273 replies to this topic

[Rendall]

how would people classify the change of a Catapult dropping the 5 extra heat sinks, changing the base 10 to double heat sinks, the two LRM 15's to 2 LRM 20's, dropping one medium laser, switching the cockpit to small, adding a machine gun and 1 ton of ammo, and 4 tons of LRM 20 ammo, the rest of the mech stays the same as base (3039 base version, with some 3050 tech added)? What level of change would that be?

[guardiandashi]

Rendall, on 10 November 2011 - 04:12 PM, said:

how would people classify the change of a Catapult dropping the 5 extra heat sinks, changing the base 10 to double heat sinks, the two LRM 15's to 2 LRM 20's, dropping one medium laser, switching the cockpit to small, adding a machine gun and 1 ton of ammo, and 4 tons of LRM 20 ammo, the rest of the mech stays the same as base (3039 base version, with some 3050 tech added)? What level of change would that be?

under the strategic ops rules:
dropping the heatsinks is probabally a field refit
refitting the heatsinks from single to doubles is a maintenance level refit
changing the weapons around maintenance (or field)
the conversion to a small cockpit from a standard cockpit is a factory refit

personally I would forget the machinegun and cockpit change and leave it at the maintenance level refit .... but thats just me

[UncleKulikov]

Whatever modifications are allowed, any change in weapons should be visibly obvious. Starsiege did a good job with this in that each weapon had a silhouette, and swapping out a weapon swapped it's model out too.

[SMDMadCow]

Honestly, I think the devs should only offer standard / factory variants for in game currency and charge real life money for making a custom mech.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Alternatively we all start off with standard mech's, variations start being allowed after a while and customisation (at varying levels) get introduced later depending on the amount of salvage, C-bills etc available.

[Rendall]

All this talk about limiting mech customization, which I think mechs should be customizable in a limited fashion (see my post earlier this thread), but has anyone brought up Mech Insurance through the original companies? I cant help but think about it because of numerous mentions in the technical readouts about recalls and refits and repairs.

[GreyGriffin]

Mechwarrior 4's Mechlab is the way to go for multifarious reasons.

Obviously, not a direct import, but the principles behind it are sound. A 'mech should not be tabula rasa. Even the most extreme modifications have something in common with their parent, even with Omnimechs. Mechwarrior 4's Mechlab had the right idea - restrict the modifications in such a way that they conform to the 'mech's paradigm.

Variants are simple - refit kits that can be applied to a chassis, with varying C-Bill and Time costs. These would modify the type and placement of slots appropriately, allowing canon variants to be constructed.

The reasons for this are twofold - first, to keep the 'mechs true to form, without relying on economy. In a situation where the only barrier to full customization is time, every mech will eventually be fully customized. Second, it allows the game to not suffer visually, with LRMs shooting ***** nilly out of Raven chassis.

[MaddMaxx]

woodstock, on 10 November 2011 - 04:13 AM, said:

There should be two stages to customisation.

1) Omni Mechs
2) Standard Mechs

Omni mechs should be fully customisable.

Standard should be limited to standard variants.

@woodstock

Are you proposing the game Launch with Stock builds with variant options available then, say in 6-12 months, perhaps coinciding with the invasion of the Clans, everyone gets access to Omni Tech and full custom?

If both options were to be available day one, why would anyone (other than the most hard-core TT BT'r) drive a non-omni, fully custom Mech? It would pretty much make Stock and restricted Variant mech's obsolete.

[gilliam]

Sorry tablet is being a ******* at the moment, didn't mean to post yet. Ignore this post.

Edited by gilliam, 17 November 2011 - 04:39 AM.

[Gawain Emrys]

Sorry if anyone has said this already and I missed it : It would be nice to see customisation done on a campaign scale with repairs and modifications taking a reasonable amount of time. For a simple field refit (taking little or no time) you should be able to do no more than replace components like for like. Not necessarily an identical device but one very close to it. Swapping an old AC/5 for a newly rediscovered LB 5-X, for example, should be relatively easy. They are both ammunition fed direct-fire weapons with the same tonnage, but the the newer LBX gun is bigger, only a problem if the surrounding hardware is packed in tight. A custom mount, including a new ammo feed, will be needed but no other extensive modifications.
Now, if we wanted to replace that AC/5 with a PPC then things get tougher. Okay, the PPC weighs less and it is direct fire but it's a direct-energy weapon and so needs high-capacity access to the fusion generator. Capacitors, cabling running through other parts of the 'Mech and the custom mount are needed. That's going to take longer.

With a suitable selection of "stock" variants available anything varying too far from these should be a major design project or a hideously unreliable field adaptation. All of which adds to the immersion and the fun of the meta-game. Those not interested in the meta-game probably don't deserve customisation anyway.

Edited by Gawain Emrys, 17 November 2011 - 05:36 AM.

[nostra]

Indeed, the distinguishing factor between IS and Clan 'mechs was the weapons loadouts and their interchangeability. MW4 especially didn't get across the fact that Inner Sphere 'mechs take months of time and effort to change weapons from the 'mech's base loadouts. Clan omnimechs, on the other hand, can have their equipment and weapons swapped out in a matter of hours. "Customization" as it were, should be limited to camouflage scheme on your 'mech, callsigns, kill markers, shark-face designs, etc; merely graphical and aesthetic traits.

[Eegxeta]

gilliam, on 31 October 2011 - 02:48 PM, said:

Say what you will about the MW4 mech lab, but it did solve a problem previous games had, in that there was no real distinguishing factor between mechs, so everyone ended up just choosing the mech with the best target silhouette or that they liked the best, and modified it top to bottom, and we could have a single mech refitted between missions.

More realistically, and following battletech rules, there are some limits to modifications. I really think such limits should bee imposed regarding customization and refitting, so players can't completely overhaul one mech into something completely different instantly.


For campaign play at least, the Battletech rules solve this by making more extensive refits take longer and cost more. I hope something like this gets implemented here to avoid abominations like missile boat rifleman, or archers with the torsos decked out with autocannons. Another effect would be that omnimechs would have a point since the whole point is that you can change the equipment loadout quickly by swapping pods at the expense of not being able to alter the fixed equipment.

huh didn't I post a similar Mech Lab topic a week or to ago about people put unrealistic weapon loads on their mechs, being cheap jerks, and a decent way that can be fixed.

[Webclaw]

If you limit mech customization to only the canon variants you end up losing a very valuable selling focus and point, finding a nice balance between all out customization and limited customization would be the best option, you still retain one of the selling points without going overboard.

[Black Sunder]

I suggest you guys read the latest news story on the front page.