1126 replies to this topic

[Ragtag soldier]

Water Bear, on 16 April 2015 - 03:34 PM, said:

PhD student in math here. The guy you quoted was right, newton's laws dictate that to every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. A gauss or rail gun would have enormous kick.

you're looking at the reaction backwards. the gauss slugs aren't thrown, they're pulled. the magnetic coils are placing a massive pull on the (currently stationary) gauss slug, so the gauss rifle firing IS the reaction. like with a slingshot, the energy is potential energy turning into kinetic energy as it's transferred to the projectile. (and to the band pulling the projectile, but in the case of gauss this is kinda irreverent as the magnetic fields are killed as the weapon fires, so that energy of the recoil isn't able to go back into the gun.

thinking about it, there has to be a buttload of energy being transferred there, but that's also true of lasers and PPCs, so it's not a big problem for a 'mech fusion plant.

[Tim East]

Nope. The pull of the magnetic field on the projectile occurs at the same time as an equal and opposite pull on the electromagnet generating it. You're thinking as if there is an additional force holding the projectile in place that is suddenly removed, though even if this was so the weapon would still recoil.

[Burktross]

Mystere, on 16 April 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

It's not legal where you live?! Oh you poor little thing.

Potheads.

[Dino Might]

Ragtag soldier, on 16 April 2015 - 04:01 PM, said:

you're looking at the reaction backwards. the gauss slugs aren't thrown, they're pulled. the magnetic coils are placing a massive pull on the (currently stationary) gauss slug, so the gauss rifle firing IS the reaction. like with a slingshot, the energy is potential energy turning into kinetic energy as it's transferred to the projectile. (and to the band pulling the projectile, but in the case of gauss this is kinda irreverent as the magnetic fields are killed as the weapon fires, so that energy of the recoil isn't able to go back into the gun.

thinking about it, there has to be a buttload of energy being transferred there, but that's also true of lasers and PPCs, so it's not a big problem for a 'mech fusion plant.

You can make homemade coil guns and actually feel the recoil as you shoot them. To exert a force on the slug, an equal and opposite force is imparted on the coils. That magnetic "pull" results in a "push" on the coils. It's all electromagnetic force. The reason the gun doesn't recoil that much is because it is so much more massive than the slug. F=ma.

You simply cannot make a system where there is force without any reactionary (equal and opposite) force. Not now, not in 3050, not in forever.

Think about your slingshot. To pull the band back, you end up exerting a force on the handle with your grip hand (or you could look at it as exerting a force on your hand - remember equal and opposite). When you let go, all of a sudden, that pressure releases. There's no magical non-zero force without any opposing force.

Edited by Dino Might, 16 April 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[ROSS-128]

Frostiken, on 16 April 2015 - 03:18 PM, said:

PHYSICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY



Once again, you're trying to apply asinine nonsense tabletop rules to a game format that has consistently, for the last fifteen years, proven that it doesn't work. You're concerned with this absurd 'reality' about playing with completely meaningless numbers than you are with the fact that I can shoot an Atlas in the crotch, and then shoot it again at the crown of its head, and yet both shots do subsequent damage as if I landed both shots in the exact same place.

Probably your most absurd argument is that you are constantly talking about the dimensions of mechs. NOTHING in the BT rules accounts for the stylistic sizes and designs of mechs. the Marauder's dorsal gun? It isn't a third arm, it's a 'side torso', and there is no provision for it being an easier target. As far as BT is concerned every single mech is literally the exact same dimensions shape and size.

If anything you are defeating your own point, because some mechs have "side torsos" that are outlandishly small, yet can pack a ton of armor on them. What, are they using magic armor that occupies less volume per ton just because your crappy rules say it can fit that armor on?

You can destroy a Timberwolf engine by shooting its ears, and you're here trying to apply ******** CBT nonsense? Where in the rules does it say Timberwolf side torsos are bigger, easier targets?

If you want to multiply armor by surface area, suddenly that surface area matters.

I also find it hilarious that you attack me for evaluating how realistic your proposal is, when you use "realism" as the main support for your proposal. If you claim your proposal is realistic, then pointing out that it is unrealistic is fair game.

Having fewer hitboxes actually allows you to get more value out of the same armor. If you had realistic armor-over-surface-area, you would need to spend MORE weight to get the SAME protection on LARGER mechs.

Why? Because armor protection is a function of thickness, but weight is a function of volume. And volume equals thickness times surface area. See why surface area is important yet?

So either you're proposing armor that magically gets lighter the bigger your mech is, or you're saying that big mechs should have to equip more weight in armor than they are rated to carry to get the same overall protection as a smaller mech.

Fewer hitboxes actually raises TTK, precisely because it allows armor in different locations to keep protecting you. If an Atlas only had one hitbox, I'd have to do 927 damage to kill it (614 armor and 313 structure), no exceptions. Because it has eight (on the front), I can kill it with 172 to the CT instead. Giving it more detailed hitboxes would only reduce the amount of armor I have to shoot through.

Saying that you'll fix that by giving every new hitbox the total armor for that component (so, say, 110 armor on each individual sub-section of CT) is like saying you'll "fix" the division created by the current hitboxes by giving each component the mech's total armor (614 on every component... even the head. Silly, is it not?).

Would carving mechs into more sections increase the simulation factor? Yes. Will it result in longer TTKs? No, quite the opposite, unless you couple it with absolutely ludicrous armor buffs. But then ludicrous armor buffs can get longer TTKs all on their own.

Edited by E Rommel, 16 April 2015 - 07:57 PM.

[Water Bear]

Ragtag soldier, on 16 April 2015 - 04:01 PM, said:

you're looking at the reaction backwards. the gauss slugs aren't thrown, they're pulled. the magnetic coils are placing a massive pull on the (currently stationary) gauss slug, so the gauss rifle firing IS the reaction. like with a slingshot, the energy is potential energy turning into kinetic energy as it's transferred to the projectile. (and to the band pulling the projectile, but in the case of gauss this is kinda irreverent as the magnetic fields are killed as the weapon fires, so that energy of the recoil isn't able to go back into the gun.

thinking about it, there has to be a buttload of energy being transferred there, but that's also true of lasers and PPCs, so it's not a big problem for a 'mech fusion plant.

Conservation of angular momentum, as someone else pointed out before, implies that if the slug exits the gun at any nonzero speed forward, the gun feels a kick backwards. Since conservation of angular momentum is a consequence of newton's laws, it's all really the same thing.

Force fields like the magnetic field can be very confusing to think about. You had it right the first time when you said that if you put two magnets of similar polarity next to each other, they shoot apart. Thinking about the exact physical mechanism of the recoil may just be confusing.

[Frostiken]

E Rommel, on 16 April 2015 - 06:15 PM, said:

If you want to multiply armor by surface area, suddenly that surface area matters.

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I also find it hilarious that you attack me for evaluating how realistic your proposal is

No, I'm attacking you because you have this absolutely batshit stupid idea that the CBT armor values are balanced at all in a Mechwarrior game. They are not. In CBT, Assault mechs are damage tanks, and light mechs are fodder. In Mechwarrior, Assault and Heavy mechs tend to be the first mechs destroyed, because they're slow, easy targets. I almost never see Atlases anymore because their side torsos are cored out in only a couple of alpha strikes.

Here is how the game is SUPPOSED to function. This is where the original armor values came from:

http://gfycat.com/Ki...anularAmbushbug

There is no aiming. There is no focusing on side torsos. There is nothing but luck. You cannot hit the same section with an alpha strike of three lasers unless you just happen to roll to hit that same section. There is no accounting for how the designers drew a specific mech's shape or whatever arbitrary size they gave it. There is absolutely no sense applied for how a specific mech would be laid out, as I said with the previous mention of the Marauder.

The original concept of 'armor' works fine in CBT, because we aren't concerned with where on a mech you hit, since weapons are wildly inaccurate and mechs are supposed to be big and tough. With randomly distributed hits for every single weapon, it means you are basically just whittling through all the armor at random until you finally make a hole to the internals.

What the CBT rules say goes for a 'specific mechs' armor values is irrelevant. We aren't playing CBT, are we, so why do you keep thinking that we need to divide an Atlas's armor values across its entire surface area? If the original mech designs were drawn up with any consideration for how obvious a target it is, they would look absolutely nothing like they currently do. The Atlas is a big, tough mech in CBT that's a bear to bring down, and it's going to dispense a ton of damage. It can easily wade into the thick of battle with all guns blazing. In MWO, MWLL, MW4, MW3, it's an easy target that will get cored out before it can reload its AC20 more than once if it tries to perform how an Assault Mech should. The result is that you find all the Assault mechs hiding behind hills because they're terrible mechs. They were terrible in MWLL, MW4, and MW3 as well.

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when you use "realism" as the main support for your proposal. If you claim your proposal is realistic, then pointing out that it is unrealistic is fair game.

My proposal is plenty realistic, you just seem to think that how CBT says armor works matters at all. It doesn't. I don't care what CBT says. CBT is why this game is broken. CBT is why MWLL, MW4, and MW3 had the exact same problem with pixel-perfect accuracy. And all the tabletop fanboys just close their eyes and pretend that this isn't a massive flaw with the game.

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Having fewer hitboxes actually allows you to get more value out of the same armor. If you had realistic armor-over-surface-area, you would need to spend MORE weight to get the SAME protection on LARGER mechs.

If I shoot a completely pristine Atlas in the crotch, I hit 96 points of armor, right? If I shoot a pristine Atlas in the HEAD, I hit 96 points of armor. Is that armor in the crotch magically flowing upwards to the head? Subdividing a mech's hitbox into smaller sections is FAR more realistic than your completely silly

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So either you're proposing armor that magically gets lighter the bigger your mech is, or you're saying that big mechs should have to equip more weight in armor than they are rated to carry to get the same overall protection as a smaller mech.

Literally everything you write from this point on is you continuing to believe that we need to obey CBT armor values, and then completely strawmanning my proposal based on that. For the thirteenth time, I don't care what CBT armor values say. There is literally not a single rule in CBT that takes a mech's dimensions and art style into account, so why would we really give a ****?

You seem to be having trouble understanding this concept, so let me draw you two more pictures:

Here is how Mechwarrior games currently function.

You seem to think this makes perfect sense. If I shoot a pristine Atlas in the dome, I'd hit 96 points of armor. If I shoot a pristine Atlas in the crotch, I hit 96 points of armor. But somehow, if I hit his crotch and THEN his dome, I'm hitting less armor the second time. The funny thing is that this almost works like it's already subdivided - you could just as easily pretend that the reason damage 'transfers' over twenty feet of torso space is because they just happened to hope you'd hit the crotch first, so they put more armor there.

https://gfycat.com/I...hsomeKookaburra

Here is a mockup of how a subdivided mech would function. How large a target an area is is directly related to how many crits a specific component takes up. The lasers in the chest, for example, are small because they're just one crit each. The central torso engine is the largest component, so it's the largest target.

https://gfycat.com/MajorOnlyDog

The POINT is to redesign how armor and damage is handled because Mechwarrior allows you to pinpoint all your damage at will. If the game is going to be about "aiming skill", then creating smaller, harder-to-hit targets will not only reward people with exceptional aim (ie: hitting the Atlas's nipple over and over to break through to where the XL engine would reside), but would almost certainly make mechs far more durable in general. Instead of somehow magically destroying the engine by shooting it in the shoulder, you'd actually have to shoot where the engine IS. Instead of somehow magically burning off armor ten feet away from where you shot it, you'd have to actually hit the specific weak points rather than just wildly spraying at the side torso.

Smaller mechs will have fewer subdivisions. A Jenner, for example, would have probably NO subdivisions, and thus it would work exactly as it currently does. The Jenner is already a difficult target to hit, so it doesn't need more durability. Since larger mechs are far more vulnerable to pinpoint damage alphastrikes, it makes sense to change up their designs to lend them more durability, and be more resistant to alpha striking. It would also make destroying specific weapons less of a random factor - an AC-20 has huge internals so it takes up tons of space. However, you still have to actually hit where the AC20 resides. If I stick a smaller cannon in there like an AC5, if you want to knock off the AC5 you have to destroy the AC5.

Armor subdivision values can be balanced on a per-mech basis, locked by the devs. Players would only specify the general level of protection that entire section has. If the developers want to make the ballistic torso mount on the Atlas a weak point, but make it more resistant to engine coring, they can strip some armor from the AC20 hitbox and transfer it to the area where the XL engine lives, and the surrounding areas.

If you're struggling for some sort of rational explanation for 'but, but but, the SURFACE AREA!', then consider that armor - just like in real life - is not a linear scale of protection. In real life, an inch of steel armor will not stop a .50 cal. Two inches, however, will, and it WON'T require just shooting the armor twice to break through - it will stop MULTIPLE strikes of .50 cal.

Funny how you don't have a problem with the quirks adding magical extra armor to some mechs like the Hunchback though. I also think it's funny that you revere CBT and are trying to apply rules like volume to it, but cannot seem to account for the fact that an assault much has exactly as much internal space as a freaking Locust.

Edited by Frostiken, 16 April 2015 - 08:39 PM.

[YueFei]

These "realism" arguments are really irrelevant, when Battletech is already kind of silly, with ridiculously short weapon ranges, strange ablating armor, etc.

What matters is game balance and the kind of game we want designed.

Different folks want different things.

Frankly the people who want CoF may be better off playing TT.

Having said that, you can still break convergence without resorting to CoF. Homeless Bill's proposal fits that bill. The player still has full control, shots don't just fly randomly, but you don't get perfect pinpoint convergence if you fire everything you have.

If they implement that, they could get rid of Ghost Heat. Hell, even without that implemented, they should probably remove Ghost Heat.

[Kuritaclan]

Not directly realted to convergence in first place - skip this if you are here to read something on the Topic.

Frostiken, on 16 April 2015 - 03:18 PM, said:

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Your impotent rage and reliance on personal attacks aside, you're forgetting that BT/MW armor is not measured in thickness, it is measured in weight. Specifically, tons. A point is 1/32nd of a ton in MWO, and 1/16th of a ton in BT IIRC.

In BT, thickness is a side effect of concentrating a lot of weight in one place.

So taking those 60 points and multiplying it by the 10m surface area would give you 600 points of armor on the ST, which would weigh almost 20 tons. You've got two STs, so that's 40 tons of armor and you haven't even got to your CT, arms, or legs yet.

If you decided to fix this by multiplying protection per ton by the mech's surface area, it would ridiculously overbuff large mechs like the Dire Whale, King Crab, and Awesome. It would also shaft small mechs, like the Locust.

It also wouldn't make sense: why would light mech armor be as heavy as depleted uranium, while assault mech armor is light as a feather?

Once again, you're trying to apply asinine nonsense tabletop rules to a game format that has consistently, for the last fifteen years, proven that it doesn't work. You're concerned with this absurd 'reality' about playing with completely meaningless numbers than you are with the fact that I can shoot an Atlas in the crotch, and then shoot it again at the crown of its head, and yet both shots do subsequent damage as if I landed both shots in the exact same place.

...

Probably your most absurd argument is that you are constantly talking about the dimensions of mechs. NOTHING in the BT rules accounts for the stylistic sizes and designs of mechs. the Marauder's dorsal gun? It isn't a third arm, it's a 'side torso', and there is no provision for it being an easier target. As far as BT is concerned every single mech is literally the exact same dimensions shape and size.

You may both calm down. He has a valid point. There are two ways of implementation of armor rules - one is making the armor on every point the value of 1damage is equal 1 armor and the part you hit is absorbing no matter where you hit - the other is using the full armor as a a weight of tonnage spread all over a body part with little parts that add up to a full value of said armor. For both models you need to adapt the the specific damage rules and the heat system to prevent players from oneshoting the mechs beside the cockpit (well this would be by spread armor the hardest point to hit since it is the least surface on the mechs most time)

If you go the way of spread the full value of armor over part so that on a specific surface the value is only a small increment of the full armor you need another system of heat to prevent alpha through the weaken spot and a internal design, so that a XL engine for example realy only take 3 crit slot of all available (also that you don't shot anywhere on the st and have a chance to hit this xl engine for example). - this damage model would be more conform to the storys mentioned in the books where a ac20 nail through a bodysection destroying internal components (not how it is handled right now that it strip armor, but you have raiming one to take another hit before internals get tuched). But this concept is hardly to desing since you need a new geometry set as 3D Model inside the Mech to make it work. Also good pilots would try to aim for the slots of the engine instead of any section that hold weapon system, or they try to nail assumed ammo storage to make them explode and cause inner destruction without the need to take out the full armor.

In the end both can work if implemented correctly - more a sim to BT story/lore would be the way of spread armor over a body part so that a ton of armor is a ton of armor and it is more massiv on some spots than on others. However this is a favor for the better players to kill you with aimed shots, so the easy implementation like it is now is the better for all players because you have to take out the full value before you reach internals.

Frostiken, on 16 April 2015 - 03:18 PM, said:

If anything you are defeating your own point, because some mechs have "side torsos" that are outlandishly small, yet can pack a ton of armor on them. What, are they using magic armor that occupies less volume per ton just because your crappy rules say it can fit that armor on?

You can destroy a Timberwolf engine by shooting its ears, and you're here trying to apply ******** CBT nonsense? Where in the rules does it say Timberwolf side torsos are bigger, easier targets?

You are trying to apply a geometry model what is made for a full armor to the part-weight surface armor. Sure this would be a mess. You need fully new designd body parts. Where areas may partially reinforced to help against impact damage. For example it is unlikely that someone will shot into your sidetorso from 90° angle above the mech (he would have the need to jump over you) so this section wouldn't need much armor what is as a armorlayer with its weight set to another section.

And the real problem you don't even have touched, it is the thought out size of the Mechs comapred to their armor value. E.g. to explain. Your mech carry 150 armor increments - every armor increment can take 1 damage - and is equal to a certain surface in squar meters. If you now have a mech wich is 10m in size and has a silout that is XXL hugh like the adders main part vs the skiny look of the raven, you have a problem. And this problem only could be handeld if you rescale the mechs to a body surcae what is up to the armor value no matter wich size is assumed by lore for the mechs, or you need to stay within the size mentioned in the books but redefine the look of the mechs to fit the surface total so a fattyaddy wouldn't be have armorplates of bigger surfacesize than those of the raven.

Edited by Kuritaclan, 17 April 2015 - 12:51 AM.

[Frostiken]

Kuritaclan, on 17 April 2015 - 12:42 AM, said:

You may both calm down. He has a valid point. There are two ways of implementation of armor rules - one is making the armor on every point the value of 1damage is equal 1 armor and the part you hit is absorbing no matter where you hit - the other is using the full armor as a a weight of tonnage spread all over a body part with little parts that add up to a full value of said armor. For both models you need to adapt the the specific damage rules and the heat system to prevent players from oneshoting the mechs beside the cockpit (well this would be by spread armor the hardest point to hit since it is the least surface on the mechs most time)

There is a third way, and it is more similar to my method - it's an abstraction of the intent of the game. For example, an Atlas is supposed to be big, scary, tough as nails, and able to wade face-first into battle. In-game, the Atlas is a slow, waddling deathtrap that is forced to hide behind hills, because it will have LRMs rained on it for half the match, and its side torso cored out in seconds in battle. This also has the problem of making XL engines completely unfeasible to use on many mechs simply because the side torsos are so easy to blow up. Survivability in an Atlas with a standard engine might be 8/10, but if you use an XL engine it practically goes down to 2/10. Do you think the CBT designers EVER intended for XL engines to be that much of a liability?

The Atlas is supposed to be big and scary, but it isn't. Rather than worrying about how many 'points per ton of armor' you're getting, each mech is specifically customized with a general level of armor, and the 'points per ton' that exists in-game is more an abstraction of just how strong that specific armor should be. Points per ton is no longer the point, rather it's treated closer to how it was in... MW4 I think, where it was closer to a percentage than individual points.

An 'unarmored' Atlas in this regard would still have armor rather than having none. A fully-armored Atlas would be strong indeed. The mechs would still be vulnerable to precision aiming, but it would require a player to actually be good at aiming to core it out quickly.

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In the end both can work if implemented correctly - more a sim to BT story/lore would be the way of spread armor over a body part so that a ton of armor is a ton of armor and it is more massiv on some spots than on others. However this is a favor for the better players to kill you with aimed shots, so the easy implementation like it is now is the better for all players because you have to take out the full value before you reach internals.

On the other hand, and this is the point I've been making, is it makes larger mechs far more vulnerable than they were EVER intended to be. It also makes the damage system rather silly and extremely arcadey. Furthermore, the current damage system simply makes it far too easy to dump alpha strikes. Dividing a torso into multiple smaller torsos, each with their own pile of armor to burn through, would at least require superior accuracy to blast through the same tiny area, rather than being able to hit anywhere on the Atlas side torso, which is so trivial to do it doesn't bear embellishing.

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And the real problem you don't even have touched, it is the thought out size of the Mechs comapred to their armor value. E.g. to explain. Your mech carry 150 armor increments - every armor increment can take 1 damage - and is equal to a certain surface in squar meters. If you now have a mech wich is 10m in size and has a silout that is XXL hugh like the adders main part vs the skiny look of the raven, you have a problem. And this problem only could be handeld if you rescale the mechs to a body surcae what is up to the armor value no matter wich size is assumed by lore for the mechs, or you need to stay within the size mentioned in the books but redefine the look of the mechs to fit the surface total so a fattyaddy wouldn't be have armorplates of bigger surfacesize than those of the raven.

That's the point I was trying to make to whats-his-name. Yeah, it might be 'realistic' to tweak the armor rules to spread the armor out across the geometry, but like I said, not a single mech in the TROs was drawn from the standpoint of actually being a war machine, at least, not until the Clan invasion. Most of the IS mechs look frankly ridiculous, and we all kind of know that.

The overall DESIGN of the mechs is static. We know that. That's not going to change, nor should it (with the exception of making the terrible IS mech TRO art actually acceptable).

If the mechs were designed from the very beginning with intent to have armor 'concentrated', the mech designs we have would almost all have never existed as they are. Nobody's designing big tall tanks in real life - a survivable tank is a tank that's got a low profile, sloped angles, and as few obvious 'targets' visible as possible.

The current system of handling weapons and armor in conjunction with mech design / geometry really doesn't work ideally. It's combining an armor and damage system that was built for and is still based around random number generators (ie: whether or not your AC20 blows up or not), and it's in conjunction with a weapon design that's working far differently than it was ever intended to.

Every Mechwarrior game has made a complete mess of weapon balance such that no two games are alike, but every single Mechwarrior game has kept this armor system. Maybe it's time to admit that the armor system is not ideal? We can have locational damage, and we can have it make sense, like I showed in my Atlas mockup. If I shoot the Atlas in a heat sink, why would the engine explode INSTEAD of the heat sink? If I shoot him in the food, I should break the foot actuator, not the hip actuator.





The alternative, of course, is a 56 page thread complaining about weapon convergence, an issue that has been the bane of every single Mechwarrior game to date, and has been a consistent, game-breaking problem in many regards. Like I said in my first post, pop-tarting isn't the problem, it's the fact that you can pop-tart and fire all your weapons at the apex to, say, blow an arm off of another mech across the map instantly.

Edited by Frostiken, 17 April 2015 - 01:20 AM.

[Kuritaclan]

Frostiken, on 17 April 2015 - 01:16 AM, said:

The alternative, of course, is a 56 page thread complaining about weapon convergence, an issue that has been the bane of every single Mechwarrior game to date, and has been a consistent, game-breaking problem in many regards. Like I said in my first post, pop-tarting isn't the problem, it's the fact that you can pop-tart and fire all your weapons at the apex to, say, blow an arm off of another mech across the map instantly.

To add up on this in a 3D enviroment, it is not only the shape or armor distribution. It also come down to the ange you are shoting from. If you have a hole in the armor and the component what was originated at this point is blown out you shot into the hole and nothing happens - the mech carry on - however if you are in the perfect angle you may shot into a Sidetorso hole and dig deeper into a centertorso area where you than damage the engine. like a real bullet can hit your heart if shot the person through his pit where no protective vest can stop it in first place.

Yes you are correct this would be the optimal solution and i think i would like to play this game. However you than need actually 3D models of internal components to make it realistic otherwise you will be stuck with the problem that you shot into a blown out component through a in first place evaporated armor and do no damage to other componets except from the fact that the angle you were shoting should have had an impact into internal structur/components that are fully working - if implemented the internal seperation into subparts like sidetorso, center torso etc has to slip, or you have a magic wall preventing you to eleminate a target with well aimed shots.

But i do not asume this is on a task, nor is PGI capable to redesign all mechs within the game to do so. It is an expense that would have need to be done in first place, since a switch without a complete overhall on a half way would break the game as it is.

Edit: Just a point that is also related to this. If you start messing around with internal components as 3D Models which need to fit into the Mech as surrounding 3D Model, the shape of the mech actually starts to matter. Since you have to scale a bigger engine as a truely bigger engine - so instead applying rules to the choice of the engine light mechs and others, could not fit in higher engines like a XL 400 in the worst case since they do not have the internal space to fit them. Slower mechs with smaller engines would become the standard since it is harder to hit the smaller engine and you could additonally carry more weaponweight/heatdissipation. Since size would matter the faster is better meta would also fall appart, and long range weapons would have a sence because the velocity to close a gap would decrease. To use the example of raven and adder above, the adder have more space in its body to fit in a biger XL Engine, while the skinny rave, may do not even have the space to pack a xl engine of the size that a adder could carry. Just to make clear what the simulation of realism would bring as far you can go into the deep. This is the point at least if you do engines and other internal components with one size - if you however model for every mech a special engine and claim it is every engine size you wanna it to be, you have it the other way.

Edited by Kuritaclan, 17 April 2015 - 02:37 AM.

[ROSS-128]

And you're still missing what effect weight would have on your proposal. Though I see you've conveniently suddenly bailed on using feet for units, and switched to more generic "sub-sections", while trying to pretend your argument hasn't changed.

The reason surface area/the number of components matters is because of weight. Why do you think the Maus and the Landkruzer never got built? It turns out that a house-sized tank with at least 200mm of armor all around weighs a heck of a lot more than a truck sized tank that only has 200mm on one front plate.

The current hitboxes obviously are not very realistic, but they are also the reason Assault mechs are so durable: having the same number of hitboxes regardless of size allows 10 tons of armor to give the same protection to a big mech as a small mech. As my Atlas example above showed, the Atlas would actually be far more tanky if he only had one hitbox!

Note that I am not advocating the one-hitbox model, I think the current TTK is fine and I enjoy doing laser surgery on components.

Moving from square meters/feet to "subsections" doesn't change the nature of the problem, it just shifts the number you're multiplying/dividing by.

If a mech's ST has 4 sub-sections and 60 total armor (remember, weight is based on total armor, unless you decide to add "ghost armor"), each section can only have 15 armor unless it steals armor from its neighbors.

So every time you get hit with an AC20 you'd take 5 structure damage, every dual gauss would do 15.

I'm quite alright with realism, and I'm quite alright with high lethality/short TTK. The thing is you seem to be under the impression that realism would make you more tanky, but it would do exactly the opposite of that. It turns out that real life has a very short TTK once you start taking damage at all.

Unless you add in deflection, which would make sufficiently armored mechs immune to MGs/AC2s. But then people just wouldn't take those weapons, and lasers' ability to burn away armor over time become more valuable.

If you add Ghost Armor to counteract the simple mathematical consequences of adding more sections, then it wasn't really the sections you wanted, it was the armor. And whether it's size or sections, Ghost Armor would be applying a different multiplier to each mech, with a bias towards larger ones with more sections.

[Kuritaclan]

E Rommel, on 17 April 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

If a mech's ST has 4 sub-sections and 60 total armor (remember, weight is based on total armor, unless you decide to add "ghost armor"), each section can only have 15 armor unless it steals armor from its neighbors.

So every time you get hit with an AC20 you'd take 5 structure damage, every dual gauss would do 15.

I'm quite alright with realism, and I'm quite alright with high lethality/short TTK. The thing is you seem to be under the impression that realism would make you more tanky, but it would do exactly the opposite of that. It turns out that real life has a very short TTK once you start taking damage at all.

Unless you add in deflection, which would make sufficiently armored mechs immune to MGs/AC2s. But then people just wouldn't take those weapons, and lasers' ability to burn away armor over time become more valuable.

If you add Ghost Armor to counteract the simple mathematical consequences of adding more sections, then it wasn't really the sections you wanted, it was the armor. And whether it's size or sections, Ghost Armor would be applying a different multiplier to each mech, with a bias towards larger ones with more sections.

I know what you try to say, but you do underestimate how it would work in copare to what we have now with a subsystem underneath. For example you have a IS XL Engine which has per ST 3 crit slots. - Now you have to blow of the full ST armor of the target to make damage to the internals, and when the st is gone the mech is gone. If you add in subsections or even better a 3D Model you actually have to hit on 3 spots this xl outsourcingpart of the engine to kick it. A dual gauss is as tricky to oneshot before you need in both cenarios to do 60 damage but in the common model you need 2 dual shots in the second you need somwhat 4 single shots. For example a Raven who get hit within optimal Range by a DGauss get striped his full set of armor on the ST. The second D-Gaussshot hitting the ST is his dead since he get XL cored out. With the Subpart Armor you first have to shred through the armor (what is reduced) but then you only hit one crit slot of the 3 crit slots the XL Engine has - so no dead, and you need 2 more shot to get the other both crit slots. Or you combine the the critslot healt of the xl engine parts (for example those values are 10 and you have 20 damage to make to get through the armor - than a dgauss shot would penetrate the armor by 20 damage and 10 more would land in the xl engine but this is not the the death of it, the next douplegauss hit with 30 damage combind however would make the finish with 20 damage and 10 overdamage so kill secured - and this is the case where you have a bound area for the 3 crit slots and they are togehter - if the user however could interfer with this and do part1 of the xl engine in the 1st of all slot then some hs for example the next XL-Engine slot, 2 weapon crit s for a energy weapon mount and now the last critslot you have to have even strip more armor to evaporate the xl engine on the different critsections) And if the 3D-Model would be realistic and the Raven had lost his arm before you could shot his st XL Engine parts by the right angle (if all 3 parts are togehter), even if he had full ST and CT armor. But in every step you climb up the hill in skill to matter. Since you first open with your ac20 as a dire the st where the engine is and spread the lasers in int to evapurate the xl engine - this is pretty more surgical, because if you do not hit this spot you only shot some wayne dynamic internals or another hole in the back armor, which do not matter for now, because there is no sidefect in case you loss parts with the dynm structure.

Edited by Kuritaclan, 17 April 2015 - 10:40 AM.

[Water Bear]

This thread is a lava bed of rage.

[Frostiken]

E Rommel, on 17 April 2015 - 05:37 AM, said:

Words

KuritaClan understands it perfectly, so what's wrong with you? It's not a hard concept. Much smaller, slightly weaker sections that are far harder to hit repeatedly to only destroy the components in that area is NOT going to make mechs 'weaker'. Are you telling me that most of the mechs you kill is with cockpit kills? Because that's basically the same logic here.

It's pretty obvious at this point that you either have some sort of learning disability or you aren't reading my posts at all, so why should I even bother. You couldn't even resist bringing up armor weight again, like that's literally your only argument and you're clinging to it in desperation.

Quote

the reason Assault mechs are so durable

This makes me wonder if you even play the game. Assault mech are generally the least survivable mechs in the game. Assault mechs have been the noob choice since this game was in ALPHA, and nothing has changed since then. You waddle out from behind the buildings and hills you're desperately hiding behind in your Atlas or King Crab, you're going to get smoked in SECONDS if you're facing more than one opponent.

Edited by Frostiken, 17 April 2015 - 10:05 AM.

[Almond Brown]

Mystere, on 16 April 2015 - 12:47 PM, said:

It's not legal where you live?! Oh you poor little thing.

Is it legal in "Classified". Where is that exactly, sounds like "Important" folks live there.

[Shae Starfyre]

It would be interesting if everything was based on the crit slot.

If I hit a blown out crit slot sized section of armor, basically, there may be a chance for damage transfer, but could go right through into the back section of the armor once the internal section is destroyed.

Hit it again, and that gauss slug may pass right through the hole in the mech.

This was almost done right based on the simulatation of hitting a destroyed arm or leg and damage transfering (like so much slag just buffeting the side torso); but it needs more realism.

Or is that what HSR is the illusion of shots not registering and passing through mechs?

[Mystere]

Almond Brown, on 17 April 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

Is it legal in "Classified". Where is that exactly, sounds like "Important" folks live there.

That information is also classified.

[Almond Brown]

Here is a cool small scale version. Not sure what a 2P coin weighs but puncturing a food can is impressive indeed. Now upscale so it fits a 80-100t Battlemech. LOL

https://www.youtube....k&v=BCEqppBWRLs

Mystere, on 17 April 2015 - 10:23 AM, said:

That information is also classified.

Damn. We will never know if UFO's are really real if you keep that up you know.

Edited by Almond Brown, 17 April 2015 - 10:26 AM.

[ROSS-128]

Frostiken, on 17 April 2015 - 09:56 AM, said:

KuritaClan understands it perfectly, so what's wrong with you? It's not a hard concept. Much smaller, slightly weaker sections that are far harder to hit repeatedly to only destroy the components in that area is NOT going to make mechs 'weaker'. Are you telling me that most of the mechs you kill is with cockpit kills? Because that's basically the same logic here.

It's pretty obvious at this point that you either have some sort of learning disability or you aren't reading my posts at all, so why should I even bother. You couldn't even resist bringing up armor weight again, like that's literally your only argument and you're clinging to it in desperation.

Still relying completely on personal attacks instead of even taking a second to think through the consequences of your ideas. Apparently armor is weightless now? Besides, if you read Kurita's post, you would notice that he acknowledged my point: that spreading armor across more component makes each individual component easier to destroy.

The more sections you have, the more total points of armor you need in order to have enough points per section. It's quite simple. And while one head section embedded in an otherwise strong CT is hard to hit, if you cover the entire CT in head sections, then no matter where I hit the section that I hit is going to take damage.

If you divide the CT into a bunch of lightly-armored sections, it doesn't matter if I hit the upper-right section or the lower-left section. Whichever section I hit is going to buckle and the engine underneath is going to take damage. Same for STs, whatever subsection of the ST I hit, that subsection will buckle and whatever was inside it is toast. So mechs will lose combat capability more rapidly, fights will snowball more strongly in favor of whoever got the first alpha strike off, and TTK will go down.

It also introduces issues for arms and legs. If I destroy your upper arm, does it take the lower arm with it the same as a destroyed ST? If I fry your hip actuator, does it take the lower leg with it?

Dividing our mechs into more, smaller hitboxes simply doesn't have the effect that you think it will. Just like the Atlas being divided into components means I can kill it without having to chew through all 927 HP on the Atlas, dividing each component into sub-components will allow me to destroy the component without chewing through all 100-200 ish HP on that component.

Frostiken, on 17 April 2015 - 09:56 AM, said:

This makes me wonder if you even play the game. Assault mech are generally less survivable than most lights and mediums. Assault mechs have been the noob choice since this game was in ALPHA, and nothing has changed since then. You waddle out from behind the buildings and hills you're desperately hiding behind in your Atlas or King Crab, you're going to get smoked in SECONDS if you're facing more than one opponent.

Well then you clearly suck at playing assault mechs, because mine are plenty durable and the enemy has to dump far more damage onto them to get a kill than any light or medium. What are you doing walking out in front of multiple opponents without the support of your team? What are you doing getting cored out without spreading damage to your arms?

Kuritaclan, on 17 April 2015 - 07:26 AM, said:

<textwall snip>

And I certainly wouldn't mind having more components to destroy and more options about how I destroy those components. I just want to make sure people are aware that it would not improve their survivability. It would just result in mechs going down with more unblemished armor still left sitting on the mech.

Edited by E Rommel, 17 April 2015 - 10:30 AM.