10 replies to this topic

[Kitane]

When I saw screenshots of Shadowhawk, I was wondering how big target the mech will be. People are mostly focused on its height, but what actually matters is the size of a target area the mech presents to its attackers.

So I did a small analysis of current mech silhouette sizes.

I used this picture as a source:


And then I counted the number of pixels of each mech to determine the size of a surface area.




Pretty interesting results. This does not include side profiles, but the size of a mech from the front is usually the most relevant.

Fixing mechs to scale linearly with tonnage wouldn't be realistic, but it would be more "balanced", and it would require following changes:

The scale of light mechs is totally off. Centurion is the worst offender among mediums. Kintaro is slightly oversized, but suprisingly not as much as people believe. Stalker is too small for an assault mech.

Upscale Spider, Jenner and Raven models by 50%.
Upscale Stalker by 15%.
Downscale Centurion by 20%
Downscale Trebuchet, Dragon, Quickdraw by 15%
Downscale Catapult, Awesome and Kintaro by 10%.

Catapult, Awesome and Kintaro could use a 10% reduction, but it wouldn't make much difference for the amount of effort involved. Awesome would benefit more from a simple hitbox reorganization than from 10% downscale.

The alternative to making lights larger is to downscale Commando by 30-40%. That would keep the lights balanced between each other...but they would still be too small for their tonnage. Keeping lights artificially smaller would probably warrant a flat 15% size redution of all medium mechs on top of the above listed changes and a flat 10% size reduction of all heavies.

[FupDup]

Lights don't need to be bigger. Their size isn't "artificially" small, it's small by necessity. Lights were plenty easy enough to kill right after ballistic HSR at their current size, we don't need to exasperate it.

Mediums just need to be smaller. Right now mediums are scaled like underdeveloped heavies (or in some cases overdeveloped) rather than beefy lights. Heavies don't need to be smaller (excluding Quickdraw, Catapult, and Dragon) because they're the overall best class in the game (the Victor counts as a heavy on steroids).



EDIT: Here is a very sloppy mock-up scale I made. Take this with a grain of salt because I didn't take the time to make it perfect, so there will be some errors with it:

Edited by FupDup, 13 October 2013 - 07:59 AM.

[Adridos]

I'd have a few notes regarding the way you interpret the scale:

1st: Don't forget you're calculating surface area directly from the picture, but the picture itself doesn't have mechs always in the state you'll see them in game. This applies to Commando (that's why it scored a bit higher than the other lights), Cent, Dragon, Awesome and Atlas, all of whom have their arms in a bit different position than what you see in game and what is essentially their front profile there. This also applies to Hunchback, but the angle at which his arms are in the picture has no effect on the resulting calculation.

2nd: It's unfair to completely ignore the side profile especially when scaling the Jenner, Raven, Cicada and Stalker, since while all of them are a bit under the optimal front profile metric, they get that from having a very large side profile, which kinda makes up for that. Not saying they are completely fine (say, Stalker could always use a little bit bigger size), but it should be a considered factor, nonetheless.

Nice take on the subject, though.

Edited by Adridos, 13 October 2013 - 07:53 AM.

[shintakie]

Adridos, on 13 October 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

I'd have a few notes regarding the way you interpret the scale:

1st: Don't forget you're calculating surface area directly from the picture, but the picture itself doesn't have mechs always in the state you'll see them in game. This applies to Commando (that's why it scored a bit higher than the other lights), Cent, Dragon, Awesome and Atlas, all of whom have their arms in a bit different position than what you see in game and what is essentially their front profile there. This also applies to Hunchback, but the angle at which his arms are in the picture has no effect on the resulting calculation.

2nd: It's unfair to completely ignore the side profile especially when scaling the Jenner, Raven, Cicada and Stalker, since while all of them are a bit under the optimal front profile metric, they get that from having a very large side profile, which kinda makes up for that. Not saying they are completely fine (say, Stalker could always use a little bit bigger size), but it should be a considered factor, nonetheless.

Nice take on the subject, though.

Having a large side profile wouldn't be a factor if PGI didnt make stupid hitboxes.

Also, wow, those Stalker numbers are crazy...I didnt realize how small it was compared to its weight.

[Jin Ma]

i agree with eevertying except upscaling of light mechs.

the reasno they were made small was so that they would stay relevant in role warfare.

And just by looking at compositions now, i would say, even with that boost (reduction in size) they are still underutilized. Meaning if we took away that slight boost, they would become useless.



furthermore, i would also argue that the large size of mediums relative to the light mechs, generates a cliff in the graph, so that it appears the light mechs are out of scale.

when in reality medium mechs should be made smaller, to fill spots in the cliff.


on another note, the dragon; most of us probably probably had never noticed because we were so used to it. But the dragon being just as big as a catapult, or cataphract, or jager; any other heavy mech is a huge disadvantage according to the law of front profile in this game, which applies to the trebuchet, awesome, quickdraw.

the reason that the dragon is a bad mech, might simply be due to its large scaling relative to size. instead of just due to the large hump it has.

Edited by Jin Ma, 13 October 2013 - 02:07 PM.

[RandomLurker]

Mech size is a gameplay balance issue. This cannot be said enough.

Jin Ma, on 13 October 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

i agree with eevertying except upscaling of light mechs.

the reason they were made small was so that they would stay relevant in role warfare.

Only the spider is terrible, but all lights could do with a small (~10%) increase in size. The reason is actually the same one you used- their role is to be as recon, scouts, and skirmishers, not brawlers dealing out 600 dmg in a match. Of course, with no role warfare in the game and scouting completely useless due to ECM completely negating whatever advantage it ever gave, there's no point in whining atm.

[Pesky Microbe]

It can be taken as a way to show role of the mech on battlefield as envisioned in Battletech Lore. For Example, Centurion is a general purpose medium mech. Therefore, its manufacturers made it taller so that its cannon can clear hill tops etc. Hunchback has a smaller profile since it was designed primarily as an urban mech.

Similarly, Kintaro and Trebuchet, while being taller than Hunchback, are shorter than a Centurion since their primary purpose is to prvide LRM support (talking about canon here and not all SSRM fittings that we usually see). That taller than Hunchback height could be due to internal mechanisms for additional launcher or launcher mechanisms etc. and shorter than Centurion height could be because of the reason that they do not have a primary gun armament that requires clearing hill tops.

Dragon is a very tall mech for its weight but then again it is a poor design and was rejected by SLDF in favor of Shadow Hawk. Thus that increased height and large center torso; which both decrease its survivavbility in MWO reflect why it was rejected by SLDF. Quickdraw and Cataphract are improved designs that came into production much later than the Dragon and thus reflect better design philosophy and superior technology. Thus shows that lessons were learned.

Now the Catapult. That larger size is primarly due to those large launcher boxes. If we remove those, it is almost the same height as a Cataphract.

Stalker is smaller than other Assaults since again its main LR weapons in canon are LRMs. Again no need for big guns to clear hill tops so no need of that extra height. Instead added mechanisms forward thus increasing side profile and saving height profile. You will note that it is almost the same height as Trebuchet and Kintaro (two other LRM mechs).

Atlas is of course tallest since one of its purposes is to instill fear. Awesome requires height for those PPC guns to clear hill tops etc.

What is left. Ah yes, the Jagger. It is an AA platform in canon. So smaller height really not an issue since it is firing upwards and no need to clear hills etc. like Centurion or Awesome.

Thanks for reading.

[Spiketail Drake]

Also, the Stalker is not tall, it is long instead. And still taller than a Catapult, with a higher up cockpit. Your arm weapons in the Stalker are at eyelevel or slightly below, which helps in shooting over hills for LOS. Catapult is better at indirect LRM chucking though.

[hideyourkids]

The Stalker may be "small for its weight" but it still has disadvantages. Mainly that it cant use its arms to shield itself from any damage. That is also part of the reason its profile is small. No arms, all torso.

[Rizzelbizzeg]

Adridos, on 13 October 2013 - 07:51 AM, said:

I'd have a few notes regarding the way you interpret the scale:

1st: Don't forget you're calculating surface area directly from the picture, but the picture itself doesn't have mechs always in the state you'll see them in game. This applies to Commando (that's why it scored a bit higher than the other lights), Cent, Dragon, Awesome and Atlas, all of whom have their arms in a bit different position than what you see in game and what is essentially their front profile there. This also applies to Hunchback, but the angle at which his arms are in the picture has no effect on the resulting calculation.

2nd: It's unfair to completely ignore the side profile especially when scaling the Jenner, Raven, Cicada and Stalker, since while all of them are a bit under the optimal front profile metric, they get that from having a very large side profile, which kinda makes up for that. Not saying they are completely fine (say, Stalker could always use a little bit bigger size), but it should be a considered factor, nonetheless.

Nice take on the subject, though.

Quoted for truth.

Side profiles, arms, and a walking mech is shorter than a standing mech due to bent legs. Some of the mechs even slump down into their weight when standing in game, this picture is the fully rigged models totally upright with no bent parts. In game you'll rarely get a mech walking straight at you (legs and torso).

[Lord de Seis]

Nicely put together, thank you.