2 replies to this topic

[Therealjedipunk]

-- I was thinking about how much time I used to spend inside the holo-library within the Clan hall in MW2 and thought how this would be a great feature for players unfamiliar with Battletech history and technology. Right now we have a very sparse overview of the great houses and Comstar on the site, but little else. If players had the ability to research the motives and cultures of the various nations, and look into the history and typical roles of the chassis available to pilot, it may help influence their purchases and may help them grow a little more attached to what roles and mechs they choose.

The developers had the right idea by having a Comster news feed point out interesting historical facts. Newer and younger players may not be aware of the four succession wars, the merc corps, or the reasoning behind why basetech is so terrible compared to the new resurgence of Star League tech.

I am aware that many can just go to Sarna or pick up some of the books, but having these built into the game itself would add greatly to the immersion that is currently lacking.

-- Also, because of the controversy behind the heat scale and the lack of real canonical or sensible reason behind such a mechanic, I thought of an idea that could potentially replace it, though I'm not inclined to offer more than the idea: base a weapon's ability to be mounted on a mech by the size of the engine equipped or the max engine that can be fit. The idea being that larger engines should naturally be able to support a larger ordinance, but the sheer amount of weight would limit boating weapon systems. An XL engine could be used to save the weight to allow for more weapons, but limit space and serve to make a mech more vulnerable, and serving to force a need to load more varied weapon systems to increase durability.

IE: A Hunchy could mount a large standard engine to be able to mount PPCs instead of med/large lasers at the sacrifice of weight, or throw in an XL and become insanely vulnerable but have a ton of options for weapons.

This way, if a pilot chooses to execute an alpha, not only would heat generation be huge, but it could be a natural drain of your mech's reactor, causing your top speed to drop drastically and leave you vulnerable to a counterattack, or shut you down completely, which can mean instant death.

[Firewuff]

I actually want to see speed penalties based on heat. Like the TT.

i.e 0-60% heat no penalty, for every point above 60% a 1% speed penalty so at 100% heat your 30% slower and at 120% heat your 50% slower. This stops lights running around at top speed at 90% heat and Stalkers sitting at 90% after a big alpha are sitting ducks.

makes heat management more critical and while it doesn't stop alphas it makes you think twice.

[Zanathan]

Regarding the library, I'm all for it being a bookworm and all. It would definitely add a level of immersion.

To actually help the devs they should incorporate a editorial system where designated player editors can update the data themselves so the devs don't have to populate the data (which is the more time consuming exercise overall). Obviously other editors are required to review the the accuracy of said information to ensure we don't have bogus/invalid entries.

All that would be required is to provide the UI and mechanism to access it in game. Although the 'all that would be required' may take PGI sometime given they are struggling to get the core mechanics out.