27 replies to this topic

[Phytochrome]

Aleksandr Miuri, on 01 November 2011 - 09:26 AM, said:

IMO, the only good way to handle this is to make aiming difficult, but controllable, not random. Ideally, this could get wonderfully complex. Imagine attacking in a Mechwarrior game where dozens of variables affected your aim; variables that you could compensate for, but only with experience, and with time getting to know your mech. Say the mechs arms had weight and could only adjust so quickly; perhaps your mechs heavy arms didn't track well vertically. The mech's position and movement are taken into account; you're trying to make a turn on slippery sand, barely keeping your stumbling mech on its feet and bouncing your arms around; maybe the model of mech you're piloting needs to shift its arms while its turning just to keep balance, offsetting its aim somewhat. The heavy duty autocannon in your particular mech doesn't have a great muzzle velocity; shells drop quickly with distance. Your mech has less than stellar recoil compensation; fire that gauss rifle and it's going to take a little while before it gets everything lined back up again. The ground you're standing on is too soft, damage to your mech affects its balance, your modified weapons don't aim quite where the originals did, the planet's gravity or weather changes your aim. I could list a hundred more variables. The thing is that they aren't purely random though; a player who got to know the game and their machine could take them into account and still pull off some great shots; shots that would be all the more amazing because it wouldn't be "oh look, JimBob17's RNG decided he hit someone in the head, lucky!" but "Wow, that guy knows how to use his weapons, I'm glad he's on our team!"

I really like this post. having targeting affected by terrain factors and by the player's familiarity with the mech they're using seems an excellent antidote to "point-and-click" shooting. I love the idea of different mechs having different physical characteristics which affect how they lay their guns on target. It'd really add a layer to the simulation aspect if different mechs have different quirks like you've described.

[Master Q]

Aleksandr Miuri, on 01 November 2011 - 09:26 AM, said:

Cone of Fire? Well, I can see the point of it, it would make the game play more like the board game, but the thing is, the firing rules in CBT are in place because you aren't the pilot. You're playing a tactical commander; you're giving orders to your pilots but you have to essential take a risk that they'll be able to perform an action, in this case hitting a target, weigh the odds, and hope they can do it; you aren't in control of them. In Mechwarrior, we are the pilot. It's not about luck, it's about our skill level. We shouldn't be a tactical commander who just happens to be watching the action from a first person perspective; we're in control. We shouldn't be worried about losing because a random number generator decides that our shots hit in a part of the "cone of fire" that isn't actually over our target.

Actually, if you really read the lore, you'll find that most pilots (without the aid of advanced targeting tech) can draw their reticle over a target, maybe even over a specific spot, but that the weapons do NOT land where they were hoping - either because the actuators lining the weapons couldn't keep up with the motion and adjustments, or because the pilot on the other end turned unexpectedly, or any of a dozen other reasons.

You drop your target reticle over an opponent's LT. You fire an alpha strike and your AC/10 on the left arm leads a bit left due to targeting computer convergence issues (trying to realign the arms from 500m to 300m distance) early ,hitting the LA. Your MLAS lands CT because in the moment between your lining up the shot and squeezing the trigger, your opponent stepped his right foot into a shallow hole and his torso rocked forward slightly. Your PPC from the right arm lags a bit to the right due to the elbow actuator not being fully caught-up or due to your 'Mech shaking as you pound around running; PPC hits the RT instead.

Your skill pointed at the 'Mech and gave it the centerpoint for the cone. Your weapons followed rules of the system, that make sense, and hit somewhere in the cone.

Makes perfect sense to me, makes perfect sense from tabletop, and doesn't make the game any less skillful or into a "tactical sim from a first-person perspective." It makes it Battletech, or MechWarrior, whichever name you want to use.

[MaddMaxx]

Interesting discussion indeed. Size does matter. I always saw size being based on available load out option in the weapon category. A Jenner can't handle a Gauss Rifle for a reason. The weapon itself has a very large complimentary component requirement and as such a Mech needs both the added space and size to accommodate.

As well, Speed and Mobility are better achieved with a lower center of gravity, the same reason a modern race/sport car gets as close to the road as possible. Agility and traction are easiest achieved down low.

As for the Engine critical, MechCommanders take on it was not bad. An engine crippling release of energy, death to any Pilot still in the Mech, but the destruction was not catastrophic to the point of making the carcass un-salvageable.

With the game dated circa 3049, the Clan invasion has begun, it is hoped we will see the Clan Mech staples, to help round out the available rides.

As far as Weapon CoF, it is noted by the Dev they will have semi guided ballistic weapons. That is fine really. One thing that always seemed off about truly guided weapons, Streaks and LRM's was the ability to pull the trigger and then Lurch the weapon either UP or Sideways in order to attack enemies who would otherwise have hidden behind fire blocking Objects. It always felt kinda wrong to hide then then still eat a LRM Missile barrage as they fell from the heavens having followed a near impossible trajectory to their target. you.

As noted above, as differing weapons systems fire simultaneously yet independently (RT/LT/RA/RA/CT) the Mech itself would have difficulty realigning itself during a Full load-Out burst. Some guidance is good (given one weapons systems is fired at a time) otherwise some spread is expected to be inherent to such systems. Lasers not being included of course.

[Nils]

phytochrome, on 01 November 2011 - 08:10 AM, said:

Rather than Stackpoling every 'mech that dies, it'd look more interesting (to my eyes, at least) to have them collapse into heavy-metal ragdolls* following that critical gyro/engine/cockpit shot. Spectacular explosions could result from hits to ammo magazines, as happens in the Battletech wargame.

*With articulation appropriate to that mech, obviously.

EDIT: I'm also really interested in the scale at which the mechs will be presented in-game. I wonder if the concept art released so far has the mechs scaled as they will be in the game? If so, the size comparison between the Hunchback, Jenner and Atlas looks good (Hunchback coming up to Atlas' "armpits"). I hope that's the game scale being reflected there, because it looks just right and gives a powerful contrast between the Hunchback's bulkiness and the Atlas' tremendous size and physical power.

I agree with this.

[Suicidal Idiot]

Lots of posts talk about how a fusion reactor will just shut down when damaged, which is (mostly) true, for current theoretical reactors.

HOWEVER: Current designs of reactors are simply a continuous flow of ultra tiny hydrogen bombs. And there has to be some sort of heat exchange/power conversion mechanism.

Theoretical reasoning justifying explody 'mech plants (very wordy):

Spoiler

There has to be some sort of heat collection and energy extraction mechanism somewhere to make electricity. In coal fired plants it's steam turbines. In fission plants, it's often molten sodium in the primary cooling loop, which heats water for steam turbines.

Steam turbines have to have a source of very energetic (highly pressurized) steam to work. In 'mechs it is presumably some primary coolant along the lines of liquid sodium, which comes before the "mech coolant". Extraordinary amounts of energy are stored in phase changes, so it is reasonable to assume phase changes in mech primary fusion reactor coolant.

Now we get to damage. Yes, our present day theoretical reactors would shut down, and the damage of escaping plasma would probably be fairly limited (though when the plasma gets loose of the mag bottles in laser fusion reactors, it does cause some excitement and damage). However, our current reactors would just flat not work in mechs. There would absolutely have to be some other design of reactor, and it would still have to involve a heat exchange system, since hydrogen fusion only gives off a neutron and heat.

So, you have a reactor design that is fundamentally different from what we have now. I would imagine the design would require the hydrogen fuel to be under massive pressure to be injected into an ongoing fusion reaction. It would be impossible to use any known matter to use as the throttling valve in the presence of a continuous fusion reaction, so magnetic containment is pretty much required.

Magnetic containment is like trying to hold jello with rubber bands. It would have to be continually adjusting and be very strong. There's no reason that failing containment of the hydrogen fuel injectors couldn't fail first, If your reactor was a super fast pulser which reflected shock waves back in nanoseconds to the core to compress the freshly arrived, precisely metered hydrogen fuel, then losing the injector containment could flood the chamber with fuel and cause a 'boom'.

Even without the chamber flooding with fuel, the power required to run a mech would be a substantial reaction, and if magnetic containment were lost, the plasma would hit the reactor walls on it's way out, and all matter vaporized in the plasma's escape would only contribute to the 'boom'.

The 'boom' would not be trivial, any more than a small GP bomb would be trivial.

So, there are 3 systems that could go 'boom' in a mech fusion reactor.
The secondary coolant "small boom" like a steam engine boiler blowing a riverboat to hell.
The primary coolant (liquid sodium today, god knows what in 3049) "huge boom". Would also set off secondary coolant.
The runaway fusion reaction: anywhere from "enough to set off the first two" to "Megatons".

Also, there are other means of getting fusion. Muon catalyzed fusion (I studied physics under one of the big names in the field). Normally requires near absolute zero.

Even more intriguing is sonoluminescence, where cavitation bubbles cause light and temperature spikes measured at 20,000°K minimum, claims of measurements of 100,000° and wildly postulated to hit millions° K. So that's another possiblilty for thermonuclear fusion.

Certainly other possibilities will show up in the next millenium.

[Bruticus Stickalot]

in battletech tabletop game there was a chance of engine exploding and doing damage to a mech in same hex or next it .it was not a guaranteed explosion only a chance for it to happen when a critical was rolled on engine

[Michael Rosario]

uebersoldat, on 01 November 2011 - 08:13 AM, said:

2 - Explosions are prettier. It's a hollywood thing. You think you can hear anything in space? Yet look at how many space movies and games insert an atmosphere so that sound vibrations can be heard in the void of space

Somewhere a long time ago, (I think it was on the playground in elementary school) I heard some kid try to justify explosion sounds in space to another kid with the following quote: "No, you see, the explosions are louder in space because there's no air to get in the way of the sound."

[Xandre Blackheart]

Lets get something straight about the "Stackpole" effect. You aren't seeing a thermonuclear explosion when a mech reactor goes critical.

A good sized thermonuclear blast is in the ~60 mile radius zone. That's for an 80 megaton bomb.
The blast for a 1 megaton is ~5 miles. It would leave a crater 200 feet deep! What you are seeing is NOT a fusion reactor "going critical" Fusion reactors don't turn into bombs from being damaged.

What you are seeing in the "Stackpole" is the release of super heated plasma inside the reactor. The magnetic containment system fails and nothing but NOTHING will stop the plasma (in the million+ degree Fahrenheit range) from venting.

In the table top that was about a 30 meter range and did damage and a ton of heat.

I have no problems with this in game. If you are within 30 meters of a small sun dissipating you are likely to take some damage and shutdown. It's not even uncommon when you consider that the magnetic field is a delicate thing maintained by superconductors, electronics, and a butt-load of power.

But more than 30 meters and it's just hooey. It's not even primarily explosive force, it's like getting hit with with a huge fireball.