173 replies to this topic

[Tennex]

Due to arm angles.



The orion's arm angles are at a 45* which would make it difficult for them to implement horizontal arm targeting.
In game mechs more or less all have arms at 90* to the ground

Spoiler

The same thing happened with the hunchback: the image below has hunchback's arms at a 45% angle. however, the current model of the hunchback has arms at 90* angle. they had to go back and readjust hunchback's arms.






I hope they are spending the extra time figuring out a way to code for obliquely placed arms. and not remodeling the orion to have 90* arms. cuz it looks cool like that in the concept art.

One of the posters mentioned that the method for doing this is called linear interpolation. Maybe its time to look into that.

a way to code these 2 joints to work like a ball socket joint. It would definately be important for current and future mechs with oblique arms (since it would be boring if all mechs had 90* arms)

Spoiler

Edited by Tennex, 07 June 2013 - 05:15 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

man I gotta say that they made the old ugly Hunchy dead sexy.......

huh.. wait you were saying something about Orions.....?

[FupDup]

Tennex, on 04 June 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

The same thing happened with the hunchback: the image below has hunchback's arms at a 45% angle. however, the current model of the hunchback has arms at 90* angle. they had to go back and readjust hunchback's arms.

Hopefully the Orion doesn't end up like this:


I had trouble trying to make the right arm. I ended up copying the left arm (because the right arm was cut off by the AC/10 in the right torso) and trying to flip it various ways to make it look like the right arm but it's still pretty screwed up. I'm not very good at GIMP. :\

Edited by FupDup, 04 June 2013 - 07:47 PM.

[Deathlike]

Chances are that someone accidentally called it an Onion and tears were shed.

[OpCentar]

I don't think that was the reason, they knew about that problem from the start and the Orion was announced ages ago. Plenty of time to fix the mech models if they needed to.


And given the choice of waiting another 3-4 months or playing the modified Orion model, I would choose to play the damn mech however bad it looked.

[One Medic Army]

Looks like it might have a case of what the Cataphract had: arm+torso gun clipping issues.

[Tennex]

i don't see why they dn't just put a ball joint at the end of its elbows. bam problem solved.

[Vorkash]

I really don't like the look of the Orion, pretty much the only one I don't like. I just don't feel it fits in aesthetically with the other designs. I hope the delay is a total redesign.

[SgtMagor]

was thinking the same thing about the Big O, it looked out of place compared to the rest of the mech stable.

[FiveDigits]

Here you go. Semi-official explanation:

I asked on Twitter:

Quote

@bryanekman What was the reason to push back the Orion several months? Many in the community were really looking forward to it.

His response:

Quote

@frosenberger the Quickdraw offered more to the meta game at this point, so we pushed it up a cycle.

[Padic]

FiveDigits, on 05 June 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

Here you go. Semi-official explanation:

I asked on Twitter:


His response:

This rings true to me. I suspect that they have a "surprisingly large" number of mechs that are more-or-less complete. They don't release them all at once because they don't want to subject us to inconsistent periods of getting lots of mechs and getting no mechs at all - much like how web cartoonists often have a big buffer of comics drawn, but continue to release them on their pre-defined schedule.

The Orion, although cool, is basically just a little Atlas/optimized Cataphract. I can see the desire to put a more interesting (if less popular) mech earlier in the lineup.

Additionally - they probably suspect that the Orion will be popular and well received. They probably don't want to drop it too shortly after the popular, well received Highlander and Jagermech. You need to temper your safe bets (Orion) with your daring experiments (Blackjack, Quickdraw).

I suspect it was a good decision, in the long run.

[Finn McShae]

So they wanted another energy/missile poptart instead of a solid, all ranges, trooper? That sucks.

Vorkash, on 05 June 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

I really don't like the look of the Orion, pretty much the only one I don't like. I just don't feel it fits in aesthetically with the other designs. I hope the delay is a total redesign.

I have the opposite opinion, I REALLY like how they spiffed up my favorite chassis and don't want a thing changed. The one thing that worried(s) me is assuming they have multiple hardpoints in the arms, how they are going to handle multiple weapons on that cylindar shaped arm.

[Shumabot]

Can we get a change in title or a thread deletion since that actual reason was tweeted (despite it being kinda nonsense)?

[Zieten]

Padic, on 05 June 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

The Orion, although cool, is basically just a little Atlas/optimized Cataphract. I can see the desire to put a more interesting (if less popular) mech earlier in the lineup.

and the Quickdraw is basicly a 10 ton heavier Trenchbucket. I'm still baffled that they decided to take one of the worst mechs the 3025 TRO had to offer (and it had quite a few of those) and bring it into the game so early.

[Bryan Ekman]

Completely untrue. lol. We wanted to more variety to the mech meta game, so we changed it up a bit. The order in which mechs are announced will not always be the order in which they are released.

[FupDup]

FiveDigits, on 05 June 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

Here you go. Semi-official explanation:

I asked on Twitter:


His response:

Yup, so much to offer. Replacing the Dragon and possibly the Trebuchet. If it has enough missile hardpoints, it might even be able to replace the Streakcat.

Bryan Ekman, on 05 June 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Completely untrue. lol. We wanted to more variety to the mech meta game, so we changed it up a bit. The order in which mechs are announced will not always be the order in which they are released.

We already have fast missile-mechs near 60 tons, though (Treb and sorta Catapult). Really, the Orion fills a new weight interval of 75 tons and has a much more "balanced" hardpoint layout than the other heavies (Catapult is mostly missiles/lasers, Cataphract is direct fire, Dragon has the hardpoints but not the tonnage to make use of them).

Edited by FupDup, 05 June 2013 - 08:34 AM.

[Padic]

Zieten, on 05 June 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

and the Quickdraw is basicly a 10 ton heavier Trenchbucket. I'm still baffled that they decided to take one of the worst mechs the 3025 TRO had to offer (and it had quite a few of those) and bring it into the game so early.

I like the Trebuchet! I'm more confused about where the Quickdraw variants are going to come from. Sarna leads me to believe they all basically have the same weapon load out as each other? Aside from juggling whether the weapons are forward facing or in the rear arc?

[Xeno Phalcon]

So in a nutshell as LRMS/SRMS suck right now they took the other white meat and ppced up a quickderp, gotcha.

[Finn McShae]

Yeah, I'm not seeing how the quickdraw adds any variety, it basically fits the current meta pretty well. I guess I'll just keep on grinding the CBILLs for a Victor or something. I for sure am not going to buy any quickdraws or fleas.

Might be a good time to take a break for a few months after I master my Jagers.

[Shumabot]

Bryan Ekman, on 05 June 2013 - 08:31 AM, said:

Completely untrue. lol. We wanted to more variety to the mech meta game, so we changed it up a bit. The order in which mechs are announced will not always be the order in which they are released.

In what capacity does releasing a mech with a hardpoint layout already duplicated in its own weight class, and which shares an exact weight with another mech, bring more variety than a mech with a relatively weight-unique weapon layout and unique total weight?

A energy/missile boat a smidge lighter than the catapult and a smidge heavier than the trebuchet with jump jets (shared by both of those) doesn't bring a whole lot to the meta games table.

Also, where's the art for it? What's the point of art releases and previews if you're just going to skip them on short notice?

Edited by Shumabot, 05 June 2013 - 08:40 AM.