Shadowcat cockpit annoyance

[Frostiken]

Alright, I've been dealing with this for years now, and it's always annoyed me.

The Shadowcat cockpit is just too much. I love it. It has the absolute widest field of view and probably the most unimpeded view in every direction, but, c'mon...

1) The only way such a view is possible is because the pilot camera is literally positioned with your 'face' smashed directly against the cockpit glass.
2) Doesn't leave any space at all for sweet-looking cockpit elements (ie: distractions).
3) Doesn't even begin to make sense. What am I sitting in, a glass bubble, controlling the entire thing with a holographic Minority Report-style projection? Am I floating in a tank of ooze? Where are my controls? What the hell am I even sitting on?
4) Is it *really* fair?

I love the cockpit because it's pretty much the best in the entire game, but that's also why it bothers me... nearly completely unimpeded view in all dimensions simply because you're smashed against the glass has always felt a little too cheese. I'm not saying it's a horrific balance issue, but it just feels so wrong compared to all the other cockpits. Like I'm some sort of biomechanical man instead of a dude steering a walking tank around.

I've heard (for a long time) that cockpit redoes were coming down the pipe because some of them (Owens, Mk2) look decent enough, while others are just you sitting in a tub of brown smudgy poop. Personally I think the Shadowcat pilot seat should be moved back a few feet and put at least *something* along the bottom of it to actually make it feel like I'm driving something.

Compared to most every other mech, the Shadowcat's cockpit alone just feels like cheating.

[Ressk [CSF]]

agreed. its one of the reasons i do not take a shadow cat for any other purpose than LRM hunting/LongTom hunting: the cockpit does not feel like a cockpit.

[=CJW=YalK]

Agree...

Would also settle for another Clan medium

[Ressk [CSF]]

Agree...

Would also settle for another Clan medium

agree. StormCrow needs to walk the battlefield and put the fear of god into heavies in new and exciting ways...

[Knightcrawler]

I like the cockpit because it's so good. I suspect it's not correct, though. But, let's leave the final decision in the hands of the artists. Maybe the pilot really *is* sitting on glass. Maybe design-wise, that actually makes sense. LOL Anyway, I don't think this issue has to be pushed, they already said they're redoing the cockpits.

[=CJW=YalK]

Or Black Lanner, Hellhound, nova, hunchback IIc....really anything

[=KoS= Saber15]

I like the cockpit because it's so good. I suspect it's not correct, though. But, let's leave the final decision in the hands of the artists. Maybe the pilot really *is* sitting on glass. Maybe design-wise, that actually makes sense. LOL Anyway, I don't think this issue has to be pushed, they already said they're redoing the cockpits.

[Vlaad]

1) The only way such a view is possible is because the pilot camera is literally positioned with your 'face' smashed directly against the cockpit glass.

LOL! This gave me a good chuckle...

Ok so... To help and clarify.

First and foremost, every single thing puts a strain on your computer. Detailing a cockpit requires a decent amount of time and making it look plausable/semi-real requires a higher polycount. Second, all those purdy elements have to be textured to be viewed up close (read: lots of texture space&res) meaning more ram on yer graphics will get chewed (ask someone wit 512 of vram just how much). I might add here that by having "real" cockpit, unlike false ones in, for example mw3 constrains much of what we are able to do... I wont go into detail on this one but in short both animations and cockpits "suffer" from this. Imagine yourself in a "real" cockpit piloting mw4 mech... I personally think that cement mixer strapped to a roller coaster would be blessing after that (or a good ride in a car in my contry's unusually bad roads). At this point we are choosing lesser of two evils and since guys who created mod in the first place choose this way, we have to follow it.

To further explain, some cockpits (guess three times witch) cost as much in texture as some assets. Yes they really are impressive but imagine that at some situations, you have to pay for 2 mechs when looking at one, eight for looking at four and so on and that's not even counting time needed to create them... At this point, revisiting some cockpits might just be amount of time needed to complete almost entire asset and puts a strain on your already (some cases) overwhelmed computer.
All this does not mean that we will never see better cockpits in mwll... It just means huge amount of work to get them all in order...

[General_Armchair]

1) The only way such a view is possible is because the pilot camera is literally positioned with your 'face' smashed directly against the cockpit glass.

But, but, but, that's how trueborn actually pilot shadowcats.

[=KoS= Tripod]

what, the vat of ooze suspending them in the cockpit?

that's how they're born so I guess they'd be used to it

[Knightcrawler]

To further explain, some cockpits (guess three times witch) cost as much in texture as some assets. Yes they really are impressive but imagine that at some situations, you have to pay for 2 mechs when looking at one, eight for looking at four and so on and that's not even counting time needed to create them... At this point, revisiting some cockpits might just be amount of time needed to complete almost entire asset and puts a strain on your already (some cases) overwhelmed computer.
All this does not mean that we will never see better cockpits in mwll... It just means huge amount of work to get them all in order...

What, do you mean Crysis does not support single assets having multiple LODs? You'd only need to see the high-detail cockpit when you're literally on top of the mech. Further than 10 meters away and you could probably get away with just a few dozen polys and a single 256x256 texture.

On the note of fairness, why complain about the Shadowcat when vehicles and the Hawkmoth have literally no cockpit to get in the way?

[Askis]

Knightcrawler, he's not talking about what other players see, but what you see when you are in the cockpit.

[Knightcrawler]

Knightcrawler, he's not talking about what other players see, but what you see when you are in the cockpit.

"eight for looking at four"

Or did I miss something?

[Askis]

Whoops no, I missed something

[Frostiken]

I like the cockpit because it's so good. I suspect it's not correct, though. But, let's leave the final decision in the hands of the artists. Maybe the pilot really *is* sitting on glass. Maybe design-wise, that actually makes sense. LOL Anyway, I don't think this issue has to be pushed, they already said they're redoing the cockpits.

http://i.imgur.com/o2stE.png

I never literally 'laugh out loud' to shit I see on the internet (because I think laughing out loud when nobody's around is generally kind of weird), but fapp me that did the trick.