378 replies to this topic

[Adridos]

Garth Erlam, on 24 April 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

Anyway though, the Hunch and Treb aren't that dissimilar in size.

Hyperbole always helps prove a point, you know...

[DaZur]

I think one of the problems that exacerbates the premise of the Mechs not being scaled correctly is a lot of players are using their eye-point (pilots perspective) as reference to qualify scale.

I'm pretty sure the POV positioning is more inaccurate that the actually scale of the Mechs.

[Atheus]

Garth Erlam, on 24 April 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

I am looking at them side by side, and the Hunchback is certainly not 2/3rd the size of a Trebuchet. I noticed a similar thing when I compared the Cicada to the Jenner - the Jenner though has a lower cockpit, whereas the Cicada has a VERY high cockpit. They're only 2 metres different in height, I believe.

Anyway though, the Hunch and Treb aren't that dissimilar in size.

Instead of all these visual estimations, could a dev please just select the models in Maya and type computePolysetVolume (you may need to close up any openings before doing so) and let us know what numbers pop up on the status line? Their volumes should be controlled relative to their mass, if mass is indeed the basis of a mech's capacity. The community can't calculate these things, but if the volumes of these mechs are indeed equal there's nothing to debate.

That said, the more spherical in shape a mech is the greater the volume to silhouette ratio. The thing to debate would just be the pros and cons of various mech shapes.

The quote posted earlier of Dennis DeKoning seems to go back and forth on the relevance of density - in the beginning he says a catapult's missile boxes are mostly empty space don't weigh that much (why would anyone designing a combat machine put uselessly big empty boxes on them, or do those missile boxes somehow weigh less than arms typically weigh?), but later quotes himself saying (in a rather confused-looking statement) that mechs are all generally made of the same stuff and should have equal density. All this just leads me to believe that eventually he just tossed out the idea of using mass / density and pulled numbers out of his *** to determine scale.

Edited by Atheus, 24 April 2013 - 12:47 PM.

[Tennex]

s5134195, on 24 April 2013 - 09:46 AM, said:

This may or may not convince everyone that my decisions are correct, but a call has to be made, and I made it. The rest of the 'Mechs' scales are determined as we go, are based on every one before it and are discussed thoroughly between Alex (concept), Evan & Kris (modelers) and myself."

well ****. that means at this rate, all subsequent medium mechs will be fairly large. the blackjack will probably be huge like the trebie

Atheus, on 24 April 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

The quote posted earlier of Dennis DeKoning seems to go back and forth on the relevance of density - in the beginning he says a catapult's missile boxes are mostly empty space don't weigh that much (why would anyone designing a combat machine put uselessly big empty boxes on them, or do those missile boxes somehow weigh less than arms typically weigh?), but later quotes himself saying (in a rather confused-looking statement) that mechs are all generally made of the same stuff and should have equal density. All this just leads me to believe that eventually he just tossed out the idea of using mass / density and pulled numbers out of his *** to determine scale.

the talk of density and mass are just bandaid excuses for the decision that he's "standing by"

if anyone's taken basic physics they'd know those are not relevant arguments.

Edited by Tennex, 24 April 2013 - 12:50 PM.

[Adridos]

Atheus, on 24 April 2013 - 11:58 AM, said:

Instead of all these visual estimations, could a dev please just select the models in Maya and type computePolysetVolume (you may need to close up any openings before doing so) and let us know what numbers pop up on the status line?

The models I pulled from the gamefiles give me these values (I rooted them to 3 decimals):

Hunchback: 167.772
Centurion: 168.691

To be fair, the result supried even me, but it's nice to know I wasn't pulling arguments out of thin air.

[Atheus]

Adridos, on 24 April 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

The models I pulled from the gamefiles give me these values (I rooted them to 3 decimals):

Hunchback: 167.772
Centurion: 168.691

To be fair, the result supried even me, but it's nice to know I wasn't pulling arguments out of thin air.

Cool, I actually figured those two wouldn't be all that different, since the primary difference is the length of their legs (the trebuchet has even longer legs). I'd love to see the volume of the whole set - particularly the Jenner vs. Cicada.

Also - I'd love to know what tool you're using to unpack the .pak files. I started looking around a little but downloading apps from unknown sources tends to make me nervous.

edit: Never mind, I just noticed that 7-Zip handles the .pak files, and CryENGINE 3 Free SDK handles the rest.

Edited by Atheus, 24 April 2013 - 02:34 PM.

[Keifomofutu]

Garth Erlam, on 24 April 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

I am looking at them side by side, and the Hunchback is certainly not 2/3rd the size of a Trebuchet. I noticed a similar thing when I compared the Cicada to the Jenner - the Jenner though has a lower cockpit, whereas the Cicada has a VERY high cockpit. They're only 2 metres different in height, I believe.

Anyway though, the Hunch and Treb aren't that dissimilar in size.

No its not. However treb is 1/3 taller and somewhat wider. Hunchback has a much more cubical shape compared to cent and treb that are taller and much wider in cent's case. Volume isn't actually important. How easy you get hit from the front is. I'd like to see someone argue that hunchback isn't the hardest to hit in combat. Cataphract and Centurion have virtually the same frontal profile. Why do people wonder why mediums are struggling? The answer is obvious.

Basically what would be harder to shoot at? A perfect cube of volume 100 or a rectangle of volume 100 twice as tall as that cube and half as thick?

Edited by Keifomofutu, 24 April 2013 - 04:44 PM.

[Atheus]

Keifomofutu, on 24 April 2013 - 04:42 PM, said:

No its not. However treb is 1/3 taller and somewhat wider. Hunchback has a much more cubical shape compared to cent and treb that are taller and much wider in cent's case. Volume isn't actually important. How easy you get hit from the front is. I'd like to see someone argue that hunchback isn't the hardest to hit in combat. Cataphract and Centurion have virtually the same frontal profile. Why do people wonder why mediums are struggling? The answer is obvious.

Basically what would be harder to shoot at? A perfect cube of volume 100 or a rectangle of volume 100 twice as tall as that cube and half as thick?

ok so first - what's harder to shoot at between a perfect cube, or a block half as (deep) and twice as tall - naturally that depends on whether you're in front of it, beside it or above it. Somewhere between twice as hard, and half as hard? For every pro, there is a con, if the volumes are equal. Granted, it's quite uncommon to be shooting at a mech from above.

The different torso shapes certainly aren't equally hard to hit from all angles, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The more you strive to make every mech equal in terms of its silhouette from every angle, the more mechs just turn into spheres. Eventually you've got MWO: Super Monkey Ball edition. Well, maybe not that far, but that's the direction you're headed.

I'm glad that some mechs are short and fat, and some are tall and skinny, and some have broad shoulders with tiny waists, some are long nosed and harder to hit when they're looking at you, but very easy to hit from the flank. That kind of variety is good for the game, I would estimate. The variety that would not be good, though, is if the volume of mechs are not proportional to their masses. That's the point at which things are no longer cool. Certainly, you could go too far, like say, a mech that's 1m deep, but 40m tall and 40m wide with holes like a slice of swiss cheese, but I don't think there are any mechs like that.

Edited by Atheus, 24 April 2013 - 05:04 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Atheus, on 24 April 2013 - 05:01 PM, said:

ok so first - what's harder to shoot at between a perfect cube, or a block half as (deep) and twice as tall - naturally that depends on whether you're in front of it, beside it or above it. Somewhere between twice as hard, and half as hard? For every pro, there is a con, if the volumes are equal. Granted, it's quite uncommon to be shooting at a mech from above.

The different torso shapes certainly aren't equally hard to hit from all angles, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The more you strive to make every mech equal in terms of its silhouette from every angle, the more mechs just turn into spheres. Eventually you've got MWO: Super Monkey Ball edition. Well, maybe not that far, but that's the direction you're headed.

I'm glad that some mechs are short and fat, and some are tall and skinny, and some have broad shoulders with tiny waists, some are long nosed and harder to hit when they're looking at you, but very easy to hit from the flank. That kind of variety is good for the game, I would estimate. The variety that would not be good, though, is if the volume of mechs are not proportional to their masses. That's the point at which things are no longer cool. Certainly, you could go too far, like say, a mech that's 1m deep, but 40m tall and 40m wide with holes like a slice of swiss cheese, but I don't think there are any mechs like that.

Kindly relook at the Cryengine Rips from Adridos.


In particular the Cent/Hunch and the Cataphract/Catapult.

Adridos, on 24 April 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

Hyperbole always helps prove a point, you know...

Always seems to work for the Devs... 3 seconds to core out an Atlas with a Jenner due to "true" DHS, 6 MG Spiders......

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 24 April 2013 - 05:15 PM.

[Keifomofutu]

Atheus, on 24 April 2013 - 05:01 PM, said:

ok so first - what's harder to shoot at between a perfect cube, or a block half as (deep) and twice as tall - naturally that depends on whether you're in front of it, beside it or above it. Somewhere between twice as hard, and half as hard? For every pro, there is a con, if the volumes are equal. Granted, it's quite uncommon to be shooting at a mech from above.

The different torso shapes certainly aren't equally hard to hit from all angles, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The more you strive to make every mech equal in terms of its silhouette from every angle, the more mechs just turn into spheres. Eventually you've got MWO: Super Monkey Ball edition. Well, maybe not that far, but that's the direction you're headed.

I'm glad that some mechs are short and fat, and some are tall and skinny, and some have broad shoulders with tiny waists, some are long nosed and harder to hit when they're looking at you, but very easy to hit from the flank. That kind of variety is good for the game, I would estimate. The variety that would not be good, though, is if the volume of mechs are not proportional to their masses. That's the point at which things are no longer cool. Certainly, you could go too far, like say, a mech that's 1m deep, but 40m tall and 40m wide with holes like a slice of swiss cheese, but I don't think there are any mechs like that.

Cube always has guns on the front. So which aspect of profile is most important?

This is exactly what trebuchet suffers from. It's incredibly tall and wide for its volume, but only because its built like a gingerbread man. Its been squashed.

But he can't shoot at you while standing sideways so you'll always have access to that massive frontal profile.

Edited by Keifomofutu, 24 April 2013 - 05:21 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Also remove the AC/20 from the Hunch and the AC/10 Right arm of the Cent, and recalculate those Polygons. Am willing to bet the disparity grows out of proportion to the 2 ton differential.

[Zakie Chan]

Ideally all mediums would be scaled down... They really could use any edge available in the current alpha meta flip-flop. 1 Srm Cat can alpha a cent (pre patch). 6PPC, ac40, 3PPC/Gauss, LRM80s (pre patch)...

Im working twice as hard as the next guy to take out enemies and stay alive till my weapons are in range. But then again I am having twice as much fun so...

[Keifomofutu]

Zakie Chan, on 24 April 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

Ideally all mediums would be scaled down... They really could use any edge available in the current alpha meta flip-flop. 1 Srm Cat can alpha a cent (pre patch). 6PPC, ac40, 3PPC/Gauss, LRM80s (pre patch)...

Im working twice as hard as the next guy to take out enemies and stay alive till my weapons are in range. But then again I am having twice as much fun so...

I'd be curious to see the volume of something like commando compared to atlas. Commando should have 25% of atlas volume if they were being purely realistic with the volume to weight ratio. But I'm fairly certain the lights have been scaled down to be extra small. And frankly that was a very good design decision. A similar design decision needs to be applied to the mediums. Maybe not to the same extent, but something.

[Atheus]

Bishop Steiner, on 24 April 2013 - 05:15 PM, said:

Kindly relook at the Cryengine Rips from Adridos.


In particular the Cent/Hunch and the Cataphract/Catapult.

Yep, I see it. How many times have you sent a PPC through that little gap between the arms of a cent and its waist? I'm sure I've sent a few. Another anecdotal item is I often hear people in TS comment on how hard cents are to kill, since they zombie forever. There are various reasons for that, not the least of which is the fact that damage is reduced by 50% each time it passes to another mech component, but also because the Centurion's arms tend to get blown off - meaning people spend a lot of heat and time hitting those non-vital parts of that big, wide target you're talking about.

Different mechs of the same weight are going to have different heights. The Centurion's legs are 25% longer than the Hunchback's legs, and a touch skinnier. Maybe that makes the centurion a little better for controlling a territory, since it can see further, and shoot over obstacles the hunchback sometimes can't, but that does indeed make it worse for the role of infiltration where the best thing you can be is short and compact. It's fine that they're different, so long as they aren't arbitrarily and pointlessly scaled with no regard to their mass. They have the same volume, so it makes perfect sense.

That's not to say that I'm not suspicious that the volume of various other mechs deviate from that proportion to their mass, but I'm content that the centurion and hunchback are close enough that it's acceptable. My guess is that the catapult/cataphract are pretty close to appropriately scaled relative to one another as well.

Edited by Atheus, 24 April 2013 - 07:21 PM.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

They should and then charge MC to get the new models

[Adridos]

Zakie Chan, on 24 April 2013 - 05:59 PM, said:

Ideally all mediums would be scaled down... They really could use any edge available in the current alpha meta flip-flop.

The simple fact of the design philosophy of fully customisable mechs that win only by killing the other guy makes mediums obsolete no matter the size.

The thing is, you have lights which are high speed, low weapons, assaults which are high weapons low speed and heavies which are the happy medium in between those two. That's the simple 3 way balance each and every game maker uses.

However, BTech also has the 4th class. A class it makes viable by BV, accesibilty (additional value based on rareness) and C-Bill ratings (If you are a merc with set amout of cash, considering an Atlas with escort versus a Mad Cat is always on the table).

What this game does, however, is that it allows the heavies to make up for their weaknesses like speed or armor in the case of higher DPS-ers (Jager and Catapult). This makes them a gaming ideal of a machine. Tonnage of mediums doesn't allow for the same luxury.

Basically, without some more restrictions imposed by the devs or players themselves (like what we saw with the tournament where many people had to take Cents), mediums will always be just a machine you use for fun, but put aside when you really need/want to win.


P.S. I'm posting from school, so I can't do that volume thing for all mechs right now.

[Adridos]

Ok, here's the complete figure for all the cubic volume of mech models (the ones I've had to create myself are underlined, since they are not the model game uses and may contain inaccuracies):

Jenner = 87.442
Commando = 70.8
Spider = 117.391
Raven = 52.732
Cicada = 156.974
Hunchback = 167.772
Centurion = 168.691
Dragon = 237.584
Trebuchet = 254.322
Jagermech = 253.686
Cataphract = 584.564
Catapult = 522.007
Awesome = 417.463
Stalker = 484.584
Atlas = 445.107

They are sorted out by their height from the lowest to the highest.

[Tennex]

Adridos, on 25 April 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Ok, here's the complete figure for all the cubic volume of mech models (the ones I've had to create myself are underlined, since they are not the model game uses and may contain inaccuracies):

Jenner = 87.442
Commando = 70.8
Spider = 117.391
Raven = 52.732
Cicada = 156.974
Hunchback = 167.772
Centurion = 168.691
Dragon = 237.584
Trebuchet = 254.322
Jagermech = 253.686
Cataphract = 584.564
Catapult = 522.007
Awesome = 417.463
Stalker = 484.584
Atlas = 445.107

They are sorted out by their height from the lowest to the highest.

that is all sorts of weird

[Adridos]

Tennex, on 25 April 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

that is all sorts of weird

Holes in models, quality of each model (how much stuff is represented on the model and how much is just a bumpmap), etc. all have a hand in those numbers.

[LordBraxton]

Neolisk, on 23 April 2013 - 05:07 PM, said:

Stalker does not have arm actuators - this is a major drawback from the other chassis you mentioned.

It does not need more nerfing.

MORE nerfing? when was it nerfed?

Stalker has been premier weapon boat since day 1 of its release, now that boating is all the META revolves around...

So now the Stalker is the premier mech!

Edited by LordBraxton, 25 April 2013 - 07:07 AM.