195 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

Almond Brown, on 19 February 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Would it not just be so much easier to just Disable the Ability to Group Fire Weapons?

This would be easier, but to many stories include Kai switching this weapon onto his secondary trigger and these weapons onto his primary... or someone else doing something of the same caliber.

[nehebkau]

Madw0lf, on 19 February 2014 - 10:08 AM, said:

Where this fails my tests, is that it really doesnt make sense, and would be confusing in general (Think ghost heat) Can you eplain this better to alleive these issues?

It's a video game, its the future -- ray-guns fail my test of reality. 100t mechs falling off buildings and walking away with NO damage fails my test of reality and doesn't make sense.

Yes, its counter intuitive, so imagine a magical crystalline structure that has been discovered that turns impact energy to heat energy and spreads it out across its surface if you hit it hard enough. (Corn-starch in solution kinda does this, press slowly and your finger goes in, hit it with a hammer and it goes rock hard) The more energy you throw at it the better it becomes at converting that to heat and dispersing it through its crystal structure. Of course, some damage to the outer layers occurs with each impact (it is crystal) and if there is excessive heat damage will occur to the crystal structure. The resulting compound from the initial impact, much like an oxide forming on iron, that occurs from the initial damage is even better at resisting damage and transporting heat energy but decays quickly (in seconds). Unfortunately science has found no way of stabilizing the post-impact compound it to make better armor and the residue off-gasses quickly. There is a maximum to the the amount of energy that the crystal compound can convert, but that level is currently 10^15 joules/cm, far above current mech weapons capability.

Now, imagine our stompy-stompy mech that is designed to dissipate heat, I fire a gun in my right arm and the magic heat-sink in my left arm, 10 meters away, will instantly start to dissipate that heat energy. Not to big to imagine a magical kinetic energy dissipating armor, turning impact energy to heat energy and spreading that excess energy to joining body parts at the cost of weakening the armor on the other body parts.

Reality doesn't enter into the "he has 30 points of armor and i did 30 points of damage so his armor is gone"

[Almond Brown]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 February 2014 - 10:55 AM, said:

This would be easier, but to many stories include Kai switching this weapon onto his secondary trigger and these weapons onto his primary... or someone else doing something of the same caliber.

Well Kai can switch his weapons from Primary to Secondary group all he wants. He just won't be able to fire more than 1 every .5 seconds.

[Trauglodyte]

I don't like cone of fire. If I aim my shots, they need to go where I aim. If I'm on the rifle range, my shot isn't going to miss by 2 ft wide of the target if I'm not aiming that way. The only way that happens is if my sights are all jacked up.

That being said, I am ok with environmental impacts that would mirror COF. I've said it too many times but we have everything within our control but we're not penalized when we play out of control. Mechs, just like vehicles, do have some gyro stabalization for weapons. But, when your mech is running at max speed over terrain and you're firing weapons with recoil, there needs to be some level of impact. And, when you're pushing your mech to its limits around near shut down level of heat (btw, if you're not, you're either hiding, moving, or not playing hard enough), there needs to be an impact. There is one thing that is in game that you could add in:

• Weapon spread (added in when PGI created JJ reticle shake)

So, if we take the OP's concept, which I've been ok with for a long time, and apply arm mounted weapon spread based on speed and heat, that creates cone of fire while keeping things in the hands of the player. Want your shots to land with greater accuracy? Slow down, or stop, and keep your heat low. Add in a small level of this for torso mounted weapons, maybe by way of reticle bounce, and things are ok. Again, all of what impacts your ability to hit are in your hands.

As to the topid of ACs being burst fire, I'm ok with making them act like that. There is only one thing that poses a problem. UAC2. We know that they're coming and any idea that you come up with has to work within the limits of the 0.52s recycle time. The UAC2 is going to have to be designed to pop off two shots before the weapon recycles or it is simply a normal AC2. If they make it so that the second shot can fire off within 0.1s, or so, of the first, then that opens up room for burst. Even still, you've got to figure out how to fire multiple shots within that 0.52s threshhold. Ultimately, all you'd be able to do is have each AC first two shots within 0.1-0.125s. That begs the question, then, how much spread would be achieved by having shots fire that close together? And, is it worth the money and man hours to make the change?

[Joseph Mallan]

Almond Brown, on 19 February 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

Well Kai can switch his weapons from Primary to Secondary group all he wants. He just won't be able to fire more than 1 every .5 seconds.

3 weapons on one trigger to simo fire. If someone else wants to chain fire let him. I enjoy my style of play. I have a long range trigger, a short range trigger a Missiles trigger and Alpha.That is working as intended and I do not like being told I cannot kill my way. It is rude and punishable by Alpha at 300M!

[Dawnstealer]

This is exactly what I think should happen, but spelled out better than my usual attempts. It would make brawling viable, it would make sniping an actual skill, and so on.

[Trauglodyte]

One thing, though: You'd still have to find a way of disabling arm lock. Personally, I think Arm Lock should be prohibited once you finish your 25 game cadet run. And, Lock Arms To Torso toggle needs to go away now. Until those changes happen, any concepts for fixing, or attempting to fix, convergence is moot.

[Madw0lf]

Almond Brown, on 19 February 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Would it not just be so much easier to just Disable the Ability to Group Fire Weapons?

The thing is we dont want to tell people they NEED to play like this, only encourage it.

Trauglodyte, on 19 February 2014 - 11:41 AM, said:

I don't like cone of fire. If I aim my shots, they need to go where I aim. If I'm on the rifle range, my shot isn't going to miss by 2 ft wide of the target if I'm not aiming that way. The only way that happens is if my sights are all jacked up.

That being said, I am ok with environmental impacts that would mirror COF. I've said it too many times but we have everything within our control but we're not penalized when we play out of control. Mechs, just like vehicles, do have some gyro stabalization for weapons. But, when your mech is running at max speed over terrain and you're firing weapons with recoil, there needs to be some level of impact. And, when you're pushing your mech to its limits around near shut down level of heat (btw, if you're not, you're either hiding, moving, or not playing hard enough), there needs to be an impact. There is one thing that is in game that you could add in:

• Weapon spread (added in when PGI created JJ reticle shake)

So, if we take the OP's concept, which I've been ok with for a long time, and apply arm mounted weapon spread based on speed and heat, that creates cone of fire while keeping things in the hands of the player. Want your shots to land with greater accuracy? Slow down, or stop, and keep your heat low. Add in a small level of this for torso mounted weapons, maybe by way of reticle bounce, and things are ok. Again, all of what impacts your ability to hit are in your hands.


As to the topid of ACs being burst fire, I'm ok with making them act like that. There is only one thing that poses a problem. UAC2. We know that they're coming and any idea that you come up with has to work within the limits of the 0.52s recycle time. The UAC2 is going to have to be designed to pop off two shots before the weapon recycles or it is simply a normal AC2. If they make it so that the second shot can fire off within 0.1s, or so, of the first, then that opens up room for burst. Even still, you've got to figure out how to fire multiple shots within that 0.52s threshhold. Ultimately, all you'd be able to do is have each AC first two shots within 0.1-0.125s. That begs the question, then, how much spread would be achieved by having shots fire that close together? And, is it worth the money and man hours to make the change?

Ah I forgot to mention! Thats actually what I intend by CoF, is a replication of the JJ shake mechanic. Very good point about the ACs as well.

nehebkau, on 19 February 2014 - 11:25 AM, said:

It's a video game, its the future -- ray-guns fail my test of reality. 100t mechs falling off buildings and walking away with NO damage fails my test of reality and doesn't make sense.

I like some semblence of sense and order in my games, Mechwarrior in general is just at the edge as is, any further and I may go mad Theres a reason I like MW (and to an extent BT) and not Gundam, or alot of other mecha, the mechs in it seem more realistic and logical to something you might actually see.

[Joseph Mallan]

Trauglodyte, on 19 February 2014 - 11:51 AM, said:

One thing, though: You'd still have to find a way of disabling arm lock. Personally, I think Arm Lock should be prohibited once you finish your 25 game cadet run. And, Lock Arms To Torso toggle needs to go away now. Until those changes happen, any concepts for fixing, or attempting to fix, convergence is moot.

Really? I can't stand using Am Lock. I can't swing m arms to track a mech at all when its on!!

[FupDup]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 February 2014 - 11:56 AM, said:

Really? I can't stand using Am Lock. I can't swing m arms to track a mech at all when its on!!

A lot of sniper builds use it so that they only have to aim one reticule instead of two (assuming the mech has lower arm actuators, i.e. Highlander, Victor, Cataphract).

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 19 February 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

A lot of sniper builds use it so that they only have to aim one reticule instead of two (assuming the mech has lower arm actuators, i.e. Highlander, Victor, Cataphract).

Your kidding? They need to to do that?

I continue to be baffled how some people call themselves "Competitive"!

[Trauglodyte]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 February 2014 - 12:01 PM, said:

Your kidding? They need to to do that?

I continue to be baffled how some people call themselves "Competitive"!

All of the big boys use Arm Lock, either all of the time, or they use the toggle. You jump (with only 1 JJ mind you), twist to put your target in line, press the button, pull your trigger, release button and twist away. A lot simply just keep arm lock on so that they don't have to risk hitting the wrong key. Plus, Arm Lock actually saves you a few hundredths of a second during jump sniping to get your arm reticle and torso reticle to line up.

Free Look was really put in place to help the pilots to partially shield your torso while keeping your arms on line with your target. But, a lot of mechs have massive side torsos so that humped what was a good use. Now, people only use it to look around in their cockpits if at all. Of course, on some mechs, if you torso twist to the extreme and then hit Free Look to move your arms further, you can actually see beyond directly behind you. I use it a lot on my Cicadas to get a bead on who is behind me. I may not be able to hit them but I can use it to see where they are and to help avoid incoming damage.

Edited by Trauglodyte, 19 February 2014 - 12:10 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Trauglodyte, on 19 February 2014 - 12:07 PM, said:

All of the big boys use Arm Lock, either all of the time, or they use the toggle. You jump (with only 1 JJ mind you), twist to put your target in line, press the button, pull your trigger, release button and twist away. A lot simply just keep arm lock on so that they don't have to risk hitting the wrong key. Plus, Arm Lock actually saves you a few hundredths of a second during jump sniping to get your arm reticle and torso reticle to line up.

Free Look was really put in place to help the pilots to partially shield your torso while keeping your arms on line with your target. But, a lot of mechs have massive side torsos so that humped what was a good use. Now, people only use it to look around in their cockpits if at all. Of course, on some mechs, if you torso twist to the extreme and then hit Free Look to move your arms further, you can actually see beyond directly behind you. I use it a lot on my Cicadas to get a bead on who is behind me. I may not be able to hit them but I can use it to see where they are and to help avoid incoming damage.

I just lost some respect for them. the more you let the game do things for you the less it is you doing the impossible!
So you ain't got skillz.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 19 February 2014 - 12:13 PM.

[DaZur]

I still contend my patent-pending "3-Reticle" solution would be the best solution...

In a nut-shell: There would be three reticles, one each for the left arm, torso, and right arm respectively.

The right and left reticles would automatically attempt to converge with the central reticle. That said, "movement" would cause the reticles to de-harmonize... as the amplitude of the movement increased, so to would the amount of de-harmonization... effect.

Thusly while stationary, mechs would have perfect convergence. Moderate movement would invoke slight de-harmonization and full tilt movement would obviously cause the greatest de-harmonization.

For the sake of balance, poptarting would be categorized as full-tilt movement...

The functional coding is already present as this is roughly how MW:O treats torso / arm reticle limits. This would simply be an extension of this core game mechanic the way I see it...

Edited by DaZur, 19 February 2014 - 12:53 PM.

[Madw0lf]

DaZur, on 19 February 2014 - 12:47 PM, said:

I still contend my patent-pending "3-Reticle" solution would be the best solution...

In a nut-shell: There would be three reticles, one each for the left arm, torso, and right arm respectively.

The right and left reticles would automatically attempt to attempt to converge with the central reticle. That said, "movement" would cause the reticles to de-harmonize... as the amplitude of the movement increased, so to would the amount of de-harmonization... effect.

Thusly while stationary, mechs would have perfect convergence. Moderate movement would invoke slight de-harmonization and full tilt movement would obviously cause the greatest de-harmonization.

For the sake of balance, poptarting would be categorized as full-tilt movement...

The functional coding is already present as this is roughly how MW:O treats torso / arm reticle limits. This would simply be an extension of this core game mechanic the way I see it...

Not bad, I would get a little miffed about having two reticles for my arms.....but think i could get past it. Question is, how effective would it be? Youd be de-coupling the arms from each other and the torsos, but weapons on the same part would be pinpoint.

Actually, I need to think about it more, I kind of like that aspect

[wanderer]

TygerLily, on 19 February 2014 - 10:19 AM, said:

I don't think cone of fire jives with the skill based approach the devs have stated in the past. I do think a modicum of reticule "bounce" should be present while you run (and would be negligible if you move at 50% speed or less, or nonexistent if you are at 0%). At least a good shooter would then be able to account for the bounce and therefore it relies on skill.

What makes my teeth grind is nearly every weapon allows for defensive maneuvering to mitigate damage or spreads it normally- that is, either the weapon naturally scatters it's damage on the target, or a mobile, reactive target can spread the damage via twists, simply moving, or even turning the 'Mech in place.

The weapons that have achieved dominance are the ones that neither scatter nor allow for mitigation- if you hit the CT with two LPLs, your target might move and shift the damage, he might turn and spread the damage, or you might be moving and spread it for him. If you fired two LB-X, the pellets spread across the target. Ditto SRMs, or a pair of LRM racks.

Fire two PPCs or two AC/10's at them, and it's a guaranteed full damage to the point of impact- meaning that as long as your aim is good, you maximize your efficient damage-dealing and the opponent cannot spread or deflect so much as a shred of it.

Almond Brown, on 19 February 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

Would it not just be so much easier to just Disable the Ability to Group Fire Weapons?

Same problem, merely slower until the first Clan UAC/20 shows up and does it all over again. The solution isn't globally messing with fire control, which would cause more problems- it's fixing the weapon performance.

[DaZur]

Madw0lf, on 19 February 2014 - 12:51 PM, said:

Not bad, I would get a little miffed about having two reticles for my arms.....but think i could get past it. Question is, how effective would it be? Youd be de-coupling the arms from each other and the torsos, but weapons on the same part would be pinpoint.

Actually, I need to think about it more, I kind of like that aspect

Actually right now the linking of the arms is a limitation... The horizontal traverse range of the arm reticle is tied to the limits imposed by the trailing arm.

Un-linking them would / should allow a greater ROM for that front-side arm.

Edited by DaZur, 19 February 2014 - 12:59 PM.

[Phobic Wraith]

Joseph Mallan, on 19 February 2014 - 06:17 AM, said:

I'm with Max. You are giving constructive ideas and looking for good feedback. I will be watching this, Some folks will give you good ideas, (Must, Kho, StJobe, DaZ, DocBach to name a few).

Me I can live with a expanding CoF as I alpha with more weapons. It would make me think about when I want to try to hit you with everything or take a pin point shot. And that is how a thinking mans shooter should be! Every action needs a reaction.

don't know if it's been mentioned (still reading pages here) but that sounds an awful lot like Homeless Bill's targeting mechanic... which was squashed thoroughly by the devs.

[Trauglodyte]

DaZur, on 19 February 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Actually right now the linking of the arms is a limitation... The horizontal traverse range of the arm reticle is tied to the limits imposed by the trailing arm.

Un-linking them would / should allow a greater ROM for that front-side arm.

Would also play havoc on those people, including me, that drive the mechs with the AC20 in the arm (YLW and Victor S). But, I'm ok with it. Seperate reticles are needed.

I think the big thing here is how much PGI is willing to experiment with the limits of the engine to get the game to last longer without pushing the limitations of the players. Furthermore, are they building this game for those of us that can handle seperate arm reticles and environmental factors OR are they building the game for the every day Joe that just got home from a long day at work/school and wnats to veg out shooting giant stompy robots? They've said that they want to build a mechwarrior game for the thinking man but I'm not seeing a lot of thinking involved. All I need are big guns and to stay away from 100% heat.

[Madw0lf]

wanderer, on 19 February 2014 - 12:54 PM, said:

What makes my teeth grind is nearly every weapon allows for defensive maneuvering to mitigate damage or spreads it normally- that is, either the weapon naturally scatters it's damage on the target, or a mobile, reactive target can spread the damage via twists, simply moving, or even turning the 'Mech in place.

The weapons that have achieved dominance are the ones that neither scatter nor allow for mitigation- if you hit the CT with two LPLs, your target might move and shift the damage, he might turn and spread the damage, or you might be moving and spread it for him. If you fired two LB-X, the pellets spread across the target. Ditto SRMs, or a pair of LRM racks.

Fire two PPCs or two AC/10's at them, and it's a guaranteed full damage to the point of impact- meaning that as long as your aim is good, you maximize your efficient damage-dealing and the opponent cannot spread or deflect so much as a shred of it.



Same problem, merely slower until the first Clan UAC/20 shows up and does it all over again. The solution isn't globally messing with fire control, which would cause more problems- it's fixing the weapon performance.

"Messing" with the fire control as Ive suggested is going to achieve the same results as "fixing" the weapon performance, just in a different manner.

DaZur, on 19 February 2014 - 12:58 PM, said:

Actually right now the linking of the arms is a limitation... The horizontal traverse range of the arm reticle is tied to the limits imposed by the trailing arm.

Un-linking them would / should allow a greater ROM for that front-side arm.

This is true, its just the fact of having three reticles to keep track of, and what weapons fire where. Though if you can handle two, you should be able to handle 3.....