153 replies to this topic

[Victory]

I prefer the original TT rules because they make sense. An arm mounted LRM w/ additional energy/ballistic, with armor is a lot of weight just on earth gravity and all of that weight being supported by arm joints? That's a structural flaw if I ever saw one.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

I think the very sides of the nose will be divided like the Raven's. Or perhaps closer to the Stalker consider how it and the Timber Wolf have that box behind the nose.

[Rejarial Galatan]

by making a DHS = 1.5 they are openly caught in a LIE as far as the name goes, and what one would expect from DOUBLE heat sinks performance wise.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

Rejarial Galatan, on 25 January 2013 - 01:37 AM, said:

by making a DHS = 1.5 they are openly caught in a LIE as far as the name goes, and what one would expect from DOUBLE heat sinks performance wise.

"If a MadCat was made the shoulder missile launchers would be part of the-"

Funny. No where in that title I see anything about double heatsinks, or mentioned in anyone's post.

[CrashieJ]

I wouldnt mind if some model has the Missile points or Ballistics in the arms to free up space for heavier Missile/Ballistic pods.

that's just me.

[Scrawny Cowboy]

gavilatius, on 25 January 2013 - 11:46 PM, said:

I wouldnt mind if some model has the Missile points or Ballistics in the arms to free up space for heavier Missile/Ballistic pods.

that's just me.

I think the ballastic hardpoints would be in the center torso. And isn't the Timber Wolf an omni-mech?

[Ralgas]

Easy answer leave it as ct but give it a lower profile, think more along the lines of the ddc's chest lrm plate turned sideways or cross between a hunchbacks 4j / 4sp . Giving the top end of a heavy class clan mecha extra hitboxes and by extension either assault class armoring (extra for the hitboxes) or paper thin ct armor to compensate (spread between the 2) isn't going to wash for anyone methinks. A little creative license (with permission of course) on the model to preserve gameplay for the pilots

Put the timberwolf on a diet!!!

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

It's going to be it's own hitbox, the paperdoll already exists for extra hitbox missle-box options such as we will see with the MadCat.

[Eddrick]

B3RZ3RK3R, on 24 January 2013 - 11:21 PM, said:

I think the very sides of the nose will be divided like the Raven's. Or perhaps closer to the Stalker consider how it and the Timber Wolf have that box behind the nose.

It had been a while since I had played any of the other MechWarrior games. But, I think you are right. However, probably the best example would be to use the one Mech that we do have of the two Mechs that the MadCat/TimberWolf is based off of. The Catatpult (The other being the Marauder. Marauder mixed with Catapult is how the MadCat got it's name. Because, it looks like both of the two mashed together). Side Torso hitbox locations on the side slightly behind the nose.

Edited by Eddrick, 26 January 2013 - 12:31 AM.

[Zeke Steiner]

The missle pods should be part of the torso from the front, top, back, and inner side. They should register as an arm hit from the outer side and under side. If not than the dam thing would be too easy to kill and would not be an iconic badass mech that it should be. The atlas has two meaty arms to protect its side torso's making the thing a bit more tanky and hell of lot more frightening. Do the same for the Mad Cat/Timber Wolf.

Edited by Zeke Steiner, 26 January 2013 - 01:20 AM.

[gilliam]

I am one of those people who will go on and on about adherence to the TT (in favor of), but I think it is perfectly reasonable to have some breaks from those rules for playability purposes.

In this case, I would say the weapon pods should be a separate hit-box, but they take some of the armor from the side torso (meaning the main part of the side torso has a little bit less armor). Taking out the armor of external the pod opens the weapons inside to critical hits and removing all of the HP of the weapon inside removes the pod (or you might give the pod a couple structure taken from the corresponding torso), but the rest of the torso remains intact and the arm remains attached. If you fire on the main part of the side torso, you take out the armor on there which opens up the items in the main part of the side torso (ie. not in the pods) to critical damage; when you destroy the structure in the side torso, the attached pod is also destroyed and the arm falls off.

This might also be in effect for certain weapons on the arms of certain mech; for instance, the Thor E has LRM 20s perched on the shoulders, that are technically installed in the arms, in this case the launchers would have separate hit-boxes drawing armor, structure, and critical slots from the arms rather than the torso.

It should be a case by case basis, depending on the weapon and mech. Generally missiles would be in external pods, but it depends on the launcher size and the mech, for instance, the missiles in the torso of a Ryoken are generally depicted as being in the main body of the torso, and the missiles in a vulture are also contained wholly within the side torsos, but most omni-mechs mount launchers in external pods; with the Thor, the large LRM racks in the arms are also in separate pods, but the smaller SRMs are mounted to the lower arm. I have seen the Mad Cat A's 3 torso mounted ERMLs mounted in an external pod, but it's just as easy to have them up against the center torso like the machine guns.

This would allow for some interesting tactical gameplay by letting you target specific weapons that are sticking out without making the mech vulnerable to losing a bunch of equipment due to having a huge shoot mme boox sticking out.

On a side note regarding the Mad cat: The squared off portion of the torso would be the side torso.


For the people who are spouting how the TT rules say this or that, do keep in mind we already have some breaks from it, ignoring heat, damage and fire rate concerns of weapons, TT rules hold that all mechs can torso twist 60 degrees either way and all arms have a 180 degree swivel (from 60 degrees to the opposite side to 120 degrees to the same side). MWO mechs generally have less arm movement and more torso movement, and some mechs even have negligible lateral arm movement with a range of motion on the torso exceeding 100 degrees to each side.

Speaking of arms. I would also be interested to see how the Dragonfly and Black Hawk are treated. Their arms actually appear to be connected coaxially with the hips, so it would be odd for side torso destruction to remove an arm without touching the leg. Could be interesting if on those mechs, side torso destruction doesn't affect the arms, but leg destruction causes the arm to fall off (having side torso destruction cause the loss of the arm and leg, while possibly making sense, would be too crippling). of course, they might just end up redesigning those mechs with waists., since they also wouldn't be able to torso twist in the arrangement they are depicted as having (though, personally, I think it would be awesome if they gave torso mounted weapons extremely limited movement while giving the arms a stupid huge range of motion)


As for the Atlas, the SRM doesn't stick out very much, so I don't think it warrants a separate hit location, and the gun on the hunchback while a large spot to aim, is still fairly contiguous with the right torso rather than being a giant add on sticking off some distance.

If we ever got something like a Warhammer of Thunderbolt (those two mechs, specifically would be unlikely) with huge external missiles launchers (along with huge guns like on the Marauder of Stone Rhino), would be subject to the same separate hit locations, but small bits and large torso sections don't require a separate location. Again, I think this would add some interesting tactical gameplay.

[Stingz]

Pariah Devalis, on 24 January 2013 - 08:36 PM, said:

I think you may have inadvertently taken what they said about the heat sinks out of context. In the context, they said they would not make DHS 2.0 since it would completely invalidate the option of SHS.

Clanners have no use for obsolete tech, just about every mech has DHS. The only times they use SHS is on cheap (exports/ second line), or low heat mechs.

[gilliam]

Stingz, on 26 January 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

Clanners have no use for obsolete tech, just about every mech has DHS. The only times they use SHS is on cheap (exports/ second line), or low heat mechs.

No reason not to.

Clan DHS take up the same number of criticals per point of heat dissipation and can be fit into legs (which doubles their dissipation) still.

IS DHS on the other hand, take up 50% more space per point of dissipation and can't fit into legs

Really the only reason to fit singles ever in the TT is space concerns, and the clan version solves that issue.

[Pariah Devalis]

Exactly. My point was the only reason DHS were not made 2.0 was because that would completely invalidate the single heat sinks. When it comes to the Clans, there will be zero reason to take singles, anyways, so the clan ones will quite possibly be 2.0. This was just being used as an example that the devs do not want one option completely overpowering another, so they will find a way to balance things out.

Given they said they want to do Clan tech justice, the balance is likely to be applied externally.

[Lima Zulu]

Got one idea on topic question. Just want some response.

Spoiler

Some concerns about "separate part idea"
1) If LRM launcher part (can I call it "ear", like Mickey Mouse's one?) is a separate part of mech (not only hitbox), other parts armor (and structure) should be sacrificed in order to have same armor and structure values for whole mech. Also, this would be weird in mechlab - we need 4 (for CLRM) critslots for each LRM in "ear" it's mounted, so we need to reduce torso crirslots (if we don't want creating critslots from nowhere for this part), and with clan XL engine it leaves only 6 critslots in each of side torsos. Also, I have no idea how this new parts of mech would work with ammo explosions (because nothing except common sense can stop me from filling all 4 critslots with AC20 ammo).

2) Some concerns about "just a side torso" idea
LRM launcher is HUGE. Also, if it's a part of torso, it can't be destroyed independently.

So what is my idea.

The part containg LRM launcher can be a third "side" of side torso in addition to front and rear armor, with defined maximum, just like front and rear. The only thing works different here is that all damage, hitting "ear" after all it's armor is destroyed, would not damage side torso structure att all, but become 100% critical to weapons and/or equipment, mounted in "ear". Once all equipment in "ear" is destroyed, mech loses "ear" (just like it loses arm after arm structure is destroyed). In a mechlab "ear" will work just like part of side torso (except armor). Ammo explosion in the "ear" will damage not a structure, but equipment in "ear" at first, and only exceeding explosion damage would be transfered to side torso structure.

[Multitallented]

They are making the LRM boxes separate hitboxes entirely.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Phelan Kerensky, on 09 January 2012 - 09:35 PM, said:

I believe the Timber Wolf should follow BT/TT Lore and be part of the Torsos. I also believe that because they are one with the torsos that both(being the same hitbox/thing)should have the same amount of armor, when you remove armor from the left torso you also remove armor from the Missile Rack. At a certain point of damage to the Torso the Missile Pack should be "Blown Off" and not useable, with a possible ammo explosion...

By lore you mean the game rules right? In the books they were described as distinct portions of the Mech.

Personally with those big honking targets, I feel they'd be even easier to dismantle than Cats which would put the once fearsome Mech into the ranks of the also-rans. I hope they give them distinct damage models of their own, even if they're fairly light in the armor department.

[Iron Savior]

Madcat isn't even a good design anyway, who cares. Big huge ears to blow off, massive cockpit for AC20 punching, don't get me started on the torsos. Arms way down low past the cockpit.

Has no place on the battlefield. Can't ridge snipe or poptart. Can't brawl with an ***** design like that. You could turn it into a scout mech if you want, I guess, but we have scout mechs for that, and you'd just get matched up against an angry IS cataphract who's ready to punch your head off because you invaded for no reason.

If it were remade with IS parts, it would be a complete POS that no one would bother with. Absolutely nothing is special about it aside from being clan tech, which isn't special at all once you realize the vast majority of clan tech is just bigger numbers. There's no real genius going on here, it's just technology that's vastly superior and used poorly.


Second line mech at best; it's fitting that it's the visage of the average clanner moron. "Contractions and freeborns are stupid, quiaff?" And then clanners made an entire secondary language that's nothing BUT contractions, and got their teeth kicked in by freeborns.


That's funny.

[Morang]

I'd prefer them stick to the TT rules for all armor/equipment/location purposes and just make MadCat less vulnerable by design means. Make those ears as slim as possible, reduce overall size of the 'mech, whatever.

[Lima Zulu]

Iron Savior, on 28 May 2013 - 10:42 PM, said:

If it were remade with IS parts, it would be a complete POS that no one would bother with.

Suddenly, Rakshasa


Anyway, the external problem is not about MadCat only, it's about a few other designs like Bushwacker, Thor (maybe Loki too), Cauldron Born and few other mechs.

Edited by Lima Zulu, 28 May 2013 - 11:36 PM.