15 replies to this topic

[Caboose30]

Sensors and you, how I think it should work, and why they're important.

First off, let's get one thing straight. I don't care what source you look at, Mechs have sensors. Look at Gundam, the later Matrix movies, or hell even Power Rangers. All have some form of sensors. BattleMechs have sensors. Period. That's why you have to allocate two tons to sensors.

The way it worked before was very simple. MW1, there was radar, but no target locks. You aimed, shot, and hoped for the best. MW2-4, there was an overly simplistic 1km active radar range, and 500m (iirc) passive range. Anything in that range was detected, period. You could get a missile lock and pound the snot out of someone before they ever saw you.

Now, let's add in MechCommander. The first incarnation, every mech has a sensor suite with a base detection range. When they moved, the detection range shrank. When they ran, it shrank further. Why? The game cites that “The pilot has less attention to spare to sensors due to the enormous concentration it takes to pilot a mech”. Makes sense. But the mechanic works, if they got a contact, they could tell something was there, maybe even it's approximate size, but that was it. It wasn't until they were in visual range that they could fire on it. MC2 took it a step further and backwards at the same time. Pilots who were sensor specialists could detect size of mechs, vehicles, and other basic facts about them. But they did away with every mech having a sensor suite. Now throw in false positives from things like burning buildings and civilian vehicles, and you have a good overview, and maybe even know where I'm going with this.

What I propose is a hybrid of those, combined with some of the visual options we currently have. You could cycle your sensors through various detection modes, and find one that was suited to your environment or current conditions, to function more effectively. As a side note, I had another idea that the light amplification mode for visually based targeting would up the sensitivity when used in other modes. Everything would work something like this.

Radar – Visually and LOS based targeting – It means exactly that. If the enemy mech can see your mech, you can target it. Once someone has a target lock on your mech, your mech has enough sensor and computing power to deduce where the lock is originating, focus scan it, and spit out a target for you to fire at before you get hit too badly. This is pure LOS based, rather than visual range based which is what we have now. If more than 20% of a mech has no LOS blockage, you can target it. Now, if a high degree of it is obscured, certain things won't work right. Missile locks and accuracy, mainly. There will be a short detection range that puts the target on your map if you don't have visual contact, but it won't allow you to target it until you can see at least part of it. That is a very basic, and working model of radar for a mech, passive/active radar can be addressed at another time.

Thermal imaging – Detecting heat signatures of mechs and other things to be fired upon – This is a little trickier to use, but same basic idea. You switch to thermal imaging, and your sensors switch to thermal targeting. That means if you can see a thermal signature, you can target it. This means any laser boat in Frozen City is going to have a real bad day. The stronger the signature, the easier it is to target – sped up missile locks, faster information gathering from the sensor suite, things like that. This is a bad thing at the same time, because if said target runs behind another mech, your missiles and sensors might get confused and go after the heat plume of equivalent magnitude. Use at your own risk.

Magscan – Magnetic anomaly detection and scanning – This one is even more specialized yet. Switch to Magscan view (which isn't implemented yet), and you get a visual representation of all magnetic anomalies in visual range. Your sensor suite starts scanning for magnetic anomalies you can't see as well – ie outside your visual arc. Bigger mechs are going to show up the quickest because of the immense size of their reactors. Smaller mechs will have a hard time registering for the inverse reason. Mechs under high load – running and shooting – will show up faster than those that are standing still. Powered down mechs will be hardest to spot, except for the spike when they do start up. The advantage of this mode will be that it's one of the view that can see through buildings. The disadvantage is that if you're a scout mech near a heavy iron deposit, or large holding tank, you'll probably blend right in.

Seismic detection – Using ground based tremors/vibrations to locate/target mechs – Okay, so this one will be useful for one thing: advanced detection of incoming forces. But you won't be able to use it to get a missile lock unless you have visual on the target. Why? Because seismic readings tell you where something was, and it's not even close to an exact reading. Table Top won't even let you do indirect (non-targeted) LRM fire based off seismic readings. But, what it will tell you is that something is moving, where it's at, and it's approximate heading.

This is, I hope, a well thought out approach to having a functional sensor suite on a mech that would appease everyone. As you can see, this isn't the MW4 “Easy Mode” targeting. This is a realistic approach to target acquisition that I think we can all get behind. With a little fine tuning, and rules to address things like ECM and Beagle Active Probe, NARC beacon, etc, this could easily be a working model that everyone would enjoy, while still leaving the game challenging and fun for everyone.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

but how will the twitch gaming, BF3 players be able to sneak up on opponents in their 25ft tall, loud, clanky robots!
I like these ideas, they would actually add some dynamism to the team warfare. Problem is, if you look at the list of modules thatn PGI is putting out; 13 of them are canonically what every mech has, and many of these modules are based on the sensor system outlined in canon. Basically what PGI is doing is disgusting: they're parceling out canon prerequisites, taking items like magscan, thermal, 360 radar, and making them separate things. Following canon my arse, basically they've made BF sensors with giant robot costumes - but mwo isn't fun, BF is.

then again, with going to F2P, they must appeal to the lowest common denominator, and that is something this community is going to have to deal with.

Edited by Aaron DeChavilier, 24 November 2012 - 10:10 AM.

[OldGrayDonkey]

JuiceCaboose, on 20 November 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

First off, let's get one thing straight. I don't care what source you look at, Mechs have sensors. Look at Gundam, the later Matrix movies, or hell even Power Rangers. All have some form of sensors. BattleMechs have sensors. Period. That's why you have to allocate two tons to sensors.

Now, let's add in MechCommander. The first incarnation, every mech has a sensor suite with a base detection range. When they moved, the detection range shrank. When they ran, it shrank further. Why? The game cites that “The pilot has less attention to spare to sensors due to the enormous concentration it takes to pilot a mech”. Makes sense.

No, it doesn't. That had to have been written for the table-top crowd before software was invented. Nowdays we have complicated tactical systems that can track hundreds of targets and filter based on numerous criteria. We can feed all sorts of sensor information into them and consolidate it all into one simple display. I've written on sensors before. I can't stand that this sim is limited to LOS.

I like your suggestions. Anything to get us past LOS as the only sensor criteria. I can understand a bit about having countermeasures for mech detection, but all warfare is about one thing, detection, and I can't understand why we have basically a world war I mentality towards the game instead of an advanced civilization view of it. These guys have space flight, remember???? And they can't detect a massive 100 ton behemoth walking by on the other side a building? Or worse, just because we can't see it in the window??? The ground tremors alone would be detectable. Acoustically we could hear it. We could detect the actuators energizing/deenergizing. The list goes on and on on how this makes no sense.

Every combat vehicle we have in todays inventory has some sensor capability beyond the pilot looking out the window and going "yep, that's a target over'der... deedeedee". And somehow a space faring nation can't manage it.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

Darkstang, on 24 November 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

realism

thing is, I understand that Battletech is a fictitious continuity that has giant robots, I get that. However, when FASA sat down and fleshed out that contintuity they based it off the tech they had at the time and then went into the future. It literally says in the canon all the different ways a mech can be detected, forget thinking about modern (2012) tech, just go off of the established canon, its good enough. However, that would require PGI to actually put some effort into game mechanics.

[Crazyeyes244]

Agree 100%, but the countless light-mech pilots who do nothing but try to 2-shot alpha assaults in their completely blind rear quadrants will fight for their right to super-stealth mode tooth and nail.

Also, the new "360 degree target retention" module is one of the worst band-aid solutions I have seen in a while. :/

[Aaron DeChavilier]

Sam Donelly, on 25 November 2012 - 04:40 PM, said:

but the countless light-mech pilots who do nothing but try to 2-shot alpha assaults in their completely blind rear quadrants will fight for their right to super-stealth mode tooth and nail.

pretty much. Another fun fact, know what other mech shooter has a rear blind spot because its just a mech skinned shooter? Hawken, the same hawken that every here wants to distance themselves from. Talk about embarrassing, MWO has mechanics from the very game people here say is 'totally different' / 'apples to oranges'

[Caboose30]

I actually got a reply from someone "up top" that they are working on an actual sensor system, but haven't managed anything concrete yet.

[Joseph Mallan]

BattlleTech radar takes the 360 degree view and compresses it into a 120 degree arc. Says so in many of the novels. An Atlas was surrounded by a Ghost Bear Battle Armor Cluster and his Radar was red instead of green.


Just sayin'

[Caboose30]

They've already stated the compressed vision thing is insanely difficult to do in this engine, which I can accept. Maybe sensors are hard too, who knows. I'm pretty happy I got an official response that they have something they're working on, and hopefully the modules are just a place holder for that.

[Caboose30]

Thread bump! If you care about sensors, don't let this post die!

[Caboose30]

No, huh?

[Walk]

Would love to see sensor implementation like this

[WhiteCatInsurgency]

Would love to see more complexity and options for specialisation when it comes to sensors and other electronics.

[HC Harlequin]

Darkstang, on 24 November 2012 - 10:27 AM, said:

Every combat vehicle we have in todays inventory has some sensor capability beyond the pilot looking out the window and going "yep, that's a target over'der... deedeedee". And somehow a space faring nation can't manage it.

Wait.. What? Sorry dude.. you are really incorrect. besides magnification, heat and laser rangefinding pretty much all ground and most air target identification is purely human.

[Caboose30]

And besides the ability to tie into satellites, UAVs, and ground based radar you mean?

HC Harlequin, on 08 December 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

Wait.. What? Sorry dude.. you are really incorrect. besides magnification, heat and laser rangefinding pretty much all ground and most air target identification is purely human.

[Tolkien]

While I don't agree with everything Juice has said, I really do think that ECM has actually done a bad thing to team cohesion (I PUG, ans so will most players) since it disrupts information flow so severely. At least before a pug would know where the front line was, now it's a mess.