33 replies to this topic

[Alaskan Nobody]

Void Angel, on 06 January 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

Edit: Bah, how did I miss the whole second page of this threat?

....second.....page?

Edit: guess I just made it

Edited by Shar Wolf, 06 January 2014 - 11:58 AM.

[Void Angel]

Koniving, on 06 January 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

Mech = battlemech, can be anything from the Harvester Ant

Actually, the Harvester Ant is a WorkMech. =)

I'm p-sychic!

[Itsalrightwithme]

Are we going to cover "2x Basics"? Please take the lectern again, Professor Koniving.

[FriarShaggy]

I understand the 2x basics i think. It's 2 times the effects. I hope that's right. Do i get a gold star Profesor Koniving?

Friar.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

Yeah, 2xBasic is pretty self-explanatory. All 4 Elite skills on a variant - boom, 2xBasic.

Guest Lecturer Prof. A. J. Rimmer, presenting one gold star to the good Friar.

[Koniving]

Gorantir, on 06 January 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

they are changing pilot skills,so this might all change.

To a limited degree from what I understand. I believe they will keep the requirement of the 3 and 3 rules, but otherwise will have some other changes. When those changes come, Redshift, myself, and some others are likely to be on top of it.

I know that pilot trees are getting their own rework.

There's been mention that eventually Mech trees will be retuned but I do not believe there will be critical changes. It's most likely the "25%" bonuses which with the 2x basics become 50%+ bonuses will be tuned down (they'd be pretty stupid not to).

Personally I'd prefer it if the mechs themselves also get unique or dynamic choice unlocks but it is unlikely (becomes a bit more difficult to balance).

Void Angel, on 06 January 2014 - 12:12 PM, said:

Actually, the Harvester Ant is a WorkMech. =)

I'm p-sychic!

True, but it does occasionally carry machine guns and a 60-rated diesel engine. Note that I was defining "Mech" as a term. I wasn't actually defining "Battlemech."

That said, if I ever get ahold of the Mechwarrior/Battletech license or in a company where I can get my hands on said license, the Harvester Ant and the King Crab will be prominently featured, along with the Ambassador, battletanks, aerotech fighters, and also but most likely as decoration the naval and space ships.

FriarShaggy, on 06 January 2014 - 03:01 PM, said:

I understand the 2x basics i think. It's 2 times the effects. I hope that's right. Do i get a gold star Profesor Koniving?

Friar.

[Void Angel]

Ah, but you did define 'Mech as battlemech. Which is why I was teasing you in the first place. =P

It would be nifty to have a BattleTech experience that runs the full gamut of battlefield possibilities - but you'd need either a good AI for tanks and vehicles, or a different format from this game. Still, the game setting is fun, which is why so many of us still enjoy it.

[FriarShaggy]

*Enrolls in all Prof Koniving's Courses* Ty mate, learning alot from your posts

Friar.

ps. And every1 elses too.

[Koniving]

Void Angel, on 07 January 2014 - 12:21 AM, said:

Ah, but you did define 'Mech as battlemech. Which is why I was teasing you in the first place. =P

It would be nifty to have a BattleTech experience that runs the full gamut of battlefield possibilities - but you'd need either a good AI for tanks and vehicles, or a different format from this game. Still, the game setting is fun, which is why so many of us still enjoy it.

Different format. Either significantly larger number of players per match or a system that has various setups (tanks only, tanks and mechs, mechs only). I'm thinking unless I trade the one player, one life system there won't be a way to put in aerotech fighters/bombers as playable units unless it converts to an MW:LL or Battlefield-like format. In which case the consumable idea isn't so bad but the delivery has got to be modified.

Spoiler

I know one huge change that will go into it is convergence. I'm completely removing it from torso weapons; only arms with lower actuators can converge. This can mean several different crosshairs. If it proves too complicated for players then perhaps I might concede to one crosshair per section (arm, side torso, center torso, head, side torso, arm).

Worse comes to worse, then torso crosshair and 2 separate arm ones for non-lower actuators. Ones with lower actuators will become singular crosshairs like arms are now. <--realistically this is the most likely case.

Turreted weapons will join arm weapons. For example the Locust, Wolverine and Marauder each have turrets. This would be applied to arm crosshairs so that aiming can be done, even if the lower arm actuators do not exist (thus if the worse case scenario; this would be the 4th crosshair but arms will still follow it vertically).

The goal is to de-concentrate fire while still providing a skill-based system as well as diversify and enhance the role warfare concept.

Example: Turret system: Let's use a Wolverine first. The Wolverine is equipped with a head-mounted turret that is supposed to track with the movements of the pilot's joystick. In earlier tech the movement of the pilot's eyes (but this like many technologies is lost by 3025 and isn't rediscovered for more than 50 years). As a result, the weapon needs to track with the arms which is what the primary control of the joystick (mouse) is assigned to.

So let's say you use your arms to track a fast target that is running across a field that is too fast for your torso to keep up with. Your turret will also fire where the arms fire.

Example: Targeting system. Even mechs without lower arm actuators which have missiles will still have the 'turret' setup for their missiles. This will allow Catapults and Jagers to do the 'around the wall' LRM fire that Awesomes, Victors, Hunchbacks, Centurions and so on get to enjoy. This can also allow them to set up 'dumb-fire' targeting positions as well.

Example: No convergence for mechs without lower arm actuators: Jagermech. This is typically an anti-air mech that is also known for fire support roles but is never intended to be a front line mech. Without the ability to converge its arms it'll crave lower caliber weapons with high firing rates to be able to spam lots of fire to help compensate. Because the arms do not converge, firing cannons on both arms at the same time would actually be a waste, and so it's possible they will be chain fired or separated entirely. This removes the boating aspect in favor of say rapid weapons in one arm and slower hard hitting weapons on another.

In exchange for the loss of convergence, the Jager gains the ability to flip its arms to help deal with threats behind it, and I'm going to be certain to have an engine that can handle picture in picture or attach the rear-view to a monitor which toggles on and off when the arms are toggled.

Note that the Jager is never meant to carry AC/20s. While it still could (see below), it would be punished for carrying two large caliber AC/20s by combination of high recoil and risk of gyro overload. In lore/fluff what prevents most mechs from carrying single shot AC/20s is quite simply the lack of stability. What happens if you put 203mm artillery cannon with a short barrel (the shorter the barrel, the more 'felt' the recoil is) on top of a two legged wooden tower with feet? The tower collapses. What happens when you put up high on a mech that isn't supposed to carry it? On a mech that is too small, it could rip the arm off and blow right out of its housing. On a mech that is larger but still too small, it will cause a gyro overload and make the Jager fall over.

I may let an 80 ton mech carry a single shot high caliber AC/20 (which is still lore breaking; the mechs had to be a specific shape like the Ebon Jaguar [Cauldron Born] which is about as wide as an Awesome, longer than a Stalker in MWO, and about as tall as Hunchback in MWO; in other words "Wider is better" and being so low to the ground it can't fall over. Even then by lore it can only use one 203mm single shot 20 damage UAC/20 at a time). But any mech smaller than 80 tons the best they could hope for if I had my way is the Chemjet Gun which is a 4 shot 185mm AC/20 by Aldis Industries [slow burst] and New Samarkand Metals [even slower fired belt-fed automatic]. (Explained below.)
-------
On top of this, weapons will be much more DPS focused and much less 'one shot full damage' focused. For the most part, my goal would be to have weapon variants come down the line very early on so that proper focus can be done on balancing. There will be 3 types of autocannon. Single shot, which will be reduced in DPS (fire slower) so that its total damage is dealt in a single shot but takes longer to reload than any multi-shot variant. This also comes with high recoil and risk of gyro overload when mounted on mechs smaller than intended.

(Put it this way, even the Atlas carries a 15 shot AC/20 as in 15 shots of 1.34 (1.33333333 repeating) damage which turns into 20 at the conclusion of the 15 shot burst by lore! 100mm Deathgivers (by one manufacturer). The King Crab, a much more stable platform, carries a twin 12-shot AC/20s which is 1.67 damage rounded per shot. 120mm Deathgivers by another manufacturer.)

So here's Examples: The Hunchback 4G's Tomodzuru Autocannon Mount Type 20 is typically depicted as a 5 shot 180mm autocannon that is cassette-loaded (magazine fed). This means that with this AC/20 the Hunchback could pop out of cover and give a kinda-slow 5 round burst and then pop back into cover while the cassette ejects and another is slowly loaded into place. Each shot does 4 damage. The recoil is fast and kinda rough but being torso mounted helps negate it versus being mounted on an arm.

Meanwhile the Hunchback IIC with its twin UAC/20 configuration fires 6 shots from each UAC/20 to make 20 damage in a fully automatic way with belt-fed cannons. The damage however is 3.33 per shot. Or it can go into ultra mode and churn out 12 shots in the same amount of time from each UAC/20. The damage is still 3.33 but with 12 shots per UAC/20 it's a lot more spread. Combine with this the additional recoil punishment of firing both at once in ultra mode and it becomes quite difficult to manage.

These shots are dragged out, too. Let's assume for a second that we use MWO's AC/20 firing cycle. That's a new firing cycle every 4 seconds. The Inner Sphere Hunchback with it's T. Mount Type 20 AC/20 fires in a slow burst. Let's assume it takes 1.0 seconds to finish firing. That's 0 seconds, shoot, 0.25 shoot, 0.50 shoot, 0.75 shoot, 1.00 shoot. It will then take 3 seconds to load in another magazine. But on the other hand the Hunchback IIC does not reload. Instead it fires 6 shots dragged out over 4 seconds. So the IIC will fire 0 seconds, shoot, 0.67(rounded), shoot, 1.33(rounded), shoot, 2.0, shoot, 2.67(rounded), shoot, 3.33(rounded), shoot. And then at the fourth second the cycle starts anew.

What this also means is that while the Inner Sphere Hunchback can deal a lot of damage almost immediately, it must then wait 3 seconds before it can fire its cannon again. Also if it mis-fires, the full magazine is wasted. The IIC, a clan mech where the clans are known for their very unorthodox yet honorable tactics, takes longer to deal its full damage but fires almost continuously and can stop firing at any time with no ammunition waste.

Imagine if AC/2s and MGs did identical damage at the same rate. 2 damage every second for this example which isn't the speed they'd get if I designed it. The AC/2 does it at 0 seconds, and at 1 second can fire again. The MG takes the full second to do it. Even so, the MG still fires and if there's a single bullet missing that's just 0.2 damage lost. If the AC/2 misses, that's 2 damage lost. It'd be very easy for a skilled pilot to completely outperform the AC/2 with his MG. But then give him two MGs and notice the difference. This would be the case with the Hunchback's single burst AC/20 versus the IIC's twin UAC/20s with regular fire. Then throw in that desperate ultra mode for extra hammering power.

That Hunchback can defend against the twin UAC/20s of the IIC, though, by spreading the damage across his body as well as using cover (the IIC's weapons by design cannot focus damage due to the multiple shots over 4 seconds). The use of cover also enforces the Inner Sphere's military nature with orthodox, standard military tactics.

[Void Angel]

Koniving, on 07 January 2014 - 08:21 AM, said:

Different format. Either significantly larger number of players per match or a system that has various setups (tanks only, tanks and mechs, mechs only). I'm thinking unless I trade the one player, one life system there won't be a way to put in aerotech fighters/bombers as playable units unless it converts to an MW:LL or Battlefield-like format. In which case the consumable idea isn't so bad but the delivery has got to be modified.

You could also go for a more RTS style of game, or a turn-based setup - with the unnatural fragility of even tanks compared to Battlemechs in MWO, it'd be difficult to incorporate them into an FPS without a system to govern who gets them (certifications, point-buying, etc.)

As far as multiple reticles, I'd be surprised if it wasn't too much complexity for too little return - easier to make weapons converge at their effective ranges instead. It'd take more skill to aim, but would be easier to understand and still generally have the effect of limiting pinpoint alphas, especially if you implemented size limits for certain weapons and made all ACs rapid-fire.

Edited by Void Angel, 07 January 2014 - 11:12 AM.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Void Angel, on 07 January 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

You could also go for a more RTS style of game, or a turn-based setup - with the unnatural fragility of even tanks compared to Battlemechs in MWO, it'd be difficult to incorporate them into an FPS without a system to govern who gets them (certifications, point-buying, etc.)

If we had tanks we could pilot in MWO, there shouldn't be too many challenges, I hope, in fitting them in. And there frailty maybe setup to the fact that there are fewer sections needed to be disabled, instead of adding in other elements that I've read about from the table top game.

One thing I wanted to share was an armor formula that I have found for tank armor, it is 3.5*tons+40. So doubled would give us the MWO armor amount. For example I was looking at the 80 Ton Rhino, with doubled armor it could have a total Armor of 640 (depending on any other armor limits I haven't found yet, that's an additional 146 armor over 80 ton mechs to use on fewer sections). So potentially, the Rhino could have this amount of armor per section:

• Turret: 145
  
• Front: 145
  
• Right side: 125
  
• Left side: 125
  
• Rear: 100

So depending on weapon limits and possibly having things like power amplifiers for energy weapons with ICE engines, it would be interesting to see if we could one day see some tanks available either as AI or player controllable.

I also wanted to share this excerpt I found from the Tech Manual that I thought was a neat read:

Spoiler

[Koniving]

Void Angel, on 07 January 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

You could also go for a more RTS style of game, or a turn-based setup - with the unnatural fragility of even tanks compared to Battlemechs in MWO, it'd be difficult to incorporate them into an FPS without a system to govern who gets them (certifications, point-buying, etc.)

As far as multiple reticles, I'd be surprised if it wasn't too much complexity for too little return - easier to make weapons converge at their effective ranges instead. It'd take more skill to aim, but would be easier to understand and still generally have the effect of limiting pinpoint alphas, especially if you implemented size limits for certain weapons and made all ACs rapid-fire.

You'd be surprised. You know there are tanks between 20 and 100 tons, right? There's even tanks that according to Sarna are built to go toe to toe with an Atlas with a chance to win (provided melee didn't play into the mix).

But you are right on that. Problem is that creates encouragement to use very specific boats where all the weapons easily converge at just the right range.

[Victor Morson]

Void Angel, on 07 January 2014 - 11:11 AM, said:

You could also go for a more RTS style of game, or a turn-based setup - with the unnatural fragility of even tanks compared to Battlemechs in MWO, it'd be difficult to incorporate them into an FPS without a system to govern who gets them (certifications, point-buying, etc.)

Living Legends already did it.

Also tanks in BattleTech are actually pretty freaking good, in particular for their BV. If I was running some TT campaign where I wanted to get the absolute best bang for the buck, it'd be about 80% armor, 10% support (air, infantry, etc.) and like 10% 'mech, honestly.

And that's even in the face of the silly nerfs they're given, like how their treads fall off left and right, when in reality a 'mech leg = far more easy to screw up than a tread.

Edited by Victor Morson, 07 January 2014 - 08:36 PM.

[Void Angel]

Koniving, on 07 January 2014 - 08:25 PM, said:

You'd be surprised. You know there are tanks between 20 and 100 tons, right? There's even tanks that according to Sarna are built to go toe to toe with an Atlas with a chance to win (provided melee didn't play into the mix).

But you are right on that. Problem is that creates encouragement to use very specific boats where all the weapons easily converge at just the right range.

The problems with tanks is that every time, per tabletop, you hit them, it has a small but significant chance to partially or completely disable the vehicle. Helicopters and hovercraft are even more fragile, but I mean, they're held up by spinning fans - they should be. Tanks, on the other hand, should be tougher than any walking articulated robot - but that's not fun for the genre, which is fine. Heavy Gear is fun, too, but it's not BattleTech. The point is that you'd have to have a point-buying system, or buff tanks, or both, to give them a place on an FPS battlefield of the MWO or Battlefield type.

On a one-for-one footing, tracked vehicles are substantially inferior to BattleMechs, - for example, every time you are hit, with anything, there is a ~5.6% chance that you will suffer a complete mobility kill. Vehicles also: cannot mount Endo-steel; are killed when any internal location is fully destroyed; suffer a 50% total kill ratio from any critical hit; and must carry enough heat sinks to keep their weapons heat neutral. Non-tracked vehicles do enjoy a speed advantage over BattleMechs (they get a reduction in engine rating required to achieve a given speed,) but at the cost of increased fragility and the inability to navigate certain types of terrain. In short, you can't present canon vehicles as a reasonable substitute for BattleMechs - 'Mechs are the kings of the Battlefield, and are designed to be. In order to make vehicles a viable alternative, I think you have to limit the availability of BattleMechs somehow, or buff vehicles to be competitive.

Edited by Void Angel, 07 January 2014 - 11:00 PM.