14 replies to this topic

[TheRulesLawyer]

Speed is life for a light mech and even many mediums. However the movement mods often don't translate well into a real time sim. Laser weapons in particular are a problem with their no lead requirement. So how can we translate this concept from the TT game into the real time sim?

My first instinct is that you will have to do it with tracking speed. Make a limited gimbal track in front of the mech that doesn't decrease accuracy. Make torso twists both limited in speed to a set number of degrees/sec (people can always just up mouse sensitivity otherwise) and make torse twists affect accuracy. This would tend to make it hard to track faster movers on high deflection shots, and give the movement mods some real meaning.

Any better ideas out there? I haven't seen this idea really successfully implemented in a pc game that uses hitscan hit detection.

[Tweaks]

Not sure I understand what you mean to be honest... ?

[Creel]

Slower torso twist speed makes a lot of sense, as does slower reticle movement. instant aim response is great for Unreal Tournament, but Mechwarrior is not twitch gaming. You're realigning a weapon system that weighs tons and requires extensive support/stabilization to maintain accuracy. There should be noticeable traverse time involved in realigning your weapons. This would go a long way toward balancing the relative squishiness of light mechs.

Edited by Creel, 07 November 2011 - 02:02 PM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Tweaks, on 07 November 2011 - 01:38 PM, said:

Not sure I understand what you mean to be honest... ?

Lets pretend you have all your weapons in your torso and you're trying to fire on a fast mech moving across your field of vision.

To fire accurately on it you normally have to track its movement for a second before firing.

I'm suggesting that there would be two stages of target tracking

1) gimbal tracking on the weapons themselves. This is normally what would allow convergence, etc but you're talking about a relatively small range of movement. Lets say 15 degrees

2) Torso movement for larger aim adjustment outside of the 15 degree range. This movement would expand your aim circle similar to movement in most FPS.

In essence you might get an accurate snap shot off at a light mech crossing zone 1, but if you need to turn to track it, your accuracy would naturally decrease.

Edited by TheRulesLawyer, 07 November 2011 - 02:08 PM.

[DFDelta]

Traverse time on the torso sounds good.

I'd go even further and seperate torso traverse time from arm movement.
Simply make arm movement faster then torso movement, and make both move simultaneously with 2 seperate crosshairs, one for the arms and one for the torso.

Example.
If I move my mouse sharply to the left both, the arms and the torso would start moving in this direction, but the crosshair for the arms would arrive at the "destination" earlier, allowing for much finer and faster aiming.

This would further aid to differatiate between mech designs, as it would be a huge difference now if the AC20 was on an arm and you have 2 SRM6 in the torso, or if it was the other way around.

[Tweaks]

TheRulesLawyer, on 07 November 2011 - 02:07 PM, said:

Lets pretend you have all your weapons in your torso and you're trying to fire on a fast mech moving across your field of vision.

To fire accurately on it you normally have to track its movement for a second before firing.

I'm suggesting that there would be two stages of target tracking

1) gimbal tracking on the weapons themselves. This is normally what would allow convergence, etc but you're talking about a relatively small range of movement. Lets say 15 degrees

2) Torso movement for larger aim adjustment outside of the 15 degree range. This movement would expand your aim circle similar to movement in most FPS.

In essence you might get an accurate snap shot off at a light mech crossing zone 1, but if you need to turn to track it, your accuracy would naturally decrease.

I see. Yes I completely agree with this. In addition, I would add a sort of WoT-style crosshair such as what is suggested here where the actual point where your weapons are aiming at is shown on a separate crosshair, while the point you're visually aiming at is represented by a different one. (i.e, one showing where your weapons would actually shoot, and the other showing where you want to shoot).

[TheRulesLawyer]

DFDelta, on 07 November 2011 - 02:09 PM, said:

Traverse time on the torso sounds good.

I'd go even further and seperate torso traverse time from arm movement.
Simply make arm movement faster then torso movement, and make both move simultaneously with 2 seperate crosshairs, one for the arms and one for the torso.

Example.
If I move my mouse sharply to the left both, the arms and the torso would start moving in this direction, but the crosshair for the arms would arrive at the "destination" earlier, allowing for much finer and faster aiming.

This would further aid to differatiate between mech designs, as it would be a huge difference now if the AC20 was on an arm and you have 2 SRM6 in the torso, or if it was the other way around.

Yah, the more I talk about it, the more I think we really need 3 cross hairs. one each arm and one for the torso. (What to do about leg mounted weapons?) Id say definitely faster tracking with the arms, but I'd make faster tracking = more aim circle expansion. Give arms a quicker shrink rate than torso weapons.

Edit- or just give arms a larger "gimbal" aim.

Edited by TheRulesLawyer, 07 November 2011 - 02:35 PM.

[Creel]

multiple targeting reticles is standard in the fluff. With that many moving parts not all of your weapons are always pointing at the same place. of course, they also have neuro-helmets and full cockpits with multiple control sticks, pedals, switches, buttons, and more blinky lights that an 80s arcade.

[Cake Bandit]

Creel, on 08 November 2011 - 08:28 AM, said:

multiple targeting reticles is standard in the fluff. With that many moving parts not all of your weapons are always pointing at the same place. of course, they also have neuro-helmets and full cockpits with multiple control sticks, pedals, switches, buttons, and more blinky lights that an 80s arcade.

I think it was MechWarrior 3, where your weapons all tracked to your mouse, if you looked far enough to either side it would stop tracking for your torso weapons, if you wen further, it would only be that side's arm. If you really wanted to bring all of your firepower to bear you had to make a conscious decision to turn your torso in that direction. I think they could do well with this set up with the addition of a variable firing cone like people are talking about. It would make getting in front of a mech a reasonably bad decision, and keep you from getting all twisted around and confused about where your legs are in the dense urban environments.

Edited by Cake Bandit, 08 November 2011 - 08:46 AM.

[Creel]

yeah, that was 3. I really liked that mechanic, but the traverse times could have been fractionally slower.

[Dihm]

Cake Bandit, on 08 November 2011 - 08:46 AM, said:

I think it was MechWarrior 3, where your weapons all tracked to your mouse, if you looked far enough to either side it would stop tracking for your torso weapons, if you wen further, it would only be that side's arm. If you really wanted to bring all of your firepower to bear you had to make a conscious decision to turn your torso in that direction. I think they could do well with this set up with the addition of a variable firing cone like people are talking about. It would make getting in front of a mech a reasonably bad decision, and keep you from getting all twisted around and confused about where your legs are in the dense urban environments.

I had totally forgotten about that system and how much I liked it!

Let's hope some version of this is implemented.

[Cake Bandit]

Creel, on 08 November 2011 - 09:00 AM, said:

yeah, that was 3. I really liked that mechanic, but the traverse times could have been fractionally slower.

Dihm, on 08 November 2011 - 09:19 AM, said:

I had totally forgotten about that system and how much I liked it!

Let's hope some version of this is implemented.

Me too, I really hope they look at the things that made the gameplay in the older games feel really solid. I also hope they have the foresight and good judgement to discard the portions that weren't good in favor of new mechanics.

[Orzorn]

I would love to see the ability to actually move your arms and other weapons with the reticule like in Mechwarrior 3 return. The only downside to that system is you are forced to use either 4 other keys for moving your torso (since your mouse now aims your weapons), or have a modifier key that changes your mouse to move your torso when pressed (they also had that in Mechwarrior 3, and it worked pretty well).

[Creel]

Orzorn, on 08 November 2011 - 11:23 AM, said:

I would love to see the ability to actually move your arms and other weapons with the reticule like in Mechwarrior 3 return. The only downside to that system is you are forced to use either 4 other keys for moving your torso (since your mouse now aims your weapons), or have a modifier key that changes your mouse to move your torso when pressed (they also had that in Mechwarrior 3, and it worked pretty well).

with keyboard/mouse I used up/down arrow for left/right torso twist, respectively, and left/right arrow for turning. (with the nostromo it was mapped the same way, but the arrow keys were mapped to the gamepad on the n52.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Orzorn, on 08 November 2011 - 11:23 AM, said:

I would love to see the ability to actually move your arms and other weapons with the reticule like in Mechwarrior 3 return. The only downside to that system is you are forced to use either 4 other keys for moving your torso (since your mouse now aims your weapons), or have a modifier key that changes your mouse to move your torso when pressed (they also had that in Mechwarrior 3, and it worked pretty well).

Not really you could just have the mouse move the torso still when it has to track outside of the gimbal area. Just create a toggle key if you want to prevent torso tracking.