1063 replies to this topic

[Pht]

Doc Holliday, on 23 February 2013 - 10:14 AM, said:

Look, you can keep spouting BS all year, and it doesn't change the fact that a cone of fire is a stupid, lazy, pathetic system and simulates nothing realistic.

... someone isn't reading my posts very well, I see.

---

I don't think the COF system is a good system AT ALL... which I've mentioned multiple times by now.

Do you always flame people who agree with you?

[Pht]

Der Geisterbaer, on 23 February 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

But to throw in some other input concerning the matter of pinpoint accuracy/precision of multiple weapons being fired simultaniously in regards to what this particular game tries to "simulate": Mech battles within the BattleTech Universe ...

Just for the "lulz" I skimmed through some of the novels again and took a look at how combat is depicted there. Not to my suprise I found the following: Even after the clans invaded and the somewhat stupid idea of "LosTech" got burried, not even the most elite pilots within the setting were able to aim even a single mech weapon with enough precision to make a guaranteed hit on a specific location under normal combat conditions and in some cases there were still references to inaccuracy of the involved weapon systems themselves. One might say that this is the result of adherence to TT rules,...

http://bg.battletech...ic,26178.0.html

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Re: Mech Behavior/performance, ETC, What source is definitive?


« Reply #1 on: 15 January 2013, 18:45:59 »

Quote from: Pht on 15 January 2013, 18:14:14

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Hey, first of all, thanks for your time & reading this.

The question is:

What written BattleTech materials are considered canonical and used to form the boundaries in which novelists and sourcebook writers stay?

The rule for continuity review of new material is that:

1) Rules take precedence
2) Fluff and novels are next
3) Artwork is lowest on the continuity food chain
4) Newer material overrides conflicting earlier publications
5) The Line Developer has final say. All hail the Herb.

So, if the writer of a new novel turned in a draft to fact checkers that said, "The MechWarrior plotted his next shot with the cockpit's Ouija board," the fact checkers would, by default, turn to Tech Manual for its description of how BattleMech fire control works and provide proper references for the author to correct his error.

Now, if the writer pointed out that a (hypothetical) rule in Total Warfare specified BattleMech fire control was to be handled with a Ouija board, then the rules would take precedence over the fluff. But until contradicted by the rules (or overridden by someone at a higher pay grade), the "fluff" of Tech Manual, Strategic Operations, etc., is very much enforced during continuity reviews.

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For example, are the Tech Manual "fluff" descriptions of how a BattleMech's targeting and tracking system and diagnostic interface do the grunt work of aiming 'Mech weaponry something that novelists and other writers would have to adhere to? Or can such "fluff" be ignored at will by novelists to provide their versions of how BattleMech's perform and behave?

That fluff of Tech Manual would be adhered to by default. I can and have pointed out mistakes in control descriptions in BattleCorps stories and referred the author to the Tech Manual for the correct descriptions. (Not directly - such continuity commentary is subject to editorial / line developer oversight. See point 5, above.) As it stands, Tech Manual has the current descriptions of how BattleMech weaponry and movement is controlled and writers stick to that.

Your suspicion is correct.

Edited by Pht, 23 February 2013 - 11:20 AM.

[Pht]

Vapor Trail, on 23 February 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

Myomer systems are supposed to be high strength, lightweight, quick to actuate in the multi-ton load range, and won't have the leakage problems associated with damaged hydraulics.

At a minimum errors introduced into a Battlemech's accuracy would be based on the moment to moment shifting (gotta maintain balance) of four levels of actuator with moderate levels of precision, those being the ankle, knee, hip and torso twist. Arm systems would suffer a bit more. That's assuming no errors from the elevation and traverse actuators for the weapon mounts.

Also, due to the way the myomers behave, as they heat up they become sluggish and less accurate.

[MustrumRidcully]

Vapor Trail, on 23 February 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

You're forgetting run and gun. First/single rounds are affected by cone of fire (in video games) while you're moving. to have anything close to perfect accuracy, you stop, crouch or prone, let the sights settle, then shoot.

In real life, every little twitch of your body (down to your breathing, shifting to maintain balance, and heartbeat) and shift of the weapon in your hands affects your aim. The cone of fire is a fair way to simulate the fact that you're not on a range and have every advantage.

And a mech is hardly a bench mount. Think of it like this, if you put a .22 in a bench mount, then picked up the bench mount, strapped it to you, and fired the weapon, could you still say the accuracy was better?

A mech is a system based around artificial muscle fiber. The benefits of that over motor/gear driven joints or even hydraulics is weight and speed of action. Precision (how close 'where it points' is to 'where we want it to point') is "acceptable" not perfect, and can conceivably change from moment to moment due to things like heat. If high levels of heat affect accuracy in a big way (like they're supposed to)... lower graduations and fluctuations of heat can affect accuracy in small ways, and you might know generally (to a decently high degree) where the weapon is pointed, but not to be able to pick out the precise impact point, even if the mech is standing stock still.

Motor driven joints are high precision and high strength, but fairly heavy and slow (M1A1 Abrams has a 40deg/sec turret traverse How fast can a Catapult go from full left traverse to full right again?).

Hydraulics are high strength, and lighter, but generally not as precise (for their weight) and are slow to actuate in the multi-ton load range. Hydraulics also suffer from the problem of a single puncture being able to take down a whole system (think about a single crit to the leg taking the entire mech down, eventually).

Myomer systems are supposed to be high strength, lightweight, quick to actuate in the multi-ton load range, and won't have the leakage problems associated with damaged hydraulics.

At a minimum errors introduced into a Battlemech's accuracy would be based on the moment to moment shifting (gotta maintain balance) of four levels of actuator with moderate levels of precision, those being the ankle, knee, hip and torso twist. Arm systems would suffer a bit more. That's assuming no errors from the elevation and traverse actuators for the weapon mounts.

For one of today's tanks? Traverse is handled by the turret (motor driven), there's a hydraulic actuator for elevation, and the suspension, all of which are high (or at least consistent) precision systems.

I guess this might be the fundamental problem in perception of how Battletech works. Kinda missing the whole "space magic" aspect of the setting.

Battletechs are not having several high precision motors designed to move joints by the centi-degree or whatever. They use artificial muscles. And now try to hold any muscle perfectly steady on your body if you are attaching a heavy weight to it, like a rifle. And then do it while you're running around and having a fever. (The equivalent to a hot mech running.) To say it with the words of Dravis to the Material Defender - "Good Luck".

[Der Geisterbaer]

Pht, on 23 February 2013 - 11:19 AM, said:

Your suspicion is correct.

Yes and no. What you referenced there is the "official stance" of the powers that be within the (current) TT development on the matter of canonical "correctness" of (future) development.

My real "suspicion" (the one you bolded in part but left important parts out) however is, that the authors of the original novels (up to Endgame) didn't actually necessarily adhere to the TT rules but only stuck to the most basic premises and used their artistic license to tell their story => The depcition of battles where multiple weapons that are fired simultaniously and hit various locations is a mixture of using these basic premises and coincidence rather than the author actually knowing (or even caring) for the details of the TT ruleset.

[Pht]

It should also be pointed out that the individual weapons, wherever they are mounted, usually use some form of mechanical motors to allow them to converge.

Yes, torso mounted weapons can converge (stepper motors, focusing lenses, etc) - so there's also that to account for.

[Pht]

Der Geisterbaer, on 23 February 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

Yes and no. What you referenced there is the "official stance" of the powers that be within the (current) TT development on the matter of canonical "correctness" of (future) development.

It's not the official stance.

It's the official operating procedures, and said procedure has been in place for a long time - but if you won't take my word for it, I'll happily go ask them how long they've been doing things that way.

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My real "suspicion" (the one you bolded in part but left important parts out) however is, that the authors of the original novels (up to Endgame) didn't actually necessarily adhere to the TT rules but only stuck to the most basic premises and used their artistic license to tell their story => The depcition of battles where multiple weapons that are fired simultaniously and hit various locations is a mixture of using these basic premises and coincidence rather than the author actually knowing (or even caring) for the details of the TT ruleset.

Of course the novelists have gotten "off the chain" - I wasn't arguing that they hadn't - we all recognize the "author fiat" situations and characters - and that some people like to do inane things for "cool factor."

The point is, that even the authors, for the most part (and authors require latitude to move a story line forward), *have* to conform to said operating procedure. They have, in fact, complained about having to conform.

The point is that the TT rules form the boundaries inside of which things are required, to whatever extent possible, to stay.

Edited by Pht, 23 February 2013 - 11:52 AM.

[UnseenFury]

What is cone of fire system?

[Doc Holliday]

Der Geisterbaer, on 23 February 2013 - 11:01 AM, said:

Actually, no that's not "a completely different situation", but simply something you yourself brought into the discussion. You claimed that (real) weapons simply do not lose their accuracy due to firing conditions. I merely pointed out that this claim is wrong ... which is kind of ironic due to the fact that you also claimed that others don't have a clue when it comes to real weapons.
It's true that this isn't directly connected to the original subject of weapon convergance, but I won't take the blame for things you yourself introduced into the discussion.

Wrong. That's not what I said, at all.

Here's what I actually said. "Guns don't just suddenly drop to 10% their normal accuracy just because you fire a full clip on auto."

And that's absolutely true. Overheating and warping the barrel is not something that happens during the course of firing one clip.

Overheating is a completely different situation than what was being discussed, and cone of fire does not in anyway simulate that, nor any other real life effect.

Cone of fire is BS, and has no place in any shooter.

Edited by Doc Holliday, 23 February 2013 - 11:56 AM.

[Pht]

Paran01ac, on 23 February 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

What is cone of fire system?

Where each weapon or groups of weapons will have their weapons fire fall randomly inside of a "cone," to try and simulate either some aspect of physics or some aspect of how well or poorly a 'Mech can handle its weapons.

[Bilaz]

ok, i do agree that alpha is bad. But what about lrms? what whould stop people from boating them? and you dont really have to launch all your missiles in one salvo - making constant barrage would work just as well.

And i dont really see how game would be better with half the armor it have now - becouse its quite easy to boat LL or gauss and hit with them one by one

[Doc Holliday]

Paran01ac, on 23 February 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

What is cone of fire system?

Cone of fire is a stupid lazy programmer's system where a gun in game stops behaving like a real gun and starts firing any direction it jolly well pleases in a cone pattern.

[Bilaz]

Doc Holliday, on 23 February 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

Wrong. That's not what I said, at all.

Here's what I actually said. "Guns don't just suddenly drop to 10% their normal accuracy just because you fire a full clip on auto."

And that's absolutely true. Overheating and warping the barrel is not something that happens during the course of firing one clip.

Overheating is a completely different situation than what was being discussed, and cone of fire does not in anyway simulate that, nor any other real life effect.

Cone of fire is BS, and has no place in any shooter.

guns dont drop accuracy, but gun + gunner sure do suffer from accuracy drop on full auto. unless gun is little and fixed on something big - which is not our case since weapons on mech's are huge and just as they suffer from hits - they should suffer from recoil, which in most cases happen to ruin aim.

[Pht]

Doc Holliday, on 23 February 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Cone of fire is a stupid lazy programmer's system where a gun in game stops behaving like a real gun and starts firing any direction it jolly well pleases in a cone pattern.

Doc, just to be a devils advocate - and even though I think it is not really humanly possible to implement well - in theory a CoF system could be set up tha would make ballistics behave as we think they do. You'd just have to add an insane amount of conditional modifiers to the shape and offset of the cone dependent on what conditions are occuring when you fire, to make the system "behave."

Not that any current or past Cof Or any like system has EVER or will ever get to that point...

One might as well hope that monkeys on typewriters could perfectly reproduce all of the texts ever written since the dawn of time in less than 100 years...

[Hatachi]

Doc Holliday, on 23 February 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Cone of fire is a stupid lazy programmer's system where a gun in game stops behaving like a real gun and starts firing any direction it jolly well pleases in a cone pattern.

0.0 You are an angry individual. I try not to make waves, but can we get through one post without throwing two or three derogatory adjectives in for no reason.

On a side note, I think another way to look at cone of fire is reticle bouncing backwards. Instead of having the reticle and screen bounce around separately without having an inner ear to make it all make sense, they have the "real" reticle bounce around invisibly with the cone.

[Pht]

Bilaz, on 23 February 2013 - 12:01 PM, said:

guns dont drop accuracy, but gun + gunner sure do suffer from accuracy drop on full auto. unless gun is little and fixed on something big - which is not our case since weapons on mech's are huge and just as they suffer from hits - they should suffer from recoil, which in most cases happen to ruin aim.

On recoil:

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In your specific example of handling their own weapon recoil, yes, BattleMechs can handle that without too much MechWarrior input. As noted in Tech Manual, the Diagnostic Interface computer is pretty good about keeping a BattleMech upright. It will be especially good about its own weapons since it knows their recoil values, from what angle and elevation the recoil will occur, and knows when the recoil will occur - the DI computer is, after all, the computer that is overseeing the activation of the weapons once the MechWarrior points-and-clicks with the trigger. The DI computer (and MechWarrior) will have more trouble with the unpredictable onslaught of an attack, which will erratically shed tons of armor (losing about a ton is the minimum to trigger a PSR) and possibly structure, hence the PSRs if enough damage is inflicted.

http://bg.battletech...ic,26178.0.html

Recoil from firing the weapons mounted to your own mech is not something that throws off a 'Mech's aim.

Quite possibly the *only* exception to this rule is if you try and fire a heavy gauss while on the move in something smaller than an assault 'Mech.

Edited by Pht, 23 February 2013 - 12:12 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Doc Holliday, on 23 February 2013 - 11:57 AM, said:

Cone of fire is a stupid lazy programmer's system where a gun in game stops behaving like a real gun and starts firing any direction it jolly well pleases in a cone pattern.

3D Shooters with mouse and keyboard control are just a lazy players way to avoid having to actually hold a rifle in his hand and shoot people.

It's an attempt to simulate something real because you can't or don't want to do the real thing. It's not the real deal, it's just trying to get "close enough" to get us the part we want.

[Der Geisterbaer]

Pht, on 23 February 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

It's not the official stance.

It's the official operating procedures,

~Sigh~ Now you're unnecessarily nitpicking over semantics ... towards a person who's more or less in you own camp.

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and said procedure has been in place for a long time - but if you won't take my word for it, I'll happily go ask them how long they've been doing things that way.

It's not a matter of how long they tell you or me that they did this or that. It's more a matter of what realistically could be done with the involved staff and the release schedules of the original novels. And then there are my personal experiences with authors of novels in general and even with some of those involved in BattleTech as well as Shadowrun.

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The point is, that even the authors, for the most part (and authors require latitude to move a story line forward), *have* to conform to said operating procedure. They have, in fact, complained about having to conform.

Which is true for pretty much every novel of any author who writes for an established setting. Novel authors are artists in their own right, but making a living just on their own creations just isn't possible for the majority.

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The point is that the TT rules form the boundaries inside of which things are required, to whatever extent possible, to stay.

And that's the point where it get's fuzzy. From an objective point of view the TT rules did form some boundaries, the question is however if the authors of novels were actually aware (or cared) where these boudaries originally came from. They simply didn't - and in generell still don't - care if the boundaries were created by the rules or were just the result of the original design.
You would need to inquire Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III in order to find out whether a canon BattleMech's inability to converge multiple and not even a single weapon systems onto one specific hit location is just a result of how they built their die role system or if it actually was a design parameter that directly lead to modelling of the die role system in question ... and regardless of the outcome of such an inquiry the novel authors would still not care where that limitation actually stemmed from.

[Hatachi]

MustrumRidcully, on 23 February 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

3D Shooters with mouse and keyboard control are just a lazy players way to avoid having to actually hold a rifle in his hand and shoot people.

It's an attempt to simulate something real because you can't or don't want to do the real thing. It's not the real deal, it's just trying to get "close enough" to get us the part we want.

Close enough is the go to phrase whenever you are emulating anything. You want it to act as closely as expected without having to actively process atomic level physics. Sooner or later accuracy loses out to efficiency. It's just a matter of where the fall off point is for you.

[Doc Holliday]

MustrumRidcully, on 23 February 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

3D Shooters with mouse and keyboard control are just a lazy players way to avoid having to actually hold a rifle in his hand and shoot people.

It's an attempt to simulate something real because you can't or don't want to do the real thing. It's not the real deal, it's just trying to get "close enough" to get us the part we want.

Except cone of fire isn't "close enough". It's nothing like the real deal at all. Might as well play Super Mario, it's about as close to realistically simulating a real gun.

Let me put it like this: I can be a lot more accurate with a real gun than any gun in games like CoD or Battlefield.

Edited by Doc Holliday, 23 February 2013 - 12:27 PM.