Desrtfox, on 21 November 2012 - 08:33 AM, said:
Well, to be honest, they have something similar already in that the hud shows what direction the legs are pointed with a dotted arrow, and what direction the torso is pointed with the highlighted view cone.
They actually have redundancy here because there is TWO indicators of leg orientation and torso orientation.
One on the battlegrid and the other on the compass at the top represented by those two triangles with the numbers ranging from 0-360º.
The bottom yellow triangle on the compass shows legs and their bearing of degrees along the compass.
The top yellow triangle on the compass shows torso and it's bearing of degrees along the compass.
So without having the 3D hologram [which fits anyway, since it was in mechwarrior 2] there is already two different ways to see which direction your legs face and which direction your torso faces.
Although, yes, an optionional 3d monitor showing your mech ala MW2 would easily serve the same purpose as third person just as clearly.
Bottom left corner, granted -- it's for your target, however, I don't see how the same thing couldn't be applied to your own mech for orientation reference.
Also, without the wireframe.
Mechwarrior 3 had it for both enemy targets and your own mech. Your own mech was in the bottom right corner, targeted mechs bottom left corner, both rendered in poly's not wireframe and animated in real time as can be seen in this screenshot;
This should be an optional monitor that comes on screen at the push of a button and is on by default for new players.
Similar to how Weapon Doors work, instead of opening your doors though, it would fold out a screen.
As mentioned earlier, you'd even get to see your awesome skin this way, sans 3p.
I've made a crude mockup for MWO using the Atlas for reference;
Somebody please tell me what is so wrong with that and how is it less usable than the battle grid, and how is it "In the way" since it's just blocking part of the cockpit that you already can't see through?
It's the clear solution. The black should be transparent green to match the rest of the hud and it would look perfect.
P.S.
The key is "OPTIONAL" and should be togglable via ingame bind to enable or disable this self portrait monitor, but should come on by default and remember it's status between games, like the weapon groups.
Edited by Laokin, 21 November 2012 - 09:58 AM.