24 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

I would suggest exploring the idea of playing on frozen lakes and taking the risk of melting your way through the ice layer. This was mentioned in MW2... the heatsinks acted as Mechsinks for Jade Falcon, leaving them plummeting to the bottom of a lake. I'm not specifying an entire map comprised of only a lake, but rather frozen rivers and lakes or ponds encountered while traversing a map.

Heavy Mechs would breach ice of a certain weakness, light Mechs would only breach weaker ice, and the quantity of heat being dissipated (Heat Level X Heat sinks) would affect the rate of ice weakening. Just a suggestion.

Edit: Okay, for a mental exercise, the number of foot-mounted heatsinks multiplied by the actual temperature of the Mech could represent the quantity of heat being delivered to the ice per second. For instance, a warm Mech with many heatsinks will dump a given quantity of heat energy just as quickly as a hot mech with very few heatsinks. Remember that 1 degree represents a quantity of thermal energy, and going from 3000 to 2999 degrees sheds the same amount of energy as going from 2000 to 1999, but I'll also throw in Le Chatelier's principle here and say that a 3000 degree Mech should shed 500 degrees' of heat energy faster than a 2000 degree Mech with an equal number of heatsinks would because the thermal gradient from 3000-to-ambient is stronger than the gradient from 2000-to-ambient. That's why a 3000 degree Mech would, *in reality*, dump heat energy faster than a 2000 degree Mech with an equal number of heatsinks would, and that explains why heat shedding is a function of heatsinks multiplied by a [mildly exponential] factor representing how much hotter you are than the ambient battlefield temperature.


Just like canon says, a hot laser-boat loaded up with double heatsinks should melt its way through the surface of a frozen lake very quickly.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 30 November 2011 - 09:46 AM.

[ManDaisy]

in TT, ... You would also lose anything in your legs, torso, whatever if you armor was pierced and you mech become flooded.

[Cyttorak]

I already suggested this in another thread, along with the idea of lava crust that would break under too much weight; though I hadn't thought about ice melting from high heat levels.

[CaveMan]

You wouldn't drown, of course, unless your 'Mech's head was breached. These things are able to operate in vacuum or underwater just fine. You'd be able to just walk back to shore along the bottom.

Unless you sank deep enough that you reached crush depth, anyway. (Does canon state the crush depth of a 'Mech anywhere?)

[UncleKulikov]

if there were mechanics for refreezing, you could ambush people from under the ice with planning.

You should be able to melt/shatter ice with weapon fire.
mechs should be waterproof unless the head armor is breached
Fall damage should be reduced for sinking in water due to the surface resistance.

[GreyGriffin]

Battlemechs start making Crush Depth checks at 90m of depth underwater in 1g. (Tactical Operations, p. 42)

[verybad]

I actually think it would be rather amusing if there were AREAS on a map that you could shoot the ice out from under an opposing mech and let them sink to their DOOOOOOM

[Nowan123]

any other references for 90m crush depth? this would be awesome ingame, but might be laggy...

[Felicitatem Parco]

I think, for an arcade-shooter game, it's safe to say that if you drop below, let's say 10m over your head, that you should be considered KIA. You could still ford rivers and ponds, but I would LOVE the idea of Ice Road Truckers for Mechs, where the best and shortest routes around a map to-and-from the most tactically-superior positions are routes that take you over ice. Ice that can either melt below your feet, or get shot out from under your feet.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 24 November 2011 - 12:22 PM.

[Black Sunder]

I would personally love this because I could go underwater, let it refreeze and then fire weapons up and then use jump jets to get out in a rush of water while mechs without them would sink and stay sunk.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I think re-freezing would take longer than the duration of a Mech fight... unless you intend on fighting for 20 hours at a time.

[SMDMadCow]

Prosperity Park, on 24 November 2011 - 12:19 PM, said:

I think, for an arcade-shooter game, it's safe to say that if you drop below, let's say 10m over your head, that you should be considered KIA.

Why? You're in a BattleMech, that can survive submerged and in the vacum of space. Just walk out of the water.

Black Sunder, on 24 November 2011 - 12:52 PM, said:

I would personally love this because I could go underwater, let it refreeze and then fire weapons up and then use jump jets to get out in a rush of water while mechs without them would sink and stay sunk.

You can't use jump jets under water. But submerged heat sinks work at double efficiency (up to a point) and shooting the ice out from under some one would be fun. Then watching them sink and punching holes in their armor to flood compartments and disable their mech. Easy salvage opportunity.

[Felicitatem Parco]

You can't fire lasers under water because the energy would be absorbed by water. You can't fire autocannons, machine guns, or Gauss rifles under water because the water would a.) drain kinetic energy so fast that the projectile would be non-harmful after a few meters, and b.) probably cause the projectile to fragment/disintegrate. Missiles wouldn't be able to track a target above water because you'd have no line-of-sight.

And the reason I say 10m for a death-depth is to make map design simple and to discourage flame wars over "cheaters" who hide in deep water for the whole match until they decide to come up.

[SMDMadCow]

According to the table top rules you can, just at a reduced range. Just go with it. Being submerged may end up part of the game and something we may just have to deal with. Learn and adapt, right?

[Moppelkotze]

In MWLL is a map that's on a rotating komet, the day/night cycle is pretty quick.
At days it's hot -> water in the night it's really cool -> water freezing really fast.

[Black Sunder]

SMDMadCow, on 24 November 2011 - 04:27 PM, said:

You can't use jump jets under water. But submerged heat sinks work at double efficiency (up to a point) and shooting the ice out from under some one would be fun. Then watching them sink and punching holes in their armor to flood compartments and disable their mech. Easy salvage opportunity.

On planets with thin atmosphere where normal air compression can not be accomplished mechs will carry small liquid oxygen tanks in order to use their jump jets. This would be no different.

[saber15]

Black Sunder, on 25 November 2011 - 05:25 AM, said:

On planets with thin atmosphere where normal air compression can not be accomplished mechs will carry small liquid oxygen tanks in order to use their jump jets. This would be no different.

Water gets sucked into the jumpjet intakes and IIRC causes a very violent explosion. There's a separate system for jumping underwater.

[Felicitatem Parco]

I really think you shouldn't be allowed to jumpjet under water, but rather only be able to walk out onto dry land. I also feel like you should only be able to fire weapons/activate jump jets if the ports are above water.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 30 November 2011 - 09:20 AM.

[S3dition]

Prosperity Park, on 22 November 2011 - 07:52 PM, said:

I would suggest exploring the idea of playing on frozen lakes and taking the risk of melting your way through the ice layer. This was mentioned in MW2... the heatsinks acted as Mechsinks for Jade Falcon, leaving them plummeting to the bottom of a lake. I'm not specifying an entire map comprised of only a lake, but rather frozen rivers and lakes or ponds encountered while traversing a map.

Heavy Mechs would breach ice of a certain weakness, light Mechs would only breach weaker ice, and the quantity of heat being dissipated (Heat Level X Heat sinks) would affect the rate of ice weakening. Just a suggestion.

Mechs are capable of submersion comparable to a submarine. Some actually have torpedo system fitted to them.

No joke.

[CaveMan]

saber15, on 25 November 2011 - 06:08 AM, said:

Water gets sucked into the jumpjet intakes and IIRC causes a very violent explosion. There's a separate system for jumping underwater.

It really shouldn't cause an explosion. Liquid water is incompressible but the heat would just boil the water into steam, which is compressible. I figure the worst that would happen is the 'Mech would make a hot **** rather than blasting plasma out the jet ports.

It would make an interesting ad-hoc method of cooling your 'Mech though. Suck water into the jump jet ports and figure out a way to dump excess engine heat into the water, and release a huge cloud of steam.