440 replies to this topic

[Tesunie]

Tested myself. The Cicada no longer appears to have this problem. However, in my testing, this is what I saw:

Right arm destroyed= Damage transferred to the right leg once, then applied to Left Torso there after (from shooting the arm stub.)
Left arm destroyed= Damage transferred to the right torso, then applied to the CT.

I found out in my testing, by shooting the left arm nub, that the Spider'***** box for it's legs includes an invisible section that "cups" each side of the torso, which was why my Right Arm transfer went to the leg instead of the left torso. I was shooting down too low from the arm when it got destroyed, clipping the invisible hit box.

I'll do more testing on a bit... (Sorry, no video as I don't have the software and wish not to load it onto my computer, for reasons I've already stated.)

[Tesunie]

Found some more problems with the mechs:

Spider: Damage transfer for arms is wonky. Leg "cupping" I had seen was my lasers deconverging after arm was destroyed and it focused on the background (far away).

I would also like to present the "But I should have hit it" convergence as it doesn't count an arm that isn't there anymore. (If anything, the side hit box or destroyed arm hit box needs to enlargen to cover the actual visual space the mech takes up.)


Now, for some interesting news...

The JENNER! Yup. Something is wrong with the Jenner. Didn't you know? Well, I do now.
I present the evidence.
Arm destroyed= Damage transferred directly to the CT.


And a curious "dead spot" that damage goes in, but nothing comes out (AKA: A damage black hole that doesn't do damage when hit). This occurs when the arm is destroyed, and I could repeat this shot several times (and did) with no effect. Probably wouldn't find it again if I tried, but I will try in a few more moments. Also seemed to only exist on the right side, could not get it to "work" on the left side.




The Jenner only seemed to have problems with it's right arm. I could not see or replicate any problems with the left arm and damage transfer nor with damage disappearing.

[Void Angel]

Fierostetz, on 12 November 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

Most light pilots realize that shooting the diaper is *always* a ct hit. That alone makes an atlas, for example, a *really* quick take down.

Only if they're able to stay behind me and put all their damage into my fourth point of contact. From the front, I still have a lot of armor (and a lot of internal structure, for that matter,) so they can plink for a bit if they really want to - I'll always have weapons on my arms. This isn't to say that a good light pilot is not dangerous, but he's not a serious threat by himself unless I'm unable to pay attention to him, which means he's not alone.

[Void Angel]

Tesunie, on 12 November 2013 - 03:09 PM, said:

Winning does give you better rewards, such as salvage and a bigger base reward. Otherwise, yes. They seem to have mostly/completely combat damage dealing role rewards. A scout gains very little, and a spotter only gains marginally more than a scout. Everything is combat oriented, which places a lot of possible mech roles at a disadvantage.

True, and PGI knows it. That's why we're seeing things like cash bonuses for UAVs - or the nerf to seismic, for that matter. They've acknowledged the issue and are trying to help lights in various ways.

Dimento Graven, on 12 November 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

Recorded this today:
Something is broken, somewhere.

That we can all agree on. The deconvergence reminds me of a screen shot I took in my Atlas a while back. I walked up to a Centurion and shot him in the face with my arm lasers on the testing grounds. The first time, he took damage; subsequently the beams would hit him, but do no damage - and weapon effects appeared on the walls of the map (the cliffs in River City.) What was happening was that the beams weren't being rendered any more, but were still there. Apparently, someone had managed to perfect Hyperspace Displacement Armor^tm for cockpits.

[Tesunie]

Another round of victims... I mean... visit to the testing grounds (I had killed my last test subjects)... and more revealing information.

Spider: All damage transferred correctly this match around. No discernible problems. (This time.)











Jenner: Found that black hole, and with a lot of ease. It's a rather large hole to be honest. It's the entire "circle" of the arm joint from what I can tell. More photos.

Look in spoiler, as I have a few pictures of me repetitively shooting the hole.

Spoiler

Blackjack: I was not fast enough to get this data, and I need to test it again to be certain, but by shooting only the arms, I caused damage to it's CT after the right arm exploded off. Needs further testing...

So, just by 3 visits to the testing grounds, I saw problems with the Spider occur, the Jenner, and the Blackjack.

(And yes, I tested the Spider problems, inside a Spider! What irony!)

My conclusion from my tests: This is not "just" a Spider problem, but a problem effecting all mechs (or more than just the Spider).

As a final note, I could only get the damage transfer problem with the spider to occur once, but got it to occur on the Jenner twice (didn't test the Jenner first round through). Only tested the Blackjack once, as I started to get more ambitious.

[Sable Dove]

Dimento Graven, on 12 November 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

Recorded this today:



Something is broken, somewhere.

The lasers de-converge because you destroyed the arm, and due to nearly-instant convergence, your weapons converge 150m behind the Spider because that's now what you're aiming at.

Damage transferring to the wrong component is far from Spider-specific.The same effect or worse can be replicated with the following, and likely most other mechs:
CPLT-A1
SDR-5D
RVN-2X
JM6-DD
VTR-9B
JR7-F
BJ-1
DRG-1N
The Jagermech is probably the worst of the bunch. While most mechs only suffer from this when an arm is destroyed, shooting the Jagermech's intact arms often sends damage to any part of the torso, or occasionally, legs.

Then you aim behind the Spider and your weapons again converge on the ground behind it.

Congratulations, you've proven that the Spider has similar hitbox issues to virtually every other mech in the game. So far, the Commando is the only one that I've tested that doesn't have the problem, and it appears that the reason is that it simply does not have hitboxes for destroyed arms at all (or they're so small that I couldn't find them).

For the record: most destroyed-arm hitboxes appear to float just beside the mech, leaving a small gap between the side torso and the destroyed arm hitboxes. Additionally, most mechs have very small/tiny destroyed-arm hitboxes. To the point that they might as well not even exist. See the Centurion for a good example of how destroyed-arm hitboxes should be on all mechs.

[Void Angel]

Given that these issues are generally intermittent and hard to track, particularly without a live testing environment, it's difficult to say with scientific accuracy that the Spider's issues are more severe than other chassis. Conversely, it is also impossible to be certain that this is not indeed the case.

Congratulations! You've proven that the claim that the Spider absolutely does have special issues is equally unsupportable with the claim that it's "just well-designed." /unfollow.

[Sable Dove]

Void Angel, on 12 November 2013 - 10:16 PM, said:

Given that these issues are generally intermittent and hard to track, particularly without a live testing environment, it's difficult to say with scientific accuracy that the Spider's issues are more severe than other chassis. Conversely, it is also impossible to be certain that this is not indeed the case.

Congratulations! You've proven that the claim that the Spider absolutely does have special issues is equally unsupportable with the claim that it's "just well-designed." /unfollow.

The premise was that the reason the Spider seems tougher than it should is because it's well-designed, rather than being especially bugged; not that it is completely bug-free. It's just that the bugs it has are either shared by most other mechs, and/or make no significant difference to the Spider's toughness.

I'm all for fixing what bugs the Spider does have. Just don't expect it to get any less tough until they improve HSR to the point that players don't have to aim to hit the air in front of it with slow ACs.

And even then, it will just be easier to hit. The underlying design is still superb, and it will always be a disproportionately tough mech when compared to other lights.

[stjobe]

Tesunie, on 12 November 2013 - 05:25 PM, said:

My conclusion from my tests: This is not "just" a Spider problem, but a problem effecting all mechs (or more than just the Spider).

Funnily enough, this is what some of us have been saying for months now.

[BillyM]

Spider damage black-hole is in the CT. The never-ending-armor, impossible to hit CT.

...jenner damage black-hole is behind the (never) removed arm in the side torso.

These two things are not similar in scale of importance.
If you have ever focused a jenner's side torso or arm, you were doing it way-wrong.

--billyM

Edited by BillyM, 14 November 2013 - 11:16 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

Hey guys - has anyone noticed a correlation between their graphics settings and hit registration? When I'm streaming I set my graphics to high, when it's just me I set it to low. Streaming has ~15-20ms impact on my lag so I don't think thats it. I seem to have more hit reg issues against other mechs when running on very high vs. low. Again, anecdotal evidence, just wondering if anyone has observed this. Up-front - I do not have video evidence to back this up yet, I just noticed it last night. Again, the issues are so intermittent that :shrug: I could be imagining it. When you change mech detail, the hitbox geometry shouldn't change, right? Sidebar - I was watching Dune and something reminded me of all this hitbox talk



fast forward to 1:08 if impatient. Patrick Stewart has huge hitboxes.

Edited by Fierostetz, 14 November 2013 - 10:08 AM.

[Tesunie]

BillyM, on 14 November 2013 - 07:55 AM, said:

Spider damage black-hole is in the CT. The never-ending-armor, impossible to hit CT.

...jenner damage black-hole is behind the (never) removed arm in the side torso.

These two things are not similar in scale of importance.
If you have ever focused a jenner's side torso or arm, you were doing it way-wrong.

--billyM

I shall try tonight to find this "hole" in the CT of the Spider. As far as I know, the micro Black Hole Experimental Defense Device (B.H.E.D.D. for short, pronounced Bed) has been removed, as the Jenner pilots where complaining that the black hole phenomena was really a miniaturized wormhole, with damage that went into the new experimental device being sent through the wormhole and into their CTs. Upon the removal of the device, it has now been placed into NAIS for further study as a possible new form of transportation, communications or other possible uses.

(AKA: As far as I know, the hole in the CT of the spider (near it's belly button) has been removed. It was closed up about 3 patches ago, as I understand it.)

Also, the challenge was to find similar problems in other mechs. Not to find problems of the same exact properties in other mechs. There is a hole in the Jenner's right side torso, behind the arm. It may not be as significant as other problems, but it is worth taking note. Also, the "damage transfer is broken in the spider" was also repeated in the Jenner 2 out of 2 tests, in the Blackjack 1 out of 1 tests (needs more testing) and in the spider 2 out of 3 tests (the first test was admittedly botched by myself as I hit other parts after the arm was destroyed, as the lasers deconverged when the arm was no longer there, or I only had really 2 viable tests, which leaves it to a 1 out of 2 tests). The damage transfer bug is not specific to the spider, and I saw it far more often in the Jenner to be honest.

The "I hit it!" remarks can be largely contributed to "I lost convergence on my target, and I shot the hill behind the Spider, so my weapons went between arms and torsos harmlessly" as demonstrated with my laser demonstration. This would also explain a lot of the "I shot two Gauss (ACs, etc) at the spider, and they didn't do proper damage! It was like it did half damage", as you probably only hit with one weapon, and the other went behind the spider.

Also, if people were only complaining about the damage transfer bug, then there wouldn't be complaints about Spiders not dieing, as they would still be taking damage, just maybe not always where you hit them (or expect/thought you hit them). There are other issues that can not be tested in the testing grounds, such as HSR and HR, which are probably the main causes of the problems seen in live matches.

If hit boxes was the only problem with the Spider, which it may or may not be a problem still, then it should be more consistent and visible on the Testing Grounds, which is really isn't. I could see, after my testing, a possible argument that the shoulder/destroyed arm hit box could use to be enlarged to better match the graphics, but that in itself is a rather minor problem. We are talking about only a few pixels (relatively speaking) of hit box adjustment. If a couple of pixels are messing up your aim that much, then you are probably being too picky. (Should it be perfect? It is a worthy goal, but perfection is not needed, but near-perfect is still rather good.)


As far as hit transfer and "holes", other mechs are also effected. This means that the problems are still not Spider specific. It also leads me to see the outcry of "The Spider has bad hit boxes" to be false, as hit boxes should show up more regularly as a problem. I shall be doing further tests tonight on all mechs in the testing grounds, instead of just mistakingly testing only the spider, as running tests on only the spider will show that the Spider might have a problem, but not if other mechs experience similar problems. By testing only the spider, one limits their field of data, which leads to false conclusions and bad evidence. You can't conclude that the "Spider has these issues" without also testing it on other mechs. If other mechs also show the problem (or all of them from time to time), then you would have to conclude that "All mechs have these issues", whatever those issues are.

I'm trying to encourage better testing to provide better results. As I stated in another post in this thread, you can post a bunch of videos showing problems with Spiders, but it wont prove, nor disprove, that the issue is only a Spider problem, no matter how many times it is posted or how many videos of it comes up. You also, at the same time, can't casually discredit other videos showing the "Spider problem" with other mechs showing the same problems because of some obscure reasons (such as a lack of ping being provided before and after match of all participants, or slightly low quality video that is still clear enough to see the distance meter and the health remaining percentages gauge, such as the video someone posted with a Cataphrat taking damage from several mechs and all weapons system types for 15 seconds with no health decrease).

[Livebait]

Shooting at mechs on a practice server is a not a valid test of anything. On a game server with various pings is the real test. And time after time the mech that CONSISTENTLY does not take damage correctly is the Spider. Well designed is not the correct word I would use. Humm, "broke" that works.

When I fly over several mechs in my Spider taking little to no damage I think what a brilliant and skillful pilot I am.

[Tesunie]

Livebait, on 14 November 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

Shooting at mechs on a practice server is a not a valid test of anything. On a game server with various pings is the real test. And time after time the mech that CONSISTENTLY does not take damage correctly is the Spider. Well designed is not the correct word I would use. Humm, "broke" that works.

When I fly over several mechs in my Spider taking little to no damage I think what a brilliant and skillful pilot I am.

Testing grounds can show a lot of information, such as hit boxes and how the game works in a stable baseline to work off of. It is a place where other people's pings can't "interfere" with testing, and HSR is not being considered. It can help narrow down what might be causing the problems.

With no HSR involved, I have found that the Damage Transfer System seems to be "okay, but breaks" from time to time. Just tested, and no mechs transfered damage to places it wasn't suppose to upon arm destruction on this test. Last time I tested, the Spider, Jenner and Blackjack transfered damage to strange placed upon arm destruction. Seems to be a hit or miss bug.
(PS: Testing grounds was what helped find, determine, and fix the SRM problem back when splash damage was more in the game. It was found by a fellow user who shot SRMs at the test dummys, crunched the numbers, and came to good conclusions. To say any testing done in the testing grounds is not valid is incorrect, at best. It is valid, though live fire testing shows the problems of HSR (and subsequently HR as well) in the game. If you are testing HSR as a system, then that can only be done in the live fire matches. Testing grounds is good for testing hit boxes, some parts of HR, Damage Transfer, Damage effects (which I might add is off and all over the place), among other possible subjects that can be better tested in the testing grounds.)

Jenner "hole" is also on the left side as well as the right. Finally found it and have a screen shot of it if it is needed or desired.

[Livebait]

I've used the practice servers for my own testing. I just don't see the same results when shooting at mechs on a live server. I can live with all the warts and black eyes with hit box/detections with this game. I just know in general the Spider is a slushy piece that needs fixing just like the Raven needed it way back when. I'm on break from playing until said mech gets fixed.

I'm not asking for a major overhaul on anything. But, a little tweak to the Spider would go a long way to reduce the Raven deja vous threads from days of old.

[Tesunie]

Livebait, on 14 November 2013 - 07:25 PM, said:

I've used the practice servers for my own testing. I just don't see the same results when shooting at mechs on a live server. I can live with all the warts and black eyes with hit box/detections with this game. I just know in general the Spider is a slushy piece that needs fixing just like the Raven needed it way back when. I'm on break from playing until said mech gets fixed.

I'm not asking for a major overhaul on anything. But, a little tweak to the Spider would go a long way to reduce the Raven deja vous threads from days of old.

The differentiation you are seeing between Testing Grounds and Live Matchs would be HR and HSR going into play (as well as your pilot efficiencies, among other factors). HSR is playing havoc with shots that should hit from hitting, and having shots that should miss hit. Shots that you see land on the side torso instead hit the arm or other side of the mech, if it hits at all. The problem that I can see for HSR, and I could be wrong, is when Ping fluctuates by massive proportions. High ping works fine, as HSR compensates for it, but when your ping jumps or drops by a few hundred from second to given second, HSR can't figure out where you once where on someone's screen, and where you are now based on your Ping level. This makes many things go "wonky" in game, plays around with HR and makes the game difficult to play sometimes. The thinner and faster the mech (Spider compared to Atlas for example), the worse it becomes.

The Spider also has other factors that play into it's combat profile, and that is meant as a literal point as figurative. The shape of the mech comes into play, helping it avoid some damage by it's thin torso from all angles. Most of the time, a "snapped" shot tends to still have it's convergence set for somewhere in the background. Combine this fact with it's speed, means that many shots are snap shots, given very little time to give convergence a chance to home in on the mech itself, instead of the terrain behind or around the Spider. To counter this fact, you can always aim for the ground by a Spider's feet, and then aim up quick and shoot.

Add that with jump, HSR issues, Ping Issues, etc. It becomes a perfect storm. It doesn't have the longer CT (horizontal, from the side) as the Jenner and locust and Raven, nor the "fat" legs of the Locust and Raven... It's arms and torso is thinner than the Commando (though I think the Spider is taller). A lot of the inherent "flaws" with the base profile of the other mechs do compensate for their faster speed. They are normally also wider. Most people have an easier time hitting something horizontally, and harder time vertically.

These factors, along with others, help the Spider naturally survive. Other factors, which are flaws in the game itself, make the Spider just that bit more difficult to hurt and kill. The problems that effect the spider also effect other mechs, but is more noticeable in the Spider for other reasons as well, many of them are just part of being a Spider. The Spider, combined with flaws such as HSR, HR and others, is the perfect storm of "convergence for survivability". Yes, they do artificially inflate the Spider's chances of survival a bit, but these problems effect every mech to some extent. Some people, such as myself, die as easily in a Spider as I do a Jenner. I only die slightly faster in a Jenner than I do a Spider, but that's because I tend to run horizontally to people a lot, and that extra long side torso tends to get me into some trouble on the survival part... Why do I not seem to see the "survival increase" of the Spider as much? I have stable ping as far as I can tell. HSR (and lag shield from before) doesn't seem to help me much if at all...

As far as a repeat of the Raven, I don't want to see a repeat of the PPC (but in reverse). I don't mind the Spider having hit boxes fix if it needs it, but I also don't want to see them get "fixed" when they don't need it (if they don't) and get a mech that is even worse than a Locust when HSR and HR get fixed. I only advise caution and a through investigation. Have it get it's fixes if it needs it, but don't ruin it in the same turn.

[Samual Kalkin]

The spider is not "Well Designed". It is idiotically undersized in a half-a**ed attempt to foster a rock/paper/scissors gameplay mechanic in relation to tonnage that should have no place in the game.

Hit boxes are not the core problem, and neither is server hit recognition. The main problem with the spider is that it is too small in relation to its tonnage. With other issues combined with its ridiculous undersized chasis, it makes it almost impossible hit/keep weapons on it to do the amount of damage they should realistically be doing.

There is a simple fact of machinery and vehicles assuming the same materials used in their construction, that unless you have massive amounts of empty space inside said equipment mass increases far more rapidly than volume. Mass is a linear progression but size/volume is increasing in 3 dimensions. Doubling all three dimenstions of a solid object increases the mass by roughly 8x. Battlemechs are not solid but they do not exactly have a lot of empty space inside them either.

When you look at the mechs next to one another, the spider has roughly the same size/volume as one arm of an Atlas. Given those dimensions either the Atlas has huge amounts of empty space inside it or it should be at least 200 tons, probably closer to 250 tons.

Even without being ridiculously undersized, a spider would still give an assault mech hell because of its speed, and have a much better than even chance of killing it.

[Tesunie]

Samual Kalkin, on 15 November 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

The spider is not "Well Designed". It is idiotically undersized in a half-a**ed attempt to foster a rock/paper/scissors gameplay mechanic in relation to tonnage that should have no place in the game.

Hit boxes are not the core problem, and neither is server hit recognition. The main problem with the spider is that it is too small in relation to its tonnage. With other issues combined with its ridiculous undersized chasis, it makes it almost impossible hit/keep weapons on it to do the amount of damage they should realistically be doing.

There is a simple fact of machinery and vehicles assuming the same materials used in their construction, that unless you have massive amounts of empty space inside said equipment mass increases far more rapidly than volume. Mass is a linear progression but size/volume is increasing in 3 dimensions. Doubling all three dimenstions of a solid object increases the mass by roughly 8x. Battlemechs are not solid but they do not exactly have a lot of empty space inside them either.

When you look at the mechs next to one another, the spider has roughly the same size/volume as one arm of an Atlas. Given those dimensions either the Atlas has huge amounts of empty space inside it or it should be at least 200 tons, probably closer to 250 tons.

Even without being ridiculously undersized, a spider would still give an assault mech hell because of its speed, and have a much better than even chance of killing it.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Spider
http://www.camospecs...n=Detail&ID=372

Look at the Spider's in those links. They are small, thin and tiny. They have been in every case of Battletech as far as I know of. It has laser weapons, which take up less volume than any missiles (ammo feeds, ammo bins, missile tubes, etc), meaning it can easily be more compact than other mechs of it's size. It also was designed to be small and compact. The Cockpit is so small actually, that it doesn't even have an Ejection system in most cases. Even when you look at it and say a Commando is larger, a commando has large, hollow, missile tube weapons that would take up more volume of space. Otherwise, the Commando and the Spider are about the same size, but the Spider is just thinner and more compact still.

For it's tonnage, it is fine. It's taller than a Commando, by about a Commando's head full head or more. It's only 5 tons more than a Commando. As a counter, it is thinner than the commando, with leaner arms and leaner torso. Commando is 25 tons, the Spider is 30 tons. Add in jump... well...




So one of the "problems" with the spider is it's profile? My gosh. We can't have that, now can we! Even though it's the classic spider look, given to it for a long time...

They don't have a lot of space inside them? Read up on the Orion, and why mechanics seemed to love it. Why? It had a lot of nice and roomy conduits in it so that repairs were easier to preform. Mechs like the Spider probably have even less space. Also, compare mech sizes to tanks of the same tonnage from today. Mechs are often times three or four times larger than their tank counterparts. This indicates that mechs probably have a lot of empty space inside, or a lot of lighter materials are used in it's construction.

"When you look at the mechs next to one another, the spider has roughly the same size/volume as one arm of an Atlas. Given those dimensions either the Atlas has huge amounts of empty space inside it or it should be at least 200 tons, probably closer to 250 tons." You nailed it in one. The Atlas probably has a lot of open spaces, for repair crews to get into as well as other materials or reasons. Think of your cars engine compartment on this a bit. How much space do you have around the engine and other parts of the car? Often times, the frame is even made with hollow tubes of metal as well. Your car has a lot of open spaces inside it and probably weighs up to 2 tons max. A tank, which would maybe be the size of 2-4 cars, can weigh many many tons, because it is more compact, with heavy armor on the sides, but even then there are still hollow sections for work crews among other things.

Now, I'm not saying that the Spider might not have problems of it's own, but it's profile helps prevent a lot of damage people think they are dealing to it. Combine that with HSR, HR and possibly (though I haven't seen much proof of it yet) Hit Box issues, with the Jump and it's speed... it's becoming a focal point for the problems in this game. Many of these problems effect every mech in the game, but seems to be more prominent in the Spider. Much of the reason for it's prominent appearances in the Spider is as much how the Spider is designed, along with being the fastest mech with jump, on top of how thin it is, on top of HSR/HR issues, on top of a (though I doubt) possible hit box issue... As I've stated before, it is a perfect storm effect.

Am I saying nothing is wrong with the spider? No. I'm not sure if something is wrong with the Spider directly. Could it be a multitude of other things wrong with the spider beyond itself? I can tell you that one is true, which is what masks any problem the Spider itself might actually have, as we can't tell which is Spider specific, and which is a general problem in the game itself.

[Clit Beastwood]

Samual Kalkin, on 15 November 2013 - 09:57 AM, said:

The spider is not "Well Designed". It is idiotically undersized in a half-a**ed attempt to foster a rock/paper/scissors gameplay mechanic in relation to tonnage that should have no place in the game.

Hit boxes are not the core problem, and neither is server hit recognition. The main problem with the spider is that it is too small in relation to its tonnage. With other issues combined with its ridiculous undersized chasis, it makes it almost impossible hit/keep weapons on it to do the amount of damage they should realistically be doing.

There is a simple fact of machinery and vehicles assuming the same materials used in their construction, that unless you have massive amounts of empty space inside said equipment mass increases far more rapidly than volume. Mass is a linear progression but size/volume is increasing in 3 dimensions. Doubling all three dimenstions of a solid object increases the mass by roughly 8x. Battlemechs are not solid but they do not exactly have a lot of empty space inside them either.

When you look at the mechs next to one another, the spider has roughly the same size/volume as one arm of an Atlas. Given those dimensions either the Atlas has huge amounts of empty space inside it or it should be at least 200 tons, probably closer to 250 tons.

Even without being ridiculously undersized, a spider would still give an assault mech hell because of its speed, and have a much better than even chance of killing it.

Question - where does the atlas store it's ammo? Externally? The spider's supposed to be a lean recon mech. The Commando is a striker outfitted with missiles, so it'd be chunkier. The 2-3 tons of MG ammo a spider is supposed to be carry would be a lot smaller than 2-3 tons of 11 pound missiles.

Edited by Fierostetz, 15 November 2013 - 11:14 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Fierostetz, on 15 November 2013 - 11:05 AM, said:

Question - where does the atlas store it's ammo? ...

Same place a Spider does, only on a Spider, it 'magically' shrinks down to fit in the Spider's diminutive crit slots... Or does it 'magically' expand in an Atlas?

Each 'mech has the same number of crit slots, and MG ammo is MG ammo, 1 ton of MG ammo weighs the same as 1 ton of any other ammo. You can't fool us by asking which is heavier, a pound of feather or a pound of lead...

Weight is the over riding factor, it's just that whatever takes up an entire crit slot in an Atlas is somehow able to shrink down to fit the Spider crit slots.

Obviously the real problem is that PGI has removed the 'human scale' factor that Fasa had originally scaled their 'mech designs to, re:


Or, are we cramming midgets and dwarves into Spiders, Locusts, Ravens, and Commandos?