The mechwarrior games have traditionally had a control method that usually had a very boat throttle feel to it, i.e. setting your speed and making adjustments.  Is it going to be changed to be more  in line to how vehicles are controlled in crysis, BF, and most other games i.e. using WASD, or will we have boat throttles again?

I'd personally prefer a wasd feel of speed control, as it'd probably mean less running into random things and more short range agility. But at the same time, boat throttle mode gives more control to joystick users. I'm not dead set either way.

Just curious to know what the plan is right now.

I'd prefer the traditional mechwarrior throttle method, but I'm confident that whatever the team decides will be good.

I like the Boat throttle. It gives one the sense of Mass of piloting a large heavy machine. And after all thats what Mechs are.

A Mech should slowly build up its movement-speed, due to that the reactor has to force/add more fuel to gain speed, and that said, it should also be that slower to stop the Mech, from full speed.
But it should also depend on the tonnage of the unit, that a small ship may speed up rapidly, and also slow down (actually kicking the engine in reverse), but a large/heavy boat will slowly get up to full speed, but also (as with tankers) take a long time to stop (on the part of tankers above 300 feet, it can takes up to 10 hours to stop).

Yeah I've been playing some Mercs recently and I really feel the same pain of the weapons not being able to be controlled independently of the torso, would be nice to see them act completely separately.

As I agree that a Mech should build up it's speed (just like any other vehicle), I don't think a throttle fits a Mech. A throttle means rather indirect control of speed, just perfect for planes or aerospace. They rarely need to abruptly adjust their speed to their surroundings, so it's an adequate speed control. Mechs, on the contrary, are combat robots built after a human paradigm. Superior mobility is often mentioned as one of the key advantages of mechs over other war machines or combat vehicles. Of course, a mech can't accelerate to its max speed in a leap just like men can, that's because they are mechanic and not perfect.

But I don't see, why they should not have an adequate acceleration and why they should not be able to stop rather abruptly (think about the mad cat in the mechwarrior 3 intro, stopping abruptly right in front of the atlas as it got intercepted. Doesn't look unrealistic to me). Furthermore, high mobility is not all about fast acceleration or slowdown, it's also about maneuverability. I think mechs should be more maneuverable as ground vehicles, a throttle control just would not do justice to this. Even said ground vehicles don't have a throttle, as it would only restrict their maneuverability and is not advisable, as you have to accelerate/decelerate rather often compared to planes (except for truck drivers using a cruise control on a highway, but that's not comparable). So why should mechs have a throttle, then?

Yeah, in the past mechwarrior titles there was always a throttle control for mechs. But why? In the books they say mechwarriors control the speed of their mechs by some kind of pedal at the foot of the mechwarrior. Not sure how exactly this work's, but this does not sound like an airplane throttle control. Just because it was always this way does not automatically mean it's the best solution. Alas, in the past mechwarrior titles, I don't think the mobility of the mechs was depicted how it should have been.

All of the above is my personal opinion on this topic. We'll have to see how all of this works out. I hope we can find a solution that satisfies the most fans and does justice to the mechs.

Yeah, didn't mean to criticize you for your comment. I agree, that mechs lack the ability to leap forward like humans can, since they are mechanical machines and lack the efficience of biological organisms. Just wanted to point out that saying they can't do it as efficiently as humans can does not mean they can't do it at all.

Skidding would be a great way to deal with it (it's done this way in the table top, too). Would be awesome if we can implement something like that in a rudimentary realistic way. Have to talk to ToeBall about this.


Sorry, but I really did mean the throttle-like control. Of course, with a joystick, that's another story. I'm not sure what the other devs think about this, but there should be no problem adding a throttle control just for joysticks. Have to check on this, too.

I just watched that MW 3 intro for the first time in years and I started wondering, does anyone else think that MW 3 trumped MW 4 in gameplay due to it being more true to CBT?