Some Physics questions

I don't mean to be a jerk and mess with anyone's ability to appreciate the games, but I've had lingering questions about the way some things work in the Mechwarrior universe, specifically MW4 and MWO.

1. An Abrams is a 60 Ton Battletank. Myrmidons weigh 40 tons, Vendette is 50, SRM Carriers 60, and Demolishers weigh 80 tons. But all these tanks seem much, much smaller than mechs of their equivalent weight class. Does this mean that the tanks are denser than mechs? I would imagine that a compact shape would be much easier to armor than a walking body, but tanks always seem to crumple like paper when I hit them.

2. What is up with ballistic weapon ranges? Missiles make sense - bigger missiles (ie, less ammo/ton) either fly further or do more damage. Lasers make sense - the larger the laser, the longer its range. Everything I've ever studied about artillery or naval combat indicates that bigger guns don't just do more damage, they also shoot further. But in mechwarrior, the bigger the gun, the shorter its range (at least, for the AC/UAC/LBX. Guass and MG are a different story). The only thing I can think of is perhaps that barrel length is shortened for adroitness on the large weapons, and while a 20m barrel on a AC-2 is a sniping weapon, but a 20m barrel on a AC-20 is a sawed off shotgun? I know that barrel length affects a bullet's velocity and thus its range and accuracy, but I thought that other factors (ie, air resistance) would be much more important. In theory, ballistic and missile velocities should be vastly different in a vacuum (HPG Manifold) than in a place with thicker atmosphere (Caustic Valley?).

3. Why is there no knockback in MWO? I remember hitting lights with AC20 and Arrow IV in MW4, and it would send them flying! Was there some way that players exploited it? It seemed an important balancing factor in the Lights vs Assaults.

 

This is correct, but it doesn't tell the whole story. If you look up the description of an AC/20 on Sarna.net, you'll see that most such weapons actually fire quite a bit differently than what we see in MWO. The specific way the ammunition is packaged is what limits the weapons' useful range. Yes, that's a plural possessive, as, "AC/20" was used in Table Top to denote many very different weapons which were all rated to do the same amount of damage(20) per combat turn, despite having a variety of different implementations. MWO kept the stats, but left the description out. This is likely to be more of a performance issue in MWO, as the specific implementation of most of these weapons was more akin to what we see in MWO in the LB-20X ACs. Where again, the implementation of LB-20X ACs as described on Sarna.net was significantly different, and a similar implementation in MWO doesn't work well with the engine.

The TL;DR is that the single massive AC/20 round you see in MWO is not typical of the weapons' method of action in Table Top.

It was suggested that what we see in MWO(which is described as more of a "Rifle" type weapon) ended up not really very effective against the type of "ablative" armor seen on BattleMechs, which brings me to my next point, regarding your Question #1: Yes, BattleMechs are significantly less dense than our modern RL tanks. The armor these things are said to use is designed intentionally to take up vastly more space than our "old" tank armor does. Our modern tank armor is mostly hardened plate steel, which is designed to resist damage as much as possible, and that's it. BattleMech armor is said to be designed to "flake" off, to prevent further damage(that's what ablative means). Rather, these "Rifle" type weapons were more commonly used as anti-tank weapons, since it could be made to severely damage highly resistive armor in a single blow.

For a really good indication of just how good the AC/20 would be if it had range appropriate to it's "Howitzer" style single massive shell, take a look at the history of the Gauss Rifle in MWO. It's been nerfed *many* times, and it's still one of the best weapons in the game.