4 replies to this topic

[DEVASTATOR]

I've no idea if this is worthy of consideration by Piranha, either because its not a good idea (I think it is though) or because they are too far down the road but what the heck. I posted about this in another thread but I think its worthy of its own post.

I came across this idea back in the MW 3/4 days (I'm sure I wasn't the only one) when the tabletop to video game rules conversion debate raged on (and still does). I think we were all complaining that mechs died too quickly and we all wanted the battle between two 100 ton machines to last a lot longer. There were all kinds of reasons for this - boating, pinpoint accuracy with the reticle, etc. and some of the BT purists were advocating the concept of weapons spread (and similart concepts) being introduced akin to what can happen in the board game. Personally, I'm against that idea of randomness being injected into the game when there are other ways to solve the root problem - how do we make mechs last longer? I believe one of the ways (there are others and a combination of several may be in order) is with the concept of "Armor Granularity".

In previous games we have been used to what is essentially 8 areas, or hitboxes" where you can register a strike on a mech. They are:

Right Arm
Right Torso
Center Torso
Left Torso
Right Leg
Left Leg

In the past, if you could get 3 or 4 hits on the CT of a mech (or less depending on your weapons loadout) they'd go down as the CT was a pretty large area on most mechs and you didn't have to be too accurate to register a hit - just be in the general vicinity and you'd score. What I'd like to see is more hitboxes in each area as a more logical way to combat the problem of mechs dying too quickly. It could be done in a couple of ways.

1) Additional Fixed Hitboxes:
This would work whereby the CT (as an example) was still the CT we know and love from a mechlab perspective. It would have so many slots, spaces or whatever, to stick your gear in (engine, weapons, ammo, electronics, etc.). However, from the perspective of registering a hit, the CT would actually have 4 (again, as an example - whatever number makes sense could be inserted here) actual hitboxes all with the same armor rating. If the armor rating for the CT in the mechlab was 20 then each hitbox has 20 points of armor. In order to destroy the CT completely you have to destroy all 4 hitboxes. I think a workable system could be (26 hitboxes total):

CT = 4
RT = 4
LT = 4
RA = 3
LA = 3
RL = 3
LL = 3
Head = 2

Associated with each hitbox would be a piece of gear like an engine point, a weapon(s), ammo cache, etc. such that every time a hitbox was destroyed a critical hit was registered which might slow down the engine, destroy a weapon, cause you to loose your ammo, etc.

2) Dynamic Hitbox Creation:
Similar to the above but now the hitboxes are dynamically created based on your mech's design. So, if you had 2 weapons in the RA the system would create 2 hitboxes in the arm for you to destroy. If you had 2 weapons, 2 ammo loads and a heatsink in the RT then there would be 5 hitboxes created (or activated menaing they are all preset but activated -available to be destroyed- only when you drop some gear in there).

This concept has several benefits in my mind including:

a) it clearly will increase the lifespan of a mech in battle
b ) it doesn't inject something unrealistic and arbitrary as weapons spread (if I aim at something and pull the trigger I expect to hit it not have my weaons fire miss because the game decided I would)
c) it still rewards for accurate aiming and firing (there shouldn't be a penalty for accurate aiming skills afterall)
d) its realistic in that it makes you hit specifc areas of the torso over and over again instead of just hitting what amounts to the side of a barn (literally if its an Atlas we are talking about) in order to kill a mech
e) it gives us the "critical hit" we loved from MW2 that cased the loss of weapons, ammo to explode or engines to lose power if sections of a mech were destroyed

A lot of this depends on what the mechlab will lool like and how much customizaiton you can do. In MW2 you could do just about anything which was gradually reduced up to MW4. So, if you can't choose where to put your engine criticals or heatsinks a la MW2 then there'd have to be some fixed positioning of the criticals in the CT, etc. (which would be fine too).

Comments?

Edited by DEVASTATOR, 13 January 2012 - 02:24 PM.

[Liam]

I wrote similar stuff to armor segmentation, but no one wanted to read ...

I do really hope the segmentation will come some day ...
we could keep our accurate weapons, and include splash/penetration damage model.

In my opinion even the engines should have their own hit boxes this would fix XLs
+ some Weapons hit boxes,
+ maybe Ammunition pods ... making CASE useful
Heat sinks could be done by RNG or depending on required hardware and network performance with hit boxes ...

I still hope MW will became a simulation game, based on science fiction, without loosing the BT lore ... yes it is possible
I would also like to see mixed armor: FF for legs and standard for the rest (and vice versa) etc.

Edited by Liam, 13 January 2012 - 06:17 PM.

[Durant Carlyle]

I like the hit-box idea, with each weight class having a base number of boxes in each area. Adding weapons gives more boxes beyond the base number.

Liam -- we don't need this hit-box idea for critical hits to engine and weapons. MW2 did it perfectly -- once armor in a location was gone, stuff in that location started taking critical hits. This included the engine, weapons, ammo, and any extra heat sinks that didn't fit in the engine. But because the Clan XL engines only have two engine criticals in the side torso sections (and it takes three hits to destroy the engine), the engine couldn't be destroyed by destroying one side torso. Inner Sphere XL engines take up more criticals in the side torso, so destruction of the engine (and therefore, the 'Mech itself) is possible by taking out just one side torso location entirely.

Oh ... and mixed armor should only be available as a temporary in-the-field repair type of thing. For instance, you're in the middle of a mission and when you get to the mobile repair station you realize you forgot to pack the right kind of armor for your 'Mech. You can temporarily "bolt on" the wrong kind of armor to get near the normal amount of hit points (with a penalty for the wrong type, of course) but once you get back to a real 'Mech bay you have to get rid of the bad stuff (essentially, re-damaging your 'Mech) and repair with the correct kind.

However, it shouldn't be possible to design a 'Mech with mixed armor types. How would you work out the fact that Ferro-Fibrous takes up a lot more space than standard armor (14 critical slots worth)? Besides, no manufacturer is going to design a 'Mech with that type of limitation -- it would be bad for logistics having to pack multiple types of armor for a single 'Mech.

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 13 January 2012 - 07:13 PM.

[Liam]

Durant Carlyle, on 13 January 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:

Liam -- we don't need this hit-box idea for critical hits to engine and weapons. MW2 did it perfectly -- once armor in a location was gone, stuff in that location started taking critical hits. This included the engine, weapons, ammo, and any extra heat sinks that didn't fit in the engine...

Off cause you can replace heat boxes of Heat sinks, actuators and ammunition pods by RNG, but then you take tactical issue away.
Otherwise with hit boxes (for Sinks, ammo, and engines) if you know where the ammo of the target mech is, you would probably try to go for it. Its additional tactical feature ... However RNG would simplify a lot.

I disagree on weapon hit boxes ... they are to big ... and it significant tactical advantage to take them out. They should be armored in some case. but least be destroyable by lucky hit or by destroying the armor (depends on weapons position and mount)

The engine mechanic should be balanced on the game and around other stuff (weapon damage / hit zone mechanic).
BT TT is based on dice with simplified hit zone model and heat management, nothing wrong here (at least it is TT game)

Edited by Liam, 13 January 2012 - 07:25 PM.

[Raeven]

DEVASTATOR, on 13 January 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

I've no idea if this is worthy of consideration by Piranha, either because its not a good idea (I think it is though) or because they are too far down the road but what the heck. I posted about this in another thread but I think its worthy of its own post.

I came across this idea back in the MW 3/4 days (I'm sure I wasn't the only one) when the tabletop to video game rules conversion debate raged on (and still does). I think we were all complaining that mechs died too quickly and we all wanted the battle between two 100 ton machines to last a lot longer. There were all kinds of reasons for this - boating, pinpoint accuracy with the reticle, etc. and some of the BT purists were advocating the concept of weapons spread (and similart concepts) being introduced akin to what can happen in the board game. Personally, I'm against that idea of randomness being injected into the game when there are other ways to solve the root problem - how do we make mechs last longer? I believe one of the ways (there are others and a combination of several may be in order) is with the concept of "Armor Granularity".

In previous games we have been used to what is essentially 8 areas, or hitboxes" where you can register a strike on a mech. They are:

Right Arm
Right Torso
Center Torso
Left Torso
Right Leg
Left Leg

In the past, if you could get 3 or 4 hits on the CT of a mech (or less depending on your weapons loadout) they'd go down as the CT was a pretty large area on most mechs and you didn't have to be too accurate to register a hit - just be in the general vicinity and you'd score. What I'd like to see is more hitboxes in each area as a more logical way to combat the problem of mechs dying too quickly. It could be done in a couple of ways.

1) Additional Fixed Hitboxes:
This would work whereby the CT (as an example) was still the CT we know and love from a mechlab perspective. It would have so many slots, spaces or whatever, to stick your gear in (engine, weapons, ammo, electronics, etc.). However, from the perspective of registering a hit, the CT would actually have 4 (again, as an example - whatever number makes sense could be inserted here) actual hitboxes all with the same armor rating. If the armor rating for the CT in the mechlab was 20 then each hitbox has 20 points of armor. In order to destroy the CT completely you have to destroy all 4 hitboxes. I think a workable system could be (26 hitboxes total):

CT = 4
RT = 4
LT = 4
RA = 3
LA = 3
RL = 3
LL = 3
Head = 2

Associated with each hitbox would be a piece of gear like an engine point, a weapon(s), ammo cache, etc. such that every time a hitbox was destroyed a critical hit was registered which might slow down the engine, destroy a weapon, cause you to loose your ammo, etc.

2) Dynamic Hitbox Creation:
Similar to the above but now the hitboxes are dynamically created based on your mech's design. So, if you had 2 weapons in the RA the system would create 2 hitboxes in the arm for you to destroy. If you had 2 weapons, 2 ammo loads and a heatsink in the RT then there would be 5 hitboxes created (or activated menaing they are all preset but activated -available to be destroyed- only when you drop some gear in there).

This concept has several benefits in my mind including:

a) it clearly will increase the lifespan of a mech in battle
b ) it doesn't inject something unrealistic and arbitrary as weapons spread (if I aim at something and pull the trigger I expect to hit it not have my weaons fire miss because the game decided I would)
c) it still rewards for accurate aiming and firing (there shouldn't be a penalty for accurate aiming skills afterall)
d) its realistic in that it makes you hit specifc areas of the torso over and over again instead of just hitting what amounts to the side of a barn (literally if its an Atlas we are talking about) in order to kill a mech
e) it gives us the "critical hit" we loved from MW2 that cased the loss of weapons, ammo to explode or engines to lose power if sections of a mech were destroyed

A lot of this depends on what the mechlab will lool like and how much customizaiton you can do. In MW2 you could do just about anything which was gradually reduced up to MW4. So, if you can't choose where to put your engine criticals or heatsinks a la MW2 then there'd have to be some fixed positioning of the criticals in the CT, etc. (which would be fine too).

Comments?

Well, even though I like the idea, I think it would need adjustment in two areas. Ammo weapons would need a little more ammo per ton and Missles would have to be completely reworked to either do way more damage or fire faster and have more ammo.