Satan n stuff, on 08 May 2016 - 01:46 AM, said:
As I said in my previous post, the example object would have a much lower volume compared to it's profile than a sphere with the same profile would, so if it's volume were set to be the same as that of the sphere it would end up having a much larger profile, in gameplay terms this is a direct nerf to any mech that has large arms, legs and/or weapons. This is the exact opposite of what should be done.
You're actually wrong in this respect. Completely wrong. The object you described would hold much closer to a pure representation of the surface area-to-volume ration of a sphere using profiles as an estimation than it would using it's pure surface area, for all the myriad reasons I showed you.
If you take a sphere covered in spikes, and you take a 2d profile of that... a silhouette if you will... that silhouette eliminates the overwhelming majority of those spikes from even having any effect on the profile. The only spikes you'll see at all are those specific parts that extend beyond the perimeter of the main body of the profile, in this case the circle produced.
So while those spikes would produce a MASSIVE increase in the total surface area of that object, it would have little effect on both volume and profile - the spikes themselves having a low surface area-to-volume impact individually, and being largely eliminated in profile. The ratios you'd produce using both methods would actually end up with very similar results. For all intents and purposes, with the profile method you're taking a VERY roundabout way to estimate volume.
I think you're really struggling to understand how this works.
Volthorne, on 08 May 2016 - 09:42 AM, said:
You seem to have that backwards? 'Mechs with large arms and legs should - in theory - be getting either smaller or not changing BECAUSE their arms and legs have so much volume. Roflmen for example, have legs that easily surpass the entire volume of their torso when combined. The only 'Mechs getting "punished" per-se are ones that have small/thin arms or legs, and very volume inefficient torsos - namely the Blackjack, especially with those concave parts.
Your much touted/maligned profile example would be best demonstrated when comparing Scrows to any other 55 ton medium: the result is that the IS ends up with tiny Griffins, Wolverines, and Shaqhawks because the Scrow's profile(s) doesn't take into account the fact that it's torsos are basically a giant f*cking block of steel, nor that it's arms are nearly invisible from the side, profile-wise, whereas all the IS 'Mechs have arms that stick way out in front of them.
And yes, here too he's struggling to get this right.
Having massive arms and legs is the best-case scenario for a mech that's shown to be oversize by volume. Having so much of a mech's volume tied up in secondary model components will mean that the mech - when scaled down - will have the smallest possible torso. That is due to the inefficiency of the placement of the volume in the limbs compared to the torso. Centralizing mass in the torso would result in a larger mech, proportionally, on rescale than massing tonnage in the limbs.
I had actually argued, when we were originally talking about what needed to happen to the Warhawk... when people would argue about wanting to reduce the size of it's legs to be proportional to that chassis, rather than using the base Dire Wolf legs as it does now... I had pointed out that keeping the legs the size they were NOW in proportion to the body would ensure the torso would get the smallest possible profile when the Warhawk was eventually scaled down. If you shuffled more volume into the torso by reducing the size of the limbs, the torso would shrink less dimensionally (by profile) than the other way around.
It can be a tough concept to grasp.
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