69 replies to this topic

[miscreant]

Lt Limpy, on 03 December 2012 - 04:18 AM, said:

This was already done in Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy (though to be fair the trees were little more than giant brown vertically aligned cylinders). I suppose it would be interesting to see something like it again with more detail, but even with buildings included it might hamper the sense of scale.

I speak of "scale" often, there MUST be objects that can be related to size, but in an ALIEN JUNGLE, it'd be awesome if the mechs felt 'small'.

[Ceribus]

I'd love to see a map broken up by a ton of "bottomless" ravines, some are crossed by natural rock formations others have constructed bridges, in most areas a light mech can JJ over the ravines but not all of them, some plateaus are completely flat others have rock formations or bowls to provide cover. The whole landscape would be a reddish Mars like colour, add some buildings, sparse vegetation and crystal formations to add colour

Edited by Ceribus, 03 December 2012 - 11:34 AM.

[Metafox]

steelblueskies, on 02 December 2012 - 03:02 AM, said:

heck even just the storage hangar. a giant box filled with powered down mechs and tanks, in row upon row, upon row( was supposed to have housed hundreds of mechs, and even more in parts storage, tanks, etc.. if they did it right using undriven live mech models instead of static backgrounds one could screw with beagle probes powerdown targeting ability, while providing a visually confusing maze that is also destructible. add in the new ecm and that could get interesting fast. can deal with lrm cover through low hanging cave formations peppered through the giant room, and some industrial structures.

further could be divided into a day/night map variation by adding internal lights, or just leaving em off(and finally have an indoor place that needs nv to see, unlike every single cave in game so far).

That's a map that I'd really like to see. Something confined and somewhat maze-like. It would certainly add some variety to the regular lineup.

Strum Wealh, on 02 December 2012 - 06:38 PM, said:

So... am I a terrible person for reading this and thinking, "That would be the perfect situation in which to deploy a lance or two of Firestarters (should they ever be implemented)"?

My favorite scene in Avatar when when they burned down that super-tree. I can only take so much nature before I need to see something burn. I approve.

[Icebound]

A little bit of story for why we've been playing cap the base for months would be a nice improvement xD

[Pocket Psycho]

Elder Thorn, on 30 November 2012 - 11:40 AM, said:

also.. what would happen, if an AC/20 shell misses its target?

It would continue to travel through space until it struck something, at which point the something "has very bad day."

DrBunji, on 01 December 2012 - 08:13 AM, said:

Great post this, but I am sure that I read that mechs are hermetic enviroments and as such able to operate under water or in space aswell, if not specifically designed for that purpose; arent some mechs able to load torpedoes?

Yes all 'Mechs are hermetically sealed and thus can operate in vacuum or underwater, they are however lacking in systems to maneuver in those environments (especially in zero-g space), also armor breaches are extremely dangerous.

From memory there is a piece of 'Mech equipment to aid in underwater maneuvers, not sure when it was developed though.

[xengk]

I would look forward to some multi-layered map.

Imagine a map where player can fight top side in the open with LRM and ER weapons flaring.
While small teams of medium and light duke it out in the pitch black underground tunnels to flank the opposing base.
Like the underpass in river city only MOAR!!!!

Low visibility map too.
Light fighting in a sandstorm, with low los and ECM effect from the sandstorm.
Heat dissipation would kinda suck too.

[Oppi]

We totally need (need need need need !) a "Hesperus 2" map, meaning a giant underground Battlemech factory with huge corridors and production halls to fight in.


And the next time some dropship appears on a map I'd like it to be a "real" Battletech Dropship. Most common Dropships (at least military ones, because they need to be able to land without a runway) are spherical or egg-shaped (Union, Overlord etc) and spaceports have huge pits for them to land in, to shield surrounding structures from their engines.

[Aidan]

Many of the map suggestions in this thread have been interpreted in the for Crysis Mod MechWarrior Living Legends or MWLL. You can view screenshots of these maps in the MWLL Wiki. http://wiki.mechlivi....php?title=Maps

[Chou Senwan]

Forest Fire at Night. Have rolling hills, and one portion of the map is on fire. Within line of sight, the area has some light, but lots and lots of trees casting shadows. Go behind a hill, and it's pitch black. If you have night vision on when you crest the hill, it gets fried and you're blinded temporarily.

Anyone here driven through Louisiana, on the Atchafalaya bridge? 30 miles of straight elevated road above bayou, with only occasional islands where you might take a ramp to the water level. Maybe have a map where you're holding the bridge (where you have piled up barricades of cars), and enemies can either come straight at you, or trudge through the swamp very slowly.

Let's have a real sci-fi city, and the ability to knock over towers. You get an achievement if you manage to hopscotch with your jump jets to reach the top of the highest building in town.

[Gowan]

miscreant, on 30 November 2012 - 09:23 AM, said:

The developer really needs to bring in a more sophisticated team of level designers, people who UNDERSTAND SCI-FI.

But the maps we have are really true to the canon of the BT universe. Fighing on the outside of a Jumpship would be, eh, interesting, but it would also go against the accepted conventions of warfare for the setting. Now, I could get behind some more classical sci-fi maps, but to imply the PGI's map designers don't 'understand sci-fi' because you haven't seen your favorite off-canon trope seems a little weak. The novels and TT fluff show that life in 3049 isn't that much different than life right now. Spaceports are pretty big, but they aren't big enough to be a full map on their own. Space stations don't just exist for the sake of being there, they have purposes (and as a result, they aren't generally massive). Maybe we could see a map in a Jumpship manufacturing station, that could be large enough for a small map, but fighting there would be against the accepted conventions of warfare (at least until Tukayyid), so we wouldn't really be there anyway.

Point being, just because we aren't fighting on the surface of the Death Star while the Enterprise fights off a fighter sortie from the Galactica in the background doesn't mean that PGI doesn't understand sci-fi -- it just means that they understand the setting that their game takes place in.

[miscreant]

Gowan, on 04 December 2012 - 12:09 PM, said:

But the maps we have are really true to the canon of the BT universe. Fighing on the outside of a Jumpship would be, eh, interesting, but it would also go against the accepted conventions of warfare for the setting. Now, I could get behind some more classical sci-fi maps, but to imply the PGI's map designers don't 'understand sci-fi' because you haven't seen your favorite off-canon trope seems a little weak. The novels and TT fluff show that life in 3049 isn't that much different than life right now. Spaceports are pretty big, but they aren't big enough to be a full map on their own. Space stations don't just exist for the sake of being there, they have purposes (and as a result, they aren't generally massive). Maybe we could see a map in a Jumpship manufacturing station, that could be large enough for a small map, but fighting there would be against the accepted conventions of warfare (at least until Tukayyid), so we wouldn't really be there anyway.

Point being, just because we aren't fighting on the surface of the Death Star while the Enterprise fights off a fighter sortie from the Galactica in the background doesn't mean that PGI doesn't understand sci-fi -- it just means that they understand the setting that their game takes place in.

So...you honestly believe that the planets in other galaxies will resemble...earth? Sorry, but I doubt you'll see a douglas fir on another planet in the universe.

[juxstapo]

So basically maps that are less boring in context?




I agree.

[miscreant]

Thontor, on 05 December 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

First of all, the Inner Sphere is only everything within 450 to 550 light years of Earth.. The Milky Way is 100 to 120 Thousand light years in diameter.

Point is, these aren't planets in other galaxies.

Second of all, you are right about the likelihood of other planets resembling Earth. But this is science Fiction, where most planets resemble Earth.

Lets just explain it by saying the planets were terraformed. They brought seeds with them

The inner sphere is in the Milky Way?...I guess I missed that...I've loved the BT/MW franchise since the early nineties, but I didn't memorize the entire history like most of you.

My thought is that there's no way these planets have even remotely similar foliage/fauna, so the map designers should consider making the maps look and feel like alien planets. I'm not saying they need to have actual alien beings, that's ridiculous, I think it's the mood and atmosphere that needs tweaks. Taking the map designs to a more futuristic and sci-fi level can only be a good thing.

Edited by miscreant, 06 December 2012 - 08:12 AM.

[miscreant]

Gowan, on 04 December 2012 - 12:09 PM, said:

But the maps we have are really true to the canon of the BT universe. Fighing on the outside of a Jumpship would be, eh, interesting, but it would also go against the accepted conventions of warfare for the setting. Now, I could get behind some more classical sci-fi maps, but to imply the PGI's map designers don't 'understand sci-fi' because you haven't seen your favorite off-canon trope seems a little weak. The novels and TT fluff show that life in 3049 isn't that much different than life right now. Spaceports are pretty big, but they aren't big enough to be a full map on their own. Space stations don't just exist for the sake of being there, they have purposes (and as a result, they aren't generally massive). Maybe we could see a map in a Jumpship manufacturing station, that could be large enough for a small map, but fighting there would be against the accepted conventions of warfare (at least until Tukayyid), so we wouldn't really be there anyway.

Point being, just because we aren't fighting on the surface of the Death Star while the Enterprise fights off a fighter sortie from the Galactica in the background doesn't mean that PGI doesn't understand sci-fi -- it just means that they understand the setting that their game takes place in.

I'd like to add that never did I say they should have death stars or enterprises or galaticants, I'm saying it needs to be more futuristic, and not look so damn terrestrial.

[miscreant]

http://www.sarna.net...ategory:Planets

Uh,...ya. They're all earth clones. Sure.

[Oppi]

miscreant, on 05 December 2012 - 06:51 PM, said:

So...you honestly believe that the planets in other galaxies will resemble...earth? Sorry, but I doubt you'll see a douglas fir on another planet in the universe.

1) They aren't in other galaxies. The Inner Sphere is only a very small fraction of the Milky Way.

2) There has been a lot of Terraforming in the Golden Age of human space colonization, when they still had that technology. Most of the planets in the Inner Sphere that actually do have any facilities on them more or less resemble earth, meaning humans can breathe their athmospheres, their average temperatures are not too far off the -10°C to 40°C band that most humans are more or less comfortable with, they house plants and/or animals we can eat etc pp.
There are in fact many and more planets in the Inner Sphere and the periphery, that are not inhabited by humans (whether they are too hostile to live on or have not even been discovered), but naturally we wouldn't fight on them.

You could expect some advanced sci-fi like architecture on major habitat worlds like Tharkad, New Avalon, Terra, Sian, Atreus, Luthien or on factory worlds like Kathil or Hesperus 2, but after centuries of LosTech, the majority of the Inner Sphere worlds has tech levels similar to our own + an HPG + a Space Port + Laser Pistols + maybe hover trucks. Most of them don't even have Battle Mechs in their militia units.

No Star Wars like cities. No giant space stations where Battlemechs would be able to fight in. This is "low science fiction", just as "A Song of Ice and Fire" is low fantasy.

Quote

Spaceports are pretty big, but they aren't big enough to be a full map on their own.

A real Spaceport (not that sorry courtyard that we see on River City) would be at least as big as Caustic Valley considering how big Dropships can get and how much distance they have to keep between each other in order to not damage their neighbours during landing or takeoff. Then add terminals for cargo and passengers, fuel repositories, garages for vehicles, parking lots, workshops etc, runways for ships that can't take off vertically and you have a pretty good picture of the size of such a place. Frankfurt Airport (Germanies largest airport) is around 21 km² big, just to name an example. A Spaceport would have to be larger than that. The maps we have right now are only a small fraction of that size.

Edited by Oppi, 09 December 2012 - 03:13 PM.

[cmopatrick]

Oppi, on 09 December 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

A real Spaceport (not that sorry courtyard that we see on River City) would be at least as big as Caustic Valley considering how big Dropships can get and how much distance they have to keep between each other in order to not damage their neighbours during landing or takeoff. Then add terminals for cargo and passengers, fuel repositories, garages for vehicles, parking lots, workshops etc, runways for ships that can't take off vertically and you have a pretty good picture of the size of such a place. Frankfurt Airport (Germanies largest airport) is around 21 km² big, just to name an example. A Spaceport would have to be larger than that. The maps we have right now are only a small fraction of that size.

amen.

[miscreant]

I disagree about the planets, I think they would also have pre-existing worlds that support life in the galaxy, whether or not it's pure BT, they should get creative and think outside the box.

[Oppi]

miscreant, on 09 December 2012 - 08:32 PM, said:

I disagree about the planets, I think they would also have pre-existing worlds that support life in the galaxy,

As others already told you : We aren't talking about a whole Galaxy. Here you can see the size and position of the Inner Sphere inside the Milky Way. The Sphere contains about 2 million stars, the Milky Way about 300 billion. The chances of natural life-supporting worlds within that small fraction of the galaxy are minimal. And if they weren't : Life-supporting worlds would per definition be earth-like.

There might be some with blue plants and yellow skies, but that's about it.

Quote

whether or not it's pure BT, they should get creative and think outside the box.

No they shouldn't. You could argue that they shouldn't copy BT 1:1 considering the actual rules of MWO, and I would probably agree, but what we're talking about here is pure fluff. Background information. If they won't keep true to the actual background of Battletech, there's no point in making a Mechwarrior game.

[Gaan Cathal]

cmopatrick, on 01 December 2012 - 02:36 AM, said:

i will grant that PPCs based on canon are allowed to be either protons or ions. since the ion beams would probably be charge neutral, i will grant you that. proton beams would not technically be lightning (electron streams), though the result in a conducting fluid could be very similar. however, the basic concept of a particle beam is based on matter impacting other matter after relativistic acceleration provides a huge kinetic force and a related mount of released heat energy.

Ahem. Physics 101: Protons are Ions. Ions are charged particles, by definition. A 'charge neutral' ion is not an ion. Further more accelerated chargeless particles (primerily photons and neutrons) have drastically different effects on impacted material than accelerated ions.

On topic, some large scale properly urban matches would be nice, maybe an industrial district of some sort.