138 replies to this topic

[stjobe]

I love it how everyone is second-guessing the devs, as if it's a given that they haven't made any effort at all to scale the 'mechs correctly:



Seriously, just read this: http://penny-arcade....ricate-birth-of

[WolvesX]

bump for fairness and the right couse!

[CwStrife]

The bottom line is just they are all disproportional. What I feel like i'm playing in a sense is more like Call of Duty with machines more-so than driving around an actual mech.

I think the devs should really just check out MW2, MW3, and MW4 for comparison and they would clearly see the difference

Thontor, on 19 February 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

That is clearly a decision made for balancing purposes.. Simply to make lights harder to hit.


Everyone keeps bringing up the Centurion, but I don't think its size is "wrong" at all.

"But its as tall as an Awesome!" People complain. Well its also got a pencil waist and is just downright anorexic compared to the Awesome.

I'll grant you the Stalker seems a little small... And the Hunchback as well... I fact I would say the Hunchback is too small rather than the Centurion too big... And again, I wouldn't be surprised if they made the Hunchback smaller on purpose, to make it slightly less easy to hit that hunch.

Earlier in the thread people are complaining that the mechs aren't to scale with the buildings etc? I think that's one area they got spot on... People saying an Atlas is as tall as a "two story building" on frozen city... Really? Have you actually looked closely at those windows? Its pretty clear they take up multiple levels.

Sorry, I guess I'm ranting a little now... I'm done.

[Fitzbattleaxe]

Thontor, on 19 February 2013 - 05:44 AM, said:

That is clearly a decision made for balancing purposes.. Simply to make lights harder to hit.

Well at the moment they're too hard to hit (IMHO). A light shouldn't be able to up against a heavy in a one-on-one fight and win. I've seen it happen, and it's not always that the light is a better pilot (though that is sometimes the case). You just can't keep a laser on a target as small as a commando, while a commando barely has to try to hit the CT of a catapult or dragon (especially if they have streaks). Lights should be scouts, not brawlers. I pilot a light myself sometimes, and while I certainly don't think it's easy, I do often think it's easier than it should be.

I don't remember lights being so much smaller in MW3, though admittedly it has been awhile.

[Mazzyplz]

well people, i need to say this; but wake up!




it's not like they WEIGH that many tons, that many tons is their hauling limit; like those truck drivers who haul huge things IRL;
they know a small truck can haul a set ammount of weight before overtaxing their engine (or sometimes as in this case appears to be, their structure)

awesome:

 
 
8 tons bare bones. (this is what it weighs..)
23 tons with full armor.
39 tons with full armor + std240
[rest of tonnage is filled up mostly with weapons]
max capacity 80 tons.

stalker:

 
 
8.5 tons bare bones. (WEIGHT)
25 tons with full armor
44 tons with full armor + std255
[41 tons free to fill up with weapons systems/equipment]
max capacity 85 tons.

catapult:

 
 
6.5 tons bare bones
20 tons with full armor
39 tons with full armor + std260
[26 tons free to fill up with weaps/equips]
max capacity 65 tons

[see a trend already? the actual weight of the mechs is 10x less than their max tonnage.
that means 6.5 tons turns to 65 and 8 turns to 80, they can pull 10x their own weight]



also another thing nobody seemed to consider is that the height, dimensions and materials only make 1 part of the story, the components
themselves have volumes, how can you properly judge the mass of the box-ears of the catapult, if they're just empty boxes??
the dimensions of an empty box tell you nothing of it's mass!!
in fact like i show above, most of the components of a mech are hollow, you should have noticed when you went into the mechlab. so even in other mech components you can't really judge by their appearance.

even if we assume the box ears in the A1cat are filled with launchers/rockets, what makes you think rockets weigh the same as the rest of the mech? the launcher for srm6 weighs 3 tons. that's it!, so you would have 9 tons per ear + 18 rockets at 180kg - so the max weigh in one of them is 9.18 tons
bearing that in mind, would it weigh the same if i put streaks? no, of course not. with 3 streak launchers you get 4.5 tons + 60kg so 4.56 tons.


but in all fairness the stalker does look a lot more massive than the catapult, even though their dimensions are similar,
the catapult's nose is slanted down, volume wise they don't look that similar.
and yes if we assume a uniformity on the volumes of each component of each mech, the hunchback would still be a cube, while the centurion and trebuchet are thin long rectangles.


you can see these charts i put up for yourselves if you load up the configs in
smurfy's mechlab

Edited by Mazzyplz, 22 February 2013 - 12:55 AM.

[Chavette]

The trebuchet is huge!!

[SgtMagor]

MWO Atlas is definitely a fatty! its so wide it looks short, optical illusion maybe...

[CwStrife]

SgtMagor, on 22 February 2013 - 06:27 AM, said:

MWO Atlas is definitely a fatty! its so wide it looks short, optical illusion maybe...

True that

[Bishop Steiner]

Thontor, on 22 February 2013 - 05:41 AM, said:

Fixed that for you

except that using the art guide, the Jenner is the ONLY mech reasonably scaled, especially at 35 tons. The Catapult posted next to it would be easily 4 times the mass.

And people can argue that the "barebones" of a Mech only weighs this much and max load, etc......

Doesn't matter. Curb weight of a Truck is the WHOLE truck, with the motor, body panels, stereo system, etc. In NONE of the above instances are we talking "cargo capacity". A tank is rated at 60 tons. It isn't a 6 ton tank that has 10 tons of armor, a 3 ton gun, etc........

[Mazzyplz]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 February 2013 - 07:45 PM, said:

except that using the art guide, the Jenner is the ONLY mech reasonably scaled, especially at 35 tons. The Catapult posted next to it would be easily 4 times the mass.

And people can argue that the "barebones" of a Mech only weighs this much and max load, etc......

Doesn't matter. Curb weight of a Truck is the WHOLE truck, with the motor, body panels, stereo system, etc. In NONE of the above instances are we talking "cargo capacity". A tank is rated at 60 tons. It isn't a 6 ton tank that has 10 tons of armor, a 3 ton gun, etc........

except the volume of the parts actually have no meaning if they're hollow. you can make a big hollow box made out of iron, and it will weigh the same as a smaller cube of solid iron.

so you can't possibly tell the mass of the catapult by it's size alone, but keep trying! by all means

[JwLeonhart]

Come on don't be foolish now. Fact is they aren't tall enough in game.

[DaZur]

Mazzyplz, on 22 February 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

except the volume of the parts actually have no meaning if they're hollow. you can make a big hollow box made out of iron, and it will weigh the same as a smaller cube of solid iron.

so you can't possibly tell the mass of the catapult by it's size alone, but keep trying! by all means

Actually "yes"... yes it can.

" In fluid mechanics, displacement takes place when an physical object is immersed in a liquid, pushing it out of the way and taking its place. The volume of the fluid displaced can then be quantified (measured), and from this the volume of the immersed object can be deducted (the volume of the immersed object will be precisely equal to the volume of the displaced fluid).
An physical object that sinks dislocates an quantity of fluid equal to the physical object volume. Therefore buoyancy is expressed by Archimedes’ Principle, which says that the weight of the physical object is reduced by its volume multiplied by the density of the fluid. If the weight of the physical object is less than this displaced quantity, the physical object floats; if more, it sinks. The quantity of fluid displaced is directly related (via Archimedes’ Principle) to its weight.

"I win".

Edited by DaZur, 26 February 2013 - 01:36 PM.

[Vermaxx]

When a fifty ton centurion can me mistaken for an atlas in heat vision, something is wrong.

[DaZur]

Vermaxx, on 26 February 2013 - 01:43 PM, said:

When a fifty ton centurion can me mistaken for an atlas in heat vision, something is wrong.

It this more reflective of the Mech size or your inability to differentiate the thermal humanoid silhouette? Not even mentioning that depth if field is greatly impaired in thermal as well...

[Kraven Kor]

The little cars and such on the maps also seem way too small in comparison to the buildings, I have noticed. On River City, there is one car that is itty bitty (in lower city) then the truck by the lower base is nearly knee-high on an Atlas.

There are some odd scaling issues, but I don't think it is a major problem.

[Connatic]

How can there even be an argument about this? There is plenty of literature on the size and weight mechs. It's just obvious the devs aren't paying much attention to being precise with keeping everything to proper scale. I don't care what excuses we can come up with volume or how "hollow" a mech might be, lets just use some commons sense. Lights should be smaller than Mediums...Mediums should be smaller than Heavies. ...Mediums shouldn't be almost as tall as assaults, common sense.

We don't have to go crazy and break out the engineering blueprints...but what's wrong with adjusting the scale of some of the more obvious inconsistencies?

Edited by Connatic, 26 February 2013 - 02:35 PM.

[Kraven Kor]

Connatic, on 26 February 2013 - 02:35 PM, said:

How can there even be an argument about this? There is plenty of literature on the size and weight mechs. It's just obvious the devs aren't paying much attention to being precise with keeping everything to proper scale. I don't care what excuses we can come up with volume or how "hollow" a mech might be, lets just use some commons sense. Lights should be smaller than Mediums...Mediums should be smaller than Heavies. ...Mediums shouldn't be almost as tall as assaults, common sense.

We don't have to go crazy and break out the engineering blueprints...but what's wrong with adjusting the scale of some of the more obvious inconsistencies?

Well, keep in mind that if the Commando were properly proportioned, it would be much larger than it is now when compared to an Atlas. Thus making it a larger target. And thus, pointless, and dead, for the most part - could be wrong there but that is my thinking.

So some variance is needed if "size of target" is part of what keeps light mechs viable.

Still, the Trebuchet is way too big. I agree there.

[Mazzyplz]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 February 2013 - 07:45 PM, said:

And people can argue that the "barebones" of a Mech only weighs this much and max load, etc......

Doesn't matter. Curb weight of a Truck is the WHOLE truck, with the motor, body panels, stereo system, etc. In NONE of the above instances are we talking "cargo capacity". A tank is rated at 60 tons. It isn't a 6 ton tank that has 10 tons of armor, a 3 ton gun, etc........

nah, it matters.
the whole truck's weight is one part of the story, here we would be talking about a maxed out truck carrying all the weight it can pull.

would you explain this please?
http://cars.lovetokn..._of_Car_Weights

according to USATODAY (check the link), the weight of a large car is virtually the same as a midsize SUV, even though the SUV is way bigger in dimensions. did that blow your little mind away? i'm guessing it did. most of what makes the SUV bigger is the empty space inside.

the reason we don't consider cargo on a tank is because you can't swap it's weapon, it's built into it.

the way you weigh in a truck is with it's container/trailer empty - if you want to know the truck's weight (unless you want to drive it over a bridge and need to calculate how much it weighs with cargo not to take the bridge out)

not so with mechs, you can change the weapon loadout as you wish, and thus it is a cargo "vehicle" that just happens to haul weapons. sure we measure a car with engine radio and all, in a mech this would be with full armor and engine but no weapons; i included those numbers in my chart; previous page.

i'm trying to go slow here so you understand me, but if you need colorful drawings let me know.

my guess is if you saw an SUV and a large car IRL and were told their weight you would ask the engineers to make them the "correct" size for their weight, LMAO!!!!!!!!!!

Dazur:
hehehe nice mr smartypants
quite an Eureka moment huh? well you win i guess, that engineering diploma paid off huh?
but you know i was talking about the eyeballing the "perceived volume" as in dimensions like these guys are doing

Edited by Mazzyplz, 27 February 2013 - 01:18 AM.

[Blood Skar]

Atlas is a bit too small imo

I think its a more general problem though.
The mechs should be sized according to their size catogories (obviously), i think we would all agree to this?..and this is where the problem lies in my opinion. Assaults should be bigger, Lights left as they are, a few mediums should be shrunk a tad - the Treb is crazy big and thats a worrying trend they seem to be setting for upcoming mechs, Centurion is too big also - needs tweeking down a touch.
Heavies could maybe be kept the same or tweeked slightly? I must admit when i first got the Cataphract i was a bit suprised how small it was. Whereas the Dragon is too big - I think he needs a small skrinage.
Stalker seems to be very low profile for an Assault - its only a tad bigger then a Cat...seems a bit wrong to me.

Having said that - i dont actually mind the current sizes - but anyone not ignoring the truth can see they are out of proportion.
I suppose it all depends on how much PGI think it matters - i cant see them resizing them...but they have resized hitboxes so who knows maybe they will shrink/expand some Mech mesh's, personally i cant see that happening - but I wont complain if it happens.

Edited by Blood Skar, 27 February 2013 - 05:12 AM.

[Fitzbattleaxe]

Kraven Kor, on 26 February 2013 - 04:00 PM, said:

Well, keep in mind that if the Commando were properly proportioned, it would be much larger than it is now when compared to an Atlas. Thus making it a larger target. And thus, pointless, and dead, for the most part - could be wrong there but that is my thinking.

So some variance is needed if "size of target" is part of what keeps light mechs viable.

Still, the Trebuchet is way too big. I agree there.

maybe if the commando were properly proportioned, it would actually be used as a scout. Lights should be viable, but as scouts, not as brawlers. Right now, pretty much everything can be a brawler. Whatever happened to role warfare? Why is a light one fifth the cost of an assault if it's every bit as effective in combat (in the hands of the right pilot, at least)?