11 replies to this topic

[Angel of Annihilation]

For the most part I have found the movement change to be a good change that adds realism however it has brought a characteristic of jump jets to the front I wasn't even aware of and it is a real problem.

I had thought that engaging you jump jets and then pressing the forward movement key angled the thrust and propelled you both up and forward. However I have recently realized this is not the case. Apparently your forward (or rearward) motion while using JJs is competely dependant on how fast you were running prior to engaging your jump jets. This means that if your ground speed is zero, your jump jets will only allow you to hop straight up and down.

Now this wasn't really an issue prior to the movement change because you rarely found yourself losing forward momentum. Now however it is fairly common to be massively slowed or find yourself at a complete stop. Finding yourself slowed or stopped like when you have climbed part of the way up a hill and need to "jump" the rest of the way over basically renders JJs useless because you can only hop up and down. This fact has actually managed to even get me stuck where I was sitting on a hill top, unable to gain any momentum in any direction and couldn't even jump off the hill because I had no forward thrust available for my JJs.

The fix to this is simple. When you press forward or backward while engaging JJs, your jump jets actually provide forward or backward motion. Simple, Easy, an improvement JJs in general and most importantly A VERY NEEDED FIX now that the movement mechanics have changed.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 04 July 2013 - 06:09 PM.

[PanzerMagier]

A valid complain, understandable. Too bad it's not important enough to be noticed. Vectored jump jets is a need. They're mobility items for goodness sake however these days, They reduce your mobility in open terrain and provide a the tiny possible minor advantage of crossing difficult terrain IF your JJ fuel holds and you don't get stuck in a wall.

I've always found it annoying that when I land, I have to accelerate from zero again. Since this is BT science/logic, I should be able to land going at least 50% of my speed. Never understand why the devs forced JJ's to give so little in return for all the tonnage/space they take up.

[Frisk]

Jump Jets definitely need some work.

[Cervantes88]

Yeah, it's kind of ******** how JJs behave in that case. But at any rate, JJs with the current patch are already extremely (too) powerful. Getting dead stopped by a mildly elevated hill is a death sentence in more than one occasion, and JJs allow to avoid that completely and retain pre-patch mobility if you anticipate that the hill is going to dead stop you. Now I pretty much jumpjet EVERY time i climb something, so that I don't get stuck by this stupid-*** system, and I don't see myself playing any mech that doesn't have JJs right now.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Cervantes88, on 03 July 2013 - 11:00 PM, said:

Yeah, it's kind of ******** how JJs behave in that case. But at any rate, JJs with the current patch are already extremely (too) powerful. Getting dead stopped by a mildly elevated hill is a death sentence in more than one occasion, and JJs allow to avoid that completely and retain pre-patch mobility if you anticipate that the hill is going to dead stop you. Now I pretty much jumpjet EVERY time i climb something, so that I don't get stuck by this stupid-*** system, and I don't see myself playing any mech that doesn't have JJs right now.

See this it the problem, Jump Jets DON"T retain pre-patch mobility and they potentially even have a worse issue than a land bound mech.

First, JJs DON'T let you completely avoid getting dead stopped on a slope, in fact sometimes they make it worse because you land somewhere you cannot move at all, even backward down the slope. If that happens and you cannot get at least 10-15 kp/h forward momentum your stuck in place just being able to hop up and down.

Then, prior to the patch you never really had an issue with retaining forward momentum because you weren't normally slowed or stopped by terrain so your JJs always acted like they provided forward thrust. In fact I didn't even notice prior to patch that they didn't.

The reality is that JJ users not only lost their ground based mobiliy like everyone else, but also a hell of alot of their jumping mobility as well. It ended up being kinda of a double nerf for JJ mobile mechs and lets face it, JJs were sorta lackluster before in alot of ways.

That why I said it needs fixed. Of course, they need to tweak the general movement system all the way around as well but I do hope that, that tweaking involves a JJ fix as well.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 03 July 2013 - 11:27 PM.

[DivineEvil]

My point about JJ's for a long time been and will be like that:
- If you put JJ into Legs, it will accelerate you 100% upward.
- If you put JJ into CT, it will accelerate you 60% upward, 40% forward,
- If you put JJ into STs, it will accelerate you 10% upward, 90% forward.
This will allow you customize you mech for the playstyle you wish to implement. Using upward flight you can climb higher locations and turn while flying without change of direction, while using forward jump would give you additional speed boost and you can change direction in process. It is also favorable imho, that JJs will yield a stronger thrust the more fuel plasma is allocated for them. It works the same with any other RL engines - as you spending your fuel, the pressure goes lower, thus reducing the fuel flow and as result the thrust diminishes.

And yes, the fact that mechs are losing their entire horizontal speed when landing is an outrage. In normal conditions that would result in tumbling due to physical overload when killing the momentum. Thus, mech must safe the fraction of it's horizontal speed depending on the angle of descent.

[Amsro]

This ended up being a nerf to big mechs, smaller mechs with JJ can avoid terrain with their speed/jj combo.

Spider finally gets a day to shine !! Canyon is spider territory.

Edit; with that said JJ really are pretty weak in their current state.

Edited by Amsro, 04 July 2013 - 04:59 AM.

[Hawks]

I agree with the general 'JJs need to be vectorable' sentiment.

[Dracol]

I will agree it can be frustrating.

But I have a question, do you still only have one or two jump jets equiped?

Prior to the patch that was all you really needed. Now though, 4 jj really become useful.

[DivineEvil]

Dracol, on 04 July 2013 - 05:12 AM, said:

I will agree it can be frustrating.

But I have a question, do you still only have one or two jump jets equiped?

Prior to the patch that was all you really needed. Now though, 4 jj really become useful.

Well, personally, when the 2nd July patch came, I've installed full JJ on all my mechs that haven't got them. They really make a lot of difference now. I just don't like that they doesn't work as they might work considering their appearance. It's also bother me that they don't work as intended by lore and TT, since they're descripted to provide jump distance, not height, which means they're supposed to propel you forward just as much as upward. In TT you don't need any momentum to use them as well.

[TheFlyingScotsman]

The mechanics of the new movement changes affect JJs in a very negative way. You see, as you travel up a hill with JJs active, you still "touch" the ground as you go up the hill, allowing you to change directions while the jets are flowing, and allowing the hill to slow or stop you as you ride up it.

The result of this is getting stuck most of the time, or getting slowed to an unviable pace otherwise. JJs need to circumvent the slowing mechanic while active, otherwise they will continue to simply get the user killed when trying to circumvent impassable terrain.

I agree with OP and comments in saying that this issue needs immediate resolution for JJs to continue being viable tools, and not just several tons of useless.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Dracol, on 04 July 2013 - 05:12 AM, said:

I will agree it can be frustrating.

But I have a question, do you still only have one or two jump jets equiped?

Prior to the patch that was all you really needed. Now though, 4 jj really become useful.

I usually run max JJs on everything before and after. I never subscribed to the single JJ thing as it seemed like you weren't really taking advantage of all the tactical mobility you had.

I also learned this patch why the 5 JJs on my Heavy Metal felt so lackluster. It wasn't because the mech is heavy or that that didn't have enough lift, rather it was because JJ forward momentum was based on your mechs running speed. Since the Highlanders are so slow...they have almost no forward mometum which is why most people just went down to one JJ. I recently dropped in the biggest engine available on my HM the 330XL which gets me moving up into the 66-68 kph range, then added back in my 5 JJ and boy did it make a difference. I actually feel nimble jumping now.

Honestly it is pretty sad this issue wasn't caught/addressed before as alot of people now have a poor understanding of JJs all due to the underlying mechanics behind how they work making zero sense. I mean it is just logically that if you press the forward button, your going to move forward, even on JJs. Who would have even thought that it didn't work that way?