immersion

[~SJ~ Atlessa]

To the balancing issue:
Didn't Mechwarrior 3 and 4 already have this mechanic?
I KNOW Mechwarrior 3 had a decent knockback from FIRING certain arm-mounted weapons.

Was it really that bad in those games??

[zephoid]

yes, it was that bad. in MW4 you could entirely knock a mech over with well timed shots. i dont advocate that in the mod because fafnirs would just knock everything down.


I agree with what someone commented before that this is not an animation concern. with a script that says:

if hit on L torso for > x damage < y damage (each interval has different knockback amounts)
then rotate (int)(rand)*5 degrees left over x time
         rotate (int)(rand)*4 -2 degrees up over x time (also would work downward to because of the -2)

This would not cause a problem with MRMs because you could just tell the last script to end if hit with another knockback wep. aka, each missile would jar you but would not have time to complete because the other missiles are hitting you. therefore you would get a lot of short jerks that might counter each other


Also, a person who is ganged up apon SHOULD be knocked around a lot. your getting tank shells hitting you and that should cause problems aiming.  This promotes grouping up and allows 2-3 smaller mechs to take on larger mechs that wander off alone. right now, larger mechs just rip apart groups of lights, but it would be REALLY fun to go assault hunting in pumas with 2x LBX20 like i did in MW4. god that setup was a glass cannon tho.

[Squibby]

It's a new aspect of gameplay, just like piloting without smacking into crap and accounting for torso bob when firing on the move.

I'd also advocate adding an element of recoil to the heavy weapons to balance this out a bit. Not only would you be knocking the enemy around but your aim would need to be corrected to maintain consistent hits. I'm sure this could be acheived using simple scripts (of course I don't claim to be an expert in the subject)

[~SJ~ Atlessa]

aim would need to be corrected to maintain consistent hits

or you'd just fire those PPCs in pairs, so the seperate recoils 'zero-out'

[HAARP]

aim would need to be corrected to maintain consistent hits

or you'd just fire those PPCs in pairs, so the seperate recoils 'zero-out'

That won't allow you to fapp up somebody's aim though. So eventually we'd force people who want to disrupt aim with their PPCs to work harder to do it. Not a bad thing IMO.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

aim would need to be corrected to maintain consistent hits

or you'd just fire those PPCs in pairs, so the seperate recoils 'zero-out'

That won't allow you to fapp up somebody's aim though.

Yes it will - you just make both PPCs hit right arm of the enemy and he is in serious trouble, while you have steady aim.

As for adding knockback for weapons fire - I think that the force which should compensate while firing two weapons should be only the left/right rotation, while the top one should stay.

The knockback effects:

• Weapon firing:
  Weapon on side arm - 1.5x side rotation, 0.25x up yaw
  Weapon on side torso - 1 x side rotation, 0.5x up yaw
  Weapon on center torso - no effect
• Weapon hit:
  Weapon on side arm - 2.25x side rotation, 0.38x down yaw
  Weapon on side torso - 1,5 x side rotation, 0.75x down yaw
  Weapon on center torso - 0.25x down yaw

Relation: Hit == 150% of fire effect, so 3 hits equal 2 shot knockback

Examples:
- You shoot HGauss from Hollander - you get twisted right by significant degree, and a little bit up.
- You shoot twin ERPPC Loki - your crosshair go up, the side-twists compensate, so no effect in side rotation
- You Alpha-Strike from ERPPC Awesome - you get rotated up by very notable degree
- You get hit by 4 ERPPCs in arm - your torso gets rotated by really annoying degree (~45°?), you have tons of armor stripped of your arm (most likely: critical state).

The real concern in matter of rotation are big energy boats, as said ERPPC awesome, which mounts 4 of these beasts.

Tough, not to make shooting or getting shot too annoying, a script responsible for hit/fire actions could adjust the rotation over time - so first you get for example +10 degree in 0.5 seconds, than back, -10 degree in 1.5 second. So that Mech would compensate the hit and return aim back, while still allowing player to control his Mech meanwhile (though I guess this should be tested on how good the feature would be).


The real problem with up/down rotation might be ASFs though - eg. things like twin-PPC or twin-gauss Shiva would have their work much easier - they'd just shoot and escape more easily thanks to upper knock-back (not a chance to crash).

[HAARP]

That won't allow you to fapp up somebody's aim though.

Yes it will - you just make both PPCs hit right arm of the enemy and he is in serious trouble, while you have steady aim.

Yeah, but not repeatedly with chainfire like currently possible.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

Well, TBH: Alpha striking shouldn't be any easier than it is. it's already too easy maneuver. Alpha should be more like a "last resort" than common practice. Giving steady aim during alphas over big knock-back from chain-fire wouldn't be any good.

That's why I proposed the yaw effect.

[xInVicTuSx]

Hm, something about this script thing seems too simple, there must be a reason the lead devs are saying we need animators...
Anyways, I'm still for just keeping with cockpit shake for PPCs, giving them knockback would be too annoying, there should be distinct advantages for ballistics weapons to add to their personality. I also would want missiles to only cause cockpit shake as well.

[~SJ~ Wolf]

Hm, something about this script thing seems too simple, there must be a reason the lead devs are saying we need animators...
Anyways, I'm still for just keeping with cockpit shake for PPCs, giving them knockback would be too annoying, there should be distinct advantages for ballistics weapons to add to their personality. I also would want missiles to only cause cockpit shake as well.

Possibly because there needs to reaction in the model in order to generate the desired movement effect? It isn't like aiming is done independent of the model. When you aim up, your model aims up. So there would need to be animation done for these "events" in order to generate the desired effect of actually moving the crosshairs.

I don't know for sure, it's super late, and I'm tired.

[Toth]

Just scripting torso twists is an extremely hacky way to go about it, and will fall apart once you try to include everything together. It also won't look particularly good as it will have no connection to the legs or even the pelvis. It will be like hitting a bobble head. Might look ok for somethings but not for others. Then you have factors like holding up the player's torso twist requests, preventing sounds from playing, somehow gluing that onto the input system. Thats just a mess. We certainly would like to have something, but its low priority as its purely visual. Getting client side shake for more weapons like the gauss is far more practical.

Honestly what you guys are asking for is a herculean effort to get right, with the only benefit being visuals on targets. Recreating the effects of an LRM barrage visually on the target would be extremely hard to do, especially with some sort of incremental torso twisting. You either need to add impulses to the physical entity, or you need to animate it at the end of the day. Both are hard due to resources and limitations with what we can do in game code.

[xInVicTuSx]

Yeah I've got no problem with there being an epic BOOOM COCKPIT SHAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEE when getting hit my an Hguass and such, I want it for gameplay balancing, not eye candy, don't care if there is no animation shown.

[Kyatlu]

How about not limiting the knockback effect to weapons but limiting it to damage taken. That would solve so many problems. As in 4xac5=ac20 effect or heavier mech being less susceptible to be thrown around than lighter mechs.

Let me explain further, if a mech's right torso gets a damage of say %30 percent of right torso's total hp in a set time (in miliseconds) than the torso is forced to turn right 5 degrees and than get back to the original posotion in say 0.8 seconds. There could be a thereshold for damage percentage and after this percentage additional damage taken would push upper torso even further. This would be the cheapest and least efforted way to implement it imho(temporary of course ). That would only work for arms and side torsos. If animating resources were to be found there could also be a knocking back/over effect for center torso/legs respectively if enough damage percentage was taken there.

So what happens when both arms/side torsos take enough damage? Well they kind of balance each other and maybe there would be no effect even, as in a lrm barrage.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

pity