Livewyr, on 06 July 2014 - 12:27 PM, said:
Since what I am reading does not seem to answer my questions..
Odd. I thought I answered your questions quite directly.
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(And Yes, I know MWO ECM does not fit Lore/BT/TT, that is why I called it MWO ECM instead of Guardian- but sadly I think it is here to stay.)
Indeed. That ship (and others) sailed a long time ago, apparently.
Staying faithful to an already established standard, regardless of how popular, well established, or loved that standard may be, just doesn't seem to be in vogue at all these days. People seem to think the only way to put their stamp on an established thing is to alter it; instead of working where there's room left to work with that standard without altering it. Let's not even discuss how people mangle truth... :s
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Could you tell me how you would implement the firing system in MWO?
One that would:
Be able to maintain a damage spread on an Assault mech & a damage spread on a light mech.. while being able to *hit* both. (And in the case of both- being able to hit profile shots.) The size of a Spider is vastly different than the size of an Atlas. (What is Whole Mech for a Spider, is CT for an Atlas)
Sure. First, the basic gameplay mechanics of the firing system, than I'll tell you how they specifically handle the size difference question you've asked... because without understanding the basic mechanics, the specific answer won't make any sense.
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Add the two following mechanics to MWO:
"Can a mech even hit the overall target it's pilot is tracking with the reticule given x conditions" - the "hit/no hit"
and:
"If a 'Mech can hit the overall target under the given conditions, WHAT parts of that overall target get hit (again, given the conditions)." - the HLTs.
The first is simple "hit/no hit" versus the overall unit targeted. The second is "if targeted unit is hit, what specific part of target are hit."
These two mechanics are done for each weapon that is fired individually.
For weapons in a group fired all at once, the entire fired group uses the "hit/no hit" combat capability of the least capable weapon of the group to determine "hit/no hit" for the entire group. IF the group hits; than each single weapon is put through the appropriate HLT on an individual basis.
The "given conditions" determine how hard or easy the "hit/no hit" is, and they determine which HLT gets used. It is the pilot's skill at tracking with the reticule and skill at making combat choices and choices in the mechlab that determine what the VAST majority of the "given conditions" are.
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Now for your specific question.
The "hit/no hit" vs the overall unit targeted is the mechanic that directly handles size modifiers (the spider profile issue you mentioned).
And, actually, the spider's size, even in profile, isn't small enough to give a battlemech problems bringing weapons to bear on it. The spider has no associated "hit/no hit" modifiers, positive or negative, related to it's size. Yes, I did go look it up, no, this is not me pulling an arbitrary answer out of my hat.
With
everything else being equal except size, as long as a player has the skill to keep the reticule over a spider; they have an equal chance to hit the spider as it has of hitting them.
Just so you know, for example, the Vulcan:
![Posted Image](http://www.solaris7.com/Files/Members/69/Vulcan_3050.JPG)
...Battlemech is an example of a 'Mech that is small enough in profile to give other 'Mechs a hard time hitting it. Which means that a BattleMech is more combat-capable than it's pilot in many ways, sort of like how most rifles are capable of more accuracy than the vast majority of their users.
The sizes of battlemechs relative to each other and the surrounding environment is actually one of the more obscure and harder things to pin down in the lore, believe it or not. Not even the tabletop minis are made to scale. I believe that's why the sizes of the 'mechs in every MechWarrior video game have been chosen in an almost arbitrary manner. Thankfully, using the HLT's and the hit/no hit would nearly completely fix the game play problems this causes.
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Adding those two mechanics and their associated "given condition" variables would allow using the lore combat related numbers (weapons stats, heat, mech armor, etc); but more importantly it would give the developers predictable gaming outcomes without the need for watching the statistics and hoping they interpret them right every time a new trend happens, every time they add a new weapon, or every time they tweak something in the game related to combat... and it would do this without removing player skill and choice making as THE determining factor of success.
MWO has some (but not all) of the various *weapons* capabilities, mwo has the 'Mech's manuverability capabilities, and it has modelled the way a 'mech's profile affects it's combat ability... but it doesn't have any of the BattleMech's combat capabilities modelled.
Edited by Pht, 13 July 2014 - 08:11 AM.