298 replies to this topic

[Hells]

am I the only one who keep getting this errors?

Edited by Hells, 27 December 2015 - 04:40 AM.

[Jman5]

One feature suggestion is to consolidate the quirk bonuses somewhere. On the Clan side it looks a bit messy and can be hard to get a clear picture of your mechs strengths.



It would be nice if you had a neater breakdown of Agility, Weapon, and Hitpoint quirks together and then had totals listed. So players could know at a glance how many total hitpoints they are getting out of quirks.

Edited by Jman5, 27 December 2015 - 03:24 PM.

[Li Song]

@Hells

Seems like an issue with smurfy's website. Try again in a few hours.

@JMan5

They are already consolidated in my UI 2.0 branch but thanks for the suggestion.

[Wildstreak]

Where do I report problems/bugs/whatnot?

[Li Song]

@Wildstreak Please let me know how I can make the following link more visible, it is posted next to every download link but people tend to miss it.

https://github.com/E...eporting-Issues

[Li Song]

A small sneak peek at how UI 2.0 is proceeding.

Here I'm showing the new chassis listing page:

[Adamski]

It seems like the Targetting Computer stats are not accurately representing range in the Li Song Mechlab, or else I have the wrong TC stats listed:

It looks like the TC1 is adding around 8% range, when it should only be adding 4%

[Thrudvangar]

NRP, on 17 September 2013 - 12:51 PM, said:

Edit: I see that it isn't a smartphone app. Is a Win Phone 8 version planned?

Seriously Devs, a good Mechlab smartphone app would probably sell. I'd certainly pay for one.

Right!

I'd really like to have this on my (Android) Tablet!

Beside this, nice work!

[Li Song]

Adamski: Thanks for reporting, I will look into it. In the future I would be very happy if you could report bugs to the github page so that I don't loose the report somewhere.

See here: https://github.com/E...eporting-Issues

Thrudvangar: I was planning on a mobile version earlier but after a public vote more people wanted UI 2.0 and that's what I'm doing now. Unfortunately implementing the UI for LSML is complicated and takes hundreds of man hours, if not more to get it right. I'm sorry to say but unless someone hires me to do it I can't donate that much of my free time in addition to the time I'm already putting into LSML. When things settle down with UI 2.0 I might consider doing a kickstarter for the android version but no promises there.

And thanks for your comments!

[dario03]

Is there any way to work with upcoming mechs or completely theorycraft a new mech? So for example get the loadout of a Kodiak in before it releases, or just tell the program you want to work on a 100t clan battlemech with so and so hardpoints with so and so engine limits etc etc? If not, any plans to add a feature like that?

[FuDawg]

Li Song, on 17 September 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Introduction
Li Song Mechlab (LSML) is an EFT-inspired, open source tool for configuring and analyzing loadouts for PGI's MechWarrior Online.

The target audience for LSML is intermediate to advanced pilots who already have a rudimentary understanding of the game mechanics.

In Li Song Mechlab you can configure and share your 'mechs, try different loadouts, see how many tons of ammo you can fit and see how many seconds of continuous fire that will give you, balance your weapons for most efficient heat management with damage graphs and much more.

Download / Website / Screenshots
http://li-soft.org

Follow us for updates
The preferred way of receiving notifications of updates and what's happening is through our social media pages:

Google+: https://plus.google....558916882187005 (preferred)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisongmechlab (if you don't have G+, may lag a bit)

Frequently Asked Questions
https://github.com/E...k/lsml/wiki/FAQ

How to report bugs/issues/feature requests
https://github.com/E...eporting-Issues

How is this different from Smurfy?

• Modules & Quirks!
  
  • LSML correctly calculates your DPS and range stats based on equipped modules, quirks from omnipods and chassis as well as pilot skills and targeting computers. Ever wonder how much the new heat quirks on Awesomes affect DPS on a PPC boat? LSML will tell you.
• Map specific heat!
  
  • Ever wondered how well your loadout will do on Terra Therma or Caustic? Select those maps from the Enivornment drop-down and see for yourself in an instant.
• Spread & Jam!
  
  • LSML will tell you what the expected DPS of your Ultra-ACs is when double firing and tell you the statistical burst damage for burst type weapons. The DPS of weapons that are affected by a spread, such as LB-type ACs will be compensated for spread assuming a target the size of an Atlas side torso.
• Realistic sustained DPS!
  
  • LSML calculates maximal attainable sustained DPS using smart choices, .e. only firing the most heat effective weapons. For example smurfy's calculates sustained DPS assuming you fire everything you got as often as you can. As a result the sustained DPS number from LSML is higher and for a skilled pilot, closer to reality.
• Graphs!
  
  • LSML shows a stacked DPS graph (as opposed to overlaid) showing you which weapons contribute the most to your damage at what range. If a weapon isn't present in the graph, it's because it's not beneficial to your sustained DPS to fire that weapon, at all. I.e. dead weight when considering sustained DPS, it may still have other situational uses which is up to you to decide.
• Ammo stats!
  
  • Shows you how long you can be in combat with each equipped weapon. Easier to match ammo amounts for your weapon ranges. Shows how many volleys you can shoot and summarises missile weapons. It doesn't show SRM 6 + SRM 2 + SRM4, it shows SRM 12 in the summary.
• Automatic Armor Distribution!
  
  • Easily add or remove armor in half-ton quantities and have it automatically distributed over the mech to protect your important items. Need to shave of 1 ton of armor to get that last heat sink in? Just drag the slider two ticks and you've got it! It'll take the armor of your shield-arm/dead-side if you have one or just shave evenly. Of course you can manually adjust when you've decided on the rest of your equipment. Or just go manual from the start, the choice is yours!
• Smart Place!
  
  • By enabling smart place, double clicking an item to add will automatically shuffle your gear around so that the wanted item can be added. Makes for building a mech easy. Just double click from the equipment list to add what you want on the mech, the placement is handled automatically. Of course you can manually place items too by drag-n-dropping!
• You're not dependent on an internet connection to use LSML as long as you have MW:O installed (no longer needed).

Screenies!










Your mechs are arranged into a garage on the left, the clan and innersphere folders let you create new loadouts for those mechs. The weapons/items is available on the equipment tab. The "Mechs" and "Weapons" tabs are references to help you decide what mechs and weapons to bring.


The equipment panel only shows equipment that is applicable to your mech and its hard points. If an item is partially grey, it means that it is not possible to directly add the item, but it might be possible to add it if you shuffle some things around. By double clicking one such item, smart place will attempt to shuffle your equipment around for you in an attempt to get the wanted item to fit.


The sustained DPS graph will show you what the maximal sustained DPS is and how you achieve it. This graph can be a bit un-intuitive at first but once you wrap your head around it, it provides a lot of important information about your build. The graph is a stacked chart where the size height of each "stack" is the DPS that that type of weapon contributes at that range. In this image we can see that at ranges 0-100m the pilot should engage with the SLAS and AC/20 (no surprise there). The fact that the ER-LLAS is not shown at all at ranges 0-100m means that there is no head-room in your heat management to fire the LLAS in close combat. You can still fire it if you think it'll get you the kill or you need a DPS burst, but using the LLAS is suboptimal from a heat/sustained DPS point of view. At least until you get up to about 200m, after which you should not fire the SLAS any more, heavily rely on the AC/20 and fill in with the LLAS when you are cool enough and can't fire the AC/20 due to cool-down. As you start to approach the maximum range of the AC/20 the ER LLAS will contribute more and more to your sustained damage.


The damage graph will also show you how the LRM minimum range fall-off works for Clan LRM launchers. And also takes into account your weapon modules (notice the 1100m range and higher DP than usual):


The damage graph will also show how the spread from LB-type ACs will affect your DPS, assuming a target roughly the size of an atlas side torso. The small tip at 350m is where the projectiles loose damage due to long range, the rest of the fall-off is due to projectiles not striking the intended target:

While I must say this is pretty cool... the player in me recoils at this Uber Stat Whoring. That is literally what we used to call such folks in D&D... "Stat *****" cuz you know every weapon they pick will have nothing to do with a Character but simply be an over analyzed stab at constantly having the best possible chance and advantages in any situation. I can't argue the validity of the strategy but I sure can mourn the death of interesting play because "I like that" vs "Well if we consider the inverse heat quotient at exactly 324.2 meters and considering you have X heat... blah blah blah blah..." So much for fun, I guess this **** is war...

Also... why download? http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

Edited by FuDawg, 12 May 2016 - 04:53 PM.

[dario03]

FuDawg, on 12 May 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

While I must say this is pretty cool... the player in me recoils at this Uber Stat Whoring. That is literally what we used to call such folks in D&D... "Stat *****" cuz you know every weapon they pick will have nothing to do with a Character but simply be an over analyzed stab at constantly having the best possible chance and advantages in any situation. I can't argue the validity of the strategy but I sure can mourn the death of interesting play because "I like that" vs "Well if we consider the inverse heat quotient at exactly 324.2 meters and considering you have X heat... blah blah blah blah..." So much for fun, I guess this **** is war...

Also... why download? http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

The OP that you quoted has a list of reasons to use this instead of smurfys. It literally says "How is this different from Smurfy?" in big bold letters. This does more than smurfy and works offline which is nice if your internet is down but you want to mechlab.

[FuDawg]

dario03, on 12 May 2016 - 07:13 PM, said:

The OP that you quoted has a list of reasons to use this instead of smurfys. It literally says "How is this different from Smurfy?" in big bold letters. This does more than smurfy and works offline which is nice if your internet is down but you want to mechlab.

Touche! Good Sir! Perhaps I should have read closer... I'm a Mechwarrior player so you can guess I'm no teenager and these damn night shifts aren't doing what's left of brain or reading skills any good apparently

[Nightshade24]

Question... one thing theory crafters like me love doing is not only theory building on mechs currently existing in game but also mechs not in game...

Now- instead of manually putting in each mech that has released hardpoints and stuff (at this momment ie: Cyclops, Kodiak, Viper, Night Gyr) would it be possible for say... a custom mech builder?

You can set what tonnage it is, how many hardpoints it has (or add hardpoints as you are adding in weapons) and stuff...

So for eg if I want to pretend to see how a Stone rhino would possibly look like in MW: O or perhaps a recently announced (or hinted) mech has info out. That way I can simply make a build using Li Song of said mech.

Just an idea...

[Li Song]

dario03, on 12 May 2016 - 03:15 PM, said:

Is there any way to work with upcoming mechs or completely theorycraft a new mech? So for example get the loadout of a Kodiak in before it releases, or just tell the program you want to work on a 100t clan battlemech with so and so hardpoints with so and so engine limits etc etc? If not, any plans to add a feature like that?

Nightshade24, on 13 May 2016 - 01:25 AM, said:

Question... one thing theory crafters like me love doing is not only theory building on mechs currently existing in game but also mechs not in game...

Now- instead of manually putting in each mech that has released hardpoints and stuff (at this momment ie: Cyclops, Kodiak, Viper, Night Gyr) would it be possible for say... a custom mech builder?

You can set what tonnage it is, how many hardpoints it has (or add hardpoints as you are adding in weapons) and stuff...

So for eg if I want to pretend to see how a Stone rhino would possibly look like in MW: O or perhaps a recently announced (or hinted) mech has info out. That way I can simply make a build using Li Song of said mech.

Just an idea...

This is a frequently requested feature which I understand is wanted by many. However the amount of information that you have to input is quite large when you consider Omni'Mechs, you have to input all the pods, armor max values, the fixed items, actuators, gyros, and other internals, the quirks, the upgrades the chassis variants. The UI for inputting this kind of data necessarily becomes quite big and while it is doable, it is a lot of work. Not to mention that LSML gets its data directly from MWO meaning that any user input data would be overwritten after each patch, meaning that I'd have to develop an alternative way of storing and merging the user inputted data and the game data and make sure they don't clash. And what happens when the user has built a 'Mech with a given name and all of a sudden it is available in the game?

All in all this is a big and desirable feature, but I'm estimating about 100-200 man hours to get something done here. I currently don't have that kind of time but if someone wants to take on the task and contribute the necessary code against the development branch of LSML I'm more than happy to accept the patch given that it meets reasonable quality standards.

FuDawg, on 12 May 2016 - 04:49 PM, said:

While I must say this is pretty cool... the player in me recoils at this Uber Stat Whoring. That is literally what we used to call such folks in D&D... "Stat *****" cuz you know every weapon they pick will have nothing to do with a Character but simply be an over analyzed stab at constantly having the best possible chance and advantages in any situation. I can't argue the validity of the strategy but I sure can mourn the death of interesting play because "I like that" vs "Well if we consider the inverse heat quotient at exactly 324.2 meters and considering you have X heat... blah blah blah blah..." So much for fun, I guess this **** is war...

Also... why download? http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

The tool shows you theoretically optimal statistical values. How much of that you actually achieve is up to you as a player (and some times the PRNG). If you're about as accurate as a cat on a keyboard with lasers you can build a 'Mech without them and let LSML guide you in achieving the most competitive loadout that matches your playstyle. This is not about building the best cookie-cutter 'Mech in the game, it's about improving your chances in a competitive environment by allowing you to better find the best loadout and 'Mech that matches your particular skill set.

You call it "stat whoring", I call it being prepared. This is war, be prepared, or perish.

Also why download? Although you can do a bunch of cool stuff with Javascript and HTML as is evident with Google Drive/Doc, Smurfy, Draw.io and other sites; what becomes obvious is that these sites are always kind of limited in what they can do. Compare Google Doc to MS/Libre Office, which is more powerful? Compare Google Sheets to Excel or Gnumeric, Compare Draw.io to Inkscape or Illustrator, which is more powerful? Yes the web based versions are convenient and in many cases they are good enough for simple tasks. But when it comes to doing some larger software with some serious computation and analysis, which LSML does, it's just plain painful to do it with Javascript and HTML and you automatically become a bit limited in what you can do because of the choice of technology. Convenience always has a price.

[Nightshade24]

Li Song, on 13 May 2016 - 06:29 AM, said:

This is a frequently requested feature which I understand is wanted by many. However the amount of information that you have to input is quite large when you consider Omni'Mechs, you have to input all the pods, armor max values, the fixed items, actuators, gyros, and other internals, the quirks, the upgrades the chassis variants. The UI for inputting this kind of data necessarily becomes quite big and while it is doable, it is a lot of work. Not to mention that LSML gets its data directly from MWO meaning that any user input data would be overwritten after each patch, meaning that I'd have to develop an alternative way of storing and merging the user inputted data and the game data and make sure they don't clash. And what happens when the user has built a 'Mech with a given name and all of a sudden it is available in the game?

All in all this is a big and desirable feature, but I'm estimating about 100-200 man hours to get something done here. I currently don't have that kind of time but if someone wants to take on the task and contribute the necessary code against the development branch of LSML I'm more than happy to accept the patch given that it meets reasonable quality standards.

I can understand that. I have found an online site that is well... 'similar' to what I ask for.
But it follows TT rules strictly and gives no information about MW: O.
http://skunkworks.mechhangar.de/

It's also clunky and unforgiving... but it does keep things simplified.

For eg I do not perceive omnipods as a problem as this depends on every chassis and obviously can't pretend it will know what x omnimech will be like in the future if added.
I think having one just for 'battlemechs' would be enough for people to theory wit hand experiment with (simulating possible hardwiring just as putting in the engine that say sarna states this mech has or having this equipment there and here, etc.)
Much like how people theory craft the Night Gyr using the already existing mechs in MW: O on smurfy in a clunky manner.

However as I know I do not know how your program works and it's ins and outs. You can easily see limitations while I do not see any. (such as the fact the information you use is directly from MW: O, meaning you most likely need to code something completely different for just a 'template' ?). Perhaps one day a program such as one that many wish can come about. If only I can code and attempt to do it myself. Guess a spread sheet of numbers and on-paper theory crafting is my future however ^^;

Also one question I always wanted to ask when I first saw your username...
Do you know the mechwarrior "Li Song" from Mechwarrior 4: Mercs?

An AI character in the Solaris VII matches who is commonly in a wolfhound (ER PPC + 2 small lasers with ECM) in the lighter circuits? just wondering.

[Li Song]

If you think that this would suffice for building unreleased 'Mechs, please sign into github and comment on the issue:

https://github.com/E...lsml/issues/556

When I chose my nick I took the first part of the first name of my Japanese teacher (who was Chinese and had a really cute name) and the first Chinese surname I could think of. The fact that it also was the name of the Solaris pilot you mention is purely accidental. Although I do like to pilot lights with ER PPCs strapped to them, I actually kind of like the resemblance of the Solaris pilot to my piloting style, so some might even call it "an act of ${DEITY}".

[dario03]

Li Song, on 13 May 2016 - 06:29 AM, said:

This is a frequently requested feature which I understand is wanted by many. However the amount of information that you have to input is quite large when you consider Omni'Mechs, you have to input all the pods, armor max values, the fixed items, actuators, gyros, and other internals, the quirks, the upgrades the chassis variants. The UI for inputting this kind of data necessarily becomes quite big and while it is doable, it is a lot of work. Not to mention that LSML gets its data directly from MWO meaning that any user input data would be overwritten after each patch, meaning that I'd have to develop an alternative way of storing and merging the user inputted data and the game data and make sure they don't clash. And what happens when the user has built a 'Mech with a given name and all of a sudden it is available in the game?

All in all this is a big and desirable feature, but I'm estimating about 100-200 man hours to get something done here. I currently don't have that kind of time but if someone wants to take on the task and contribute the necessary code against the development branch of LSML I'm more than happy to accept the patch given that it meets reasonable quality standards.

Thanks for the answer, and yeah definitely a lot more time than I thought. I'm no programmer but a couple of things come to mind.
Omnipods- could you just make it so the theory mech changes omnipods by the user simply changing the hardpoints allowed. Or even just don't limit the hardpoints and we can just restrict ourselves?

omnipod quirks- basically the same as above, don't even worry about setting quirks for individual omnipods, a spot for quirks across the whole mech would be fine. The user can worry about changing them when setting up the mech. Or just leave them out entirely since we only find out about quirks a few days before the mech comes out and others like Smurfy don't even calculate them.

armor- I thought armor was based on weight (ignoring quirks). Would we have to set max armor for all mechs? Or just tell it the weight of the mech.

data being overwrote- (again I'm not a programmer) but could you just have everything separate? Like if a user makes a mech and calls it the Night Gyr could you just have it saved in another spot than the real Night Gyr (which I guess it would have to if the Night Gyr is not saved in LSML and is always pulled from the game) when it comes out. Or just make theory mechs be saved as "theory name" so for example "theory Night Gyr".
Or just have a totally different install of LSML for theory mechs, basically a copy of LSML but one that only works on theory mechs so that it doesn't mess with the regular version. Something that pulls all the equipment values from the game but not the mechs themselves. I'm sure its easier said then done but just throwing out some ideas.

Input- Similar to the link above there is the home version of Solaris Skunk Werks, which has a feature that lets you build generic mechs for theory crafting in TT, and it also has a database of just about every mech in TT. Have you ever worked with those guys? Would it be feasible to add a inport from SSW to LSML? There is of course some differences between TT and MWO but if it just brought over the basics the user could then edit the differences and the values for heat, dps, etc could be calculated with MWO values. Or would that be even more work than adding a generic mech builder to LSML?


Just some thoughts. But really I would be ok with just about anything. Doesn't need to be perfect, just something that would keep track of number of crits and tons used and then tell the dps and heat and speed of the mech. If we the user have to keep track of the restrictions (like fixed armor/sturcture slots and equipment) then thats fine. As it is now I've been cross referencing a Boars Head and Dire Wolf to come up with accurate Kodiak builds so basically anything would be better.

edit:

Li Song, on 13 May 2016 - 11:28 AM, said:

If you think that this would suffice for building unreleased 'Mechs, please sign into github and comment on the issue:

https://github.com/E...lsml/issues/556

Guess I should of read the last page before writing all that out

Edited by dario03, 13 May 2016 - 01:55 PM.

[Li Song]

On the custom 'Mech note, if you're not afraid of tinkering there are some instructions here: https://github.com/E...ki/Custom-Mechs on how you might be able to trick LSML into showing a custom 'Mech.

[dario03]

I was wondering, when you put the generic mechs in LSML would it be possible to have basically no limits? Stuff like
-IS, Clan, and Mixtech. Where the IS and Clan option would limit you to just one type and the mixtech would let you mix them.
-Weights outside of 20-100. If a limit is needed set it to something like 10-150 or 10-200.
-Engines bigger than 400. Don't know if those even existed in lore/tt but I think the weights are based on a formula with a couple of jumps in weight for larger gyros. (Not sure if that would work since its equipment and you get the data from the game files but you mentioned a rating of 10-400 and 10 isn't in the game.)
If any of those are something that doesn't take much while adding in the generic mechs I think that would be really cool. Being able to quickly see how something like a 150ton Omega with Clan xl475, clan large pulse lasers, clan er medium lasers, and IS ac5s would perform in MWO would be pretty awesome. But even just mechs over 100t or just mixtech would be cool.

Edited by dario03, 16 May 2016 - 10:31 PM.