41 replies to this topic

[verybad]

They take up HUD space for more useful weapons. While the idea isn't bad, even in TT they're less useful than foreward facing weapons. Almost any mech with backward facing weapons can be made better by moving them to forreward facing, or replacing them with armor or heatsinks..

2 medium lasers (and very few mechs have more than this facing backwards) are simply NOT a detterent compared to the weaponry facing forward,, especially compared to the weaponry facing forward, and the lower armor on the back torso.

I feel that people that want backward facing weapons are simply the modern form of collecters that want the possibility in order to have the game be "complete" not because they would make their mech more effective.

Edited by verybad, 06 February 2012 - 01:42 PM.

[ManDaisy]

Rear facing LRM launcher for scout thats retreating. LRM will shake someone up buying you the few seconds you need to live.

4 med rear facing lasers for any assault. Doesn't way much, kicks light's ***.

Edited by ManDaisy, 06 February 2012 - 01:56 PM.

[Ogre Magi]

rear facing wepons work on the table top game to deter light mechs, locusts/wasps ect from getting to your rear and MGing ya to death. Even in canon very few units had them. most mechs could torso twist to get and angle or a arm weapon to target the mech and that was generally enough in 3025 rules.
most of the game play here would preclude the use of those weapons other than for that one in a million chance to shoot a locust that get behind ya, they woudl be better to mount on the arms,

[ManDaisy]

based on pauls description of speed from his battle account "story" you should reconsider.

[verybad]

}OgreMagi{, on 06 February 2012 - 01:58 PM, said:

rear facing wepons work on the table top game to deter light mechs, locusts/wasps ect from getting to your rear and MGing ya to death. Even in canon very few units had them. most mechs could torso twist to get and angle or a arm weapon to target the mech and that was generally enough in 3025 rules.
most of the game play here would preclude the use of those weapons other than for that one in a million chance to shoot a locust that get behind ya, they woudl be better to mount on the arms,

They never deterred me when I used to play the TT game. The target mech always had MORE weaponry facing towards the front, and less armor on the back. I'd rather a fast light mech faced just 2 lasers than say a heavy AC and some lasers and an SRM6... In addition, you were generally the second target (penalty to hit) and you moved fast (more penatlies to hit). In addition, that extra heat form them fireing their back weapons could be useful in following rounds. Putting those medium lasers on the arms like mentioned would typically be a better use.

Also the Locust is one of the least effective mechs out there. Get a Jenner with it's much better weaponry behind an Atlas and you might end up with a kill (all four lasers plus the SRMs afterward for potential crits, then jump away the next turn.

ManDaisy, on 06 February 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

Rear facing LRM launcher for scout thats retreating. LRM will shake someone up buying you the few seconds you need to live.

4 med rear facing lasers for any assault. Doesn't way much, kicks light's ***.

Those 4 lasers cause a lot of heat, and you don't typically hit with them all. LRM systems are fairly heavy for a light, fast mech, and unless you're entire mech is designed for that one form of fighting, it means that scout is much LESS effective when facing it's foe. It's more of a gimmick than great design, what happens if another light mech catches it?

Edited by verybad, 06 February 2012 - 02:22 PM.

[ManDaisy]

Look if you don't like then don't use em. But please, don't stop us "collectors" who would like to use them and see em in the game from using em. I think the time spent on putting them into the game will be well worth it. Tho the chance to have em crippled by mechlab restrictions does exist. If the mechlabs follows any mw4 style limits on customization you might as well skip it. Hopefully the mechlab is good enough to allow for dynamic more then 1 dimensional designs.

Edited by ManDaisy, 06 February 2012 - 02:40 PM.

[verybad]

Well I just respond that i think the time would be a waste, and that outside the novelty, they would be largely ignored and ineffective. I don't have anyting against their availability for people that want them if the developers were given infinate resources for the development of this game. Since infinite resources are not available however, I feel that time spend getting them into the game would be better spent on other aspets.

I don't see what MW4's weaponlab has to do with it. (BTW, Jeho, the lead programmer for MekTek's mods of that game, developed rear facing weaponry, he didn't install that however since redoing all of the mech's hardpoints would have been a major PITA.)

[El Loco]

Has it ever crossed your mind, verybad, that not all of us want the most effective 'Mech? For those of us, and I count myself to them, that don't need the perfect loadout on their chassis, the idea of rear mounted weapons is very appealing, because it adds another aspect to 'Mech warfare. It'd be a gimmick... admittedly one of rather little value for fighting as we would seldomly use them and had to get a chassis that features them already or get the necessary modifications done.

On a side note: I'd love to see "rear-weapons-only" fights on Solaris or wherever^^ Imagine a Grand Bloodname melee fought only using rear mounted weapons... which on second thought sounds very boring, but sure would be fun to play.

[verybad]

Has it ever crossed your mind that I'm not tryiing to speak for "all of us?" I didn't say I was, I said I was speaking for myself several times in fact, just to TRY to avoid your type of response.

Am I allowed to speak my opinion without it being viewed as an insult if it doesn't agree with "all of us"?

Who is this "all of us": that you are speaking for however?

[Exilyth]

Having rear mounted weapons would be nice. I think having a (toggleable) rear mirror or rear view would be enough.

El Loco, on 06 February 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

I'd actually like to see rear mounted weapons / flipping arms firing to the rear. BUT: To be easily available this would make a 360° vision condensed to 180° mandatory. Otherwise it would require a key assigned to switching between front and rear firing modes and a second display showing what's going on behind you. With the 360° vision, your rear could have a crosshair of a different colour or shape (I think one could quickly adapt to the change of colour / shape over a couple of games) and be separated from the front / sides by some coloured bars or who knows what. I honestly have no idea how hard it is to programme something like this as this is absolutely not my field of expertise.

Projection matrices can only have a field of view of up to 180°, but you could combine multiple views from different angles into one view. You can imagine it like a ring or circle of cameras around the mech, with all images being displayed side by side on a single screen inside your cockpit.
The implementation would be nearly trivial: just render each cameras view to a different section on the same framebuffer. Then again, the performance hit would be large, as you'd have to render the same scene [amount of cameras] times. Also, there will be some distortion where the edges of different views meet.

Edited by Exilyth, 06 February 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[El Loco]

Nah... I'm fine with that And I definitely didn't intend to come across like I would belittle your opinion... sorry for that. Plus, I hadn't seen your latest comment before I had posted mine (which would've helped).

I'm speaking only for people who share my opinion, thereby assuming someone actually does so. As to "all of us"... all the (potential) players playing the game. There will be plenty who want the most efficient loadout and there will be those who don't. The first tend to complain about features they deem unnecessary and a waste of resources / time (and that's the drawer I put you in unknowingly, again my sincere appologies for doing so). That's just an observation I made over the last years playing various f2p games, and something I didn't like at all.

Aunty Edith and I want to thank Exilyth for the explanation of the technical side of the matter!

Edited by El Loco, 06 February 2012 - 03:36 PM.

[GrimJim]

osito, on 06 February 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

I dont think they will have any rear firing weapons due to the fact of how to target the rear weapons. do they add another screen showing whats behind you and a targeting cursor? its just easier for them to move everything to forward facing.

Unless rear mounted arsenal act like Anti-missle systems and automatically fire and hit to some degree when a target presents itself (in this case not a munition but a sneaker "round the rear"). That would be very useful and balanced since it is only used in rare instances, takes space & weight but does act as a legit deterrent for certain 'Mechs. Most rear weapons are not huge so it would not be a game changer but the pain felt would force tactics to change.

ADDENDUM: Allow arm flipping to bring more firepower to bear for non-hand actuator 'Mechs. Don't add a screen, simply have the cockpit HUD flip to a rear view and targeting otherwise acts the same. The downside is you are effectively blind from the front in this action which does balance that ability quite nice --

PLUS you can fight backwards walking in reverse when you get your front armor wiped!!! (Hey it worked Kai Allard-Liao!)

[Nick Makiaveli]

verybad, on 06 February 2012 - 02:49 PM, said:

Well I just respond that i think the time would be a waste, and that outside the novelty, they would be largely ignored and ineffective. I don't have anyting against their availability for people that want them if the developers were given infinate resources for the development of this game. Since infinite resources are not available however, I feel that time spend getting them into the game would be better spent on other aspets.

I don't see what MW4's weaponlab has to do with it. (BTW, Jeho, the lead programmer for MekTek's mods of that game, developed rear facing weaponry, he didn't install that however since redoing all of the mech's hardpoints would have been a major PITA.)

This. It isn't that it wouldn't be canon, or cool, or even occasionally useful. It's that the devs need to get the game out the door, then spend time and money on something like this that isn't going to appeal to the masses.

[Burned_Follower]

lol when i read the title to this topic, i immediately thought of a good trailer for MWO featuring rear mounted weapons:

A Jenner is zipping down a street in a large city, turns the corner and comes face to face with an Atlas.

The Jenner then drops several anti-tank mines from it's rear in the shape of large bricks and then runs away before the Atlas gets a shot off.

Kind of like Bender here in this video:

ROFL ROFL ROFL

Edited by XxDRxDEATHxX, 06 February 2012 - 05:03 PM.

[ManDaisy]

Well its either now or never, anything further down the line and its really gonna be a pain to put in when they have to make re adjust to everything. I hope they do make the call to put it in. I'd rather have a wait a bit for the framework to be put in rather then never having this feature at all.

[Vexgrave Lars]

Real world, multi-arc firing capability would be a lifesaver, particularly against ambush infantry.

Mech Warrior world..well seems like a waste of an internal slot to me. I remember playing a Battle Master on TT and frankly don't think I ever once fired the rear weapons. If you have a good team, your backs never to the enemy anyway, and someone on your lance has your butt covered with at least 20 tons of steel.

One on one... torso turn to keep your front to the little ******* your targeting. If not, put your back to a structure. Make him come into your firing arc.

I dunno that's my opin and experience, rear firing weapons are a waste. Change them out for armor or ammo, or turn them around.

[Pht]

Alicorn, on 06 February 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

I was just bumming around today, and it occoured to me that some mechs feature rear-mounted weaponry to defend demselves if they become surrounded. Even the original Centurion mounted a rearward-facing Medium Laser for that matter.
Personally though, I've never found such a weapon to be of much use - it takes space and weight, and can only be used in the rarest of situations. That, and if you do have units behind you, you're probably really bad at your job anyway.

So, what are your thoughts? Are rear-mounted weapons good? Bad? Useless waste of tonnage?

And more importantly, should MWO have them? Only on mechs that canonicly mount them? Drop them alltogether?

Let me hear what you have to say!

IMO, rear mounted weapons are useful in that they give a player the tactical option of running away while still having a weapon facing to the enemies.

They're also great at dissuading light mechs from shooting at your softer backside.


As to which should rear mount ...

I haven't thought about it much. Offhand, I'd say only allow mechs that are built such in the canon to do rear mount, with the obvious exclusion of omnimechs.

[Solis Obscuri]

The real question is whether a useful interface could be devised to utilize rear-firing weapons. I'm a bit skeptical about that, and I think switching the weapons to forward facing makes a number of 'mechs more formidable. From the artwork released so far, It looks like the rear-firing weapons are being re-oriented to the front of the 'mech.

However, I would like having the ability to fire to our side arcs using a look toggle - that can be useful.

[Mattiator]

Would be nice to have them for canon's sake, but add them further down the road to underused (by players) chassis that had them in canon, i.e in a new variant or something of the like. A nice way to make more people invest in less-popular chassis, for the chance to try out rear weapons, which leads to potentially more money for the developers.

I don't think rear firing weapons are a huge priority that absolutely must be in the game at launch.

For implementation, I think it would be logical to simply put a small camera on the back of the mech that would put a small screen in a corner, with obviously a much-reduced field of view than your cockpit and it's own targeting reticule. Canon? Probably not. Sensical? Absolutely, it is much simpler for a newer player to grasp than the crazy 180 degree views and whatnot, and it also means you can easily aim with both your front and rear weapons simultaneously (although obviously your controls would be reversed for rear weapons, making it more difficult to use them as effectively as front weapons, as they should be.

With heavy damage to the rear, it could disable said camera (giving static/no signal), with further damage, destroying rear weapons.

Edited by Mattiator, 06 February 2012 - 06:06 PM.

[Pht]

verybad, on 06 February 2012 - 01:42 PM, said:

They take up HUD space for more useful weapons.

I suspect it would be entirely doable to use a mw4 style hat control on the joystick to achieve rear view camera ... with the addition of an aiming reticule.

Quote

2 medium lasers (and very few mechs have more than this facing backwards) are simply NOT a detterent compared to the weaponry facing forward,, especially compared to the weaponry facing forward, and the lower armor on the back torso.

They don't really need to be. They're there more as a way to provide covering fire while you run away, or shoot at lights back there... that and toast any swarming infantry on your back.

Quote

I feel that people that want backward facing weapons are simply the modern form of collecters that want the possibility in order to have the game be "complete" not because they would make their mech more effective.

Yeah, MW/BT had the "gottahave'emall" ethos way before pokemon... but I don't see what's necessarily bad about having the option, as long as it doesn't take away from other important things.