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How "lore-Accurate" Are The Current Mechs And Their In-Game Representation?


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#1 Wolf Steel

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 04:26 AM

Title says it all. A good example, how effective the PIR-1 is at being able to hug back and kill even 100 tonners if they don't react quickly enough to them. Or some heavies being able to slap on armor and firepower equal to an assault, and out engine them as well.

EDIT: Not asking for balance sake, by the way! Just curious how the lore/fluff reflects these mechs, and not in a video game presentation.

Edited by Wolf Steel, 10 January 2019 - 04:26 AM.


#2 MeiSooHaityu

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 04:54 AM

The lore mostly revolves around the world of the Table Top game...mostly. A game genre like MechWarrior is going to have to take liberties just due to the fact that it is a different style of game with different timing and the such being taken to account.

Basically there is a lot of variables to this. In general though, this is how I see it.

Yes, I believe lighter mechs can be a threat to heavier mechs in lore if they can get in behind them. Even in TT, mechs tend to have a lot less armor in the rear, and a light has a lot of movement potential that could allow it to get into the rear arc of a large mech and create havoc. This is why there are mechs in TT that have rear facing weapons. Basically to help keep those pesky light mechs out of it's rear arc. Mechs like the Atlas D, Dragon 1N, and Centurion A all have rear facing weapons with a lore loadout. This isn't of course implemented in MWO for technical reasons (they were made forward facing).

Lastly, when it comes to firepower/equipment alterations. I think this can vary depending on interpretation and implementation of rules, however generally modifications to Battlemechs are traditionally time consuming, expensive, and require a mech factory to do the work in more extreme circumstances. There is also a real chance modifications can fail, and if they do, it can mean destroyed equipment and create even higher cost for repairs.

I don't think something like adding Armor is a big deal and can be simply done quickly by a field technician. This is probably the same for ammo refills and even small equipment repair. A normal dropship Mechbay could probably even perform a weapon swap or removal of similar size and function. However something like an engine replacement, internal structure swap, or huge shuffling of weapons would probably take a mech factory, a team of technicians, and several months to complete.

This is again more of a TT take on it, but it seems valid as lore in general.

In a game franchise like MechWarrior, a lot of the hassle and negative impact of these modifications are done away with for the sake of fun modifications and just streamlining of the process.

I am sure people with more knowledge will chime in on this and add some additional info to the conversation. Overall though, this is how I understand these type of ideas in the franchise as a whole. I hope this helps a bit.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 10 January 2019 - 04:56 AM.


#3 Bombast

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 06:54 AM

Light mechs can do rear humping in Battletech/lore, but because of the superior situational awareness of the mechwarriors in those settings, it's not as common or easy. The Piranha 1, specifically, would be unlikely to do what it does in MWO in BT/lore. It has 12 Machine Guns, which is 24 damage, but since lore mechs don't have perfect aim that's going to go all over three rear torso locations, two arms and 2 legs. And a mech like, say, the Catapult, has 19 rear side torso armor. Assaults have even more.

In lore, of course, the Piranha does an extra 14 damage (ERMLs), but we're still dealing with a lot of spread, consequences for trying to speed over terrain, and superior heavy/assault mobility (No chunky torso rotations, and so on).

As for heavies vs. Assaults, yes, in Lore/BT there's some bleed through, particularly in the 70-85 ton range. But because lore Assaults in the 90-100 ton range usually don't have to try to go 4/6/0, they can carry a crapload more guns. Believe it or not, the 300 engine in the Daishi is just fine in BT.

EDIT: Also, there really aren't any armor quirks in lore/BT. So a 70 tonner has 70 tonner armor at best, it can't get boosted to an 80 tonners armor level (Unless you're playing with Hardened Armor, but that's a whole different thing).

Edited by Bombast, 10 January 2019 - 06:57 AM.


#4 Wolf Steel

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 07:11 AM

Thanks for the input! I had a feeling some of these 'Mechs were over-performing what sparse wiki information there is about them. Kind of cool there's rear-mounted guns for some 'Mechs, would've been a cool feature to see in more of the PC games.

#5 MechaBattler

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 11:45 AM

A few things make it so that it is very different than TT and lore.

Instant weapon convergence makes it so you can land all your hits in relatively the same location. No random damage spread.

Hard point placement also plays into convergence as well as how well the mech can hill hump and other tactics.

Pilots have to be aware of their surroundings. Making it possible for mechs like the Piranha to backstop.

Hitbox design actually matters. In TT the shape and size doesn't effect how vulnerable specific sections of the mech are. In MWO an Uziel's massive shoulders are a big liability for it running XL. I think this has the single biggest effect on how they do in MW versus TT/lore.

#6 Koniving

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 12:43 PM

View PostWolf Steel, on 10 January 2019 - 04:26 AM, said:

Title says it all. A good example, how effective the PIR-1 is at being able to hug back and kill even 100 tonners if they don't react quickly enough to them. Or some heavies being able to slap on armor and firepower equal to an assault, and out engine them as well.

EDIT: Not asking for balance sake, by the way! Just curious how the lore/fluff reflects these mechs, and not in a video game presentation.

Then you're in the right place. :)

I'm almost done with another little series testing PGI's made up mechs like the Corsair in tabletop.

I've added "Can it survive the Piranha" to my list of challenges, so we'll see if a number of IS 95 tonners can survive it.
To mention it though, in order to compare the Piranha to MWO, one would need to use either Solaris rules (2.5 second time slices, multiple weapon uses per 10 seconds) or the full set of advanced rules (which I am doing this one) in order to get a fully accurate picture (with all the risks and rewards).

I will tell you that using a pair of stock Locust 1Vs going less than 81 kph per 10 second time slice completely outperformed an Atlas AS8-D (not 7D, 8D, as in the next generation with 3060+ tech).
Admittedly, the AS8-D had a novice pilot and the Locusts had veteran pilots. Furthermore, the killing blow was a stomp into center torso, crushing the engine, by the Locust.

So it isn't far fetched, however, the Clans do not (typically) resort to ramming and melee attacks.
Of the two Locusts, one lost a side torso and arm. The other one broke its leg (delivering the killing blow).

I've also had situations where a set of 3 civilian grade 25 ton security mechs have taken out a Hunchback, despite carrying Mech Rifles and 1 or 2 machine guns, a retractable blade, and smoke-missiles for an SRM-2. Admittedly one pilot was terrible at piloting but excelled in gunnery (he had the Heavy Rifle, which does 6 damage to armor and 9 to structure), a melee specialist/master (whom could do 2 kicks or 3 swings in a single turn), and somebody whose only redeeming trait was he had the SRM-2 and rarely missed with it, even though he actually did more team damage than damage to the enemy with his twin machine guns before the Hunchback smashed his cockpit in with his own leg as a makeshift club.

(It is nice that with the full rules, the Heavy Rifle was getting through-armor damage, but the SRM-6s on the Hunchback 4SP, though devastating to civilian grade armor, spent more time setting fires to the forests by hitting trees, creating even more smoke and making it harder for the 4SP to land his shots.)

Those 3 pilots are the ones being used for the Corsair and other 95 tonner tests, too to see how each pilot leads to different results.

#7 Koniving

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Posted 10 January 2019 - 12:57 PM

View PostMechaBattler, on 10 January 2019 - 11:45 AM, said:

A few things make it so that it is very different than TT and lore.

Edit: read this wrong.
So below is stuff pointing out that TT and lore isn't terribly different and what you're describing pertains to MWO. My bad. :(

Quote

Instant weapon convergence makes it so you can land all your hits in relatively the same location. No random damage spread.

Hard point placement also plays into convergence as well as how well the mech can hill hump and other tactics.

These tie in MWO's performance. In tabletop and lore, convergence isn't instant. Its set.
Posted Image
And had to be manually adjusted (which was a second or two endeavor with a two button switch "set range" and "reset (to default)."

Quote

Pilots have to be aware of their surroundings. Making it possible for mechs like the Piranha to backstop.

This is pretty much in all, assuming you're using double blind rules, whether using regular TT or Solaris. Its actually easier to do this in tabletop, as lights tend to get better initiative and thus get to react whatever the other player does. Bit trickier in simultaneous turns as there's more fumbling to be had.
There's also camping inside buildings and bursting out like the koolaid man.


(After a lot of time playing with civilian grade armor against military grade armor, you have to learn some ridiculous tricks. Though my favorite is one done to me by someone else. Standing on a rooftop, I planned to jump on his mech. He, however, had a mech behind mine that I didn't know about. Didn't know until after the moves were made and calculated and then he appeared on my screen. He just smashed the building below my feet and it collapses, with me falling 7 stories. In the sequence of events decided by the game, that happened before I jumped.)

Also once had an Urbanmech versus Tarantula battle.
Every time the Tarantula moved it got behind the Urbanmech.
But arm-flipping made it fair. Just flip and fire.
Tarantula still won. By kicking Urby off a ledge on a rising wall. One turn we're standing on the floor with walls around us. The next, we're raising up into the sky on the floor-wall that's been turned on and the walls to our sides went down. (Gotta love Steiner Colosseum.) And then kick.
Bang.
Ammo go boom.

Quote

Hitbox design actually matters. In TT the shape and size doesn't effect how vulnerable specific sections of the mech are. In MWO an Uziel's massive shoulders are a big liability for it running XL. I think this has the single biggest effect on how they do in MW versus TT/lore.

This is true to a point. In lore, it depends on how much attention goes into it by the novelist, but in the fluff, there's things like "weak undercarriage," "front heavy", "long spindly legs stretching armor thin" so there's the full set of armor but because the legs are longer than normal, the armor at any specific point is thinner than usual. In tabletop this is handled through quirks, such as "oversized", "small", "bulking arms", "No/minimal arms", etc. This weighs more on the dice which makes it easier to hit those specific parts.

But this assumes you're playing a pretty hardcore tabletop game.
Like Megamek with all the compatible rules ticked.

Edited by Koniving, 10 January 2019 - 01:01 PM.


#8 Koniving

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Posted 11 January 2019 - 10:12 PM

View PostWolf Steel, on 10 January 2019 - 04:26 AM, said:

Title says it all. A good example, how effective the PIR-1 is at being able to hug back and kill even 100 tonners if they don't react quickly enough to them. Or some heavies being able to slap on armor and firepower equal to an assault, and out engine them as well.

EDIT: Not asking for balance sake, by the way! Just curious how the lore/fluff reflects these mechs, and not in a video game presentation.

Alright! So unlike last night, I'm home tonight.
I don't know if I have any novels that have the Piranha and if I do, I haven't read them yet. So all I have is how it performs.

We've had 100 AI-run incursions of the Piranha versus the Corsair Ravager under pure AI control with equal pilots.
I'll give the final conclusion at the end.
First round:
Piranha spawns in front of Corsair.

I shall share the gorey details of the first ten seconds of battle.

Spoiler

The returning volley
Spoiler


And the heat.
Spoiler

A half ton of ammunition detonates and the pilot of the Piranha is unconscious.

By the 20 second mark, the Ravager is completely cold. The Piranha has lost more heatsinks and the pilot is still unconscious.
At the end of 30 seconds, another potential ammo explosion could have happened...if there was any left. The Piranha is literally on fire. The pilot is still unconscious.
By the end of 40 seconds, a total of 3 heatsinks had been lost. There's no machine gun ammo left. The pilot had regained consciousness. The machine was finally able to power up again. But now it had to do just that, power up.
During the transition from 40 to 50 seconds, it powered up and tried to stand without a right arm. Unable to successfully get a good grip on the ground, it slid back into the hull down (face-plant) position. It tries a second time and succeeds.
The Corsair pilot, strangerly hasn't taken any advantage of the situation. According to the AI's verbosity, it feels the target is not worth fighting. With no use in weapons, the Piranha gains 15 heat between repeated attempts to stand and critical engine damage (one ST, 2 points engine damage).
Spoiler

It has by now lost 4 heatsinks. The new shutdown has caused the mech to fall over again (I should note while it counts the mech as sprinting, that's from trying to walk after getting up, it barely moved enough to account for 56 kph but this is already pushing the mech too far.
50 to 60... 5 heatsinks lost.
60 to 70, 6 heatsinks lost.
70 to 80, 7 heatsinks lost.
In this shutdown state, it is able to cool without the engine heating it up.
1 minute and 40 seconds in, the mech is down to a single heatsink despite having been shut down for the last 80 or 90 seconds due to the absolutely immense heat coming from the crippled engine. Yes, a side torso lost is THAT devastating to a Clan XL engine.

By 150 seconds, the pilot of the Ravager's pilot, completely uninterested in a one sided fight or in putting the Fish out of its misery has decided to leave the field.
The AI comments: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
The Piranha's pilot, whom has taken 5 out of 6 hits, remains critically injured and potentially in a permanent coma and will die without immediate medical attention. The pilot has suffered "numerous" metallic puncture wounds (concentrated mostly on the right leg and arm), has a broken jaw and lost 7 teeth, an amputated arm (right side), and lost an eyeball. Initial medical also states he may have severe blunt force trauma. The pilot, Danica Milosevic, died the next day in medical.


After 3 more similar scenarios, it was clear what the problem was: The pilot. A young, arrogant "Alpha Strike Warrior" is too brash, too full of his or herself, and too impatient. I swapped the pilot out with not another Trueborn tier 1 wanna be and put in a Freeborn man in his 60s. The AI was tweaked a little bit to suit the personality. Someone patient, calculating, that doesn't take unnecessary risks and gets the job done. The kind of pilot that no Trueborn pilot would ever respect.

Immediately the difference was clear. 3 rounds, 3 kills favoring the Piranha. 15 rounds, 8 wins for the Piranha. Larger map, more uncertainty, manual control over drop locations. 50 matches, 27 wins in favor of the Piranha with this new, older and more patient pilot. But at the end of 50 matches, I went the next 50 with the original pilot again, with the original AI again and just made it so that Danica wasn't dumb enough to choose "in front of the enemy". 50 matches later, 48 victories for the Corsair Ravager.

So for my conclusion:
Face to face, well you seen the first pilot's fate.

With a young, arrogant pilot that has to rush in and fight... Well 49 deaths and one time surviving ought to tell us something, and even then Danica the pilot lost her actual leg in the process because the Ravager tried to pick up the Piranha....and in doing so gave Danica a chance to unleash all her weapons. Her mech, of course, didn't survive the encounter. Danica's only survival allowed her to leave the medical ward 9 months later with a new prosthetic leg and hopefully a little wiser.

In most of Olden P.(atient) Wiseguy's wins (yes I know, such naming skills), he suffered minor injuries and his machine was in very good condition. In two instances the Corsair hero Ravager was never even able to retaliate. In one, the MGs cored the engine through the armor. In another he cored the Gauss Rifle, which then exploded...and then the LRMs exploded...and then the UAC/10 ammo exploded...and they both died in the resulting explosions. (I still count that as a win). So 27 out of 50 fights, the 20 ton Piranha singlehandedly was able to best the Corsair hero, Ravager.

This is with the Ravager not having any quirks to reflect what it is. Note a single hit with the Gauss Rifle in the right place is basically an instant kill against a Piranha in tabletop with almost all the rules on (through armor crits, etc.)

Highest damage delivered in a single MG's volley within a single turn, "9". Note this is burst fire, direct hit and no partial cover.
Highest damage delivered by a single weapon to a single location. Gauss Rifle. 19 damage, along with a triple engine crit to CT. The target was also thrown back 90 meters (3 hexes) due to the shot.

The pilot I had for the Ravager, Annabella Eckhard, refused to attack any pilot that down.
Olden P. Wiseguy had no such reservations, except when the enemy pilot was outside of the mech. Otherwise he didn't care if Eckhard was conscious, if the mech was able to fight back, etc. Even when Eckhard was outside of the mech, he fired 2 machine guns at the hexes near her and then picked her up.

(You know for AI with only 128k operating memory to use... I'm impressed at what Megamek's AI can do when its handling a single pilot. Shame it isn't this good when its handling many pilots.)

Anyway, final conclusion based on results: In the right hands the Piranha is capable of some amazing feats, including turning assaults to mincemeat before they can react. However the mech is difficult to manage, and the average young pilot will find the Piranha to be a sprinting coffin.

Edited by Koniving, 11 January 2019 - 10:19 PM.


#9 MW Waldorf Statler

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Posted 12 January 2019 - 03:16 AM

1:
its like the Different between a Pen and Paper RPG and a Real Sword fight .
greatest different, the TT very abstract, in TT a Pilots fights blind and can not aim to a Single 3x3m big Hitzone by a stillstanding target in 10m range, all Weapons spread over the Mechs ,thats the Problem ..BT was never build for real Time fights in videogames, its more like chess and not swordfighting.
A Mech in TT can not hit exact a 10m Tall Mech in 30m thats run with 100kmh, to other side her can fight against 400kmh fast aerospacefighters.
2: In TT Pilots have the danger to crash down with her Mech, when run in terrible Terrain or slinding by Streets, crash in Buildings or falling by injured Pilots ,lost to many weights of a Side from the Mech ,or becomes to much damage , Pilots can injured or dies in Cockpit , Systems and weapons can have Damage and complications , Mechs can lay down , falls, rams have Melee Attacks , Crouchs and climbs (here a 1m Peeble is impassable) and RUN , im mean really Run , not only Double Steps was looks most ridiculous in MWO and without IK

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 13 January 2019 - 07:22 PM.


#10 Koniving

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Posted 12 January 2019 - 10:10 AM

Edit: (Sorry if the quote comes up again, but after your like I re-read this. Here's some typo fixes and additional links.)

Some quick comments.

"The pilot of the Ravager's pilot"... should be "The AI of the Ravager's Pilot."
A pilot only has 5 hit points, 5 out of 5 should have killed the Piranha's pilot outright. But there was a rule that I had ticked which allowed a pilot that took 5 injuries to survive if the cockpit is not outright obliterated and the pilot is either removed from the battle or the battle concludes within a certain amount of time for a medical team to arrive. (Apparently, one can also send in a medical team during a fire fight, too, at the risk of losing the medical team to weapons fire.)

As such, the Piranha's pilot under normal rules would have died a lot sooner.

Lack of simultaneous turns. When playing against itself, Megamek's AI has a lot of difficulty dealing with "playing turns at the same time," as such it can't be done without hitting some AI crashes. This may have actually introduced some other elements that may have played into the Piranha's favor.

View PostOld MW4 Ranger, on 12 January 2019 - 03:16 AM, said:

1:
its like the Different between a Pen and Paper RPG and a Real Sword fight .
greatest different, the TT very abstract, in TT a Pilots fights blind and can not aim to a Single 3x3m big Hitzone by a stillstanding target in 10m range, all Weapons spread over the Mechs ,thats the Problem ..BT was never build for real Time fights in videogames, its more like chess and not swordfighting.A Mech in TT can not hit exact a 10m Tall Mech in 30m thats run with 100kmh ,to other side her can fight against 400kmh fast aerospacefighters.

For number 1:
Each turn is an abstract in a 10 second time slice. Beyond movement and weapons fire... the abstract also includes "Manuevering," "Dodging," "Spreading damage" via torso twisting and raising arms, and most weapon systems cannot be fired at the same time.

This is accounted for by the fact that "Aimed Shots" can only be performed when the pilot is unconscious ("A Battlemech cannot act without the pilot's intent, if the pilot is unconscious, the helmet is removed or the pilot is not present, a Battlemech will do nothing."), when the target mech is considered Immobile (It cannot move) and when the target mech is shut down ("A Battlemech cannot function if it is not powered.")

This page from Catalyst's Battletech Battlemech Manual (2018), which is a condensed rulebook for Battlemechs, has this to say on the matter under "Common Misconceptions."

(Paraphrased, image included.)"A Battlemech is considered immobile if the unit's available MP is reduced to 0. False. Each hex is considered to be 30 meters, giving the 'Mech plenty of room to thrash about."

What this means is that despite not being allowed to leave the Hex, the mech is not actually immobile and as such you cannot get an "Aimed shot" aka specify where you intend to fire, because the fact is the 'Mech can still dodge, duck, block and torso twist.

Weapons are set in one of only three groups, each group has a set range locked in. (Think MW1, 2, and 3) There's a two button range adjust that can be applied to the current group. (This isn't included in the MW games).
"Set" allows the pilot to set the range to where a simple red-dot laser from the cockpit returns a distance (i.e. aim at object 300 meters and hit "Set", weapon group 1 is now set to converge at 300 meters).
"Reset" returns the weapon group back to the default position.

Weapons in a group can be fired at the same time in "Linked fire," or fired individually in "chain fire."

Tabletop does have a very obscure custom rule for a "true alpha strike" in BattleTechnology magazine. All weapons will fire straight (if the enemy is facing you at 270 meters, your left weapons will hit their right side, your right weapons will hit their left side, and your center weapons will hit their center, head to head, arm to arm). All that is rolled is whether you hit or not, but heat generated is 1.5* normal. So if you normally generate 25 heat with all weapons fired in sequence in a turn, you now generate 37.5 heat having fired them in the same second.

(Its fun to note that "Battle Value" came from the BattleTechnology rule "Combat Efficiency Factor" in which BV1 was derived with a few changes, it was shorthanded as "CF" although since "BV", CF has been changed to mean "Construction Factor" to determine the strength of buildings, trees, walls, and other objects on the map. Extended Range rules also came from BattleTechnology as "Maximum Range", although before came "Sniping," in which a player would declare a target, not move, and on the next turn, could hit at 3x range as if it were 1x range, but this only permitted a single weapon to be used, and if the sniping unit was hit, the move was invalidated. Sniping would return as a much simpler rule as a pilot / vehicle gunner skill that simply allowed them to fire all weapons at 2x range at any time they want. [That's not sniping!])

The True Alpha Strike rule had a huge cost associated with it, and as such it never became popular.
(TL;DR: In terms of weapons fire and how it spreads, think about MWO in real time. Give yourself the following limitations: you could only fire 1 to 2 weapons at a time, and your weapon fire had to be spaced out to spread across 10 seconds of movement. An enemy that's only 30 meters away came from 200 meters away, and during that entire approach you are firing 1 or 2 weapons at a time, and the enemy is able to not only torso twist, block, and dodge, but also strafe, zig-zag and skid as necessary to dodge fire. And this is all automatically done by the machine)

Duck dodge and weave. (This video is terrible but its meant to show the whole "Avoiding getting hit" tidbit.
Techmanual states as much by saying mechs try to avoid anything that may inflict damage upon itself or other things unless the pilot intends it, such as stepping over or around cars, weaving to avoid tree branches and street lights, even dodging cannon fire. This is actually among the reasons that weapon ranges for ballistic and missile weapons are so unbelievably short. Mechs can dodge, bob and weave.
(Another reason Mech Rifles are deemed obsolete is a single projectile is very easy to dodge at long ranges. This is why ACs are preferred even though per shot its significantly inferior, as the bulk of fire will make up for it. This is why missiles are fired in bulk at range, 5, 10, up to 40 at a time. Why? The more there are, the harder it is to automatically dodge them [despite how dumb the missiles actually are].)

Quote

2: In TT Pilots have the danger to crash down with her Mech, when run in terrible Terrain or slinding by Streets, crash in Buildings or falling by injured Pilots ,lost to many weights of a Side from the Mech ,or becomes to much damage , Pilots can injured or dies in Cockpit , Systems and weapons can have Damage and complications , Mechs can lay down , falls, rams have Melee Attacks , Crouchs and climbs (here a 1m Peeble is impassable) and RUN , im mean really Run , not only Double Steps was looks most ridiculous in MWO and without IK

True.
Though part of the reason why mechs don't run in MWO is their movement is matched with their speed.
Their speed is matched with their height.
In Battletech, mechs are "6 to 16 meters tall" (Catalyst, 2018, Battletech Battlemech Manual back cover.)
(That's counting 3150, though until 3070, no mech ever gets taller than the Executioner, whom is...)

Posted Image
14.4 meters tall (to the highest point on the mech).

Most mechs are between 8 and 12 meters tall, as such running is necessary to achieve high speeds.
In MWO, most mechs are 13+ meters tall, with at least one light being 13.4 meters tall. These tall giants simply "double step" to get those speeds because that's all they need. And yes, I agree. Its ugly as sin to watch MWO's mechs move. They're simply too big.

For comparison..
Posted Image
Shadowhawk 2D's official height, (slightly taller) in the middle. 55 tons. Next to it, a 60 ton tank. And to the far end, MWO's Shadow Hawk. (The rescale is now shoulder height to this tall SHK).

But it is worth noting, while the SHK-2s are very short (this is why their armor is so weak), the SHK-5s are closer to 12 meters (the SHK-2 depicted here is 9.63 meters).
Source art by first Battletech novelist William H. Keith.
Posted Image

Edited by Koniving, 13 January 2019 - 09:37 PM.


#11 Karl Streiger

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 02:39 AM

A good reference for the height seems to be the MechCommander series.
While working on the LightRay - the sweetspot of an aesthetic Mech (an aestetic is most important when dealing with BattleTech) is indeed around 11-14m no matter the class.
Smaller you can't park a full featured cockpit there (and need a kind of toilet seat), bigger you have space you don't need.

Back to the design of the lightray, my first draft was only 86m in height and i would have been able to have everything i need packed into the mech - but it looked like a frog. based on MechCommander (microprose did several great things there) i did rise the Light Ray towards 14m - however the volume of the torso almost stayed the same (because i was able to reduce the bulbous look, and made a more knife shaped torso.

However there would be no space for spare ammunition if you really want to have missile or ballistic weapons for this build.

Posted Image
vs
Posted Image

Edited by Karl Streiger, 14 January 2019 - 02:41 AM.


#12 MW Waldorf Statler

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 02:45 AM

Yes it's a real problem... The designers make mechs that's not can carry ammunition... Best example the Hollander or the madcat...

#13 Koniving

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 11:43 AM

A fun thing to do is figure out where they store ammo. Issue with the Mad Cat (Timber Wolf) is the missiles are made to look really bigger than necessary, and the ears don't really show a way to reload them. Hollander, well one assumes that because the gun is big, the bullets must be big. But they're depicted here on our right (the character's left).

Posted Image
This art has its own issue. It doesn't account for the weight of the slug even if it is a super-dense penetrator. (And if they are that heavy, I don't think they'd be on the floor but on a wheeled jack or cart of some sort like the one missile).
Unless it fires more than one to get the rating. But I haven't seen anything really indicating that, unless that's specifically for the Hyper Assault Gauss Rifle. But that didn't exist yet as of when this art was made/book was released. Its also not in the weapons list.

MWO bullets for comparison.
Posted Image
The green missile like things are AC rounds in MWO.

The grey things are MWO's Gauss Rifle slugs.

Actually the pointy things might be LBX shells in the Solaris image, as the Gauss slugs.... appear to be even smaller in the actual artwork for Gauss Rifle.

#14 Pariah Devalis

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 02:56 PM

It really varies wildly. In many ways, it hurts Clan mechs more than IS as far as relative Lore vs MWO status is concerned. Take, for example, the Clan ERPPC. It should be doing 15 damage, pinpoint, just like a Gauss Rifle. Everyone's armor should be half of what it is in game, as MWO has doubled armor. Now, look at the Adder. Not too many mechs in lore are packing a pair of gauss rifles, but here we have a 35 ton mech with the equivalent of two. Or in MWO terms, the firepower of quad-Gauss Rifles.

Yet the Adder has always been a bit of a sad mech. It can't be the pocket-medium/heavy it was intended to be.

Or take Clan LRM. With no Minimum Range, they were actually designed to be used at any range. As it is, LRM in table top are pretty dang effective as it is for both IS and Clan, but Clan LRM could be used in a knife fight. So any Clan mech based on LRM, such as the Nova Cat B variant was just as lethal at 600 meters as it was at 1 meter.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 14 January 2019 - 03:08 PM.


#15 Koniving

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 04:50 PM

In tabletop you can use lrms at 30 meters with only a higher chance of missing. Depending on the choice of rules you can "hotload" them and remove that chance to miss too.

If running under the hotload rule... any Clan launcher (lrms) will explode if hit. Any IS launcher that's declared as hotloaded does the same.

Without... nothing special happens to either launcher if hit. IS just gets a plus one accuracy penalty.

Mwo....they are just duds at 179 meters.

#16 Koniving

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 04:57 PM

Tabletop you could even use them below 30 meters too if the tank/infantry is in the same hex.

But completely agree. Puma (Adder) is a formidable beast in TT and lore. Then again in the Piranha example above... one of the few times a hit was landed on the Piranha. ..it was sent flying through the air. Gauss and PPCs are no joke in fluff. Tabletop doesn't quite do them full justice due to how acs are front loaded compared to fluff.

The gates and walls blocking us in faction play. One Awesome is all you'd need and the gate would be gone. Awesome 8Q is a Siege mech. It and the Warhawk are more for breaking defenses and what they do to other mechs....

Let's put it this way, I know tabletop doesn't do it justice but Gauss rifles go in one end...come out the other. PPCs have the heat component which heavily melts armor and a physical weight that has been described as crushing the actuators of a Raven 2x's shield arm, smothering the shield into the side torso to the point that it welded into place with the height...I'm addition to flipping the Raven upside down. Now if a PPC did that here....

#17 Koniving

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Posted 14 January 2019 - 05:01 PM

Tro 3039 hunchback 4g.
That ought to show ya all you need to know about a Gauss Rifle. Unseen attackers. Slugs that ripped through mechs. The rifle being so stressful to the Hunchback that they would topple over while firing and if you look up that specific battle on Sarna I do believe it mentions something about a riflenripping itself out of the shoulder of the user.
...and such the Hollander was created from that flop.


#18 Karl Streiger

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Posted 15 January 2019 - 12:59 AM

View PostKoniving, on 14 January 2019 - 04:57 PM, said:

Let's put it this way, I know tabletop doesn't do it justice but Gauss rifles go in one end...come out the other. PPCs have the heat component which heavily melts armor and a physical weight that has been described as crushing the actuators of a Raven 2x's shield arm, smothering the shield into the side torso to the point that it welded into place with the height...I'm addition to flipping the Raven upside down. Now if a PPC did that here....


Its debatable, as you know I did lot of "research" in this topic. For the depiction of the APFSDS as gauss ammunition....well those of MWO are lazy (its obvious a 120mm APFSDS of a western MBT, little bigger though.
The APFSDS in the BT picture not so much. However the issue with Gauss Rifles is heat, the accelerated ferromagnetic projectile is hot glowing (Tactics of Duty, although Graysons Victor fires Water Melons) and as such a kind of heat sink - but most known ferromagnetic with a high Curie temperature have also a high density.

For example my take on the Poland Main A (Behemoth, Regulator II, Yellow Jacket)
Spoiler


The sabot weights more then the half of the whole projectile - not so great, Caliber is 17.3cm.

On the good side you have no issues to have 2000m/s per shot with a long enough accelerator or stronger magnetic field even >3000m/s are possible - after that waste heat of the GaussRilfe working with 90% efficiency will heat the metal to much.

The other half of the waste heat goes back into the rifle and as such into the Mech - in case of our Projectile moving at ~Mach 6 we talk about enough heat to vaporize 30 liter of water instantly (per shot).
And this includes not the waste heat for recharging the power banks.


On the downside each of those sabots hit like a cannon round on its own.... so you really don't want to stand before a Mech that fires a Gauss - collateral damage in a city would be devastating.

(Oh btw... recoil.... without damper - the recoil of a 12t Gauss Accelerator would hit a Mech like a cannon round ~ 2MJ (of course you have recoil dampers, but maybe not the first prototypes)....

TLDR: The pictured Gauss Slug: 90mm penetrator weighting ~52kg will punch through 4m armored steel at 2km.
the ferromagnetic sabot parts (6) each weighting ~10kg will be able to punch through 80cm armored steel at less then 100m.




The PPC behaves exactly as a Gauss Rifle with the exception that it fires protons/ions instead of a solid slug. So you have some additional waste heat for generating protons or ions from either reactor (sounds like 100% kamikaze style) or separated flasks with matter. But in the end you have a magnetic accelerator that fires matter.... less mass but higher velocity.
Lucky energy stays the same so to have the same impact force as the GaussRifle (Clan PPC) you accelerate 153g of Hydogen Atom Cores (Protons) towards 54,000m/s using a 5m long barrel.
Of course this is enough energy to topple a light Mech, not to mention the radiation and heat

#19 Steel Raven

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Posted 16 January 2019 - 12:43 AM

View PostKoniving, on 14 January 2019 - 05:01 PM, said:

Tro 3039 hunchback 4g.
That ought to show ya all you need to know about a Gauss Rifle. Unseen attackers. Slugs that ripped through mechs. The rifle being so stressful to the Hunchback that they would topple over while firing and if you look up that specific battle on Sarna I do believe it mentions something about a riflenripping itself out of the shoulder of the user.
...and such the Hollander was created from that flop.


Actually discussed this on the BT Forum. I figured the standard Hunchback uses something similar to a exhaust gas system of a recoilless rifle for the AC/20. If the DC engineers just swapped the AC for the Gauss Rifle in '39, the Hunchback's existing recoil system would be all but useless.

The Hollander on the other hand was built around the Gauss Rifle, the length of the canon on the light mech vs it's larger gauss wielding cousins may hint at something like a Hydraulic Recoil system to help the 35 ton mech compensate for the 15 ton gun's kick.

#20 Karl Streiger

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Posted 16 January 2019 - 12:49 AM

View PostSteel Raven, on 16 January 2019 - 12:43 AM, said:

Actually discussed this on the BT Forum. I figured the standard Hunchback uses something similar to a exhaust gas system of a recoilless rifle for the AC/20. If the DC engineers just swapped the AC for the Gauss Rifle in '39, the Hunchback's existing recoil system would be all but useless.


Considering the picture of a big bore - a recoil-less system has some merit.

Quote

The Hollander on the other hand was built around the Gauss Rifle, the length of the canon on the light mech vs it's larger gauss wielding cousins may hint at something like a Hydraulic Recoil system to help the 35 ton mech compensate for the 15 ton gun's kick.

indeed.... but maybe they use Myomer instead of Hydraulics...

So other Mechs like the Uller A with Gauss, might not need a special recoil system because the Gauss is mounted in the arm, and the joints and myomer as compensators.





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