59 replies to this topic

[Kaijin]

Chou Senwan, on 08 January 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

* Some ability to move laterally, even if it's just 5 or 10 meters, to help stick the landing. Likewise, if you're at the base of a building, you should be able to ascend, then float forward to land on the roof. Right now you either need a big running start, or you have to run into the building and scrape your way up the side while jump jetting.

As I envision it, activating jump jets would temporarily re-purpose the 'W' and 'S' keys to 'forward' and 'back' respectively. I'd prefer the 'A' and 'D' keys remain for turning, rather than for lateral movement. Using 'W' while jumping should angle the torso down some, and using 'S' should angle the torso up some. In practice then, you could jump straight up next to a tall building, then when you're clear of the top of it, use the re-purposed 'W' key to scoot forward and then kill acceleration to land.

Chou Senwan, on 08 January 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

* Faster launch. 3 seconds of holding the spacebar should get you to the top of your 'safe' jump height. If you want to travel farther and don't care as much about height (like if you're crossing the river in River City), you can feather the spacebar. After you reach full 'safe' height, you should still have some thrust for maneuvering and soft-landing.

Use of jump jets should kill momentum. Instead of taking a running jump to achieve forward motion, we use the 'W' key in conjunction with feathering the Space Bar. If we're doing this, and stop holding the 'W' key, all forward motion should stop immediately...unless maybe it's a zero-G environment.

Chou Senwan, on 08 January 2013 - 03:50 PM, said:

I really appreciate that you asked our opinion, man. Keep up the good work.

Likewise, Thomas. When I rage on the Devs, please know that you're exempt.

[Mechteric]

Sounds like a good idea, though dropping in a mech without using your full tonnage obviously is a drawback in itself. What would be nice is as you take damage if the weight of your mech drops as well. So if your catapult loses both arms then your jump height can be higher since it just lost weight

[Cache]

Cache, on 08 January 2013 - 07:29 PM, said:

I voted no. For now. Same reason as others: KISS.

Doing so also would open the argument for increasing ground speed when you lose tonnage... and I don't want to go there.

I feel that I should expand on this now that I have had more time to think. The part of the OP that I like the least is the increase in movement (JJ range/height) due to damage. I've always had it in my mind that Mechs movement is governed, like some vehicles. They are capable of more speed/range but their structural limitations mean that they have to hold back a bit. Speed tweak seems like our MechWarrior tweaking the settings/tightening the belts to get a little more efficiency out the Mech, but not really going beyond factory specs. That being said, losing tonnage in battle would not effect the presets. MAYBE customizing to be short tonnage could justify it, but it's a slippery slope in my opinion.

There are TT rules for low gravity that increase speed/range with the consequence of some structural damage to the legs if you fail a PSR. Here's a quote from Tactical Operations: "Mech legs and vehicle suspensions are designed to operate at maximum efficiency on worlds with close to 1 G gravity. If the gravity of a world allows the unit to move faster than normal, the strain on the unit’s systems may damage its internal structure." While not a direct translation to under-tonned Mechs, it can be used as a guideline. We have no real way of providing piloting skill input and I think this should be seriously considered in order to prevent abuse.

[Bobzilla]

I voted yes, altho i also think if it effects JJ's it should effect top speed as well. Its the same idea.

[MasterBLB]

The answer NO.KISS is one reason,the other is no other equipment is revelant to mass.
Besides the jump jets needs to be rollbacked first before any tweak attempts,as now they are utterly useless.

[Solis Obscuri]

I'm just picturing people stripping out the armor and weapons from their arms and having teammates shoot them off at match start for an extra 10kph speed boost... Or the hilarity of watching a 'mech with no arms or side torsos and one leg running faster than it's base speed.

[Roadbuster]

As long as jumpjets work as they should, I don't really care.
At the moment jumpjets don't have enough power. I'm not talking about the previous implementation where you only needed 1 JJ for maximum effect.

For the future though, please stay close to what mechs should be able to do with JJ.
As example take the Highlander description from Sarna:

Quote

its most useful asset were the three Hildco jump jets giving it a jumping range of 90 meters. The heaviest 'Mech design to feature jump jets, their original task was to allow the Highlander the ability to jump over inconvenient obstacles such as buildings and outpace other 'Mechs with a faster ground speed

[StalaggtIKE]

Even though I voted yes, I would like to see JJ to get "fixed" first. Currently they're pretty much useless, even at full capacity.

Solis Obscuri, on 10 January 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

I'm just picturing people stripping out the armor and weapons from their arms and having teammates shoot them off at match start for an extra 10kph speed boost... Or the hilarity of watching a 'mech with no arms or side torsos and one leg running faster than it's base speed.

At the cost of weapons? Or the cost of further exposing XL engine? No. I don't think this will be a major issue.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 12 January 2013 - 07:46 AM.

[Nacon]

I took my time to think about this carefully and tried to balanced out with some trade-off.



Instead of limiting JJ's Class to mech's weight class. Allow them freely attached however they wish. This would give them more options to handle their build with extra trade-off choices.

I took same trade-off concept from Heatsink/DHS. Trading weight for slots. However, I also made 2 of JJ classes in reversed trade-off with extra weight, as it's geared toward Heavy and Assault mech class.

I've decided that all mech should only have a maximum of 4 Jumpjet installed of any JJ classes. Can be mixed class. Why 4? Because I've always envisioned mech having 2 JJ in each legs or having 1 in each legs and torsos. Which helps retaining the mech design theme, as anyone could abuse mech into some kind of Gundam non-sense.

In the chart, you can see that light mech could easily jump up to 210 meter in height. The reason I allowed this because this would make an ideal scout role... with a great risk. It's ideal to jump up to 105 meter in air or you won't have any jet fuel left to decelerate your descend. So I'm suggesting that falling from 210 meter up in a light mech would destroy both legs upon ground impact. And of course, exposing yourself to your enemy as target practice. May seem unfair for such light mech have great height, but you must take into account that having 4 of JJ - Class IV weights much as 8 ton with 16 slots. That's almost like having a AC5 installed without ammo and giving up at least one Endo/Fero upgrade.

I knew most of us missed having one Jumpjet and be able jump around freely. Knew people weren't too happy with the recent update to JJ, because they're severity under-powered. This formula I've come up with meets in the middle between the two... sort of.

The formula is T*n-M. Where T is Thrust, n is number of JJ installed, and M is the total tonnage of your Mech (Counting your Jumpjet's weight). It's that simple. No absurd realistic physic math, easier for players to think about their build this way.

When I noted that M is total Tonnage of current mech, the loss of arms or spent ammo, should affect jump height in that sense of the given formula.

Which bring me to the next suggestion... Allow player detach arms in mechlab. Knowing that players will ask their team mate to shoot up their arms, which make the game slightly absurd. Or make thing worst, a teammate could badly miss the arm and shoot their head off.

[Norris J Packard]

Thomas Dziegielewski, on 08 January 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

I'm trying to convince my designers that this idea is worthwhile.

Should your actual mass affect jump jet height?

By this I mean if I make a 58.5t Catapult which is a 65t mech, should it go 10% higher because I dropped 10% of my mass?

So that players who can't get up a building because they are too fat can lower their loadout tonnage a bit and get up to the location they want the next time.

And some will be able to create some useless mechs that launch themselves into orbit. Which we can cap maybe to a max bonus of 50%.

And for a later feature maybe if your arm is blown off use that extra weight loss as well.

And its like a 30min job.

Thomas, would this effect the maximum range stated in the various TRO's? Like if a Mech is supposed to be able to jump up to 120 meters, will them using the maximum tonnage lower this ceiling? Or would it mean that if you are only using like 8/10ths of your maximum tonnage that your new maximum is 150 meters (for example)? Because I'd personally feel better knowing that because we are using our tonnage to the fullest extent this wouldn't negatively impact our jumping capabilities.

[Krazy Kat]

If this was implemented, then the same thing could be applied to max speed too.

If you have less than max tonnage, you go faster.

[Alex Wolfe]

Although I appreciate the initiative and thinking outside the box for MWO, I don't think promoting "underfeeding" mechs in any shape, way or form should be done. BT mechs always carry their full max tonnage, and making not doing so advantageous is crossing an ugly threshold.

As Cache said above, it would also create a precedent towards "increasing ground speed as mech loses tonnage", which shouldn't be the case either, IMO. It opens the door for exploitation.

From a gamer's perspective, if you want a better performance, get a lighter chassis instead of messing up the matchmaker even further with 30t catapults. if you want to fly, get a jenner or a (soon) spider.

From an immersion perspective, mechs are always loaded to capacity, and losing a limb should make your mech more unstable and thus at least nullify the potential height/distance/speed gain.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 12 January 2013 - 04:58 PM.

[Vassago Rain]

This could be interesting.

[Chou Senwan]

Each chassis already has a maximum speed, which is, what - 1.4 x its stock speed? Something like that? So if we decide that low weight increases jump height, and that low weight increases speed, you can still cap speed at whatever the chassis max is. So if a mech already has the top-rated engine for its chassis, losing an arm won't help. But if you're a little slow (245 in a Jenner, for instance), losing some weight can speed you up.

[LaserAngel]

I would spend the time getting stock Jump Jets at stock tonnages working before anything else. Even with 4 Jump Jets, my Catapult C1's jumping abilities are sorely lacking. I just want to get on top of a building!

[Sennin]

I am against this only because Jump Jets are already poorly implemented with they're effectiveness severely nerfed and number pre-determined by chassis. You are not directly repairing the cause of the problem, you're placing a bandaid on it and calling it good.

If you are not going to directly increase they're overall effectiveness via thrust in MWO, I ask that you at least consider how many jump jets a 'Mech gets be scaled to Engine Rating (rounded down) and class using the following...

Lights = 1 JJ per 25 Engine Rating
(Example: The Spider mounts a 240 rated engine, it would receive a 9 Jump Jet limit.)

Mediums = 1 JJ per 50 Engine Rating
(Example: Trebuchet mounts a 250 rated engine, it would receive a 5 Jump Jet limit.)

Heavies = 1 JJ per 65 Engine Rating
(Example: Catapult mounts a 260 rated engine, it would receive a 4 Jump Jet limit.)

Assault = 1 JJ per 80 Engine Rating
(Example: The Highlander mounts a 270 rated engine, it would receive a 3 Jump Jet limit.)

This is the formula used in previous Mechwarrior titles as well as Battletech and brings jump jet limitations in line with how they have previously been. It's proven to work, it scales properly and it would do well in MWO as it places a direct cap determined by the user's engine choice along with the games current engine limitations. As demonstrated above Jump capable 'Mechs would be able to receive a reasonable enhancement in their mobility without it being so significant that it upsets balance.

Again, please consider this method and thank you for your time.

[Sandslice]

Sennin, on 12 January 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

I am against this only because Jump Jets are already poorly implemented with they're effectiveness severely nerfed and number pre-determined by chassis. You are not directly repairing the cause of the problem, you're placing a bandaid on it and calling it good.

If you are not going to directly increase they're overall effectiveness via thrust in MWO, I ask that you at least consider how many jump jets a 'Mech gets be scaled to Engine Rating (rounded down) and class using the following...

Lights = 1 JJ per 25 Engine Rating
(Example: The Spider mounts a 240 rated engine, it would receive a 9 Jump Jet limit.)

Mediums = 1 JJ per 50 Engine Rating
(Example: Trebuchet mounts a 250 rated engine, it would receive a 5 Jump Jet limit.)

Heavies = 1 JJ per 65 Engine Rating
(Example: Catapult mounts a 260 rated engine, it would receive a 4 Jump Jet limit.)

Assault = 1 JJ per 80 Engine Rating
(Example: The Highlander mounts a 270 rated engine, it would receive a 3 Jump Jet limit.)

This is the formula used in previous Mechwarrior titles as well as Battletech and brings jump jet limitations in line with how they have previously been. It's proven to work, it scales properly and it would do well in MWO as it places a direct cap determined by the user's engine choice along with the games current engine limitations. As demonstrated above Jump capable 'Mechs would be able to receive a reasonable enhancement in their mobility without it being so significant that it upsets balance.

Again, please consider this method and thank you for your time.

Battletech uses this:
Walk MP (that is, engine rating / weight ratio) = number of Standard jump jets that can be mounted
Run MP (that is, Walk MP * 1.5 round up) = number of Improved jump jets (later tech) that can be mounted

For experimental "Jump Boosters," the only limit is that the boosters take up both free crits in each leg, and each 1 MP (30 meters) of jump costs 5% of 'Mech tonnage.

The Mechwarrior video games tend to be faithful to this (well, at least 2 and 3, dunno about 4.)

[Praeses]

There's no way to use physics? That would solve your problem

[Karl Split]

In this regard sod TT altering JJ height to take into account mech weight is an awsome idea.

[Adridos]

Praeses, on 12 January 2013 - 09:42 PM, said:

There's no way to use physics? That would solve your problem

Using PhysX would screw the performance even more and double screw AMD users.

And it's not worth the finetunning, I mean, can you imagine waht kind of output would you have to set the JJs to lift 60 tons into the air?

Edited by Adridos, 13 January 2013 - 05:27 AM.