J Echo, on 20 November 2011 - 01:29 PM, said:
That's what the comparison images were showing to begin with. Nothing misleading about them--they were showing exactly what you showed. And it sucks. Not only is it ridiculous and unrealistic and illogical, but it would make for terrible gameplay.
actually, those comparisons
a) didn't depict the aiming system properly. they ignored the fact that even in a CoF system the player has to aim, and that your aiming a point reticle, not a big box. they also ignored the fact that in the CoF system proposed didn't exclude the factors like shake from mech movement or the need to lead the target due to target movement. which creates a false impression about the CoF as being purely random.
depict a cone of fire far larger reltive to the cockpit than CoF advocates propose, creating a false impression
didn't actually describe the CoF system the CoF proponents are advocating (by making the circle change based on things like range or target movement, which none of the CoF proponents have been advocating)
c) use deceptive graphics that don't actually define the battle situations shown. the 'circle' changes sizes arbitraily between comparisons, with no consistant metric applied, making it impossible to determain how the CoF system is actually supposed to work.
d) the comparison comments are anti-CoF biased, creating a subliminal effect of nudging the user towards an Anti-CoF viewpoint before the actual merits are weighed.
i have presented my images as a nuetral example of how the CoF envisioned system works. it is basically just an extra level of realism over the standard MW aiming system. the CoF system not only matches the established setting aesthetic, but also better matches the fact that real world weaponry are not pinpoint accurate even on highly accurate platforms liek the M1A1 abrams, with stable platform, it's targeting computer, and gun advanced active stabilization system
Melissia, on 20 November 2011 - 01:39 PM, said:
Geeze, those are incredibly short ranges... it'd be almost impossible for a 'mech with short-ranged weapons to actually do much against other 'mechs with a range system like that. Even setting up an ambush the other 'mech would only have to take a few steps back from point blank range.
Your examples aren't that great (the "very long distance" is about where the very end of short and the very beginning medium should be), nevermind taht the cone of fire concept is really rather flawed to begin with...
i scaled the images based on previous mechwarrior games. the battletech/mechwarrior setting has fairly short effective ranges for ground units, which represents a combination of the extremely high protection the armor technology provides and the ubiquitious (IE: very very very common) basic electronic warfare systems that reduce the effectiveness of sensors.
there is alos the fact that in the mechwarrior video games, there is generally a degree of range compression occuring. a unit that looks to be only a few meters away will often be listed as dozens of meters away on the targeting displays. this is done by many video games to compensate for the fact that even a three story tall walking tank like a battlemech is going to be little more than small dot at long ranges if using proper perspective. so video games often use a form of 'reverse forced perspective' to make things more visable.
dm5k, on 20 November 2011 - 02:03 PM, said:
Those cones are a bit extreme from what I imagined CoF being. I think your mech should be fairly accurate but range, movement, and heat should play a role in accuracy though.
i threw this together over the span of a few minutes to illustrate the basic concept in an unbiased fashion. the circle size i picked was semi-arbitrary. the exact degree of spread would need to be subject to playtest to find the right balance between aiming accuracy and CoF precision.
certainly however, reducing the size (and thus volume) of the orange circle by 20% to 30% might work just as well, particularly if range compression is handled differently than in other mechwarrior games, or if the mechs are made more responsive to steering inputs (and thus more agile)
Miles Tails Prower, on 20 November 2011 - 02:04 PM, said:
The more control you take a way from the player, the more frustrating the game becomes. Pin point accuracy is only the attacker's part of the equation, the defender should be maneuvering and rotating their torso to avoid and "shoulder" damage aimed at their center torso.
If more variance in the skill for each weapon is what's needed, the add in gravity. Missiles and cannon shells arc as they travel to more distant targets while lasers do not, requiring more learned skills for the behaviors of each weapon. Just like how an FPS has weapons of varying kicks, RPMs and iron sights.
except that in previous mechwarrior games, torso twisting did nothing to offset the over-powering attacks pinpoint acuracy allowed. all it did was instead of coring out the center torso or head, you lost your arm or side torso instead.
torso twisting a means of protecting ones mech actually works better in a cone of fire system, since the shots will be spread out over a wider area on average, and by torso twisting, you reduce the odds of shots striking the center of the mech by increasing the chance of it hitting the arm or side torso. and since the damage is generally going ot be more spread out, in a CoF system such a defensive move will not automatically result in the loss of an arm.
as for things like gravity and battlefeild conditions..the more you simulate in that regard, them ore processing power the game requires. most video games don't actually simulate that, they fake it with a system remarkably similar to the "cone of fire" concept. instead of accurately calculating the effect of the recoil on a humanoid firing platform (IE a person), they program the impact point of the virtual shot to deviate from the initial aimpoint based on a direction and distance derived from random number generation.
generally the only programs that actually calculate all the variables for each shot are high end (and generally classified) military simulation systems used to train real soldiers.
Xhaleon, on 20 November 2011 - 02:19 PM, said:
Uh, Coyote? Those cones are kinda big, they're about the same size as those who exaggerate. The ideal for me would be about half of what you have shown, and using that base would invalidate most of their arguments because they would be more than accurate enough to hit the target every time at a reasonable distance, just not always on the Center Torso, and with no way for the player to increase this accuracy other than moving closer.
You people really just want a repeat of the maximum range battles past games had, don't ya? Where the maximum weapon ranges define the distance everyone will try to stay at when fighting, instead of being the maximum range where it can hit at all. Why don't you want to get closer and hit them with your Hatchet, in the spirit of Battletech? Before the silly Clans came wrololololor
as i pointed out above, these were put together rather quickly, and i had to guesstimate based on experiance with both the novel universe and previous mechwarrior games. so there will be a degree of trial and error involved. part of the point of putting these images up is to try and work out how big a circle would be best to balance aiming accuracy with the scattering effect.
and regarding 'maximum weapon ranges' (and ignoring the meme-speak), i am not an advocate of 'maximum ranges'...but i am a advocate of 'effective ranges' in the novel universe, which is what the mecharior games were trying (and failing) to emulate, the weapons all have effective ranges. these were derived from the tabletop 'ranges', which were made short purely for gameplay reasons (so that the map scale could be kept small, and battle occur on playing areas small enough to fit onto a table). but the novel universe justifies the ranges with limitations in targeting systems, sensors, and control systems. shots beyond the effective ground range are possible, but require a great deal of skill to acheive.
in the novels, the medium laser's effective range of 270 to 300 meters was not a maximum range, but rather the range at which the laser could be fired and still be assured to hitting the target with enough precision and power to have an effect against the targets armor. more powerful (read: uses more energy to produce a better beam) lasers like the large laser had an effective range of 450 meters, for the same reasons. developments of better optics (producing Er lasers, with effective ranges of up to 50% better), and alternative firing modes (pulse lasers, which fire multiple weaker pulses, reducing effective range but increasing damage) only modified these effective ranges by a measure of degrees.
in a cone of fire system, trying to fire a weapon past it's effective range could see the cone of fire expand by a few %, to reflect that at those ranges the targeting is less certain. this would encourage players t close to within their effective ranges. a PPC armed mech like the awesome would need to close to within 570-600 meters (the effective range of a PPC), to ensure it's shots have the best effect... and if he closes even more, the target will fill more of his CoF and thus his shots will naturally spread out over the target mech less, increasing the effect of his shots.
the pinpoint acuracy of previous mechwarrior games created a metagame of rapid kills from extremely long ranges. a CoF system would encourage players to engage at closer ranges, and to employ manuever as a means to weather enemy fire, not merely as a means to get between line of sight blocking cover. just like in the novel universe.
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