30 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

I heard from a user, let's keep him annonymous and use the name Gason Mrimm, that a Dev Playtest included blinding glare from the sun that affected a pilot's ability to fight while facing that direction.

When I posted a topic on the possible inclusion of bright, blinding flare weapons, I nearly overheated from the flames laid upon me by the community. Apparently, the Mech cockpits have self-tinting glass that renders flare weapons completely useless and allow you to stare directly at the sun with no ill effects.

So, should sun-glare have a blinding effect in-game? I can see how shooting into the sun can affect guided missiles and the ability to obtain target lock for a thermal-seeker system, but according to the BattleTech Technology, there is no problem with sun glare for pilots.

How do we all feel about this?

The side-view windows of modern-day Semi trucks can be electrically dimmed to cut sunglare or glare from headlights. Electric dimming causes crystals in the glass to rearrange and become more/less transparent depending on the charge applied. This dimming affects the whole trucker's mirror, but I imagine that Mech cockpits can be locally-dimmed by a computer, and they can probably apply localized polarization, too. In fact, I'd bet the localized dimming is regulated by layers of polarizing materials that are chectrically charged as-needed for whatever the particular glare of the moment is - be it polarized or not.


Poll edited for Paul

Edited by Prosperity Park, 06 February 2012 - 01:00 PM.

[Kaemon]

Was Mr. Mrimm sure that it was lens flare and not just Pure Awesomeness™ of play testing?

Any interactive environment is fantastic, and if I can use said environment as a non constant variable (meaning it doesn't always effect things exactly the same way) in tactics for advantage/disadvantage is...IMO...Pure Awesomeness™.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Yes, but is Pure Awesomeness™ more important than Pure BattleTechnessificity?

[CoffiNail]

Mild blinding. This makes me think of Extremity in MWLL, a map that is set on a spinning asteroid. Where ten minutes you are plunged in darkness, and the ambient temp is quite low, and then another ten min where you have a swealtering blinding playing field. I know a number of people do not like it, but I love the fact it changes up the game. Not every battlefield in BTU takes place in a nice wonderful lush tropical enviroment. Hell, iirc a lot of planets in the universe are hostile and not at all tropical. I would love to see this to that extent.

Different environs, with drastically different enviroments. A snow level that is nice and cold, a hot level with lava, etc.

[Kenyon Burguess]

-its impossible to remove 100% of glare, even with self-tinting glass. so it needs to be tested to find the right balance between blinding players and what the tinting should remove.

-glare might affect weapons as the devs description of missle tracking sounds like Semi-Automatic Command to Line-Of-Sight (SACLOS), The target tracking is manual and the missile tracking and control is automatic. Is similar to MCLOS but some automatic system positions the missile in the line of sight while the operator simply tracks the target. *SACLOS has the advantage of allowing the missile to start in a position invisible to the user, as well as generally being considerably easier to operate. SACLOS is the most common form of guidance against ground targets such as tanks and bunkers.

[Felicitatem Parco]

"Glare" is the effect of sautrating your sensors (be them organs or mechanical) with light. This most often is caused observing strong quantities reflected light bouncing off of an illuminated object and, obviously, from staring directly at a bright light source.

Polarizers block light that's oriented in one particular plane, so fisherman use polarized lenses that block horizontal light that reflects off the lake. That cuts the glare for them when their heads are upright, but if they tilted their heads to their shoulders, then their glasses would work poorly because it wouldn't be filtering out the reflected plane anymore.

General shades just reduce the amount of total light that passes through by absorbing some of the light by molecules in the glass/plastic and releasing the energy in the form of heat.

The side-view windows of modern-day Semi trucks can be electrically dimmed to cut sunglare or glare from headlights. Electric dimming causes crystals in the glass to rearrange and become more/less transparent depending on the charge applied. This dimming affects the whole trucker's mirror, but I imagine that Mech cockpits can be locally-dimmed by a computer, and they can probably apply localized polarization, too. In fact, I'd bet the localized dimming is regulated by layers of polarizing materials that are chectrically charged as-needed for whatever the particular glare of the moment is - be it polarized or not.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 06 February 2012 - 10:25 AM.

[Durant Carlyle]

Mild visual effect, but no effect whatsoever on weapon targeting or effectiveness.

[Dihm]

How is sunlight glare non-canon? It may not be in the table top rules, but that's different from canon.

For example, I'm pretty sure staring at a sun/star without eye protection would blind you, even in the Battletech Universe. Just because that, or sunlight glare, or lens flare aren't spelled out explicitly as a table top rule (neither are bathroom breaks, no rules for that), doesn't mean they don't exist/aren't canon.

Now, that said, more to the point, I'm all for dynamic, dramatic lighting. I'd be all for auto-polorizers that would protect your eyes yet dim the rest of the cockpit so that detail would be lost.

Edit:

Prosperity Park, on 06 February 2012 - 09:05 AM, said:

2.) Mason Grimm mentioned a playtest with glaring sunlight, and this is non-canon because BattleMechs have self-tinting cockpit glass. I heard of this because I got flamed hard in a thread where I mentioned that Bright, Blinding Flares could be an interesting in-game weapon.

Oh, so THAT'S what you mean. Okay, disregard my previous comments about canon/non-canon. I fail at reading comprehension, I actually see you mention this in the post too. It's been a long morning! We all make mistakes!

This does sound like a great module though, without the module, you get blinding glare/flares, with module, you get auto-polarization.

Edited by Dihm, 06 February 2012 - 10:34 AM.

[Paul Inouye]

A few options missing from the poll:

G) The glare was caused by a normal rendering effect in CryENGINE3 and has no effect on gameplay other than a slight visual distraction.
H) The suggestion of glare was taken a little too far out of context and is now being scrutinized by an overzealous community bent on giving Paul an ulcer.
I) Both G&H

The correct response is I

[Felicitatem Parco]

OOOHHH!

A polarizing Module, or Scout Tree ability! Awesome idea.

[CoffiNail]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

A few options missing from the poll:

G) The glare was caused by a normal rendering effect in CryENGINE3 and has no effect on gameplay other than a slight visual distraction.
H) The suggestion of glare was taken a little too far out of context and is now being scrutinized by an overzealous community bent on giving Paul an ulcer.
I) Both G&H

The correct response is I

Cryengine 2 does like lighting effects, I imagine 3 is just the same.

Hey, you took the job, what no one told you that you would be developing for a overzealous community?

Edited by CoffiNail, 06 February 2012 - 10:39 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

A few options missing from the poll:

G) The glare was caused by a normal rendering effect in CryENGINE3 and has no effect on gameplay other than a slight visual distraction.
H) The suggestion of glare was taken a little too far out of context and is now being scrutinized by an overzealous community bent on giving Paul an ulcer.
I) Both G&H

The correct response is I

What about B - Mild blinding effect that does not make fighting difficult?

And, should I put an ulcer option in the poll?

Edited by Prosperity Park, 06 February 2012 - 10:41 AM.

[Dihm]

You KNOW how we like to wildly speculate on anything you say Paul. At this point it's become a circle of violence. We started your ulcer, so you troll us, so we troll you by making your stomach bleed worse.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Paul Inouye, on 06 February 2012 - 10:37 AM, said:

A few options missing from the poll:

G) The glare was caused by a normal rendering effect in CryENGINE3 and has no effect on gameplay other than a slight visual distraction.
H) The suggestion of glare was taken a little too far out of context and is now being scrutinized by an overzealous community bent on giving Paul an ulcer.
I) Both G&H

The correct response is I

There, poll edited for Paul. I added a variant of option H.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 06 February 2012 - 10:48 AM.

[Dlardrageth]

What about the real life sunglare or even reflections off your monitor while playing? Won't we want those taken into account as well?

Unless a prereq for playing MWO will be to own a windowless basement...

[Dihm]

Dlardrageth, on 06 February 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

What about the real life sunglare or even reflections off your monitor while playing? Won't we want those taken into account as well?

Unless a prereq for playing MWO will be to own a windowless basement...

People who can afford tinted windows or curtains are paying to win, it is unfair.

Edited by Dihm, 06 February 2012 - 12:09 PM.

[CoffiNail]

Dlardrageth, on 06 February 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

What about the real life sunglare or even reflections off your monitor while playing? Won't we want those taken into account as well?

Unless a prereq for playing MWO will be to own a windowless basement...

For a number of people, they already meet that prereq

See, I will use my map for MWLL, Alshain. It is a snow map, actually it is a remake of MW2:GBL's Trial of Position map. I also, as can be seen to the left under my name, live in Winnipeg Canada. We get snow, we get sun like many other places in the world. BattleMechs fighting on a snow field, during mid day with a sun beaming down. BLINDING! Yes, it can be uncomfortable on the eyes, but I love varied terrain and battle conditions.

[Mautty the Bobcat]

Prosperity Park, on 06 February 2012 - 09:14 AM, said:

I heard from a user, let's keep him annonymous and use the name Gason Mrimm, that a Dev Playtest included blinding glare from the sun that affected a pilot's ability to fight while facing that direction.

When I posted a topic on the possible inclusion of bright, blinding flare weapons, I nearly overheated from the flames laid upon me by the community. Apparently, the Mech cockpits have self-tinting glass that renders flare weapons completely useless and allow you to stare directly at the sun with no ill effects.

So, should sun-glare have a blinding effect in-game? I can see how shooting into the sun can affect guided missiles and the ability to obtain target lock for a thermal-seeker system, but according to the BattleTech Technology, there is no problem with sun glare for pilots.

How do we all feel about this?

The side-view windows of modern-day Semi trucks can be electrically dimmed to cut sunglare or glare from headlights. Electric dimming causes crystals in the glass to rearrange and become more/less transparent depending on the charge applied. This dimming affects the whole trucker's mirror, but I imagine that Mech cockpits can be locally-dimmed by a computer, and they can probably apply localized polarization, too. In fact, I'd bet the localized dimming is regulated by layers of polarizing materials that are chectrically charged as-needed for whatever the particular glare of the moment is - be it polarized or not.


Poll edited for Paul

The mech's ability to prevent blinding light from affecting the pilot is true. However when using Light Amplification in dark/night settings, flares and indeed any extremely bright light source can blind the pilot's vision light would happen if you used night vision on anything. Flares are designed as signals, to light up dark areas, and in the case of LA use, it could be considered a weapon to temporarily blind them until they turn their LA off.

My recommendation for sunglare would be to, if included, keep it reduced and not overexaggerate its effect on a mech that is supposed to have features to prevent this to begin with. I personally would like the sunglare if it were to only minorly affect visual ability.

Edited by Mautty the Bobcat, 06 February 2012 - 12:16 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Agreed, night-vision saturaton should be caused by flares during night missions.

[Outlaw Wolf]

I deal with weapons a lot in my line of work, and in relation to the sun affecting a missiles targeting system is actually not a factor.

Missiles are designed to track 3 different ways depending on their designer and mission.

1. Active Radar Seeker: They track an active radar emission from an enemy's radar.

2. Thermal or Heat Seeking: Speaks for itself, however it is not solely based off of what it sees, it has a very distinct programming that it will ignore the sun (the specifics are classified, but safe to say it has a somewhat similar effect of an auto-dimmer) and has methods of tracking heat via the trails left off of a jets exhaust.

3. Radar Guided: Requires a constant missile lock, seeks the target that is locked onto my the fire control computer.

Having a bit of glare that could however effect whether or not the pilot can see his cross hairs or how well he can make out the shape or details on an enemy battlemech at a distance, completely feasible.