41 replies to this topic

[Tweaks]

I've seen a lot of people mixing up the terms lately, and it's causing a lot of confusion on the Suggestions forum. So just to clarify:

Cone of Fire: It's a representation of the weapon's spread. A weapon is never 100% accurate (even the most precise sniper rifle is not 100% accurate). Another term for Cone of Fire would be "group size". It's a hard statistic that will never change for a given weapon. The Cone of Fire is NOT represented visually on the pilot's HUD.

Reticle accuracy indicator: For lack of a better term, it's the visual representation of how accurate your shot would be in real-time. Most FPS games represent it as a circle that shrinks or enlarges to represent the probable spread of the weapon. In FPS games, it represents both the skill of the shooter (human), and the hard statistic of the weapon (basic cone of fire, or group size).

For example, snipers have to hold their breath and slow their heart rate to make the most precise shots, and it takes several seconds to aim properly. This would normally be represented by the reticle shrinking over time as the shooter concentrates to aim, up until the maximum possible accuracy (depending on the gun's base cone of fire).

In a 'Mech however, the human factor is out of the equation because the pilot is not physically holding the weapon himself. The 'Mech is meant to assist the pilot with this task and to normalize any twitches the pilot may have, so when the pilot points a specific point on a target, the targetting computers make sure all weapons stay on that point despite movement. However, weapons still have a hard statistic representing their spread at a certain distance, so the reticle accuracy indicator should be used to represent that statistic only. If the 'Mech is on the move and the weapon's stabilizers are not capable of compensating for the movement, then the reticle should become larger to represent this drop in accuracy (i.e. temporarily increasing the cone of fire of the weapon).

Both are required for this game to be a "plausible" simulation (which is what it's supposed to be). (Please don't start with the "this is a sci-fi game, plausible doesn't exist" talk, you know what I meant).

I hope that clears it for a few people...

[MaddMaxx]

Quote

"It's a hard statistic that will never change for a given weapon."

If that is true, how can you then state this?

Quote

"temporarily increasing the cone of fire of the weapon"

So what you actually meant in the second quote was that the unstable Weapons Cone would be moving about, but it's size would never vary but the Reticule could expand or contract inside that Cone. Is that right?

Edited by MaddMaxx, 11 November 2011 - 09:21 AM.

[Grotonomus]

I'm glad someone took the time to explain this. It will be interesting to see how "compensation" is factored into this game and if there will be add-ons like Targeting Comp upgrades or skill training for pilots.

[Glare]

MaddMaxx, on 11 November 2011 - 09:20 AM, said:

If that is true, how can you then state this?



So what you actually meant in the second quote was that the unstable Weapons Cone would be moving about, but it's size would never vary but the Reticule could expand or contract inside that Cone. Is that right?

Two parts of a post addressing two different aspects of weapon accuracy. The base weapon spread, the one that will never change, is if there is time to reset the weapon perfectly after each and every shot before the next. 'Increasing the cone' is what happens when there is not an ideal amount of time to reset your sights.

[Hodo]

These are Battlemechs, top of the battlefield technology for the time. They have no "cone of fire". The targeting Ret, will jump around as the mech moves, this is due to pilot head movement, and mech sway. Some weapons that have shorter ranges are harder to aim at their max range due to the weapon drop, or defusion of the laser beam.

[Glare]

These are BattleMechs, the combat vehicles of the future.... of the 1980s. They duck and weave, the electronics are falling apart at the seams unless it's factory new, and battle damage quickly fixes that oversight in a matter of months. The targeting systems are fuzzy and staticky. Weapons aren't quite aligned the way they should be. Taking that knock to your left arm accidentally knocked your focusing lens out of alignment. Suddently, you're only 50% as accurate as you would be in a perfect world. Welcome to Battletech.

[Mchawkeye]

All right already...I got it....I mean...jings....

[Phades]

Glare, on 11 November 2011 - 10:07 AM, said:

These are BattleMechs, the combat vehicles of the future.... of the 1980s. They duck and weave, the electronics are falling apart at the seams unless it's factory new, and battle damage quickly fixes that oversight in a matter of months. The targeting systems are fuzzy and staticky. Weapons aren't quite aligned the way they should be. Taking that knock to your left arm accidentally knocked your focusing lens out of alignment. Suddently, you're only 50% as accurate as you would be in a perfect world. Welcome to Battletech.

So, you would be ok with a simulation that forces your computer to act like it has a virus hijacking your command inputs, showing you snow constantly instead of what is in front of you, no targeting reticule, and tripping or falling down for no good reason?

Sorry, but no one would play that.

[Glare]

I didn't say that. The purpose of my post was to illustrate that 'Mechs are not perfect; we should not expect perfect accuracy, or even anything close to it.

Although once I got used to it, having a snowy, staticky targeting screen would be immersion gold.

[Barantor]

Phades, on 11 November 2011 - 10:44 AM, said:

So, you would be ok with a simulation that forces your computer to act like it has a virus hijacking your command inputs, showing you snow constantly instead of what is in front of you, no targeting reticule, and tripping or falling down for no good reason?

Sorry, but no one would play that.

Probably not, but his point is that these machines are sometimes passed down through generations with different upkeeps and technology levels dependent on the timeline. Some things work and nobody is sure how they do it, or if they do they might not be able to fix it.

Don't expect pinpoint accuracy, it just won't happen even with the lasers.

[Phades]

Barantor, on 11 November 2011 - 10:55 AM, said:

Don't expect pinpoint accuracy, it just won't happen even with the lasers.

You guys do understand that there are laws on the books right now that prohibit the pointing of lasers any where near aircraft in flight right? This is due to their, wait for it, pin point accuracy and signal strength.

I think you guys are getting a little side tracked here conceptually. You have walking buildings moving slow with projectiles traveling at the speed of light. How exactly are you going to miss with that? It would be an entirely different story if say both the shooter and the target were moving at say mach 4 on a crossing against each other and you are trying to rate the turret tracking rate to see if it could keep up with the transverse movement across a distance of a couple miles or so for two targets the size of large birds.

Really, just let the table top rules go. They were designed for simplicity and catch all situations like glancing hits, ballistics, and penetration without requiring a pc to run all the in game calculations for the players using miniatures on a table top.

[Barantor]

Its not that the laser isn't accurate as a weapon, but the mounting/arm/pylon it is attached to on that big walking building might not be.

Imagine mounting a barret .50 cal (fairly accurate weapon) on a cadillac that hasn't been maintained for 20 years and the suspension is giving out. Now move that cadillac across some average road and try to fire that rifle at a moving target in the distance.... harder than you think.

Its not that lasers aren't pinpoint accurate, its the fact that they are mounted to 20 year old cadillacs .

[UncleKulikov]

Tweaks, on 11 November 2011 - 06:27 AM, said:

Cone of Fire: It's a representation of the weapon's spread. A weapon is never 100% accurate (even the most precise sniper rifle is not 100% accurate). Another term for Cone of Fire would be "group size". It's a hard statistic that will never change for a given weapon. The Cone of Fire is NOT represented visually on the pilot's HUD.

That is incorrect. Halo 1 and 2 used variable cones of fire for the Halo 1 pistol, Halo 1 AR, and the Halo 2 SMG. The reticle never changed size, but your accuracy could change if you pulsed the trigger.

Look at Counter Strike. When you are crouched and not moving, your reticule is small, and your weapon is accurate. When you move, or fire on automatic, the reticule expands, and so does the "cone of fire".

A better definition for "Cone of Fire" would be "a weapon's spread, at a given time, under specific circumstances".

The reticule shifting is just the graphic representation of the cone of fire's current status.

[Creel]

UncleKulikov, on 11 November 2011 - 11:25 AM, said:

That is incorrect. Halo 1 and 2 used variable cones of fire for the Halo 1 pistol, Halo 1 AR, and the Halo 2 SMG. The reticle never changed size, but your accuracy could change if you pulsed the trigger.

Look at Counter Strike. When you are crouched and not moving, your reticule is small, and your weapon is accurate. When you move, or fire on automatic, the reticule expands, and so does the "cone of fire".

A better definition for "Cone of Fire" would be "a weapon's spread, at a given time, under specific circumstances".

The reticule shifting is just the graphic representation of the cone of fire's current status.

My immediate reaction when you referenced Halo was to contradict you, out of reflex. Then I realized that you were saying pretty much the same thing as the OP.

The only real difference between what the two of you are saying is the distinction between inherent weapon accuracy, which is not %100 even under ideal circumstances, and shot accuracy, which never conforms to the ideal.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Sigh - it's been posted by others elsewhere - lasers are not "pin-point" accurate except in a vacuum. They are degraded by particulate matter in the air, including smoke, and their path can be warped by temperature gradients in the air - especially those caused by battle - I would expect the ionised track left by a PPC to cause real problems for lasers. Also beams spread slightly with range depending on a number of factors. Not to say they aren't accurate - just not as much as people say. The arguement is that the weapons are too accurate for the game - leading to 1 or 2 shot kills.

[CobraFive]

Weapons need a degree of innacuracy.

Why do we need to argue about such meaningless semantics, again?

[UncleKulikov]

Creel, on 11 November 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

My immediate reaction when you referenced Halo was to contradict you, out of reflex. Then I realized that you were saying pretty much the same thing as the OP.

The only real difference between what the two of you are saying is the distinction between inherent weapon accuracy, which is not %100 even under ideal circumstances, and shot accuracy, which never conforms to the ideal.

Except that he says that cones of fire don't change, and that makes no sense to me from the games i've played. But either way, as long as it's harder to hit things when moving or firing on full auto or jump jetting, and there isn't a way to macro around it, I'm happy.

[KnowBuddy]

UncleKulikov, on 11 November 2011 - 12:03 PM, said:

Except that he says that cones of fire don't change, and that makes no sense to me from the games i've played. But either way, as long as it's harder to hit things when moving or firing on full auto or jump jetting, and there isn't a way to macro around it, I'm happy.

I think that he said that the cone of fire of a particular weapon doesn't change. Which is true (well, not technically, since wear and tear on a weapon from firing it over time could probably impact the cone of fire eventually). Imagine this assertion as a weapon testing scenario... with a weapon mounted to a stable, non-moving base, it has a consistent cone of fire (assuming equivalent ammunition).

When you use a weapon in real-world situations, your ability to hold that weapon stable (like the test platform) is adversely affected by moving, standing, skill level, etc.

Cone of Fire, which is a geometric description of the weapon spread [MOA] (probability of the bullet deviating a given distance from the center of the sights per unit distance traveled, inherent to the individual weapon/ammunition combination), is a real concept.
Reticle Accuracy Indicator is a two dimensional representation of the area of the Cone of Fire, modified by the firing platform (i.e. you/your mech), at some distance from the weapon muzzle. It is used in games to help convey how accurate you can expect to be based on your current actions/weapon/distance to target.

Edited by KnowBuddy, 11 November 2011 - 01:19 PM.

[Creel]

UncleKulikov, on 11 November 2011 - 12:03 PM, said:

Except that he says that cones of fire don't change, and that makes no sense to me from the games i've played. But either way, as long as it's harder to hit things when moving or firing on full auto or jump jetting, and there isn't a way to macro around it, I'm happy.

he didn't say that cones don't ever change, he said that the base accuracy of the specific weapon doesn't change. He then mentions that taking actions which preclude optimum firing conditions can widen the spread.

[Corpsecandle]

Been shooting for a while and I did some research just to be sure but from what I've seen here we go.

What the OP refers to as "Cone of Fire" should actually be referred to as MOA (Minute of Angle). This is an aspect of the WEAPON not the SHOOTER. While the OP is correct that in a Game this would be constant, in reality this would change over time due to wear and tear on the device.

As for the term, "Cone of fire"; it is a completely generic term and has absolutely no hard definition outside of context. Using it to reference MOA, or using it to reference target grouping while shooting on the run are both entirely valid uses of the Term "Cone of fire".

"Reticle accuracy indicator" is an indicator that reflects, well, whatever the dev's decide that it reflects. It can reflect the MOA, it can grow with shooter motion, projectile drop, or it could even reflect the area your weapons will all hit due to their relation in space to one another. It's a function of the game and there is no hard and fast definition for it.


Edit: added wiki link on MOA - http://en.wikipedia....Minute_of_angle

Edited by Corpsecandle, 11 November 2011 - 01:17 PM.