69 replies to this topic

[Viper69]

Point taken.

I honestly would think for animation sake a stream of bullets coming out would be awesome, as long as the damage stayed the same regardless of the amount of perceived hits. Example if I let lose with my AC20 and fired off a stream of rounds that even if one bullet hit out of the 20 or so flying out the damage was the same. I think the reason they made it a single projectile was so people wouldnt say "Damn I hit with 14 of my 20 rounds flying out why did I not do more damage or why did my damage not spread to more locations as I straffed him with fire"

[Xandre Blackheart]

Tincan Nightmare, on 25 June 2012 - 11:07 PM, said:

Well were talking about walking giant robots 1000 years in the future, so the 'that isn't realistic' argument is pretty pointless. Also see my earlier post on how autocannons have been defined in nearly every single sourcebook as 'RAPID FIRING' sending a 'STREAM' of shells at their target. Maybe its crazy, maybe 1000 years in the future giant robots will have tank size machine guns, but that is how BT has defined autocannons for several decades now. But hey, since I'm just using the source material that everything came from to argue the point, I'll bow out to your superior opinion.

Pointless? Nah. Physics dont' change. Advances in material sciences might make it more viable to have faster mechanisms, but the primary issue is still armor penetration. It's difficult to forsee technologies that would make one large shell inferior to multiple small shells at armor penetration. I probably rambled a bit but that was the point of the whole post. Any efficiences in a properly designed "auto cannon" intended for armor pericing would be directed towards firing larger shells faster (more efficiently), not even more smaller shells faster (more efficiently).

Yes, I'm saying the guys who came up with the source materials weren't engineers and were wrong. It might sound cooler, and look cooler, but I'm arguing stricly from a physics standpoint. Whatever developers decided to make them a large single shot weapon got it right. Now wether they knew it was more efficient from an engineering standpoint, or it was just better gameplay or simpler to code is debatable.

Frankly I don't care how they put it in the game, as long as the mechanics are consistent.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 26 June 2012 - 12:17 PM.

[RedDragon]

Xandre Blackheart, on 26 June 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Yes, I'm saying the guys who came up with the source materials weren't engineers and were wrong. It might sound cooler, and look cooler, but I'm arguing stricly from a physics standpoint. Whatever developers decided to make them a large single shot weapon got it right. Now wether they knew it was more efficient from an engineering standpoint, or it was just better gameplay or simpler to code is debatable.

Frankly I don't care how they put it in the game, as long as the mechanics are consistent.

Quite a statement you give here. First of all, talking about "consistent mechanics" in a game like BT is kind of ironic. No sane mechanic would invent something like a mech in the first place, yet you argue that the weapons such a mech uses have to be in line with what you think is "consistent"? If we use giant robots for the rule of cool, why shouldn't this apply to the guns they use?
Apart from this you (and everyone else, including myself) have no idea how weapons and armour work in BT-universe. With armour that has to withstand so many different kinds of attacks (kinetic, heat, explosive plus whatever a PPC handles out), maybe it's not just about armour penetration any more as you seem to think.
And if you ask any tank commander out there if he rather had a 120mm cannon that can shoot 5 shots per second or a 400mm cannon that only shoots once every 10 seconds, I guess the answer is pretty much obvious. Today's military stopped for a reason to get bigger guns and started installing auto-loaders that rise the rate of fire. It's the same on military ships. the era of the big guns has ended, today's cannons are relatively low calibre with a high rate of fire.

[Famine52]

I never though I'd see a nerd fight to the death.

[Viper69]

Never been in cyberspace have you?

[Brosef Stalin]

For fluff and flavor, burst fire weapons are cool. They're right there in the source material as well.

Regardless, for effectiveness and gameplay balance, single-shot weapons are the way to go. It's all better this way. If you can choose to break an equivalent amount of damage up over smaller hits, or just deliver it all at once, in most action games I've ever played it's more tactically sound to deliver the damage as one large "burst" versus a the "dot" a stream of projectiles would cause.

If my AC/20 does 20 damage from one shell, and your AC/20 does 1 damage each from 20 shells, I can fire my projectile at you and then run for cover while you have to keep your crosshair on me the entire time to deliver that 20 damage. You could argue that someone might be able to spray the 20 bullets around and make up the deficit in situations where my one giant bullet would miss completely, but that's a question of skill and not tactics. Simply put, the ability to pop up, fire one 20 damage shell, and then step back behind intervening cover trumps the hail of bullets.

[Famine52]

Viper69, on 26 June 2012 - 06:26 PM, said:

Never been in cyberspace have you?

Oh yes, but not gladiator style.

[Brosef Stalin]

Famine52, on 26 June 2012 - 08:25 PM, said:

Oh yes, but not gladiator style.

Two men enter, one man leaves.
Two men enter, one man leaves.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Xandre Blackheart, on 26 June 2012 - 12:12 PM, said:

Pointless? Nah. Physics dont' change. Advances in material sciences might make it more viable to have faster mechanisms, but the primary issue is still armor penetration. It's difficult to forsee technologies that would make one large shell inferior to multiple small shells at armor penetration. I probably rambled a bit but that was the point of the whole post. Any efficiences in a properly designed "auto cannon" intended for armor pericing would be directed towards firing larger shells faster (more efficiently), not even more smaller shells faster (more efficiently).

Yes, I'm saying the guys who came up with the source materials weren't engineers and were wrong. It might sound cooler, and look cooler, but I'm arguing stricly from a physics standpoint. Whatever developers decided to make them a large single shot weapon got it right. Now wether they knew it was more efficient from an engineering standpoint, or it was just better gameplay or simpler to code is debatable.

Frankly I don't care how they put it in the game, as long as the mechanics are consistent.

The funny point is I'm not arguing with them making autocannons single shot in the game, if its a burst or a single shell the damage is the same depending on the AC's rating to a single location. So in MWO we get single shot cannons, cool no problem here. The only thing I was arguing was people stating that AC's in BT were single shot weapons when they were not. I am not trying to argue that I want AC's changed to burst fire (though it wouldn't bother me none) in the game, I just want people to stop saying 'but they were single shot in the TT' when they were not.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Viper69, on 26 June 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

If auto cannons fired a stream of bullets then why did they add the rotary auto cannons later on? I cant think that they would need to make a gattling gun mechanism if in fact the gun already fired like that from the get go.

Ok, again from the Fedsuns field manual where RAC's were first introduced.

'Durint the mid-3050's, the NAIS developed lighter-weight prototypes of several small-caliber autocannons, based partially on advances pioneered with the LB-X classes of autocannon. Unfortunately, the drop in mass also lead to a significant drop in accuracy at long ranges, and after months of lackluster combat trials, the Department of the Quartermaster killed the program when it passed on bids from two contractors to build these new weapons.
Undaunted, NAIS scientists continued to refine the design. The breakthrough came when a student revived interest in the long-theorized rotary autocannon. Autocannons, especially the LB-X class, have long used multiple barrels. However, due to overheating problems and structural stress, multiple barrels did not appreciably increase the autocannons rate of fire. The rotary autocannon was a multiple barrel concept, designed to increase rate of fire beyond the Ultra class autocannon. Deemed overly massive and unstable, the RAC was never even prototyped. Based on the advances made in the last few years, however, NAIS were able to quickly design and build several working models. Though the largest caliber weapons were still too massive and too unreliable, with several designs catastrophically failing even under lab conditions, two small-caliber RAC designs survived the trials and were soon accepted by the DQ.
The principle of the RAC finally became viable with the development of the light autocannon. Taking the stock light autocannon, sustained rate of fire is increased by adding additional barrels, similar to the newer LB-X class of autocannons being manufactured, and wedding those barrels with a more capable breech and loading mechanism-a design made possible after years of refining the 'Ultra' classes of autocannon. While the weapon generates additional excess heat, the stress on each individual barrel is reduced, leading to longer serivce life. Unfortunately, the weapon is still prone to lock-ups and jams when firing at its highest rates of fire for lengthy periods.' pg. 158

So the RAC was basically moving from a 50 cal browning or MG-42 to the electric minigun, an attempt to simple increase rate of fire beyond the Ultra series. Believe me I know my BT, AC's are rapid fire in short predetermined bursts, almost like the 3 shot burst setting on some assault rifles.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

Maybe it's not one big shot... maybe... just maybe... it's a bunch of shots fired so fast that they're clustered together? They're just glowing so bright that it only looks like one big bullet... Lets go with that.

Edited by Agent CraZy DiP, 27 June 2012 - 04:25 AM.

[Viper69]

Agent CraZy DiP, on 27 June 2012 - 04:16 AM, said:

Maybe it's not one big shot... maybe... just maybe... it's a bunch of shots fired so fast that they're clustered together? They're just glowing so bright that it only looks like one big bullet... Lets go with that.

I will go with that!, now all we need is a cluster of shell casings coming out of the side of the mech.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

It says that it does fire cased and caseless ammo. Caseless being a bit more rare.

[Xandre Blackheart]

RedDragon, on 26 June 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

Quite a statement you give here. First of all, talking about "consistent mechanics" in a game like BT is kind of ironic. No sane mechanic would invent something like a mech in the first place, yet you argue that the weapons such a mech uses have to be in line with what you think is "consistent"? If we use giant robots for the rule of cool, why shouldn't this apply to the guns they use?
Apart from this you (and everyone else, including myself) have no idea how weapons and armour work in BT-universe. With armour that has to withstand so many different kinds of attacks (kinetic, heat, explosive plus whatever a PPC handles out), maybe it's not just about armour penetration any more as you seem to think.
And if you ask any tank commander out there if he rather had a 120mm cannon that can shoot 5 shots per second or a 400mm cannon that only shoots once every 10 seconds, I guess the answer is pretty much obvious. Today's military stopped for a reason to get bigger guns and started installing auto-loaders that rise the rate of fire. It's the same on military ships. the era of the big guns has ended, today's cannons are relatively low calibre with a high rate of fire.

Physics is over here on the left, consistent mechanics is over here on the right. Physics is real world, consistent mechanics is what you want in a SIM.

And yes, I do have a broad understanding of weapon design, which is directly applicable to the BT Universe. For instance, your point about the increase in the proliferation of rapid fire weapons on naval emplacements and armored vehicles is correct. I suppose you also know the reasons for this are the amount of protection your average target has. Penetration technology follows armor technology which chases penetration technology.

Now ask the average Sherman tank commander in WW2 going up against Tigers and PZ-IV's if he would have rather had a rapid fire cannon that would fire 5 times in 10 seconds but bounce off 90% of the time at standard engagement ranges or one that would fire once every 10 seconds but penetrate 70% of the time and guess which one he would choose. Using current weapon trends to judge the "future" of weapons technology have to take into account both ends of the equation. And I failed in making that clear. As I said before I'm rambling.

I suppose the entire argument comes down to how you picture the relative strength of the armor technology in the BT universe. I approach the problem from the point of view that armor technology is currently superior to penetration technology. We could argue the reasons why but the telling point is that the only possible way a walking giant robot would even BE "practical" to build in the first place is if armor technology is so far superior to penetration technology that it becomes a viable weapons platform superior to tracked vehicles, hovercraft, and flying vehicles. At that point then everything else can follow our current model of physics without having to change the rules of the universe.

The above supposition is what I mean by consistent mechanics. In the simulation the applicable physics support each other in ways beyond "rule of cool". I'm not saying it should supersede "rule of cool" but I find it more aesthetically pleasing personally.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 27 June 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Agent CraZy DiP, on 27 June 2012 - 04:16 AM, said:

Maybe it's not one big shot... maybe... just maybe... it's a bunch of shots fired so fast that they're clustered together? They're just glowing so bright that it only looks like one big bullet... Lets go with that.

Actually, now that I think about it, that is also an acceptable mechanic. If you posit a "burst" of fire then the mechanism has time to cool, reducing stress, and you can stretch physics a bit to postulate that the shells are going to be loaded in a precise order so that you have a "breaker" shell followed by a "burst" shell to resonate the armor so that the following breaker shell gains a significant boost in penetration. (Sort of a heterodyning effect that actually vibrates the armor into shattering. It's not practical with forseeable technology. But I suppose if you can build a 100 ton walking robot, fire-control could possibly advance to the level where you can consistently hit the same point with each shell being fired in the precise timing needed to produce the effect.)

It's still not as efficient as one large shell speaking from a strict penetration sense, but it does cover the fluff, and meshes with the idea that armor technology is "currently" superior to weapons technology.

In other words: Armor is so durable that you have to use special techniques to penetrate it because the size of a shell large enough to penetrate has become impractical due to other engineering concerns.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 27 June 2012 - 06:20 PM.

[Agent CraZy DiP]

Xandre Blackheart, on 27 June 2012 - 06:09 PM, said:

Actually, now that I think about it, that is also an acceptable mechanic. If you posit a "burst" of fire then the mechanism has time to cool, reducing stress, and you can stretch physics a bit to postulate that the shells are going to be loaded in a precise order so that you have a "breaker" shell followed by a "burst" shell to resonate the armor so that the following breaker shell gains a significant boost in penetration. (Sort of a heterodyning effect that actually vibrates the armor into shattering. It's not practical with forseeable technology. But I suppose if you can build a 100 ton walking robot, fire-control could possibly advance to the level where you can consistently hit the same point with each shell being fired in the precise timing needed to produce the effect.)

It's still not as efficient as one large shell speaking from a strict penetration sense, but it does cover the fluff, and meshes with the idea that armor technology is "currently" superior to weapons technology.

In other words:  Armor is so durable that you have to use special techniques to penetrate it because the size of a shell large enough to penetrate has become impractical due to other engineering concerns.

Exactly... Someone sees my genius.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Oh yes, I understood at once exactly the parameters you were using in communicating the idea.

[Chunkymonkey]

O ya, this thread i started, forgot about it. While everyone is talking about practicality, in canon, it was usualy a long stream of bullets like in Warrior En Guarde it was talking about the Pontiac autocannon firing twice as fast.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Poop on canon AND auto cannons,,,,

[Jensen]

The guy above accurately describes autocannon as automatic cannon. Not all are the same. A Rotary AC acts like the book describes, a standard AC 20 is a large slug fired slowly.

Edited by Jensen, 28 June 2012 - 09:29 AM.