82 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

So this is a quicky. The Daboku's shift to Lyran forces is under TRO 3039, to comical effect.

[Rogue Jedi]

in answer to questions in the OP
1) highly welcomed
2) sounds interesting, I would definately be up for trying it provided it was less than a 25% chance of it happening in a single match
3) sounds good, however I suspect the 1-3 shot variaties would be far more popular than the 100 shot variaties
4) I think balencing the 2 technoligies while keeping all the stats the same would be near impossible, some stat somewhere would have to change to make it work
5) injury should play a part, e.g. a head injury could cause the screen to darken or become blury, the Mech could become less responsive (to simulate slowed reaction time due to injury or weekness), less obvias causes of injury could include wiplash if the Mech runs into a wall or another Mech at full speed, going into shock if the Mech suffers damage to certain areas due to the nuro helmet
absolutely have pilot consciousness be a factor, if for example a Spider lands badly it should have the potential to knock the pilot out for a few seconds to prehaps a minute
I think thermal delirium looks interesting but could be problematic
pilot panic, yes absolutely
if it is being treated as a sim I think terminal injuries sound like a bad idea
yes getting injured should absolutely affect pilot performance.
yes Mech controls should be deminished if the pilot is seriously injured
6) not sure

[KursedVixen]

If I recall ,algthough it may be a little RPG Based Battletech for the SNES and Sega Mega drive was more or less a redesigned Jungle strike.

[Koniving]

KursedVixen, on 06 August 2017 - 04:03 PM, said:

If I recall ,algthough it may be a little RPG Based Battletech for the SNES and Sega Mega drive was more or less a redesigned Jungle strike.

"Battletech" for Sega megadrive/genesis and "Mechwarrior 3050" for SNES was effectively a 'jungle strike' in which you pilot a Mad Cat / Timber Wolf.


"Mechwarrior" for the SNES..

Just "mute" the guy...

Effectively it's a remake of the original 1989 game with all the artwork redone, the storyline completely thrown out for another one, with the 'Mechs completely redone due to the Harmony Gold lawsuit (so some mechs are like "What the ****?" Check out the Locust it's almost alien.)

On the guy reviewing it, it's true. You can take a 20 ton Locust and add a bigger engine... which eventually will slow down your mech due to the added weight, as you can have a 21 ton, 22, 25 ton, 30 ton Locust.
The higher you go above 20 tons, the worse it gets, but you can do a 30 ton Locust. I found a good middle ground at 22, much higher and the negative effects are kinda iffy. For the Shadow Hawk I'd stop around 62 tons.

"Mechwarrior" for the SNES, like the 1989 PC DOS game, is a RPG/Sim hybrid.. within reason due to the severe limitations of the system. Think perhaps Wing Commander which uses the same premise.

Edited by Koniving, 06 August 2017 - 04:28 PM.

[Metus regem]

Koniving, on 06 August 2017 - 04:12 PM, said:

"Battletech" for Sega megadrive/genesis and "Mechwarrior 3050" for SNES was effectively a 'jungle strike' in which you pilot a Mad Cat / Timber Wolf.


"Mechwarrior" for the SNES..

Just "mute" the guy...

Effectively it's a remake of the original 1989 game with all the artwork redone, the storyline completely thrown out for another one, with the 'Mechs completely redone due to the Harmony Gold lawsuit (so some mechs are like "What the ****?" Check out the Locust it's almost alien.)

On the guy reviewing it, it's true. You can take a 20 ton Locust and add a bigger engine... which eventually will slow down your mech due to the added weight, as you can have a 21 ton, 22, 25 ton, 30 ton Locust.
The higher you go above 20 tons, the worse it gets, but you can do a 30 ton Locust. I found a good middle ground at 22, much higher and the negative effects are kinda iffy. For the Shadow Hawk I'd stop around 62 tons.

"Mechwarrior" for the SNES, like the 1989 PC DOS game, is a RPG/Sim hybrid.. within reason due to the severe limitations of the system. Think perhaps Wing Commander which uses the same premise.

Ahhh Wing Commander, I am waiting a worthy reboot for thee....

[Koniving]

Metus regem, on 06 August 2017 - 06:51 PM, said:

Ahhh Wing Commander, I am waiting a worthy reboot for thee....

"Star."
"Citizen."

Also "Transverse." But we shut that **** down.

Transverse was a licensed Wing Commander product, believe it or not. Well the license hadn't yet been acquired that was a big part of the kickstarter and why Chris Roberts was there for the panels.

Well continuations. We won't see a reboot, sadly.

[Metus regem]

Koniving, on 07 August 2017 - 05:19 AM, said:

"Star."
"Citizen."

Also "Transverse." But we shut that **** down.

Transverse was a licensed Wing Commander product, believe it or not. Well the license hadn't yet been acquired that was a big part of the kickstarter and why Chris Roberts was there for the panels.

Well continuations. We won't see a reboot, sadly.

Star Citizen isn't a game yet, just a collection of modules that a buddy of mine has sunk a stupid amount of cash into this for.

[Koniving]

Metus regem, on 07 August 2017 - 05:37 AM, said:

Star Citizen isn't a game yet, just a collection of modules that a buddy of mine has sunk a stupid amount of cash into this for.

True, but if you follow the development on that, it continuously does the "impossible" according to PGI. But a lot of this required a lot of development of tools and coding and redesigning the engine, etc. into something completely unrecognizeable.watch the creating a solar system video they did where they take guest questions and demonstrate in real time. Imagine this on Mass Effect. Andromeda tried this and after failing terribly and so much invested into it, they dropped it and came up with what we got in 1 and a half years (which is far more than PGI produced in 5).

Imagine that in faction warfare. You could arrive in your mech, on a drop ship, hooked to a jump ship, and once you make that disconnection from the jumpship the dropship could be under attack as it tries to bring you down. If it gets close to destruction in atmosphere it could deploy you, and you'd fall from orbit. As you fall you'd make a landing, if you're not shot out of the sky before you land. And from there, you commence the objectives on a map you have never seen before and after this battle is over, you will never see it again unless they want you to. Sure, the object containers make sure the facility and its contents will remain the same, its arrangement will remain the same, but the little details and sometimes much larger details will be completely different if you ever return to this planet in whatever time it takes to need to. All without loading screens or "transitions" and currently a player limit of 100 players.

Now think about this; that isn't promise it's simple fact. The game can do that, and they demonstrate as much for us.
If we do less focus on a universe all at once and load instead the instance of the system around a targeted planet (and less emphasis on 4k+ textures) it would run far better than Star Citizen as well if we had that tech on MWO. Not that we will ever get it. But damn.

Note: This still falls within the realm of "hypothetical Battletech to realtime simulation" as long as we can keep relating it to Battletech/Mechwarrior.

Edited by Koniving, 07 August 2017 - 06:55 AM.

[NimoStar]

The lack of vehicles on MWO and the indestructible structures makes you feel as if you are not a human in a giant robot, you are just a robot, and even not a particularly giant one (all the obstacles are many times bigger than you usually, even trees, while ypu are suppossed to be a 14 meter tall 100 tons mech :V)

Even in mechcommander you felt more the "human" side with cities going in flames, briefings and video communications with your pilots.

The human element in MWO is severely lackluster even being a sort of MMO FPS in practice... you might as well be playing with bots.

[Koniving]

NimoStar, on 09 August 2017 - 03:23 AM, said:

The lack of vehicles on MWO and the indestructible structures makes you feel as if you are not a human in a giant robot, you are just a robot, and even not a particularly giant one (all the obstacles are many times bigger than you usually, even trees, while ypu are suppossed to be a 14 meter tall 100 tons mech :V)

Even in mechcommander you felt more the "human" side with cities going in flames, briefings and video communications with your pilots.

The human element in MWO is severely lackluster even being a sort of MMO FPS in practice... you might as well be playing with bots.

I can agree. Even the pilot perspective is lackluster, the pilot sometimes moves the joystick... and when he does it moves it to turn the mech as well as any torso twisting and arm movement. The pedals are there to control both the horizontal movement and are omnidirectional (they tilt forward and back, pivot left and right, push in and let up, etc.) for jumpjet control which is far more complicated than "Jump up, now land." (There's a reason mechs can land on their cockpit even without intervening enemy fire). There's so many buttons and switches... Some of which could never be made useful in MWO as MWO ignores a number of lore conventions in the name of convenience such as weapon toggling, convergence controls, etc.

A short quote of the pedal description from TechManual:

Quote

Steering is accomplished with a pair of foot pedals. You press
the right pedal, the ’Mech turns right. The foot pedals also control
jump jets if the ’Mech has them. Hit both pedals at once, the jump
jets trigger; mid-air steering is usually accomplished with the
pedals...[snip]

[From another paragraph]
More complicated movements involve more complicated
combinations of controls. The steering pedals don’t just push
back and forth. They can also tilt and twist. Throttle control levers
and fire control can also provide steering and movement input.
And while neurohelmets primarily serve to correct balance, they
can help clarify the MechWarrior’s intent to the BattleMech.

While this isn't the reason I popped back in here, I've found a few things that would make a proper "Battletech" game friendly for HOTAS users, keyboard and mouse users, and even VR users. The VR aspect is purely hypothetical and is drawing largely on certain Xbox games which use the Xbox Kinnect but in more of a Steam HTC Vive method -- though the general assumption is you won't be walking around. Given how it's set up you could probably sit in your office chair in the middle of a room. (Vive is chosen primarily because of the hand tools).

First and foremost, and forgive me if I already covered it in here... Battletech weapons evidently do have some limited convergence and moreso, an area for automatic aiming. Under both the TechManual and the much older BattleTech Manual, this cockpit view comes up. (Okay it turns out I have not uploaded it before, so...)
Due to the cheap and lazy method, gonna pull this one up that's already on the net since as I said, this wasn't the purpose of me coming back here.

The [ ] brackets around the crosshair, large as they are, are actually written

Spoiler

(in the BT Manual and on here where unlike Sarna where they write in wiki format and people arguing points tend to change information on it to suit themselves, BT RPG tends to literally copy/paste info direct from the source books. (Somewhat curious as to how 'okay' that is, but since most of the books they use are much older and mostly from FASA's time, suppose no one could complain).

to be an aiming zone in which the weapons can converge and track. Its also written as the dead zone for torso weaponry as torso weaponry doesn't have a whole lot of potential range. How well that works with the left torso, center torso, right torso weapon arcs on BT is questionable, but as we know BT is a 10 second time slice and whatever the final torso angle adjustment might be, one can pretty much assume that the mechs are doing more than a single torso movement in the span of 10 seconds.... in which case this setup is perfectly acceptable.

As such, within that bracket, the weapons supposedly adjust themselves while trying to follow the crosshair, as such if you're aiming generally at the leg, even if you're a bit off, the weapons will actually aim for that leg. Thus making it joystick friendly through aim assistance. What I've got in mind is a bit more in depth than this, but that's just a sample.

Moving on to what I really intended to get into... I was watching the Gamescome 2017 presentation of Star Citizen, and while a BT game could simplify some of these world building interactions in much the same way Battletech: Crescent Hawks' Revenge and Mechwarrior 1989 have, it was difficult not to appreciate a lot of it. I was also watching them make the Space Whale. Those two videos are over 3 hours so I don't expect anyone to just drop what they're doing to watch them. However, in the space whale video especially, numerous questions came up as they made the concept high poly statue that I've gone and asked when looking at the mechs and so I was pretty proud of myself.

As examples, I worked out the true purpose of the Hunchback's drum

Spoiler

(you will notice it is always placed on the torso that has ammo in it; the mech is also exceptionally small for its weight and armor thickness. There's also the detail that the Crucis Type V chassis Hunchbacks are made bigger than the Komiyaba Type VII chassis, making it compatible with double heatsinks and other upgrades...and yet by simply adding a CASE-compatible armor composite, the overall ammo tonnage it can carry is cut in half. All of these things and the only official 4SP art having the drum on the back of the CT where the ammo for the 4SP rests all tell me that the drum is where the Hunchback stores ammo)

, came to realize the holla-hoop on literally every official art of the BlackJack is actually where the ammo for the AC/2s funnel through the mech [or additional cooling shafts for the energy-based ones]... which also brings on to this breakdown of the Atlas based on multiple TROs and three novels...


And yes, according to both the Atlas D and the Atlas K lore, the typical Atlas carries the LRM 20 on the 5 missile rack on the left hip. On the K that rack is left as an empty husk because they didn't have time to remove it from the design when they moved it into the side torsos (in which they have 10 tubes on each side, with the meat of the system in the left torso.

Cockpit is typically in the nose/mouth region, though the Atlas D-DC has it in each eyeball (one side pilot seat, the other side commander's seat).

So.... side tracked again...
... The reason I'm here is I'm making the Thorn. A 20 mech that has a missile launcher similar to the "Thor" toy which varies from 5 tubes, 4 tubes and even 1 tube versions depending on the artwork but vertically stacks to hold 5 missiles. The different sorts of art sometimes have things that look like they could be used to reload the launcher one missile at a time (which is acceptable, as LRM-whatever will only fire and reload once each time cycle in my design; the fact that it actually does 1 damage per missile, versus the damage breakdown I have for other weapon systems still makes missiles pretty damn meaty). So the question is... How does it reload? How "Should" it reload?


This is an art that has a possible reload method, as does the official art. The ammo is stored in the right torso, which appears to be in the boxes between the torso and the arm itself. The question is how does it go from one to the other because I don't accept the "well it funnels through the shoulder joint" method....that's just ******** and dangerous as heck.

Should the ammo exit the box's right, entering the arm's left through a port?
Should the top of the arm open up, and through some method (either assisted by the arm, or the box raising, or some other means) the missiles would then enter the arm through the top, funneling down like a single column magazine until all 5 slots are filled? Should the launcher even have 5 tubes or should it utilize the single tube version? (Great way to accomodate everyone there is to make that be a difference in a variant or two available for the mech; AMS is not that common).

--------

This is official art, but a 4 tube launcher.

What is very interesting is that the Thorn's right arm is as close to modular as Battlemechs get without being a Mercury. As such it was common and relatively easy to swap out the right arm and its weapon system. Some examples have included antiquated ballistics (Aka Rifles, which a Light Rifle is only 3 tons, though more useful against vehicles and weakened mechs than any real confrontation against military grade forces), dual lasers, SRMs (probably what is depicted despite the official art being for the variant with LRM-5s), etc. This art features the same ammo storage system though for some reason it seems to put holes in it as if that were a missile launcher as well...for whatever reason. Some art neglects including it entirely.

So again, how would you reload the arm? Assume that combat is not as insta-kill-prone as MWO, and alpha strikes considerably less effective. Also consider that sub-section hitboxes make "aiming" for things like ammo a real thing as opposed to random luck of the dice.

[Koniving]

Note, when I say dead zone and potential range for torso weapons. Dead zone in this case is intended to mean "beyond these brackets, the torso weapons cannot track automatically or converge with one another."

For "Not a lot of potential range for torso weapons", I mean the ability to perform horizontal and vertical adjustment in order to fire on the target.

Rereading it today I kind of realized it might be misinterpreted.

The question about the Thorn still remains, however. Anyone interested in talking hypothetical there? I'll be using it in my animations.

[Karl Streiger]

Have thought about it - of course - but I don't get a clue.
The "magazine looks too tiny in comparison with the launcher.

I would simply go the 1 shot = 1 missile way (of course I would) - so the Thorn would have 24 missiles (24 reloads)
The LRM5 has also only one cluster - might work even ingame.

The reload would be addressed by a combination of lift and sled. (maybe the magazine is exposed) so reloading in hot combat is a no-go. Therefore the Thorn has 4 missiles on the ready and will reload always when the situation allows it.
similar with my Bushwacker AC10 reloading mechanism (greedy Photobucket for only 1$ a day)
... here a new picture

Spoiler

https://pre00.devian...ger-dbq0yk2.png

With 1 missile per shot - the LRM rack is a hot-launch so the exhaust will be channeled out of the back (you have some pipes in your artwork already)

The other way might be solved by the design of the LRM5. The Ceres Jaguar LRM 5 of the vindicator was named with a diameter of 57mm (Wolves at the Border) this is smaller as a FFAR/Hydra/SNEB rocket

and maybe its just the "motor" of the missile while the warhead is bigger (RPG-7 style)

Those smaller missiles can be loaded by a linkless feed through the "shoulder" - I know it sounds hilarious. But you should consider the right arm of the Thorn not so much as an arm more as a kind of turret rotated by 90°. This doesn't sound hilarious anymore and the Sheridan (as a missile shooting tank with turret) was also able to load the missiles through the "shoulder"

Maybe the "Shoulder Turret" could work with any missile caliber and a lift in the arm. (important is that the missile length is only half the arms length (or even less)

[Koniving]

The Bushwacker AC/10 reloading system is interesting, but it leaves a bit of a problem... Where's the room for the skeleton under the armor, the moving parts, and I assume the muscle goes around it and under the armor. As given though, that elbow appears to only be held on by the muscle as there's no rod going through the arm (and if the two domes are the elbow, how does this thing pivot the arm?) Amplifying the size of the canonical ammunition is often bound to create problems you wouldn't normally have given the base design. It also assumes the entire arm is dedicated to the AC/10, without any mounting bolts, a framework, the mech's own skeleton, layers of armor, the hand if applicable, etc. Much of the sensor and control related stuff runs through the muscle tissue, its true, but then there's separate lines for heat pumps to pump heat away from the weapon and into the heatsinks... There's a lot that you've left virtually no room for.

Given the shape I assume you're going by the MWO version... Which is a little less straight forward than I was thinking.

Though a straight shot wouldn't work if you're adhering to the given design. The hand/arm/etc. stuff doesn't matter so much as I see now that is actually in a whole different part, though you'd still have a frame to mount to and armor covering the mechanisms. Knowing you, however, you're not trying to adhere to the system exactly as given.


You may actually have an easier time with the BT design. The shells may or may not need to shrink, still.

I like the concept of the rotating feed, but this presents a secondary problem. The reason that single function rocker switches and simple mechanical controls are preferred over multi-purpose switches, multi-purpose buttons and other 'high tech' solutions such as touch screens, is how fallible they are in combat. Fancy smart missiles, for example, could be rendered useless with a bit of dirt on some "0.5 cbill circuit board or chip". One could accidentally touch the one part of the screen while moving and unintentionally jettison ammo. Etc. In other words the Succession wars had the design philosophy that fewer moving parts, simpler systems were better and easier to maintain. Mechwarrior RPG even has the line said from a tech to an astech: "Keep it simple, stupid, or it'll get the pilot killed!"

Granted, in the 3050s+ they are dabbling again into what the TechManual considers to be a raging debate "among cockpit designers is configurability. In the Inner Sphere, there has been a cycle of cockpit layouts that alternate between sets of multi-function displays and programmable controls, and fixed displays with
single-function switches." So in 3058, complicated feed mechanisms might be acceptable again. Still they come with that inherent jam risk. One might expect that on the SRM arm of a Trebuchet, but a brand new machine built to contend with the Clans? Seems like a corporate liability.

On the Thorn:
I do agree, the box looks on the small end, even when you consider LRMs to be the size of FM-92 missiles, the tubes are kind of on the large end. The box is big enough to be comparable to one tube and there are three boxes, perhaps the missiles are transferred from box to box. In the larger art, the missile ports are definitely unusually large, as is the laser system. However it is a fan art, while the one below is an official art. The tube sizes there are much more in line with the typical description of LRMs, and the box is a bit larger, too. The box as depicted might even hold 4 to 5 missiles in a X shape. Though with 24 reloads... yeah that leaves some problems. Now, granted, the other canonical depictions actually present it to be nearly as big as the Hunchback and Commando, which are both nearly the same height with just a massive difference in girth, though this size is largely attributed to the endo steel and in the S, they left the skeleton somewhat holo to make up the girth difference of standard structure. This other art gives it 4 tubes with some sort of tube-sized addon on the outer right, four boxes, then a pair of larger boxes one with 6 holes, and then there's heatsink vents on all three torso sections (as there are 2 heatsinks in each torso). In that depiction though, the hand is so large that it couldn't possibly manipulate the missiles by hand. The laser barrels are smaller than the missile tubes, though the missile tubes are considerably smaller than those depicted on either of the above artworks.

Damn I hate having a pickle like this. Regardless, the Thorn is a flawed design from an artistic standpoint, though given the mech's age perhaps the mech was intended to be flawed.

Edited by Koniving, 09 October 2017 - 07:15 AM.

[Karl Streiger]

What if the Missile Box is just the "ready box" only room for 2-3 reloads. (part of the arm). The other missiles are situated in the torso and need to be loaded manually in the box (by TechCrew, the MechWarrior himself or friendly troops)

[Koniving]

Ready box seems suitable. Would suck if he's got to rely on a tech crew in the middle of battle, but them being a second thing that refills could add an additional dynamic to it and help influence a light such as the Thorn to spend less time up close and personal. I'll have to see what I can come up with.

[Koniving]

It has been a long while...

And this is my most recent question for hypothetical discussion.
Assume a Battletech game is going to come out with high budget.
Assume it has a multiplayer focus, with a true to lore stance, with weapon variants, etc.
Assume it is going to be using combined arms.

Finally, assume that as a true to lore title, while Battlemechs are the king of the battlefield, they will be more like Titans from Titanfall, in that they will not always be there and when one or several does appear it could be a big deal.

For relative comparisons, consider: Battlefield, Titanfall, War Thunder/World of (any), ARMA series, Star Citizen, Battlezone (1 and 2), MW Living Legends. StarSiege 2845.


Now... What is the most basic unit/perspective this simulator/game will be played from by players (this is not counting AI units)?

On foot?
Vehicles?

Edited by Koniving, 08 February 2018 - 12:07 PM.

[Metus regem]

Koniving, on 08 February 2018 - 12:01 PM, said:

It has been a long while...

And this is my most recent question for hypothetical discussion.
Assume a Battletech game is going to come out with high budget.
Assume it has a multiplayer focus, with a true to lore stance, with weapon variants, etc.
Assume it is going to be using combined arms.

Finally, assume that as a true to lore title, while Battlemechs are the king of the battlefield, they will be more like Titans from Titanfall, in that they will not always be there and when one or several does appear it could be a big deal.

For relative comparisons, consider: Battlefield, Titanfall, War Thunder/World of (any), ARMA series, Star Citizen, Battlezone (1 and 2), MW Living Legends. StarSiege 2845.


Now... What is the most basic unit/perspective this simulator/game will be played from by players (this is not counting AI units)?

On foot?
Vehicles?

Well that begs the question, what era would this game be set?

Star League era, I'd say on foot maybe tanks

Secession wars / early Clan invasion era, on foot riflemen

Late Clan Invasion era and later, Powered armour


This would go hand in hand with Clan units as A.I., that way the Clan style of warfare could be hard coded and not easily exploited by players... this would also mean we wouldn't have to have an attempt at 1:1 balancing of the tech bases either. As a reward for veteran we could allow players to unlock the ability to play as Clan, just with a different scoring system over the IS players.

[Karl Streiger]

When you really want to keep true to the lore - and not go full interface cockpit - that would be nice game principle,
Think of Gnome that unfortunately never took off. (When it would have been released as planed maybe Mechwarrior would never have gotten the franchise it has now)
You can capture enemy BattleMechs / tanks with Taser rounds, climb into its "cockpit" after you have removed the enemy soldier. This would also allow very very though Mechs

Speaking of though Mechs - in any other setting you should start as soldier like in BF and go through a full escalation cycle.
First its just a clash between soldiers with guns and light ATVs, later APCs and IFVs, then heavy tanks and VTOL and finally BattleMechs.
The important part is that you really need to **** your pants when driving a heavy tank and suddenly you see a light Mech at the horizon.

This makes it necessary that you use at least battle force ranges (1600m for a MLAS) , also the controls would be an issue.
A Mech should behave more like a VTOL on legs instead of a tank on legs.

[Koniving]

That wouldn't really make it true to lore, however, once we start making up random values.

When a mech isn't terribly much bigger than a tank, being able to hit the mech from an extreme is fairly impossible, so should a mech shooting the tank from an extreme range. Their advantage is superior mobility, not "I magically have a 1 ton gun that can one shot you from 1600 meters."

[Koniving]

One should **** themselves for many reasons. A machine that that is capable of lifting vehicles off of their tracks,
crushing non-armored vehicles and significantly lighter armored vehicles by stepping on them, punching buildings that have enemies camping within..

A machine that if it jumps onto a building that isn't reinforced, will topple along with the building that has partly or completely crushed beneath it, though if you're lucky the pilot's stupidity (whether accidental or intentional) could lead to an advantageous situation... or a lot of people dead.
A machine that if it takes turns too fast in environments with low traction, could slip and fall/skid through buildings, again either accidentally or deliberately.


(This is one art where I ignore the implied scale, as Locusts are confirmed to be [the exact number isn't on top of my head, but it was between 6 and 7 meters]. Its just one of the stock images copy/pasted onto a background with a goofy angle. But sliding past infantry, slamming into a building and then using a prone ejection to burst through and try to kill infantry is one example of some crazy, kinda cool, but quite wasteful tactics.)


Knock knock, I made a new door!

While tanks, depending on how their weapons are setup and their crew, might be able to engage more than one target but typically wouldn't engage more than a single target at a time, mechs are capable of aiming independently with each of its 5 firing arcs (that's if you ignore the rear arcs, which some mechs have that as well). Though how well one could take advantage of that would really depend on the control scheme and how much of it is 'assisted'. For example provided the right setup on a game that cooperates I could control two separate turrets sharing the same screen with two different analog sticks. How well depends on the player. When 5 damage from a medium laser can do 50 damage to a pilot that only has 5 health, even if you split the damage in the way that I want to where a baseline medium laser would only actually do 1.67 damage, said laser is an instant overkill to any human regardless. There's plenty to fear, especially when you consider how far away 270 meters is on foot, whether the medium laser comes from a tank, aircraft or mech.

But fighting tanks we all know how to do on foot. Fighting a mech with so many firing arcs, with so many methods of defending itself including grabbing, throwing, swinging, punching, kicking and stomping... and mechs are plenty to fear as is. Though the Battletech cartoon is quite clumsy about it, mechs show themselves as being able to grab and pry elementals off of various body parts, so too could they do this to jetpack infantry, to rappelling infantry, and other threats. Consider that light enough mechs with two hand actuators can also climb taller buildings and sturdy cliffsides, and even if you got up high to get away from a 'Mech you won't be safe as he'll probably King Kong his way up to get you.


Note that King Kong as depicted here is quite a bit bigger than pretty much any mech...

A battle in which just hitting a mech literally anywhere in the leg until the HP ticks down isn't enough, as each section (such as the leg) would have subsections dividing the health so while you might hit the shin or thigh of the mech and damage the armor there, that'd be the place you'd have to consistently hit if you want to get to the structure. Meaning if you can no longer that spot, then you got to start from another spot and get through all THAT armor to get to the structure, and even then. Lets say you go for an obvious weak spot like the wrist, you manage to get through the meager armor there and then dig into the structure until there's nothing left. Congratulations, you destroyed the hand actuator. It still has the rest of the arm. Sure it won't be climbing buildings now or using that hand to grab you anymore. But it can still 'punch' or swing at you with the stub. Still has all the weapons.

It won't need magic weapon ranges to be terrifying.

This depiction of Kong is a bit more in line with light/medium mech height.


I want mechs to be as formidable as they are in their source game and their source material, without giving them outlandish additional advantages. Mechs, like vehicles, would be a finite resource. More so than vehicles, nearly infinitely more so than boots on the ground. Vehicles, like infantry, might be found just about anywhere that may make sense as well as delivered to the field from the air. Mechs, though, each player might only have one to four that they can dedicate to a campaign and these mechs had to be earned and once lost would be gone forever, as such their damage would be persistent regardless if battles are split across multiple maps or if the entire campaign could be done on a huge Arma style map, or a planet-style map like on Star Citizen), making them a precious resources that cannot be wasted, where a single well-called 'Mech could tilt the scales of battle significantly.



(The same but more detailed/updated map compared to Fallout 4's entire available map.)

(In comparison, Star Citizen's actual planets are significantly larger than this.. Imagine if the campaign began with trying to get into the planet from space.)

At the same time, the "tanks" in Mechwarrior 5's videos were pushovers, often destroyed in a single shot from an AC/5. I have tried something similar against 25 ton scorpion tanks using the same available weapons on a basic 2D or 2H Shadowhawk (can't recall which right this second), and just fighting two Scorpion tanks was a life or death struggle that could only be won through either sheer brute force or cunning use of terrain and maneuvering or simply taking advantage of the fact that I could shoot over a wall and they couldn't. In one case I made them chase me through a building and it collapsed once they got into it. (This was in Megamek using simultaneous turns and virtually all the rules including rapid fire autocannons.)


Two mechs engaged in a grapple.

Yes, vehicles are limited in many ways compared to a Battlemech, but to outright rule them out as inferior would be a mistake.


Mechs, like vehicles, would be subject to their limitations, too. Ammunition needs to be resupplied. Coolant if overtaxed could be lost. Weapons can jam requiring external intervention to solve the issue, or permanently jam (such as barrel melting or damage). They could be rendered immobile, though many times I have had an immobile mech that refused to stop fighting until the very moment it is swarmed and the pilot shot to death within his seat before the machine finally goes still. (I would want pilots to also be precious, as such it would be ideal to evacuate them as opposed to letting them die like infantry.)


An immobilized Marauder, face to face with a Hunchback in mint condition that has come to finish it off.


On the rarity of mechs and the human element. Use your mech(s) wisely and make them last, it might be a long time before you come across another or get to steal one, assuming you have the ability to do so (there was a thing on hijacking mechs, need special equipment to overcome the lockouts if you want full control, or to know the pilot's series of motions to unlock the helmet's access. The mech can be piloted without the helmet but such would be a very clumsy and counter-intuitive run.

Even when it comes to infantry, one shouldn't expect to just be meat for the slaughter...even though you and your AI companions probably will be exactly that if not tactful.




A Thunderbolt swarmed. Though this is probably a flipped Griffin?

A better drawn Thunderbolt swarmed.

More interesting battle armor.

Infantry chased by a Trebuchet.


Even as a turret operator, there's always something to do.

Law Enforcement's come to help out.

Gotta bring the weapons.

And Battle/Power Armor comes in light versions, too.


(If Star Citizen turns out to be moddable, there couldn't be a better place to realize such a simulation...)

As you can imagine, I expect a planetary campaign would last a really long time with players entering and leaving both skirmishes and all out combat over the course of a persistent campaign. Where players that leave the field are pulling out to be relieved by reinforcements (new players) provided such come in time, as with a real battlefield sometimes reinforcements never come.

In such campaigns, the failure to accomplish the objectives doesn't immediately result in a score screen, but a struggle to salvage what forces remain in the field in order to bolster what is available in the next campaign by protecting the retreat from an onslaught intended to capture and salvage the losing side. Where all players involved in that battle would be told of how it turned out once they return, assuming it ended by then.


Though this Hunchback had allowed some to retreat, including his son, he paid the ultimate price. As a player, he ultimately sacrificed the Hunchback he had earned, as well as the pilot he also built from the ground up... this sacrifice would hopefully be all the more memorable for the player, an experience he may tell to his friends over a beer or share on youtube, twitch or another service so that we may hear the story of how that Mechwarrior died a noble death to ensure that the next planet had that much more of an edge. But would that sacrifice be justified, or would losing that mech cost them so much more than he was able to save? Only the future of a persistent universe would be able to tell.

Edited by Koniving, 09 February 2018 - 08:36 AM.