478 replies to this topic

[Nightbird]

_Magno_, on 23 January 2020 - 04:16 AM, said:

Nightbird, its a nice discussion, but as an engineer who has worked on vehicles, missles, satelites, planes and construction equipment, the assumption of uniform density is very simplistic.

Your volumetric comparison relies more on uniform integration of structure, components, hydraulics, armor, etc..

Which easily is not going to be the case. Each Mech is designed with different objectives in mind; speed, firepower, armor, etc..
Profile and silhouette are also a big design consideration.

Known as attribute or parameter balancing. With assaults, you're not often favoring small profile, you're favoring armor and firepower and heat efficiency. The return on maximizing those attributes are easier to obtain rather than forcing a bad integration.

So the way the structure is composed, the engine laid out, and integrated can easily and often provide for strange negative spaces inside the mechs. This in turn will affect volume.

On the small mechs, the objective is to accommodate speed, profile, etc.. So the designers will place more effort in compacting the design.

So the Atlas, which is the scouting mech, is designed for maximum speed,

And the Commando, which is the lynch pin of the battle, is design for maximum compactness?

If you want to add more logic to this thread, the only result is going to be that Assaults are more dense, not less dense, than lights because the former are for tanking damage and the latter are for speed and support. This is if you're taking the density of tanks IRL into the discussion, engineers make tanks meant to take hits far more dense than those that are not, for example mobile artillery or armored transports or fast skirmishers.

Unless, of course, from your engineering background you'd like to explain the reasoning that uniform surface area/ton is the better metric to use. I.e. explain why starting with uniform surface area per ton and adjusting for mech role is better than starting with uniform volume per ton and adjusting for mech role, and as the former is what we have today.

Edited by Nightbird, 23 January 2020 - 06:59 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 06:41 AM, said:

So the Atlas, which is the scouting mech, is designed for maximum speed,

And the Commando, which is the lynch pin of the battle, is design for maximum compactness?

If you want to add more logic to this thread, the only result is going to be that Assaults are more dense, not less dense, than lights because the former are for tanking damage and the latter are for speed and support. This is if you're taking the density of tanks IRL into the discussion, engineers make tanks meant to take hits far more dense than those that are not, for example mobile artillery or armored transports or fast skirmishers.

But density doesn't necessarily follow size.

Nature proves this.

If the 100 ton assault and 25 ton light were the exact same size, yes, absolutely the 100 ton assault would have to be more dense than the light.

In this case the assault while 4 times the weight is also 2 times the size.

Keep in mind there are a LOT of 'identical' between the assault and light 'mechs:
Weapon sizes and weights are identical. - It is NOT a different weapons system between the various 'mech classes.
Engine sizes and weights are identical. - It is NOT a different engine system between the various 'mech classes.
Armor plates size and weights are identical. - It is NOT a different type of armor between the various 'mech classes.

The differences between the two is that the assault has a larger heavier skeleton to carry more armor and more weapons, the main trade off being a significant sacrifice in speed.

Given that everything is the same size, weight, and density between the two 'mechs, we can see that due to the compact size of the Commando, IT is the 'mech that is the probably MOST DENSE between the two.

Kind of like cars: I had a friend whose father was an engineer/mechanic and as a "let's see if we can build a sleeper street dragster" kind of moment took 350R V8 engine from an old Cutlass Supreme and mounted into an old 78 Datsun. It fit, but there wasn't much room available for maneuvering if you had to work on the engine. The 'density' of that Datsun was much greater than the much larger, heavier Cutlass Supreme.

The Datsun was definitely faster than the original Cutlass Supreme (unfortunately it was wrecked around 6 months later due to their having overlooked upgrading the brakes, no one was hurt but the car was absolutely totaled).

Edited by Dimento Graven, 23 January 2020 - 07:09 AM.

[Nightbird]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 07:04 AM, said:

But density doesn't necessarily follow size.

Nature proves this.

Name one thing or set of things in nature that scales by uniform surface area per ton.

The following things scale by uniform volume density:
Humans (all Mammals)
Other animals of the same genus
Trees
Plants

Mammals: https://royalsociety.../rspb.2010.0117
Trees: https://www.engineer...nsity-d_40.html

Edited by Nightbird, 23 January 2020 - 07:19 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 07:16 AM, said:

Name one thing or set of things in nature that scales by uniform surface area per ton.

The following things scale by uniform volume density:
Humans (all Mammals)
Other animals of the same genus
Trees
Plants

Mammals: https://royalsociety.../rspb.2010.0117
Trees: https://www.engineer...nsity-d_40.html

The planet Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, yet it's density is such that it would float on water.

Nuetron stars, are stars that have collapsed to the size of cities, yet are so dense one cubic centimeter of it is estimated to weight the same as all the automobiles on earth.

What's more dense: A pound of solid iron, or a pound of iron filings? Which has more surface area?

Was the Hidenburg more dense than a 747 just because it was 4 times larger?

So on and so forth...

We're talking about engineered machines, not organics.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 23 January 2020 - 07:49 AM.

[Nightbird]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 07:43 AM, said:

The planet Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, yet it's density is such that it would float on water.

Nuetron stars, are stars that have collapsed to the size of cities, yet are so dense one cubic centimeter of it is estimated to weight the same as all the automobiles on earth.

What's more dense: A pound of solid iron, or a pound of iron filings? Which has more surface area?

Was the Hidenburg more dense than a 747 just because it was 4 times larger?

So on and so forth...

We're talking about engineered machines, not organics.

So... find us some engineered machines that list its specs or is compared by weight to surface area ratio....

I'll save you the time, weight to surface area ratio is not a thing in science. Only density. Mass exists in 3 dimensions.

This applies to stars, planets, even rocks. I mean how can you even pick rocks, rocks have the same density between the same rock type regardless of size, whereas the surface area to weight ratio changes for every natural rock.

[Dimento Graven]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 08:20 AM, said:

So... find us some engineered machines that list its specs or is compared by weight to surface area ratio....

I'll save you the time, weight to surface area ratio is not a thing in science. Only density. Mass exists in 3 dimensions.

I'm not arguing that, you're right, and that's the point.

However in this game "more armor" does not equal 'more survivability', especially due to the fact that, in some cases, "more armor" is being spread thinly across "more surface area".

To get the 'survivability' consistent across classes (more accurately, between various chassis), some adjustments to armor maximums will need to be made.

The sizes don't need to be changed, just the numbers underneath them.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 23 January 2020 - 08:27 AM.

[Nightbird]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 08:26 AM, said:

I'm not arguing that, you're right, and that's the point.

However in this game "more armor" does not equal 'more survivability', especially due to the fact that, in some cases, "more armor" is being spread thinly across "more surface area".

To get the 'survivability' consistent across classes (more accurately, between various chassis), some adjustments to armor maximums will need to be made.

The sizes don't need to be changed, just the numbers underneath them.

If the mechs were scaled by volume, then surface area would decrease and the same armor would be spread over a smaller surface area, granting more survivability.

Also, the whole problem was caused by PGI promising "volumetric scaling with adjustment" then doing "surface area scaling with adjustments". Can we at least call that idiotic? Or are we going to defend PGI by saying that by doing volumetric scaling and then adjusting to surface area scaling, they kept their promise?

Edited by Nightbird, 23 January 2020 - 08:36 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 08:34 AM, said:

If the mechs were scaled by volume, then surface area would decrease and the same armor would be spread over a smaller surface area, granting more survivability.

Also, the whole problem was caused by PGI promising "volumetric scaling with adjustment" then doing "surface area scaling with adjustments". Can we at least call that idiotic? Or are we going to defend PGI by saying that by doing volumetric scaling and then adjusting to surface area scaling, they kept their promise?

I still don't see it as a volumetric solution, but maybe you're right.

As far as Russ keeping his promises... Don't even get me started on that, again, it's a good thing he's on the opposite end of the continent from me.

[Prototelis]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 08:26 AM, said:

However in this game "more armor" does not equal 'more survivability', especially due to the fact that, in some cases, "more armor" is being spread thinly across "more surface area".

lol wut

[Dimento Graven]

Prototelis, on 23 January 2020 - 09:30 AM, said:

lol wut

Let's put it this way:

Let's take an Atlas, leave it at its current size, reduce the weapons, and increase the speed and movement profile to match, exactly, that of a Commando, letting the Atlas keep it's superior armor, and then have a that Atlas try and do the dashing into and out of 12 enemy 'mechs, like we see Commandos and other lights do.

Would you really expect the Atlas to last as long as the Commando/lights typically do?

No, you wouldn't.

Those huge *** hit boxes, even though covered by more armor are MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH easier to hit, even with Commando level speed, the fact of those huge hit boxes will be allowing less precise aiming required to kill it.

[Brauer]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 10:27 AM, said:

Let's put it this way:

Let's take an Atlas, leave it at its current size, reduce the weapons, and increase the speed and movement profile to match, exactly, that of a Commando, letting the Atlas keep it's superior armor, and then have a that Atlas try and do the dashing into and out of 12 enemy 'mechs, like we see Commandos and other lights do.

Would you really expect the Atlas to last as long as the Commando/lights typically do?

No, you wouldn't.

Those huge *** hit boxes, even though covered by more armor are MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH easier to hit, even with Commando level speed, the fact of those huge hit boxes will be allowing less precise aiming required to kill it.

So you think because assaults and lights have different roles and playstyles the lowest performing and highest risk mechs need to be nerfed, or the highest performing lowest risk mechs need a buff?

There are certainly examples of trash tier mechs that need some kind of buff and or re-scale (Jenner, firestarter, should be smaller imo and far needs more pitch; WHMiic might warrant some mobility, atlases probably more twist, etc), but what do you actually want? Assaults that can expose to 6 mechs and live? A hard coded rule to prevent lights from killing assaults?

It really just sounds like you want your preferred class to get a buff and the lights to get slapped with the nerf bat. As another who pilots assaults quite a bit, and mains them in some situations, I think that's self-serving and misguided.

[Prototelis]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 10:27 AM, said:

Let's put it this way:

Let's take an Atlas, leave it at its current size, reduce the weapons, and increase the speed and movement profile to match, exactly, that of a Commando, letting the Atlas keep it's superior armor, and then have a that Atlas try and do the dashing into and out of 12 enemy 'mechs, like we see Commandos and other lights do.

Would you really expect the Atlas to last as long as the Commando/lights typically do?

No, you wouldn't.

Those huge *** hit boxes, even though covered by more armor are MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH easier to hit, even with Commando level speed, the fact of those huge hit boxes will be allowing less precise aiming required to kill it.

lol wut.

[Dimento Graven]

Brauer, on 23 January 2020 - 10:35 AM, said:

So you think because assaults and lights have different roles and playstyles the lowest performing and highest risk mechs need to be nerfed, or the highest performing lowest risk mechs need a buff?

There are certainly examples of trash tier mechs that need some kind of buff and or re-scale (Jenner, firestarter, should be smaller imo and far needs more pitch; WHMiic might warrant some mobility, atlases probably more twist, etc), but what do you actually want? Assaults that can expose to 6 mechs and live? A hard coded rule to prevent lights from killing assaults?

It really just sounds like you want your preferred class to get a buff and the lights to get slapped with the nerf bat. As another who pilots assaults quite a bit, and mains them in some situations, I think that's self-serving and misguided.

What do I want?

Well, since you ask, here's a short list:

1. Assaults need more torso twist and pitch range.
2. Knock downs implemented (with logic rules behind them to help reduce the opportunity for abuses - and why the hell we don't AT LEAST have this in Solaris where it's 1v1 or 2v2 battles where there's basically ZERO chance for exploiting I dunno... Solaris probably would be MUCH more popular with knock downs and physical attacks...).
3. Physical attacks, OR AT THE VERY LEASE: significant damage for enemy 'mech collisions - no more after match 'mech lambadas...
4. Certain 'mechs need more armor tweaking due to their having LARGE surface areas/easily hit hit boxes.
5. Missile ammo/ton returned to table top values.
6. Removal of ghost heat in favor of an actual heat affects table - where as your mech gets hotter, various detrimental effects are activated (slower speed, reticule shake, 'red screen', weapon misfires, etc.).
7. Alpine Peaks increased rotation rate so that I'll get to play more than once every 3 days.
9. A KGC with ballistics in BOTH torsos.
10. Fixing the KGC's right arm ballistics weapons placement so that you don't end up with the 3rd ballistic being placed in a stupid position (at least in 'mech lab).
11. Fix dual gauss "desync" that occurs when one gauss is destroyed.
12. Eliminate gauss explosions when not charged. The chance that a gauss should explode when hit should equal the charge level. If the gauss is not charged, it should not explode (just be destroyed). If the gauss is 50% charged it should have a 50% chance of explosion, so on and so forth...
13. Quad 'mechs
14. The Hatchetman
15. PGI to have actually invested in advertising this game for the past 7 years.

That's just a short list off the top of my head of things I've wished for in this game, there's much much more...

Edited by Dimento Graven, 23 January 2020 - 10:50 AM.

[_Magno_]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 08:23 AM, said:

So... find us some engineered machines that list its specs or is compared by weight to surface area ratio....

I'll save you the time, weight to surface area ratio is not a thing in science. Only density. Mass exists in 3 dimensions.

This applies to stars, planets, even rocks. I mean how can you even pick rocks, rocks have the same density between the same rock type regardless of size, whereas the surface area to weight ratio changes for every natural rock.

Hot air balloons, airplanes and even vehicles don't follow this volumetric scaling. Again, because they don't follow uniform density.

Missiles to rockets scale the same either. Hydrogen is the best chemical fuel on a mass basis, yet worst on a volume basis. The amount of payload you can sling into orbit is going to be significantly less with a Delta 5 fueled by kerosene vs Hydrogen. Kerosene being more dense than Hydrogen. Yet no one is gonna fuel a Delta 5 with Kerosene, it'd be a waste and improper use of the design.

The Ford GT50 released in the mid 2000s is almost the same weight as my Ford Flex and the Flex has more volume, despite the use of lighter materials in the GT. Same arguement with a GT500 Mustang. The Flex has more internal volume than a Ford Explorer, even though the Explorer is larger and weighs more, yet the Flex can absorb more energy in crash tests.

The Atlas could absorb more damage, etc., by spacing materials out and creating "crush" zones that allow the material to transfer kinetic impact outward before it breaks. To accomplish this, you need empty space for materials to flex and bend.

Battletech designs don't go into serious engineering depth of advanced materials and reactive armor like we do with modern tanks to lower weights and keep the silhouettes small.

Its a great observation you made at the beginning of the thread.

[_Magno_]

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 10:49 AM, said:

What do I want?

Well, since you ask, here's a short list:

11. Fix dual gauss "desync" that occurs when one gauss is destroyed.
12. Eliminate gauss explosions when not charged. The chance that a gauss should explode when hit should equal the charge level. If the gauss is not charged, it should not explode (just be destroyed). If the gauss is 50% charged it should have a 50% chance of explosion, so on and so forth...
13. Quad 'mechs
14. The Hatchetman

Absolutely. In tabletop this makes sense to penalize the use of gauss since all weapons have the same cooldown, pinpoint damage (save for clusters).

I magnetic coil not charging up an induction field wouldn't do **** if the coils ruptured without energy applied.

Dimento Graven, on 23 January 2020 - 10:49 AM, said:

15. PGI to have actually invested in advertising this game for the past 7 years.

New to dealing with PGI as a game studio, it certainly would be great. I only started playing in Dec. Totally didn't want to touch FtP games. Then after a year of Warframe and MW5 release, figured I'd give this game a shot and its ******* fantastic.

[Nightbird]

_Magno_, on 23 January 2020 - 11:04 AM, said:

Hot air balloons, airplanes and even vehicles don't follow this volumetric scaling. Again, because they don't follow uniform density.

Missiles to rockets scale the same either. Hydrogen is the best chemical fuel on a mass basis, yet worst on a volume basis. The amount of payload you can sling into orbit is going to be significantly less with a Delta 5 fueled by kerosene vs Hydrogen. Kerosene being more dense than Hydrogen. Yet no one is gonna fuel a Delta 5 with Kerosene, it'd be a waste and improper use of the design.

The Ford GT50 released in the mid 2000s is almost the same weight as my Ford Flex and the Flex has more volume, despite the use of lighter materials in the GT. Same arguement with a GT500 Mustang. The Flex has more internal volume than a Ford Explorer, even though the Explorer is larger and weighs more, yet the Flex can absorb more energy in crash tests.

The Atlas could absorb more damage, etc., by spacing materials out and creating "crush" zones that allow the material to transfer kinetic impact outward before it breaks. To accomplish this, you need empty space for materials to flex and bend.

In these examples, is surface area per ton a metric that engineers consider or care about?

[Tesunie]

Seen as this thread is still going, I'd like to chime in with just a little comment to think on. If it's been said already, sorry.

Basically, though I'm not defending nor bashing PGI's scaling not the OP's thoughts about scaling, different mechs did have different spaces internally.

For a few examples on scaling:
- The Atlas and Centurion are actually much closer to the same height (though the Centurion is much thinner in lore than in this game).
- The Orion is praised by techs for it's large and open working spaces, permitting them to crawl around the interior of the mech with greater ease. (Which means, for it's tonnage it actually would appear larger.)

Without access to these specific data sets for all mechs, I'll agree with the OP that we need to assume that all mechs have the same internal mass per cubed meters/feet.

However, in PGI's defense (as I said, I'm not arguing for nor against either side at the moment), game balance with mech size does need to be considered as well. Some mechs might need to be smaller than one might think to perform better within the gaming environment, while trying to remain reasonable within considered scaling norms.


Personally speaking (now that I'm done playing a little devil's advocate here) I think that Nightbird (the OP) has an excellent point. It does feel like the disparity between the weight classes and their scaling does feel like it's off. Light/small mechs appear too small when next to heavier/larger mechs.

[Prototelis]

Issue could just be handwaved if tonnage class was more of a GWVR instead of the literal complete weight of the vehicle.

[MischiefSC]

Nightbird, on 23 January 2020 - 08:23 AM, said:

So... find us some engineered machines that list its specs or is compared by weight to surface area ratio....

I'll save you the time, weight to surface area ratio is not a thing in science. Only density. Mass exists in 3 dimensions.

This applies to stars, planets, even rocks. I mean how can you even pick rocks, rocks have the same density between the same rock type regardless of size, whereas the surface area to weight ratio changes for every natural rock.

Not to over-nerd, but not really.

Density is a product of environmental pressure. If I tie rocks to your feet and drop you in the Marianas Trench your density will change significantly.

Neutron stars are largely made of iron - just that a spoon full of neutron star iron would theoretically weigh about 15 times as much as the moon would weigh if it were set on the surface of the earth. Not really testable though as without the truly eye-twitching large number representing the gravity of a neutron star (approximately 2×10¹¹ the gravity of earth) compressing it that teaspoon of iron would explode from neutron degeneracy pressure. It would be a big boom. Knocked out of orbit, big piece missing sort.

Density is a pretty flexible thing.

However in the context of this argument your point still stands, because the subject itself is absurd. A 100 ton Atlas doesn't work. It should be only slightly larger (in terms of volume) than the Commando.

But that's not stompy robbit zoh-my-gawd ATLAS IS DEH BIG ROOBIT fun.

So scale of the mech needs adjusted the same way hardpoint height is changed and hitboxes tweaked and hardpoint total is tweaked and mobility is tweaked. There's 0 reason to have the Timber Wolf handle so poorly. In fact that's directly against the lore of the Timber Wolf - it's one of the most nimble heavies ever created. However for balancing reasons (some of them terrible) all those things get tweaked.

**** logical scaling. There's no logic to it currently, none at all. It's magical stompy robbit happy fun time game logic. Just apply that to scaling.

[Jackal Noble]

;p
(note the photobombing dwarf 80 tonner)

Edited by Jackal Noble, 24 January 2020 - 02:14 AM.