70 replies to this topic

[mad kat]

I've often wondered why the ranges of weapons in this game are so...........Pathetic.......

I mean current main battle tanks have guns that supposedly do an equivalent damage to an AC10. Yet a quick Wikipedia of the M1 Abrams for example reveals they can effectively make kills at over 2.5km.

So just look at those numbers. A current main battle tank has a main gun roughly equivalent to an AC10 but can make 'kills' at 6.25 times the ac10's effective base range. Granted armour levels would be different but still.

So the obvious answer is that Battletech and mechwarrior weapons are considerably more powerful than current weapons so much that the AC10/120mm gun comparison simply isn't true with such huge calibres (or masses in the form of missiles) that the projectiles can't go that far. Weapon weights without ammo would lend some credence to this. If that's the case a Heavy machine gun should be capable of killing a current main battle tank surely. MG's another weapon that has laughably short range.

Current missiles like the hellfire, again Wikipedia are capable of just reaching five miles (8K) away and considering they can be mounted to drones shouldn't be massively larger than the small LRM's that mechs use albeit in a cluster.

Energy weapons though......well that's another matter as i don't know much to compare it too but again seem pretty poor in range.

What i'm getting at is if a mech appeared in current day times in the distance i'd imagine a couple of Abrams/challengers/leopards or even an Apache would of killed the thing or at least messed it up before it even got into effective range! Gauss and ERPPC's would be the mechs only chance at actually doing noticeable damage.

Edited by mad kat, 13 April 2018 - 10:50 AM.

[El Bandito]

Gameplay triumphs over anything. It is already hard to hit a moving target with an AC10 at 1000 meters. Do you want both sides to stay 3 kilometers away from each other and snipe? Cause that would be very very dull. Heck, you probably can't even see each other, beyond a tiny speck.

Edited by El Bandito, 12 April 2018 - 01:53 AM.

[BoldricKent]

Its a table top game in its core, so ranges are limited by the practical table size, you have mechs in TT that can outrun range of most mid range weapons , even some long.

[Zergling]

mad kat, on 12 April 2018 - 01:45 AM, said:

I mean current main battle tanks have guns that supposedly do an equivalent damage to an AC10. Yet a quick Wikipedia of the M1 Abrams for example reveals they can effectively make kills at over 2.5km.

No, they have the equivalent of the Light Rifle at best, which does 0 damage against standard military grade armor in TT.

As for TT ranges, it is unknown exactly why, but the game designers wanted ranges to be unrealistically short from the beginning.
I suspect the desire for melee combat factored into this.

Edited by Zergling, 12 April 2018 - 01:58 AM.

[Curccu]

One more of those sillies that are unable to understand that this is a game/fantasy is not comparable to real life.

[mad kat]

Map sizing in a game would obviously be an issue and playing on a computer monitor but maybe targeting computers and advanced zoom could actually mean something working with greater ranges a targeting computer increases accuracy for example giving the option of called shots with a percentage hit chance (worked out by movement of both mechs and speed etc).

[MW Waldorf Statler]

as The Basic Game created never thinking to a PC game ...is created to play with miniatures in 1:285 Scaling of a Normal Table ...and the Ranges for that created ...later came Special Rules and more Mechanism to it...in Aerotech the Hexsize very greater and the Ranges of the Weapons

http://www.sarna.net...791/Main/149346

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 12 April 2018 - 02:20 AM.

[Scyther]

At the time of the games creation, as well as being tabletop based, most miniature/paper combat strategy games were played on hex paper (hexagonal polygon grid) and many combat moves were translated to 'hexes' for ease of calculation. Things like Line of Sight and elevation had to be checked by hand, movement made quickly, etc.

It was 1984, the (original) IBM PC computers and Apple II computers were just starting to make their way into homes, nobody had a clue that you would be running around in 3D using actual computers to get target locks etc.

Also, the game wouldn't be very entertaining if we were all launching self-targeting warheads with stealth configurations and onboard AI over the horizon from 50 km out and getting a report back from a spy satellite 3 minutes later that 'you missed!'.

[Duncan Aravain]

While it is true that the paper and pencil, table Top basis for Battletech is the overwhelming driving force for weapon range anorexia, the lore given was that the battlefield of the future was flooded with ECM,ECCM, radar,lasers,chaff, IR smoke,etc which limited the effective range of the weapons. As you sit in your cockpit during a match and glance down, you will see PGI has represented this battlefield toxic stew of interference with the ever changing,mult- colored displays of detected em wavelengths and strengths. The Beagle and Guardian systems were a vast step above the standard jamming and detecting systems that all mechs carried.

[Bombast]

1. As said above, table size/map scale mandated shorter range.

2. You can't run up and kick another mech in the nads from 50 kilometers away

[Nightbird]

I'd be OK with a minimum damage number for ACs, like 50%. Have fun shooting targets 3km away and hitting nothing.

[PocketYoda]

Pathetic armor and pathetic maps require pathetic ranges.

[Anjian]

You're lucky to have any ranges. Originally giant robots were conceived to go completely mano o mano. Fists, punches, swords, axes, maces, spiky balls and bats, drills, that sort of thing.

Edited by Anjian, 12 April 2018 - 08:20 PM.

[FupDup]

BoldricKent, on 12 April 2018 - 01:53 AM, said:

Its a table top game in its core, so ranges are limited by the practical table size, you have mechs in TT that can outrun range of most mid range weapons , even some long.

Since TT is an abstraction, they could easily just make each hex represent something like 100+ meters rather than only 30 meters while keeping the physical table size unchanged.

[Nightbird]

TT standard Hex is 30 meters, but you can change it up if you want but keep in mind that mech speeds don't change.

[Vellron2005]

mad kat, on 12 April 2018 - 01:45 AM, said:

I've often wondered why the ranges of weapons in this game are so...........Pathetic.......

I mean current main battle tanks have guns that supposedly do an equivalent damage to an AC10. Yet a quick Wikipedia of the M1 Abrams for example reveals they can effectively make kills at over 2.5km.

So just look at those numbers. A current main battle tank has a main gun roughly equivalent to an AC10 but can make 'kills' at 6.25 times the ac10's effective base range. Granted armour levels would be different but still.

So the obvious answer is that Battletech and mechwarrior weapons are considerably more powerful than current weapons so much that the AC10/120mm gun comparison simply isn't true with such huge calibres (or masses in the form of missiles) that the projectiles can't go that far. Weapon weights without ammor would lend some credence to this. If that's the case a Heavy machine gun should be capable of killing a current main battle tank surely. MG's another weapon that has laughably short range.

Current missiles like the hellfire, again Wikipedia are capable of just reaching five miles (8K) away and considering they can mounted to drones shouldn't be massively larger than the small LRM's that mechs use albeit in a cluster.

Energy weapons though......well that's another matter as i don't know much to compare it too but again seem pretty poor in range.

What i'm getting at is if a mech appeared in current day times in the distance i'd imagine a couple of Abrams/challengers/leopards or even an Apache would of killed the thing or at least messed it up before it even got into effective range! Gauss and ERPPC's would be the mechs only chance at actually doing noticeable damage.

There are many such illogical things in BT Vs. the real world..

Most of them can be accredited to a simple thing - BT is 30 years old. So to the people in the 80' who made BT setting, many many things we take for granted today were science fiction.

Just ignore it and enjoy the setting. What's left of it in MWO that is..

[Mechwarrior1441491]

What are infantry ranges of engagement in the real world? like 60-120ft in a fluid environment? Otherwise you are simply tossing lead in the direction moving or known targets.

Are tanks moving and shooting at moving targets 2 miles out? Not if they want any chance of success.

I like to think of the ranges we have being combat effective ranges. The most basic of targeting systems also come into play. Most of it is considered lostech.

Also, in table top. it isn't exactly fun playing on 10-20 lengths of map because of ranges.

[Asym]

Some of these posts are funny.... Hey, 1441491 what US or foreign MOS are you? 19E or a 12A?

Let's not compare "silly games" to real life, eh?! MWO wouldn't survive at "real world" distances because range requires a lot of thought to successfully fight......sadly, that's not what video games do.... Video game range is all about a huge amount of computing power and levels of calculation precision. We don't have a game engine that can even work at the existing ranges.... Let alone combat ranges the make-believe weapons in this game can support....

Enjoy Solaris where range and teams are a thing of the past.....

[Dee Eight]

WOT and WOW uses the BigWorld engine, this thing... an ancient version of cryengine that isn't even supported any longer.

[Antares102]

Just dont bring the real world to a fantasy game because this is was Battletech is.
It is based on the real world but this a total fantasy with its own rules.
Rules like a mech with an extremly high center of gravity exposing itself with its height to be seen for miles
is supposed to triumph over tanks that have CLEAR tactical advantages with their shape and mechanical properties.
EVERY aspect of superiority of a modern tank over a mech is brushed away with FANTASY arguments.

Just dont start the discussion about battletech and realism, dont do it man...