46 replies to this topic

[Gamuray]

Given the recent issues of grasshopper/zeus size and jager/cataphract geometry, I believe it would be a good idea to revive the issue with the Nova. You know.. It being about twice the size as a hunchback!

Hunchback Front:




Nova Front:




Hunchback Side:




Nova Side:




Think the Centurion is just as big? Take another look:





The centurion has lots of empty space and the major surface area is on the shield arm. The Nova has very little empty space. It' wider, deeper, and just as tall as the hunchback. To add to it, check the hitboxes for the cent... Torso's are great. Nova? Every part of the nova is larger or as large as the hunch of the hunchback. If it was listed as 60+ tons I'd still believe it. That thing needs addressed. Yet talk of it has been almost silent for a few months (evidenced by it being skipped on the first clan quirks pass).

My suggestion?
1. New legs. They are the same as the stormcrow but the bottom is slightly modified. It needs legs which bring it closer to the ground, as it should be. And hips that aren't wider than it's main body.. at least not by that much.
2. Better arms. First off, they do hang extremely low. If it's gonna be a big medium, it should at least be able to shoot over small obstacles. An the way the arms attach to the body (those big round tubes),that needs addressed.. Those practically double the size of the main body alone.
3. The depth of the mech (front to back) is ok as long as the above is changed. It can't be wider than the HBK, as tall as the HBK AND be deeper than the HBK. That just doesn't work for a mech of the same weight.

Edited by Gamuray, 19 March 2015 - 08:23 PM.

[Ultimax]

I do wonder just what the hell it was they were thinking when they scaled this mech.

If the Nova was as narrow as the Enforcer, it would likely have been one of, if not the, deadliest mediums in the game.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 19 March 2015 - 08:15 PM.

[Bill Lumbar]

Before the clan small laser nerf/small pulse laser nerfs, it was one of the Deadliest Mediums in the game, IMO. Yes, it is wide, it is big for a medium of its weight class...but it was a very fun medium to play with 12 small lasers, or 12 small pulse lasers. After the nerfs, I sold all mine off, I just couldn't find my grove with it anymore. To many negatives with this mech, and its a shame because I used to have a lot of fun brawling with this mech.

Edited by Bill Lumbar, 19 March 2015 - 08:29 PM.

[Ultimax]

Bill Lumbar, on 19 March 2015 - 08:26 PM, said:

Before the clan small laser nerf/small pulse laser nerfs, it was one of the Deadliest Mediums in the game, IMO. Yes, it is wide, it is big for a medium of its weight class...but it was a very fun medium to play with 12 small lasers, or 12 small pulse lasers. After the nerfs, I sold all mine off, I just couldn't find my grove with it anymore. To many negatives with this mech, and its a shame because I used to have a lot of fun brawling with this mech.

I think the clan small pulse laser was 4.4 damage for 3.4 heat.

It's currently 6 damage for 3 heat.



It's hands down the single most heat efficient energy weapon in the clan arsenal, doing 2 points of damage per 1 point of heat.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 19 March 2015 - 09:00 PM.

[Soy]

This is the state of the Nova:



It'll see quirk pass soon, then the state may change.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimatum X, on 19 March 2015 - 08:14 PM, said:

I do wonder just what the hell it was they were thinking when they scaled this mech.

If the Nova was as narrow as the Enforcer, it would likely have been one of, if not the, deadliest mediums in the game.

Nova ain't supposed to be skinny. It is, on the other hand, supposed to be very short.

[N0Clip]

The nova just needs to be like, 20% smaller. Having it be so tall AND that wide is just a death sentence for it. The profile isn't terrible, or horribly out of line with other mechs, it just needs to be shorter OR skinnier. Maybe if they brought in the arms a bit, put them at a bit of an angle instead of mounting them on those giant former hip joint cylinders.

[Jman5]

I don't mean to be a debbie-downer, but PGI has never and I don't think they will ever rescale mechs. The best you can hope for is some favorable quirks, weapon geometry pass, and maybe some invisible hitbox adjustments.

I think if it can get some hitpoint quirks to the arms and CT, it will make a noticeable difference.

[TyphonCh]

Well to be fair they had to rebuild the Nova from the ground up. The Blackhawk It's one of those mechs that essentially didn't have torso twist, because the legs ran up into its ears, and made up the bulk of its torsi. When they made the Nova for MWO, they had to add this hip section to divide the legs and upper body... Thus making it taller

http://www.sarna.net...28Black_Hawk%29

But, who in their right mind would play a mech with no torso twist? No one. Exactly
As far as game mechanics and balance go.... I totally agree with the OP. It needs to be smaller.

Edited by Team Chevy86, 19 March 2015 - 11:24 PM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

The original design of the Nova always baffled me too.

Why would anyone build a skirmisher without a turret.

PGI's art team made the right decision to separate the legs and give it a turret top, but the scale and widening of the mech could have been different and still achieved the same design goal.

Editing the Nova model would be such a simple task, just removing the big discs on the hips and arm connection would literally take about 15-20 minutes and solve alot of problems.

Edited by Mister D, 20 March 2015 - 12:34 AM.

[Lily from animove]

You better do NOT start to compare the novas size with the dragon. if you then additionally look in the mech localisation thread and see how both mechs hitboxes are shaped, you would wanna cry about this.

Anyways Nova looks great the way it is, even if a bit off from the original.

tbh looking at the dragon and other quirks mehcs wit vulnerable section have gotten, I would today even say the Arms, ST's and CT need a +20 structure buff. that would somehwat compensate the size. and maybe a 20% acc/decc quirk to make the mech a bit more nimble.

This would not make it a T1 or even T2 mech, but would pull it out of the abyss it is currently in.

@Mister D: well the original Nova had something like 90degree arm angle, so you you didn'T needed to actually look at your opponent just turning your head in the cockpit and using the arm on thta side was enough.

The way how arm angles work in MWO would not allow such a system at all. Thats why we got what we got.

@Team if we had arms working like in MW3 you could play fine without torso twist.

[Cyborne Elemental]

I just wanted to show you guys this, because I think a simple edit of the game model would do alot for the Nova, with the least amount of work required by the art team.

Just simply removing or compressing the big discs on the shoulder and hips gives it a much more slender profile without making the model look hacked up.

Then just re-keyframing the animations, which is also a pretty simple thing to do because its only the legs that would need it.

And Viola.

We all know that the Nova needs a complete rescale, but that will never happen, so maybe this could be a possibility instead?

Edited by Mister D, 20 March 2015 - 02:45 AM.

[Matthew Ace]

I would be interested in seeing how an increased reverse joint angle look. Blackhawks should be squatter. Besides, Clan Chicken walkers looks a bit off the way they are.

Edited by Matthew Ace, 20 March 2015 - 03:25 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Mister D, on 20 March 2015 - 02:42 AM, said:

I just wanted to show you guys this, because I think a simple edit of the game model would do alot for the Nova, with the least amount of work required by the art team.

Just simply removing or compressing the big discs on the shoulder and hips gives it a much more slender profile without making the model look hacked up.

Then just re-keyframing the animations, which is also a pretty simple thing to do because its only the legs that would need it.

And Viola.

We all know that the Nova needs a complete rescale, but that will never happen, so maybe this could be a possibility instead?

it would help a tiny but, yet somehow this makes the proportions off and it slightly looks weird and wrong. Not like Nova anymore, nearly like a SCR frontshape

[mogs01gt]

STATE OF THE NOVA


I was going to say, shooting the ground infront of him....

[Ultimax]

Bishop Steiner, on 19 March 2015 - 09:17 PM, said:

Nova ain't supposed to be skinny. It is, on the other hand, supposed to be very short.

Well comparatively isn't it short vs. Griffin & Shadowhawk?

I was in my enforcer last night and the nova on my team seemed about the same height as me.

Or do you mean its supposed to be even shorter?

[Gamuray]

@MisterD

While I do agree that removing said discs would generally help, I would still say it would need a more acute leg angle. Even removing those, it'll still be wider, deeper, and as tall as the hunchback. The depth remaining intact as it should, and the arm width as it should, it still needs height adjustment on top of it. With some mobility/armor quirks to boot.


@Ultimatum X

Yes, even shorter.Much shorter. Take a shadowhawk and turn it on its side, there's about the correct profile.

Edited by Gamuray, 20 March 2015 - 05:06 AM.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Well it was worth a shot.

Thing is, any specific body part requiring a remodel from scratch (legs w/e) would require a whole lot more work.
Example being, RGB maps, specular maps, Normals, and then every CamoSpec layer on top of it would all have to be adjusted to match up to the new body part geometry.

A full scale-down of the model won't need any of that, nor will trimming or repositioning body parts, now those will still require animation re-keying, but its alot less work.

I would rather see a total scaledown, but this seemed like the next best thing.
Shrug.

[Lily from animove]

Gamuray, on 20 March 2015 - 05:04 AM, said:

@MisterD

While I do agree that removing said discs would generally help, I would still say it would need a more acute leg angle. Even removing those, it'll still be wider, deeper, and as tall as the hunchback. The depth remaining intact as it should, and the arm width as it should, it still needs height adjustment on top of it. With some mobility/armor quirks to boot.


@Ultimatum X

Yes, even shorter.Much shorter. Take a shadowhawk and turn it on its side, there's about the correct profile.

but what to do about height? its supposed in MWO at least to have SCR legs. and by this together with the non canon torso it has, its not going to have much left about scaling.

But even then, what would it bring to make it shorter when the main issue is beign to wide,

Hmm, Maybe, together with those "disk" removal, they could cut the upper part lower at the CT.
Then proportions don't look that much off.

cheap paint following:

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimatum X, on 20 March 2015 - 04:59 AM, said:

Well comparatively isn't it short vs. Griffin & Shadowhawk?

I was in my enforcer last night and the nova on my team seemed about the same height as me.

Or do you mean its supposed to be even shorter?

Indeed it should be shorter, in fact the original Nova is closer in height to a Jenner or the like...because the hips and shoulders were the same.

But the point was more to your saying it needed to be skinnier. From a a hitbox/ideal perspective, that is true, but then it would no longer be a Nova as the Nova is a squat, wide mech. Some things, as an IP are somewhat immutable. A Dragon has the Schnozz/Torso, Cats have huge ears, etc. Change that, and they are no longer that mech. (You can modify it some, obviously, such as the ears and bullet cockpit on the TBR being less pronounced).

So the only way the Nova get's "skinnier" and stays a Nova, is if the whole model get's downscaled (sadly, having to have a waist kills the shortness any other way, too) significantly.