38 replies to this topic

[Baron Kreight]

What are their relative advantages/disadvantages? Is it easier to chop off humanoid mech's arm than Catapult's missile launcher? Stronger legs? Speed?

[Silent]

Chicken legs just look better aesthetically.

[sgt coloncrunch]

Silent, on 08 July 2012 - 02:53 AM, said:

Chicken legs just look better aesthetically.

Uhh, no. No they don't.

I'd much more prefer the say the Centurion with it's ninja feet then say, the stalker with it's hooves. IMO

[Valkeminator]

For Mechwarrior, Chicken legs are better in my opinion... If I want humanoid leg mech to look more appealing I will go somewhere else...

[Bootleg]

I would imagine that the chicken legs would keep you a bit lower to the ground, thus providing a lower profile. Beyond that I would think that gameplay wise it is mostly aesthetic, whichever looks better to the mech they're attached to, since we don't have to think about or deal with relative weight tolerances or mechanical failures, etc. Or whichever one makes more sense, from what I've seen all the human legs are attached to mechs that are extremely humanoid in nature while the chicken legs are attached to the box or otherwise funny shaped ones.

[Feindfeuer]

There is no advantage or disadvantage for any of the legs as the in-game effectivness (like speed and maneuverability) is not based on any real-life values but only on the stats that a gamedesigner assigned to that mech, while some artist drew a more or less fitting picture for it.

From the Tabletop experience there is also no difference between hitting any arm, no matter the size, as the damage allocation does not take such things into consideration.
In a videogame it will be (and always was) of course a lot easier to hit a larger target, and the actual mechsize and the size of the individual parts suddenly play a big role in the actual effectivness of the design. So yes, directly targeting larger sized arms/parts is a lot easier in that case, making designs with exposed/oversized parts easier to target and destroy.

One advantage of those human arms with hands that does not translate to the videogames and only exists in the tabletop, is the ability to use them more effectivly in melee combat as you can either procure a makeshift weapon on the battlefield or equip one from the start. Sadly no mechwarrior game ever focused on that, as melee is one of the fields where IS technology is superior to the clans, with triple strength myomer beeing available quiet a bit earlier for IS designs and beating someone up with tripple strenght myomer with a a tactical mace equipped can realy ruin his day.

[Baron Kreight]

So what you are saying is that all of mechs' models will have the same weak spots. This doesn't make much sense to me. Take World of Tanks. Each tank has it's own spots and you can deal serious damage by hitting these spots. In some tanks guns break more often. In others commander's tower is very vulnerable and so on.

Mechs with chicken legs like Catapult or Stalker do not have arms. On the other hand humanoid like mechs have arms which should be vulnerable and choppable.

Generally I think it would be great to customise each mech's damage model.

[Feindfeuer]

no... i said the tabletop rules dont make any difference between size/design of arms/legs, cause the hit location is always done with the same dice, no matter the artwork of the mech.

If you read on i tell you that the actual size and placement of componentes is important in videogames where you get to aim yourself, as it makes it easier/harder to hit certain locations based on the size and placement of them. For example i expect the hunchback to be very vulnerable to hits to it's right torso in game, because of the size of it, towering over the center body, and extending forward and back thanks to the gigantic AC/20 'pod'. So i'll put some extra armor on that area once i get ingame.

[C3ragon]

Since I have chicken legs I prefer mechs with chicken legs as well.

[Steel Prophet]

sgt coloncrunch, on 08 July 2012 - 03:03 AM, said:

Uhh, no. No they don't.

I'd much more prefer the say the Centurion with it's ninja feet then say, the stalker with it's hooves. IMO

It's about legs not feet

[Baron Kreight]

Well yes, that is what you are saying. The idea of a siluette of a mech (or tank in WoT) is the very basic one. Each mech will have the same damage model. There will be no weak spots. I should say this is rather simplistic but perhaps devs will change this in the future. Balance is very hard to achieve even without individual damage models.

[w3a51l]

It's been ages since I played any of the MW games, am sooo hanging out for this one to arrive...

Anyhoo, don't remember where I saw it but I thought that the chook leg mechs were generally faster and better at climbing gradients/acceleration, but the human leg ones were slower/more stable and better on rough ground.

I'm prolly way off the mark...

[Sumner]

Watching a few of the videos when the x-hairs are on the target and the shot goes off it still seems there is a variance in the hit locations, not sure if that is the difference between weapons in the arms vs torso. Either way not seeing pinpoint accuracy.

[Kaelin]

Technically speaking; the reverse knee gives the machine a longer leg without making it tall, this would give it a longer stride and technically
facilitate a higher top-speed.

this isn't the case in BT, really it's aesthetic.

I think they look cool.

[Feindfeuer]

@ Baron Kreigh
That is true, there are, as far as i know, no plans for weakspots that allow to bypas the armor in certain regions. A bodypart will have a homogenous armor cover in accordance of how many armorpoints the player allocates to that bodypart. So yes, it is a rather simple damage model. But players will be able to customize the armor layout, assinging armor to different bodyparts as they see fit. A weakspot system would make such armor allocation mood, as you could bypass them by targeting said weakspots.
Also Battletech (and mechwarrior for that matter) does not simulate armor penetration (with the exception of through-armor criticals) and armor is only handeled in an ablative way.

Of course you could find quiet a few arguments that would support a change into a more penetration/module damage based system. But i think the devs are quiet a bit too far into development to make such drastic changes... also it would steer quiet a bit away from the original BT systems and previous games, probably alienating the potential oldschool/veteran playerbase.

[AlexEss]

Ok... on a theoretical level a chicken-walker would be able to lower and rise a lot easier and it would take landing a lot better after jumps as long as you maintain a good centre of gravity since the chicken leg design can fold a lot more then a humanoid one, but the more trunk/box like shape of the humanoid does lend it self to more armour and internal storage. Also a chicken walker would have more problems with sudden shifts in their centre of gravity.

All that being said in game it does not matter jack, 4 tons of armor and 4 heatsinks are just that no matter the shape of the leg.

[Stormwraith]

From what I understand, "chicken legs" are better for speed and agility. Humanoid legs are better for movement over rough terrain and hieght transitions.

If I understand the physics correctly, it's all about stress on the ankle & knee joints.

[Baron Kreight]

I mean take a look at Hunchback - http://mwomercs.com/...ption-hunchback See those thin forearms? I bet they should be hard to hit but when hit are easily detachable.

And take a look at Catapult - http://mwomercs.com/...atapult-concept Missile lauchers are firmly soldered to the sides. There is no way you can make them fall apart from the main body.

[Kodiak Jorgensson]

not 100% on this, so if anyone wants to check up on it, one of the mechwarriors from MW4 Vengance described chiken walkers better to menuver over rough terrain and able to climb more steep mountains.

Baron Kreight, on 08 July 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

I mean take a look at Hunchback - http://mwomercs.com/...ption-hunchback See those thin forearms? I bet they should be hard to hit but when hit are easily detachable.

And take a look at Catapult - http://mwomercs.com/...atapult-concept Missile lauchers are firmly soldered to the sides. There is no way you can make them fall apart from the main body.

the Catapult C1 and Hunchback 4G share the same weight in armour, but the Catapult isnt as well protected as the Hunchback, for exmaple the arms on a Catapult have 13 points of armour, where as the hunchback has an additional 3 points. it doesnt sound like much, but given that the Catapults arms take up a larger area and are raised above the cockpit they will be faily easy to take out.

Edited by Kodiak Jorgensson, 08 July 2012 - 04:11 AM.

[Feindfeuer]

@Baron Kreight
Yep, but gameplay wise there will be no difference. The launcherboxes are the Cats arms (at least as far as i remeber the catapult has arm mounted LRMs), hitting them will first damage the armor and once its gone the internal structure. Same for the 'conventional' arms of the hunchbacks. You will not be able to target specific subsystems of the arm, like the weapons themselves.

The only advantage/disadvantage will be the size and position of the complete part (arm/leg/etc) and how much armor you allocate to that position, not the 'type' of arm or leg used. All this info is of course based on the limited public information we got and on the experience of former videogames in the BT universe and on the Battletech rules themselves.

Edited by Feindfeuer, 08 July 2012 - 04:09 AM.