229 replies to this topic

[Reno Blade]

Hey,

it would be awesome to have your multiple reticles "lock" on your target and give the known signal gong (novels) with the golden flashing for the lock.
it shouldnt be fast, but easy enough for the new guys to understand the concept of different weapon location to have different line of fire.

ofc it would be even better to see your reticles move closer to the center when locking on the target.

it could be made so you can decrease lock on time with player stats.
but the lock should only work with an extra button and within some margin. would rock to lock your arm mounted weapons to a target at your side while the other weapons point at the big atlas in front of you

[CeeKay Boques]

Gold Reticule to me is when the arms and the torso reticule meet, everything is in line. To "lock" anything other a missile is a giant game play mistake.

That being said, I almost wet myself thinking of running down a street firing down left and right alleys at the same time.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Posted Today, 03:55 PM
Nik Van Rhijn, on 21 November 2011 - 07:16 AM, said:

The thing is that we all know that many of the rules from TT don't translate directly to a PC game.
No you don't, you have the first clue, buddy. Have you ever actually TRIED to implement those rules? Or, are you just parrot'ing what every other dev group has said when THEY DIDN'T TRY?!
Kay Wolf - 1)The TT breaks things down into 10 second slices, the PC works on very small slices - 10secs are a long time in a game. TT assumes all shots aimed at centre torso and then works out if shot(s) hit and if so where, whereas the PC has always applied hits more or less where they are aimed. Which is what a lot of this arguement is about. There are many cases where the rules have had to be modified for use in a totally different medium, not necessarily correctly or satisfactorily. I played TT for over 10 years and only gave up when there was no one living near me to play with.I have played all of the PC Mechwarrior games. 2) There is no need to be rude and abusive when you don't understand or agree with what is posted.
3) With regard to reducing laser damage for increased range it would have helped if you had quoted the whole section which had said that this was due to "thermal bloom etc" which cause damage reduction to lasers in atmosphere.

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 21 November 2011 - 10:35 AM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Kay Wolf, on 21 November 2011 - 09:30 AM, said:

Okay, but at what range does that 1 meter of spread start to become more than one meter of spread, at maximum EFFECTIVE range, or at maximum weapon range?

I would personally go with maximum effective range. It seems like that would be most logical.

Infine, on 21 November 2011 - 09:36 AM, said:

What's good in the proposed system if you can just hit an enemy with a single large laser consistently in the same place. How many CT hits with a single large laser does it take for Atlas to go down in tabletop? About 4?

I agree that random shot dispersal makes little sense for lasers because, well, they're lasers.

However, my OP has nothing to do with RNG-based shot deviation.

Due to parallel barrels people won't necessarily be able to alphastrike 6 ERLL onto a CT section because of the space between the barrels of the lasers being fired.

If you have two ERLL, one in each side torso, they are mounted in completely fixed parallel barrels, and the space between the barrels is 5 meters, then they will always hit 5 meters apart when fired simultaneously. That's how parallel non-converging barrels work. And as was discussed in the OP arms can converge to overlap their shot groups.

Conversely, one could just chain fire each individual laser at a CT like you mentioned but they'd have to wait for the arm to make the adjustment so the correctly selected weapon is zeroed to the reticle if it isn't already or, in the case of torso mounted weapons, they'd have to continually adjust their aim on the target as each individual torso weapon would in theory have it's own reticle in it's own HUD location.

All that aside, I feel that one of the biggest steps away from the TT that MWO needs to take is in locational damage. It's simply never made sense that you can shoot an Atlas' "head" (not the cockpit hitbox) and it's crotch and damage the same location. That's just bananas.

Use the traditional TT sections as "meta-sections" but break them up into as small independent hit locations as is technologically feasible.

So imagine the CT of an Atlas. Let's say it's listed as having 72 armor hitpoints on it's CT.

Now imagine that we take that center torso and break up into 4-6 sub-sections each with 72 armor hitpoints on them.

Now do that for every single traditional TT mech section. That is a change that this franchise has been in desperate need of since day one. Due to how hitbox modeling in video games a lot of mechs have been horrendously weakened or insanely boosted due to unfair hitbox modeling. A good example would be the Zeus in Mw4:M.

Using the traditional TT armor sections really screwed over that mech because it's side torsos were so insanely oversized compared to everything else. A lot of mechs have suffered to bad hitbox modelling in the games. It's time to correct this IMO.

And it's perfectly feasible. World of Tanks features dozens and dozens of completely uniquely armored surfaces on each tank and all of the tanks' modules are internally modeled with their own hitboxes and module hitpoint pools as well.

[guardiandashi]

the thing to remember with lasers is that while the beam will fire in effectively a perfectly straight line from the emmitter (lens) that does NOT mean that the laser will always be perfectly aligned (aimed) to hit the crosshairs center point at the actual distance from the target.

also lasers have several issues they can have to deal with
attinuation reduction of beam intensity due to dispersing energy int the media it is traveling through between source and target
diffusing basically the same as attinuation
dispersing all photons from a laser may not be 100% perfectlly aligned so say at 1 m from the barrel it generates a 3 cm diameter beam, at 90m it has spread to 4 cm at 200 m it has widened to 6 cm and no longer does any effective damage (note I am exaggerating the dispersion effect somewhat)

but if the beam alignment is 1 degree out of alignment (an actually rather small deviation all things considered) the amount of misalignment on the weapon is calculated by sin 1 times distance, at 1degree and 100 units (meters) the focus point vs "aimpoint" will be 1.745 units off (meters in this case) at 1000 meters it would be 17.45 units off which is easilly enough to generate a miss from 1 side to the other IE you aimed at the right arm and missed wide of the left arm.

in the example of the atlas cavadus cites the board stats for an atlas AS7-K its armor and structure by location is:
head 3i 9a
CT 31i 47/14a 47 front 14 rear
l/R T 21i 32/10a
R/L A 17i 34a
R/L L 21i 41a
where i equals internal str and a equals armor and armor xx/x is representing front vs rear armor

attacking the atlas from the front with 1 IS large laser it adds up to 78 damage needs to be done and the is large laser does 8 damage per hit so you would need to hit it 9.75 times to fully deplete the armor and internal structure

Edited by guardiandashi, 21 November 2011 - 11:29 AM.

[Halfinax]

Infine, on 21 November 2011 - 09:36 AM, said:

No. I think that spread (in degrees, not in meters) is a natural (for kinetic weapons) and effective mean of modelling weapon range. Others being travel time, shell drop and damage reduction with range. The problem is, spread does not make much sense for beam weapons (of which we have lasers - regular and pulse). And lasers are the worst offenders in terms of pinpoint accuracy. What's good in the proposed system if you can just hit an enemy with a single large laser consistently in the same place. How many CT hits with a single large laser does it take for Atlas to go down in tabletop? About 4?

Do you understand what weapon convergence is? In as simple of terms as I can come up with here it is: A weapon when mounted to a piece of equipment will shoot in a straight line, so if there are multiple weapons mounted to a single piece of equipment, say a World War 2 fighter plane, then all the mounted weapons are angled ever so slightly so that at a specific range the will hit on a relatively central point. At any range before or after that the weapons will not reliably if ever hit the central point as the spread before the converged range is a shrinking cone, and a growing cone beyond the central point (both relative to the equipment they are being fired from. The flight path of the weapons are effectively hour glass shaped with the narrowest point of the hour glass being the convergence point.

[Slade Deleportas]

After finally being able to sit down and read this topic from beginning to end, I see some very good points, and a few that aren't well fleshed out.

To Cav: Good OP, very well thought out etc., but sorry to bring this up, the idea of Torso weapons that can traverse is more then just "fluff". it's a core concept of the rules set in Total Warfare.

Here's a way to bring your idea and the idea of traversing torso and arm weapons together, we are ignoring missiles here, since they have some self fin guidance abilities:

Traverse travel times. As stated somewhere else: that 14 ton AC-20 isn't gonna move very fast compared to that 1 ton Medium Laser. So maybe something like this: For a full traverse of that AC-20 from full deflection left to right 1 second, and for that Medium Laser maybe .25 seconds?

Now, in MWO, I pop a shot off at that Zeuss in my left arc, all of a sudden a Highlander jumps into my right field of fire, I traverse to the bigger threat, my Medium Laser reticule goes from green to amber quickly, my AC-20 not so fast. Could even take it farther, and say I drop my Meta Reticule on the CT of the Highlander, as soon as I can deal damage with a weapon system that is traversing it turns yellow, when it tracks to be under my meta it turns gold. So as soon as my AC-20 crosses the Highlander's right arm, it goes yellow, I can either pop the shot early, or possibly wait for a good Center Torso hit, while keeping in mind the Highlander might shoot before I do and through knock, still bounce me off target...

Now be gentle, this was my first post. LOL

[Dihm]

How would excessive heat work in this setup? Or would it not have any effect on accuracy?

[Threat Doc]

I have to leave this discussion, folks... it's occurred to me just how ridiculous having multiple reticules, or a gold reticule, would be. In all previous MW games there has been one reticule and if, for example, you didn't allow your missiles to lock-on prior to firing them, they would invariably miss. What if you have different reticules for different weapons, groups, etc., are you going to wait for everything to line up before you fire, or are you just going to let some of your weapons misfire?

Anyway, that's my parting volley, here, and many of you will misinterpret what I've said, or will tell me I'm too closed-minded, or that I have the ideas all wrong, but it's a horrible idea to have multiple reticules. Have a good one, though.

[CeeKay Boques]

Kay Wolf, on 21 November 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

I have to leave this discussion, folks... it's occurred to me just how ridiculous having multiple reticules, or a gold reticule, would be. In all previous MW games there has been one reticule and if, for example, you didn't allow your missiles to lock-on prior to firing them, they would invariably miss. What if you have different reticules for different weapons, groups, etc., are you going to wait for everything to line up before you fire, or are you just going to let some of your weapons misfire?

Anyway, that's my parting volley, here, and many of you will misinterpret what I've said, or will tell me I'm too closed-minded, or that I have the ideas all wrong, but it's a horrible idea to have multiple reticules. Have a good one, though.

You don't fire by groups, but by single weapon. When two mechs are moving, and I am trying to fire my multiple weapons, one at a time as they lock... You have buttons for each weapon.

Dummy fired LRMS DO hit in MW4, but not on a moving target. But they will hit without lock.

So you don't want to shoot two things at once? What if, with your head (as they said, this will not be be "fAce against the glass" of MW4, but a cockpit" You look right, with your ARM EXTENDED to the right. What targeting is there? Is there a recticule? There Is!

Your torso mounted autocannon is firing forward, with its own reticule. Two targets enter that seperate targeting crosshairs. You fire both weapons, hitting two targets 90 degrees from eachother. You are now 1. Captain Awesome. 2. That was super difficult! Difficulty is the way to trump CoF. With rule of cool awesome things you can do. 3. This is not FPSing any more, its meching. This is something a Mech can do that a Tank can't. 4. Living out sweet fluff shots like this:

Edited by Technoviking, 21 November 2011 - 12:51 PM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

Kay Wolf, on 21 November 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

What if you have different reticules for different weapons, groups, etc., are you going to wait for everything to line up before you fire, or are you just going to let some of your weapons misfire?

Remember how you setup weapon groups in Mw4? Imagine there's a second step where you can assign the weapon groups to reticle groups.

So for the AS7-D, for instance, you could run something like...

Weapon..................Weapon Group.................Reticle Group

Medium Laser...................1.........................................1

Medium Laser...................1.........................................1

Medium Laser...................1.........................................1

Medium Laser...................1.........................................1

AC-20...............................2.........................................2

SRM-6..............................3.........................................3

LRM-20.............................4........................................3

We talked about this on the first page.

[Slade Deleportas]

Yes, exactly. With these ideas your weapon grouping will be instrumental in hitting other mechs.

And to make all crowds happy your targeting style should be your choice. Either have one reticule with what appears to be an RNG CoF (but is in actuality the traverse times etc. implemented, just no extra reticules) OR go sim style and have 15 reticules floating on your screen. lol

Heat: Yes, as a 'Mech heats up it moves slower all around, so it will take longer for weapons to traverse, and possibly "glitch" as the heat affects the targeting systems (ie a gun group might be given an eleveate 3 degrees when it shoulda been depress 3 degrees)

[Gaius Cavadus]

Eh, if you allow torso mounted weapons to traverse and elevate then the only shot dispersal will be the weapon's standard deviation... which makes the entire CoF RNG based.

...which is what I was trying to avoid. The idea in my OP is really predicated on static torso weapons. It ceases to work when you allow torso weapons to traverse and elevate though I think I could live with allowing just elevation. That would make things a bit more precise but still allow the ideas in my OP to function more or less intact.

Or someone can hopefully devise something better

[UncleKulikov]

I like it. Could someone explain what RNG means?

Having the arm mounted weapons not be gimbalized would make a good trade off, otherwise arm weapons would just be too good if they could converge at range, and then within the arm's weapon pattern, converge onto a single point.

Hopefully Torso weapons have gimbal, but a more limited arc than the arm ones.

A way to aim weapons separately would be to support two joysticks, and then each one could aim a separate fire group (each arm, or torso and an arm, but player customizable).

Edited by UncleKulikov, 21 November 2011 - 01:37 PM.

[Gaius Cavadus]

UncleKulikov, on 21 November 2011 - 01:35 PM, said:

I like it. Could someone explain what RNG means?

Random Number Generator.

Basically, rather than run some algebra models which take into account factors X, Y, and Z to output shot dispersal an RNG just spits out random shot placement inside of the CoF making it completely unpredictable and out of the player's control.

I could certainly live with a small amount of random shot deviation for each weapon but I don't want anything like the awful RNG CoF Kesmai eventually instituted into the MPBT: 3025 beta. That was friggin' terrible.

Quote

Hopefully Torso weapons have gimbal, but a more limited arc than the arm ones.

They only need to traverse and elevate a modest amount to allow 100% pinpoint aiming... which means it's all for naught. Torso weapons need to be fixed to disperse fire in a logical and, most important, non-random way.

Edited by Cavadus, 21 November 2011 - 01:42 PM.

[UncleKulikov]

Cavadus, on 21 November 2011 - 01:40 PM, said:

Random Number Generator.

Basically, rather than run some algebra models which take into account factors X, Y, and Z to output shot dispersal an RNG just spits out random shot placement inside of the CoF making it completely unpredictable and out of the player's control.

I could certainly live with a small amount of random shot deviation for each weapon but I don't want anything like the awful RNG CoF Kesmai eventually instituted into the MPBT: 3025 beta. That was friggin' terrible.

I completely agree then. To me, RNG means "Range" so I was a bit lost.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I support cone of fire, but there is massive statistical evidence from ballistics with regard to the ammount of centre weighting applied rather than a pure RNG (which I don't like) If you have a 1m diameter cone of fire the weighting might be such that 80 of all shots will be within a 0.5m circle, 15% within 0.75m and only 5% would fall in the outer edge. This is only an approximation but gives an idea of the sort of dispersio I think people have been talking about. Energy weapons would have the smallest COF, ballistics larger and missiles largest. this applies to individual weapons. Grouped weapons will be somewhat different. Although Cavadus' idea has the advantage of simplicity, compared to some alternatives. Torso mounted weapons need to be able to adjust for elevation as mechs don't seem to do the leaning back & forward very well in the games.

[Pht]

Cavadus, on 20 November 2011 - 08:08 PM, said:

Piranha decides. They can do whatever they wish.

Yes, the devs decide; the point is, it's an arbitrary thing that will have a great effect on gameplay. God only knows what kind of things will result from following the artwork on where the ports are.

Quote

Did you miss the first few images of the Nova Cat arm shot groups?? I covered all of this in great detail.

No, I didn't miss it; but I guess than that you sort of left out that none of the ports can "aim" (in and of themselves) as something assumed.

Quote

No.

Are you not able to see the images in my post or something? Because I clearly displayed and explained how the different weapon groups reticles work to make a meta-CoF. That's what the smaller circles inside of that image are; the CoFs for those weapon groups.

Yes, I saw the smaller ones inside of the larger overall; I asked so I could be sure instead of just guessing.

Quote

Yeah, I'm guessing you must have some type of adblock software which is blocking the images in my post.

My adblocker is turned off on this site; I saw the pictures; and none of them begin to address the particulars you've replied to here.

In a bit more detail:

The volume of the cones has to be altered to emulate the effects of your 'Mech running hot, damage to your weapons, and the more extreme movement modes.

The shape of the cone - the circle - has to be changed to make your hits and misses make "sense," and it has to be offset. If they're kept as simple non-offset circles and you're, say, shooting at a fast moving target at long range for the weapons you're using; say, a bunch of medium lasers (identical performance) - and the target is moving laterally across your FOV - instead of missing mostly behind something that's moving to fast for your mech to physically track... you miss in a circular pattern, which makes no sense. Vise versa applies to hits - you can get a hit that makes no sense as to why it happened.

You also have to do a cone for each and every weapon if weapons can be damaged individually; the volume of the cone has to be modified to match aiming problems induced by that sort of thing.

There's also the issue of having to modify the cones due to target behavior - there's a limit to how well a 'Mech can track targets doing things like moving quickly through intermittent cover (trees, broken ground, etc).

It's a terrible tangle conceptually.

Quote

Fluff lore; don't care. What matters is gameplay.

This is a lazy answer!

Besides which, because you apparently don't give a flaming bag of doggie poo about the lore doesn't mean everyone else doesn't - or shouldn't!

A sizable chunk of the fun of *any* game built off of the BT lore/universe is just that... the back story, and not just the political/warfare ends; the technical stuff too; A good MW game can introduce new players to that universe in a positive way.

Edited by Pht, 21 November 2011 - 02:14 PM.

[Joachim Viltry]

guardiandashi, on 21 November 2011 - 11:21 AM, said:

the thing to remember with lasers is that while the beam will fire in effectively a perfectly straight line from the emmitter (lens) that does NOT mean that the laser will always be perfectly aligned (aimed) to hit the crosshairs center point at the actual distance from the target.

Honestly I am happy to someone else seems to understand this. I suppose people have just gotten used to the idea that the laser beam starts at the emitter tip and sails perfectly downrange regardless of the mech's motion; rather than follows the perfectly strait line from emitter to wherever the hell the emitter is pointing at that instant. I would rather we had truly emmersive simulation, rather than a turkey shoot.

'Oops, your sudden torso twist to the left threw your Grasshoppers right arms aim way off and you just toasted an orphanage... but lucky for you your 3 torso mount lasers painted a nice group and maimed that Trebuchet. **** happens kid, just keep your mind on the payout, one more op like this and you can afford that new 2 bed 2 bath, back on outreach.'

[Gaius Cavadus]

Pht, on 21 November 2011 - 02:13 PM, said:

In a bit more detail: The volume of the cones has to be altered to emulate the effects of your 'Mech running hot, damage to your weapons, and the more extreme movement modes.

The shape of the cone - the circle - has to be changed to make your hits and misses make "sense," and it has to be offset.

100% agree.

Quote

If they're kept as simple non-offset circles and you're, say, shooting at a fast moving target at long range for the weapons you're using; say, a bunch of medium lasers (identical performance) - and the target is moving laterally across your FOV - instead of missing mostly behind something that's moving to fast for your mech to physically track... you miss in a circular pattern, which makes no sense.

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.

The shot groups are determined by the placement of the barrels and the ability of the arms to converge so that each arm's unique shot pattern (of the weapon group you fire) overlap one another.

If you look at the images of the Nova Cat's arms' shot patterns and the composite shot pattern of both arms you're looking at the default weapons' spread for an alpha strike all other variables excluded.

No matter where you aim or what you aim at the shot pattern is always going to disperse like that. That's how the barrels of the weapons in the arms are geometrically arranged.

Like I said, all other variables excluded...

Quote

You also have to do a cone for each and every weapon if weapons can be damaged individually; the volume of the cone has to be modified to match aiming problems induced by that sort of thing. There's also the issue of having to modify the cones due to target behavior - there's a limit to how well a 'Mech can track targets doing things like moving quickly through intermittent cover (trees, broken ground, etc). It's a terrible tangle conceptually.

Yeah, we got into that a little later on in the thread. Basically a "standard deviation" for each weapon though I personally feel any deviation should be fairly minimal. Like say, 1-3 meters of deviation at best depending on the weapon. I'd argue that any deviation to lasers should probably be measured in millimeters and it seems like a mech's Targeting &Tracking System should be able to easily re-zero to the reticle laser weapons.

I 100% agree that things like heat and damage to that weapon or the mech's targeting system should influence the standard deviation and/or the CoF-reticle they're attached to.