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Battlemech Hand Actuators


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#1 MechaBattler

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Posted 20 March 2018 - 01:52 PM

Can the hand actuators do precise work and if so, how did that work from the pilot's end? Were there pre-programmed actions. Or was it all joystick control?

#2 Bombast

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Posted 20 March 2018 - 02:12 PM

Sarna.net said:

Older 'Mechs use either a pair of waldo gloves placed on either side of the command chair or sensors built into the MechWarrior's gloves in order to execute more deft hand movements; the 'Mech simply mimics the MechWarrior's gestures while these systems are activated. - Newer 'Mechs utilize more capable and complex Actuator programming along with input from touch-sensitive surfaces on the control stick (or sticks) in order to carry out all but the most complex movements. However, for very fine movements, such as those involved in some combat engineering, newer 'Mechs still have to use the same pilot-gesture-movement mimicking setup that the older 'Mechs did (the comments from section 5.2 also apply here).

Edited by Bombast, 20 March 2018 - 02:13 PM.


#3 Brain Cancer

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Posted 20 March 2018 - 05:20 PM

And really, really high tech control systems like the Clan EI or the Word of Blake's VDNI/BDNI systems actually were to the point of think-do when it came to fine motion of a Battlemech. The drawback, of course was also enhanced feedback: Damage to the unit frequently ended up damaging the pilot as well, above and beyond the usual from things like ammo explosions.

#4 Metus regem

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Posted 20 March 2018 - 08:57 PM

View PostBrain Cancer, on 20 March 2018 - 05:20 PM, said:

And really, really high tech control systems like the Clan EI or the Word of Blake's VDNI/BDNI systems actually were to the point of think-do when it came to fine motion of a Battlemech. The drawback, of course was also enhanced feedback: Damage to the unit frequently ended up damaging the pilot as well, above and beyond the usual from things like ammo explosions.


Not to mention the EI often lead to Clan Pilots being mentally ill and or imbalanced after prolonged use...

#5 Koniving

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Posted 21 March 2018 - 08:02 AM

View PostMechaBattler, on 20 March 2018 - 01:52 PM, said:

Can the hand actuators do precise work and if so, how did that work from the pilot's end? Were there pre-programmed actions. Or was it all joystick control?

For a visual of what your first responder gave...



Also four or five episodes into the 1980s PatLabor television series, you'll see the original which inspired that aspect of Battletech. Noa Izumi uses the gloves to play a coordination game called "Cat's Cradle" to fine tune her precision-control and to practice. This among several other things really help to boost her piloting skills... though her actual gunnery skills leave a lot to be desired, she instead specializes more in melee.

(Which I reflected on here when using Ota and Noa as test pilots for new mech designs; given that Ota is the opposite, he's an insurance nightmare and a clutz when it comes to piloting, but his obsession with Labor [Mech] weaponry has led to a lot of practice and a love for aiming without the help of the fire control system.)
Posted Image
(Note: Though I mention down below that higher numbers are worse... there's a setting in Megamek that translates the skill instead as higher means better. It doesn't affect mechanics in any way, it just shows the numbers differently so that the natural association of "higher is better" is reflected... instead of BT's native but awkward "lower is better" with "0/0" being god tier aimboting.

Edited by Koniving, 21 March 2018 - 08:45 AM.


#6 Koniving

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Posted 21 March 2018 - 08:17 AM

View PostMechaBattler, on 20 March 2018 - 01:52 PM, said:

Can the hand actuators do precise work and if so, how did that work from the pilot's end? Were there pre-programmed actions. Or was it all joystick control?

Now this said.. Most industrial mechs use a series of rocker switches and joysticks for all the finer controls.
Not many mechs are still around that had the glove setup, though it does make a return sometime after 3030 on newer models (as with many other lost technologies due to the Helm Memory Core's discovery, despite all of Comstar's attempts to put a stop to its spread, if they did anything more they would have tipped their hand and given away that their 'neutral status' was bull.)

As for basic movements, they seem to be somewhat pre-programmed / proceedurally generated. The Tech Manual, which like many of today's publications blatantly steals the information from BattleTechnology (although the same crockpot that created "The Broken" an AI overmind that controlled a bunch of mechs in a universe where the dangers of AI was discovered well before 2500 with AI warships, has declared BattleTechnology to be non-canon after 20+ years and battletech changing "owning" companies 3 to 4 times by this point).... goes into great length under the cockpit section for how aiming, punches/kicks/etc. goes. Basically flip on "Punch." Aim where you want to punch. Pull trigger. Or flip on punch (some specifically had a grab switch), aim at something that could be used as a weapon, and the mech would pick it up. I imagine an issue existed if you had some confusing intent when you wanted to grab some weapon and instead punched it.

Intention is a big factor in mech controls, however. The neuro helm serves two major functions. The first is balance and when to be balanced as opposed to unbalanced. The other is intention. Lets say that enemy fire is coming in. The Mech's default action is to adjust to evade or deflect. (This is why hits frequently land on arms in the tabletop game; the defending mech is trying to protect itself). However if the pilot is unconscious, no intent can be determined. (This is why you can only give "Called shots" aka 'aim' at a specific body part if the enemy mech is not powered, or the pilot is unconscious). No intent, no action can be taken; a fail safe in case of potential AI issues from 500+ years of paranoia against AI.

Where this becomes interesting is the mech naturally wants to avoid damage. But the pilot can intend to take the damage (say protecting something else from fire). In cases like wanting to shoot through a building with the arm extended, when the arm will go through the building... The mech won't do it... unless the pilot expressly wants the arms to go through the building. But this kind of control is very limited, the mech itself decides "how" to do the actions, all the system can get from the pilot is "will self-harm be acceptable?"

From the same source... Precision work kinda depends. The basic limits is what you can do with really big fingers. The hands can be gentle enough to pick up people and animals without hurting them, and strong enough to crush blocks of concrete and some kinds of metal.

Tank-lifting, however... Not so much.
Posted Image

Recently discovered (while doing a thing on the Powerman, the Buster, and the Loader King where I compared all of their lifting capabilities compared to each other and an Atlas... Battlemechs came out as significantly inferior in terms of "Do you even lift, bro?" Battlemechs, without the support of TSM or Lift Hoists, can only lift 10% of their body weight. A custom unofficial rule makes it "10% of their body weight per hand." So an Atlas can lift 20 tons. But a 35 ton Powerman with the help of lift hoists can lift 35 tons. A specific Buster equipped with both TSM and Lift Hoists could lift 100 tons even though it is 50 tons.

[I had errorneously listed it as being able to lift 150 tons. Need to go fix that.] N/m, I forgot the 150 tons was the maximum possible it could weigh under a full load. [39 tons unloaded, 11 tons cargo mounts, (rated 50 tons) 100 tons held by the arms... Buster's a hell of a beast, but TSM and industrial chassis both combine to make the average 4/5 pilot behave like a 6/7 pilot... higher numbers are worse, a "5" pilot is green, like a first time car driver. Lack of fire control software means all aiming is manual, not that it has any weapons anyway but that's a +2 difficulty to hit anything. Basic FCS is +1 and Advanced FCS is +0 [basically the same as any battlemech])

Edited by Koniving, 21 March 2018 - 08:40 AM.


#7 MechaBattler

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Posted 21 March 2018 - 09:50 AM

I can't hit "like" hard enough. Especially on Koniving's posts. That's mighty impressive collection of information. Totally made the start of my day nerding out over it :3

#8 Brain Cancer

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Posted 22 March 2018 - 02:04 PM

Part of why Battlemechs have a (relatively) low additional lift weight is they're more designed for carrying their integral systems around in a solid, difficult to destroy arrangement vs. being optimized for, well, picking things up. Thus things like lift hoists, which are systems that are made to allow for the unit in question to carry something in a more optimized manner.

The DI system/subsystems in a Battlemech are remarkably "smart", but not autonomous and as noted, are most useful when trying to avoid damage. Running down a street? Unless overridden, your ride is going to automatically try to avoid stepping on cars or banging through light poles to minimize damage or stability loss, and will nudge your course to curve around a corner rather than smashing through it. On the other hand, you can literally free-climb with a Battlemech up a cliff face, if you're a decent pilot and don't mind taking it slow. The "assisted driving" greatly expands what you'd expect a giant robot could do, and manual input/override means you see enough agility that canonically speaking, you can put 30+ tons of metal into a handstand and come back down without breaking anything.

#9 Koniving

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Posted 23 March 2018 - 10:28 PM

Techmanual specifically mentions handstands. Also a popular thing was wolverine slug fests. A melee specialist can fit 3 punches or two kicks into a turn. As opposed to up to 2 punches or one kick for anyone else.

#10 Koniving

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Posted 23 March 2018 - 10:33 PM

May be melee master. Not at home at the moment to check. My test pilot Noa Izumi has both to reflect the skills of the patlabor character of the same name. And a worse than "green" gunnery skill. Makes the AI clones very interesting to fight since they like to rip off limbs to beat you with, as well as charge attacks (think tackling) and grapples. Very difficult to deal with a 15 ton grappling much as a 20 to 25 ton much.

#11 Exilyth

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Posted 25 March 2018 - 09:18 AM

Kind of like this:
https://youtu.be/q6LpHhPE-qs?t=58s

... but with two joysticks, two arms and at a much larger scale.

#12 Koniving

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Posted 25 March 2018 - 11:22 AM

(For industrial/agro mechs).^

The jerkiness reminds me of the Buster's description. Though with TSM (Triple Strength Myomer [muscular structure]), there's a +1 difficulty for using it (whether industrial grade or military grade) in which movements are very 'jerky', requiring a bit of patience. The strength comes in handy for a wide range of applications, however, at the cost of ease of control.
-------------

For Mecha:
This is just a snippet of a much quicker loregasm ramble... But... You can click the arrow to jump to this following post if you wish as it went big time into hand actuators and "hand held weapons." The mainstay here is the match of AI players versus their AI player clones in Megamek. Patlabor's Noa Izumi and Ota are both in that story and thus, below as well. Noa, a melee specialist/master with terrible gunnery skills. And Ota, a clutzy pilot with higher than veteran weapon skills.... and some in-betweener as a control for the experiement... against themselves in a different set of originally designed test mechs. This should give you a big idea of what hand actuators can do. Keep in mind, one side of these mechs technically class as Industrial mechs and the other side class as civilian Battlemechs. Both sides have Commercial Grade Armor (Barrier Armor Rating of 5 instead of military grade of 10; in other words a lot more frequent through armor criticals and susceptible to infantry fire, but more armor points per ton). Check out the spoiler.

View PostKoniving, on 12 January 2018 - 10:29 AM, said:

Do you recall the example I gave earlier in the thread about the few good things that came from the Dark Ages (namely semi-fleshed out non-military mechs going above and beyond just a Cattlemaster and Harvester, and really getting into combat in populated areas filled with civilians, along with haphazardly put together abominations, a police force that intervenes against military invaders, etc..?

In it, I mentioned that after putting a set of three characters plus a set of clones of the three characters against each other in various custom made mechs as a test bed and giving each character its own AI player with a set personality that matches each character's clone version as well... I was given the surprise that a brash impatient, blitzer style character would not only do heroic things to protect both an enemy and an ally pilot from the 'horrors of battle' in a nearly self-sacrificing way, but did numerous things that I didn't even know could be done in Battletech. (Who knew you could pick up pilots for the sake of carrying them? Yes it makes sense but in a traditional tabletop match when and why would you do it? Did you know that if a weapon is considered Jettison capable under quirks, not only can it be abandoned on a whim but it can be picked up and utilized by any mech with hands, provided the hands are functional, even if the mech is otherwise quite compromised?)
Short story telling the events of Actual Gameplay from Megamek using every compatible rule I could put a check box on.
Spoiler

So that was amazing! It was one of the things that showed me just how breathtaking the Battletech tabletop could actually be when you go far beyond the basics.


#13 MechaBattler

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 12:33 PM

That's a lot of info lol. More than I thought I would get. But it did bring me to another question. Since so many mechs have hand actuators, especially within the Inner Sphere, why don't more mechs use hand weapons? Seems like it would add to the versatility of every battlemech with hands.

#14 Metus regem

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 12:52 PM

View PostMechaBattler, on 26 March 2018 - 12:33 PM, said:

That's a lot of info lol. More than I thought I would get. But it did bring me to another question. Since so many mechs have hand actuators, especially within the Inner Sphere, why don't more mechs use hand weapons? Seems like it would add to the versatility of every battlemech with hands.



Hand held weapons are a thing, but if they need ammo, then the ammo has to be incorporated into the weight of the weapon, if it needs heat sinks those have to be incorporated too, if you want it to be armoured against an attack, that weight has to be applied too...

So lets look at a hand held (jettison-able) medium laser.

MLas 1t
Heat sinks: 3t
Armour: 1t

Total weight: 4t

Sure doesn't seem worth it to me.... 4t expended for a short range (max 9 hex) 5 damage shot sure doesn't seem worth wile to me....

#15 Karl Streiger

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 12:56 PM

Only because of the construction rules.
When you think of the Cerberus for example. Why should the Cerb nit be able to carry a jettison-able heavy Gauss rifle in both arms?
For the cost of both Gauss rifles. The proto mechs are able to do this. So a main gun could be possible.... will think about it tomorrow.

#16 MechaBattler

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 01:21 PM

I always assumed that built in energy weapons required an energy feed system. So wouldn't some mechs require internal arm modifications and some kind of plug built into the hand to allow to interfacing a hand held medium laser? Feel like by the same idea you could also hook up some cooling lines to reduce the number of heatsinks you need mounted to the weapon specifically, instead mounting them internally.

#17 Metus regem

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 01:59 PM

That being said, this is the only hand held weapon a mech needs:

Posted Image


Though there was one time I had an atlas use a enemy Locust to kill an enemy Phoenix Hawk in CQB....

Buch of alternate rules were used, but long story short, grappled the Locust, then carried it into CQB as a club... Pixi's don't like taking 20 point hits to one location.... Then again, neither did the Locust... but the look on the face on the guy across the table from me was priceless... He was at table flip level of rage...

#18 Koniving

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Posted 26 March 2018 - 03:24 PM

Fast written stuff gives another explanation too.

The issue came up with stolen weapons. Get too close they swipe your gun and shoot you with it.

The equipment breakdown could go many ways later will edit this and address them.

Okay. So for starters the handheld rule of weapon plus ammo plus heatsinks plus armor.... I have seen it many times...but never in an official rulebook. It seems to be an in house rule. There is also debate as to whether it should or should not count against much stock weight as handheld melee weapons count against stock weight. But why is that when a 100 ton much can carry 10 to 20 tons? For that matter most of the commonly listed handheld weapons for the rule are held by the Thunderbolt and weigh between 6.5 and 12 tons which breaks the much carry rule. 6.5 tons works but 12 tons does indeed break the official rule.

Where it gets interesting is I did actually find a similar rule in a FASA book but not one that is considered official anymore.. ...Battletechnology. The prelude to the rule is in the second issue which has the breakdown of ranges and why they are what they are, autocannons firing patterns, dozens of infantry weapons...etc... And custom rules. In a later issue the handheld rule begins and it is very similar to the commonly accepted in house rule. Some differences include chances of dropping it for every piloting roll error, any hit of 20 damage or more has its own chance to drop plus another if knocked down... The weapon counts as modular but must be taken from an allotted weight to the much (so dedicate 8 tons to a handheld weapon and that is what you work with). And the enemy can try to steal it in a "new move called a grapple". The grapple move sticks but the rest of the rule is thrown out so far as I know. Much like Battletechnology's sniper rules which were thrown out in favor of an unlockable pilot quirk that just doubles the user's accurate range as opposed to having to be stationary to call a shot on one turn and then on the next be able to make the shot.. With up to 3 turns (two spent aiming and the third spent firing) that could be spent to get better odds of making the shot, but this allowed up to 3 times range with n increasing penalty. Gauss rifle and ER PPC would be some serious weapons under this rule. But it wasnt kept.

Anyway...
Basically all you actually awed to carry a handheld weapon is two hand actuators. You assign "modular" and "jettison-capable to your weapon, noting that officially if you take these two points of advantages you need (are supposed ) to take an equal number of points in disadvantages. Popular choices include a penalty for a certain range which they assign to the weapon. So an extra penalty for long range aiming or close range for example. The other thing to my knowledge is that if the opposing hand actuator is disabled then you can't reload. If the one holding the weapon is disabled you have to pick it up with the opposite arm and again no ability to reload it.

If any actuator in the arm is disabled you have to switch hands.

As mentioned earlier in this thread in the spoiler of a quote, Ota snags a Heavy Rifle from an enemy and uses it against one. And this was just AI versus AI players on Megamek. I was really impressed as I didn't know they could do a lot of that until reading the combat log (the entire match was done in less than one minute of real time taking 27 turns or "270 seconds" of game time).


Far as the feed system. Energy weapons were fed by cables leading to prongs in the mech's palm. This also hooked it to the mech's heatsinks pumps too. No escaping much heat buildup. Weapon insulator handles weapon heat, the rest is the reactor and weapon heat build up beyond that. An MG with a poor insulator makes 1 heat. Same mg makes 2 heat with no insulator. Under burst fire mg rules it can generate up to 5 heat with no insulator.

Fun, no?

Catch ya when I get home.

Edited by Koniving, 26 March 2018 - 07:31 PM.


#19 MechaBattler

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Posted 27 March 2018 - 09:36 AM

I remember during a clip on the making of Avatar. One of the creators remarked it was silly that the mechs carried guns. That it could be knocked away or used against them. Fair enough. But given that you have to use a refit kit and your techs to change the loadout of a mech in Battletech. The ability to simply pick up multiple types of weapons seems like a cheaper alternative for a military on a budget. Instead refitting or purchasing/building different variants or chassis to fit a specific role.

Were there rules on how many times a hand held autocannon could shoot before reloading a mag? I'd be curious if there was like a 'carbine' version of autocannons. Shorter barrel and range, but offsets the extra weight of making it hand held. I also feel like you could reduce chances of it getting knocked away by using some kind of magnetic clamps.

What about the equivalent of a bazooka? Or a panzer faust?

#20 Metus regem

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Posted 27 March 2018 - 10:16 AM

View PostMechaBattler, on 27 March 2018 - 09:36 AM, said:

I remember during a clip on the making of Avatar. One of the creators remarked it was silly that the mechs carried guns. That it could be knocked away or used against them. Fair enough. But given that you have to use a refit kit and your techs to change the loadout of a mech in Battletech. The ability to simply pick up multiple types of weapons seems like a cheaper alternative for a military on a budget. Instead refitting or purchasing/building different variants or chassis to fit a specific role.

Were there rules on how many times a hand held autocannon could shoot before reloading a mag? I'd be curious if there was like a 'carbine' version of autocannons. Shorter barrel and range, but offsets the extra weight of making it hand held. I also feel like you could reduce chances of it getting knocked away by using some kind of magnetic clamps.

What about the equivalent of a bazooka? Or a panzer faust?



There are a lot of things in BT that don't make any sense...

The biggest one I like to point to, is the hip mounted AC/20 on the Atlas (that is meant to be around 11m tall) how do you fit a 150mm+ weapon system in there?,

Or I also like, how do you pass an ammo feed through a hip and shoulder joint? (looking at leg mounted ammo bins that feed arm mounted weapons)


Edit:

As to your Bazooka or Panzer Faust comment, look up the old Thunderbolt missiles, they used to be exposed to enemy fire and could explode on your mech, dealing you damage if they went off.

Edited by Metus regem, 27 March 2018 - 10:17 AM.






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