19 replies to this topic

[Warblood]

As the title says..

Eject:
- Reg.Eng.: usable when front/back CT is critical
- XL Eng.: usable when any(front/back/sides) torso is critical

Reward:
Mech Salvage
- Attacker receives c-bill(10k??) & xp(50??100??) rewards if attacking a target for more then 10sec and then target ejects.

No c-bill or xp rewarded to pilot for ejecting. Allows for a denial of kills and/or assists, while rewarding the attacker for making a pilot choose to eject. And ofcourse we wont be getting ppl early ejecting at the start of games.

Reactor Overload:
- chance upon death.
(% chance based on heat. ex: if heat was at 80% upon death you will have a 80% chance to overload)
- damage scaled by size of eng.
(400eng=133dam, 350eng=117, 300eng=100dam, 250eng=83dam, 200eng=67, 150eng=50dam, 100eng=33dam )
- damage done to everything within 100m
(everything takes the same amount damage. so if 300eng = 100 dam, everything within 100m will take 100dam each)
- death from overheat has 100% chance to overload

Reward:
NUKED!!
- xp rewarded(25??50??) for every mech hit by overload.

No c-bills, xp, damage, kills or assists will be rewarded to pilot for overloads damage, only NUKED!! reward.

[Mawai]

1) Eject or some other way to concede the match other than self-destructing (overheat/out of bounds/sacrifice to opposing turrets) or hiding and powering down might be useful.

However, there would need to be checks and balances to make sure it is not abused (i.e. folks cycling matches for cbills and keeping their record more or less intact by constantly ejecting). Currently folks do this with a suicide rush at the opposing team but ejecting might make it too easy.

2) There is no way I would ever want to see random mech explosions in the match. First, I could see some folks suicide charging when badly damaged in the hopes of blowing up in the midst of a group of enemy mechs. Second, even in battletech physics, it doesn't make any sense. Fusion reactors as described in this game DO NOT EXPLODE. They are hard enough to keep going so any breach of containment basically turns the reactor off. The plasma inside the reactor is incredibly hot but also incredibly low density ... the net result is that a reactor breach might heat up the air that leaks in a bit ... if you stretch it a bit you might get some superheated gases ... but no nuclear explosions. Fusion reactors just don't work that way.

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Yes to ejecting, No to overloading.

A reactor cannot explode for damage (that's not how fusion reactors work). It can, however, vent steam when breached. It makes for a spectacular display with a big mushroom cloud and lots of light effects, but does basically nothing to any armored people, let alone a mech. At worst it would dump some heat on anyone too close to it (maybe scaled based on the current heat load of the destroyed mech).

[Lightfoot]

I don't see a reason why players should choose to eject except to leave the Mordor map. However an ejection animation on Mech destruction through combat would add greatly to the realism and fun. I would like that.

I would also like random core breaches as were originally intended for MechWarrior reboot, now MWO. Again it would add an element of a far future where 31st century Battlemechs control the battlefield. So far MechWarrior only uses this feature to sell players the game. Once you buy it they say, oh we never promised core breaches. That was just to sell the game.

Now I don't want to hear players say fusion containment can breach 6000K plasma with no bright flash occurring around the Mech. That's not possible, a flashcube is only 1400 F and it's pretty blinding. So it doesn't have to be a fusion explosion, but it is breaching blinding white hot plasma. And a pilot would want to eject at about that time.

Edited by Lightfoot, 09 March 2014 - 06:27 PM.

[Warblood]

http://www.sarna.net...al_Son_of_Terra
2nd paragraph last sentence..

"... Mark doggedly continues the fight, eventually embracing an enemy Toyama with his battered Nexus and ejecting just before reactor overload, still determined to somehow survive."


http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine
6th paragraph down

"..There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion". The Thermal Expansion damages anything within 90 meters of the destroyed 'Mech. "

[Lightfoot]

Yep, that's what I want and although the supercooled reactor walls might cool the plasma below the 6000k fusion threshold the plasma would still be blinding white hot and expand violently on contact with air.

[Mawai]

Warblood, on 09 March 2014 - 06:22 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net...al_Son_of_Terra
2nd paragraph last sentence..

"... Mark doggedly continues the fight, eventually embracing an enemy Toyama with his battered Nexus and ejecting just before reactor overload, still determined to somehow survive."


http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine
6th paragraph down

"..There have been a number of cases of fusion engines being "over revved" and exploding with devestating force, but this is more akin to a boiler explosion than a true nuclear explosion. More often a destroyed engine will be punctured by weapons fire. Because the plasma is held in a vacuum chamber (to isolate the superheated plasma from the cold walls of the reactor; contact with the walls would super-chill the plasma below fusion temperatures), a punctured reactor can suck in air where the air is superheated. Normal thermal expansion of the air causes the air to burst out in a brilliant lightshow often mistaken for a "nuclear explosion". The Thermal Expansion damages anything within 90 meters of the destroyed 'Mech. "

You might as well quote the rest of it ...

"Such dramatic failures are rare, though. It is difficult to sustain the fusion reaction and very easy to shutdown. Safety systems or damage to containment coils will almost always shut down the engine before such an explosion occurs. The massive shielding of the engine (in the case of standard fusion engines, this is a tungsten carbide shell that accounts for over 2/3 of the weight of the engine) usually buys the safety systems the milliseconds needed to shutdown the engine when severe damaged is inflicted."

You would need to quantify both "rare" (extremely in my opinion based on the comments) and the amount of damage done within 90m (negligible for most of the distance due to volume expansion of the energy being dissipated ... again my opinion).

Also, plasma temperatures are not 6000K ... they are more like 10keV or 100 million K. However the density is more along the lines of 10^20 particles/m3 ... while the number of particles in air at one atmosphere is on the order of 3x10^25/m3. So fill the reactor with air and the average temperature drops to something like 300K ... slightly over room temperature. If the reactor density was 10^21 particles/m3 then the temperature after being filled with air might be more like 3000K.

[Knightshadowsong]

I'd love to see an eject animation. as for Reactor over loads... well like people have said, it'd need to be checked out and tested to make sure that it cant be abused. it'd certainly add a twist, because someone rushing in would be a danger and would make some kind of damage. But hay. maybe. it'd be a nice bit of fluff for this game.

[Durant Carlyle]

Yes to an eject animation option when your 'Mech is killed.

No to a manual eject option.

No to Stackpoling, or Thermal Expansion, or whatever the hell you want to call it.

There should NEVER be an option to leave the battlefield without consequence.

[Quick n Fast]

Quote

Yes to an eject animation option when your 'Mech is killed.

No to a manual eject option.

OP said it would only become "useable" when torso become critical(armor gone in that section)

Quote

Eject:
- Reg.Eng.: usable when front/back CT is critical
- XL Eng.: usable when any(front/back/sides) torso is critical

so you wont be getting people ejecting at the start of the games, and the consequence for doing it is not being rewarded for doing it and leaving your team down a man. it also acts as kill denial while at the same time rewarding that attacker for pushing someone into ejecting.

ejecting has my vote.

overload damage could be scaled back a bit, maybe by 20-25%.

[Magna Canus]

I like both of the concepts because they are in line with Lore in general (thinking about all the books I have read about BT) and in most cases "realistic".

Ejection; being able to eject is a real option that real pilots in real combat have to avoid dying. A set of conditions that ensure that you have in some way participated in the battle, even if it just means that you were a meat shield, is the right way to go here to avoid abuse. To prevent suicide "C-bill farming" and make "KDR culling" less attractive the best method would be to just eliminate the "thanks for being in the match" bonus of 25k C-Bills and however many XP it is for those that eject. Which basically means your only reward for what you actually did in the match. This sounds like a fair trade.

I would support this mainly because it gives annoying individuals an "opt out" besides rushing in for a suicide rush, going out of bounds, Overhead-self-destruct, run off and extend the match, or hide and power-down. The ability to eject and "concede the match" would aleviate some of the tedious situations above that draw out matches unnecessarily. Like I said, real people make real decisions to conceed a battle in real life and a simulation should provide that same option.

Overload; While reading the novels I came across many situations where the reactor overloaded, causing damage in a small area (90m sounds about right) and caused a heck of a light show, often killing the pilot of the overloaded mech in the process. In previous MW titles this mechanic was ever present and happened ALL THE TIME. Now, a mechanic that would keep the occurance "rare" (I would consider 5% rare) but still possible would be great. Anything from a set of circumstances like; crit ammo in CT/ST causing reactor destruction, a x3 crit to the reactor with a high damage weapon (maybe 10+), etc. Since it is a possible "real world" tactic, cooking off ammo in your CT through overheating + override should also have a chance of causing a reactor overload. Yes, this will open up the option of suicide bombing, but what better way to give the locust a real purpose. If this happens my locust is getting renamed to "Achmed the dead terrorst" ala Jeff Dunham. LOL

Damage from the reactor overload should probably be based on the reactor rating and type. A Standard reactor should do more damage than an XL (the XL is more "spread out" within the mech) and a rating of 300 should do more damage than one with 250.

But of course before all this happens I want knock-down back. I want to be able to kick off the killer-chihuahua that's humping my leg first.

[101011]

Back in CB there was this same debate going on over fusion explosions, and PGI opted, correctly, in my opinion, to leave them out. They were not part of the BT franchise until Stackpole and others like him chose to make it a part, at which point the optional rule was instated to explain this. As for the ejection, allow me to provide anecdotal evidence. I was playing on Caustic when I found myself a popsicle, and four of them left against our two. Some people would have ejected, but a player who really wanted to win would stick it out and help. In this instance, I blocked enemy fire for my lancemate. My point is that giving people a way out will only encourage people to leave the game early.

[wanderer]

...and if people want to leave a game early, why stop them? Is a player who doesn't want to continue really credit to team?

[Durant Carlyle]

Kahnawake MechMaster Prime, on 10 March 2014 - 05:36 AM, said:

OP said it would only become "useable" when torso become critical(armor gone in that section)

Any escaping of the match should come with 'Mech loss as a consequence. So, you were cool and ejected, big whoop. It still counts as a death.

Because the deaths in this game aren't the death of your MechWarrior. They are the death of your 'Mech. Your 'MechWarrior is assumed to eject safely, run around evading capture, and get picked up by friendly rescue forces -- every single time. Yes, even on "head destroyed" deaths. It just happens in the background, like repair and rearm.

Saving the life of your 'MechWarrior means nothing when there is no possibility of death in the first place.

[Warblood]

Quote

Any escaping of the match should come with 'Mech loss as a consequence.

that's why I called the Reward "Mech Salvage".. think of the c-bill reward as the c-bills you would of gotten if that "salvaged mech" was sold for scraped right away.

I guess if you wanted to add some "real" consequences.. you could have that free 25k c-bills that you get (win or lose) taken away for ejecting .

[Dirus Nigh]

An eject animation when the mech is destroyed would be neat.

No Stackpoling ever.

[B0oN]

No to eject, too many possible misuses just to keep e-peens long and strong .

Yes to "Stackpolling" .


Anyone said 12th VeganRangers ^^

[Commander Binz]

I vote yes on both.

To clarify - I don't want them to have game changing effects, but visual effects for immersion. So, when your mesh is destroyed instead of just kinda flopping over like they fell unconscious, I want Betty to yell "warning! Critical reactor damage, ejection imminent!" And then ur pilot pulls a lever and u go shooting out the top of your cockpit.

Perhaps this could happen during that one second in between our much dying, and your target info dissapearing from enemy scanners.

Also yes to reactor exploding, but no to damage (perhaps a small amount, like 1 or 2 damage to all components within 10m) but after your pilot ejects, they look down at the still going battle and see your much ripped apart by a small explosion, with an accompanying flash of light.

All this because its lame to see a 100 ton atlas kinda flop over like a dead fish after being hit by more firepower than a battleship.

[Morang]

I was a big proponent of ejection right from Closed Beta. I even suggested that ejection should not only serve decorative purposes, but present a dilemma to pilot: if he chooses to eject while his mech is still running - well, he removes himself from fight, if his mech is destroyed before he ejects - he loses some of XP reward for this match because of injuries.

Even without any game-changing mechanics I still prefer ejection over forced switch to 3rd person camera. Damn, even without ejection I'd rather stay in the cockpit of the falling mech.

I still want to see ejections someday, but now I vote "after CW".

Reactor explosions - I'm not sure if want, but "after CW" anyway.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

As stated in one of the NGNG podcasts, Bryan has stated he wants "eject" to be in the game. But it's way down on the list of visuals that need to be looked, worked on. Just how and when this function is used has not been elaborated on or probably even discussed much at PGI. Brought up and placed on the"list" but that's it.

I am in the bracket that it is a visual effect only, something that only happens as the Mech is in it's final "death mode". Giving the pilot the "trigger" to activate this option should be discussed very closely.

- Possibly having this function only available in the last few seconds of the Mech's "life" may be a workable option.
- A displayed large warning shown advising "Eject", similar to the first video PGI made.

- If the pilot uses the "Eject" option within the time limit given, then he could be available sooner in the drop ship mode.
[normal delay of 30 or more seconds to re-enter the match, reduced greatly if the "Eject" option used.]
(Drop ship mode, where we have additional Mech's waiting in the pilots dropship, and can re-enter the battle in the next Mech. But this mode is currently some time away so we have time to discuss how this "Eject" could be used and not abused.)

Engine destruction, how do we handle this?

Lore states that it just shuts down if it's severely damaged with a very slight chance there will be a superheated air light show.

- But it was not uncommon for some pilots to disable the safety overrides and over-rev the engines. Very extreme but it did happen in the stories. (the pilot could not make the engine explode using this over-rev.)
- Story line wise, the entire "engine" operates like a self powered electrical turbine, generating power from the reaction and the spinning magnetic field. This over rev was normally only used when the pilot "Really" needed that additional power and speed to clear an immediate area, but it normally damaged the Mech.
- Similar to extended use of MASC will burn out the leg actuators.
- from Lore the engine could be over-revved, as the reaction only produced more energy output, more than the systems could handle, and destroying components (and possibly the engine itself) through this sustained action. Burning out power transmission lines, heatsinks, other systems, basically destroying the Mech's systems. But for those initial few seconds giving the pilot the time/push that may be life or death. (not an option in this game.)

Engine damaged to point of breach:

- If this expelled hot air and light effect was used, it would need to follow some rules.

- The operating engine breaks/cracks from damage, that causes a very short forced expel in only that damaged direction.

- Not a bubble effect but a directed burst, meaning if the enemy Mech was really close when it damaged/punctured the engine it runs a risk of some small collateral heat damage.

(Effect like: If you stick a nail into a pressurized can of pop, it directs the contents right back in that direction.)

So, if you want that effect there is a risk only in the direction of puncture damage. Sorry, no nuke show here.

9erRed

Edited by 9erRed, 25 March 2014 - 01:06 PM.