106 replies to this topic

[Tarriss Halcyon]

Koniving, on 10 July 2014 - 08:30 AM, said:

Not Annihilator, it has 400 points of armor (Cataphracts 4X, Muromets [it's BT friendly], 2X easily match to outclass it. All Orions outclass it. Dragon 1C, Thunderbolts outclass it.. Quite a few mechs really outdo it in armor).

Nope. The one I'm thinking of carries two axes as its backups and 4 HAGs. So you know, a HAG is a Hyper Assault Gauss rifle and in MWO's double-armor standard would have 208 points of armor (Raven 2X, Firestarter A stock armors, 0.5 tons more than a Urban Mech or Jagermech S). The axes...are a bit of a joke to be honest, but hey I mean it's a Wizkidz mech. They haven't got much of a clue as to what they're doing.

Ah, I think I know the Dark Age mech you're talking about, although I can't remember it's name. I've often spoken about HAG as a weapon that would be devastating in MWO, if it was timeline-allowed. I'm not going to say that the axes are a joke, though, but the second axe simply isn't needed. After all, Hatchetman and Axman were lethal in close-combat... hell, there's quite a few of the less outrageous Dark Age mechs I'd like to see, but to be fair, I'm 90% sure most of these are from the WoB era, and none are timeline compliant.

As for my comments on Locusts, well, I'm actually considering buying them once I master Jenners. I've mastered all the Commandos, and my Jenners are in Elite. I just see so few of them, I assumed the mech was underpowered for it's size, despite seeing a few since the Clans arrived that fought incredibly well, including one who ran to help my Dire Wolf when I was 'in trouble'.

(Ok, that was a lie for his sake. Really, I'd gone 1v1 with a Nova, taken off one leg and an arm, and had the other leg crit. Locust ran up, took off the remaining leg, and ran off again, leaving me kill-free and rather annoyed that he'd come, grabbed my prey, then abandoned me again when I just wanted to reach the team).

Still, the fact that they're currently outclassed with speed and let down by the current armor system is a bit sad for an iconic mech.

[PANZERKAT]

After playing War Thunder, there are many elements that MWO could look at and mesh into their game in some way. They have collision, with environment and other vehicles which cause damage.

There isn't any shame in looking at what someone else is doing and considering morphing it into your game in some way.

I'm saying this, because I assume hitting a mech would be along the lines of colliding with it. You get up to speed pull your arm back and need to time it right to slice and dice. I'm sure they've put lots of thought into how they might be able to introduce the mechs with melee weapons, but that's something that can be thought of down the line when CW is running. It would be an interesting introduction when they do a ComStar Mech/Tech release.

[Ovion]

KOMMISSAR KITTY, on 12 July 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

After playing War Thunder, there are many elements that MWO could look at and mesh into their game in some way. They have collision, with environment and other vehicles which cause damage.

There isn't any shame in looking at what someone else is doing and considering morphing it into your game in some way.

I'm saying this, because I assume hitting a mech would be along the lines of colliding with it. You get up to speed pull your arm back and need to time it right to slice and dice. I'm sure they've put lots of thought into how they might be able to introduce the mechs with melee weapons, but that's something that can be thought of down the line when CW is running. It would be an interesting introduction when they do a ComStar Mech/Tech release.

Melee would be very simple really.
Introduce a Melee Weapons type. (Yellow weapons maybe?)

A weapon, that is equipped, that has a set range of say, 1-10 meters, that does X damage and has infinite ammo and a cool down time.
Logically that damage would be a multiplier based on tonnage, I'd say between Tonnage/20 and Tonnage/5 (or possibly even higher, or a fixed amount) depending on the weapon.

Hand Actuators grant a Melee Weapon slot for each Hand Actuator (and is replaced by any Melee Weapon equipped there), that when empty, is a fixed Fist weapon.
Foot Actuators grant a fixed Kick weapon.

Weapon wise, we could have the Hatchet and Retractable Blade,
Other options include the Chainsaw, Dual Saw, Mining Drill, Pile Driver, Rock Cutter and Wrecking Ball.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Animating that though.....

[Ovion]

Shar Wolf, on 14 July 2014 - 10:29 AM, said:

Animating that though.....

Also not especially hard.
Arm moves to crosshair, or straightforward, depending on the decision made.

[Tesunie]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

Also not especially hard.
Arm moves to crosshair, or straightforward, depending on the decision made.

But how does one keep the graphics from colliding through each other? I think that is more so the point... (Among other things.)

[Alaskan Nobody]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 10:37 AM, said:

Also not especially hard.
Arm moves to crosshair, or straightforward, depending on the decision made.

Think of how awkward the knockdowns looked

Not the individual animations, mind you, but the way they all fit together into the whole scene

[Ovion]

Tesunie, on 14 July 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

But how does one keep the graphics from colliding through each other? I think that is more so the point... (Among other things.)

Left Arm and Right Arm hit either slightly above, or slightly to the side of each other, so they don't actually clash, and stop when they come into contact with something.

This would also let you smack their weapon / amr in flight with your own melee to attempt to block / focus the damage to the arm

[Tesunie]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 10:45 AM, said:

Left Arm and Right Arm hit either slightly above, or slightly to the side of each other, so they don't actually clash, and stop when they come into contact with something.

This would also let you smack their weapon / amr in flight with your own melee to attempt to block / focus the damage to the arm

Still sounds like complicated coding and graphics to me... Unless you wish to do it and show us just how easy it is to do...

[Dawnstealer]

I still want my Hatchetman.

[Tesunie]

Dawnstealer, on 14 July 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

I still want my Hatchetman.

They should see about making mechs such as those. Have the close combat weapon be the same as what ECM and CC use to be for a long time. Then, just take it off (or leave it for looks), and use the mech in other ways... (Or just have the stock configurations show the hatchet and just not have one on them. Could make a good shield if nothing else...)

[Ovion]

Tesunie, on 14 July 2014 - 11:00 AM, said:

Still sounds like complicated coding and graphics to me... Unless you wish to do it and show us just how easy it is to do...

They already have the code for stopping when Mech Parts come into contact with each other (collisions).
They already have the code, and at least a portion of the animation for moving limbs (free look wiggle).
They already have the code for fixed weapons and components (clans).
They already have the code for Hand Actuators changing when a weapon is put into an arm (Clan AC/PPC in arm)
They already have the code and animations for moving weapons when firing (recoil animation on several mechs)
They already have the code for infinite ammo weapons (lasers)
They already have the code for weapons.
They already have the code for variable equations based on weight.

All we need are it to be applied together, and the models to make the Melee Weapon type.

[Tesunie]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 11:27 AM, said:

They already have the code for stopping when Mech Parts come into contact with each other (collisions).
They already have the code, and at least a portion of the animation for moving limbs (free look wiggle).
They already have the code for fixed weapons and components (clans).
They already have the code for Hand Actuators changing when a weapon is put into an arm (Clan AC/PPC in arm)
They already have the code and animations for moving weapons when firing (recoil animation on several mechs)
They already have the code for infinite ammo weapons (lasers)
They already have the code for weapons.
They already have the code for variable equations based on weight.

All we need are it to be applied together, and the models to make the Melee Weapon type.

We have pieces of code that preform a simple task, such as always aligning the arms to the crosshair/reticule. These pieces cobbled together wouldn't do anything. Half of the coding you are pointing out wouldn't even effect melee combat in this game. One of the rules about melee within battletech is that you can't fire the weapons on the associated limb you are hitting with. How long of a delay would this be in MWO? What button would be required to preform a punch/kick? How would you determine what limb would be doing what action? Also, IS mechs don't lose actuators when placing weapons. (Technically, clans aren't suppose to either, but clan actuators are module, so they can be removed. PGI simplified this process for balance and ease of use.)

I'm sure PGI could, at some point, place in melee combat actions into the game. However, the more you continue to talk on the subject yourself, the more I see you don't know anything about coding and programing. (I shall honestly admit I have extremely limited knowledge on the subject myself. I've tried to do coding in Flash before... it was not nice and I had to follow a guide to the letter to make it work. When I tired to edit the code to so something else, it didn't work... and half the time the tutorial followed coding didn't work and needed to be redone. So, coding is not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is.)

PS: As far as "collision coding", we still have mechs that merge parts of themselves when they collide... We have people complain about some mechs because they have clipping errors (pieces of it run through other pieces graphically) on simple movement... We still are able to run through (if we crash into each other for long enough) each other and appear on the other side... Personally. Every time someone taps my mech with their mech, I always find it causes a little rubberbanding and teleporting on my side. This has made some events very hard to protect myself from, especially when I ran away from the mech only to rubberband back infront of them again... Imagine what a punch or kick will do with these known effects.

The game as it is right now is not ready for collisions, or knockdowns either. They are working on knockdowns right now. Maybe after knockdowns are back in, we might see some more options for melee. Then it might be ready. The coding is still not there yet.

[Ovion]

Tesunie, on 14 July 2014 - 11:44 AM, said:

Spoiler

We have pieces of code that preform a simple task, such as always aligning the arms to the crosshair/reticule. These pieces cobbled together wouldn't do anything. Half of the coding you are pointing out wouldn't even effect melee combat in this game. One of the rules about melee within battletech is that you can't fire the weapons on the associated limb you are hitting with. How long of a delay would this be in MWO? What button would be required to preform a punch/kick? How would you determine what limb would be doing what action? Also, IS mechs don't lose actuators when placing weapons. (Technically, clans aren't suppose to either, but clan actuators are module, so they can be removed. PGI simplified this process for balance and ease of use.)

I'm sure PGI could, at some point, place in melee combat actions into the game. However, the more you continue to talk on the subject yourself, the more I see you don't know anything about coding and programing. (I shall honestly admit I have extremely limited knowledge on the subject myself. I've tried to do coding in Flash before... it was not nice and I had to follow a guide to the letter to make it work. When I tired to edit the code to so something else, it didn't work... and half the time the tutorial followed coding didn't work and needed to be redone. So, coding is not nearly as easy as you seem to think it is.)

PS: As far as "collision coding", we still have mechs that merge parts of themselves when they collide... We have people complain about some mechs because they have clipping errors (pieces of it run through other pieces graphically) on simple movement... We still are able to run through (if we crash into each other for long enough) each other and appear on the other side... Personally. Every time someone taps my mech with their mech, I always find it causes a little rubberbanding and teleporting on my side. This has made some events very hard to protect myself from, especially when I ran away from the mech only to rubberband back infront of them again... Imagine what a punch or kick will do with these known effects.

The game as it is right now is not ready for collisions, or knockdowns either. They are working on knockdowns right now. Maybe after knockdowns are back in, we might see some more options for melee. Then it might be ready. The coding is still not there yet.

My point was, they know how to do each seperate part.
They have the knowledge for all the aspects it would need.
Meaning it won't be absurdly difficult for them to do.

And at its simplest, this is an animated gun.

The Button to punch / kick would be the weapon group you put it on.

As for weapons on that arm not firing - thats easy, when the Melee Weapon cool down ends.

Edited by Ovion, 14 July 2014 - 12:26 PM.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 12:25 PM, said:

Meaning it does not appear to be absurdly difficult for them to do.

]
Fixed that for you.
I agree with the fact that (on paper anyways) it does not look like it would be that hard to do.

My (admittedly very limited) experience with programming has me hesitant to label it as functionally being not hard to do, though.

Edit: spelling

Edited by Shar Wolf, 14 July 2014 - 12:39 PM.

[Ovion]

To be honest, PGIs track record makes me doubt it'd be simple for them to do.

But the building blocks are technically all there.

But I want to be able to walk up to an Atlas and kick it in the shins with my Locust.

[Alaskan Nobody]

Locust probably would not be so good for that (unless you were kicking backwards?)

Commando on the other hand...

Probably not just difficult for PGI though - most games do not have a very good melee animation system.
(See the insane amount of clipping most Fighting games have)

[Ovion]

Locust might not be good for that.
But it'd be funny.

Walk up, kick in shins (likely for 1-2 damage), run away.

BUt yeah, oh well, we can dream.

[Ngamok]

Nothing but Urbanmech haters up in here.

[SethAbercromby]

Ovion, on 14 July 2014 - 11:27 AM, said:

They already have the code for stopping when Mech Parts come into contact with each other (collisions).
They already have the code, and at least a portion of the animation for moving limbs (free look wiggle).
They already have the code for fixed weapons and components (clans).
They already have the code for Hand Actuators changing when a weapon is put into an arm (Clan AC/PPC in arm)
They already have the code and animations for moving weapons when firing (recoil animation on several mechs)
They already have the code for infinite ammo weapons (lasers)
They already have the code for weapons.
They already have the code for variable equations based on weight.

All we need are it to be applied together, and the models to make the Melee Weapon type.

The whole stopping on collision deal, as already explained, is rather imprecise and I'm gonna assume that they simply pause a running animation, which does nothing to prevent clipping properly. Clipping then introduces a lot of unpredicatable variables into the physics simulation, because it causes events the simulation does not know how to handle properly. Not properly implemented could that transform melee combat into a giant mess.

Moving limb animation seem to be simple animations played on a loop with some dynamic animation handling based on speed. Useful for a walking/idle animation, but to animate a physical attack like that, you need a much more precision which translates into bucketloads of code, case juggling and other fun times. Given that to look properly, the animation needs to respond to impacs at variing distances properly, we need to open yet another bucket of trouble worms.

I'll give you the fixed thing but that's hardly the issue. Being present and being actually usable are two very different things.

Why would you want to change the hand actuator when using a melee weapon? In fact, a melee weapon should only be usable with a hand actuator present. Only exception being the retractable blade, which only requires a lower arm actuator to function properly.

Recoil, even more so than walking, is a stock animation. Nothing dynamic at all.

Ammo isn't really an issue either.

Oh really? I thoght we were just ramming into each other here...

Yes and no. Fall damage is static for example.

PGI isn't ready for melee weapons yet. They hardly qualify for jump jets either but that's another issue.