127 replies to this topic

[Hedonism Robot]

It's a game and while it would be nice to have this simulated in a more realistic fashion the current changes with a limited max range work well for the sake of gameplay. If it more accurately worked we would see huge heat clouds surrounding mechs. Places where shells missed would also light up the ground. If there was a burning building it would be brighter then the surrounding terrain. Hell, the ECM could generate false positives by jamming the spectrum with IR emissions. I think there are much better parts of the game to be balanced before we get into a in depth information warfare simulator.

[Dr Killinger]

I love the mockups, but my gut tells me I don't care if the vision modes make sense, as long as they're balanced.

[xDark]

Logged in just to like and reply to this topic. This is awesome! I really hope the devs implement this because the current thermal vision is silly (though a lot better than its previous iteration).

[Mintastic]

I prefer this idea much more than current implementation, but instead use the large pixels and then smooth it out so that the heat signatures become vague blobs rather than perfect shape of the mech like it is now.

Edited by Mintastic, 10 April 2013 - 10:52 AM.

[CutterWolf]

Why I like this idea I don't like the pixelated mess at short to med ranges. I could understand that at long range but not at short or Med ranges. At short & Med ranges you should see nice clean outlines of the mech so you can at least tell what type of mech it is. Let's at least try to get it half as good as current day TV

[CnlPepper]

CutterWolf, I think you might like this version then: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2192493

Hmm...I think I should add a link to that post in the original post.

[BlackSquirrel]

Mother of god!

You sir get a bump.

[FrostCollar]

Tell your kids! Tell your wife! This is the best Thermal idea I've ever seen, and it would be quite a bit superior to the previous and the current implementation. Yes please.

[Velo]

Just my two cents on this, I'm an aerospace engineer and have worked with thermal imagining systems before. Temperature is not proportional to how bright something will appear on the screen, the amount of black body radiation is dependent on the type of material. In fact, metallic bodies, such as cars, don't produce that bright of a signature.
The reason is that the heat producing components of machines do not have much contact with the outer panelling (conduction), the radiation that hits the outer panelling is also readily deflected back in. So, if you were to look at the thermal signature of a car, you'll notice that the largest portion of it is the reflection of the radiation against the ground and that a person is actually brighter. The first part is explained by the bottom not having panelling, sports cars with bottom panelling won't have this thermal signature. Now obviously a person is not hotter than a car nor does a person dissipate as much heat, so what gives? The car looses most of its heat to the surrounding air which quickly diffuses the heat and the signature is lost. So really, the air surrounding a mech should glow hot but the mech itself should not appear much brighter than the ambient environment; much like your car, on a cold day, is still cold on the outside. Also, thermal cameras keep their focus quite well and can see far, hence their mounting onto helicopters.

Edited by Velo, 10 April 2013 - 05:23 PM.

[LawDawg]

Tommytools, on 03 April 2013 - 11:41 PM, said:

Logged in just to like this thread, I love this idea.

TT

/Ditto

[CutterWolf]

CnlPepper, on 10 April 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

CutterWolf, I think you might like this version then: http://mwomercs.com/...ost__p__2192493

Hmm...I think I should add a link to that post in the original post.

Better yes, but still not good. Short the Med range should be clear. Hell with todays TV I can see clearly at twice that range and pick out details. For a Mech to be standing only 250 meters from me and it looks like a blob that is hard to tell what it is, is nowhere near as half as good as TV is today. You give me good outlines that I can see up to 500 meters out and be able to tell what type of Mech it is, then I will be on board with this idea. The Commando in your pic at 250 meters is what I would like to see at 500 meters.

Edited by CutterWolf, 10 April 2013 - 08:47 PM.

[CnlPepper]

Cutterwolf, the mech at 250m is only blurred as I crudely hand drew the thermal signature using a wide/soft brush in photoshop. These are mockups, not real simulations - they are only intended to give a feel for the concept. The reason for the bluring idea is to meet with the desire for PGI to limit the thermal's range, as mentioned in the post it is a deliberate conceit that is grounded in real physics (in this case "poor", fix focus optics). The bluring distance would be a tunable that the devs could tweak as desired.

[Blu76]

I've linked to this thread in Ask the Devs #36, lets see how they feel about this idea. I love it. However I think most ppl would complain as Dakkath said about the pixelation, I wouldn't mind, but I feel the Gaussian blur and other method after that seem to be wonderful ideas.


EDIT: also, since I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, what about making thermal a PiP like the 4x zoom if it does use the pixelation method?

Edited by Blu76, 11 April 2013 - 07:24 AM.

[Geredis]

Hedonism Robot, on 10 April 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Hell, the ECM could generate false positives by jamming the spectrum with IR emissions. I think there are much better parts of the game to be balanced before we get into a in depth information warfare simulator.

And I think you, sir, have just come up with the perfect way to show which mechs have ECM in a more direct fashion. Make them run visibly hotter on thermal sensors, or otherwise obscure them in a massive reddish-white ball of emitted 'junk'. Sure you might not be able to actually see the mech underneath, but at least you know where it is, and what it's got.

[peckham33]

Geredis, on 11 April 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

And I think you, sir, have just come up with the perfect way to show which mechs have ECM in a more direct fashion. Make them run visibly hotter on thermal sensors, or otherwise obscure them in a massive reddish-white ball of emitted 'junk'. Sure you might not be able to actually see the mech underneath, but at least you know where it is, and what it's got.

IMO, this would be a simultaneous advantage and disadvantage. aka: balanced.

[BlueSanta]

Post #65 of this thread is the winner.

[CnlPepper]

Geredis, on 11 April 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

And I think you, sir, have just come up with the perfect way to show which mechs have ECM in a more direct fashion. Make them run visibly hotter on thermal sensors, or otherwise obscure them in a massive reddish-white ball of emitted 'junk'. Sure you might not be able to actually see the mech underneath, but at least you know where it is, and what it's got.

ECM aka "Electronic Counter Measure" systems as currently fielded (on aircraft etc...) do quite a lot, but they don't affect IR emission. A real ECM system can do a variety of things, but they are mostly focused on radio frequency emission. They are typically used to disrupting enemy communications and/or distort radar signals (typically by producing false positives, quasi-cancelling out reflected radio frequency radiation or by exploiting an electronic "failings" in the scanning radar system).To affect IR emission you need to mess with emissivity or actively alter the thermal signature using heaters/coolers.

I suppose you could argue that an ECM module would draw a reasonable power and would tend to increase the heat local to the the area it is installed in... though to be honest it probably would be that much compared to the rest of a mech's systems (MW class lasers etc!).

Edited by CnlPepper, 12 April 2013 - 01:14 PM.

[Krzysztof z Bagien]

CutterWolf, on 10 April 2013 - 08:45 PM, said:

Better yes, but still not good. Short the Med range should be clear. Hell with todays TV I can see clearly at twice that range and pick out details. For a Mech to be standing only 250 meters from me and it looks like a blob that is hard to tell what it is, is nowhere near as half as good as TV is today. You give me good outlines that I can see up to 500 meters out and be able to tell what type of Mech it is, then I will be on board with this idea. The Commando in your pic at 250 meters is what I would like to see at 500 meters.

Keep in mind that for some reason we also have regular night vision in game (I think we actually could have thermal and NV merged into one vision mode) and making TV clear and sharp would render NV pretty much obsolete and inferior to TV. With TV blurred a little NV could be actually good for navigating and TV for spotting mechs.

[Hobietime]

Awesome, I had a similar idea but the thread never really took off.

http://mwomercs.com/...74#entry2183974

Something like this is not only realistic, but helps with spotting while preventing across the map sniping.

Also, there could be a module to replace the standard CCD with a higher resolution, cooled CCD.

[XBigBenX]

1+ in the current state thermal is useless...i only use this when the HUD-Bug occures...because i got a death pixel close to the crosshair (only visible on extreme white or black screens)