79 replies to this topic

[Ulric Kell]

I'm excited for this and what it brings to the game. The depth added provides a great level mastering not often seen in games.

[MaddMaxx]

Quote

"Players are not able to customize which weapons go on which cursor, as this is a function of BattleMech design. No arm weapons, no arm cursor."

Am I to assume that weapons groups will allow a player to FIRE weapon(s) independent of which arm/torso side they are mounted in? Otherwise that will be sour? Or am I missing something...

Edited by MaddMaxx, 02 March 2012 - 06:48 AM.

[Nakir]

Yes good news! A shot to the left and one to the right at the same time !!

[TheRulesLawyer]

Its great news. Means there will be a real advantage to having arm mounted weapons. 10 internets to PGI.

[Watchit]

I can see this also effecting the strategy of what weapons go where. For example, it would be advantageous to have a faster firing weapon in the arms since it would allow for better weapon tracking which is crucial for fast but low powered weapons like a pulse laser or machine gun array. Where as a slower weapon such as an AC/20 need only be lined up for the instant it takes to fire, so a torso mount would work just fine. But then if a slow weapon was arm mounted it would allow for faster more adaptable targeting. So now there's an even bigger difference in play styles for a centurion and hunchback besides their slightly varied armaments: their weapon placement.

Edited by Watchit, 02 March 2012 - 02:34 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

ScrewCityChris, on 01 March 2012 - 11:34 PM, said:

Exactly. I keep trying to think of how they are doing this without making the controls feel cumbersome. Like using the numpad... i dislike it when the numpad gets used for controls.

I'll be curious to see. I liked how the side-look allowed you to fire individual arms separately in MW3, but this is new...

Dihm, on 02 March 2012 - 06:16 AM, said:

So...

How the hell do you play this game with a HOTAS again?

Paul? Any help here? Cause I'm having trouble and this seems like it will make mouse and keyboard much more preferable.

I think we're going to need something like a HOTAS plus rudder pedals plus a mouse...

Or Mr. Garrison's invention to replace the arilines...

[Kenyon Burguess]

after reading that i wonder how many of us older folks will be looking for one reticule mechs just for simplicity sake.

[Kiyoshi Amaya]

Geist Null, on 02 March 2012 - 04:54 PM, said:

after reading that i wonder how many of us older folks will be looking for one reticule mechs just for simplicity sake.

Na, I can still focus on two things at once... Not as fast as I used to, but I still can. Though, I sometimes get a bit distra.... oooh a bee!

[Lycan]

And first post on second page made the first part of this posting irrelevant.

And yes, the two reticles is going to take some getting used to . .

I see many a long hour spent in the Mech bay waiting out repairs . . . .

Edited by Lycan, 02 March 2012 - 05:35 PM.

[Karyudo ds]

I said it before but I would think the torso weapon reticule would work like the classic ones but MW3 failed to me to make arm control USEFUL. MW4 was about the same. So some level of auto tracking would seem logical. I'm curious if they have something like that or something completely different. I think the concept is how it should work, its be whole point of having arms. The huge trick is making it more then a feature and also a useful feature. Hurry up GDC.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I think targeting is going to end up very similar to a single reticule. Its really the tracking speed that you'll see as different. The Arms will catch up to where you are aiming first, and the torsos take just a bit longer.

[Vasces Diablo]

Awesome... I love this.

So does this mean there will be a "locked" targeting point for torso weapons that you twist and move the torso to point while the arms target point is "free floating". Great way to give a mech a more realistic feel and can be a big advantage for mechs with arms.

Well, I guess if my beloved Stalker makes it into the game... 1 reticle for me.

[Watchit]

TheRulesLawyer, on 02 March 2012 - 09:31 PM, said:

I think targeting is going to end up very similar to a single reticule. Its really the tracking speed that you'll see as different. The Arms will catch up to where you are aiming first, and the torsos take just a bit longer.

I disagree, there might be an option to sync the two reticles together, but I'm pretty sure there should be some form of independent control of the two reticles.

[Dragon Lady]

Dihm, on 02 March 2012 - 06:16 AM, said:

So...

How the hell do you play this game with a HOTAS again?

Paul? Any help here? Cause I'm having trouble and this seems like it will make mouse and keyboard much more preferable.

Any good throttle or stick has an 8-direction hat switch, which can easily be mapped to a mouse function. Alternatively, you can map your arm reticle to your stick, and map torso twist and tilt to a hat switch on your throttle.

As it stands right now, I'm thinking of this control scheme, for the stock JR7-D Jenner:

Stick: Arm reticle, left arm weapons, right arm weapons, targeting functions, look around
Throttle: Speed and direction, torso tilt and twist, SRM 4, secondary functions
Pedals: Turn, Jump Jets
MFD: Tertiary functions

[Orzorn]

MaddMaxx, on 02 March 2012 - 06:47 AM, said:

Am I to assume that weapons groups will allow a player to FIRE weapon(s) independent of which arm/torso side they are mounted in? Otherwise that will be sour? Or am I missing something...

I think it should be pretty straight forward:
For simplicity's sake, lets assume we have a chassis with an AC in its torso, and two medium lasers on its arms.

If you had a group with the medium lasers and AC, then pressing the fire button (assuming you put all three weapons on the same fire button, as it has been confirmed that you can separate weapons between left and right clicks. They most likely added this for this very reason, that is, you can separate weapons in the same group that are also on separate cursors, letting you have, say all your arm weapons on left click, with all your torso weapons on right click) would simply fire all weapons on your arms at the arm cursor, and all weapons on your torso on the torso cursor.

So, no, weapons will not fire independently of which part their in if you put them in the same group. They'll just continue to work as before.

As I described on my little tangent, it will be a good idea to separate your weapons between clicks. So you could have all arm weapons on a left click, and all torso weapons on a right click. This additional strength of this is that when you group those weapons, you won't accidentally fire your torso weapons along with your arm weapons, when one of those might not been pointing at anything at all.

[Bryan Ekman]

Wherever the player looks, the arms go, and arm cursor. Wherever the torso is oriented, the torso cursor goes.

• Arms and torso have a maxium rotation.
  
• The head leads all cursors by a few miliseconds giving it a rubbery/soft feel.
  
• It's possible to look beyond the limits of the arm. The cursor will hit an imaginary wall on the HUD.
  
• There is a line between the torso and arm cursors to give the player a delta (distance) reference on how offset he is.
  
• At the center of the screen is a white dot to give players a true center point.
  
• Players can free look, arms will follow free look within their limits. This means a player can aim inside at an object obscured by the cockpit. So if a Jenner gets up close and personal, the Atlas can use his arm weapons to still hit the enemy.

[Adridos]

Bryan Ekman, on 03 March 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Wherever the player looks, the arms go, and arm cursor. Wherever the torso is oriented, the torso cursor goes.

• Arms and torso have a maxium rotation.
  
• The head leads all cursors by a few miliseconds giving it a rubbery/soft feel.
  
• It's possible to look beyond the limits of the arm. The cursor will hit an imaginary wall on the HUD.
  
• There is a line between the torso and arm cursors to give the player a delta (distance) reference on how offset he is.
  
• At the center of the screen is a white dot to give players a true center point.
  
• Players can free look, arms will follow free look within their limits. This means a player can aim inside at an object obscured by the cockpit. So if a Jenner gets up close and personal, the Atlas can use his arm weapons to still hit the enemy.

Thank you for the info, Bryan.

Are you excited about GDC as much as we do?

[Belial]

Bryan Ekman, on 03 March 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Wherever the player looks, the arms go, and arm cursor. Wherever the torso is oriented, the torso cursor goes.

• Arms and torso have a maxium rotation.
  
• The head leads all cursors by a few miliseconds giving it a rubbery/soft feel.
  
• It's possible to look beyond the limits of the arm. The cursor will hit an imaginary wall on the HUD.
  
• There is a line between the torso and arm cursors to give the player a delta (distance) reference on how offset he is.
  
• At the center of the screen is a white dot to give players a true center point.
  
• Players can free look, arms will follow free look within their limits. This means a player can aim inside at an object obscured by the cockpit. So if a Jenner gets up close and personal, the Atlas can use his arm weapons to still hit the enemy.

Loving the versatility here. That very last bullet point sounds like the ability to look "straight down" in MW4, where a Dire Wolf could still nail a Cougar (or similar sized 'Mech) that ran up under its nose, except more realistic. Now my imagination is abuzz thinking about how this will all turn out in the launch product!

[Orzorn]

Bryan Ekman, on 03 March 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Wherever the player looks, the arms go, and arm cursor. Wherever the torso is oriented, the torso cursor goes.

• Arms and torso have a maxium rotation.
  
• The head leads all cursors by a few miliseconds giving it a rubbery/soft feel.
  
• It's possible to look beyond the limits of the arm. The cursor will hit an imaginary wall on the HUD.
  
• There is a line between the torso and arm cursors to give the player a delta (distance) reference on how offset he is.
  
• At the center of the screen is a white dot to give players a true center point.
  
• Players can free look, arms will follow free look within their limits. This means a player can aim inside at an object obscured by the cockpit. So if a Jenner gets up close and personal, the Atlas can use his arm weapons to still hit the enemy.

We are truly spoiled by you.

No, seriously, we are. No other developer would put this much work and love into the Mechwarrior franchise. This is the kind of effort that will bring Mechwarrior to the foray, and tell all the Call of Duty and Halo folks who the real boss is.

[Spooky]

Bryan Ekman, on 03 March 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Wherever the player looks, the arms go, and arm cursor. Wherever the torso is oriented, the torso cursor goes.

• Arms and torso have a maxium rotation.
  
• The head leads all cursors by a few miliseconds giving it a rubbery/soft feel.
  
• It's possible to look beyond the limits of the arm. The cursor will hit an imaginary wall on the HUD.
  
• There is a line between the torso and arm cursors to give the player a delta (distance) reference on how offset he is.
  
• At the center of the screen is a white dot to give players a true center point.
  
• Players can free look, arms will follow free look within their limits. This means a player can aim inside at an object obscured by the cockpit. So if a Jenner gets up close and personal, the Atlas can use his arm weapons to still hit the enemy.

But the big questions is, how will the player be able to effectively control these things? In most MechWarrior games, you control the torso twist and pitch with your mouse and the feet direction and speed with WASD for instance (or on a Joystick, you may control Torso twist with the rudder and feet direction and torso pitch with the joystick, or however you configure it). But how will you be able to control your head ('the arms') and your torso at the same time, with just Mouse and Keyboard for example, both with precision no less? If you are only able to control your torso with they keyboard for instance (may be with Q and E being the actual torso twist, and WASD still the feet direction and speed control, you'll not be able to aim with the torso weapons with the same precision as the arm weapons, or is that simply the idea behind it? Furthermore, it will take some getting used to, not being able to control your Mech with the mouse, just your head instead.

Edited by Spooky, 03 March 2012 - 04:27 PM.