32 replies to this topic

[Hodo]

wolf on the tide, on 15 November 2011 - 05:52 AM, said:

if the combat was "realistic" you wouldn't be driving your mech in a urban environment.

not unless you like having your mech destroyed by infanty, mines, fire, explosions, tanks and other vehicles (aerospace fighters) and artillery....oh and occasionally being buried alive when the infantry decide to blow up the tower blocks around you, and entrap you there...thats if they dont set fire to your mech as well.

seriously, what person thinks that mechs ( or tanks for that matter) in city/urban environments is anything other than bad tactical doctorine?
you only put them in there IF you have no infantry or other assets to deploy there.
it is , pure and simple, a way to lose your mechs fast.

you show me someone who thinks mechs in city's is a good thing, and i'll show you a civilian thats never been within 100 miles of a frontline combat situation and has no concept of military strategy, tactics, or doctrine

Better yet.

If you want realistic you wouldnt be piloting a mech that is biped. You would work from a 6 or more legged if not tracked vehicle of roughly the same size and ground displacement powered by the same systems. Think Armored Core.

Biped walkers are illogical and impractical.

[Nebfer]

Humm Some things to note here

Lasers Per Rules in tactical operations any energy weapon with a long range of at lest 7 or more can use Line of sight rules (for missiles and ballistics it's 13 or more hexes) so, at lest as far as the rules are concerned a medium laser can hit targets out to the units maximum line of sights (the rule it self mentions if you can see it you can try to hit it, regardless of how big your playing area is, though also present are a few optional rules that bring that down to a more manageable level for game play...)

Also the old battletechnology magazine (#3 Copyrighted to 1988!) mentions energy weapons having a max range of out to the horizon (in a mechs case some 12 kilometers), while ballistic weapons having 7.5 times their regular range (an AC-20 would have a range of a tad over 2 kilometers), for Missiles it's 5x their range (LRMs would be able to hit out to 3.15km). The rules also allows for ballistic scatter of shells and missiles and attenuation of energy beams. Due to it being written in 1988, advanced weapons like Gauss rifles are not factored, nor is the "other extreme range" rules dealt with. Though many of the more advanced weapons could be logically placed.

Using such rules the ranges would be as follows
LRMs = 3.15km, SRMs = 1.35km, MRMs = 2.25km, Extended LRMs = 5.7km & Thunderbolt = 2.7km
Autocannon AC-2 =5.4km, AC-5 =4.05km, AC-10 = 3.375km, AC-20 = 2.025km
Ultra AC-2 = 5.625km, AC-5 = 4.5km, AC-10 = 4.05km, AC-20 = 2.7km
LBX AC-2 =6.075km, AC-5 =4.725km, AC-10 =4.05km, AC-20 = 2.25km
RAC AC-2 =4.05km, AC-5 = 3.375km
Light AC-2 =4.05km, AC-5 = 3.375km
Hypervelocity AC-2 =7.875km, AC-5 =6.3km, AC-10 = 4.5km
Gauss (assuming they would be treated as autocannons)
Light =5.625km, Standard =4.95km, Heavy =4.5km, Improved Heavy =4.275km, Magshot =2.025km
Machineguns LMG = 3.6km, MG =1.8km, HMG = 1.2km
Flamers as per their regular ranges
Energy weapons = horizon

Clans omitted but needles to say their a bit longer ranged than these on average.
The Extended LRM would have an impressive range for a 12.5kg missile, and for a 4.1kg missile the MRM is quite impressive. Though these ranges would be non canonical, as the B-tech mag is not considered canon at this time (though they may raid it from time to time). Also Machineguns have a different range upgrade, but can not harm mechs out side of their regular ranges (but infantry...).

----------------------------------------------
The rules for Fighters at "low altitudes" gives the ranges as 500 meters per hex, and uses range bands (though IIRC the use of their regular game ranges is an option) with short range being six hexes (3km), medium 12 hexes (6km) long being 20 hexes (10km) and extreme range being 25 hexes (12.5km). LRMs are long range weapons as such have a range of 10km, SRMs are short ranged and thus 3km.

The High altitude ranges (which can take place at the same altitudes as low altitude combat) simply makes the hexes 18km in size (the same as in space) though I do believe theirs a range penalty for firing through an atmospheric hex of IIRC reducing the range by 1/6th, so short = 18km, medium = 36km, long ~54km and extreme ~72km. For Space combat their is no modifiers.

So a SRM would have a range of up to 18km in an atmosphere, which is impressive for a 10kg missile, and LRMs some 54km which is quite impressive for a 8.3kg missile.

[Forsakened]

I agree with all of your quote except the fact of laser's

irishwarrior, on 14 November 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

Going through the forums, I've seen lots of people complaining about the arbitrarily-short ranges of the weapons in the Battletech universe. And, yes, it does make sense from a realism perspective. However, little mention is made about what these ranges would be, and how this would affect combat. So, I decided to find out what would happen if the game was made with realistic weapon ranges, based on my best guesses of the weapons' real life analogues and the ranges and accuracy of those modern weapons. Keep in mind that this assumes that there are no advances in explosives, fuel, gunpowder, or targeting in the next 1000 years - everything went into designing lasers, spaceships, communication technology, and the 'Mechs themselves

Lasers: Technically, lasers should have an effective range somewhere in the vicinity of the horizon. With the sort of targeting tech that already exists, it is possible to hit targets over the horizon, so (barring urban combat) you will primarily be shooting at targets too far away to actually see - you'll just be firing by radar. In fact, your skill won't even matter - the computer will have to do all the targeting for you to score a hit. Again, you can't see the target, so there's no way you could aim for yourself.

First off lasers are just amplified light beams that are super focused, and they would actually have a effective range depending on their power input. Light would always be wanting to expand out of its super focused beam which would effectively take a massive laser weapon, and turn it into a laser pointer incapable of penetrating a sheet of paper if the input energy was not enough and given enough distance. An example of this would be a flash light when turned on you have the main area the light shines but as you get further away from the item you are shinning the light on it becomes dimmer, this is the same principle. This does not even take into consideration facts like water molecules in the air that could change the focus also decreasing its effective range.

Edited by Forsakened, 15 November 2011 - 10:02 PM.

[AcesHigh]

Forsakened, on 15 November 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

Light would always be wanting to expand out of its super focused beam which would effectively take a massive laser weapon, and turn it into a laser pointer incapable of penetrating a sheet of paper if the input energy was not enough and given enough distance.

I assume you're talking about diffraction/refraction of the beam. Really beam divergence is caused by 2factors:

• refractive index changes in medium due to local hotsopts
  
• precision of emitter construction

Forsakened, on 15 November 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

This does not even take into consideration facts like water molecules in the air that could change the focus also decreasing its effective range.

Refractive index: Anyone ho's been outside on a really hot day will have seen the wavy look of distant object seen over hot areas. This is because as heat is exchanged into the atmosphere the molecules become excited and rise, leading to pillar-like streams of less dense hot air going up and cold air going down to replace it. the density of the gas alters it's refractive index in a gradient pattern causing the light to take a less than straight path as it collides with atoms of differing energy states (that are capable of absorption).
This factor can be mitigated in several ways, such as using a wavelength that does not interact with the medium.

Forsakened, on 15 November 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:

An example of this would be a flash light when turned on you have the main area the light shines but as you get further away from the item you are shinning the light on it becomes dimmer, this is the same principle.

Emitter construction: there are a range of methods available to create a coherent photon beam. Common practices include a 99/100% reflective mirrored chamber. the coherence of the beam produced is reliant on the precision to which the mirrors are aligned parallel to one another and the precision of their surfaces. It's somewhat unlikely that IS LASER tech is reliant on this method due to the inherent problems associated with a gas-tube(EG HeNe) or solid core(eg rubidium). The flashlight example given is somewhat accurate to these types.

A more likely method of LASE would be a free-electron LASER system. The ability to "tune" the wavelength on-the-fly offers multiple advantages in a weapons platform, specifically the reduction/elimination of refraction through the transfer medium and maximum absorption of the target medium. The mech's heat-loads, charge times, and energy transfer effectiveness indicates to me they likely use a charged capacitance coil-based SASE system, with S/M/L designating the length of wiggler coils in the system. such a system would have a prodigious range before the more subtle methods of beam divergence (such as gravitational gradient) would become a factor.

[Pht]

irishwarrior, on 14 November 2011 - 04:46 PM, said:

So, basically, aside from urban combat, we should realistically not even be able to see who we're shooting at. In the cities, we would of course be able to see the enemy, allowing us to have the exciting, brawling combat we see in the TT game and other video games. But do we really want a game which consists entirely of urban combat, nullifying most (if not all) of the lighter weight classes' speed advantage? Or a game where we can't even see who we are shooting at? I think not. So, let us keep the absurdly short ranges that will allow all types of maps to be fun.

Absurdly short ranges are just as annoying as no-see BAM you're dead fighting ranges ... the ranges, I think, can be adjusted to fit the video-game format in such a way as to hit a happy compromise for gameplay.

[Uncl Munkeh]

So, basically,

ballistic = short range
missile = any range but lock and arm only within it's operational range
lasers = short range, full damage / medium range , lower damage / long range , lowest damage (except if in a vacuum)
ppc and gauss = only as good as the pilot

???

[Korbyn McColl]

...

The words "realistic" and "battlemech" do not belong in the same sentence.

That, however, does not mean that we shouldn't be able to have an assload of fun blasting the hell out of each other in sixty foot tall mechs...

[Odin]

I seriously hope all range restrictions, regarding ballistic weapons are based realistically on their velocity, or getting droped altogether.
A gauss hits at 2000m as it does on 600m. Energy is that high, you wont see any difference at this ranges - results will be the same anyway.

Edited by Odin, 27 November 2011 - 05:09 AM.

[Riptor]

In this case realistic makes for very boring gameplay mechanics. After all we want to see what we shoot at and dont want to turn this into a guessing game of who has the most artillery like guns on his ride.


As about mechs being realistic:

Realistically i can only see mechs up to the size of a Elementals to heavy gear (from the same name game) being realistic.. so more or less power armor for the infantry to make them less squishy especialy in urban regions and enable them to carry heavy weapons at ease without making them to big so they can still use cover. Unless you achieve gundam like movements a bipedal chassis makes no sense cause its an incredible unstable weapons platform compared to a tank or even wheeled weapon systems.

Thought they are definatly cooler XD

[Melissia]

I have a more important objection to the "omg realism!" movement.

Fun before realism. Realism's only important insofar as it helps the game be fun, and frequently it doesn't.

People worry too much about supporting suspension of disbelief and not enough about making a game fun. A fun game lets you suspend disbelief far easier than a dull, boring game. The Metroid series comes to mind-- it basically says "**** physics", and people don't complain about suspension of disbelief there. Because the games (barring Other M and its borderline misogynistic portrayal of Samus) are awesome!

Edited by Melissia, 27 November 2011 - 06:12 AM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

thank you melissia; I'm sick and tired of reading these 'realism'
threads.

Here's some things that override realism:
this is a video game
..I was going to list more, but I think that makes the point
abundantly clear!

and as melissia said, fun before all else.
the devs went so far as to say they were tired of seeing
jump-sniper fests which is what 'realism' (what a joke)
in btech would truly devolve to.

Battletechs 'physics' exist for the express purpose of justifying
giant robots, and those giant robots beating the crap out of each
other. Honestly, how come you 'realism' guys don't ***** about
the Force in Star Wars? or how their lasers don't work right
either!

[VYCanis]

i don't think anyone supports jump sniping, realism crowd or otherwise. jump (inaccurate) shooting, sure, but to the point where you can accurately snipe, hardly. If anything the people pushing realism would want jump shooting to be nightmare hard on account of not being in a remotely stable position.

also here's a fun fact, you can have relative realism AND fun.
fun does not necessarily equate to arbitrary goofy stuff that makes no sense for its own sake.

Its a sliding scale, its not absolute. And i for one get a serious kick out of seeing weapons depicted in a semi realistic manner, even if the stuff that is using them is ridiculous

[mecheze]

HAHA.... cool post, i mean, but what if that just made me thinking about it... MW goes realistic, what would happen to the rats....?! Everything would go mad....