43 replies to this topic

[Jack Booted Thug]

And mech hats, hats for mechs.

[kuma8877]

The workload to add all the chassis specific animations and retrofit all of the underlying skeletons to accommodate the change, is quite probably, fairly astronomical for a team the size of PGI at this point.

It would have to be built into an engine upgrade or change to be viable or have the best chance of not just being a buggy mess.

If MW5 is financially successful and they move over to UE for MWO 2.0, I could see it realistically being a ground up change that they could add successfully through that process.

Personally, besides the Hatchetman and Axeman, I would really like to have my ASN-99 with it's sword. Chop chop! Real ninja stuff.

Edited by kuma8877, 14 August 2017 - 08:40 AM.

[Bombast]

Jack Booted Thug, on 14 August 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:

And mech hats, hats for mechs.

Edited by Bombast, 14 August 2017 - 08:41 AM.

[Gristle Missile]

Metus regem, on 14 August 2017 - 08:23 AM, said:

To be blunt (heh), a sword is a bad weapon to use against armour. If you want to take to melee against something that is armoured, a club, flail, mace, warhammer or maul is a much better choice. Just look at what weapons were idea for fighting knights in plate armour, it wasn't the traditional arming sword, it was the mace or warhammer. Plate was great at deflecting swords, not so grate against getting caved in by blunt force weapons or being punctured by weapons such as arrows and spears.

You are right about a sword being less effective against armor...but you have to consider that these mechs are designed to withstand impact from huge shells, missiles, rockets, etc. Traveling at high velocities. The crushing power of a mace with a large surface area at a very low velocity wont do that much against a skeleton of steel - they have very good shock absorption... well, at least compared to human flesh and bones.

Thats why Battletech traditionally used hatchets - a cutting edge is very effective in digging into external armor - you can chop in chunks and maybe sever ammo lines, gyros, actuators, etc

A sword isn't all that different...but it is probably less effective than a hatchet

it does have the added bonus of a pointed edge, which would yield better penetration during a thrust (provided the battlemech CAN do a thrust)

Edited by Gristle Missile, 14 August 2017 - 09:32 AM.

[Bombast]

For funsies in comparisons...

Hatchet
To Hit: -1
Damage: Weight/5
Weight: Weight/15
Crits: Weight/15

Sword
To Hit: -2
Damage: (Weight/10)+1
Weight: Weight/20
Crits: Weight/15

Mace
To Hit: -1
Damage: Weight/4
Weight: Weight/10
Crits: Weight/10

So, in tabletop terms, the Sword is the 'finesse' weapon, low damage but easier to hit with. The Hatchet is the basic bruiser, and the mace is the 'Real Deal.'

Edited by Bombast, 14 August 2017 - 09:18 AM.

[Metus regem]

Gristle Missile, on 14 August 2017 - 08:56 AM, said:

You are right about a sword being less effective against armor...but you have to consider that these mechs are designed to withstand impact from huge shells, missiles, rockets, etc. Traveling at high velocities. The crushing power of a mace with a large surface area at a very low velocity wont do that much against a skeleton of steel - they have very good shock absorption... well, at least compared to human flesh and bones.

Thats why Battletech traditionally used hatchets - a cutting edge is very effective against digging into external armor - you can chop in chunks and maybe sever ammo lines, gyros, actuators, etc

A sword isn't all that different...but it is probably less effective than a hatchet

it does have the added bonus of a pointed edge, which would yield better penetration during a thrust (provided the battlemech CAN do a thrust)

Sort of, a Mace will put all that damage into a small area, increasing the PSI (pounds per square inch) of the impact, especially if it is a fanged mace. There is also the concussive force generated by the impact that would likely be able to damage the internal frame work of the mech taking the impact, perhaps even destroying sensitive equipment. Also as Bombast pointed out the Mace has a better damage to weight ratio than a hatchet in BT, though with worse weight and crit requirements.

[Bombast]

Metus regem, on 14 August 2017 - 09:15 AM, said:

Sort of, a Mace will put all that damage into a small area, increasing the PSI (pounds per square inch) of the impact, especially if it is a fanged mace. There is also the concussive force generated by the impact that would likely be able to damage the internal frame work of the mech taking the impact, perhaps even destroying sensitive equipment.

Also worth mentioning is that Battletech armor isn't 'all or nothing' like typical metal body armor - It's ablative. Because of how it works, just pumping as much kinetic damage into the plates as possible is probably a better solution than trying to minimize surface area struck with a sword type blade.

Edited by Bombast, 14 August 2017 - 09:37 AM.

[Metus regem]

Bombast, on 14 August 2017 - 09:26 AM, said:

Also worth mentioning is that Battletech armor isn't 'all or nothing' like typical metal body armor - It's ablative. Because of how it works, just pumping as much kinetic damage into the plates as possible is probably a better solution that trying to minimize surface area struck with a sword type blade.

Again while true, being able to put the most damage possible into one small spot would increase your chances of damaging something on the inside, like generating a TAC. (Through Armour Critical)

[Adridos]

Metus regem, on 14 August 2017 - 08:23 AM, said:

Swords as a mech weapon system are really, really dumb. From a mechanical point of view, I doubt we'd see the range of motion in the arms and wrists of our mechs to make sword strikes viable, as swords require proper strike geometry to be effective in the first place. They also need proper edge geometry to be effective, this is even before what they are striking into needs to vulnerable to a slicing motion..

As if any of the weapon systems in Battletech ever made any sense. From weapons that have smaller ranges than weapons of antiquity, aiming systems that can't hit 9 times out of ten, weapons losing range as the caliber increases as if we were shooting age of sail cannon-balls...

Swords are silly, but the Battletech kind of silly.



If you really wanted to make them less silly, you could always go the Gundam way and use Star Wars light sabers. Doesn't matter what it is when the weapon can literally cut through anything.

[Mawai]

Brain Cancer, on 13 August 2017 - 08:43 PM, said:

Melee weapon = really short range "shot" that resets arm weapon cooldown using it.

Not happening, though. PGI cannot into melee weapons, kicks, or punches for whatever reason.

Melee gets into all the issues surrounding mech collision and knockdown when running on separate clients that can be separated by 1/2 second each to the server and 1 second from each other. The other guy could have legged your mech with a hatchet and knocked you over before you even start your punch/kick/strike ... even though you pressed your button as soon as you saw the opponent. Host state rewind solves some of the problems ... but it isn't trivial.

To start with I think the game engine itself needs to support synchronous multiplayer updates so that when a character/mech is knocked down or moved by a collision then the mech is located at the same place at the same time on all clients. The problem with that is laggy game play since the client can't update mech location until after receiving the server update on where to draw it (this was one of the fundamental issues with the old collision code ... if you could figure out where the mech actually was when it was knocked over you could shoot at that empty space and damage the opponent. Then when the mech standing up animation started you could usually fire somewhere near there to get in a few free shots before it could respond).

Knockdowns due to collision were more like a stun lock in other MMOs ... you could knock down a mech and keep knocking it down while firing on it trying to get up. One of the roles of lights was to collide with a harrassing enemy mech near your team so that when he was knocked over, all of your team mates could focus fire on it as he got up. In some ways, it was fun but made for pretty unrealistic game play.

Anyway, adding melee weapons to the game requires resolving the collision and knockdown issues so it is a much bigger task than might first appear.

... and the main question becomes ... where is the profit center for PGI with that development task. How will collisions/knockdowns and melee increase MWO revenues?

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

Swords make no sense in battletech......swords to brittle...hatchets, axes, clubs...blunt objects do more damage to something of a.battlemech. sharp swords would break and chip so fast....and also we don't need Gundams in this game...

More appropriately, a Battlemech sword is a well-balanced club. No, really. There are piercing weapons (lances, yes really- Solaris y'know, and the Word of Blake was infamous for retractable blades) , and there are cutting weapons, but those are powered ones- vibroblades, not strictly physical damage.

Quote

Melee gets into all the issues surrounding mech collision and knockdown when running on separate clients that can be separated by 1/2 second each to the server and 1 second from each other. The other guy could have legged your mech with a hatchet and knocked you over before you even start your punch/kick/strike ... even though you pressed your button as soon as you saw the opponent. Host state rewind solves some of the problems ... but it isn't trivial.

It's. A. Shot. Effect.

There is no knockdown. Collision is a moot point. All melee has to be is a brief "attacking" flash visual effect ala most fighting games, followed by a shot-hit effect if it strikes.

If we can handle shooting each other point-blank, melee attacks are...point-blank shots. This is nothing the engine doesn't already handle.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 14 August 2017 - 10:12 AM.

[BrunoSSace]

Id love to own an Axman. But it will never happen.

[Lucifaust]

We don't even have proper collision mechanics FFS


swords would break the game.

[Brain Cancer]

"It would break the game."

How does a 10m-range "gun" break the game?



Make slashing "trail" effect. If it intersects target, trigger hit SFX and damage.

[Kanil]

Who needs swords when you can have limb clubs? Just imagine beating a Clanner to death with his own arm!

[Brain Cancer]

Oh, I'd have no problem with clubbing people to death with their own arm.

Except most of my favorites lack two hands to wield it. Ah, sadness.

[Bombast]

Brain Cancer, on 14 August 2017 - 01:22 PM, said:

Oh, I'd have no problem with clubbing people to death with their own arm.

What about your own arms?

Edited by Bombast, 14 August 2017 - 01:34 PM.

[RedDragon]

Adridos, on 14 August 2017 - 09:42 AM, said:

If you really wanted to make them less silly, you could always go the Gundam way and use Star Wars light sabers. Doesn't matter what it is when the weapon can literally cut through anything.

You mean like those?

[Adridos]

RedDragon, on 14 August 2017 - 01:56 PM, said:

You mean like those?

Well, at least you can be a Zaku with that thing.

[Snowbluff]

CK16, on 14 August 2017 - 02:47 AM, said:

Swords make no sense in battletech......swords to brittle...hatchets, axes, clubs...blunt objects do more damage to something of a.battlemech. sharp swords would break and chip so fast....and also we don't need Gundams in this game...

Well, not anymore brittle than the hatchet would. I would question if the mech would have the dexterity to maneuver it into a weakpoint like an actuator. I guess you would have to make it like crowbar like Gristle suggested.

Gristle Missile, on 14 August 2017 - 05:58 AM, said:

I mean, I will admit I like the Japanese mecha shows too...

Gundam: 08th MS Team is the best Battletech show we never got. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Edited by Snowbluff, 14 August 2017 - 02:12 PM.