63 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Yeah, I had addressed the hip rotation issue with a slightly higher mount. Had also added a combo ammo hopper/armor plate inspired by the cicada. Not saying they should used my art verbatim, but the modification is not THAT difficult. What is it my pappy said? If it's worth doing, its worth doing RIGHT. (of course pappy could barely turn on a computer......)

[Vermaxx]

People complain that the K2 is cheese because 'the machine gun holes fire AC20/gauss bullets raaaawr!' This is used as proof that the mech CANNOT DO THIS, SHOULD NOT DO THIS, AND MUST BE MODIFIED.

Ok, so those people are crazy. PGI agreed, and gave us new art to reflect what I've said time and again - you gut the mech and your ground crew puts on newly fabricated side plates to hold the guns. There you go, there's the fluff reason.

Lo, now there are GUNS in those pretend prefab plates like I used to pretend!

And now people are barking about scale. Seriously? The AC20 on a Hunch is about half the length of the Atlas, and significantly fatter. The Centi arm is yet another size, NOTHING IS THE SAME.

"AC20" is a type, not a brand. Like how AR15 is everything from an original Stoner rifle to any number of modern styled weapons. "AC20" is a cannon that fires one or several projectiles to do 20 damage to one location. There are many manufacturers in Battletech lore.

The "AC20" is not one single gun made to the same spec by everyone. As such, there is no scale. I suspect people think they need to be bigger so they're easier to hit. Jesus, at least now you don't even need to TARGET a K2 to find out if it is a cannon mech. And that wasn't good enough, the mech needs to be carting around two artillery pieces on its head.

[Xyroc]

As with anything they put in this game Im sure it will change a time or two more before it is set in stone. Its great that they finally have something like this in game though.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

So... I have a question.
If the art guys figure out a way to make it look like Gauss rifles/AC/20s are in the torsos, will the QQers about how you cant fire a gauss through machinegun ports stop?

[Solidussnake]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 March 2013 - 07:02 PM, said:

sigH.

Better, but for guns weighing 14/15 tons they look downricht puny. Heck compare it to the Centurions right arm even.

Kudos for effort, but totally not impressed with the result.

This. Look at the AC20 on the atlas. Those things look like pea shooters. They need to make weapon barrels normalized. And the same size across all mechs. Or stick a manufacturer names to those weapons so they can at least explain away why all cannons are the same or different.. Example from what I've read , all single shot AC 20 cannons are 185MM+.

Edited by Solidussnake, 19 March 2013 - 08:46 PM.

[Psydotek]

Mechwarrior Buddah, on 19 March 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

So... I have a question.
If the art guys figure out a way to make it look like Gauss rifles/AC/20s are in the torsos, will the QQers about how you cant fire a gauss through machinegun ports stop?

I will stop complaining. I'm glad the visual changes are present. Could be abit bigger, but I'll take what I can get. The lack of PPC barrels is probably the most easily identifiable characteristic telling you that the Catapult is packing something different.

However this does mean that the chance of having large/medium/small hardpoints is nearly nonexistent.

[Cid F]

Looks like an Elephant....really weird...

[MoonUnitBeta]

Not to de-rail, but here's the gun barrels for the Jagermech, since we're posting about looks of weapons.

[Cache]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 March 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

I don't get why workinout a decent scale with benchmarks is so drinking hard around here.

That's just one of the idiosyncrasies that go with BT/MW. There's no WYSIWYG like in other games and nothing was ever set in stone. Everyone who contributes tends to be given plenty of room for deviation. I gave up worrying about scale a few years back. If I make/modify something of my own I pay much more attention.

The Jagermech's gauss is the same size as the K2's I think. They're just the barrels and I'm sure the rest of the weapon is inside of the enormous torso. After seeing the selection of Jagermech arms, I have hope that there will be several more barrel variations to come for the K2. They put a lot of work into the Jag. I'm pretty sure I saw triple barrels on one in-game. Two MG and whatever cannon in each arm. That is by far the most variation we've gotten and it sets a great precedent for upcoming releases and when cleaning up past releases.

[Gaan Cathal]

Cache, on 20 March 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

The Jagermech's gauss is the same size as the K2's I think. They're just the barrels and I'm sure the rest of the weapon is inside of the enormous torso. After seeing the selection of Jagermech arms, I have hope that there will be several more barrel variations to come for the K2. They put a lot of work into the Jag. I'm pretty sure I saw triple barrels on one in-game. Two MG and whatever cannon in each arm. That is by far the most variation we've gotten and it sets a great precedent for upcoming releases and when cleaning up past releases.

This, the Jaegermech has mesh deformation for all it's weapons, with unique meshes per weapon. The fact that the new mech has these is a pretty strong indicator that all mechs will sooner or later. It's fairly normal for the 'new' model to have these implementations first, since once the design process for that system has begun, creating a 'pre-mesh deformation' model of the Jaeger at the same time as it's 'mesh deformation' model would be a waste of manhours.

[Yankee77]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 March 2013 - 07:51 PM, said:

Oh I admit, almost anything is better than nothing. But about a month ago I ran a fanart thread discussing this very thing. And it literally would have taken no more effort on their part to do the scale correctly, than to release inaccurate ones. Heck they look just like the dinky ones floating around the repaint thread that caused to to work on an upscaled version.

No.

Seriously, no.

Whenever someone says that something in a game (or any software) would have taken no effort, or should be easy to do, or what have you, AN ANGEL DIES.

Seriously, they're ripped apart by the wings and then trampled by raging oliphants.

Stop murdering angels, people, nothing is EVER simple to do in any complex software. Fixing a bloody typo requires a run through QA certification, FFS.

[Khanahar]

Not perfect, but definitely an improvement in game based on user feedback. And it's clearly a limited solution anticipating more in the future (e.g., differentiated barrels for different ACs). Though making the generic AC barrel an AC/20 would have been fine... I mean, you do occasionally see something other than a GR or AC/20 there, but it isn't often.

Still, a good sign about PGI and a great improvement for gameplay to be able to identify variants when under ECM cloud.

[DoktorVivi]

This is something I've wanted since I started playing. It was pretty much the only thing I was disappointed it didn't have and wasn't sure when they'd implement it. I'm so happy they've started.

[General Taskeen]

Itkovian, on 20 March 2013 - 09:07 AM, said:

No.

Seriously, no.

Whenever someone says that something in a game (or any software) would have taken no effort, or should be easy to do, or what have you, AN ANGEL DIES.

Seriously, they're ripped apart by the wings and then trampled by raging oliphants.

Stop murdering angels, people, nothing is EVER simple to do in any complex software. Fixing a bloody typo requires a run through QA certification, FFS.

Chill out DHB Prophet.

The scale is definitely not normalized, could use work in the future.

[Josef Nader]

For what it's worth, the models are identical on the Jager. The Atlas' AC20 isn't much bigger than that, too. The Mediums (Hunch and Cent) seem to be a bit bizzaro with their massive weapons. The Hunch and the Cent both have massive protrusions much larger than the equivalent weapons on larger mechs. It's a bit strange.

[Adridos]

Those are not AC/20s, silly. That's the AC/5 from a Dragon.

AC/20 is a wholly different beast. Just look at Hunchback IIC, add the fact those are smaller Clan versions and slap the IS version onto our beloved Catapult. Why doesn't it topple over? Hell do I know...

[Cache]

Josef Nader, on 20 March 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

The Mediums (Hunch and Cent) seem to be a bit bizzaro with their massive weapons. The Hunch and the Cent both have massive protrusions much larger than the equivalent weapons on larger mechs. It's a bit strange.

I attribute it to the weapon cowling. There's structure/armor built around the Cent and Hunch cannons that others don't have. It may or may not make sense but that justification has been around for a long time.

[Yankee77]

General Taskeen, on 20 March 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

The scale is definitely not normalized, could use work in the future.

THAT I completely agree with. It does need work, I'd love to see the AC20 have honking big barrels, but we have no idea if it'd be an easy fix or not.

I just take exception to anyone saying any change is easy to do in gaming forums (who isn't a dev, at least). The angels must live!!

That said, I'm happy with the K2 change for now, it looks pretty neat.

[Adridos]

Why did they not give it AC/20, though?

AC/5... of all things? Heck, even UAC/5 is more used on that frame.

[Vapor Trail]

As has been said, AC/20 is a damage rating, not a type.

Hunchback AC/20 is of a type with a shorter barrel and larger slug (and therefore larger diameter barrel.

Catapult AC/20 is of a type with a smaller diameter barrel (therefore smaller slug) but has a longer barrel, and therefore higher muzzle velocity and therefore equal in power to the Hunchback.

"Needs to be bigger" is a personal opinion.