71 replies to this topic

[H Seldon]

I PUG pretty much 100% of the time, and it seems like most people I drop with don't have it. Though had a match with a streakcat that had one. Funny thing, we both knew each other had one and we both stopped where we were at (opposite side of hill on tourmaline). It was probably 30 seconds we sat there not moving. He moved first and I won the duel but the streaks pretty much hit CT on my highlander and had me about cored. And no, I don't use PPC/gauss and poptart. Either dual AC/5's and 3xlg laser or lb 10-x and 3xlg pulse.

[LordDante]

only light mechs should be allowed to use it ! and make it a module like bap/ecm that takes up space in ur mech. and not this easy i see all da guys thing we have now

[Kommisar]

The Devs are going to do what the Devs are going to do; and I'm sure they don't need advice from some random guy in the forums. But, here are my ideas:

If we do wish to stick with a science basis for this puppy, then you have to stick with what these sensors actually pick up. Regardless of the actual means (there are many), they detect and record the acceleration of the ground on which the senor is mounted. From the measured acceleration, you can integrate to determine velocity and position. As many have mentioned, the problem here is that it is not directional. You could detect that the ground was moving; but not the direction or even distance. The only way you could calculate distance would be if you had a known source. By known, I mean you know how much energy was used to create the ground motion. That removes a variable and allows you to know distance. Otherwise, you would see the ground motion and not know if that was a small source close by or a big source further away.

This is not even touching on the fact that S (shear) and P (compression) wave behavior is directly effected by the material(s) they travel through. This is how my guys can use geophones to determine depth to bedrock at a site. And why you can only get a Site Class A or B for a structure under IBC if the foundations are within 10 feet of bedrock.

To fill in all those holes, you need an array of sensors. To pin-point a location, as most know, it takes 3. Remember solving series of equations in high school math and wondering: "When will anyone ever use this?" Here you go.

So, my favorite idea for seismic sensors would be to require a mech to go out and drop sensors on the map. You get three set up and you get read outs of movement inside the established triangle area. I really like this idea for a few reasons. One, it's not automatic. You have to commit effort to setting this up and it is risky. The more area you want to cover, the further apart your sensors need to be, the harder and longer it takes to set up. It gives a really good roll, though, for the faster mechs. Now, my Spider has something useful to do beyond harass, snipe or base rush. Finally, you can make those sensors destroyable. If a mech only carries X deploy-able sensors, then the enemy team can counter by taking out the dropped sensors. Yet another role for the fast guys.

This sort of set up creates game play. Creates a parallel conflict to the rest of the battle for information supremacy.

The above version takes more coding to get working. What we have now is a simple set up. So, I'm not sure how much effort the Devs have available to code and test such a system.

To fix what we have now, the first thing I would do is make it so it only works if you are standing still. Otherwise, the motion of your own mech will be throwing off sensors. These things are motion sensitive. Maybe in the future someone has a system that can monitor the motions of the mech (maybe using the gyro) and be able to compensate for them in close to real time. It would have to be one heck of a system though!!!

The other fix would be to set it up that it detects that something has moved inside 400 meters of your mech that is not "known". Known being a friendly mech which we will assume the computer system can use IFF and such to filter out. No pin-point location; not even a distance. Just a warning light that something is within sensor range. It would be an early warning system; useful, but not decisive.

[Eleshod]

Hell yes Kommisar I fully and 100% support this. Then my raven can ACTUALLY do some recon and support, instead of getting oneshotted through a leg by the massive Alpha currently in game.

I fully support the idea of dropable sensors... Hell Hawken has it, it's not that hard to code. Do it!

[Dremnon]

I bought this in a heartbeat for my D-DC when it came out, noticed a huge difference in terms of being able to communicate with my team where enemy was and I've been winning much more than I've been losing. That being said, I do believe it is a little OP, and if brawling ever comes back to the META, would be extremely OP. In the short term, I think it should remain with maybe some of the following changes:

- Price it to be more than the 6 million it currently is, doesn't change anything except maybe make someone think if they really want to spend that kind of C-Bills on something that may/may not get nerfed in the future:

- Max range goes to 270m instead of 400m.

- Increase range the max range of UAV to about 600m (because let's be honest, UAV is useless with the current range it gives right now and the fact it doesn't last more than 60 seconds and it can be shot down).

I really like the idea of this, but it definitely needs to be fine tuned a bit.

[Eleshod]

Dremnon, on 31 May 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

I bought this in a heartbeat for my D-DC when it came out, noticed a huge difference in terms of being able to communicate with my team where enemy was and I've been winning much more than I've been losing. That being said, I do believe it is a little OP, and if brawling ever comes back to the META, would be extremely OP. In the short term, I think it should remain with maybe some of the following changes:

- Price it to be more than the 6 million it currently is, doesn't change anything except maybe make someone think if they really want to spend that kind of C-Bills on something that may/may not get nerfed in the future:

- Max range goes to 270m instead of 400m.

- Increase range the max range of UAV to about 600m (because let's be honest, UAV is useless with the current range it gives right now and the fact it doesn't last more than 60 seconds and it can be shot down).

I really like the idea of this, but it definitely needs to be fine tuned a bit.

I beg to differ, unless you are standing at the back of the map and the UAV goes up in the center it is impossible to shoot down, I attempted it with my stalker, cataphract and raven, all three could NEVER hope to aim up sharp enough to beak that 150 it sits above the head without dashing back about 3 to 400 meters to get a decent angle. So you simply drop it over the heads of the enemy team.

Infact around 25 matches or so using the UAV and i've never had one shot down.

[ArcDemon]

Eleshod, on 31 May 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

I beg to differ, unless you are standing at the back of the map and the UAV goes up in the center it is impossible to shoot down, I attempted it with my stalker, cataphract and raven, all three could NEVER hope to aim up sharp enough to beak that 150 it sits above the head without dashing back about 3 to 400 meters to get a decent angle. So you simply drop it over the heads of the enemy team.

Infact around 25 matches or so using the UAV and i've never had one shot down.

I've seen it shot down, streaks seem to do the job (though it looks very strange with the missiles flying almost straight up, I thought there was a glitch until I saw they where going at a UAV).

[Sephlock]

ArcDemon, on 31 May 2013 - 07:53 PM, said:

I've seen it shot down, streaks seem to do the job (though it looks very strange with the missiles flying almost straight up, I thought there was a glitch until I saw they where going at a UAV).

OMG YES! STREAKS WITH THE ORIGINAL ARTEMIS FIRING ARC!

[Hammertrial]

Eleshod, on 31 May 2013 - 07:36 AM, said:

I beg to differ, unless you are standing at the back of the map and the UAV goes up in the center it is impossible to shoot down, I attempted it with my stalker, cataphract and raven, all three could NEVER hope to aim up sharp enough to beak that 150 it sits above the head without dashing back about 3 to 400 meters to get a decent angle. So you simply drop it over the heads of the enemy team.

Infact around 25 matches or so using the UAV and i've never had one shot down.

UAV also costs 40k a match, an equal investment GXP wise to seismic, and is absolute crap compared to godmode sensor as it's completely stationary and requires great risk on the part of the user to even get near the enemy to use it, as they are all using the godmode sensor that you need to get within in order to use the UAV

[CarpetShark]

Mizore, on 30 May 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

Well the point is, because of seismic sensors you aren't even able to get in someones back without beeing seen on the minimap, so in many cases they engage you before you even could shoot them in the back, that's the problem!

There were so many tactical sneaking manouvers that aren't simply possible anymore because of seismic sensors... this module is way to good as it is at the moment.

Complete and utter nonsense. I still sneak up on plenty of people, even those equipping seismics. Target fixation is very useful.

I simply cannot agree that the module is overpowered. Everyone has access to it. Anyone can choose to equip it. And claiming that finally having a way to see into a huge, obvious, tactically ridiculous blind spot (since a simple damn rear-view mirror is apparently -- and stupidly -- lostech) is worth rivers and oceans of tears is laughable at best.

[Sephlock]

I can see the intel value of knowing when an enemy strike force is coming through certain spots on certain maps- but frankly, if your team is coordinated enough to listen to warnings and such, they would probably be coordinated enough to turn around and engage... at most, seismic is allowing us to compensate for the lack of voice chat (because its hard to type "OMGWTF THEY CAME THROUGH THE TUNNEL OH SWEET BABY JESUS THEY'RE ALPHA STRIKING ME HELP HELP I'M BEING REPRESSED!" while at the same time trying to run and fight an entire team.)

Likewise, of course it will be a lifesaver if it stops you from rounding a corner into the entire enemy team.

What I take issue with is how some people are portraying it as some sort of lifesaving feature in situations where IF ONLY THAT DARNED SEISMIC MODULE WASNT EQUIPPED they could sneak up on and easily kill this one guy like Sam Fisher taking out a mook in Splinter Cell. That doesn't happen in this game, except with a 4x ultra autocannon Jagermech, and even then you have to pray you don't jam up.

Edited by Sephlock, 31 May 2013 - 09:05 PM.

[CarpetShark]

Kommisar, on 30 May 2013 - 04:10 PM, said:

I have some ideas on how to adjust this puppy. Then again, I actually know (professionally - degrees in geology and civil engineering) a good deal about geophysics and the like. So, right from get go I see inherent issues with how this system works at all. Perhaps tomorrow I'll type up a few ideas.

Start with how it's possible at all for a 90 ton robot to run bipedally at 70 kph and turn a corner without slowing down. Or any of the other physically impossible ballet moves our stompy fantasy steeds can do.

And I cannot wait to see your explanation for how a missile rack in an arm can fully reload in three seconds from a stockpile in a leg, each missile having to travel 45 or so meters and traverse four articulated joints and the power plant to do so.

The game is fantasy more than science fiction. Once you've swallowed the base premise, it's silly to argue too hard from the basis of physics.

[Red squirrel]

jakucha, on 30 May 2013 - 11:30 AM, said:

On an unrelated note, this whole time I've been mistakenly reading your name as "Colonel Panda Vision". It was only from the match we just played that I noticed it wasn't that.

Exactly the same here
I was actually a bit sad when I found out that there is no "Panda Vision"^TM in MWO only heat, night, and seismic sensors.

[Mr 144]

While I agree that Advanced Seismic has had a huge impact on gameplay, I'm not so sure it's a bad thing tactically. It fundamentally kills the blob. Real tactics such as setting up crossfires..pincer movements...etc. now can be used to great effect. Good matches with split movement are now not only possible, but prefered to the blob due to seismic.

Because Seismic does not grant anything other than ping blips...it's actually easy to use as subterfuge. Three Mechs behind visual cover can fool the enemy into thinking there are more by constantly pacing and jinking in erratic patterns. Similarily, A pair of erratic mechs can give the impresion of full team movement if the remaining mechs stand still in ambush. There's plenty of tactical uses for it on both sides of the engagement.

I've used these tricks before to great effect. An Alpine match comes to mind where my Highlander (pop+4xSSRMs), an Atlas D-DC with ECM, and a Jager held a ridge against an entire team teasing the 400m range. We consantly repositioned using erratic movement and taking pot shots from multiple angles to appear both visually, and Seismically. The enemy team 'had' us in a compromised, unsupported postion, but Seismic gave them enough pause for a pair of ours (BJ&Jenner) to tap there base...drawing a pair back...and a lone fast heavy (dragon) to draw off a stalker right through our LoS...again, the enmy bit on Seismic. With 2 occupied by Cap threat...the stalker picked off quickly and one more confused and caught out of FF range, we had our 3v3 and cleaned house. This was a great match using tactics and information warfare with a mixed drop composition. Seismic was used defensively more than offensively. We won because we fooled there false situational awareness gained from Seismic.

Mr 144

Edited by Mr 144, 31 May 2013 - 09:40 PM.

[Mizore]

Sephlock, on 31 May 2013 - 09:05 PM, said:

What I take issue with is how some people are portraying it as some sort of lifesaving feature in situations where IF ONLY THAT DARNED SEISMIC MODULE WASNT EQUIPPED they could sneak up on and easily kill this one guy like Sam Fisher taking out a mook in Splinter Cell. That doesn't happen in this game, except with a 4x ultra autocannon Jagermech, and even then you have to pray you don't jam up.

Well, you're missinterpreting this... sneaking behind the enemy is not to easy kill one guy in an instant, it's more to get rid of their rear armor and thus to create a major distraction which your team can use as a advantage to start a charge.
Now with seismic sensors this is just not possible anymore, because they now know that you're sneaking around before you can shoot and all you get as a reward is a nice alphastrike to your face :/

It's not only a lifesaving feature, it's also a major disadvantage to all harassers and scouts trying to do their job, because it's impossible to counter... the only possibility is to stay outside of the 400m range, and that's not really easy on smaller maps.

Edited by Mizore, 01 June 2013 - 02:25 AM.

[Galenit]

Mizore, on 01 June 2013 - 02:20 AM, said:

... the only possibility is to stay outside of the 400m range, and that's not really easy on smaller maps.

400m is to much.
It should be 270m,
no sneakstreak but mls can be used effective.

[Gelion]

Seismic does make it difficult for the brawler, and the change for different ranges for different size mechs would be a simple QoL change that the vast majority of people would support. Yes it can be duped, but this needs greater communication than can be had in the average pug game.

[Ralgas]

Sephlock, on 31 May 2013 - 09:05 PM, said:

I can see the intel value of knowing when an enemy strike force is coming through certain spots on certain maps- but frankly, if your team is coordinated enough to listen to warnings and such, they would probably be coordinated enough to turn around and engage... at most, seismic is allowing us to compensate for the lack of voice chat (because its hard to type "OMGWTF THEY CAME THROUGH THE TUNNEL OH SWEET BABY JESUS THEY'RE ALPHA STRIKING ME HELP HELP I'M BEING REPRESSED!" while at the same time trying to run and fight an entire team.)

Likewise, of course it will be a lifesaver if it stops you from rounding a corner into the entire enemy team.

What I take issue with is how some people are portraying it as some sort of lifesaving feature in situations where IF ONLY THAT DARNED SEISMIC MODULE WASNT EQUIPPED they could sneak up on and easily kill this one guy like Sam Fisher taking out a mook in Splinter Cell. That doesn't happen in this game, except with a 4x ultra autocannon Jagermech, and even then you have to pray you don't jam up.

ac/40's and a1's beg to differ (although they are pretty tame after the last few balances affecting them) what it's more about is lights cant hide and seek any more at all which pretty much destroys thier primary playstyle on anything larger than them. Tbh i only have pity for that group as it's too easy to hunt them now

[Mizore]

Yeah, that's another important point, you can't hide anymore while trying to escape... even with ECM you've really bad chances to escape because they can see whereever you'll run and intercept you.
It's just another indirect counter to ECM!

[Kommisar]

CarpetShark, on 31 May 2013 - 09:17 PM, said:

Start with how it's possible at all for a 90 ton robot to run bipedally at 70 kph and turn a corner without slowing down. Or any of the other physically impossible ballet moves our stompy fantasy steeds can do.

And I cannot wait to see your explanation for how a missile rack in an arm can fully reload in three seconds from a stockpile in a leg, each missile having to travel 45 or so meters and traverse four articulated joints and the power plant to do so.

The game is fantasy more than science fiction. Once you've swallowed the base premise, it's silly to argue too hard from the basis of physics.

Nope. Never pretended that this game was anything but sci-fi magic. Hence why I didn't go into the full on physics and such. Or propose an idea based on it. My idea, if you even read it, was based on improving game play. Engineering and Science be damned!!!