7 replies to this topic

[Omigir]

Ok, I’m writing this up while I’m completely dragging ‘rump’ right now and tired for no real reason. So I will try and KISS it up. Not kiss rump it up. But you know. Also! Please try and keep the discussion and suggestions relevant to the below topic. I would like to try and keep the other discussions that are going on in the forums in their perspective thread and in that way keeping discussion and suggestions focused on helping flesh out and improve on the topic below.

So the basic principle is Wx (weather for you no military types) and environmental conditions affecting Mech/weapon performance.

Environments:
Tropical: Hot and humid, god this environment sucks. Since the Wx is naturally hot, the Mech starts up with a little higher than normal, and the Mech gens up a little more heat when performing (I.E. running, shooting, standing still, high fiving.). Heat sinks are not as efficient at bleeding off heat due to the humidity. Humidity tends to help heat up everything, even shaded areas… man I hate humidity.

Dessert: Just like in tropical, its hot, and Mechs tend to produce junk heat more quickly. Unlike in the tropics however, heat sinks can bleed out heat with no inhabitance because its dry Wx. On the flip side to that, however, flushing coolant is not as efficient. Because of the hot dessert heat, more coolant fluid is needed to do the same job.

Normal old midland tempter: Wx is nice and placid, perfect for blowing each other up! Effect +/-0

Rainy/Foggy: In passed games rain and fog have both inhibited visibility, while this wouldn’t change, there should be one more affect, help keeping your Mech cool. Water falling from the sky landing onto a warm/hot death machine and steaming off is almost like sweat for the massive war machines. Rain off course cools off more than fog. Also, maybe a pillar of steam of a hot Mech could help identify them a little better at range? Who knows!

Winter/Iceball: Its cold! Its Icy! Its Santa’s own gift to you this season.. and it’s a have love relationship. Congrats you Awesome pilots (pun intended) you can go to town! Your heat sinks can take a break and let nature fondle your mech and keep him cool. Bless her little hands and that gentle touch. On the flip side though, when you’re not looking she is going to trip you. Terrain is Icy to boot, and your chance to get knocked on your back (or face) is up! Maybe an advanced gyro can help medicate this but god forbid your light lance mate tries to do a hair pin turn near you and slides off to knock you over!

And finally, Space! The final frontier! Thanks to the first two replys to the thred ( Xhaleon VYCanis ) I will have to rethink space. Maybe just restrict it to moons with low atmosphear?not sure, sugestions are oppen!

I’m sure there are some environments/conditions I missed, but these are pretty standard.
For sure I would like to see an affect from running high on heat, accuracy goes down, weapons track a little slower as well as movement/torso twist speed is reduce until the heat is back under control But that is another topic and not the main focus of the above.

Edited by Omigir, 20 December 2011 - 11:10 AM.

[Xhaleon]

Omigir, on 20 December 2011 - 10:36 AM, said:

And finally, Space! The final frontier! There is no environment in space, or maybe on a moon with very little atmosphere. Here you will find low grav and heat able to bleed right off your Mech. Draw backs? Maybe no ballistic weapons due to the fact they need Oxygen to fire? I dunno but its an option.

You need a material substance to transfer heat to, so heat sinks would become horribly inefficient in a vacuum. All you'd have is radiation to remove heat.

Modern gunpowder contains oxygen as part of the chemical formula. They can fire in a vacuum just fine.

Why is this like the two most common misconceptions about space, everywhere? I bet aliens ten thousand light years away have the same problem.

[VYCanis]

Xhaleon beat me to the point.

if anything your weapons would be more prone to overheating your mech and themselves in a vacuum. Where an ac10 could have relied on the cooling system of the mech to shunt off heat and its own surface area to radiate heat from its barrel into the surrounding atmosphere. instead the heat has very few avenues out of your mech.

Making sustained fire a PITA to do.

And thats if you are on the night side or far away from a star. God help you if you are close enough to a star to get something approaching daylight. It will cook you so fast. Extremity in MWLL sort of does this with its day/night cycles, kinda. Though it seems to imply there is enough of an atmosphere for the planetoid to be cold at night. as soon as its daytime, your heat spikes halfway up the dial

Edited by VYCanis, 20 December 2011 - 10:56 AM.

[Omigir]

Thanks you gents, I am not a physicist so I miss some things, Thank you for pointing it out gents.

[Xhaleon]

Omigir, on 20 December 2011 - 11:08 AM, said:

Thanks you gents, I am not a physicist so I miss some things, Thank you for pointing it out gents.

No problemo, but I think hot environments versus cold environments is really a given gameplay attribute. We've had it in past games, and not having such a simple mechanic in MWO is going to be very strange. Humidity is a neato point though.

However, it is unlikely that maps are anywhere near big enough to span multiple environments, so everything on one map would only have a single kind of climate. Result? Just put a heat sink efficiency percentage right next to the mission description, and put that multiplier to everything heat related in the game instance. Done.

So yeah, not really sure what to talk about...

[VYCanis]

Well, it would sort of depend on the environment. Like, if you had some volcanically active location on a planet with an otherwise normal-ish atmosphere you would see drastic differences in temp if you approached any area near or especially above any lava. Since these areas would be surrounded by rising superheated air, but the ambient atmosphere would still have mostly cool air.

Well...unless the planet is like venus where everything is oven hot, but you shouldn't even be driving a mech there anyway.

as for other weather effects. Torrential downpours, gale force winds, sandstorms, blizzards, ash rain, electrical storms...

[Omigir]

Electrical storms.. D-move Mo-nature... D-move. But I imagine that would be cool due to what it would to do sensors and scouts would be importiant than. At the same time, ingame comms if there are any, could be affected too.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I'd love to see map weather impact the battle

Hot/cold
Heavy/light gravity
electrical storms
Strong magnetic fields
Strong winds
rain/dust
Toxic/corrosive environments

Could be some fun stuff.