115 replies to this topic

[statler]

two reticules:

torso fixed central cockpit view reticule. normal old fashioned joystick movement or whatever for controlling mech movement and torso movement = main reticule

a single arm and any available turrets on other reticule. mouse control on arms, but the reticule chases mouse movement at a max spead based on the mechs weight and engine size. just max the angles so that say the right arm never crosses your own torso when aiming left, and less for less mobile looking mech arms. you would need a recenter button, but personally i would configure the arm weap group(s) on mouse button(s) and the recent on one of the mouse buttons.

i dont see a third as viable. you cant control it and besides, breaking up your damage 3 ways just wont come in handy without targets with lesser armor like elementals or vehicles. even then i dont see it as being worth worrying about.

[Morashtak]

This sounds like a simpit builders dream - Imagine your average simpit with full HOTAS. Then you have a panel within fingertip range of your throttle or joystick. Using Eyefinity and three monitors one can push a button and switch to the reticule on the left or right monitor and target your opponent on that side. Look at it as a instant torso twist but with only that side's arm weapons able to fire until the torso twist brings the rest into the firing arc.

To simplify that for single monitors one could have a hot key for look left/right and an aiming reticule is still shown. Might be like juggling kittens for the first few times but one could practice on the free fire range (providing there is one) to get better at it.

[Yeach]

I like Devastator depictions of the targettng gradually coming together.
What he missed was the last picture that should be painted GOLD for the GOLD lock.

Want to alpha-strike in desperation? Sure you can without the gold lock but the weapons won't all hit all the same spot.
And for the patient people who can ride-out opposing knock and still keep the reticle on the enemy and get the GOLD lock. it should be a reward for getting the focus fire.

[Dihm]

With multiple reticules... how do you handle mechs with dorsal guns like the Marauder? Would it be then a 4th reticule, would it be locked to the torso firing reticule?

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I don't know - how it was handled in TT varied according to the GM or "house rules". I don't think it was supposed to be treated as a "proper" turret with a wide field of fire, which is what it looks like. What other mechs in the time period has such a turret ? The only one I can remember is the Hussar Could have it follow the appropriate arm reticule to either side. Alternatively allow it to move to the rear view camera as well, giving it a proper "turret" feel. Not sure if it would be worth the extra coding.

[Dihm]

In TT it's just considered a torso weapon. MW4 gave them their own hit boxes and weapon bays. From a logic stand point, they should have more traverse than the standard torso weapons. Reseen/Project Phoenix got rid of them.

As far as I recall of the top of my head, the Marauder and Marauder II are the only IS designs. The Shadow Hawk might sort of fit in that category. Same with one of the Osts... it has four torso lasers but they're all obviously on some sort of ball socket/turret.

Was just a curiosity question, they are more outliers than anything. But, it would direct the art/modeling of certain mechs.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

As I thought, the Hussar has one as well

Quote

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hussar

. To be honest the AC5 on the Marauder is likely to cause a real storm of comments given the reaction to FD's Centurion. None of the "Osts" on Sarna ahowed a turret - Ostsol has 4 lasers sticking out like "horns" from the chest. Hopefully they don't put them in - I never liked their looks.

[Dihm]

Ostsol, that's the one. I'd swear they were in ball sockets and could gimble about. Just like the battlepods from Robotech that it was created from. As much as I hate the look of the mech, it's pretty effective in the 3039 time frame. Been using and fighting against it in MegaMek lately.

Edited by Dihm, 30 January 2012 - 12:36 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

A number of mechs theoretically had "gimballed" torso weapons, otherwise you couldn't get any convergence on targets at different ranges.

[KuruptU4Fun]

Maybe "gimballed" torso weapons could be a perk you work towards. Normal torso mounted weapons should only have a forward view and be unable to fire on anything other than the central reticule. Gimballed torso lasers would not have that restriction, but they cannot target effectively just outside of the forward outside of the cockpit. So let's take a look at the HUNCHBACK cockpit view. Gimballed torso weapons should have a FOV to fire just short of the A/C 20 and the monitor on the left hand side.

Here's my opinion of arm mounted weapons in terms of targeting:

Personally I think arm mounted weapons should have a aiming reticle across almost the entire field of view. But broken into left center and right sections. Arm weapons should be able to converge easily within the center view, with the exception of the far left and right sides. Movement of the arm to the opposing side of the body needs to be restriced because the torso gets in the way. Arm twist for the "left arm" targeting a mech would not be possible when you're target is at the edge of the right side FOV. The body of the mech would limit it's range in most cases (depending on the mech). Looking at the designs of the currently announced mechs, the "elbows" do not have the ability to rotate left or right.
My examples are taken from the drawings already given to us:

The body of the DRAGON and the ATLAS seem to support restriced arm targeting due to the body of the mech. The right arm of the HUNCHBACK is blocked by the A/C 20 mounted on the shoulder. The CENTURION may be able to converge both arm weapons on 1 location, but the shoulders may block that ability as well.

I also believe this it's fair that a mech should be able to bring all it's weapons to bear on their target and fire without the result being an immediate shutdown due to massive heat generation.

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 31 January 2012 - 12:32 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

It depends on the number of heatsinks the mech has. A Marauder or Warhammer would overheat with a chance of shutdown (in TT) if they Alpha'd.more than once. Mechs of this period were not usually intended to be able to fire all weapons continuously.

[Lightfoot]

Something new: What would give players the greatest "feel" of piloting a 'mech would be to link Freelook to a "Padlock Target" command similar to flight sims. Then the mech-pilot would turn their head in the cockpit to look at the highlighted target, and then use the joystick/controller to drag the main reticule onto the target to aim the weapons.

The 'mech still turns to face the target normally, it's just the pilot looks first and then moves the main reticule onto the target, by piloting the 'mech with the joystick just as they normally would.

If you had multiple reticules with this set-up there could be an individual track time for arm and torso mounted weapon reticules reaching the main "on-target" reticule. And if the target was too your right quadrant lets say, you would get a very fast aiming response from the right arm. That adds sim-like functionality to having multiple reticules.

Padlock Target is optional, you need to activate the option usually.

Edited by Lightfoot, 31 January 2012 - 08:15 PM.

[Unruly Gentleman]

Webclaw, on 25 November 2011 - 02:32 PM, said:

Yah could go for a combination of the MW3 style and MW4 style, here's the explanation.

"A way to implement the advantages of free reticle aiming combined with the simplicity and ease of a locked reticle could be that whenever you look with your mouse/joystick your reticle that had before hand been perfectly centered with your torso weapons now splits into two due to the ability of the arm mounted weapons to move faster than the torso twist, while the reticle is now split into two the torso weapons, and torso, will now try and follow where the new arm based reticle is located effectively creating a constant "torso to reticle center" effect that allows for the simplicity of the locked reticle used in MechWarrior 2/4 and the advantage of having the arm weapons become more than just weapons waiting to be easily blown off."

This, definitely this. With the option to turn off your torsos ability to auto track onto the same point as your arms, this would make it a shallower learning curve for beginners, with the option for more experienced players to take advantage of all the benefits by turning off the auto track and controlling the torso separately with the keyboard. Of course the big problem with this is that unless torso tilt is also incorporated the torso weapons will only be able to track onto the target horizontally and never vertically. If torso tilt is incorporated into the game I can see an issue as the mechs don't have heads, so if the torso weapon needs to track to any great degree then you might just be staring at the ground/sky. But I think this way is probably what I would prefer. explained in a less confusing manner ;

Mouse/Joystick controls arm reticule, by default the torso weapons will track along its horizontal plane at a slower speed until it is in line with the reticule. However the option to disable the auto tracking is there and the Torso twist can be controlled independently if the player wishes to do so.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

By default in all previous MW games all torso weapons seem to be able to adjust at least vertically and often horizontally to some extent.

[Lima Zulu]

I like this multiple rericles system, but have some doubts about it... Is you'll have a free moving reticle for arms and fixed pointer for torso-mounted weapons, you'll need to aim last one with joystick or keyboard or whatever you control torso twists and legs.Pretty complicated for me. Good idea I've read here - if player have one target reticle and some markers showing weapons aiming to this reticle position - so if you need to aim torso-mounted weapon - it will center your torso to, but slower, than hands or other free-mounted weapons. E.g. all gided missile weapon shold be aimed at the same moment when reticle found a target, weapons in arms shold have some travel time - 0,5-0,7 sec, and torso - >1 sec. Also this system can be used to show recoil (weapon moves out of targer reticle when fire and need some time to come back) and mech's tremble from enemy hits.

[Mautty the Bobcat]

I would prefer this to be a player choice really. It may not be an elegant solution, but I think having the ability between choosing a single fixed reticule and a single moving reticule would allow both MW2/4 and MW3 players to be comfortable while allowing new players to find out which system they prefer.

I see no huge advantage over using either system. Even with the single fixed ret I would still use arm shots on people by using the cockpit look left/right button and firing either while fully turned or while in the process of turning if it was only a quick shot.

I'm not sure how well the fixed/arms reticule would play in practice. It would have to be a feature messed around with by devs and test group to be decided after a decent amount of time using it. Besides, my Mouse 1-5 are used for firing groups 1-5 to allow me a wide selection of firing groups dependent upon what I need to do... =\ I don't really want to lose that base on a silly targeting system that may or may not work for me.

Edit: My only thought on the multi-reticule thing would be to not separate the firing for the reticules. Thus allowing a mech to fire with its arms and centered weapons if need be. This could easily be split up using the fire group buttons, say have the lasers on your torso on key 1, the lasers in your arm on key 2 (thus allowing you to shoot either or both depending on which way your arms face, and the missiles on your shoulder on key 3.

Lets say you want more weapons/separate arms? Key 1 can be left arm lasers, key 2 can be right arms ballistics, 3 can be the torso lasers, 4 can be the missiles, 5 can be MGs, and even 6 could be an alpha button if you want.

My only issue with the floating reticule is being unable to use the mouse to turn torso or pitch torso, thus making you unable to use the center and free reticule together much anyways... The only fix I could see if the fixed/free cursor toggle that MW3 used, allowing you to either fix everything at your central cursor, or free float the cursor around.

Edited by Mautty the Bobcat, 09 February 2012 - 02:32 AM.