74 replies to this topic

[Brixx]

Like DFDelta said. Too much really kills a whole match in one brief moment. Just imagine a reactor going critical in the middle of a city piled up with mechs. But the heat idea is really good.

[Kargush]

Razor Kotovsky, on 04 November 2011 - 07:34 AM, said:

Chernobyl, too, was just a steam explosion. Just sayin'.

Chernobyl threw out lots and lots of radioactive stuff, it didn't Stackpole.

EDIT: And fusion =/= fission.

EDIT II: The sort of thing that happened at the CNPP cannot happen with a fusion reactor.

Edited by kargush, 04 November 2011 - 10:07 AM.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

mechs should only ever go critical if pushed past heat limit failsafes or critical damage. the resulting effect is a bright 'implosion' which should deal no heat or damage to surrounding targets (i always felt this was just dumb in past mw games, it is like punishing players for getting kills in close combat, and encouraging suicides...) Not even internal ammo explosions should deal that much exterior damage to surroundings as the explosions are...internal. A mech going critical should collapse to the ground, golden fire consuming the upper body section, like a pillar of flame, and any ammo going off like popcorn.

best way to see this? the atlas that is killed in the opening of Mechwarrior 2:Mercs; notice how after the core explodes, most of the mech is still standing. Lore also makes mention that mechs that go critical are pretty much unsalvagaeble, hence, most mechs are made not to go critical...

[Razor Kotovsky]

kargush, on 04 November 2011 - 10:03 AM, said:

EDIT II: The sort of thing that happened at the CNPP cannot happen with a fusion reactor.

Y U TAKE OUT OF CONTEKST

Quote

What normally happens is that the reactor core is breached allowing a large quantity of relatively cold air into the vacuum of the reactor chamber which puts out the fusion reaction instantly... but in so doing, the intruding air in the reactor chamber soaks up all the heat and comes blasting back out in a white-hot blinding gout of flame. Considering that it takes massive damage to breach a reactor core so quickly that the safety fields can't drop down before something intrudes into the chamber... the visual end effect is that the 'Mech has very nearly been blasted in half, followed very quickly by a blinding fireball. This is a spectacular way to decommission a fusion reactor - a rampaging super-hot oxygen flash fire - but it is not a nuclear blast.

Aaron DeChavilier, on 04 November 2011 - 10:24 AM, said:

mechs should only ever go critical if pushed past heat limit failsafes or critical damage. the resulting effect is a bright 'implosion' which should deal no heat or damage to surrounding targets (i always felt this was just dumb in past mw games, it is like punishing players for getting kills in close combat, and encouraging suicides...) Not even internal ammo explosions should deal that much exterior damage to surroundings as the explosions are...internal. A mech going critical should collapse to the ground, golden fire consuming the upper body section, like a pillar of flame, and any ammo going off like popcorn.

Already said, it should be on a rare occasion but spread around alot of heat, a decent airblast and cause pretty violent ammo explosion (unless it is CASEd).
That ammo doesn't feel like popcorn when it hits you, does it?

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 04 November 2011 - 10:33 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

The original MechCommander Intro scene did it right.

The TimberWolf/Madcat gets done in from behind and then its reactor lets go. No major explosion but a clear indication that you can now turn your back on it and not worry about it coming back to life. Insta kills the non-ejected pilot as well.

Here it is. Skip ahead to 3:00+ to see the end.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 04 November 2011 - 11:19 AM.

[Alistair Steiner]

They should basically take the route of MWLL, but tone down the percentage even more, as the third option says. I still want the occasional blinding flash and mushroom cloud, but I agree that MW4's legged 'Mechs going critical (read: every 'Mech) was a bit too much. Especially headshotting a 'Mech should result in no chance of the explosion, as the core wasn't breached. If they plan on having the layers of armor and internal structures, in that they are damaged as weapons fire penetrates deeper, then there should be the chance (albeit low) that the core takes a turn for the... spectacular. Though the ammo cook-off should certainly be taken into account as well. I want to be able to pop a Vulture's missile racks and have the chance of making a fireworks display out of them. Again, though, as a small percentage chance, and assuming they don't have CASE. As far as salvage, a cored 'Mech would actually be a bad thing, since the novels describe how the runaway reaction eats up the 'Mech's internal structures and armor as fuel for its expanding explosion, not to mention the fact that... well, the explosion was really big. Anyway, just my two cents.

[Kargush]

Razor Kotovsky, on 04 November 2011 - 10:30 AM, said:

Y U TAKE OUT OF CONTEKST

Clearly you are unfamiliar with fusion reactors.

Breach resutling in expulsion of air =/= meltdown that irradiates the entire area. Furthermore, we're not talking about a plant the size of a building here, which further reduces the risk. Comparing the two is like saying that an artillery shell is bad because look what happened when they dropped the MOAB.

[VYCanis]

If they do mechs blowing up big, i think it should basically be from the engine being destroyed by X amounts of critical damage inside some Y amount of time. And thats only to meet the criteria, it would still be a random offscreen die roll to determine if it goes catastrophic.

If the engine takes damage incrementally until it stops working, whatever, mech shuts down and falls over as a kill.

If say someone shot an lbx20 point blank into someone's armor stripped CT, it stands a chance that it might splode.

[Razor Kotovsky]

kargush, on 04 November 2011 - 12:26 PM, said:

Clearly you are unfamiliar with fusion reactors.

Breach resutling in expulsion of air =/= meltdown that irradiates the entire area. Furthermore, we're not talking about a plant the size of a building here, which further reduces the risk. Comparing the two is like saying that an artillery shell is bad because look what happened when they dropped the MOAB.

Y U TAKE OUT OF CONTEKST

Noone ever mentioned meltdown or radiocative materials. Steam explosion.

You see, water rushed in the overheat reactor when the piping melt. It turned to steam and went off with the force of a thousand suns.
Here we have plasma and air, possibly water too.

Cold and hot. Building tremendous pressure in the process of exchanging heat. Grasp any of this?

And i sure as hell never compared the power of Chernobyl to a mech's reactor breach.

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 04 November 2011 - 12:54 PM.

[Odin]

Well, should be as good as impossible, a very very rare sight.
Always bothered me to have the mech die the very same way.
Hope to see more diversity this time. Keeping the pilot intact, if not direct hit.

[Joachim Viltry]

Reactors really shouldn't Stackpole. It was stupid in MW4, you cant be salvaging hardware off of burnt out husks!

[Ilfi]

As long as deaths are easy to distinguish from a gameplay perspective, I remain indifferent. If I can't tell when someone is dead, you've gone too far in the name of realism and canon. There still needs to be a visual cue beyond some smoke and loss of targeting. Nothing grandiose, but certainly easy-to-spot.

[Lorebot]

Oh ***! The Mechcommander intro! I haven't seen that in years...and it's so perfect too...I don't think I ever beat that game either...I know the disc is sitting on my shelf, i should bust it out and see how it runs on Win7...

I agree that mechs exploding spectacularly when they go down shouldn't happen every time, in fact it should be extremely rare. But when they do explode they should explode spectacularly and deal massive damage to stuff nearby and inflict extreme heat upon anything in a wide radius. Nearby buildings should collapse, dust clouds should form, mechs should scramble to get away from the blast center and then rush to get out of the heat zone. But again, this should be rare, so rare that when it happens it should be a surprise and it should catch you off guard. You shouldn't really be warned about it either imo because if it's going to happen it should happen FAST, while the mech is still on its feat it should just detonate. Maybe you get a second or so of your computer flashing a warning and then the explosion, you should have enough time to think 'OH ****!' and maybe duck behind a building to avoid the brunt of the blast if you're very close or start turning around to get away from the heat of the blast because it's going to make your heat sinks stop working till you get far enough away.

[gregsolidus]

I prefer to seeming enemy's flaming corpse on the ground instead of seeing it explode and disappear.

[Lorebot]

**** IT! Just tried to install Mechcommander and it's not compatible with the 64bit version of Win7...WHY DO YOU HATE ME ***!?

Edit: it censored the word ***? really....***? that's offensive now? ***....

Edited by Lorebot, 04 November 2011 - 11:14 PM.

[Sideways]

I was trying to start a debate on gameplay preference, not Nuclear Science. LOL

[Razor Kotovsky]

Sideways, on 04 November 2011 - 11:23 PM, said:

I was trying to start a debate on gameplay preference, not Nuclear Science. LOL

People over in the PPC thread are actually doing the same: magnetically propelled particles that leave a trail of bla-bla-bla versus THE FIST OF THOR.

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 04 November 2011 - 11:26 PM.

[Sideways]

Lorebot, on 04 November 2011 - 11:13 PM, said:

**** IT! Just tried to install Mechcommander and it's not compatible with the 64bit version of Win7...WHY DO YOU HATE ME ***!?

Edit: it censored the word ***? really....***? that's offensive now? ***....

Yeah its censored **** or S....T.....F....U.....Really and Acronym?

[Razor Kotovsky]

Doesn't censore allah though. An obvious plot against christians.

Anyways, you should try the compatibility mode for win 98 or something.

Edited by Razor Kotovsky, 04 November 2011 - 11:28 PM.

[Sideways]

Razor Kotovsky, on 04 November 2011 - 11:25 PM, said:

People over in the PPC thread are actually doing the same: magnetically propelled particles that leave a trail of bla-bla-bla versus THE FIST OF THOR.

I know, people were doing it about the JJ's....really? its a game, based on another GAME, this is science fiction not a military training simulator...I know I've flown one, LOL