25 replies to this topic

[Vaneshi SnowCrash]

Played a few games and Spiders are starting to make an appearance and it's odd. They're perfectly scaled (well pretty close) to what you'd think a 30t Mech would be like, they're in scale with the streetlights on the city map.

So why is my Hunchback (only 20t heavier) nearly 4 times the size of it? That doesn't seem quite right to my mind.

[IG 88]

Vaneshi SnowCrash, on 17 January 2013 - 05:34 AM, said:

Played a few games and Spiders are starting to make an appearance and it's odd. They're perfectly scaled (well pretty close) to what you'd think a 30t Mech would be like, they're in scale with the streetlights on the city map.

So why is my Hunchback (only 20t heavier) nearly 4 times the size of it? That doesn't seem quite right to my mind.

none of the mech are scale right

[Fooooo]

I feel the spiders should be smaller...or at least, shorter.

I always imagined they were smaller than a jenner in height + width (not looking at its dimensions
on sarna etc)......i guess I was wrong.

Edited by Fooooo, 17 January 2013 - 05:49 AM.

[CDLord HHGD]

The Spider is my new favorite mech to watch pop. Followed closely by my old favorite, the Commando.

But realistic scaling for a sci-fi genre? Right.

These mechs are not solid and are all built by different manufacturers. Where some mechs are packed pretty dense like the Atlas, some have crawl ways and tunnels that techs can crawl into and work on the mech from the inside. Most lights don't have this (except notably the Thorn), and this trend would only go up as an excuse to make mechs seem bigger than their tonnage would indicate. Just my interpretation of fantasy designs in a fantasy world that have already undergone several renditions.

[Booran]

I'm just a bit annoyed with the heavy/assault difference, as in there is none, size-wise. Catapults and Stalkers get mixed up all the time, not only for the similar profile but also the size..

[Vassago Rain]

Booran, on 17 January 2013 - 05:58 AM, said:

I'm just a bit annoyed with the heavy/assault difference, as in there is none, size-wise. Catapults and Stalkers get mixed up all the time, not only for the similar profile but also the size..

There are certain, uhhh, characteristics of the stalker that make it impossible to mix it up with the much less, uhh, endowed cat.

[Booran]

Yeah I know, but there's that extra second or two of staring at a heat signature that really itches

And the height of the centurion is a bit rediculous (spelling lol)

Edited by Booran, 17 January 2013 - 06:09 AM.

[Navid A1]

the spider should at least be double its current size
be it height... thickness or anything else...

Thontor, on 17 January 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

Because they certainly aren't going with realism... Otherwise the Commando would be about 63% as tall as an Atlas (similar proportions, 4x mass = 1.59x bigger in every dimension)

it only is true about homogeneous single density objects... not mechs (mechs are built from hundreds of small subsystems with different mass density)

Edited by Navid A1, 17 January 2013 - 08:36 AM.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

Agreed. The Spider is just way too small compared to the other mechs.

Thontor, on 17 January 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

But the Commando would be way too easy to hit if it were half the size of an Atlas, so they make it much smaller.

I think this is the reason they make the light mechs too small. Too easy to hit if they were in a more correct proportion.

[Navid A1]

Thontor, on 17 January 2013 - 08:32 AM, said:

Yeah I realized my mistake a few minutes after I posted that, corrected it.

yes... i corrected my quote too.

but still... it is only true about homogeneous objects...
for example:
the cockpit is not 4 times bigger in an atlas compared to a commando... the power grid, the power plants and pod spaces are... and because the mechs' armor and framing are not as dense as the power plant... large changes in size will not result in large changes in weight.

Edited by Navid A1, 17 January 2013 - 08:41 AM.

[Kaijin]

On average, lights are much smaller than mediums, but heavies aren't much smaller than assaults.

See this post:
http://mwomercs.com/...post__p__522438

Edited by Kaijin, 17 January 2013 - 08:46 AM.

[Raidyr]

Are you people seriously suggesting a Spider nerf?

[Navid A1]

Thontor, on 17 January 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

Do you deny the sizes are unrealistic though?

no i dont... the sizes are a bit unrealistic.

[Kaijin]

Thontor, on 17 January 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

Granted

Do you deny the sizes are unrealistic though?

Only way I can see an Atlas being that much bigger than a Commando is if there were a lot of empty wasted space inside the Atlas.. Which would be silly.

I stand by the theory that PGI is using size to balance how hard it is to hit the mechs.

I deny it - Yes. The space in an Atlas is taken up with correspondingly larger myomer bundles for it's weight, and the massive amount of armor it carries.

[Navid A1]

Kaijin, on 17 January 2013 - 09:00 AM, said:

I deny it - Yes. The space in an Atlas is taken up with correspondingly larger myomer bundles for it's weight, and the massive amount of armor it carries.

this statement is also true...
atlas needs lots of protection which means lots of armor... the armor is not dense... so in order to carry high amounts of it... the proportions become large.

[Thuzel]

As someone else said before, it's probably the result of:

1. Balance requirements
2. Different artists doing the work

Most likely, they made the spider small to increase it's longevity, which is also probably why the Stalker is the same size as a Catapult. Hunchbacks are a little larger than they should be, but when they were introduced there were no engine limitations and they tended to run around like lemurs on crack.

Don't be surprised to see others not quite matching up to canon. I fully expect the Timber Wolf to be sized down a little to compensate for the extra hitbox area. But this is all speculation anyway.

Edited by Thuzel, 17 January 2013 - 09:29 AM.

[Gralzeim]

Realization after reading this thread: PGI is testing how well progressively smaller and smaller mechs will work in-game. Like, say, something that starts with an E and ends with an lemental?

>_>


-Conspiracyconspiracyconspiracy-

Edited by Gralzeim, 17 January 2013 - 09:31 AM.

[Suko]

IG 88, on 17 January 2013 - 05:36 AM, said:

none of the mech are scale right

No kidding. This is just like the TT game, where none of the minis seem to fit into the same scale with one another. Then again, the size of the mechs in MWO might be intentional, to give certain mechs advantages over others.

Personal rant:
Anyone who has studied mass/height/weight ratios should know that just because a mech is 20% taller it =/= 20% heavier. Weight increases dramatically with height..

I'm 6'-7" tall, and you would assume that being 15% larger than an average man (~5'-8 tall) that I would weigh 15% more. But due to the mathematics of volume vs surface area, it actually goes up much more dramatically.

[Havyek]

Are people complaining about the realistic sizes of 30 ton and 100 ton bipedal robots?


On that note, how much should the Jaegers from Pacific Rim weigh? So we can send Guillermo del Toro the proper specs.

[StalaggtIKE]

Kaijin, on 17 January 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

On average, lights are much smaller than mediums, but heavies aren't much smaller than assaults.

See this post:
http://mwomercs.com/...post__p__522438

Nice post. I forgot how crappy some of the mech designs were.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 17 January 2013 - 09:57 AM.