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What About Mech Arm Movement?

BattleMechs Gameplay

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#1 Yellonet

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:37 AM

I've always wondered why the mechs' arm movement is so limited, is that how they really are, or is arm movement not yet implemented fully?

At most we can move the arms around the elbow, but why not the shoulders? Many mechs seems to be designed to be able to move their arms much more than what we currently can in game.

Such as the Orion, don't you think it would be a lot better mech if it could raise it's arms (and weapons) like this?

Posted Image

Excuse the crappy animation but I think it illustrates what I mean.

Edited by Yellonet, 27 July 2015 - 11:38 AM.


#2 Arle Vox

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:51 AM

While I think you make a good point about realism in the game, and it would be nice to be able to shoot from your face like you can in most other FPS-style games, what you're proposing would be game-breaking.

Half of the gameplay mechanics involve positioning around where you're firing from, and ducking in and out of firing positions while avoiding damage to yourself. If you could peek a tiny bit above a hill and have line of fire to your enemies then you wouldn't have to care about your personal LoS exposure, and the gameplay would suffer because of this. We already have a large enough community that doesn't know how to advance, and this would only encourage them to stay still.

#3 Alistair Winter

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:54 AM

I don't think any mechs should be raising their arms like that, if only for the fact that it looks... silly. But the Orion's shoulders don't look like they would allow it to hold its arms horizontally by just straightening out the elbow, so maybe it would be necessary to raise the arms like this for that particular mech.

#4 Narcissistic Martyr

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 11:59 AM

Posted Image
It's a thing in lore. In mwo it'd mean switching between a torso locked high mounted weapon and low mounted with good horizontal movement. It'd help a lot of the knuckle dragger mechs and those with most of their firepower on a single arm (Dragon).

#5 Yellonet

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:17 PM

View PostArle Vox, on 27 July 2015 - 11:51 AM, said:

While I think you make a good point about realism in the game, and it would be nice to be able to shoot from your face like you can in most other FPS-style games, what you're proposing would be game-breaking.

Half of the gameplay mechanics involve positioning around where you're firing from, and ducking in and out of firing positions while avoiding damage to yourself. If you could peek a tiny bit above a hill and have line of fire to your enemies then you wouldn't have to care about your personal LoS exposure, and the gameplay would suffer because of this. We already have a large enough community that doesn't know how to advance, and this would only encourage them to stay still.

There are a number of mechs that have their main hardpoints very high up. I guess one could argue that they have no lateral movement as a penalty and that this is a part of game balance, but I still think it's very strange for mechs that seemingly have fully functioning arms to not be able to use them.

#6 Throat Punch

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:19 PM

Some mech's like the Atlas, Hatamoto-Chi, Hatchetman, Axeman (there are a lot more examples) had full range of motion with their arms because and could melee with their "fists" or with weapons they carried. Also if i'm remembering right, in TT you could extend your arms in a "T" to shoot targets to your left and right (as well as those behind, if you had the weapons equipped, and in front of you) in a single turn

Edited by Mors Draco, 27 July 2015 - 12:26 PM.


#7 martian

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:19 PM

View PostAlistair Winter, on 27 July 2015 - 11:54 AM, said:

I don't think any mechs should be raising their arms like that, if only for the fact that it looks... silly. But the Orion's shoulders don't look like they would allow it to hold its arms horizontally by just straightening out the elbow, so maybe it would be necessary to raise the arms like this for that particular mech.

Reseen Crusader
Posted Image

#8 DAYLEET

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:21 PM

Style is everything, especially when killing.

No to On1 raised arms.

#9 stjobe

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:22 PM

View PostAlistair Winter, on 27 July 2015 - 11:54 AM, said:

I don't think any mechs should be raising their arms like that, if only for the fact that it looks... silly. But the Orion's shoulders don't look like they would allow it to hold its arms horizontally by just straightening out the elbow, so maybe it would be necessary to raise the arms like this for that particular mech.

Raising it like the OP showed looks silly, yes. But raising it straight forward or straight to the side looks fscking epic:

Posted Image

Or like this:

Posted Image

Even "rifle-style" guns could be raised and look totally bad-ass:

Posted Image

#10 Throat Punch

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:26 PM

Posted Image

#11 Levi Porphyrogenitus

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:48 PM

Something as simple as a toggle to lock elbows and raise the arm to about shoulder height would be great. Make it function as if the mech didn't have LAAs (locked to the torso, with no horizontal arm reflex). Some mechs would have to limit how high the arms are raised based on clipping and such, but it'd help a lot of mechs out.

#12 stjobe

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:54 PM

And automatically lower them if throttle goes over 50% - nobody wants zombie 'mechs running around ;)

#13 Yellonet

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 12:59 PM

View PostLevi Porphyrogenitus, on 27 July 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Something as simple as a toggle to lock elbows and raise the arm to about shoulder height would be great. Make it function as if the mech didn't have LAAs (locked to the torso, with no horizontal arm reflex). Some mechs would have to limit how high the arms are raised based on clipping and such, but it'd help a lot of mechs out.
Exactly, The con would be that the arms may become easier targets. Also, if convergence is introduced (again?) that could recieve a negative penalty or some such so that mechs with "naturally" high mounts still have some benefit.

When the game get better collision modelling it would be possible to extend the arms and have a fist fight as last resort, damage could be calculated on hit speed, weight behind the hit, plus how much armour/structure is left in the arm and the receiving part on the enemy mech.

#14 Diablobo

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 01:38 PM

When the Occulus Rift comes out and it gets the Touch controllers that would be able to simulate arm movement, it would be so awesomely cool if we could get fully articulated arms that could be raised straight forward to give better firing arcs and more realistic arm movement. Of course, it would take a lot of coding and it's possible the engine wouldn't even support it, but maybe the next Battletech game could make use of the technology. As it stands now, the fact that the mechs can't raise their arms like they were clearly designed to do is a huge limitation of this game.

Edited by Diablobo, 27 July 2015 - 01:39 PM.


#15 Blue Boutique

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 01:40 PM

View PostLevi Porphyrogenitus, on 27 July 2015 - 12:48 PM, said:

Something as simple as a toggle to lock elbows and raise the arm to about shoulder height would be great. Make it function as if the mech didn't have LAAs (locked to the torso, with no horizontal arm reflex). Some mechs would have to limit how high the arms are raised based on clipping and such, but it'd help a lot of mechs out.


Should be automatic as in raising the arms as you target above the centerline but that's my opinion.

#16 Sjorpha

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 01:53 PM

View PostBlue Boutique, on 27 July 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

Should be automatic as in raising the arms as you target above the centerline but that's my opinion.


+1

Make raising the arms to avoid obstacles when possible an automatic thing, and cause a firing delay for those weapons during the animation like missile doors. Different mechs could have different ranges of arm movement, make the arm movement slow enough to be noticable so that high hardpoints is still an advantage for snappy peek shots.

Don't like the idea of a toggle, it would look silly IMO with arms statically stretched out.

#17 process

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 02:01 PM

I think this could potentially make the game more interesting, but with all of the other issues we're facing I wouldn't want to see this implemented until they're fixed.

View PostYellonet, on 27 July 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

Excuse the crappy animation but I think it illustrates what I mean.


:P

#18 Nothing Whatsoever

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 02:24 PM

A tweak with actuators would be nice.

For MWO balance, I'd like to at least see,

Shoulders provide Vertical movement.

Then Upper Arm Actuators provide like 55% Horizontal movement
Lastly Lower Arm Actuators provide 45% Horizontal movement
This way having both provides 100% total Horizontal movement


And so having all three Actuators would allow for those mechs to use a modified Arm Lock to raise their arms. I'd think similar to having different levels of zoom, have a few positions for arms.

Edited by Praetor Knight, 27 July 2015 - 02:28 PM.


#19 Jeb

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 02:37 PM

Its funny because most the art for mechs, even in game, that have low slung arms, look to have working elbows... otherwise they build in weak spots where they don't need them...
The ones that do not have elbows, usually have high mounted arms.

The mech designs are mostly based on tabletop where they don't have to worry about arm height as its' line of sight (same with the mech commander games)
For some reason none of the FPS devs took that into account though....

#20 Jeb

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 02:43 PM

oh and the OP needs to change that to rotate the shoulder, and straighten the elbow. ;)
Mechs have elbows... no need to put all the movement in the shoulders...


Some of the chicken walkers that might work though as you could flap your arms and try to fly! ;)

Edited by Jeb, 27 July 2015 - 02:45 PM.






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