347 replies to this topic

[bLitzLRC]

As others have said, the starting IS tech limits hardpoints. Following the timeline, omnitech will come with the arrival of the clans. That will be as exciting as Aug 7 and I can't wait to see what these MW dedicated devs do with it. It's like golf. When it rains, it rains on everybody, challenging each. Will I go with a missleboat or develop a mech that jumps sideways and kills? The idea that ppl will make insane mech variants is not so much a question as how able are you to make the best of what is given you.

[Canary]

Wolv e, on 09 July 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Let me ask you this, WHY did we all, for lack of a better phrase, fall in love wiht Battletech tabletop game? We had pre-made mech sheets with their variaints to choose from and played them. It was FUN. It was challenging!! And if you used the right tactics, you won....

What I would like to see prevented is a "all purpose build" similiar to other games where you take a class and create a build and it beats all. This game is about strategy, using your surroundings, playing cat and ouse and above all have fun..........I do not think by allowing the "if it fits and you have the tonnage" it can be used scenario, because then why bother having various types of 55 ton mechs or even 100 tonners....why not just give the players 1 chasis from each tonnage and make their own mechs......I understand most arguements, but this is Battletech, We have mechs already made with variants and given Battletech HISTORY/LORE the reason WHY that specific mech does not have a ppc or an AC10 or whatever you wanted to stick on it.....

If the Devs decide to allow "if it fits and you have the tonnage" rule then I say just remove all mechs from the game and give us basic empty chassis and design your own mech.....................

sounds to me like you would be better off playing mechwarrior tactics. This is NOT the tabletop. Most of the people here actually enjoy the customization and they wont pull out the mechlab just to tailor to your specific wants

[xstrider]

Seems to me they are planning on some limits by reading through http://mwomercs.com/...y-qa-6-mechlab/

[Deathspore]

Hmmm....I am sure you think that you are right in your assumption - but Battletech and then Mechwarrior when it came to customizing mechs always had the restrictions placed on what you could do or not do. That's why it would take a little thought when customizing mechs. You had to take into account balancing endosteel, heatsinks and armor right along with weapons. Sure you can design a mech bristling with weapons - with hardly any armor or heatsinks. Try engaging weapons on that monster the first time...do the words shutting down ring a bell? Even better, shutting down while an Atlas is closing in on you?

For those who are successful in creating awesome variants....kudos to you. Creativity is the name of the game and if you can design a mech balancing it as much as you can, that's awesome and keep it up.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Oh lord, not this again.

HERE

[Glythe]

Skadi, on 09 July 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

yes, lets prevent people from using their minds as weapons and creating these obsurd setups no one else would think about because they took the tame and had the wits to come up with it!, punish the creative! NO FUN!

Yea seriously we need to hire Jay Wilson to get this MWO project buried into the ground!

[Tincan Nightmare]

Well the one thing that would have been interesting if they limited it in the mechlab was engine rating. If you have a CN9-A Centurion, you can change the weapons, add armor or heat sinks, you can even choose XL or standard engine, but can't change the rating. For that you would have to buy a CN9-D with a better engine. It would make it more useful to buy another variant, especially since some variants have nearly the same weapon loadout like the Centurion example. Since the hardpoints would be nearly identical there would be no reason to buy a CN9-D if you already own the A variant and can just change its engine (of course the D may not show up in game as a variant to buy because of this.)

[Saren21]

Ok I kinda get this now so the op wants less customization in a game were customization is a major factor of the game...

Troll?

[light487]

Also, something that came up in another thread, we're only getting the Prime Variants at release (from what I've understand from Dev releases so far).. so that in itself is going to limit customisation off the bat. So like in another thread, there won't be any Swaybacks.. so possibly no way to get 8 medium lasers on a Hunchback when the game releases (though I am not a Battletech geek.. so I don't know all the numbers and what you can fit on a Hunchback Prime.. just using this as an example of the limitations).. but later down the track we'd expect them to release more variants as time goes on.. leading to more and more customisation etc

[Wartang]

I think the whole reason you could customise the mechs in wechwarrior was so you could play using a king crab even though they only put an Atlas chasis in the game.

And um, Light487, There is a hunchback with 6 med lasers.

HBK-4P - Also called the Swayback due to its less-exaggerated torso, the 4P Hunchback is modified to carry only energy weapons. The Autocannon/20 was replaced with six additional Medium Lasers. In order to handle the incredibly high heat load, the 'Mech has twenty three heat sinks. While this may seem like a downgrade of the design, the combined firepower of all eight Medium Lasers can do twice as much damage as the Autocannon they replaced. BV (1.0) = 960, BV (2.0) = 1,138

Edited by Wartang, 09 July 2012 - 04:21 PM.

[Blaze32]

Tincan Nightmare, on 09 July 2012 - 04:08 PM, said:

Well the one thing that would have been interesting if they limited it in the mechlab was engine rating. If you have a CN9-A Centurion, you can change the weapons, add armor or heat sinks, you can even choose XL or standard engine, but can't change the rating. For that you would have to buy a CN9-D with a better engine. It would make it more useful to buy another variant, especially since some variants have nearly the same weapon loadout like the Centurion example.

really dang i was thinking about changing out my cicada's engine to xl and making it a Hermes 360 and add a few tons of armor...

[Saren21]

light487, on 09 July 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Also, something that came up in another thread, we're only getting the Prime Variants at release (from what I've understand from Dev releases so far).. so that in itself is going to limit customisation off the bat. So like in another thread, there won't be any Swaybacks.. so possibly no way to get 8 medium lasers on a Hunchback when the game releases (though I am not a Battletech geek.. so I don't know all the numbers and what you can fit on a Hunchback Prime.. just using this as an example of the limitations).. but later down the track we'd expect them to release more variants as time goes on.. leading to more and more customisation etc

yeah i was reading that same post. what you said sounds about right...I think it will help keep the game fresh by always adding new variants this way there will always be new way to skin the same cat.

[Blaze32]

light487, on 09 July 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Also, something that came up in another thread, we're only getting the Prime Variants at release (from what I've understand from Dev releases so far).. so that in itself is going to limit customisation off the bat. So like in another thread, there won't be any Swaybacks.. so possibly no way to get 8 medium lasers on a Hunchback when the game releases (though I am not a Battletech geek.. so I don't know all the numbers and what you can fit on a Hunchback Prime.. just using this as an example of the limitations).. but later down the track we'd expect them to release more variants as time goes on.. leading to more and more customisation etc

but you could put a guass rifle on it instead and then add FF armor after that add a heat sink and make the small lazer a medium lazer.
presto! you then have a long fireing hunch back with about the same Damage.

[Sept Wolfke]

from watching the mechlab video I can say that so far, from what we've been given to see, all weapons take up 1 hardpoint. in the video, when he strips the AC20 out of the hunchback, he recovers 1 hardpoint. when he drops a small laser in the arm it takes up 1 hardpoint.

my concern is more about the accuracy of a mech's loadout being represented on the mech when I see it on the field.

lets take the trebuchet's left arm for an example. it's got a medium laser and an LRM 15 in it. what's to prevent me from stripping the medium laser and putting in a PPC? that's a significant alteration to the mech.. if that PPC doesn't become visible on the in-game mech skin that other people see, then effectively I'm walking around with a concealed PPC that no one is gonna be expecting and no one really has the ability to anticipate.

at current it looks like the chasis doesn't get modified with altered weapons - my concern is that if I see a trebuchet (following the example) I want to be able to say 'wow this trebuchet has 3 large lasers (2 in the right arm, 1 in the left arm) so I need to go about taking it down alot differently than a typical trebuchet.' If I can't see those 3 large lasers, then I'm gonna walk into a fight with a radically different mech that what it appears as and that seems like it could be pretty lame.

accurate representation is what it boils down to. if I take out a small laser and put in a large laser, I'd really like to see that bigger gun represented on the model just to be fair to the people I'm going up against.

Similarly, the Catapult with the PPCs instead of missile boxes.. what's to keep me from putting the PPCs in the right and left torso instead of the medium lasers (for survivability) and move those medium lasers to the arms that look like PPCs? I know I'd be tempted to shoot at those PPC's mounted on the catapult's 'arms' just to reduce the mech's offensive capabilities. it'd be pretty weak to de-limb a catapult like that only to find out that the PPCs had been moved to the right and left torso and I should have been shooting center mass the whole time - infact, I probably just lost my mech because of that mistake.

what's a solution? I'd propose making larger guns take up multiple hardpoint slots - if there's only a small laser represented on the arm of a mech, then give it 1 energy weapon hardpoint. if you want to put a PPC there, then too bad, because maybe 'main gun' type weapons could cost 3 hardpoint slots. If an arm only has small guns represented, then cap it's hardpoints at 2 so you don't have the ability to install a main gun type weapon in that location.

this would be better at least, though not the best solution, because you could always strip out a main gun and add a boatload of small guns, arriving at the same loadout vs. appearance discrepancy that I detailed above.

Edited by Sept Wolfke, 09 July 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[Blaze32]

will there be the cicada at launch? and does anyone know what mechs will be in at launch?

Sept Wolfke, on 09 July 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

from watching the mechlab video I can say that so far, from what we've been given to see, all weapons take up 1 hardpoint. in the video, when he strips the AC20 out of the hunchback, he recovers 1 hardpoint. when he drops a small laser in the arm it takes up 1 hardpoint.

my concern is more about the accuracy of a mech's loadout being represented on the mech when I see it on the field.

lets take the trebuchet's left arm for an example. it's got a medium laser and an LRM 15 in it. what's to prevent me from stripping the medium laser and putting in a PPC? that's a significant alteration to the mech.. if that PPC doesn't become visible on the in-game mech skin that other people see, then effectively I'm walking around with a concealed PPC that no one is gonna be expecting and no one really has the ability to anticipate.

at current it looks like the chasis doesn't get modified with altered weapons - my concern is that if I see a trebuchet (following the answer) I want to be able to say 'wow this trebuchet has 3 large lasers (2 in the right arm, 1 in the left arm) so I need to go about taking it down alot differently than a typical trebuchet.' If I can't see those 3 large lasers, then I'm gonna walk into a fight with a radically different mech that what it appears as and that seems like it could be pretty lame.

accurate representation is what it boils down to. if I take out a small laser and put in a large laser, I'd really like to see that bigger gun represented on the model just to be fair to the people I'm going up against.

Similarly, the Catapult with the PPCs instead of missile boxes.. what's to keep me from putting the PPCs in the right and left torso instead of the medium lasers (for survivability) and move those medium lasers to the arms that look like PPCs? I know I'd be tempted to shoot at those PPC's mounted on the catapult's 'arms' just to reduce the mech's offensive capabilities. it'd be pretty weak to de-limb a catapult like that only to find out that the PPCs had been moved to the right and left torso and I should have been shooting center mass the whole time - infact, I probably just lost my mech because of that mistake.

what's a solution? I'd propose making larger guns take up multiple hardpoint slots - if there's only a small laser represented on the arm of a mech, then give it 1 energy weapon hardpoint. if you want to put a PPC there, then too bad, because maybe 'main gun' type weapons could cost 3 hardpoint slots. If an arm only has small guns represented, then cap it's hardpoints at 2 so you don't have the ability to install a main gun type weapon in that location.

this would be better at least, though not the best solution, because you could always strip out a main gun and add a boatload of small guns, arriving at the same loadout vs. appearance discrepancy that I detailed above.

Tehy said in that they will add that before launch and remember those videos are around 3 months old alot could have changed.

[Skadi]

Blaze32, on 09 July 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

will there be the cicada at launch? and does anyone know what mechs will be in at launch?

atm the only mechs ingame (im basing this off of leaked beta video/official videos/screenshots, so dont scream nda breaker at me) is the Dragon, Jenner, Atlas, Hunchback, Commando, Catapult, and the Centurion.
Again, this is sitll beta, there working on implimenting more mechs ect, ide assume there going to try and get all of the mechs anounced into launched, if not as many as humanly possible.

Edited by Skadi, 09 July 2012 - 04:24 PM.

[Paralax]

I have a Loki in my hanger tho!!!!

[Shiloh Bane]

I agree lets completely limit customization.

While we're at it, lets limit Mech selection by your affiliation. If you sign up with House Davion, you can only select from Davion exclusive Mechs. Liao forces would technically never be found to drive an Atlas since they don't have any Atlas production facilities. Lyrans would only drive Atlas's because thats all their facilities build. So no Jenner for Marik and Liao forces either.

Mercs and Lone Wolves would be the only ones with any form of customization since its cannonically supported that they had off the wall designs and rebuilds because of the use of salvage.Admitedly, the poster boy units, Wolfs Dragoons and Kell Hounds had brand new equipment, but Avanti's Angels specifically rebuilt their Mechs with salvage. So customization is shown in our Holiest of Holies.

And let me ask you this. Has no one here ever looked at a stock mech from the TRO and scratched your head wondering why they did what they did. Why does the Warhammer overheat when you fire its primary weapons, but it carries machine guns, srms and other small scale weapons? Yes the excuse was Anti-Infantry, but a PPC round, or even the SRM-6 would be enough to stop infantry..... RP the MG and Ammo and you had 2 more heatsinks alone......

Customizing your mech is here to stay. Limiting it with the Hard Points is the best way to limit it.

And Boats already exist prior to access to the Mech lab. Whats the Awesome, but a Laser boat. Catapult? Missle Boat....

Technically, a majority of Light Mechs could be considered Laser Boats because the nearly all carry laser weapons. Very few carry missles, let alone autocannons.

In the end, stick with your House exclusive Mechs and don't change anything on them if you don't like Mechlab and customization.

I myself, will be tinkering and working my Mechs to get the fullest potential out of them.

[light487]

I think the confusion is that there are Hardpoints (mounting point) AND Critical Points (space it takes up). So hardpoints are just some arbitrary, fixed amount of weapons that can loaded in to that section (regardless of the size of the component/weapon). Weapons also have a "variable" amount of Critical Points.

So let's say you have 6 Critical Points and 3 Hardpoints:

- You can only load a maximum of 3 weapons, even if the total space taken by those weapons is less than 6 Critical Points and adding a 4th (or more) weapon would still take equal to or less than 6 Crits. You are limited to 3 weapons by the amount of mounting points (Hardpoints)
- Using the example that a PPC takes up (i'm just making this up) 4 Crits, you could only load 1 PPC.. you would then have 2 Hardpoints and 2 crits left. If a Medium Laser took up 2 crits, then you could load a single medium laser but not two. If a small laser took up 1 crit, you could load 2 small lasers but not 3.

[Xandre Blackheart]

Sept Wolfke, on 09 July 2012 - 04:18 PM, said:

from watching the mechlab video I can say that so far, from what we've been given to see, all weapons take up 1 hardpoint. in the video, when he strips the AC20 out of the hunchback, he recovers 1 hardpoint. when he drops a small laser in the arm it takes up 1 hardpoint.

my concern is more about the accuracy of a mech's loadout being represented on the mech when I see it on the field.

lets take the trebuchet's left arm for an example. it's got a medium laser and an LRM 15 in it. what's to prevent me from stripping the medium laser and putting in a PPC? that's a significant alteration to the mech.. if that PPC doesn't become visible on the in-game mech skin that other people see, then effectively I'm walking around with a concealed PPC that no one is gonna be expecting and no one really has the ability to anticipate.

at current it looks like the chasis doesn't get modified with altered weapons - my concern is that if I see a trebuchet (following the answer) I want to be able to say 'wow this trebuchet has 3 large lasers (2 in the right arm, 1 in the left arm) so I need to go about taking it down alot differently than a typical trebuchet.' If I can't see those 3 large lasers, then I'm gonna walk into a fight with a radically different mech that what it appears as and that seems like it could be pretty lame.

accurate representation is what it boils down to. if I take out a small laser and put in a large laser, I'd really like to see that bigger gun represented on the model just to be fair to the people I'm going up against.

Similarly, the Catapult with the PPCs instead of missile boxes.. what's to keep me from putting the PPCs in the right and left torso instead of the medium lasers (for survivability) and move those medium lasers to the arms that look like PPCs? I know I'd be tempted to shoot at those PPC's mounted on the catapult's 'arms' just to reduce the mech's offensive capabilities. it'd be pretty weak to de-limb a catapult like that only to find out that the PPCs had been moved to the right and left torso and I should have been shooting center mass the whole time - infact, I probably just lost my mech because of that mistake.

what's a solution? I'd propose making larger guns take up multiple hardpoint slots - if there's only a small laser represented on the arm of a mech, then give it 1 energy weapon hardpoint. if you want to put a PPC there, then too bad, because maybe 'main gun' type weapons could cost 3 hardpoint slots. If an arm only has small guns represented, then cap it's hardpoints at 2 so you don't have the ability to install a main gun type weapon in that location.

this would be better at least, though not the best solution, because you could always strip out a main gun and add a boatload of small guns, arriving at the same loadout vs. appearance discrepancy that I detailed above.

Or you could up your SCOUT skills and look at the target readout...

I'm not against certain weapons needing more than one hardpoint per se, but more for balance reasons, not because I'm worried people will get confused on the battlefield.

Hell I LIKE getting surprised by crazy things like PPC toting commandos.