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First is the Pilot tree.
The problem with the pilot tree as it is currently is it tends to as many believe favor larger mechs more then the lighter mechs. Also once filled offers little incentive to keep getting experience for since all you can do is convert the surplus into GXP at a MC cost. My main suggestion is to change the pilot tree into categories and also to add tiers. So when you choice a item in a given category you can't select another option in the category but can upgrade the tier(max 3) if it offers it. If you want to change to a new option in a category you can but your lose all upgrades in the previous at no cost but have to have the XP to start the new category thereby making a use of surplus XP.
Categories:
Mobility: Speed Tweak, Anchor Turn, Lean Turn.
Speed Tweak - Pilot Coaxes more out of the engine improving top speed. 3% max speed per tier.
Anchor Turn - Pilots awareness of his immediate surrondings allow for better foot placement enabling quicker turning while standing in one place. 4% turn speed when standing still per tier.
Lean Turn - Pilot knows how to shift the mechs weight so as to allow tighter turning when on the move. 3% turn speed when moving per tier.
Cooling: Cool Run, Heat Containment, Quick Ignition.
Cool Run - Pilot is Efficient at distributing heat throughout the mech allowing more efficient colling. 5% heat dissipation per tier.
Heat Containment - Pilot is capable of better containing heat in the heatsinks allowing the pilot to build up more heat without overheating the mech. 5% heat threshold per tier.
Quick Ignition - Pilot is efficient at managing heat when shut down and is able to more quickly handle the speed of shutdown and startup sequences. !0% cooling disipation when shutdown, and 10% faster shutdown and startup speed per tier.
Reflexes: Speed Adjustment, Rapid Reaction, Extended Reach.
Speed Adjustment - Pilot is good at finetuning their speed so can accerate and decelerate faster. 8% deceleration and acceleration speed per tier.
Rapid Reaction - The pilot's sharp reflexes and battlefield awareness allow the pilot to improve the speed in which they can bring their weapons too bere on target. 5% Torso Twist and Arm Speed per tier.
Extended Reach - Pilot knows how to postion the mech in such a way as to allow greater range of motion with the arms and torso then would normally be allowed. 5% Torso twist and arm angle improvements per tier.
Weapon Handling: Fast Fire, Rapid Cycling.
Fast Fire - Pilot have tweaked the safety protocals to allow all weapons to fire faster then designed. 5% reduced cooldown on weapons per tier.
Rapid Cycling - Pilot knows how to chainfire weapons faster while keeping within safety margins. 10% faster chainfire rate and reduces ghost heat rating according per tier.
As for how the mastering tiers will work in order to advance to elite you need to get tier 1 of each category and in ordaer to get to master you need to get at least 2 categories to tier 2 to unlock master. Tier 3 would be included in the elite bracket.
Now all mechs and variants won't have the same access to all tiers in the categories and each category would be unique per mech. The theory being some mechs are harder to handle in certain aspects then others.
For example a atlas isn't very flexible or fast so they got poor options in the mobility and Reactions categories but got good weapon handling and decent cooling. A example of varient differences is a atlas-D would have tier 3 fast fire but tier 1 rapid cycling with average flexibility with extended reach, rapid reaction, and anchor turn at tier 2. Where as a Atlas-BH would be more focused on speed with rapid cycling at tier 3 and fast fire at tier 1 and speed adjustments and speed tweak at tier 2. Cooling would be normally average for all atlas's.
As for the Master rank I would like to see it expanded. One concept I think would be interesting is adding a ability unlock. The ability unlock can either be a free consumable or a special ability you can activate periodically or once per fight. Example of abilites. HNK-4G/H get Double Tap when activated allows any ballistic weapon to recharge instantly 3min cooldown. Rapid Fire could be another that is available to all jagermechs which reduces the cooldowns of all ballistics by 25% and the cooldown of all missles by 50%.
Quirk Tree:
Now my main purpose for making the quirk tree was to help bring back mech identity. I'm a strong supporter of hardpoint limitations, but since that is highly unlikely at this point I thought of this system that not only adds a XP sink, but encourages certain builds or reinforces a mechs role or helps cover weaknesses without removing a players ability to build as they want. Even if they choose not to use certain equipment there is always a option available to them though it might not be the strongest.
Now my concept of the quirk tree is similiar to the pilot tree. The concept being where unlike the pilot tree that revolves around what your pilot can do in the cockpit your mechwarrior is actually making tweaks to the mech itself all of which use XP and Maybe a small C-bill fee similar how some make adjustments to a firearm to give it a hair trigger or load bullets faster. Unlike the pilot tier you can have multiple sub-categories in a category filled but only up to the max tier offered in the sub-categories, so if a sub-category has a max of 5 tiers you only got 5 slots available to you in that category so you can't fill all sub-categories. Another difference from the pilot tree is there are no brackets so all that matters to progress is that you got the previous tier.
Categories:
Weapons: Fast Reloader, Extended Magazine, Efficient Cooling System, Heat Shunters.
All the sub-categories except extended magazine are subject to weapon size or category table as listed below.
Large Ballistic = Gauss and AC20
Small Ballistic = Ac10, LBX10, AC5, Ultra5, AC2
Large Energy = PPC, ERPPC, Large Laser, ERLarge Laser, Large Pulse Laser
Small Energy = Medium Laser, Medium Pulse Laser, Small Laser, Small Pulse Laser, Flamer
LRM Category
SRM Category
Fast Reloader - Mech's ammunition loader is augmented to allow faster ammuniton reloading. 5% reduced cooldown to weapon cooldown per tier.
Efficient Cooling - Rearranges your internal cooling system to allocate more cooling to heat intensive areas improving the weapons heat efficiency. 5% reduction in the amount of heat a energy weapon produces per tier.
Heat Shunters - You add strategically placed exhaust ports that help you cool your mech faster. 2% increased heat dissipation(Universal) per tier.
Extended Magazine - You use specially desighed ammo boxes so you can fit more rounds. 5% increase in ammo per box per tier. (Ammo is rounded up or down as needed and first tier is always set at 10%)
*Special* For Machine Gun only = Ultra-Armor Piercing Rounds - adds 0.01 to damage per tier.
Performance: Enhanced Actuators, Efficient Burn, Enhanced Jump Jets, Augmented Engine.
Enhanced Actuators - You made adjustments to your actuators to allow greater flexability and movement. 2% improved turning speed and torso twist and arm angles per tier.
Augmented Engine - you made tweaks to your engine to make it more efficient. 2% increase in max speed, acceleration, and deceleration per tier.
Efficient Burn - your jumpjets are augmented to use less fuel and recharge fuel faster by 3%-10% per tier.
Enhanced Jumpjets - Your jumpjets are augmented to give you greater thrust and stability, but consume more fuel, based on a per JJ basis. 5% reduction in aim shake when rising per tier. Also 2%-5% increased JJ movement speed per JJ unit installed per tier(consumes appropriate fuel).
*I wasn't sure about the figures for the Jump jets so just made rough values.*
Armor: Reinforced Armor, Enhanced Materials, Equipment Plating, Reiforced Structure.
Reinforced Armor - Certain sections of a mech are more more heavily reinforced allowing for better impact absorbancy or heat distribution prolonging the life of the armor put there. 5% damage reduction to that section of a mechs armor per tier(2-3 sections maximum).
Enhanced Materials - Mech is using slightly stronger materials giving your armor slightly improved resilency. 2% reduced damage to all armor per tier.
Reinforced Structure - The Structure of the mech is reinforced to help it stand up to more punishment. 2% increase to structual health per section per tier.
Equipment Plating - Adds protective plating to all equipment. Adds 1 health and reduces crit damage by 5% per tier.
Support Equipment: Improved Sensors, Improved Lock Tools, Module Booster, Enhanced Countermeasures.
Improved Sensors- Boosts the sensitivity of your sensors improving preformance. 5% increased sensor range and info gathering time per tier.
Improved Lock Tools - Increases the range of NARC and TAG and improves their signals. 10% increased range and 5% decreased lock times per tier.
Enhanced Countermeasures - AMS can now target objects farther away and ECM and BAP have stronger signals allowing them to overpower jamming at greater distances. 10% increase in AMS range and BAP and ECM(CounterMode) can overide ECM(DisruptMode) by 10 more meters per tier.
Module Booster - Improves the efficiency of all non-consumable modules by a small amount. Values will vary per module.
All mechs will only ever have 3 of any sub-category available to them except with performance that can range from 2-3. Also every mech and variant will have it's own setup with differing strengths and weaknesses.
Example 1: A Atlas would have strong values in Armor, and only decent lvls in weapons and performance, and poor support equipment capability. Where as a Raven would have strong support equipment and performance and only mediocre armor and weapons. there are some exceptions like a Atlas-K would have good Enhanced Countermeasures.
Example 2: Variants will have noticable differences though will be close in capabilities. Like a HNK-4G would have very good Weapons and Armor and only average Support and Performance with strong values in RT Reinforced Armor and Large Ballistic Fast Reload. Where as a HNK-4H Would have Good Armor and Weapons with a reasonable Light Ballistic Fast Reload, but makes up for it with slightly better performance values.
Here are samples of mechs to showcase the differences:
HNK-4G:
Weapons(5 Max): Extended Magazine - 3, SmallEnergy Efficient Cooling - 1, LargeBallistic Fast Reload - 5
Armor(5 Max): Reinforced Armor(RT) - 5, Reinforced Structual - 3, Equipment Plating - 3
Performance(3 Max): Enhanced Actuators - 3, Augmented Engine - 1
Support(2 Max): Improved Sensors - 2, Module Booster - 2, Enhanced Countermeasure - 1
HNK-4H:
Weapons(4 Max): Extended Magazine - 2, SmallEnergy Efficient Cooling - 2, SmallBallistic Fast Reload - 4
Armor(4 Max): Reinforced Armor(RT) - 4, Reinforced Structural - 3, Equipment Plating - 3
Performance(3 Max): Enhanced Actuators - 3, Augmented Engine - 2
Support(3 Max): Improved Sensor - 2, Module Booster - 3, Enhanced Countermeasures - 1
HNK-4P:
Weapons(4 Max): SmallEnergy Efficient Cooling - 4, Heat Shunters - 4, Extended Magazine -1
Armor(3 Max): Reinforced Armor(RT) - 3, Reinforced Structual - 2, Equipment Plating - 2
Performance(3 Max): Enhanced Actuators - 3, Augmented Engine - 3
Support(3 Max): Improved Sensors - 2, Module Booster - 3, Enhanced Countermeasures - 2
HNK-4J:
Weapons(4 Max): LRM Fast Reload - 4, Extended Magazine - 3, SmallEne Efficient Cooling - 2
Armor(3 Max): Reinforced Armor(RT) - 3, Reinforced Structural - 2, Equipment Plating - 2
Performance(3 Max): Enhanced Actuators - 2, Augmented Engine - 3
Support(3 Max): Improved Sensors - 3, Module Booster - 3, Improved Lock Tools -2
HNK-4SP:
Weapons(3 Max): SRM Fast Reload -3, Extended Magazine - 2, SmallEne Efficient Cooling - 2
Armor(3 Max): Enhanced Materials - 3, Reinforced Structual - 2, Equipment Plating - 2
Performance(4 Max): Enhanced Actuators - 4, Augmented Engine - 2
Support(2 Max): Improved Sensor - 2, Module Booster - 2, Enhanced Countermeasures - 2
Edited by Destoroyah, 07 November 2013 - 07:22 PM.
