Scale incompatibility

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 3:57 pm

Doesn't anyone see it a bit strange that those battlegrounds seem quite flat indeed? The steepest slopes possible (straight from depression to high mountains) are limited to around 16 degrees uphill. (Inverse tangent of the ratio 100m height difference vs 333m hex size) Based on the graphics, those slopes seem almost vertical.

The problem is that while 16 degrees is a noticeable slope, no one would consider it very hard to climb at all. In fact, quite many streets in San Francisco, California, USA, have much greater slopes and no one complains they can't climb them, although they do require some muscle strength.

So, unless there are some hidden reasons to not reduce the hex size, I'd vote for a lot smaller hexes. Naturally this'd require slowing down the Titans (not BMT but kph speed) and recalculating all distances, ranges etc, but basically the game mechanics wouldn't change at all. You'd still have a range of 8 hexes on your AC20, but it wouldn't fire nearly 3km 'actual' distance anymore.

Opinions?

IKerensky · Post by **IKerensky** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 4:18 pm

IN gact I agree for many reason:

The range of weapons are a bit too much with current scale.

And there is NO WAY, a bipedal robotic design of 6 metter high would run 102Kmph in any kind of no perfectly flat and prepared environnement. Or even any kind of environnement.I know it is SF but ...

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 6:15 pm

I don't see a problem with the current weapons ranges and titan speeds. They seem pretty normal to me. As for inclinations, maybe, but they're consistent with the arena setting. Maybe not with the military setting, but that's for WS to worry about. We're still stuck with v1.4 so no prob there. Most rivers are not only 3m deep either, just as trees 25m high are not all that common and gravestones 8m high are somewhat gigantic. But they do their job, keeping things balanced and interesting.

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 6:59 pm

On continuation of this thought, who in their right mind would call a tiny 80m peak a MOUNTAIN? I thought mountains started off somewhere around 1,500m elevation..

I doubt we'll see much higher mountains as they are, because then even an Assault titan could easily hide behind lowest hills, but this certainly calls for other adjustments in the environment scale.

Reducing hex diameter would also remove the 'problems' in seeing how an Assault titan slamming a tiny recon into its chest would also toss it back one whole hex and those lovely 'roll down the hillside' effects could also be brought in. <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

tarendelcymir · Post by **tarendelcymir** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 7:21 pm

If nothing would change except a few statistics, why bother? The game works perfectly fine now. It is, after all, a game. No one expects it to be completely realistic. Sure, the mountains are really low for a real mountain, but they do the same job in the game as a real mountain would. Does it really matter if the numbers don't match with the real world?

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 9:31 pm

I think that decreasing hex size is a bit more difficult than you might expect. How big can a hex be to push the enemy outside ? If you want realism I would say 33m maximum. So the scale you need is 1:10. If you keep weapon ranges you AC20 is capable of firing 264m, not THAT realistic.
OK, you say, lets take 166m, ignore the push but be happy about a better inclination ratio ? Long range missiles firing 4 km aren't THAT realistic.
Trees must be reduced to 10m maximum to be more realistic. So each titan is sticking its head out of its non cover. Better to reduce titan size here also. But I'm open to a complete set of new values which are more realistic, at least same fun and don't need messing with new grafical hexsizes.

IKerensky · Post by **IKerensky** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 9:52 pm

Actually with 300meter hex, hand to hand combat seems really really abstracted, as you need more than a few secs to acutally get into your opponent range.

Also the entire search and LOS look quite silly too cause 2 AT in teh same Forest hex of 300meter radius dont actually see each others.

For the limitinig speed it come to the simple fact that robotics/biologival studies says that you can achieve great speed on a bipedal design. It is far too much complex and prone to damage, fall and so on. and if you look at the inertie of a 9 metter high , 70T bipeds, even turning at 60 km will easily toss it around. Human can but we are not that much weight/height/speed ratio, we thumble sometimes too., and we have Thousand of muscles and billion neurones to control all that...

And for the weapon range, any gun or laser with more than 3km of range will face UGLY problem to locate and hit his target,especially in a non flat non bare 300 yards area. I understand that the size of the AT help greatly, but neverless balistic come to play , and light reflection for laser.

My simple solution will be : say Hey know all hex are 30 wide,and dont change anything... BTW I am pretty sure that that is what we all think before knowing they were 300, actually they even LOOKS like they are 30m wide <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

I have some problem with AT speed especially for the fact you dont keep your speed, you can ru nto 100mph in 9 secs, stop and fire perfectly still ikn 1 secs, then be back running 100mph for 9secs. I hope LS are really that much effective cause you are taking an unsane amount of G forces doing so...

LarkinVB · Post by **LarkinVB** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 10:00 pm

Originally posted by Ivan GREYWOLF Kerensky:
My simple solution will be : say Hey know all hex are 30 wide,and dont change anything... BTW I am pretty sure that that is what we all think before knowing they were 300, actually they even LOOKS like they are 30m wide <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

.. some much love for realism and accepting AC12s to have an effective range of say 300m ???

Don't what the effective range of nowadays tank guns are but I take an educated guess and say its well beyond 1000m. Even in WW2 the german 8.8 AT guns were capable of taking enemies at 2000m or more.

Lyhrrus · Post by **Lyhrrus** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 10:08 pm

Show me a fully functioning titan in reality and I'll agree with the distance changes. <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

jmikkone · Post by **jmikkone** » Sun Oct 21, 2001 11:56 pm

The whole point of this thread is nitpicking, I'm quite happy with the game mechanics as it is, I'm just pointing out that it's a bit unrealistic. OK, Larkin?

As a matter of fact, even if the hexes were 3km wide, a GM would still have a range of less than 75km.. Very pathetic for cruise missiles, if that's what they stand for. Either way, ranges are unrealisticly low. So Larkin, I don't find your argument very waterproof as it stands.

Low AC ranges can easily be explained by having to make the weapons themselves compact to fit into the frame of TOS. Which also means very short gun barrels, leading to quite extreme inaccuracy beyond some smallish range. Lasers are hampered by atmospheric absorption and dispersing effect, and SRM (rockets?) have very little fuel compared to their warhead payload.

As a side note, how do you explain the fact that weapons are protected by the external armor? Do they shoot through it via some tiny openings or what?

OK, I'd better stop before I actually realize that TOS's don't really exist at all. <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0">

Thorgrim · Post by **Thorgrim** » Mon Oct 22, 2001 12:38 am

Let's also not forget what year were talking about here. Hey Rosary, what year is it?! It used to be 2077 I think, but I think that changed with WS... so in terms of weapons, a lot must have changed.
And GMs are *small* cruise missiles.

rosary · Post by **rosary** » Mon Oct 22, 2001 5:43 am

Originally posted by THE Iceman:
Let's also not forget what year were talking about here. Hey Rosary, what year is it?! It used to be 2077 I think, but I think that changed with WS... so in terms of weapons, a lot must have changed.
And GMs are *small* cruise missiles.

A bit over 700-800 years after humanity recieves/designs interstellar flight. Humanity spreads throughout the local cluster very quickly with little or no resistance. After 500-600 years worlds have developed into unique social systems. One of these worlds regards Arena combat using Titan-At's as the pinnacle of Society. Pilots that survive through the ranks here are highly sought after by the military and are considered to be the Best of the best in known universe.
I hope I didn't give away any campaign info.