WALL OF TEXT INCOMING:
Let me just start off by saying I am a personal HUGE fan of the Battletech universe. Played all the computer games, STILL on occasion play MW4 mercs, read the core storyline books several times through, read others i could get my hands on...big fan, love it.
That being said, whatever MW5 is, its NOT Mechwarrior. It COULD be, but it's just, not. So before I throw up my hands and give up completely, here are my findings of what should have been the game of the friggin' decade....
THE GOOD:
Graphics and Environment. Credit where credit is due here guys. It's obvious you spent alot of time on this part, the mech and mech combat LOOKS great, the environment looks well put together. A few graphic glitches here and there but nothing that couldn't be solved with a little tlc and patching. The destructible environment is, dare i say it, AWESOME. Pretty sure i spent at least 5 minutes lighting trees on fire with my lasers just because i could. Watching a building come apart as my mech smashes through it and being able to see the angle irons and i beams literaly go flying is a very nice and well thought out touch. Graphically, i would say this game gives excellent homage to it's mechwarrior predecessors and advancing the graphics to modern computing. Well Done. This is what makes me REALLY want to love this game. Unfortunately....
THE BAD:
Voice Acting: Seriously?!? This is some serious-bad voice overs. Not B movie bad, more like, 2 year old Z movie bad (not sure if thats a thing, but you know what I mean). Truthfully, its not game-breaking, I came here to shoot stuff and in that spirit, this is more amusing than game breaking. But Battletech and Mechwarrior have an incredible and rich storyline, and it matters. So having a story decently delivered does have importance. So it's bad, but not really all that annoying.
Character Spawn Location: Yea, in the hangar, away from ops where the magic happens when i'm on the dropship, now THAT's annoying, the first time up those stairs is nostalgia-kewl, the 50th time: face-melting drudgery. This needs to be de-fuq'd sooner rather than later.
MechLab: This is terminally simplistic, no engine changing, no, armor or skeletal material changing, just a whole lot of empty space and nothing to do with it. Not that it matters seeing as...
Weapons: Um...i'm really trying to give artistic license on this, but these arent mechwarrior pattern weapons. This one does more damage then that one, no more space, no more heat, just better weapons, or, this AC5 fires a burst, that one a single shot, no difference in heat or size or ammo or....wth? There isn't even a thumb to nose in it about different weapons from different factions or differing availabilities or anything, which brings me to....
Faction Play: There is none, no bonuses to which faction, no reason for faction loyalty or mechanics changes or market changes or mech changes or etc etc etc. This is pure Red vs Blue which stopped being adequite in a game sometime in the late 90's. Even MW4 mercs which is now over 15 years old had at least a difference in starting goods and market when choosing a sponsor for your unit. Even something as simple as "this faction gives more money, that one gives better salvage and market" would help.
Drop Weight Limits: So um...not to put too fine of a point on this. But last I checked, when playing, I am the Commander of this Mercenary Unit. I make the decisions on how and where and for whom and WITH WHAT. Now if a mission is setup where it's just me for some stealth-like reason or something, then hey...kewl...lets do this. But to physically SEE all 4 medium mechs in my lance in the drop bay as i do that TOTALLY COOL mech turnaround in the dropship thing, but only 3 step out to fight?!? DAPHUQ?!? Open the damn door and GET. OUT. And seeing as I am the Commander, I'm Really sure that I get to make calls like that.
Map Repetition: Alot of the maps feel like they are repeated in shape, and general layout, and frankly, the maps feel VERY small. Previous MW games had you move 1-5+ km before engaging at times, sure there were a few where you dropped right into the s***storm, but others you moved a LONG ways...aka, a LONG ways to plan your assault, reposition, make tactical decisions, etc. This i am labeling as "Bad", but it will come into play in "Ugly"
Joystick support: You released a Mechwarrior game without full, and I mean FULL, joystick support?!? REALLY?!? As in, that just happened? I see you fixing it, but that should have never needed to be fixed at all. Thats like releasing a flight simulator without joystick support, you just jumped past full-****** and landed in potato...
...and where the F is Solaris?!?
THE UGLY:
Spawns: Ok, so you made them "better" with the recent patch. And yea, they are "better", in the way that having a hard dog **** on your carpet is better than a diahrea dog **** all over your carpet: you can say it's "better", but in the end you still have a **** on the rug. Though to be honest, there isnt much that changing the spawns will fix or even matter due to:
Radar: Radar is Line-of-Sight....are you ABSOLUTELY F'IN KIDDING ME?!? What in the name of Saint Peter's Heaven over God's Green Earth do I need with a LINE OF SIGHT RADAR?!? I can already SEE THE DANG TARGET!!! That why it's called line-of-SIGHT!! So no matter how far away they spawn, unless i happen to be looking in that direction(in the case of the vtols), or there's no hills or trees or rocks in the way of the tanks, I still wont know they are there until they are literally tearing my lance to pieces. This is Mechwarrior: LRMS, LLAS, Gauss, all these weapons have ranges over 1km, that makes a nearly 2km range on radar almost MANDATORY....or more! And as near as i can tell, even at max this radar only reaches about 300-500m. Now in MWO the radar doesnt lock that which it cant see. Well, that game is 12 on 12 (or 1on1) pvp, therefore balance requires certain omittances, but when its me with 3 stupid lancemates vs an entire tank battalion...not so much. This lack of long range capability coupled with maps that literally drop you right down on top of enemies removes all tactical thinking, invalidates any long range strategy to preserve your lance and armor, and simply turns it into an uncontrollable brawl. This honestly makes me want to simply grab and assault mech, leave my lance behind and pull a Jackie-Chan-to-the-Stuntman, "No thanks, I got this." There's just one SLIGHT problem with that...
Close Range Targeting: As in...it's not there. Or put more simply, WHY DOES THE TARGET SIGHT BOUNCE WITH THE MECH?!?! Even MWO doesn't. This isnt hard guys, it's called a gyroscope, and we, in the real world, have had gyroscopic guns since before WW-friggin-ONE! "Where" you ask? Hmm...how about Naval Aritillery designed to keep the gun on target even as the ship is tossed in the waves. And the box that does that isnt very bit, as in, one man could pick it up. Pretty sure we can fit it on a big walking tank, seeing as how our modern tanks have it too. Now one can claim that they lost technology, well they can still travel the stars, still build Mechs, still use friggin LAZORS, i think they have the concept of a spinning wheel pretty much down pat. In addition, the aiming sight is wrong. I REGULARLY miss shots when the target is directly under the reticle, even with lasers. But if i aim as if the very lowest point of the targeting diamond is actually the middle, i hit almost every time. Couple the two of these together and you end up with close range targeting which is unreliable at best, and nearly impossible at worst against a small moving target (ie: tank), and you have to stop moving to shoot. Stop moving in a brawl is the equivalent of committing seppuku. But that's ok, I have my brother-lance mates to back me up right?
AI is Felony-Stupid: WRONG!!! The lancemates are useless. God forbid i tell them to form the hell up and they stop shooting and form up. God forbid I am sent to protect something and they dont RUN IT THE HELL OVER!!! God forbid they shoot straight and dont get their primary weapon blown off EVERY SINGLE FIGHT! Makes me want to grab an assault mech and...oh wait....
Bottom line, graphically this game is great, it looks great, the mechs feel big, the destructable environment is great. But it ends there. If this was a tech demonstration about graphics and environment i'd say you'd get an "A". But this is not. This is a pay-money-for game. And that means that actual gameplay needs to be present and presentable. And this one feels as if every decision that was made is either arbitrary, purposefully ignoring one of the most fleshed out and best described universes in modern gaming and literature, or just flat lazy and wrong.
The real pain of it is, this is Mechwarrior. I REALLY want to love this game. But as it stands, I barely recognize it as Mechwarrior at all, and I am having a hard time even classifying it as "playable". And if you aren't going to fix this, then please dear God release full modding tools and let the community fix it ourselves.
Rant over...
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20 replies to this topic
#2
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- Survivor
- 10 posts
Member
Posted 20 December 2019 - 01:49 PM
I’m not too sure why modders should fix MW5 which had a long development for a commercial release.
#3
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- Legendary Founder
- 3,625 posts
Member
Posted 20 December 2019 - 07:26 PM
Pretty sure terrain blocks radar in real life too.
#4
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- The 1 Percent
- 554 posts
Member
Posted 20 December 2019 - 07:46 PM
The game is boring indeed, less than 10 missions completed and I am done, just not fun, it is like the free to play mobile games nowadays, every mission is pretty much the same, no matter the objective is, you end up running into the tangos, blowing things up, finish, and repeat....MW4 gave me a lot more fun, frankly.
#5
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- 256 posts
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Posted 20 December 2019 - 07:53 PM
OZHomerOZ, on 20 December 2019 - 07:26 PM, said:
Pretty sure terrain blocks radar in real life too.
Which would stop targeting and missile locks, but they should still appear on your 'scanner' screen.
In battle-tech this is done via a neutrino scanner, basically if you have a fusion plant (all mechs do)
and are powered up and in range, they should be able to detect you. (not what you are or what state
you are in, but the fact you are there)
#6
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- Bad Company
- 325 posts
Member
- LocationGermany
Posted 20 December 2019 - 08:51 PM
Drenzul, on 20 December 2019 - 07:53 PM, said:
Which would stop targeting and missile locks, but they should still appear on your 'scanner' screen.
In battle-tech this is done via a neutrino scanner, basically if you have a fusion plant (all mechs do)
and are powered up and in range, they should be able to detect you. (not what you are or what state
you are in, but the fact you are there)
I don't think I ever read about neutrino detectors in BT lore, surely not as mech-sensors (I seem to have a faint memory of them being mentioned with re. to warships?).
Visual (duh), thermal, seismic and MAD (magnetic anomaly detector) sure, but neutrino?
From Sarna:
On BattleMechs, the T&T incorporates a variety of sophisticated sensors with dedicated computers to process their data. Primary amongst these are thermal imaging, light amplification, radar and magnetic anomaly sensors. These are supplemented by secondary sensors, including motion detectors, chemical sniffers and others, all of which is interpreted and presented to the MechWarrior in an easy-to-understand format, whether on their cockpit displays or Neurohelmet's heads-up display.
That being said, the radar in MW5 _is_ pathetic.
#7
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 20 December 2019 - 09:04 PM
*Sees wall of text.*
Huh, I don't remember being here yesterday...
Read, but skipping to...
Shame they didn't use the elevator platform on the bridge meant to lower you into the mechs as they did in that one trailer, that'd be a good spawn-back point. Could even have Fahad be nearby instead of saying he's going to work because his lazy *** never lifts a finger to do anything the dropship does it for him... which the dropship couldn't do it.
In the rich BT/MW universe lore, you couldn't really do any engine changing, armor or skeletal material. Well probably could do armor changing but doubt that'd happen with a technician crew of one. There's 6 to 12 astechs per mech in BT. You'd also have the issue of basically not being able to do it until after it's invented, and then molded and custom fitted for your mech... basically it'd be an insanely expensive endeavor if it wasn't already being mass-produced for your machine.
They did the same thing that HBS Battletech did, but to higher extremes.
Before I continue, there's over 21 variants of AC/20 in the pre-3050 timeline, which fire between 40mm and 185mm (excluding Clan variant UAC/20s which go up to 203mm and as low as 20mm).... so while no "one shot does all damage" AC actually exists in the BT universe, semi-automatic ones do in fact exist. (meaning you can fire a single shot for each trigger pull out of a magazine of ammo that could have between 5 and over a thousand shells [if Yen Lo Wang's Pontiac 100 is exactly as written with 3,2__+ shells [3 thousand, two hundred and XX shots) in 3 tons of ammunition at 5 reloads per ton] which in turn constitutes as "1" out of "5" magazines in a ton of ammunition for your AC/20)...
So what MW5 has is not impossible or even "unmechwarrior-pattern", but it is not exactly as PGI depicts them.
Given that we have double armor structure, the tier 1 weapons in MW5 and MWO's weapons are the actual non-standard in that they are FAR too weak for their total damage for their heat and ammo requirements.
MW5's "tier 5 burst fire AC/20" doing 42 damage... is really just an AC/21 in tabletop when you consider the double armor/structure and reduce it all back to 1x armor/structure/damage ratios. Considering that in tabletop, with glancing and direct blows, an AC/20 can easily do 26+ damage... still in the realm of replicate-able.
Now don't get me wrong, the whole system could have been done better and in ways to give actual depth... but we aren't really sure how many if any of the staff really bothered opening a sourcebook and just went with what they felt like. Even making stuff up could've worked if they put a bit more thought into it, but either they didn't consider the possibility of making brand name weapons as different sizes, or were too wrapped up in comparing itself to MW4, Mechwarrior Tactics or god only knows... Which sucks because BT lore has had that concept of the weapons being different physical sizes regardless of slot counts since 1986. (Zeus, TRO 3025 the original release, one compact large laser in the form of the Defiance Thunderbolt A5M as just one of half a dozen specific example or oversized such as the Nightwind).
That said.. Since MW4 frequently comes up in comparing weapons for those with rose-tinted glasses...
Some MW4 mechwarrior weapons...
Some quick callouts:
AC/10's damage is 9... at a damage/sec of 2.25.
LPL, 2.62 damage per shot with a damage per second of 2.10
LBX-10 14 damage per shot...
AC/5... 2 damage per shot, and 1.33 damage/second.
Original form: https://www.sarna.ne...ior_4/Equipment
In fact of all the MW games ever created, the closest to ever be made to something akin to BT lore is Mechwarrior Living Legends the fan game. And that has some interesting things. For example their damage numbers are in the 3 digits, while their health numbers are in several thousands of points..
But if you take the medium laser or MPL, plug it into a ratio calculator against 5 for ML and 6 for MPL, and then plug in the SL/SPL or LL/LPL, and you'll find the damage translates to 4 SL/SPL, 5 ML/6MPL, and 8LL/9LPL, and the health for the mechs come out to 1/1 ratios, and all the weapons come out to 4.5 second time slices (and the extra high damages of Gauss/PPC, you can take their 7 or 8 second recharge times, cut the time and damage to 4.5 seconds and you'll get effectively 15 and 10 damage. But without plugging it into a ratio calculator, you'd see AC/5 "3 x 150" damage per trigger pull, at a firing rate that'd do 5,670 damage in 1 minute and think "OMFG what did these people do!?? What were they thinking? This isn't mechwarrior", and it literally converts to just 5 damage every 3 to 4 seconds in tabletop.
Long story short, many mechwarrior games do fractions of BT damage which only accumulates to actual damage over time sometimes and othertimes it exceeds damages that it should achieve. Meanwhile PGI basically looked at Sarna and said "Welp it says here an AC/5 does 5 damage in tabletop per use of ammo"...without realizing that each tick of ammo is a magazine (called a cassette) of shells erroneously called a "round", which could have up to 100 shots in it.
So, unfortunately, the weapons are as mechwarrior game as it comes. It's just got a level-up system, too, rather than a tradeoff system like Mechwarrior RPG (now Classic Battletech RPG), where weapon variants actually have tradeoffs, like the Intek Laser Rifle having near ER laser rifle ranges, but requiring twice as many hit rolls each time you go to use it, with the damage per hit reduced. Or the Magna laser rifle which has a wider beam able to hit two targets close together, but has a higher energy drain since the laser needs more power to keep the damage delivered to be high enough to split between two targets or kept to just one with more accuracy over a wider area.
Radar:
This is perhaps one of the few things PGI got basically right. Though by calling it radar, it's quite deceptive. It's simply your sensor suite. Though every other mechwarrior game technically had a radar, radars in the exact sense of how they were used in the Mechwarrior games were never actually canon to the BT universe. The closest thing BT has to a "radar" in the sense of the mechwarrior games is Look-Down Radar but this implies your dropship can safely orbit.. which according to a lot of the dialogue your dropship is orbiting however it's pretty common to shoot down dropships stupid enough to linger in orbit so the idea that the dropship is providing you with LDR support is pretty preposterous in many situations.
Radar uses radio waves to to effectively do something similar to sonar but with "light" rather than "sound" (radio waves are a form of light...)
Though radar for air control and the dopplar use 360 degree radar, systems that lack a spinning radar system only cast radar in pre-determined directions. So...I guess technically you can call MW5's radar a radar but that's a tiny fraction of the overall sensor suite.
As for detecting neutrinos, that's not scientifically possible in that sense. Neutrinos are a sub-atomic particle that has to leave the engine... which fusion engines do not have thrust or traditional exhaust and thus would not leave a neutrino trail as starships would. Mech powerups emit a massive electrical charge that can be read. This is how mech powerups are detected..
And you may note that in the Mechwarrior games (except SNES MW3050/Sega Battletech), the phrase specifically is "Mech powerup detected."
My issue is that PGI didn't really peer into variants much, because some mech variants tend to have better sensor equipment. For example, the KGC-000 is a command unit with a superior Dalban HiRez-B, meanwhile, the KGC-0000 downgrades it to any of five lower end sensor and communication suites, so the 000 easily would have better sensor range. It is also common for command units to have 360-degree field of views for their sensor equipment, something the Yen Lo Wang also benefited from since Kai Allard-Liao's sensor suite came from the same model as his friend Prince Victor Davion's Victor battlemech. And I'm not gonna get into the Crab's lore but basically, if you ever do, you'll learn that the tabletop is basically the representation of the Crab's sensor suite replaying combat data and predicting changes in what's already happened based on new inputs given by a bored pilot, hence it's a "Bored game" for pilots waiting for some action.
There's literally one mech in the entire BT universe that has a gyroscope, and it's special for that.
The Mongoose.
TRO 2750 calls it: "The centerline lasers in particular are extremely accurate thanks to special internal compensators, allowing precise fire even at a full run."
Later TROs specifically call it a gyroscope.
And actually, we didn't have gyroscopes until after World War II.
Gyroscopic stability in the form of rifling came in the 1800s, but that stabilized the projectile not the cannon itself. This is reflected in World of Tanks and War Thunder, in which the aim bounces with the movement of the tank in WW I and WW II era tanks such as this one.
Gyroscopic weapon stabilization on a mechanized combat robot is actually a scientific impossibility and one of the many reasons battlemechs would probably never be practical in a real-world combat situation as the stabilization of the weapon systems would also interfere with the mech's own stabilization, as well as require every single weapon to be on a pintle mount which would effectively complicate aiming even further as now you have gyro-stabilization on limbs that swing back and forth (which can cause the weapons to destroy themselves if swung too quickly)... This is actually one of the many, many reasons that the BattleTechnology magazine points out when addressing weapons and the "perceived short ranges" while also explaining that ACs easily have a range of 2 kilometers, but accurately hitting something without the advantages of gyro stabilization from a mech that has automated movement against another mech that has automated evasion based on sensor data (meaning even if the pilot isn't actually aware of the incoming attack the mech can evade; provided the pilot is conscious and the machine is powered) [thus the reason you can only call aimed shots if the mech is immobilized, powered down or the pilot is blacked out].
MWO is also the only mechwarrior game to have the magical floaty aim..
And it has it for this reason. (The camera floats, entirely separate from the mech, your "head" isn't connected to your neck and you're doing this with every step, up and down up and down, with your head stationary and your body going up and down as your head magically glides on a silver platter).
Don't get me wrong, you have a lot of fairly valid complaints, but the ones complaining about how it compares to other MWs/the BT universe are pretty erroneous, so either you want more lore-and-fluff and thus more stuff you hate...
or you want less lore-and-fluff...and thus get more stuff you hate.
Either way you're not gonna be happy even with what mods come up with, because your complaints want both more lore and less lore in your game mechanics.
Huh, I don't remember being here yesterday...
Read, but skipping to...
Quote
Character Spawn Location: Yea, in the hangar, away from ops where the magic happens when i'm on the dropship, now THAT's annoying, the first time up those stairs is nostalgia-kewl, the 50th time: face-melting drudgery. This needs to be de-fuq'd sooner rather than later.
MechLab: This is terminally simplistic, no engine changing, no, armor or skeletal material changing, just a whole lot of empty space and nothing to do with it. Not that it matters seeing as...
MechLab: This is terminally simplistic, no engine changing, no, armor or skeletal material changing, just a whole lot of empty space and nothing to do with it. Not that it matters seeing as...
Shame they didn't use the elevator platform on the bridge meant to lower you into the mechs as they did in that one trailer, that'd be a good spawn-back point. Could even have Fahad be nearby instead of saying he's going to work because his lazy *** never lifts a finger to do anything the dropship does it for him... which the dropship couldn't do it.
In the rich BT/MW universe lore, you couldn't really do any engine changing, armor or skeletal material. Well probably could do armor changing but doubt that'd happen with a technician crew of one. There's 6 to 12 astechs per mech in BT. You'd also have the issue of basically not being able to do it until after it's invented, and then molded and custom fitted for your mech... basically it'd be an insanely expensive endeavor if it wasn't already being mass-produced for your machine.
Quote
Weapons: Um...i'm really trying to give artistic license on this, but these arent mechwarrior pattern weapons. This one does more damage then that one, no more space, no more heat, just better weapons, or, this AC5 fires a burst, that one a single shot, no difference in heat or size or ammo or....wth? There isn't even a thumb to nose in it about different weapons from different factions or differing availabilities or anything, which brings me to....
They did the same thing that HBS Battletech did, but to higher extremes.
Before I continue, there's over 21 variants of AC/20 in the pre-3050 timeline, which fire between 40mm and 185mm (excluding Clan variant UAC/20s which go up to 203mm and as low as 20mm).... so while no "one shot does all damage" AC actually exists in the BT universe, semi-automatic ones do in fact exist. (meaning you can fire a single shot for each trigger pull out of a magazine of ammo that could have between 5 and over a thousand shells [if Yen Lo Wang's Pontiac 100 is exactly as written with 3,2__+ shells [3 thousand, two hundred and XX shots) in 3 tons of ammunition at 5 reloads per ton] which in turn constitutes as "1" out of "5" magazines in a ton of ammunition for your AC/20)...
So what MW5 has is not impossible or even "unmechwarrior-pattern", but it is not exactly as PGI depicts them.
Given that we have double armor structure, the tier 1 weapons in MW5 and MWO's weapons are the actual non-standard in that they are FAR too weak for their total damage for their heat and ammo requirements.
MW5's "tier 5 burst fire AC/20" doing 42 damage... is really just an AC/21 in tabletop when you consider the double armor/structure and reduce it all back to 1x armor/structure/damage ratios. Considering that in tabletop, with glancing and direct blows, an AC/20 can easily do 26+ damage... still in the realm of replicate-able.
Now don't get me wrong, the whole system could have been done better and in ways to give actual depth... but we aren't really sure how many if any of the staff really bothered opening a sourcebook and just went with what they felt like. Even making stuff up could've worked if they put a bit more thought into it, but either they didn't consider the possibility of making brand name weapons as different sizes, or were too wrapped up in comparing itself to MW4, Mechwarrior Tactics or god only knows... Which sucks because BT lore has had that concept of the weapons being different physical sizes regardless of slot counts since 1986. (Zeus, TRO 3025 the original release, one compact large laser in the form of the Defiance Thunderbolt A5M as just one of half a dozen specific example or oversized such as the Nightwind).
That said.. Since MW4 frequently comes up in comparing weapons for those with rose-tinted glasses...
Some MW4 mechwarrior weapons...
Some quick callouts:
AC/10's damage is 9... at a damage/sec of 2.25.
LPL, 2.62 damage per shot with a damage per second of 2.10
LBX-10 14 damage per shot...
AC/5... 2 damage per shot, and 1.33 damage/second.
Quote
Weapon___Tonnage__Slots__Range__Damage__Heat__Recycle__Damage/sec
AC 10: 13__2__400__9__0.6__4__2.25
AC 5: 8__1__600__2__0.2__1.5__1.33
Bombast Laser: 7__2__500__10__8__4__2.50
Clan Flamer: 0.5__2__150__1__4__4__0.25
Clan Gauss Rifle: 13__3__800__17__1__8__2.13
Clan LBX AC 10: 10__2__450__14__1__4__3.50
Clan LBX AC 20: 12__3__300__24__2__6__4.00
Clan LRM-10: 3.5__1__1000__5__2.4__6__0.83
Clan LRM-15: 4.5__2__1000__12__3__6__2.00
Clan LRM-20: 6__2__1000__16__3.6__6__2.67
Clan LRM-5: 2__1__1000__1__1.2__6__0.17
Clan MGA: 2__1__200__0.3__0.3__1.00
Clan NARC : 2__1__600__1__3__0.00
Clan Ultra AC 2: 6__1__900__2__0.11__1__2.00
Clan Ultra AC 5: 8__1__600__4__0.15__1.5__2.67
ER Large Laser: 4__2__800__8__8__5__1.60
ER Large Pulse Laser: 6__2__800__3__3__1.25__2.40
ER Medium Laser: 1__1__400__1.5__1.2__3__0.50
ER Medium Pulse Laser: 2__1__400__0.75__0.6__0.75__1.00
ER PPC: 6__3__900__14__15__8__1.75
ER Small Laser: 0.5__1__200__0.35__0.2__1__0.35
ER Small Pulse Laser: 1.5__1__200__0.27__0.12__0.25__1.08
Flamer: 1__2__150__1__4__4__0.25
Flare Launcher: 1__1__360__2__2__0.00
Gauss Rifle: 16__3__800__17__1__8__2.13
Large Laser: 5__2__600__7.5__5__5__1.50
Large Pulse Laser: 7__2__600__2.62__1.75__1.25__2.10
LBX AC 10: 12__2__450__14__1__4__3.50
LBX AC 20: 15__3__300__24__2__6__4.00
AC 10: 13__2__400__9__0.6__4__2.25
AC 5: 8__1__600__2__0.2__1.5__1.33
Bombast Laser: 7__2__500__10__8__4__2.50
Clan Flamer: 0.5__2__150__1__4__4__0.25
Clan Gauss Rifle: 13__3__800__17__1__8__2.13
Clan LBX AC 10: 10__2__450__14__1__4__3.50
Clan LBX AC 20: 12__3__300__24__2__6__4.00
Clan LRM-10: 3.5__1__1000__5__2.4__6__0.83
Clan LRM-15: 4.5__2__1000__12__3__6__2.00
Clan LRM-20: 6__2__1000__16__3.6__6__2.67
Clan LRM-5: 2__1__1000__1__1.2__6__0.17
Clan MGA: 2__1__200__0.3__0.3__1.00
Clan NARC : 2__1__600__1__3__0.00
Clan Ultra AC 2: 6__1__900__2__0.11__1__2.00
Clan Ultra AC 5: 8__1__600__4__0.15__1.5__2.67
ER Large Laser: 4__2__800__8__8__5__1.60
ER Large Pulse Laser: 6__2__800__3__3__1.25__2.40
ER Medium Laser: 1__1__400__1.5__1.2__3__0.50
ER Medium Pulse Laser: 2__1__400__0.75__0.6__0.75__1.00
ER PPC: 6__3__900__14__15__8__1.75
ER Small Laser: 0.5__1__200__0.35__0.2__1__0.35
ER Small Pulse Laser: 1.5__1__200__0.27__0.12__0.25__1.08
Flamer: 1__2__150__1__4__4__0.25
Flare Launcher: 1__1__360__2__2__0.00
Gauss Rifle: 16__3__800__17__1__8__2.13
Large Laser: 5__2__600__7.5__5__5__1.50
Large Pulse Laser: 7__2__600__2.62__1.75__1.25__2.10
LBX AC 10: 12__2__450__14__1__4__3.50
LBX AC 20: 15__3__300__24__2__6__4.00
Original form: https://www.sarna.ne...ior_4/Equipment
In fact of all the MW games ever created, the closest to ever be made to something akin to BT lore is Mechwarrior Living Legends the fan game. And that has some interesting things. For example their damage numbers are in the 3 digits, while their health numbers are in several thousands of points..
But if you take the medium laser or MPL, plug it into a ratio calculator against 5 for ML and 6 for MPL, and then plug in the SL/SPL or LL/LPL, and you'll find the damage translates to 4 SL/SPL, 5 ML/6MPL, and 8LL/9LPL, and the health for the mechs come out to 1/1 ratios, and all the weapons come out to 4.5 second time slices (and the extra high damages of Gauss/PPC, you can take their 7 or 8 second recharge times, cut the time and damage to 4.5 seconds and you'll get effectively 15 and 10 damage. But without plugging it into a ratio calculator, you'd see AC/5 "3 x 150" damage per trigger pull, at a firing rate that'd do 5,670 damage in 1 minute and think "OMFG what did these people do!?? What were they thinking? This isn't mechwarrior", and it literally converts to just 5 damage every 3 to 4 seconds in tabletop.
Long story short, many mechwarrior games do fractions of BT damage which only accumulates to actual damage over time sometimes and othertimes it exceeds damages that it should achieve. Meanwhile PGI basically looked at Sarna and said "Welp it says here an AC/5 does 5 damage in tabletop per use of ammo"...without realizing that each tick of ammo is a magazine (called a cassette) of shells erroneously called a "round", which could have up to 100 shots in it.
So, unfortunately, the weapons are as mechwarrior game as it comes. It's just got a level-up system, too, rather than a tradeoff system like Mechwarrior RPG (now Classic Battletech RPG), where weapon variants actually have tradeoffs, like the Intek Laser Rifle having near ER laser rifle ranges, but requiring twice as many hit rolls each time you go to use it, with the damage per hit reduced. Or the Magna laser rifle which has a wider beam able to hit two targets close together, but has a higher energy drain since the laser needs more power to keep the damage delivered to be high enough to split between two targets or kept to just one with more accuracy over a wider area.
Radar:
This is perhaps one of the few things PGI got basically right. Though by calling it radar, it's quite deceptive. It's simply your sensor suite. Though every other mechwarrior game technically had a radar, radars in the exact sense of how they were used in the Mechwarrior games were never actually canon to the BT universe. The closest thing BT has to a "radar" in the sense of the mechwarrior games is Look-Down Radar but this implies your dropship can safely orbit.. which according to a lot of the dialogue your dropship is orbiting however it's pretty common to shoot down dropships stupid enough to linger in orbit so the idea that the dropship is providing you with LDR support is pretty preposterous in many situations.
Radar uses radio waves to to effectively do something similar to sonar but with "light" rather than "sound" (radio waves are a form of light...)
Though radar for air control and the dopplar use 360 degree radar, systems that lack a spinning radar system only cast radar in pre-determined directions. So...I guess technically you can call MW5's radar a radar but that's a tiny fraction of the overall sensor suite.
As for detecting neutrinos, that's not scientifically possible in that sense. Neutrinos are a sub-atomic particle that has to leave the engine... which fusion engines do not have thrust or traditional exhaust and thus would not leave a neutrino trail as starships would. Mech powerups emit a massive electrical charge that can be read. This is how mech powerups are detected..
And you may note that in the Mechwarrior games (except SNES MW3050/Sega Battletech), the phrase specifically is "Mech powerup detected."
My issue is that PGI didn't really peer into variants much, because some mech variants tend to have better sensor equipment. For example, the KGC-000 is a command unit with a superior Dalban HiRez-B, meanwhile, the KGC-0000 downgrades it to any of five lower end sensor and communication suites, so the 000 easily would have better sensor range. It is also common for command units to have 360-degree field of views for their sensor equipment, something the Yen Lo Wang also benefited from since Kai Allard-Liao's sensor suite came from the same model as his friend Prince Victor Davion's Victor battlemech. And I'm not gonna get into the Crab's lore but basically, if you ever do, you'll learn that the tabletop is basically the representation of the Crab's sensor suite replaying combat data and predicting changes in what's already happened based on new inputs given by a bored pilot, hence it's a "Bored game" for pilots waiting for some action.
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Close Range Targeting: As in...it's not there. Or put more simply, WHY DOES THE TARGET SIGHT BOUNCE WITH THE MECH?!?! Even MWO doesn't. This isnt hard guys, it's called a gyroscope, and we, in the real world, have had gyroscopic guns since before WW-friggin-ONE!
There's literally one mech in the entire BT universe that has a gyroscope, and it's special for that.
The Mongoose.
TRO 2750 calls it: "The centerline lasers in particular are extremely accurate thanks to special internal compensators, allowing precise fire even at a full run."
Later TROs specifically call it a gyroscope.
And actually, we didn't have gyroscopes until after World War II.
Gyroscopic stability in the form of rifling came in the 1800s, but that stabilized the projectile not the cannon itself. This is reflected in World of Tanks and War Thunder, in which the aim bounces with the movement of the tank in WW I and WW II era tanks such as this one.
Gyroscopic weapon stabilization on a mechanized combat robot is actually a scientific impossibility and one of the many reasons battlemechs would probably never be practical in a real-world combat situation as the stabilization of the weapon systems would also interfere with the mech's own stabilization, as well as require every single weapon to be on a pintle mount which would effectively complicate aiming even further as now you have gyro-stabilization on limbs that swing back and forth (which can cause the weapons to destroy themselves if swung too quickly)... This is actually one of the many, many reasons that the BattleTechnology magazine points out when addressing weapons and the "perceived short ranges" while also explaining that ACs easily have a range of 2 kilometers, but accurately hitting something without the advantages of gyro stabilization from a mech that has automated movement against another mech that has automated evasion based on sensor data (meaning even if the pilot isn't actually aware of the incoming attack the mech can evade; provided the pilot is conscious and the machine is powered) [thus the reason you can only call aimed shots if the mech is immobilized, powered down or the pilot is blacked out].
MWO is also the only mechwarrior game to have the magical floaty aim..
And it has it for this reason. (The camera floats, entirely separate from the mech, your "head" isn't connected to your neck and you're doing this with every step, up and down up and down, with your head stationary and your body going up and down as your head magically glides on a silver platter).
Don't get me wrong, you have a lot of fairly valid complaints, but the ones complaining about how it compares to other MWs/the BT universe are pretty erroneous, so either you want more lore-and-fluff and thus more stuff you hate...
or you want less lore-and-fluff...and thus get more stuff you hate.
Either way you're not gonna be happy even with what mods come up with, because your complaints want both more lore and less lore in your game mechanics.
Edited by Koniving, 20 December 2019 - 09:31 PM.
#8
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 01:53 AM
The ORIGINAL mechwarrior video game, the one with the fancy 16 bit graphics that came out after the two battletech crescent hawk ones, had identical weapon and mech stats to the table top game (right down to the 9 pts of head armor and 3 structure), but also had the pinpoint accuracy issue of all mechwarrior games for the human players. Once you learned all the head boxes you basically went around just doing head shots.
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 03:45 AM
Dee Eight, on 21 December 2019 - 01:53 AM, said:
The ORIGINAL mechwarrior video game, the one with the fancy 16 bit graphics that came out after the two battletech crescent hawk ones, had identical weapon and mech stats to the table top game (right down to the 9 pts of head armor and 3 structure), but also had the pinpoint accuracy issue of all mechwarrior games for the human players. Once you learned all the head boxes you basically went around just doing head shots.
If so, it also had SRM/LRMs which fired a single magical missile that did 12 damage for SRM 6 and 20 damage for LRM-20.
Medium lasers that produced 5 damage and 3 heat with a firing rate of once every 1.5 seconds, and a Locust could take 8 of these and 2 SRM-4s to the back still be standing (56 damage). (Side note, I actually didn't realize it died and lost two torso sections in that firepower before moving on to fight a Jenner).
You say it has 9 armor and 3 structure for the head (assuming a fully armored mech though many are not fully armored) but in fact the game displays health as a percentage with sections having gray (full health), yellow (light damage), red (heavy damage), and black (destroyed), and an SRM-4 missile which by your statement should be doing 8 damage hitting a Jenner's leg does yellow damage when you actually find a Jenner with good legs (many mechs are already damaged so finding one was a *****). Given that a Jenner D (the only one I'd likely find under these circumstances and timeline) has 6 armor on the leg and 8 structure... I can most assuredly say that this is actually false. "Red" doesn't show as a percentage of health but when the armor is gone, and since 8 damage should remove all 6 points of armor in the leg to damage that sweet sweet structure but...doesn't, well yeah... sorta falls apart.
Just took a suppression of rebellion mission for the Draconis Combine. My single target was a Locust of mostly gray health (save for an arm). Sensors, 4000 meters in front of me. Switched it to 2000 as I got closer, 1000, then 500 to judge distance. At half across from 500, began firing my medium lasers. 9 ML to destroy the target. CT and LT hit.
In an extreme case this target should have up to 6 armor CT, 6 armor LT, 6 Structure CT, 5 structure LT, 7 armor head and 3 structure head. At most for the highest armored Locust within the timeline.
Shot order was CT, CT, CT, LT, LT, LT, HD, LT, CT.
5 CT, 5 CT, 5 CT, 5 LT, 5 LT, 5 LT 5 HD 5 LT (LT destroyed) 5 CT (CT destroyed), victory.
Lets tally.
5 to head.
20 damage to CT.
15 damage to LT.
That's a lot more than 1-1.
Or my shiny yellow medium lasers are not doing 5 damage.
Also since the SNES version is the same game with different backstory and ability to use a mechlab, the large laser takes as many as 11 shots to destroy a Locust with an even faster firing rate and hardly any heat.... so it isn't the case there either. (And thankfully, nowhere else can you create a 31 ton Locust with 14 jumpjets and a large laser.)
Also Mechwarrior came out after Inception but before Revenge, as MW1 1989 is the second BT/MW game ever released in video game form, as Revenge came out in 1990.
https://www.myabando...rior-p8/play-p8
Fun place to play it, just use the dosbox right there.
Edited by Koniving, 21 December 2019 - 03:53 AM.
#10
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 03:55 AM
To be honest, it doesn't even look like MW1 has a concept of a separation between armor and structure, it's just gray, yellow, red and black.
#11
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 04:06 AM
So far, a very basic equipment layout of just one actuator per limb, an overall armor percentage where that red section was 8%, the other torso section was 3%... and I wasn't paying much attention to the rest as those were the last two sections repaired, the leg was also only 3%. The "right arm" (our left side facing it) was apparently black, so being black I guess the armor was gone but the structure exposed? Not sure but guess so since the lasers were functional and the actuator only lightly damaged, so if black is armor is gone... that means that Locust I fought has absolutely insane armor..
Or my weapons definitely are not 1 to 1 with the tabletop as you claim there.
Most likely both being the case, not 1 to 1 and the mech having more armor than the TT version.
I think my biggest surprise was getting knocked down in first person. I thought the game bugged out.
Knocked down in 1989...
Even Mechwarrior 2 didn't have knockdowns. Least not the PS1 version and of the PC versions I've played (though I haven't played them as much), I don't ever remember being knocked down and enemies just became stationary after losing a leg.
#12
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 04:57 AM
Don't forget that MW4 lasers had zero beam duration so they were essentially a ballistic with infinite projectile speed and thus no fall in flight. The online game quickly devolved into fitting as many ERLL onto a mech as possible. Add in the pogo-stick jump sniping and it wasn't really a lot of fun. MWO and MW5 are much better in this respect.
#13
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 05:16 AM
Drenzul, on 20 December 2019 - 07:53 PM, said:
Which would stop targeting and missile locks, but they should still appear on your 'scanner' screen. In battle-tech this is done via a neutrino scanner, basically if you have a fusion plant (all mechs do) and are powered up and in range, they should be able to detect you. (not what you are or what state you are in, but the fact you are there)
Wadda bout tanks and vehicles don't use fusion engines, so I found a loop hole, they use ICE for engines.
Yet detected through terrain in old games
Micheal stackpole effect.
I like how much terrian is not flat and sensors can be blocked
Kinda why tanks run hull down right, minimise exposure with terrain use.
Edited by OZHomerOZ, 21 December 2019 - 05:18 AM.
#14
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 02:54 PM
The Amazing Atomic Spaniel, on 21 December 2019 - 04:57 AM, said:
Don't forget that MW4 lasers had zero beam duration so they were essentially a ballistic with infinite projectile speed and thus no fall in flight. The online game quickly devolved into fitting as many ERLL onto a mech as possible. Add in the pogo-stick jump sniping and it wasn't really a lot of fun. MWO and MW5 are much better in this respect.
Agreed.
However Both MW4, MWO/MW5, and older MW games are also accurate to various lasers and how they worked in the BT universe, but the "cheaper" way of doing it indeed needs to be much weaker than the MWO/MW5 versions.
Spoiler
#15
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 06:05 PM
What.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gyro
Actually i would argue the impossibility of a Battlemech concept WITHOUT an stabilization system.
Despite that ^ multiple independent stabilization system on a single platform has been actually very common for the past couple decades. Be it mechanical or electronic. Consider cannon turrets on Helos like the Apache, the aforementioned Naval guns, etc. And the most obvious example : Naval Ciwis.
And im not going for a hard argument here, but i cant recall from the top of my head ONE mech with arm mounted weapons who " swings " his arms during movement/combat.
On the matter of Dmg and armor...i personally believe that when talking about Video Game adaptations....the TT should be left in the section : " Inspiration " and no much more. Theres no much use considering 1 dmg vs 10 armor or 10 dmg vs 100 armor...it all comes up to the adaptation per se and lastly becomes a moot point: you need to make your game fun and challenging, if the inspiration is too rigid for it, well, make your own.
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....The Gyroscope often simply called the Gyro is an internal component mounted within all BattleMechs, IndustrialMechs and OmniMechs.....
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gyro
Actually i would argue the impossibility of a Battlemech concept WITHOUT an stabilization system.
Despite that ^ multiple independent stabilization system on a single platform has been actually very common for the past couple decades. Be it mechanical or electronic. Consider cannon turrets on Helos like the Apache, the aforementioned Naval guns, etc. And the most obvious example : Naval Ciwis.
And im not going for a hard argument here, but i cant recall from the top of my head ONE mech with arm mounted weapons who " swings " his arms during movement/combat.
On the matter of Dmg and armor...i personally believe that when talking about Video Game adaptations....the TT should be left in the section : " Inspiration " and no much more. Theres no much use considering 1 dmg vs 10 armor or 10 dmg vs 100 armor...it all comes up to the adaptation per se and lastly becomes a moot point: you need to make your game fun and challenging, if the inspiration is too rigid for it, well, make your own.
Edited by Azhrael, 21 December 2019 - 06:20 PM.
#16
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Posted 21 December 2019 - 09:42 PM
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Character Spawn Location: Yea, in the hangar, away from ops where the magic happens when i'm on the dropship, now THAT's annoying, the first time up those stairs is nostalgia-kewl, the 50th time: face-melting drudgery. This needs to be de-fuq'd sooner rather than later.
Fyi, you can just press tab to access the menus anywhere on the dropship. The only reason you need to walk to ops is when you have a story mission and have to talk to Ryana. So that lessens the fuq'dness.
Edited by Jyi, 21 December 2019 - 09:42 PM.
#17
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Posted 22 December 2019 - 12:53 AM
Koniving, on 20 December 2019 - 09:04 PM, said:
*Sees wall of text.*
*sees wall of text
*clicks quote
*deletes all, because too long to find good quote
I'm referring to the Autocannon magazine vs. round part.
In BT-Tabletop, meant to simulate what happens in the novels. ACs are handled as if they were single slugs, albeit they may have rapid fired hundreds of rounds.
This is done because of the mess that Crits would result from, imagine rolling a hundreds of times for a single weapon... Oh the joy... So they grouped it into a single "round", like the rounds were fired so rapidly and accurate that they hit the same location and would only result in a single Crit-Roll if Internal.
The early Mechwarrior games stuck to the Tabletop logic and packed them into a single slug too for the same reasons.
Imagine moving a stream of bullets over a mech and critting out every single weapon system because the Yen-Lo you are piloting fired 3200 shots and only had to tick off one magazine... Yen-Lo OP pls nerf. haha
So grouping them into single slugs just makes it more playable and more balanced compared to the "real life" depicted in the lore.
Then what OP was saying regarding Burst fire, vs single Slug, etc. ... is actually represented in the game as well and if I recall the rules correctly, you can just load up alternative ammunition before deploying your Mechs into the game.
Effectively not changing how much heat the weapon builds up, but how much damage is done and how or if it spreads.
speaking of classic BT, not Alpha Strike, of course.
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Posted 22 December 2019 - 03:05 AM
Danjo San, on 22 December 2019 - 12:53 AM, said:
Imagine moving a stream of bullets over a mech and critting out every single weapon system because the Yen-Lo you are piloting fired 3200 shots and only had to tick off one magazine... Yen-Lo OP pls nerf. haha
That 3,200+ from the novel was to represent 15 "rounds" (3 tons) of ammo rather than just one magazine.
Though Pontiac 100 is known to be quite an overpowered AC/20 in the novels. (Though short of that one novel the general consensus is a 100 shells per tick).
(The variety that comes of them, however, is where I think we got screwed.)
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Then what OP was saying regarding Burst fire, vs single Slug, etc. ... is actually represented in the game as well and if I recall the rules correctly, you can just load up alternative ammunition before deploying your Mechs into the game.
Effectively not changing how much heat the weapon builds up, but how much damage is done and how or if it spreads.
speaking of classic BT, not Alpha Strike, of course.
Effectively not changing how much heat the weapon builds up, but how much damage is done and how or if it spreads.
speaking of classic BT, not Alpha Strike, of course.
O.o; I wanna think you're referring to MW5 Mercs but you point out you're talking about tabletop. Classic BT kinda needs homebrew rules to really play between bursts/slugs, unless you're getting your LBX mixed up with ACs. Its entirely possible to replicate damage spread using the cluster table and appropriate rolls/allotments of damage, or split-firing an AC/20 to land two 10 damage blows. But the minor details aside, sure...
However I got the feeling, and if you re-read the OP's part on that you might also get that feeling as well...
that the OP is complaining about how you could get an AC/20 that does like 20 damage in a single shot.
That being a tier 1.
Then you can get a tier 3, and do like 30 damage in a single shot, with no additional heat, weight, etc.
And then there's tier 5... where I'm not sure what the AC/20 single shot tier 5 is doing, but the burst fire is doing 42 damage.
And by the time you get there with the AC/5, your tier 5 AC/5 is doing damn near 20 damage per bullet.
Your Tier 5 MLs are pretty fierce too.
And once you get a tier 2 weapon, its tier 1 variant is instantly obsolete.
I believe that's what the OP was trying to say. Something to remember is the OP is complaining about, not praising, the items listed under "the bad."
#19
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Posted 22 December 2019 - 04:39 AM
Azhrael, on 21 December 2019 - 06:05 PM, said:
What.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gyro
Actually i would argue the impossibility of a Battlemech concept WITHOUT an stabilization system.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Gyro
Actually i would argue the impossibility of a Battlemech concept WITHOUT an stabilization system.
That's a Gyro for the mech, in the mech's gut.
As opposed to one gyro per weapon, for every weapon, at every location, all acting independently and against each other as well as against every movement you make.
Take an Atlas.
Bam, in addition to the big main gyro trying to keep it upright, you now have 2 gyros in the chest keeping the lasers straight, 1 in the hip keeping the LRM (well in MW5's case the SRM) straight, one in the shoulder keeping the SRM (in MW5's case the LRM) straight, one in the right-side-gut keeping the AC/20 straight, and now one per arm keeping the lasers straight or trying to, except when you point the arm down and at your side, the gyro wants to keep the gun level with the ground, and now either you're aiming at the ground but the gyro wants to aim ahead of you, or you're just trying to rock and the gyro keeps swinging around.
Now what happens when you get hit, every gyro tries to stablize and each wants to stablize in a direction that's ideal for that specific weapon with that specific gyro, and in turn the gyros on this side want to go that way, the gyros over here want to go the other way, and the one in the middle is fighting ALL The Others and what you have is something tearing itself apart.
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Despite that ^ multiple independent stabilization system on a single platform has been actually very common for the past couple decades. Be it mechanical or electronic. Consider cannon turrets on Helos like the Apache, the aforementioned Naval guns, etc. And the most obvious example : Naval Ciwis.
Does the gyro on the naval ship also have to keep the ship upright?
Is there one keeping the ship upright in spite of the gyro on its weapon systems?
Does the ship have 20 to 100 tons localized in a horizontal area smaller than the length of a Semi-truck-and-trailer, with only two surfaces to distribute weight and up to canonically 16 meters in height while typically no more than 5 meters wide often less?
As for arm swinging...
Contrary to MW gameplay depictions, mechs do a lot of this. Mw2 Mercs, MW2, MW2 Ghost Bear's Legacy (all 3 intros), MW3 (Big Al, the Timber Wolf), MechCommander's intro cinematic (Centurion, Commando, also Hardcase [Hunchback]'s entire walk), (All found under this video.) the unreleased Sega CD Battletech game seen below also demonstrates something many missed about MW2 Mercs -- mechs can move their heads.
In the Tech Manual 2007, mechs can also perform limited martial arts and even handstands (under controlled conditions). My personal favorite is the two punch one kick combination, and grapple-jab followed by trip.
Between these, the BT cartoon, and the tabletop melee system encompassing the full myriad of rules, the TechManual and Battletech Battlemech Manual or the 'non-canon' BattleTechnology magazine written by two of the novels' authors which the TM and BTBM both heavily plagiarize despite saying the magazines aren't canonical.. Battlemechs (on the ground) are as capable as though slower to react than Zakus from the Universal Century Gundam series (note that's an important distinction).
So plenty of swinging around. If you ignore the anime-like style, D.C. Bruins has an idea similar to what the novels portray.
Virtually anything the Allards (Justin and Kai) do plays out like this.
In the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy, Kai Allard-Liao raises his Axman's axe into the air and says through the loud speaker he'll take on his foes one on one or in a group and he'll do it with this axe. He then proceeds to resume fighting off enemies in melee until a blow that'd go for his cockpit leads to him ejecting after rigging a Stackpole.
In another novel Kai pulls a John Wick with the business end of a Clan Gauss Rifle by backhanding someone to get distance, grabbing another mech with Yen Lo Wang's claws and putting a Gauss Rifle up to a mech's chin and pulling the trigger.
Mechs can climb mountain sides, vault up and over buildings strong enough to support their weight, and given that the average mech is actually not much bigger than a tank (take note of the pilot on the left), I'm not even sure where the hell they would put all these individual weapon gyros.
Your average tank has a gyro for the main gun and that's it. Maybe for the support gun as well.
But neither of these gyros keep the vehicle upright, and neither have the issue of having to worry about what happens when the tank faces straight down, upside down, or begins rotating on the 3rd unintended axis.
Mech limbs don't just rotate left/right or tilt back and forth. Imagine the tank as a whole is an arm on a mech.
What happens if you walk, and the tank faces down but the gyro wants to keep pointing the gun level with the ground? How far can it move before it can't move anymore? What happens then, does the gyro disengage? Is it strong enough to break the gun? If it isn't, how can it hope to keep up with faster movements?
The gyro in the mech's gut activates and deactivates based on mental input from the pilot. Lets say you have 7 guns each with their own gyro stabilization, and now it has to determine which gyros to turn on and off based on mental input?
As humans we manage a single gyroscopic system inside ourselves (technically it's two but they're connected/related and while they can work independent of the other in times of physically losing one, they cannot actively due this at our will). Can you imagine having to manage half a dozen? Spin in a circle for a few times, and what happens is you have dissonance between the two natural gyros inside your head and with that you may completely lose balance. This is two gyros working against each other.
Now consider 7 or more, and remember to consider that these are not the same size either as the primary gyro is usually 3 or more tons while the gyros for your medium lasers would need to weigh X amount of 1 ton, and every single weapon needs its own gyro to do what you're expecting gyro-stabilized weapon systems to do.
A ship, a tank, etc. is a very different beast than a bipedal machine. Machines like Atlas, Big Dog, etc., are not capable of gyro-stabilized weaponry either. Spot's arm gives the illusion of stabilization as it is able to maintain an absolute position, but even then you can see the toll it has.
In general, the more gyros you put on a legged machine the more difficult maintaining balance actually becomes.
Method-2, in fact, lacks a gyro and instead uses pre-programmed movements for the legs, and a well-balanced frame so that the arms would not throw it off.
Even without the physics issues that multiple gyros on a platform reliant on a larger gyro to keep upright, there's also just the BT lore. The Mongoose is the only 3050-or-earlier mech that comes standard with a gyro-stabilized weapon mount in the center torso, which is repeated in multiple TROs. This allows it to maintain accuracy even while running (for the CT-mounted weapon, reduce the modifier for movement). No other mech has this by default.
Yes, mechs have a gyro to stabilize the mech.
They do not have anything to stabilize the various weapons, and even stabilized machines like Big Dog bounce.
Big Dog is in fact gyro stabilized, and as you can see... gyro stabilization in even a quadrupedal machine is not magic.
#20
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Posted 22 December 2019 - 06:44 AM
I think i get your point, but you got stuck on the Gyroscope part of the argument. I only pointed out that they ARE fundamental part of a Battlemech.
And lets be honest with the swinging arms. Thats absolutely Artistic license. theres no sensible reason for keeping them loose while in combat when with a simple button you could lock them in their intended position, preferably slaved to your Stabilization system of choice =P.
Then, as i explained, stabilization systems are multitude, and of various types. The gyroscope is only a part of one.
There's no gyroscope working against a ships roll, but there is Ballast for example. There's also the Helm directing the ship. there's also the thrust governing the speed, then the Visual fire Director, then Laser telemetry, then Radar telemetry and many others ( GPS stands out amongst the modern ones ).
Hell, even a chronometer serves as a fire control assist on ballistic trayectories and torpedoes for example.
My point being, in as clear an example as possible: The gyro in a Centurions gut has nothing to fear of a Laser Director on the AC/10 right arm.
Just MYSELF moving the mouse to compensate the aim for the Mech movements is in fact doing the job of any of the possible Stabilization methods.
The Centurion can totally fall on his *** after doing a triple back flip, and as long as the shoulder + arm actuator range and speed permits, the AC/10 will stay on target. The same will happen if the Gyro succeeds on preventing the Centurion falling.
Now i know this is not how Mechwarrior depicts it, i couldnt tell you why the decided against it. ( Guess most of this tech wasnt common place when BT came out? ) but that has nothing to do with the actual succesfull implementation in the real world.
What we have :
https://en.wikipedia...ptical_tracking
Now imagine what Mechwarriors ACTUALLY should have with the https://www.sarna.ne...ki/Neurohelmet.
PD :
Not 100% an example, but i HAVE to share: ( What he does with the missile locks, is what im talking about. )
And lets be honest with the swinging arms. Thats absolutely Artistic license. theres no sensible reason for keeping them loose while in combat when with a simple button you could lock them in their intended position, preferably slaved to your Stabilization system of choice =P.
Then, as i explained, stabilization systems are multitude, and of various types. The gyroscope is only a part of one.
There's no gyroscope working against a ships roll, but there is Ballast for example. There's also the Helm directing the ship. there's also the thrust governing the speed, then the Visual fire Director, then Laser telemetry, then Radar telemetry and many others ( GPS stands out amongst the modern ones ).
Hell, even a chronometer serves as a fire control assist on ballistic trayectories and torpedoes for example.
My point being, in as clear an example as possible: The gyro in a Centurions gut has nothing to fear of a Laser Director on the AC/10 right arm.
Just MYSELF moving the mouse to compensate the aim for the Mech movements is in fact doing the job of any of the possible Stabilization methods.
The Centurion can totally fall on his *** after doing a triple back flip, and as long as the shoulder + arm actuator range and speed permits, the AC/10 will stay on target. The same will happen if the Gyro succeeds on preventing the Centurion falling.
Now i know this is not how Mechwarrior depicts it, i couldnt tell you why the decided against it. ( Guess most of this tech wasnt common place when BT came out? ) but that has nothing to do with the actual succesfull implementation in the real world.
What we have :
https://en.wikipedia...ptical_tracking
Now imagine what Mechwarriors ACTUALLY should have with the https://www.sarna.ne...ki/Neurohelmet.
PD :
Not 100% an example, but i HAVE to share: ( What he does with the missile locks, is what im talking about. )
Edited by Azhrael, 22 December 2019 - 07:16 AM.
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