273 replies to this topic

[Threat Doc]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 02:23 PM, said:

Actually, there's a surprisingly large number of variants. http://www.mektek.ne...ost__p__1352632

Total there are 226 base chassis with 531 variants. There are 146 Inner Sphere Chassis with 422 variants. Total there are 80 clan chassis with 109 variants. 25 of them are omnis, with 109 variants. There are 55 clan second line chassis with no variants.

I will assume that includes all 'Mechs up to the latest TROs, right? Well, cut those numbers, roughly, in half and you'll have the amount of pre-3050 TRO chassis and variants, I think. That's still quite a LOT of chassis and variants to put into a game. The problem with that is this... the devs are not going to build every single possible base chassis, and then program all of their variants, at least not by game release, and so it's important to have some modicum of customization.

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It's not that rare. Battlefield damage and scavenging would dictate that it's not that rare - you don't always have the appropriate replacement weapon, so your techs stuff in what they can out of what they have.

What *is* rare are things like engine refits, internal structure changes, complete re-builds of weapons loadouts, that sort of thing. These things normally only happen in factories or in the top-tier solaris stables with access to 'Mech wizards.

However, things like stuffing in three medium lasers where a PPC was is not really a big deal.

I'm afraid I have to agree with this, because it's accurate. Being a helicopter mechanic since '94, I'll freely tell you that, although BattleMechs designed and built in the future would be far more modular than an aircraft, it's still going to take dozens of hours to change out the moderately technical items, and you do have to have the correct setup of tools, braces, work stands, cranes, etc., etc. to perform these mods.

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And I remember everyone gleefully head and leg shotting and stripping the whiners who complained about people ... daring to shoot parts of the 'Mech that are, you know .... part of the 'Mechs. I also remember these people getting kicked out of servers for being real pests too...

Honor systems are too much trouble for too little in return.

That's an asinine way to look at it. I hope and pray this game will take every bit of power away from the twitch gamers and return it to those who actually know how to use the tactics and properly used their weapons in the past to establish a properly skillful dominance on the field.

[CarpeMortis]

carpemortis, on 01 November 2011 - 02:39 PM, said:

Instead it comes up with unnecessary modification to canon rules in order to solve problems that will not exist, if proper control over available resources is maintained.

It's unnecessary because the problems are already solved by an existing cannon rule set.

carpemortis, on 01 November 2011 - 02:39 PM, said:

With a wealth of variables at their fingertips, the developers can easily tweak the economy for balance, or to encourage/discourage specific activities.

Never ONCE have I advocated free and unrestricted modification. The Strat Ops rules give the devs the ability to restrict greatly the ability for people to customize their mechs. Everything your house rules do, can be accomplished with the Strat Ops rules, and effective control over the economy. If for some reason they want to prevent people from changing Engine ratings, then they make Factory level facilities un-available. If they want to remove pulse boats, they tweak the cost of pulse lasers.

The system proposed by your initial post does not address the last problem you pointed out...

pht said:

The hardcore tinkerers will be everyone in the game that's been around long enough to have access to the resources needed to turn their 'Mech into whatever the community has found out is the most capable design. This is pretty much the same in any MMO game.

The Strat Ops rules do. Any one off customization will immediately increase the long term costs of maintenance, and difficulty of repair on that machine. That balances the short term benefits of Modifications with the long term cost to operate.

pht said:

It's better to have the 'Mechs themselves be unique, and there's good lore, gameplay, and other reasons for the implementation I mentioned above.

The concept of more mechs is great, especially if limited by the faction of manufacturer. The problem is one of cost... If i have a Hunchback 4G, but I NEED a long range support mech, then it is cheaper, to buy a 4J refit kit than to go out and buy a Trebuchet.

All of the "lore" and game play reasons for implementing your system are covered by the Strat Ops rules. Rules that bring a larger degree of flexibility, and a wider range of tools to both the Players and the Devs

[Pht]

kay wolf, on 01 November 2011 - 03:18 PM, said:

I will assume that includes all 'Mechs up to the latest TROs, right? Well, cut those numbers, roughly, in half and you'll have the amount of pre-3050 TRO chassis and variants, I think. That's still quite a LOT of chassis and variants to put into a game.

You didn't go to the link, I see... that is the list of all of the 'Mechs up to 3048 in the timeline.

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The problem with that is this... the devs are not going to build every single possible base chassis, and then program all of their variants, at least not by game release, and so it's important to have some modicum of customization.

And you know this ... how?

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I'm afraid I have to agree with this, because it's accurate. Being a helicopter mechanic since '94, I'll freely tell you that, although BattleMechs designed and built in the future would be far more modular than an aircraft, it's still going to take dozens of hours to change out the moderately technical items, and you do have to have the correct setup of tools, braces, work stands, cranes, etc., etc. to perform these mods.

One of the big issues is just getting the things mounted - non-omnimechs come from the factory with the mounting points and such on the internal structure (bones) built to hold the weapons they're designed for. There's also the issue of ammo feeds (which the lore actually mentions being a problem in some mechs).

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That's an asinine way to look at it. I hope and pray this game will take every bit of power away from the twitch gamers and return it to those who actually know how to use the tactics and properly used their weapons in the past to establish a properly skillful dominance on the field.

It seems you've mistaken what I meant - because I didn't have anything in mind or in meaning about "twitch" gaming... which is a topic for a thread all of it's own.

carpemortis, on 01 November 2011 - 03:23 PM, said:

It's unnecessary because the problems are already solved by an existing cannon rule set.

Which rules bring their own problems in an MMO gametype.

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Never ONCE have I advocated free and unrestricted modification. The Strat Ops rules give the devs the ability to restrict greatly the ability for people to customize their mechs. Everything your house rules do, can be accomplished with the Strat Ops rules, and effective control over the economy. If for some reason they want to prevent people from changing Engine ratings, then they make Factory level facilities un-available. If they want to remove pulse boats, they tweak the cost of pulse lasers.

... and you might notice, I said "If they go the full monty" - meaning they allow the full amount of customization under strat ops.

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The system proposed by your initial post does not address the last problem you pointed out...

Yes, it does, because it limits everyone to what their chassis will hold; with the bonus given by the modification of the "hardpoint" (weapons/equipment type) limiting from mw4. Your green newbie with his access to his first modifications will have the same options that the old-timers has - you can put anything into your chassis that it allows. That's equality of opportunity - a level playing field of chance.

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The Strat Ops rules do. Any one off customization will immediately increase the long term costs of maintenance, and difficulty of repair on that machine. That balances the short term benefits of Modifications with the long term cost to operate.

Further creating inequality between them and those starting out who have less resources... *** forbid if they actually have to compete with the old-timers for access to those resources.

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The concept of more mechs is great, especially if limited by the faction of manufacturer. The problem is one of cost... If i have a Hunchback 4G, but I NEED a long range support mech, then it is cheaper, to buy a 4J refit kit than to go out and buy a Trebuchet.

It annoys the **** out of me that the variant chassis have never existed in the mw games in any meaningful way.

In reality, I'd say if you wanted a "refit kit," that could be easily done without the strat-ops rule. Pay the refit kit price (if there's one available) and your base chassis is (in gameplay terms) swapped to the base chassis that the refit kit would establish.

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All of the "lore" and game play reasons for implementing your system are covered by the Strat Ops rules. Rules that bring a larger degree of flexibility, and a wider range of tools to both the Players and the Devs

... and you know all of the things I had in mind about the lore? :|

Greater flexibility - yes, but at what cost in complexity of use for the gamer for what meaningful returns over what I'd mentioned? ... besides the issues brought up by the possibility of going for the full set of the strat-ops rules?

[Threat Doc]

carpemortis, on 01 November 2011 - 03:23 PM, said:

The Strat Ops rules do. Any one off customization will immediately increase the long term costs of maintenance, and difficulty of repair on that machine. That balances the short term benefits of Modifications with the long term cost to operate.

This is where I have to disagree, also from a helicopter mechanic's point-of-view, having performed many many mods on various Army MDS'. The initial cost of maintenance is all that takes effect, unless the type of maintenance required comes from the servicing of the item itself, such as an APU Winterization Kit, and even that's not really all that expensive. There is no long term maintenance cost involved, especially if you're just filling a hole. The addition of certain items to an extant design is, again, not all that hard or expensive to maintain once added.

[Master Q]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 02:23 PM, said:

Actually, there's a surprisingly large number of variants. http://www.mektek.ne...ost__p__1352632

Most of the Mechs listed in that post are - ahem - "LosTech" or so few in number as to be not worth discussing come 3049, however. Such as the Galahad, which ceased production when the production facility was slagged during the FIRST Succession War.

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It's not that rare. Battlefield damage and scavenging would dictate that it's not that rare - you don't always have the appropriate replacement weapon, so your techs stuff in what they can out of what they have.

Provided you have your own personal techs. Which is rarer than you think, if you actually bother to read the sourcebooks. Most merc companies don't have a tech on staff and they jury-rig their own repairs poorly or else contract repairs to dropship techs or repair facilities. More often than not, if you lose a weapon, your "field tech" just welds some armor over the hole and you do without it.

This is, of course, unless your GM runs a monty-haul campaign with an absolute ton of salvage availability and payment/salvage-rights terms that indicate the major Houses are the most clueless rubes and worst business negotiators in the history of humanity. Which they are definitely not, especially not the Lyrans.

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Omni-pods are about customizability first; that's one of the main reasons they were made. Their ease of repair of busted stuff in o-pods is a secondary follower of the design. As far as stuffing in "just whatever an o-pod can handle" giving their battle computers fits - I don't see any warrant for that anywhere in the lore.

Do you read the lore? The Omnipod system (note POD, it's designed primarily for arm/leg repair) evolved from the Star League era "modular repair system" from the SL-era Mercury mech. The "hey we can change the variant of the arms" benefit is a happy bonus, the major design goal is to be able to slap armor and weapons and replacement limbs back onto the 'Mech in just a few hours.

And in any case, this is all highly theoretical since in the IS, in 3049, the Mercury is beyond being LosTech and there won't be any ClanTech available for some time (DC reverse-engineering for IS Omni designs won't even hit the ground until 3058).

Edited by master q, 01 November 2011 - 04:02 PM.

[Yeach]

For customization need to solve the why put weapons in the arms?
MW2, MW3 and to a lesser extent MW4 had no incentive to place weapons in arms because they were "usually" the first item to be shot off.
Hence you would put endo/fibrous, heatsinks into the arms.

[Threat Doc]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

kay wolf said:

, on 01 November 2011 - 05:18 PM, said:

The problem with that is this... the devs are not going to build every single possible base chassis, and then program all of their variants, at least not by game release, and so it's important to have some modicum of customization.

And you know this ... how?

How about common sense. If all of those base chassis and variants, and I'm sure any member of MekTek or MechWarrior Living Legends would attest to this, were in front of you, would YOU spend the next ten years of your life working, perhaps 8 hours per day, at least 5 days per week, putting the motion framework together, the polys required to make them look as they're supposed to, any movement code necessary, their appropriate weapon loadouts, etc.? If you have that manner of willpower, you better get working to figure out how to make it happen, because these devs -and no one can blame them- are going to put every possible 'Mech, and all of their variants, into this game.

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One of the big issues is just getting the things mounted - non-omnimechs come from the factory with the mounting points and such on the internal structure (bones) built to hold the weapons they're designed for. There's also the issue of ammo feeds (which the lore actually mentions being a problem in some mechs).

No, no, the mounting would not be that difficult, as the hardpoints are already in place. Moving, or replacing a hardpoint is not going to be all that difficult, especially since the tools and frames necessary to make that work happen will have been developed simultaneously with the 'Mechs themselves. Now, the ammo feeds, that's a different story altogether... that's where the real difficulty is going to come in.

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That's an asinine way to look at it. I hope and pray this game will take every bit of power away from the twitch gamers and return it to those who actually know how to use the tactics and properly used their weapons in the past to establish a properly skillful dominance on the field.

It seems you've mistaken what I meant - because I didn't have anything in mind or in meaning about "twitch" gaming... which is a topic for a thread all of it's own.

No, I think I got exactly what you meant...

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And I remember everyone gleefully head and leg shotting and stripping the whiners who complained about people ... daring to shoot parts of the 'Mech that are, you know .... part of the 'Mechs. I also remember these people getting kicked out of servers for being real pests too...

Honor systems are too much trouble for too little in return.

Honor violation were called by people, not whiners, people who wanted to have a relatively fair game. Taking the legs off a 'Mech without actually using ANY skill whatsoever other than point-and-click, or doing the same with the head, without touching the rest of the 'Mech, and firing on a downed 'Mech, are honor violations, and only the largest of twitch-headed pukes does it. As for daring to shoot parts of the 'Mech that are, you know... part of the 'Mechs, that would be great if there were CoD rules in place for the game that allowed for a, more-or-less, BattleTech accurate means of hitting. Sure, point-and-click, but understand that penalties are set in place for how quickly each combatant is moving, for any intervening terrain features, for heat problems incurred to offset the computer's ability to function accurately, as it would be in a real combat scenario, and then let's see who has the skill. The skill will come in heat management, in weapons management for cycling and alternating heat dissipation, for getting in close, slowing down, getting your target the best you can in your sights before they get you, and then hitting the firing studs before they can, and hoping your 200+ year-old computer can do what it's supposed to do. Yeah, go ahead and kick the honorable people off servers for trying to be honorable and playing in the universe the way the universe is supposed to be played, rather than the little twitch pukes for being...

[minobu tetsuharu]

carpemortis, on 01 November 2011 - 03:23 PM, said:

The Strat Ops rules do. Any one off customization will immediately increase the long term costs of maintenance, and difficulty of repair on that machine. That balances the short term benefits of Modifications with the long term cost to operate.

I am eventually going to make a thread specifically about maintenance because it is the one thing most video game designers avoid especially in multiplayer games but it is the best way to help curtail certain undesirable player tendencies that break a game.

[Pht]

kay wolf, on 01 November 2011 - 03:48 PM, said:

This is where I have to disagree, also from a helicopter mechanic's point-of-view, having performed many many mods on various Army MDS'. The initial cost of maintenance is all that takes effect, unless the type of maintenance required comes from the servicing of the item itself, such as an APU Winterization Kit, and even that's not really all that expensive. There is no long term maintenance cost involved, especially if you're just filling a hole. The addition of certain items to an extant design is, again, not all that hard or expensive to maintain once added.

Mmm... the BTU lore and "reality" - the twain shall never really meet.

If the guys that made and maintain the BT universe say it costs more and causes problems... it costs more and causes problems. It's their universe, we just get to play in it.

master q, on 01 November 2011 - 03:56 PM, said:

Most of the Mechs listed in that post are - ahem - "LosTech" or so few in number as to be not worth discussing come 3049, however. Such as the Galahad, which ceased production when the production facility was slagged during the FIRST Succession War.

There are 150 IS 'Mechs that fall into the succession wars/introductory slot (roughly equivalent to the old lvl 1 tech), and another 80 if you go up to tourney legal. There's 244 IS 'Mechs that fall into the era "succession wars" - which is the era the game is in. That's not a small chunk of the 'Mechs overall.

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Provided you have your own personal techs. Which is rarer than you think, if you actually bother to read the sourcebooks. Most merc companies don't have a tech on staff and they jury-rig their own repairs poorly or else contract repairs to dropship techs or repair facilities. More often than not, if you lose a weapon, your "field tech" just welds some armor over the hole and you do without it.

Personal as in, assigned to you, or as in your unit has access to? Yes, most non-house units have less than 100% tech support, but they have enough to pull off the average battlefield damage repairs. Transit time alone in the dropship will allow for modest customization, as long as your unit hasn't been pounded back to say, 20-40%.

There's nobody out there running a battlemech for any amount of time without a couple of techs or the ability to do his own or double as an astech for his tech. I don't think they'll make the game that vicious.

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Do you read the lore? The Omnipod system (note POD, it's designed primarily for arm/leg repair) evolved from the Star League era "modular repair system" from the SL-era Mercury mech. The "hey we can change the variant of the arms" benefit is a happy bonus, the major design goal is to be able to slap armor and weapons and replacement limbs back onto the 'Mech in just a few hours.

Yes, I'm familiar with a decent chunk of the lore and I know the mercury is the progenitor of the omnipod concept.

Yeach said:

Posted Today, 07:01 PM
For customization need to solve the why put weapons in the arms?
MW2, MW3 and to a lesser extent MW4 had no incentive to place weapons in arms because they were "usually" the first item to be shot off.
Hence you would put endo/fibrous, heatsinks into the arms.

http://mwomercs.com/...ndpost__p__5355

[Aleksandr]

Why not just use table-top rules for customization? Those are quite balanced IMHO, while still giving someone the ability to do some min/maxing.

[Pht]

kay wolf, on 01 November 2011 - 04:08 PM, said:

How about common sense. If all of those base chassis and variants, and I'm sure any member of MekTek or MechWarrior Living Legends would attest to this, were in front of you, would YOU spend the next ten years of your life working, perhaps 8 hours per day, at least 5 days per week, putting the motion framework together, the polys required to make them look as they're supposed to, any movement code necessary, their appropriate weapon loadouts, etc.? If you have that manner of willpower, you better get working to figure out how to make it happen, because these devs -and no one can blame them- are going to put every possible 'Mech, and all of their variants, into this game.

And how do you know it would require all the work you're saying it will? Are you on the dev team so that you'd know? I think it's best to leave the discussions of these implementation limitations to the devs.

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No, no, the mounting would not be that difficult, as the hardpoints are already in place. Moving, or replacing a hardpoint is not going to be all that difficult, especially since the tools and frames necessary to make that work happen will have been developed simultaneously with the 'Mechs themselves. Now, the ammo feeds, that's a different story altogether... that's where the real difficulty is going to come in.

Hardpoints (and I think you're not talking about the MW4 idea) cannot be moved. They are built into the bones of the mech from the factory. You have to modify the bones themselves to rig up the mount points, or rig up brackets to attach to the stock mount points if you have the room for it.

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No, I think I got exactly what you meant...
Honor violation were called by people, not whiners, people who wanted to have a relatively fair game.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree here. If it's attached to a mech, it's a valid target, or if your mech is down its still a valid target, and IMO complaining about someone shooting one part of your mech over another or shooting you when your 'Mech is down is whining.

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Taking the legs off a 'Mech without actually using ANY skill whatsoever other than point-and-click, or doing the same with the head, without touching the rest of the 'Mech, and firing on a downed 'Mech, are honor violations, and only the largest of twitch-headed pukes does it.

This is really a discussion for another thread - discussion on how to handle firing resolution in an armored combat sim vs a FPS style game.

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Yeah, go ahead and kick the honorable people off servers for trying to be honorable and playing in the universe the way the universe is supposed to be played, rather than the little twitch pukes for being...

People in the BTU lore routinely blast legs and downed 'Mechs. The only thing somewhat frowned upon is targeting the opposing pilot - but only when you or your faction have a little respect for them.

[Mister Blastman]

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.

I COMPLETELY disagree with this post. Sorry, but I totally want the opposite. Bring back MW 2's mechlab, PLEASE!

Mechwarrior 4 had a horrible mechlab with limited customizability. Sure, it forced creative loadouts but, at the same time, did very little to solve problems such as...

Everyone going Madcat or Novacat to laserboat for one thing... Okay, sure, I know it was very effective and I'm absolutely 100% guilty of applying it. However, what I missed the most was being able to downsize into smaller configs and keep potent weapons loadouts like I could in Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries.

In MW: 2 Mercs, I would about 90% of the time run a Hellbringer C1 config (65 Tons) with some Mplas, Flamers and AMS along with jump jets. It was completely useful. In MW 4, I would have loved to been able to put some ErLlas on it, keep the speed up and tango with the Madcats and bigger mechs but... unfortunately was forced to run a closer range config or load Gauss.

It was terribly limiting to variety we saw on the battlefield. We need complete customizability in the spirit of Battletech, not a crutch like Microsoft tried to shove on us.

Mechlab work is CRITICAL for this to succeed. Most of us oldtimers do not like being forced to run stock mechs. Trust me, it gets old after a while and what separates a good pilot from an average one (well, one of many things) is how we know how to load our mechs out.

Gilliam, sorry, you know little about Mechwarrior after reading your post.

[Yeach]

Yeach, on 01 November 2011 - 04:01 PM, said:

For customization need to solve the why put weapons in the arms?
MW2, MW3 and to a lesser extent MW4 had no incentive to place weapons in arms because they were "usually" the first item to be shot off.
Hence you would put endo/fibrous, heatsinks into the arms.

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 04:20 PM, said:

http://mwomercs.com/...ndpost__p__5355

How does that help?
Stil load as many weapons as I can in the torso.
Mod the Awesome with AWS-9Q with all 4 ERPPCs in the torso and the HS in the arms.
Still no point in putting ERPPCs in the arms

[Pht]

Yeach, on 01 November 2011 - 04:50 PM, said:

How does that help?
Stil load as many weapons as I can in the torso.
Mod the Awesome with AWS-9Q with all 4 ERPPCs in the torso and the HS in the arms.
Still no point in putting ERPPCs in the arms

Ok, I don't think my first post was clear enough.

You *cannot* put all four ppcs in the chest. You can only fit one in each side torso. The idea modifies the "hardpoint" system from mechwarrior four (only allowed to put weapons of similar types into an area) and uses the tabletop layout and weights/etc with some restrictions.

You're not allowed to move the various slot types around. They're fixed in position and size.

[TheForce]

buck rogers, on 31 October 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

The only way to make all (or most) mechs desirable in game is by keeping them stock. There are quite a few variants of most mech designs by 3050.

In MW3 the online community almost exclusively used Shadowcats with the exact same weapon loadout, because in terms of speed+armor+guns, it was deemed the absolute best, so that was literally all anyone drove normally.

Never again. You're going to drive that funky stock mech and you're going to like it . You want an AC-20 boat? Theres a canon design called the King Crab. Save up a kabillion C-Bills and buy one. There are canon 3025-3050 era IS mechs that suit everyones gaming styles. Picking one, and getting good at it, sounds way more fun than getting to dork around with different loadouts every single game.

---Buck.

I heart your opinion Buck. Can i Join your cl4n

I also would prefer stock only but they can't do that. I just hope they provide a "stock" mech battle option so players like me and Buck have a good time.

Edited by theforce, 01 November 2011 - 05:12 PM.

[Yeach]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 04:57 PM, said:

Ok, I don't think my first post was clear enough.

You *cannot* put all four ppcs in the chest. You can only fit one in each side torso. The idea modifies the "hardpoint" system from mechwarrior four (only allowed to put weapons of similar types into an area) and uses the tabletop layout and weights/etc with some restrictions.

You're not allowed to move the various slot types around. They're fixed in position and size.

So you are saying heatsinks are fixed?
Lets use the example of the Daishi then.
Why not put all 3 ERPPCs in each torso and DHS in the arms?

I still think there needs to be incentive to put weapons in arms as opposed to torso.

Any MW2/MW3 customizing guide tells you is to put weapons in the torso rather than the arms because losing arms was easy.
Just bumping into a building in MW2, you can lose an arm.

[Pht]

Yeach, on 01 November 2011 - 05:13 PM, said:

So you are saying heatsinks are fixed?
Lets use the example of the Daishi then.
Why not put all 3 ERPPCs in each torso and DHS in the arms?

I still think there needs to be incentive to put weapons in arms as opposed to torso.

The daishi is an omnimech - it's designed so you can put most things anywhere - that's the way it's *supposed* to be.

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Any MW2/MW3 customizing guide tells you is to put weapons in the torso rather than the arms because losing arms was easy.
Just bumping into a building in MW2, you can lose an arm.

Yup, it does. Have you played MW4?

[Yeach]

Pht,

You're not getting my point and it may not fully be applicable in mechlab but towards gameplay.
In Battletech PnP, the reason weapons are placed into arms was because they had weapon arcs that are not fully realized in MW2, MW3.

And MW4 compensated this gameplay by forcing hardpoints in which force you to place weapons into the arms. Not perfect though because if given a choice between torso HP or arm HP, guess where you would put the weapon.


Also relating to BT PnP, MW4 placing weapons in the arm allowed a little more movement as you can fire an ERPPC on a MadCat directly rearward (ie torso twist 90deg and hat view rearward) was limited.

[CarpeMortis]

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

Which rules bring their own problems in an MMO gametype.

Do we get to know what those problems are? Aside from economy balancing issues. Those are solved through iteration.

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

... and you might notice, I said "If they go the full monty" - meaning they allow the full amount of customization under strat ops.

You need to re-read those rules then, because while you can change quite a few things they are restricted heavily by multiple factors... THIS IS KEY... Adjusting those factors allows for fine tuning and control of the economy. These factors (supply of parts facilities and labor) can be used to effectively forbid any given customization. Conversely they can be used to encourage certain customization.

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

Yes, it does, because it limits everyone to what their chassis will hold; with the bonus given by the modification of the "hardpoint" (weapons/equipment type) limiting from mw4. Your green newbie with his access to his first modifications will have the same options that the old-timers has - you can put anything into your chassis that it allows. That's equality of opportunity - a level playing field of chance.

There are actually two problems in the statement that references:

Pht said:

The hardcore tinkerers will be everyone in the game that's been around long enough to have access to the resources needed to turn their 'Mech into whatever the community has found out is the most capable design. This is pretty much the same in any MMO game.

The first is the explicitly stated:
That eventually a "prefect" mech config will be found. Your solution completely fails to address this problem. All it does is change the parameters of what "perfect" would be. The factors mentioned in above can be used to dynamically adjust the economy to counter trends, should that be deemed a problem.

The second problem is the implicit one you replied to:
The disparity between New players and veterans. Ignoring the fact that this problem exists in ALL Persistent multiplayer games, from Call of Duty, to World of Warcraft. And ignoring the fact that it is a game design choice, between catering to the people who have invested in the game and garnering new players. Your Solution still fails to solve this issue. It looks like it, but in fact all it does is move the disparity to a new place. Vets will not have slick custom mechs, but they will have more advanced and expensive stock designs, and likely more total mechs to choose from. This gives them a greter tactical advantage as they can afford to keep a mech on hand for a wider variety of situations. Your system simply removes one of the veteran's choices about how and where to spend his or her hard earned rewards. The Strat Ops rules don't solve this problem either. I contend that the customization rules a re not the place to solve that issue, at least not by themselves.

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

Further creating inequality between them and those starting out who have less resources... *** forbid if they actually have to compete with the old-timers for access to those resources.

This is again NOT a problem with customization, but one inherent in the concept of a persistent game world. And again a problem your system doesnt' solve either. See the above point.

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

... and you know all of the things I had in mind about the lore? :|

Nope, only the ones you explicitly state, and the ones i can infer from the rules themselves, would you care to share the rest of them with us?

Pht, on 01 November 2011 - 03:46 PM, said:

Greater flexibility - yes, but at what cost in complexity of use for the gamer for what meaningful returns over what I'd mentioned?

What Cost in complexity for the user? Properly designed User Interface can make it simple enough for the beginner to understand, with no need to expose them to the complicated back end. This holds true for any system. Just tell them "Yes you can do that", or "No you can't do that." And if they want to, then give them a way to find out why the can or cannot do it.

As for meaningful returns, I've mentioned a few already, I'll compile them here.
1) Dynamic control of the customization process by the devs.
2) More personalized experience for the users.
3) Appeal to all levels of users
4) A more in-depth campaign experience
5) A greater range of objectives for conquest
6) More options in weakening your enemies
7) The ability to stretch the service life of old units.

[mithril coyote]

i think the battletech customization rules from the board game would work fine to limit abuse of the system. no need to limit things further.

simple changes, like say i have a jenner and want to swap it's SRM4 for an LRM5, won't cost much. the weapons are in the same spot and have the same tonnage and crits.

but more complex changes, like for example converting a CPLT-C1 Catapult to the CPLT-K2 varient, would cost alot. the -K2 swaps out the twin LRM15's for a pair of PPC's, extra heatsinks, and a pair of machineguns. this is a huge change. not only are you changing the weapons, but you have items going into areas they weren't before. in the board game, this requires a more complete facility to do, and a number of skill checks to see how long it takes. in MWO, you can append extra cost to cover the facility need, and a timer to prevent it's use until a suitable time has elasped.

if you set the earnings of players from play at the right level, new players will be able to afford the refit costs pretty easy. and if you have a salvage mechanic giving them a store of weapons and systems to use (so they don't have to add the cost of the items ot the refit cost), customization can be pretty easy.


in regards to the "why put weapons in the arms", there is no reason to go to the MW4 system, which was way too limiting and ruined most of the point to converting. the lack of the enlarged fire arcs is an issue, but replacing those with another benefit, like say a reduction in heat produced or a a great chance to hit if the "cone of fire" aiming method is use, would do the job just as well without drastically altering the construction system and mech design.