011 - 12:32 PM, said:

As far as I am concerned, we are trying to simulate in a computer what the TT tried to simulate on a kitchen table. this means they are similar but not that same, and what works for one will not (necessarily) work for the other. random weapon spread is an example of this.
The rule book is a basic guide and nothing more. I think ranges should be altered, weapon powers changed and frankly whatever else it takes to make an effective, fun, immersive game that has plenty of the flavour of BT, but is not slavishly crawling at it's pedestal. So no, I don't think you are correct.

I disagree - we are trying to simulate a weapon platform that has random weapon spread by definition (definition being that mechs were described in the books like that). You're basically suggesting that we should simulate a shotgun as a sniper rifle just because you don't like the random spread of pellets. Problem is that some weapons and weapon platforms actually do have that randomness built-in. A battlemech is not just a random walking tank, it's a very specific kind of a walking tank with a well defined set of features. You certainly could re-design it to have a completely different set of features, but the result would have nothing to do with BT.

That being said, I would not be terribly upset if they used MW4 approach, but it will take quite a bit of time to re-balance everything and I am not sure if it's feasible to attempt that and still release the game next summer.

[MaddMaxx]

Nik Van Rhijn, on 19 December 2011 - 12:24 PM, said:

Missiles are ballistics, just not AC's

I was just meaning that Missiles should have a separate built in "spread factor" as they obviously can't all fly in the "same" space if the system fires more than one at a time.

[Mchawkeye]

IceSerpent, on 19 December 2011 - 02:26 PM, said:

I disagree - we are trying to simulate a weapon platform that has random weapon spread by definition (definition being that mechs were described in the books like that). You're basically suggesting that we should simulate a shotgun as a sniper rifle just because you don't like the random spread of pellets. Problem is that some weapons and weapon platforms actually do have that randomness built-in. A battlemech is not just a random walking tank, it's a very specific kind of a walking tank with a well defined set of features. You certainly could re-design it to have a completely different set of features, but the result would have nothing to do with BT.

That being said, I would not be terribly upset if they used MW4 approach, but it will take quite a bit of time to re-balance everything and I am not sure if it's feasible to attempt that and still release the game next summer.

I did say that at all, we were talking about lasers. I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth. I'm more than capable of doing that myself.
As far as this goes, the 'broadside' approach I have also read about in the books should be avoided; battletech is a technical game of strategy, mechwarrior is a game of piloting skill; if it's designed that you don't hit what you aiming at, despite the fact that you may well have done everything right (accounted for lead, movement shake etc) it will become very frustrating for many people. This, I think for the life of the game, should be avoided. I've played CoD, I've unloaded a p90 clip at point-blank and hit nothing but air. this not being The Matrix, that sense of randomness is complete bull. but we let CoD away with it, because it's an arcade game, which MWO isn't.

When it comes to ballistics, the rounds should be appropriately simulated; lbx should be similar to a shotgun, of course, and auto canon should be sighted into to a convergence like any other gun in this theory. Again, makes it accurate at the right distance, but that accuracy decreases as the target gets further away or closer to you.

Because it says so in the books is not a good reason to do something. Blindly following the information without thought to how it affects the game is a bad, bad idea.

For a game like this to work, you have to have control, and the ability to influence the outcome of your actions. subjective randomness removes that entirely.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

But it has to be control within the limitations of the system. I am perfectly happy with individual weapons fired individualy having a base accuracy modified by movement etc. I also accept that the TT rules don't always translate to a PC game (sim). I just don't accept that you can chain multiple weapons together, with different mountings, ranges etc and say that they "must£ all hit the exact same point. I am perfectly happy with a particular set up behaving the same way each time so you can learn how it operates. Change the set up, change the way it fires.
The other thing is, this is BT/MW. How far do you go from canon before it ceases to be BT/MW? This will be different for everybody but if there is no degree of commonality then you risk alienating a large proportion of the fanbase.

[IceSerpent]

Mchawkeye, on 20 December 2011 - 02:47 AM, said:

I did say that at all, we were talking about lasers. I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth. I'm more than capable of doing that myself.
As far as this goes, the 'broadside' approach I have also read about in the books should be avoided; battletech is a technical game of strategy, mechwarrior is a game of piloting skill; if it's designed that you don't hit what you aiming at, despite the fact that you may well have done everything right (accounted for lead, movement shake etc) it will become very frustrating for many people. This, I think for the life of the game, should be avoided. I've played CoD, I've unloaded a p90 clip at point-blank and hit nothing but air. this not being The Matrix, that sense of randomness is complete bull. but we let CoD away with it, because it's an arcade game, which MWO isn't.

I never said that your round should miss completely when you did everything right as far as aiming is concerned, so "don't put words into my mouth" back at you

What I suggested was that in that case (you aimed properly) your round hits, but not necessarily the exact part of the target you were aiming for. I think it's a good compromise between BT rules and realism of a simulation and it gets rid of some known issues with previous attempts to create such a simulation.

[guardiandashi]

this comes back to my perception of the targeting/aiming issue and where I get really irritated with the "arcade warriors"

the old targeting method used in most mechwarrior games which was simplified (due to technological limits) was effectively all weapons come out of the crosshair instaid of being "fired" from their actual locations on the mech. the problem with this is it the "definition of pinpoint targeting" and leads to other issues that cause the mechwarrior games to HAVE to divert from the damage model used in the table top game.

if we go with each weapon having its own "accuracy or inaccuracy" stats, AND have them independantly track while "chasing" the player target designator crosshair thin this will reduce the "excessive accuracy" issue by having the weapons "scatter" a bit. Thit both helps bring it closer to to the table top game, and makes for a "better sim" of "battletech/mechwarrior"

[Omigir]

In the event Dice does not translate well to Computer, rely on real physics. You fire a machine gun on anything, it will 'scatter' the rounds a little bit.

If you have a sudden spice in energy usage, that vehicle will have to 'share' its power and draw from maybe its 'thrust' and slow down a little.

Also, when machines heat up or get too hot, they perform poorly. (I know this because my laptop does it all the time)
*slightly lessond damage, not as acurate, rage decreased.

Simple 'reallistic' things that 'could' happen to help ballance out targeting/firing/accuracy/tracking

[Orayn]

Omigir, on 20 December 2011 - 08:27 AM, said:

In the event Dice does not translate well to Computer, rely on real physics. You fire a machine gun on anything, it will 'scatter' the rounds a little bit.

This really is the best way to handle it. Just have each shot fired by a kinectic weapon change the gun's aim by some small, semi-random increment. Shots still go where the gun is pointed, but that is affected by recoil. Same goes for any other weapon having its current direction affected by the 'Mech bobbing as it walks and turns.

[Xhaleon]

Orayn, on 20 December 2011 - 09:17 AM, said:

This really is the best way to handle it. Just have each shot fired by a kinectic weapon change the gun's aim by some small, semi-random increment. Shots still go where the gun is pointed, but that is affected by recoil. Same goes for any other weapon having its current direction affected by the 'Mech bobbing as it walks and turns.

Thing is, that is essentially what a cone of fire does, except with more processing power required because you try to simulate every little piece of equipment individually. You will always end up with some form of randomization, the further you try to simulate everything realistically. Even shaking by movement of the mech has to be randomized in some way. How do you decide in which direction it will shake, and how much when it does? There will come a point where it just isn't worth figuring out the precise calculations, so that part of the equation just ends in a random factor as a stub. Why not just cut out the middleman and use the random factor further up?

[Orayn]

Xhaleon, on 20 December 2011 - 10:07 AM, said:

Thing is, that is essentially what a cone of fire does, except with more processing power required because you try to simulate every little piece of equipment individually. You will always end up with some form of randomization, the further you try to simulate everything realistically. Even shaking by movement of the mech has to be randomized in some way. How do you decide in which direction it will shake, and how much when it does? There will come a point where it just isn't worth figuring out the precise calculations, so that part of the equation just ends in a random factor as a stub. Why not just cut out the middleman and use the random factor further up?

In the context of this game, you're probably right. It would still be nice to have the random elements modeled after the aforementioned physical causes for them.