Prosperity Park, on 07 May 2017 - 06:54 PM, said:
How would a quad mech make up for losing all that arm space? There are no skill check rolls in MW:O.
Would it all come down to increased turn speed, reduced hill-incline effect, and reduced height/ high mounted weapons?
Edit:
Minimal hill climb penalty.
Vastly increased turn rate and Accel/deceleration.
Reduced fall damage
Can lose 2 front legs and still live until a 3rd leg is lost
Potentially slender frontal torso profile
High weapon mounts
Aaaand... Give tosro weapons high inclination, just high enough to shoot UAVs.
Had a thought about that in another thread somewhere.
While the mechs may not be favoured I think it would be a shame not to introduce them and a shame not to break into some new ground.
If the arms are treated as two additional legs there are two quick advantages that can make up for some of the loss of space.
Legs typically have more armour.
It would be possible to have 4 leg mounted heatsinks for double the cooling in the water.
Not much, but worth noting.
A big advantage might be the position of the hit boxes. It would seem reasonable to have the rear armour 'underneath' the mech. That could be significant meaning you would be hitting front armour unless you can somehow get underneath the mech but might have a pretty good chance of having the legs shield the torso depending on the design of the mech.
There could be some other offsets.
Taking from the natural world, a 4 legged animal is more manoeuvrable than a 2 legged one. This could be easily translated into base agility values for acceleration, deceleration and turning.
Better stability when getting hit for less cockpit shake.
They might even suffer less speed reduction climbing hills or from losing a leg.
There would be a couple of other things to work out such as:
Could the mechs side strafe? If so, can they torso twist?
What happens if you lose a torso? Do you lose both legs on that side? (Maybe... depends on the design)
These complications can lead to interesting options.
If a mech can side strafe, (Thinking about the Scorpion here) then perhaps it doesn't have a torso twist per say but it's forward, backward, left and right movement speeds, accel and decel are all equal and it can rotate on the spot as fast as another mech might torso twist.
But... lose a side torso and you lose two legs which brings the mech down.
Weigh that up vs having the legs separated from the torso and instead have that hip connection.
Get the turret like torso twist.... hello Goliath...
But it moves more like a 2 legged mech in terms of forward/backward speed and turning.
As for the actual control and key bindings, there is a movement profile for the different weight classes which can be applied separately. Some mechs have a different movement profile for their class. Ie, a heavy mech with a medium movement profile. I would think that this is how we would introduce the movement for quads... as separate movement profiles which could alter the behaviour for the key bindings to allow for the left right movement instead of turning and use the mouse for turning instead of torso twist... depending on the mech itself. The prime example is to compare the Goliath vs the Scorpion.
(Maybe there is an easier way to do it, but that seemed a reasonable approach.)
It would make the mechs really interesting and unique and I think it's a great opportunity for PGI to have a go.
Have any of the quad mechs been in any other Mechwarior game?
I don't believe they have but someone probably knows better than I do about that.
However, if not.... how cool would that be to have MWO as the first?! Bonus points to the team for taking on the challenge.
In the end, it shouldn't come down to someone not liking them. It's about being able to include them in the game and people enjoying playing them. We get the choice.
I say... do it.
(And now you can all help me barrack for pilotable Elementals.
)
Edited by 50 50, 09 May 2017 - 07:12 PM.
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