68 replies to this topic

[Tsyklon]

dEd101, on June 29 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

Is this the real life_

Is this just fantasy_

Ah, but you forget!

Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.

Also:

[AsianJoyKiller]

Tsyklon, on June 29 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

dEd101, on June 29 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

Is this the real life_
Is this just fantasy_

Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.

Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see

[Floydy]

I'm just a poor mech, have only a CT


(jokes aside, should I actually have a CT_ :s)

Edited by Floydy, June 29 2013 - 03:22 PM.

[Tsyklon]

With all that being said, I want you all to look at this:


That is a real mech from the 1960s.

[Teljaxx]

Tsyklon, on June 29 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

I like the look of the mechs. I can see panels of reactive armor, sensor stalks and external cameras you would find on contemporary armored vehicles, etc. Hence, no glass cockpits. That would be suicidal with the amount of projectiles being tossed through the air. It's interesting to note that people seem to be complaining most about the fact that they don't 'look' like war machines. I believe they do; they look like contemporary technicals. Which, in essence, is what they are: repurposed industrial loaders and mining tools, just like a technical is a truck with guns and armor (if they're lucky).

Another thing people tend to forget is that technology took a pretty big blow with the release of the Hawken virus on Illal. It destroyed one third of the planets surface in a wave of grey goo reconstruction. Safe to say a lot of their manufacturing capability was taken down with it, especially if it was based on self-replicating nanobots.

It's a part of the lore; they were literally thown together by people fighting for the remaining resources on a devasted planet. They are not purpose-built war machines. It'd be like if we repurposed tractors into tanks (which happened in WW2, interestingly enough).

Besides, they look a bit more believable than Gundams, or Variable Fighters, or Armored Cores.

This is why I gave the example of having to go to battle with nothing but a bulldozer, some sheet metal, and a machine gun. The two corporations already had an army of industrial mechs, and they had to go to war with each other for resources. So what did they do_ They made them into the best fighting machines that they could with what little resources they had.

And which is better: Making one big and slow, yet heavily armored vehicle_ Or several light and fast, but less armored ones_ It seems to me that if you built one big powerful mech, you would be putting all your eggs in one basket, and if it gets destroyed, you are in big trouble. Meanwhile, the enemy with an army of weaker mechs can afford to take a few losses and still be able to fight.

Besides, you already have an army of mechs just waiting for you. Why would you use all the armor on only one of them_

[NBShoot_me]

Tsyklon, on June 29 2013 - 03:37 PM, said:

With all that being said, I want you all to look at this:


That is a real mech from the 1960s.

Yup, I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed for combat though, but really interesting piece of machinery.

[havoc5]

I wish they would change the Sharpshooter's "face" (front profile of the body). It looks like a warthog. I don't mind the rest of the body, but there's no reason the face has to be so goofy looking. Yes the arms, legs, body should be structurally sound, but the face should be aethestically pleasing for the class. Snipers so easy to design aesthetically given their iconic traits. For example:


And the Brawler looks like a square of scrap metal...

Edited by havoc5, June 30 2013 - 09:52 AM.

[havoc5]

Oh and even crazy japanese mecha can have some sound designs.



Looks cool and functional. You can argue the legs, but even if we change the legs to something more Hawken, it would still look way better. Also it actually has a missile rack. How does a Rocketeer shoot 5+ hellfires from their arm when it only has 2 visible missiles_ How does it even reload_

And one of my favorite mecha of all time, the VB-6, although its more of an artillery unit

Edited by havoc5, June 30 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[AsianJoyKiller]

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

Oh and even crazy japanese mecha can have some sound designs.

Looks cool and functional. You can argue the legs, but even if we change the legs to something more Hawken, it would still look way better. Also it actually has a missile rack. How does a Rocketeer shoot 5+ hellfires from their arm when it only has 2 visible missiles_ How does it even reload_

It looks like a piece of military hardware mass produced in a factory whose purpose was to produce military mechs.
It doesn't look like it was thrown together out of repurposed civilian equipment.

[dEd101]

for the record I love the brawlers design. It just appeals to me.

AsianJoyKiller, on June 29 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

Tsyklon, on June 29 2013 - 02:25 PM, said:

dEd101, on June 29 2013 - 02:19 PM, said:

Is this the real life_
Is this just fantasy_

Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality.

Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see

Floydy, on June 29 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

I'm just a poor mech, have only a CT

Queen never fails.

[havoc5]

The Rocketeer or Raider look just as much like standardized military designs. The Raider is just a ripoff of modern tanks like the M1 Abrams.

As for the Brawler, it's also horribly designed from an engineering standpoint. Flat front_ I guess the engineers in Hawken never learned that flat surfaces take the most damage from direct fire.

Edited by havoc5, June 30 2013 - 10:42 AM.

[AsianJoyKiller]

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:39 AM, said:

The Rocketeer or Raider look just as much like standardized military designs. The Raider is just a ripoff of modern tanks like the M1 Abrams.

That because some of the chassis are literally supposed to be old tank turrets repurposed as mech chassis. They were not purposely constructed to be military mechs. They just happen to be military hardware jammed into the hodgepodge of other repurposed junk.

[havoc5]

And the mechs I posted cant possibly be repurposed from other military vehicles_

[AsianJoyKiller]

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

And the mechs I posted cant possibly be repurposed from other military vehicles_

No. They were clearly designed as a whole, meant to mesh together using a contiguous style. They have the theme of "military mech designed by a single company/corporation/artist". It's also obvious that they are designed to be military mechs in the first place, which is not the same as repurposing a military ground vehicle that is not a mech.

[Siamenis]

As has already been stated, aesthetic preferences are so many, that they could hardly be satisfied in one game. But my opinion is that the current mech chassis are in fact one of the most original (and realistic, if we even try to correlate this with reality) in current mech games. They are intricately woven to the story of Hawken, and once you're acquainted with it, they make even more sense. I look forward for more post-apocalyptic design, it's quite captivating.

[NBShoot_me]

Siamenis, on June 30 2013 - 11:53 AM, said:

As has already been stated, aesthetic preferences are so many, that they could hardly be satisfied in one game. But my opinion is that the current mech chassis are in fact one of the most original (and realistic, if we even try to correlate this with reality) in current mech games. They are intricately woven to the story of Hawken, and once you're acquainted with it, they make even more sense. I look forward for more post-apocalyptic design, it's quite captivating.

And here we go again with the realism thing... if the Hawken mechs were future version of the poorly designed robots we see in the Robot Combat League I'd agree.  If they were supposed to be some futuristic war machines that can actually sustain some punishment... nah.

[Teljaxx]

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

How does a Rocketeer shoot 5+ hellfires from their arm when it only has 2 visible missiles_ How does it even reload_

The two cones that you see on the Hellfire launcher are not the missiles themselves. The missiles are in the sides of the cylinders right behind the cones. This is why they spread out when they fire, because they actually pop out sideways from the launcher before flying forwards. If you pay attention to how it reloads, you will see that the part where the missiles are slides back into the tube behind it, and then comes back forwards when it is loaded.

[GodsHolyMember]

Teljaxx, on June 30 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

How does a Rocketeer shoot 5+ hellfires from their arm when it only has 2 visible missiles_ How does it even reload_

The two cones that you see on the Hellfire launcher are not the missiles themselves. The missiles are in the sides of the cylinders right behind the cones. This is why they spread out when they fire, because they actually pop out sideways from the launcher before flying forwards. If you pay attention to how it reloads, you will see that the part where the missiles are slides back into the tube behind it, and then comes back forwards when it is loaded.

Plausible...

but they really don't look like an aerodynamic shroud over launch tubes.  I think the Hawken team may have designed the original to only fire two and then felt that it looked way cooler to have swarmer missiles 5x as opposed to two pipsqueaks.  Perhaps they'll remodel the mesh in some future patch.

NBShoot_me, on June 28 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

GodsHolyMember, on June 28 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

I always figured to allow some poetic license to mechs by virtue of their high-mobility (e.g. boosting/dodging) and that such technology cannot be outfitted to wheeled/treaded vehicles.  As I had stated earlier, Mechwarrior mechs don't make sense why one should make such a conspicuously large target with limbs and legs that moves so slow but with such a high-profile

As for exposed internals and hydraulics, yeah, that's the risk of a light-frame.  Look at the US's DPV, it has no armor to speak of and there's nothing more than a metal box covering part of the engine and the crew are almost totally exposed, yet the vehicle is bristling with weapons, but focuses on mobility first and foremost

This is today's equivalent of an A-Class in Hawken.

Yes, but when it comes to the MW mech, the arms and legs shouldn't be falling off after the first explosive hit as they pretty much should in Hawken.

Say, for example a reaper takes a few hits, if the KE-Sabot rifle is hit, you've got your ammunition magazine completely exposed and no shielding around the rifle's firing mechanism.  Same goes for the Hawkens-RPR.  Any direct or indirect explosive damage to the legs should drop that mech to the ground like a rock with the exposed hydrolics where they are.  The armor looks like corrugated metal roofing with a tarp slung around one side with a somewhat important looking conduit or hose of some sort snaking around the top and into the FRONT of the mech.  This thing is ED-209 (think about the radiator in the front of the ED-209 for starters) levels of "shouldn't put X there if you want this thing to survive a small arms firefight" and it's not the exception in the mech line up.

If the mechs in Hawken were supposed to have roles similar to that of the DPV or even the ALSV, they'd look less dumb, but even as they are, they do still look cool... just REALLY out of place for what they're supposed to be doing.

...yep...most of them aren't built to take much punishment, particularly the A-Classes almost as a whole.  But it comes down to valuing mobility+firepower or firepower+survivability.  The Reaper carries a stripped-down Sabot.  If Hawken mechs were available on the battlefield today, they would trounce our existing MBT's (provided there was no air-support of course).  An Abrams cannot survive a since DU-penetrator (a Sabot-launched dart)...that was exhibited in a number of friendly-fire incidents in Gulf War I.

While the Abrams has a lot of redundant systems to keep it ticking in battle, the DPV is the opposite...a Reaper is basically the lightest frame that some future-designer cobbled together to be able to lug around a sabot-cannon.

Yeah, its magazine is exposed, it probably wouldn't be able to survive a single hit...neither can a DPV...its survivability is its speed and surprise, and every single time that cannon is fired, it (supposedly) puts an Abrams-killing penetrator down-range.

Not every vehicle is designed to take a tremendous amount of punishment...I think you need to look into the variety of military vehicles currently in-use.  I won't even bother to go into the lore behind Hawken...I'm just speaking from today's military hardware and simply arguing plausibility.

Everything else you're talking about is simply balance-aspects in Hawken.  I'd love to be able to try a "Hardcore Mode" in Hawken where the weapons are given realistic power and realistic weaknesses like swapping out heat-generation for ammo limits, increasing the fuel tank capacity and or recharge (class dependent), implementing locational damage and maybe even component damage.  Hawken would probably play A LOT differently.  That's where I think you're going with your particular post it seems, you don't think the A-Class should take as much punishment in Hawken as it presently does because of its lack of armor/redundant systems.

Well, I agree, but that would come with a compromise of giving the A-Class the ability to deal more damage, and presently, the Hawken team hasn't implemented a way to achieve 1-hit-kills and they don't seem to show an inclination to implement any form of locational damage ratios or even multiple hitboxes per mech...so everything can take more damage than it appears...and I'd rather not alter the cosmetics of mechs for game mechanics that have yet to be finalized simply because the looks don't match the performance.

Edited by GodsHolyMember, July 01 2013 - 08:02 AM.

[NBShoot_me]

GodsHolyMember, on July 01 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Teljaxx, on June 30 2013 - 04:55 PM, said:

havoc5, on June 30 2013 - 10:04 AM, said:

How does a Rocketeer shoot 5+ hellfires from their arm when it only has 2 visible missiles_ How does it even reload_

The two cones that you see on the Hellfire launcher are not the missiles themselves. The missiles are in the sides of the cylinders right behind the cones. This is why they spread out when they fire, because they actually pop out sideways from the launcher before flying forwards. If you pay attention to how it reloads, you will see that the part where the missiles are slides back into the tube behind it, and then comes back forwards when it is loaded.

Plausible...

but they really don't look like an aerodynamic shroud over launch tubes.  I think the Hawken team may have designed the original to only fire two and then felt that it looked way cooler to have swarmer missiles 5x as opposed to two pipsqueaks.  Perhaps they'll remodel the mesh in some future patch.

NBShoot_me, on June 28 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

GodsHolyMember, on June 28 2013 - 09:51 AM, said:

I always figured to allow some poetic license to mechs by virtue of their high-mobility (e.g. boosting/dodging) and that such technology cannot be outfitted to wheeled/treaded vehicles.  As I had stated earlier, Mechwarrior mechs don't make sense why one should make such a conspicuously large target with limbs and legs that moves so slow but with such a high-profile

As for exposed internals and hydraulics, yeah, that's the risk of a light-frame.  Look at the US's DPV, it has no armor to speak of and there's nothing more than a metal box covering part of the engine and the crew are almost totally exposed, yet the vehicle is bristling with weapons, but focuses on mobility first and foremost

This is today's equivalent of an A-Class in Hawken.

Yes, but when it comes to the MW mech, the arms and legs shouldn't be falling off after the first explosive hit as they pretty much should in Hawken.

Say, for example a reaper takes a few hits, if the KE-Sabot rifle is hit, you've got your ammunition magazine completely exposed and no shielding around the rifle's firing mechanism.  Same goes for the Hawkens-RPR.  Any direct or indirect explosive damage to the legs should drop that mech to the ground like a rock with the exposed hydrolics where they are.  The armor looks like corrugated metal roofing with a tarp slung around one side with a somewhat important looking conduit or hose of some sort snaking around the top and into the FRONT of the mech.  This thing is ED-209 (think about the radiator in the front of the ED-209 for starters) levels of "shouldn't put X there if you want this thing to survive a small arms firefight" and it's not the exception in the mech line up.

If the mechs in Hawken were supposed to have roles similar to that of the DPV or even the ALSV, they'd look less dumb, but even as they are, they do still look cool... just REALLY out of place for what they're supposed to be doing.

...yep...most of them aren't built to take much punishment, particularly the A-Classes almost as a whole.  But it comes down to valuing mobility+firepower or firepower+survivability.  The Reaper carries a stripped-down Sabot.  If Hawken mechs were available on the battlefield today, they would trounce our existing MBT's (provided there was no air-support of course).  An Abrams cannot survive a since DU-penetrator (a Sabot-launched dart)...that was exhibited in a number of friendly-fire incidents in Gulf War I.

While the Abrams has a lot of redundant systems to keep it ticking in battle, the DPV is the opposite...a Reaper is basically the lightest frame that some future-designer cobbled together to be able to lug around a sabot-cannon.

Yeah, its magazine is exposed, it probably wouldn't be able to survive a single hit...neither can a DPV...its survivability is its speed and surprise, and every single time that cannon is fired, it (supposedly) puts an Abrams-killing penetrator down-range.

Not every vehicle is designed to take a tremendous amount of punishment...I think you need to look into the variety of military vehicles currently in-use.  I won't even bother to go into the lore behind Hawken...I'm just speaking from today's military hardware and simply arguing plausibility.

Everything else you're talking about is simply balance-aspects in Hawken.  I'd love to be able to try a "Hardcore Mode" in Hawken where the weapons are given realistic power and realistic weaknesses like swapping out heat-generation for ammo limits, increasing the fuel tank capacity and or recharge (class dependent), implementing locational damage and maybe even component damage.  Hawken would probably play A LOT differently.  That's where I think you're going with your particular post it seems, you don't think the A-Class should take as much punishment in Hawken as it presently does because of its lack of armor/redundant systems.

Well, I agree, but that would come with a compromise of giving the A-Class the ability to deal more damage, and presently, the Hawken team hasn't implemented a way to achieve 1-hit-kills and they don't seem to show an inclination to implement any form of locational damage ratios or even multiple hitboxes per mech...so everything can take more damage than it appears...and I'd rather not alter the cosmetics of mechs for game mechanics that have yet to be finalized simply because the looks don't match the performance.

I agree that the A-class mechs share the speed over armor aspects with the DPV, but the way they exist in Hawken, it doesn’t quite turn out that way.  If taking damage weren’t so trivialized by the repair system, the differences in HP between an A-class and C-class would be a LOT more meaningful as well as comparing an A-Class to a DPV.

Another balancing factor thrown out the window is actual ammunition management.  If sacrifices in size and armor are made to make a mech light but carry a big gun while still being fast, the amount of ammo you carry with you is also generally limited to keep size and weight down.  Throwing out this limiting factor by having every single weapon in Hawken act like a MWO energy weapon as akin to running around with infinite ammo on and forgetting to toggle on god mode.  You never have to go far to repair and/or refit, you can stay close to the battle and repair/cool-down throwing what would have been tradeoffs out the window.

If the Hawken mechs were available today, I doubt they could get close enough outside an urban setting to a M1A2 to fire first.  They’re also upright walking mechanized tanks essentially, that tall profile makes for a bigger target, even for another ground unit.

Nearly everything you’ve posted, I think we’re in agreement.  My biggest gripe is that the mechs in Hawken look like and have all the design characteristics (B-class and below) of walking tin cans that should fall over into a pile of rubble in roughly one direct hit.. in the game, they don’t play that way, I’d venture to guess that in the Hawken “lore” they’re more resilient than they should be as well.   Sure, it can be explained away by saying they’re made out of magic metal that’s lighter than air but 9999999999 times tougher than steel while being thinner than paper… same thing can be done with the walking buildings in MWO, or the sky dancing ballerinas that are gundams.   Doesn’t make any of them better or in any way more practical than the other..  Though, when it comes to the looks of a video game mech, outside of discussions like these, I don’t care…  if it looks cool, that’s good enough for me.  Aside from the walking TV and walking nose, most of the mechs in Hawken looks pretty darn good, though, I do wish the devs would actually put some effort into the cockpit for each mech instead of slapping a generic A/B/C-Class cockpit on the mechs and really make look like you’re piloting a scout, assault, or rocketeer rather than generic mech with different weapons (or in many cases same/similar) on either side.

[AsianJoyKiller]

The repair system is actually a great point. Why bother sticking armor on something when you have a swarm of nano-whatevers to endlessly fix you up in a flurry of handwavium_