67 replies to this topic

[Xandre Blackheart]

PANZERBUNNY, on 06 June 2012 - 07:52 PM, said:

Can someone translate this? Is this against JJ's?

Yes. He's comparing them to spoilers and spinning hubcaps on your Toyota Corolla.

[VoodooLou Kerensky]

Tyra, on 06 June 2012 - 01:51 AM, said:

DFA.

Yeeeaaaaahh!! Kill the Meat not the Mech!

[Waladil]

The main reason that JJs are underpowered and seem useless in a lot of games, esp MW4 (I haven't ever really used them in any MechWarrior game, but they ARE a godsend in MechCommander) is that the vertical motion is WAY TOO DAMN SLOW. Jump Jetting 'Mechs rise up gracefully into the air, hover for a few seconds, then slowly lower themselves to the ground.

I'm sorry, but that should be going WAY faster. On any Earth-weighted world, you'll be falling down at 9.8 m/s^2. That has two implications:
1, it's gonna be hard to hit. To illustrate this, go outside and throw a ball straight into the air, as hard as you can. Now try to slap it as it passes you on the way down. Not easy, right?
2. It's gonna hit HARD. Let's say your jumping 'Mech weighs in at 40 tons. And we'll assume that it gets one full second of free-fall. That's gonna hit with 350,000 newtons of force. We can assume that the legs of the jumping 'Mech are prepared to accept that huge amount of strain... especially if it uses an enemy 'Mech as a landing cushion. Now, that 'Mech's upper torso will most definitely not be prepared to accept the added 350,000 newtons and the 40 extra tons of weight and it would probably crush the innards into uselessness. Hence the DFA. (What's that? Your AC/20 fires 200mm shells? Well my jump jets fire a 10000mm 'Mech)

[Frostiken]

Jumpjets should vary depending on the weight of the chassis and how many they have.

A light mech with lots of jumpjets should be able to actually dodge around enemies to some degree. Even in MWLL you couldn't really dodge anything because while they were fairly fast (as they should be), there was a "feature" where when you hit the ground you'd be at 0 speed, and you couldn't turn or maneuver much during the jump.

So as a consequence, you could jump over someone, but you'd be behind them, both of you facing the wrong way, except now you're stationary with high heat and no jumpjets. It wasn't a big deal to wait for someone to jump and then just aim where they were going to land and alphastrike them in the ***.


I agree with the list earlier - very fast, very powerful-feeling, lots of shake, and maneuverable (based on chassis). I don't want to see a jumpjet-equipped Atlas flying around like a gundam, but lights and some mediums should be able to.

[ethnic minority]

I've DFA'd more than a few landpigs in my hunchback IIc in MW4 Mercs (Mektek).

Mind you JJ's don't have an entirely tactical-related purpose. It's also strategic in the sense that you'll be able to scale that wall or steep slope standing between you and the objectives, or climb a tall enough vantage point for recon/ambush purposes. In the mission servers, a lot of times, the attacking team's ability to take down the obj's was dependent on whether or not they had JJs.

[Insidious Johnson]

Infine, on 06 June 2012 - 01:10 AM, said:

It's because in those games terrain was quite meh. Still, JJs were useful for poptarting.

MWO looks like it will actually have terrain, and JJs will allow for said terrain abuse.

define 'terrain abuse'. Flogging bushes? Chaining spotted Al Gore's to pine trees? How can one poptart in first person only view? If you want to save the earth, hit what you are supposed to be shooting at rather than cursing a hill.

[HIemfire]

Ratzap, on 06 June 2012 - 02:53 AM, said:

A lot of this seems to stem from Mechwarrior games, I would disagree with that person saying TT valued them. On lights they let you keep a high mod on whilest getting close but conversely also made it harder to hit someone. Clearing bad terrain? Yeah sure for lighter mechs again but a JJ value of 3 isn't going to do you much good with cliffs and such.
That is the crux of the matter, using JJ in MW games had no impact on accuracy since that all came from the player. TT made using JJ less attractive since your to-hit went in the bin (+3).

I'd rather use run speed to get in the back of an opponent, torso twist means facing their back is irrelevant and if I want melee I sure as hell won't risk a kick (a light falling behind someone is a dead light) - punch has no pilot roll and can hit head.

None of the games based in the Battletech universe that have come out have, if I am remembering correctly, come all that close to emulating what jump jets can do on the table top. There is a reason that you get a +3 to your to hit role when using them. 1 jump jet will propell a Battlemech 30 meters (about 99') horizontaly and 6 meters ( about 20') vertically while enabling some controlled rotational mobility on the mech's vertical axis (can spin while moving) and adjusment of its movement vector in flight (can manuver a bit to get around obstructing objects), all this happens in 10 seconds or less. Jump Jets also are not limited to the direction of the mechs previous travel nor do they require momentum to get the most out of them.

Examples (take into account that a mech can flip 180 while shifting it's movement direction during a jump and that, for scale, an average human can cover running over flat ground a distance of roughly 145' (44 meters and some change) (I rounded to the closest 5' in my calculation) in ten seconds):

Example 1: Spider SDR-5V has a horizontal jump range of 240 meters ( just over 787 ft, two and 2/3 "American Football" fields would be a good close estimate), which it can clear from standing still into any direction while twisting in the air and slipping around a 20 story tall building at 48 meters (just over 157') above the ground.

Example 2: Urbanmech UM-R60 has a horizontal jump range of 60 meters (about 195') and has a jump height of 12 meters ( slightly under 40').

Example 3: Highlander HGN-733 has a horizontal jump range of 90 meters (about 295') and a jump height of 18 meters (a hair over 59')

That +3 to the dice role on TT make sense now? Imagine if we had that type of manuverability in a MechWarrior game.

Edited by HIemfire, 06 June 2012 - 09:44 PM.

[Teralitha]

Some like JJ, some dont. That is all..... carry on