The only way to kill yourself should be from overheating.
Instead:-------
Lets use the collision or knockdown animations that are already in the game.
For those that don't remember being knocked down, tips your mech over and you lose control. It takes like 5 seconds to get back up again.
The way it would work -
Same triggers for fall damage now apply to to knockdown or piloting check so to speak.
30 m/s fall speed
1 second of being airborne
At the bare minimum of the above you have a % chance of falling down. Like 5% at the very minimum. The farther you fall from the greater the % chance of being knocked down.
At a certain height or m/s speed you will automatically fall down.
This allows mechs to be penalized for pushing their machines too hard or not buffering their landings with jumpjets, BUT it's up to the enemy team to take advantage of you be knocked down. But even with all the reckless piloting you can still only kill yourself by willfully overheating yourself.
Now the only potential problem to this solution is if PGI "Didn't" create fall animations for the new mechs. The fall animations are in for all the older mechs but newer ones are a mystery right now. Technically they should still be there since the mantra "Collisions are coming back" have been the official word, but no idea if they are or not in the rush to push clans out.
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EDIT
At the very least instead of the silly m/s scale
As shown here
Why not give us icons for when we are in danger of taking damage, or in my case: falling.
Risk of falling, slight damage
Definitely falling, lots of damage.
Why the falling over damage?
Because it's more core battletech. Good pilots are determined by their gunner and not their piloting. Ending the match with less leg damage isn't a determining factor for being a good pilot.
And you should be penalized for being a reckless pilot. You jump snipe up too far without buffering your fall, you should take the face plant and be penalized for several seconds as you mech gets up.
You go rocketing off the side of a mountain trying to chase that light without jumpjets? Enjoy your faceplant sir.
But taking damage is a silly way to do things. It penalizes the mechs without jumpjets more than it does the mechs with and the light mechs can't afford anymore leg damage.
In a universe where mguns only go 200m and a flamer can't light a BBQ I am fine with not taking damage from falling to far. But the face plant is far more obviously penalizing and more rewarding when you avoid it.
Bring back piloting skill.
Edited by Carrioncrows, 03 July 2014 - 12:41 PM.