The citytech expansion made it clear that infantry were a threat to battlemechs, at least in built up areas where they had cover against a mech's defense against them -- machineguns. Including infantry could really promote a combined arms approach within lances, where the lights not only scout but take out opposing manz, since their lighter armament is well suited to it.
I tried a demo for MW4: Mercenaries. Why in the great goddamn can you only use the mouse to look up and down? Was that control option supposed to be a joke?
Looking online, it seems MW3 had actual mouse controls. What possible reason is there for not allowing me to move the torso with the mouse and the body with WASD in MW4?
VTOLs are pretty freaking mean actually. They are almost impossible to hit and can carry as much firepower as a light mech.
And then (in the books, at least) you have Mechbuster aircraft; take the largest Autocannon you can find, build an aircarft around it, fill the rest with ammo and fuel and go wreck someones day in it.
Not a great life expectancy for pilots, but if one gets the drop on you, your mech may have a very, very bad day coming.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Looking online, it seems MW3 had actual mouse controls.
What I liked about MW3's controls was that (at least in the demo) your mouse controlled your 'Mech's arms as well as the torso rotation. Your arms would track the aiming reticle as far as they could, and if you kept aiming in that direction the torso would start turning to re-center the crosshairs. It was greatness.
The amount of effort it would take to model and texture and animate people and places that exist for no purpose other than to make it harder to navigate the various menus it takes to be a mechwarrior would cost an amount of money that I would prefer them to spend on anything else.
I think you're seriously overestimating how much time it would take to render a handful of hallways, two to three rooms, and the number of NPCs that would be put there.
Speaking from personal experience, he's not. With a menu system you don't have to worry about collision detection, rigging animations for the NPCs, camera control so you don't end up looking through the wall behind your character, etc etc. It's a lot more involved than just making the models.
Hmm...usually, these sort of areas tend to suck when it comes to collision detection, since they are just cosmetic, but if you wanted to go that in depth, it could take time.
Well, if you want it not to look janky, you have to make sure the player can't walk through props, and then you have to make sure he can't get stuck anywhere in the scenery, etc. And again, you have to work on a camera system that either makes objects transparent when they're behind the player or zooms it up really close behind so it's never occluded, or just have the camera always be really tight behind the player, etc.
You make a point that you can ignore a lot of that and just do a bare minimum to have an environment to walk around in, but at that point why bother when you could spend less time putting together a really nicely designed menu system rather than a meh 3d environment?
Edit: This is assuming it's a budgetary concern. If they have the budget to make a nice 3d nav system then yes, it could be cool.
Personally, I liked the way it was handled in Mech2: Mercs. You had a couple different rooms you could navigate to by just clicking on them and then it would move you to that room. It seemed like a nice perspective and brought up the menus you needed quite nicely. I would prefer something like that to be implemented in this new Mechwarrior game so the focus of the actual gameplay can be maintained for the actual missions.
I know it is extraneous, but i want some out of the cockpit parts in game. I mean running my man around a firebase talking to mechanics; haggling for better deals on the 4 tons of srm ammo I am buying, talking to mercs in a bar, etc. Help give me a sense of scale and put some faces on on those mech jockeys/lance mates I am leading to their deaths.
On one hand, I'd kind of like to have the ocassional briefing from outside the cockpit. Sitting in a giant mech bay, going over charts, diagrams and whatnot, and being able to look around while 'Techs use heavy machinery to haul around multiple ton sections of armour, spot welding the last parts of a repair into place, and stripping down a salvaged mech in a far corner.
On the other hand, please don't make me be some regular guy running a couple of kilometers from one end of a base to another on fetch quests or anything dumb.
One mission where I have to get from the bunker to the hanger while in little but a flightsuit and a sidearm (or skivies; according to the books, many or even most pilots without personal cooling suits fight nearly naked), fending off an invading team while the remaining base forces hold onto the hanger. Men and women fighting, dying, and then BAM, crawl into a mech and exact bloody vengeance upon the invaders and their forces on the exterior.
"No, no, Mr. Troop Transport. Fuck you!"
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
I tried a demo for MW4: Mercenaries. Why in the great goddamn can you only use the mouse to look up and down? Was that control option supposed to be a joke?
Looking online, it seems MW3 had actual mouse controls. What possible reason is there for not allowing me to move the torso with the mouse and the body with WASD in MW4?
I only played vengeance but I assume it's the same in mercenaries. Go to the control configuration and their should be a option for mouse control checked. Right below that should be mouse sensitivity, below sensitivity should be a box you can click on to change mouse controls for either up and down or torso controls.
On the other hand, please don't make me be some regular guy running a couple of kilometers from one end of a base to another on fetch quests or anything dumb.
Man, there would totally need to be a fetch quest where you need to go find a tech and ask to borrow his wrench and then when you get there you tell him you don't want his damned wrench anyway.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Light mech, max speed, run in irregular circles while shooting down the helicopters. Black camo, not that it matters. I got noticed on the way to gamma but managed to survive.
Apparently, people seem to be persisting in not posting here, so I will drag the remaining topic of discussion from the old thread over.
There may be a way to get a wheeled vehicle over any terrain type we've encountered, but show me a wheeled vehicle that can efficiently navigate ALL terrain types without modification. That is the appeal of a walker versus a tracked/wheeled vehicle, the versatility proven by humanity itself that two feet are more versatile than wheels or tracks.
I guess the real question is: If you can't get a wheeled vehicle there, why don't you just shell the crap out of it?
Legs just have a lot of problems to overcome. Vulnerable joints, weight distribution, complexity, difficulty of replacement and repair, etc. Also, 4 feet are more versatile than 2. Go spider mechs! I also hope to see some of those in MW5.
Legs have problems. But they look so much damn cooler.
There are many reasons. If you're looking for an HVT, you normally want to capture him alive (dead men don't provide intel). If the target is in a city or village or anywhere that collateral damage is a strong possibility with indirect fire, then you have to reach that location with a vehicle. Shelling the shit out of targets is counterproductive in a COIN campaign.
I tried a demo for MW4: Mercenaries. Why in the great goddamn can you only use the mouse to look up and down? Was that control option supposed to be a joke?
Looking online, it seems MW3 had actual mouse controls. What possible reason is there for not allowing me to move the torso with the mouse and the body with WASD in MW4?
I only played vengeance but I assume it's the same in mercenaries. Go to the control configuration and their should be a option for mouse control checked. Right below that should be mouse sensitivity, below sensitivity should be a box you can click on to change mouse controls for either up and down or torso controls.
I can confirm this as I pitched a fit at first when I reloaded this and didn't feel like digging out the joystick.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
First off, I'm totally ok with playing giant robot stuff because hey, giant robots.
However, large bipedal robots as war machines is a pretty dumb idea. Huge profile, relatively delicate equipment, and they would be much pricier than something like a fairly straightforward tank. And if you really really need to get to a hard-to-reach area, a helicopter would do the job faster and better than a slow-ass walking tank. Plus, a mech can hardly handle ALL terrain types. It can't do water, it can't do air, it wouldn't be able to handle extreme mountainous terrain, etc. Pretty much any type of terrain a mech could handle, something else could handle better. Mechs are also so big and so slow it would be extremely simple for an infantryman to mark one with a laser and get it smashed with a thousand-pound bomb. On top of that, you'd be better off using a large tank with a large enough long-range cannon to one-shot mechs since the tank would be enormously more durable since tanks consist largely of layers of armor and little else. It's a good thing I really don't care about the "realism" of Battletech and just want the smashing.
Also, being able to wander around your base between missions would be awesome. I'd personally prefer you being on a dropship since you could have a Mass Effect sort of thing going on. You'd be able to see the different sections of the ship as well as going to the mechbay and personally see how huge the mechs are.
And seriously, we have one billion FPS games to play, I just wanna stomp around in a huge robot.
You can do that in MechAssault!
No, in mechassault you run around very fast on a guy who happens to look like a mech.
I wanna STOMP STOMP STOMP
It's remarkable how soothing that steady stomp, stomp, stomp, crunch, crunch, stomp, thunk, ratatatatatatatatKABLAMatatatat, stomp, stomp, stomp, VWOOP VWOOP VWOOP, crash, thunk patter patter patter clunk clonkKABLAM, "Shut down imminen- Shut down overri- You must gather your party bef- You must ga- You- Y- Y- You must- You must gather your party before venturing forth." stomp, stomp, stomp really is.
Oh dammit, I made a huge reply and it got lost when I hit "post quick reply". Guess it's do-over time :P
1. "Hey, what about if we could like, run around as our pilot to get to mech lab, and dropship, and maybe even a mission on foot?" No thanks. I play an MMO that has essentially that same feature, where you get out of your ship to navigate vendors and terminals, and the charm wears off quickly. I long for the ability to just stay in my ship and access a nice menu system to do my shopping/repairs/mission gathering. Earth and Beyond is the MMO, by the way.
2. "Mechs aren't needed in the real world, you're dumb". No sir, it is YOU who are the dumb! Mechs are awesome, and despite the logical lack of need for one, if we have the technology to do it, we should do it. We'll find a way to make them practical later. We could go the red faction route and have their primary purpose be for construction work. See? That's practical right?
3. "Mechwarrior 4 is not doing mouse controls right! What's the deal?!" The demo probably has old code, because MW4: Mercs with the PR1 patch has my mouse controlling all torso movement and WSAD controlling the legs. Works like a charm, even so much as allowing my 35 ton cougar to kill a 100 ton atlas simply by going sonic the hedgehog on him. "GOTTA SPEED, KEED"
4. "Combined arms are cool, mechwarrior should do combined arms stuff." I don't know about anyone else, but I play mechwarrior to pilot big walking pew-pew death machines, not hoverboats, or tanks, or commanding a squad of laser rifle toting suicide squads. If I wanted any of that, I'd play Battlefield, or any number of Battlefield/Tribes ripoffs that have come since the originals.
5. "Stealth mission sux, what do I do?" I ran with a Thor, or Thanatos, whichever one has ECM. Strip the weapons and load up on armor and engine speed, get the ECM of course, and fill whatever tonnage is left with weapons. When you start the mission, get a quick look at where the nav point is, then switch to passive sensors (default is Ctrl + R I think). This makes you a LOT harder to detect/target. By the time anyone was close enough to do some actual damage, I had all the major objectives completed, and had taken out the turret control tower to make escape easier.
Edit - It's also worth mentioning that the passive sensors thing works WONDERS for the Solaris VII matches. I usually surprise every opponent I'm up against unless we're the last two left, and even when I'm hitting them they'll usually focus on the guys they can actually target.
First off, I'm totally ok with playing giant robot stuff because hey, giant robots.
However, large bipedal robots as war machines is a pretty dumb idea. Huge profile, relatively delicate equipment, and they would be much pricier than something like a fairly straightforward tank. And if you really really need to get to a hard-to-reach area, a helicopter would do the job faster and better than a slow-ass walking tank. Plus, a mech can hardly handle ALL terrain types. It can't do water, it can't do air, it wouldn't be able to handle extreme mountainous terrain, etc. Pretty much any type of terrain a mech could handle, something else could handle better. Mechs are also so big and so slow it would be extremely simple for an infantryman to mark one with a laser and get it smashed with a thousand-pound bomb. On top of that, you'd be better off using a large tank with a large enough long-range cannon to one-shot mechs since the tank would be enormously more durable since tanks consist largely of layers of armor and little else. It's a good thing I really don't care about the "realism" of Battletech and just want the smashing.
Also, being able to wander around your base between missions would be awesome. I'd personally prefer you being on a dropship since you could have a Mass Effect sort of thing going on. You'd be able to see the different sections of the ship as well as going to the mechbay and personally see how huge the mechs are.
People pointing out how bipedal mechs aren't feasible is a bit like having an argument over whether the Voltron system would be appropriate for the Army to invest in as a future weapon platform.
Leave my childhood alone.
Darkewolfe on
What is this I don't even.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Heh, the Marine Corp is looking into dropping Marines from space and the Air Force is toying with the idea of an Air Carrier. I do not think the military cares if something is practical. :P
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
So they want 40K drop pods and the pirate ship from Tailspin?
Yes on the first one and no on the second one. Their air carrier plans are low orbit carrier held up by balloons. The plan is for the thing to launch drones. Yeah.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
So they want 40K drop pods and the pirate ship from Tailspin?
Yes on the first one and no on the second one. Their air carrier plans are low orbit carrier held up by balloons. The plan is for the thing to launch drones. Yeah.
Damn. I was thinking of something like the air carrier in Ace Combat 6. It would have to have serious anti-missile capabilities. China has already demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites.
So far the only mech PC games I have not been able to get to work reliably are Mechwarrior 3 (many bugs!) and the original mechwarrior (haven't tried). Being on WinXP SP3, which is second only to vista in terms of bad old-game compatibility, is something I'm proud of.
Playing through mercs right now. Urbanmechs are so cute
I couldn't take it anymore so I went to go dig out my copy of Mercenaries only to find that I only have Vengeance . Guess I'll be waiting on the release.
Heh, the Marine Corp is looking into dropping Marines from space and the Air Force is toying with the idea of an Air Carrier. I do not think the military cares if something is practical. :P
Link?
I cannot wait. It's a (debatably) great time to be in the Air Force!
They sure did. I listen to them whenever I'm doing anything battletech related.
If Vengeance is all you have, it's still alright, you just won't be able to get the mektek packs. Seeing as it's now free, would I get in trouble if I suggested some not-normally-legal methods of acquisition?
So I'm rereading some of the books, and the following quote struck me as somewhat funny:
"I've even heard a rumor that it has 750 kilobytes on Kearny-Fuchida drive theory alone."
I guess 750 kb of text is a decent sized text book, but I think this is an instance of something that was supposed to sound really impressive when the book was written not being so anymore.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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IceBurnerIt's cold and there are penguins.Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
Has anyone gotten the MW2:Mercs Win (non-Titanium) v1.1 patch installer to run properly under XP? I can't get it to work. Feature-wise v1.1 is the only version of the Mercs worth playing since it's the only one with non-scripted salvage and no enforced retirement (plus most of the bugs fixed).
I also have the Titanium edition, but actually prefer the original look of the game. I'd really like to get this functioning!
Iceburner, I had no problems installing Mercs and the 1.1 patch under WinXP Pro SP3. The patch will spit a few errors at you (trying to patch win95 dlls that don't exist) but you can ignore those. Then go ahead and install the Direct3D stuff when prompted. Finally, get the patch at the bottom of this page and follow the page's instructions for it's installation (instructions start at "Mechwarrior 2 patch guide"). You can more or less ignore the other stuff on that page, unless you're interested to learn how he made the fixes.
Using that install method, I'm playing MW2 Mercs relatively bug free with an in-game res of 1600x1200x32
Kasanagi on
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
People pointing out how bipedal mechs aren't feasible is a bit like having an argument over whether the Voltron system would be appropriate for the Army to invest in as a future weapon platform.
Leave my childhood alone.
Hey, I said I liked giant robot stuff. Someone else mentioned the idea that they would be something other than a terrible idea in combat. Now, powered armor? That's a totally different story. Iron men ten feet tall running around a battlefield is something that is both plausible and useful.
Giant robots, less so. I wouldn't complain if warfare went in that direction, though. Nosiree.
Posts
I tried a demo for MW4: Mercenaries. Why in the great goddamn can you only use the mouse to look up and down? Was that control option supposed to be a joke?
Looking online, it seems MW3 had actual mouse controls. What possible reason is there for not allowing me to move the torso with the mouse and the body with WASD in MW4?
And then (in the books, at least) you have Mechbuster aircraft; take the largest Autocannon you can find, build an aircarft around it, fill the rest with ammo and fuel and go wreck someones day in it.
Not a great life expectancy for pilots, but if one gets the drop on you, your mech may have a very, very bad day coming.
Personally, I liked the way it was handled in Mech2: Mercs. You had a couple different rooms you could navigate to by just clicking on them and then it would move you to that room. It seemed like a nice perspective and brought up the menus you needed quite nicely. I would prefer something like that to be implemented in this new Mechwarrior game so the focus of the actual gameplay can be maintained for the actual missions.
On one hand, I'd kind of like to have the ocassional briefing from outside the cockpit. Sitting in a giant mech bay, going over charts, diagrams and whatnot, and being able to look around while 'Techs use heavy machinery to haul around multiple ton sections of armour, spot welding the last parts of a repair into place, and stripping down a salvaged mech in a far corner.
On the other hand, please don't make me be some regular guy running a couple of kilometers from one end of a base to another on fetch quests or anything dumb.
One mission where I have to get from the bunker to the hanger while in little but a flightsuit and a sidearm (or skivies; according to the books, many or even most pilots without personal cooling suits fight nearly naked), fending off an invading team while the remaining base forces hold onto the hanger. Men and women fighting, dying, and then BAM, crawl into a mech and exact bloody vengeance upon the invaders and their forces on the exterior.
"No, no, Mr. Troop Transport. Fuck you!"
Man, there would totally need to be a fetch quest where you need to go find a tech and ask to borrow his wrench and then when you get there you tell him you don't want his damned wrench anyway.
The way I did it was being a Mad Cat, so that I'd have enough armor for that last run out, and enough guns to not get picked to hell.
The other way is to be a cheating bastard
I don't mind strolling around while in the actual game, 90% of the fun in MMOs for me is exploring and filling the map.
But i hate slow menu systems hate hate hate hate hate hate.
I wanna click and move to the next page/sector/whatever immediately.
And seriously, we have one billion FPS games to play, I just wanna stomp around in a huge robot.
You can do that in MechAssault!
There are many reasons. If you're looking for an HVT, you normally want to capture him alive (dead men don't provide intel). If the target is in a city or village or anywhere that collateral damage is a strong possibility with indirect fire, then you have to reach that location with a vehicle. Shelling the shit out of targets is counterproductive in a COIN campaign.
I can confirm this as I pitched a fit at first when I reloaded this and didn't feel like digging out the joystick.
PSN : Bolthorn
However, large bipedal robots as war machines is a pretty dumb idea. Huge profile, relatively delicate equipment, and they would be much pricier than something like a fairly straightforward tank. And if you really really need to get to a hard-to-reach area, a helicopter would do the job faster and better than a slow-ass walking tank. Plus, a mech can hardly handle ALL terrain types. It can't do water, it can't do air, it wouldn't be able to handle extreme mountainous terrain, etc. Pretty much any type of terrain a mech could handle, something else could handle better. Mechs are also so big and so slow it would be extremely simple for an infantryman to mark one with a laser and get it smashed with a thousand-pound bomb. On top of that, you'd be better off using a large tank with a large enough long-range cannon to one-shot mechs since the tank would be enormously more durable since tanks consist largely of layers of armor and little else. It's a good thing I really don't care about the "realism" of Battletech and just want the smashing.
Also, being able to wander around your base between missions would be awesome. I'd personally prefer you being on a dropship since you could have a Mass Effect sort of thing going on. You'd be able to see the different sections of the ship as well as going to the mechbay and personally see how huge the mechs are.
No, in mechassault you run around very fast on a guy who happens to look like a mech.
I wanna STOMP STOMP STOMP
It's remarkable how soothing that steady stomp, stomp, stomp, crunch, crunch, stomp, thunk, ratatatatatatatatKABLAMatatatat, stomp, stomp, stomp, VWOOP VWOOP VWOOP, crash, thunk patter patter patter clunk clonk KABLAM, "Shut down imminen- Shut down overri- You must gather your party bef- You must ga- You- Y- Y- You must- You must gather your party before venturing forth." stomp, stomp, stomp really is.
1. "Hey, what about if we could like, run around as our pilot to get to mech lab, and dropship, and maybe even a mission on foot?" No thanks. I play an MMO that has essentially that same feature, where you get out of your ship to navigate vendors and terminals, and the charm wears off quickly. I long for the ability to just stay in my ship and access a nice menu system to do my shopping/repairs/mission gathering. Earth and Beyond is the MMO, by the way.
2. "Mechs aren't needed in the real world, you're dumb". No sir, it is YOU who are the dumb! Mechs are awesome, and despite the logical lack of need for one, if we have the technology to do it, we should do it. We'll find a way to make them practical later. We could go the red faction route and have their primary purpose be for construction work. See? That's practical right?
3. "Mechwarrior 4 is not doing mouse controls right! What's the deal?!" The demo probably has old code, because MW4: Mercs with the PR1 patch has my mouse controlling all torso movement and WSAD controlling the legs. Works like a charm, even so much as allowing my 35 ton cougar to kill a 100 ton atlas simply by going sonic the hedgehog on him. "GOTTA SPEED, KEED"
4. "Combined arms are cool, mechwarrior should do combined arms stuff." I don't know about anyone else, but I play mechwarrior to pilot big walking pew-pew death machines, not hoverboats, or tanks, or commanding a squad of laser rifle toting suicide squads. If I wanted any of that, I'd play Battlefield, or any number of Battlefield/Tribes ripoffs that have come since the originals.
5. "Stealth mission sux, what do I do?" I ran with a Thor, or Thanatos, whichever one has ECM. Strip the weapons and load up on armor and engine speed, get the ECM of course, and fill whatever tonnage is left with weapons. When you start the mission, get a quick look at where the nav point is, then switch to passive sensors (default is Ctrl + R I think). This makes you a LOT harder to detect/target. By the time anyone was close enough to do some actual damage, I had all the major objectives completed, and had taken out the turret control tower to make escape easier.
Edit - It's also worth mentioning that the passive sensors thing works WONDERS for the Solaris VII matches. I usually surprise every opponent I'm up against unless we're the last two left, and even when I'm hitting them they'll usually focus on the guys they can actually target.
People pointing out how bipedal mechs aren't feasible is a bit like having an argument over whether the Voltron system would be appropriate for the Army to invest in as a future weapon platform.
Leave my childhood alone.
Yes on the first one and no on the second one. Their air carrier plans are low orbit carrier held up by balloons. The plan is for the thing to launch drones. Yeah.
Damn. I was thinking of something like the air carrier in Ace Combat 6. It would have to have serious anti-missile capabilities. China has already demonstrated that they can shoot down satellites.
The suit I mention comes from Section 8, an upcoming FPS with some pretty cool mixtures of FPS games you know and love.
Playing through mercs right now. Urbanmechs are so cute
Link?
I cannot wait. It's a (debatably) great time to be in the Air Force!
If Vengeance is all you have, it's still alright, you just won't be able to get the mektek packs. Seeing as it's now free, would I get in trouble if I suggested some not-normally-legal methods of acquisition?
That won't fit... Stripped naked, the Haumptaman has 50.30 tons for weaponry, Clan AC20s are 16, Clan AC10s are 13...
"I've even heard a rumor that it has 750 kilobytes on Kearny-Fuchida drive theory alone."
I guess 750 kb of text is a decent sized text book, but I think this is an instance of something that was supposed to sound really impressive when the book was written not being so anymore.
I also have the Titanium edition, but actually prefer the original look of the game. I'd really like to get this functioning!
PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
Using that install method, I'm playing MW2 Mercs relatively bug free with an in-game res of 1600x1200x32
Hey, I said I liked giant robot stuff. Someone else mentioned the idea that they would be something other than a terrible idea in combat. Now, powered armor? That's a totally different story. Iron men ten feet tall running around a battlefield is something that is both plausible and useful.
Giant robots, less so. I wouldn't complain if warfare went in that direction, though. Nosiree.