82 replies to this topic

[SaltBeef]

Can I have my Commando IIC................Slaps money on the Table!

He's got the Star Trek Visors and Bug antenna's

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



Production Year 2856

Edited by SaltBeef, 07 July 2015 - 07:10 PM.

[X Prime]

Sereglach, on 07 July 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:

As for the energy hardpoints, they could have done what they did for the Atlas, and other mechs, and kept the single energy box and only swapped for the bigger box when you put on more than one weapon.

The whole issue with dual energy pods for a single energy hardpoint exists even on the new mechs. For instance, the left torso for the EBJ-B is a single energy hardpoint but the pod is dual-hardpoint. Now, there could be not only a design reason for this (use the same pod for additional energy hardpoints such as on the EBJ-A left torso to cut down to make all mechs of the same chassis similar) but we could imagine a "real world" reason for similar reasons, such as using the same pod throughout the same chassis. In fact, car manufacturers do this all the time...and it gets them in trouble at times. Most recently, GM used the same seat system in their new chassis line-up which includes the egg-shaped Buick Encore. The seat system includes the seat and the bottom slide-support. Unfortunately, because the Encore is so small, the bottom slide-support juts out into the rear passenger foot-space...

Now, that is no reason why we can't hope that we have one style for single hardpoints and another style for dual hardpoints, but to be honest, it does not bother me and it makes some sense in the grand scheme of things. HOWEVER, those missile pods are just...*sigh*. But dead.horse.meet.stick. you know?

[Sereglach]

X Prime, on 07 July 2015 - 07:52 PM, said:

The whole issue with dual energy pods for a single energy hardpoint exists even on the new mechs. For instance, the left torso for the EBJ-B is a single energy hardpoint but the pod is dual-hardpoint. Now, there could be not only a design reason for this (use the same pod for additional energy hardpoints such as on the EBJ-A left torso to cut down to make all mechs of the same chassis similar) but we could imagine a "real world" reason for similar reasons, such as using the same pod throughout the same chassis. In fact, car manufacturers do this all the time...and it gets them in trouble at times. Most recently, GM used the same seat system in their new chassis line-up which includes the egg-shaped Buick Encore. The seat system includes the seat and the bottom slide-support. Unfortunately, because the Encore is so small, the bottom slide-support juts out into the rear passenger foot-space...

Now, that is no reason why we can't hope that we have one style for single hardpoints and another style for dual hardpoints, but to be honest, it does not bother me and it makes some sense in the grand scheme of things. HOWEVER, those missile pods are just...*sigh*. But dead.horse.meet.stick. you know?

No real such thing as beating a dead horse, here. It's taken a lot of fighting and push-back (I'd say getting close to a year and a half now), and the Catapult is finally going to be looked at for a redo and removal of the VCR racks.

As for the energy hardpoints, I agree with you except for one major facet. The visual assets were already there in game between the varying Commandos. It's not like they were avoiding the different hardpoints because they didn't have the assets on hand, or needed to make new/different parts. They were already there.

As for the problem on other mechs and hardpoint locations. Yeah, the problem is there, it's rampant, and it's something that PGI really needs to look at fixing. There are plenty of mechs out there that don't show "blank" hardpoints when there's nothing mounted. Heck, you can even look at the new hardpoints on the Thunderbolt hero torsos to see that (the "blanks" are only there for the hardpoints of the original TDR-5S). They really should go back and do that for other chassis.

Edited by Sereglach, 07 July 2015 - 08:20 PM.

[stjobe]

Sereglach, on 07 July 2015 - 08:19 PM, said:

No real such thing as beating a dead horse, here. It's taken a lot of fighting and push-back (I'd say getting close to a year and a half now), and the Catapult is finally going to be looked at for a redo and removal of the VCR racks.

Here's hoping it doesn't take a year and a half for the Commando to get a re-do of the dual-hardpoint-boxes-on-single-hardpoint-arms malarkey.

Sereglach, on 07 July 2015 - 08:19 PM, said:

As for the energy hardpoints, I agree with you except for one major facet. The visual assets were already there in game between the varying Commandos. It's not like they were avoiding the different hardpoints because they didn't have the assets on hand, or needed to make new/different parts. They were already there.

Yeah, that's what's killing me here; there just seems no reason to lazily tack dual-hardpoint boxes on every arm when they already had single-hardpoint weapon geometry. It's the same with the CN9-A's gun arm - the arm has only a single ballistic hardpoint but it uses the same dual-hardpoint geometry as all the other CN9 arms. Incidentally, they also manage to fit three weapons into that arm on the CN9-AH, which looks equally ridiculous.

Sereglach, on 07 July 2015 - 08:19 PM, said:

As for the problem on other mechs and hardpoint locations. Yeah, the problem is there, it's rampant, and it's something that PGI really needs to look at fixing. There are plenty of mechs out there that don't show "blank" hardpoints when there's nothing mounted. Heck, you can even look at the new hardpoints on the Thunderbolt hero torsos to see that (the "blanks" are only there for the hardpoints of the original TDR-5S). They really should go back and do that for other chassis.

I'd much prefer it if empty hardpoints didn't show at all, ever. There is zero reason for hardpoints to show at all - either there's a weapon in them and then the weapon is shown, or there's no weapon in there and then they shouldn't show at all.

[Allen Ward]

Weapons/weapon hardpoints look different from mech to mech. They vary in size in relation to the chassis they have been built into. They do not use the very same IS AC/10 model on all mechs that can mount it. They have cut, elongated, changed it several times. Empty hardpoints are visible as that (stupid) or even show weapons that have not been mounted there at all. Or they show different weapons (Awesome). They promised long time ago to redo the earlier mech models to represent actual built in weaponry, they failed so far (a few exceptions). Weapons make no sense at all (but battlemechs don't either). Playcing missile launchers or ammo fed weapons into places where neither energy nor ammuniton could reach them, where extra heat would not affect the mech at all (but does) and where no sane engineer would ever place them.

And on top of that we now have geometry models that look like some bad Photoshop job had turned them into cheese.

I feel reminded of the old BT Readouts where the sometimes nice, often terrible, drawings showed even worse oddities in weapon mounting. I miss the long slim medium lasers and the big bore large lasers, though. I don't feel that a tiny box with a lense represents a Small Laser as good as a Large Pulse Laser.

[Revis Volek]

stjobe, on 07 July 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

COM-1B: RA LL, LA LL - COM-1D: RA LL, CT SRM-6 - COM-2D: RA 2xSRM-2, CT SRM-4, LA ML - COM-3A: RA ML+SRM-4, CT SRM-6, LA ML - COM-TDK RA 2xML, LA 2xML

Where to begin...

Well, first off, I think is the fact that there is a single Commando variant, the COM-TDK, that even has more than one energy hardpoint in the left arm, yet all five variants got the Black Box of Unimaginative Art treatment for both their left and right arm, no matter if they mount one or two energy weapons.

The second is that SRM-2 doesn't even have their own model; look at the COM-2D in the middle there, it has two SRM-2s on the left arm. But what is that geometry? It's a freaking LRM-5 with three tubes plugged!

Third, that Black Box of Unimaginative Art really kills the look of the 'mech. Kills it dead.
Why did you have to do it that way when you could have done it the way you did it on e.g. the Panther, where every weapon is its own little box? Why do all the single-hardpoint arms get a two-hardpoint box?

I am so very, very disappointed.

I expected to be, but it still hurts.

Middle commando has a 7 tube count on that arm....i guess for SRM and NARC to have their own tubes?

7 tubes....SRM7 or LRM7 anyone?

Edited by DarthRevis, 08 July 2015 - 01:57 PM.

[stjobe]

DarthRevis, on 08 July 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

Middle commando has a 7 tube count on that arm....i guess for SRM and NARC to have their own tubes?

7 tubes....SRM7 or LRM7 anyone?

It's just lazy.

The first hardpoint has a SRM-6 model that gets one or two tubes blocked for LRM-5/SRM-4. It also has a SRM-2 model.
The second hardpoint only has a LRM-5 model that gets one, two, or three tubes blocked for every other missile size.

[stjobe]

OP updated with some of the pictures from the picture post, and some commentary on how extremely lazy they've been with the variable geometry for the Commando.

[Xetelian]

What on earth is with those plugged tubes.

[Juodas Varnas]

Xetelian, on 14 July 2015 - 10:48 PM, said:

What on earth is with those plugged tubes.

Someone on the team probably has a butt-plug fetish.

[Bloody]

well we all know it is all a move to make you buy other mech packs * conspiracy *

[TyphonCh]

That's absolutely ******* brutal. Especially the first one with the 2 srm4's. It's worse than the Dragon's CT missiles and THAT'S saying something....

Edited by Team Chevy86, 18 July 2015 - 10:11 PM.

[Mycrus]

stjobe, on 07 July 2015 - 10:36 AM, said:

COM-1B: RA LL, LA LL - COM-1D: RA LL, CT SRM-6 - COM-2D: RA 2xSRM-2, CT SRM-4, LA ML - COM-3A: RA ML+SRM-4, CT SRM-6, LA ML - COM-TDK RA 2xML, LA 2xML

Where to begin...

Well, first off, I think is the fact that there is a single Commando variant, the COM-TDK, that even has more than one energy hardpoint in the left arm, yet all five variants got the Black Box of Unimaginative Art treatment for both their left and right arm, no matter if they mount one or two energy weapons.

The second is that SRM-2 doesn't even have their own model; look at the COM-2D in the middle there, it has two SRM-2s on the left arm. But what is that geometry? It's a freaking LRM-5 with three tubes plugged!

Third, that Black Box of Unimaginative Art really kills the look of the 'mech. Kills it dead.
Why did you have to do it that way when you could have done it the way you did it on e.g. the Panther, where every weapon is its own little box? Why do all the single-hardpoint arms get a two-hardpoint box?

I am so very, very disappointed.

I expected to be, but it still hurts.

Edit: Seriously, they haven't even bothered to model the different launchers.

This is a COM-2D with 2xSRM-2 and a single ML. Notice how the second SRM-2 is just a LRM-5 with three of the tubes plugged:



And if you put a SRM-6 in that second slot it becomes not one but TWO LRM-5s, each with two plugged tubes:



Okay, but what about a single SRM-4 then? Nope, you get a SRM-6 with two plugged tubes:



Fine, but a single LRM-5 then? Nope, not on the first hard point. Then you get a SRM-6 with a plugged tube, and you'll like it:



So it looks like the firs slot has two models, a SRM-2 and a SRM-6, and these just combine to make up all the different SRM and LRM launchers by plugging tubes. The second slot has a single model, a LRM-5, which is used for every type of SRM and LRM launcher.

That's just about the laziest implementation of anything I've ever seen in MWO, and that's saying something...

Thats damn lazy... grrr..

[The Mech behind you]

I played Kintaros the last weeks and started to master my Shadowhawks yesterday. And everytime I see how they managed the dynamic weapon geometry on those mechs I wonder why they couldn't do it on the Commando and Dragon.

The Arm lasers are single square boxes, hardly bigger that the laser lense itself, sticked on the side of the lower arm. The SRM Boxes are reasonable sized and THEY ARE PAINTED! Those mechs have such a good implementation of dynamic weapon geometry. I don't know what went wrong after those.

[Sereglach]

Norman Kosh, on 14 July 2015 - 11:50 PM, said:

I played Kintaros the last weeks and started to master my Shadowhawks yesterday. And everytime I see how they managed the dynamic weapon geometry on those mechs I wonder why they couldn't do it on the Commando and Dragon.

The Arm lasers are single square boxes, hardly bigger that the laser lense itself, sticked on the side of the lower arm. The SRM Boxes are reasonable sized and THEY ARE PAINTED! Those mechs have such a good implementation of dynamic weapon geometry. I don't know what went wrong after those.

No freaking kidding. I keep saying that between the Kintaro's arm boxes and the Panthers CT missile tubes we had everything we needed to make an amazing set of dynamic weapons for the Commando. You could even limit the geometry to the 10 tube boxes and the hardpoints would stay reasonably small for the Commando.

I think there was just enough push on getting the dynamic weapons done, but not enough push to get them done right, or unique (all of the mechs in this last run use the same generic honeycomb missiles and other dinky weapons) that PGI just decided to rush it and throw it out there as fast as they could.

They've been doing utterly amazing work on the new mechs. What blows my mind is that they're not doing anything like that for the old mechs.

Hell, if anything, get some concept art done by Alex, and put it before the masses for vote on mech overhauls. Do people want what we have now or what Alex makes as an overhauled concept? If they're saying they need to do it quick and shoddy because of the old models, then make new models by salvaging whatever you can from the old ones (that's worth keeping) and working from there.

What we have now is just a mess that doesn't make any bloody sense.

[Metus regem]

Damien Tokala, on 07 July 2015 - 12:04 PM, said:

Real pilots don't use commandos

Your right, they use a Locust.

[Khobai]

A large part of the reason why commandos suck is because IS SRMs and IS SSRMs dont do enough damage.

They cost TWICE as much tonnage as their clan counterparts. Why do they only do 2.15 damage per missile?

IS SRMs and IS SSRMS should be doing a bare minimum of 2.5 damage per missile to make up for weighing twice as much.


Commandos also need more structure quirks than most other lights because theyre subjected to brawling more often due to their short range missile loadouts.

But for some dumb reason PGI armors up long-range sniper mechs like the blackjack. While mechs that are actual brawlers like the Commando get weakass structure quirks.

The quirks make NO sense. I thought quirks were supposed to reinforce the canon roles of mechs...

Edited by Khobai, 01 January 2016 - 11:17 AM.

[Mycrus]

Metus regem, on 01 January 2016 - 11:05 AM, said:

Your right, they use a Locust.

Excuse me.

[stjobe]

Khobai, on 01 January 2016 - 11:14 AM, said:

A large part of the reason why commandos suck is because IS SRMs and IS SSRMs dont do enough damage.

They cost TWICE as much tonnage as their clan counterparts. Why do they only do 2.15 damage per missile?

IS SRMs and IS SSRMS should be doing a bare minimum of 2.5 damage per missile to make up for weighing twice as much.

Well, that and the fact that no Commando has more than four hard points and they're all (except the DK) mixed missile/energy.

Khobai, on 01 January 2016 - 11:14 AM, said:

Commandos also need more structure quirks than most other lights because theyre subjected to brawling more often due to their short range missile loadouts.

But for some dumb reason PGI armors up long-range sniper mechs like the blackjack. While mechs that are actual brawlers like the Commando get weakass structure quirks.

The quirks make NO sense. I thought quirks were supposed to reinforce the canon roles of mechs...

"Lights are scouts, they don't need structure buffs". Isn't that the reasoning (illogical, lore-violating, and stupid as it is)?

I mean, we are talking about the guys that buffed the AC/2 to have twenty times higher DPS than it does in TT, but thinks MGs should be "useless against armour" - when the two weapons are exactly as damaging to armour in the BattleTech universe. It should come as no surprise by now that they have little clue and less concern about what is and is not BattleTech.

[Metus regem]

Mycrus, on 01 January 2016 - 11:18 AM, said:

Excuse me.

You heard me. ;p

That extra tonnage you get in your Commando practically makes you an assualt class....