178 replies to this topic

[Alex Morgaine]

Extra ablative armor you can deploy to swarm an enemy via button press would be perfect I'd say.

[50 50]

I have to say that I would love to actually enter the game as an elemental IF I can cling to a mech to hitch a ride or cut away at the armour and IF the controls were not those of a tank/mech. ie. right/left is a side step not a turn. Don't get a torso twist.
Given the fragile nature of an elemental and the likely hood of only having a small laser the little blighters need to be considered as having an ECM and therefore not be detectable on radar beyond a certain range.
There is a very real risk of being stepped on.

Otherwise a consumable makes sense.
Bit like a turret that can be dropped at a location and destroyed but otherwise sits there shooting at the enemy.

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Reference the Battle Armour fielded by the Clans.

- These are not simply annoyances that can be ignored.
- Clan elementals were specially developed to operate these suits and were keen to 'take on' a BattleMech.
- Operating in stars of 5 elementals, they were quite capable of destroying or rendering combat ineffective most BattleMechs.
(many would have kill scores of numerous 'Mechs, so they were elite elements at there task.)

These suits were designed to take a full strike of a large laser and keep fighting, and normally operating inside the 'Mech weapons arc's. Once they get clamped onto there target it is very difficult to dislodge them. And having one directly on the cockpit trying to burn, cut, rip, and shoot there way in is rather terrifying for a 'Mech Pilot.

The weapons commonly carried by these Elementals were a shoulder mounted dual SRM of various load-outs, and either a energy or ballistic weapon on one arm and a claw on the other. (claw quite capable of ripping armour off a 'Mech.)
- All the Battle Armour have JumpJets, and use these to great advantage to quickly change locations and 'not be where you are shooting them'.
- They can also field explosive charges, either C4 or thermal types. And can use these on weak points on 'Mech's, leg joints being a favoured location.
- Outfitting one of these units with TAG or Battle armour NARC systems poses a very deadly and nearly impossible to detect scout. (modeled the way MWO uses these systems, no so deadly)

Detection of these 'relatively' small units was very difficult for 'Mechs and sensor ground clutter obscured there presence if they were not moving. Normally only 'seen' when at very short ranges of 100mtrs and under. (and by then may be too late for the targeted 'Mech) There speed and jump capability made them very difficult targets to engage.
- The IS Pilots were common to refer to these units as 'Toads', for just when you were ready to strike at one if would jump away.

Just some info,
9erRed

[DI3T3R]

@9er Red:
Thanks for the clarification, but the problem remains that the Elementals cannot be implemented 1:1 in MWO.

- They are sow and their weapons have short range. -> They have to be transported somehow or dropped on top of the enemy via dropship.
- 1 Elemental is not enough to take down 1 Mech because lack of firepower.
- 1 Elemental-Point is not enough to take down 1 Mech because lack of speed.
- 1 Elemental-Star can take down a Mech very fast, but that would mean too many moving objects and too many players in a single game.

Imagine piloting a Direwolf that is armed with 5 Small Lasers. That is what piloting an Elemental-Point would be like.

[50 50]

After seeing some of the new features that have come in recently I believe the Elementals could be added in fairly easily for piloting. Quite honestly I'd love to play as one.
Elementals in essence are miniature mechs and there are similar properties that you can apply.
Movement archtype: Battlearmour
-Not affected by rough terrain
-Not affected by elevations under 70' (example)
-Torso movement replaces turn left/right
-Turn left/right becomes strafe left/right (Ie. the WASD and mouse controls would become normal FPS movement controls... not tank like)
-No start up or shut down.
Single hit location, effectively CT.
Single amount of armour, not too sure what the MWO equivalent of 10 points is. Lets say 16.
New hard point type for Battlearmour items to allow interchange of the different items. Effectively this is to represent the RA, LA and CT weapon options.
As there is only the one hit location and no internal structure the BA items are packages to make it easy for ammunition requirements and any special considerations.
Need new key binding to allow mount and dismount of mechs.
Elementals when riding on an Omnimech will take up a spot on the RT, RT®, LT, LT® or CT®. This mount and dismount can be handled automatically.
While occupying a spot on a mech, any hits against those locations instead hit the Elemental.
Utilizing the claw against a mech is a two part action similar to the Gauss Rifle. The initial action will result in the Elemental latching on to the targeted area if they are in range.
Releasing the trigger does the damage and the Elemental will detach unless the claw is used again. The cooldown should be very small if any.
Various quirks and module options will round out the functionality. Heat from weapon use would not likely be a problem, but as there are no heatsinks, perhaps this can be handled with a 100% heat reduction quirk for the weapons.
A specialized HUD/View would be needed as the Elemental can't look around the 'cockpit'.
Disable the free look.
The skill tree would need some adjustments to cater for the differences. ie. No torso twist.

But how does this then work with the match making and fitting into both the regular matches and Community Warfare.
One possible solution is to have something similar to the drop deck. Effectively 5 'respawns' to make up the equivalent of a light mech slot in a standard match. This fits in with the 1 point = 1 mech = 5 Elementals ratio.
However, I would suggest that you can only 'respawn' if there is at least one functioning allied mech on your side. This functionality can be added to the spectator mode for the player who is using the Elementals.
As every Elemental in a point used the same equipment it can be considered one 'mech' selection and only needs a counter to show how many are left in the point.
This could easily work for both the regular matches and CW.

The other possibility is additional specialized slots, more as a preparation towards using combined arms.
I would treat these as non-essential sots in terms of whether a match can begin however but it does then introduce balance issues if one side has them and the other doesn't.
A solution here could be that the win conditions do not change for the matches. ie. It still revolves around the mechs. If all the mechs on a side are destroyed then that side is defeated regardless of whether there are still any combined arms players.
I have to say though that this does not fit in as well and there are a lot of extra requirements that need to be considered.

The last option is the consumable idea and while this might be the simplest to implement, I think it would be a poor substitute.

You can guess where my preference lies and if PGI were to say they were doing the first pilot-able option I would be looking to back that straight away.

Edited by 50 50, 08 April 2015 - 01:24 AM.

[Ragnar44331]

I have being waiting for this to pop up on the forums a long time.

I think Missions like in {war thunder} would more suit this game.

this would be a full world with Infantry and tanks and full clan units with elemental s all on the battlefield with a 12 V 12 going on as well. Now I know this means we can't use alot of the units but it would open up the world of mechwarrior and give you the real feeling of being in that battle mech with all the lore units ingame too.

This could also open up more roads for Mechwarrior online. like branching out. mech fighing/elemental s/Aircraft. just like what wargaming.net is doing.

[50 50]

I agree with you there baz44331, having the option for all of these other unit types in the game would certainly open it up.
Particularly for community warfare.

Directly regarding the Elementals, given their relevance to the Clan arsenal and how they directly worked with and against mechs I think they should be next on the list to be introduced before another wave of mechs.
There are also more possible options on how they could be implemented a well and I don't see why there couldn't be more than one option added.
There are a few concerns for them as a playable unit.
* How to mitigate the loss of firepower if it replaces a mech.
* Size/Scale to balance movement speed and agility.
* Targeting and hit registration.
If treated that a point of 5 elementals effectively replaces a single light mech of 20 tons, this gives a base to work with to introduce as a playable unit. There are two options that have been previously mentioned which could work.
1. Treated as a micro mech that can be piloted. Drop in as a single Elemental, have the option to re-deploy 4 times.
Good: As a pilotable option, easier to implement.
Fits easily into the existing match making a drop deck system as a single selection.
Small increase to allied mech firepower when attached, effectively like having a turret.
Increase to teamwork options and co-ordination.
Bad: Direct loss of immediate fire power as the single point is split into 5 entities.
2. Treated as a micro mech group that can be piloted. Single player controls 5 Elementals at once.
Good: No immediate loss of firepower for the team.
Fits easily into the existing match making a drop deck system as a single selection.
Increase to allied mech firepower when attached, effectively like having 5 turrets.
Increase to teamwork options and co-ordination.
Bad: Which Elemental is actually the player.
Can this one unit be eliminated? ie. Head shot. What happens then?
Combined attacks on a target introduce complexities with ranges, hits and misses, particularly with the claw attack.
Bigger chance of friendly fire and being stepped on as they occupy more space.

There is some inconsistency regarding the size and movement of the Elementals.
The Elementals themselves are listed as between 2 and 2.5m in height. (To much variation for genetic engineering there).
On comparing the Battlearmour to a Maddog which in the Lore is 12m they are 3m tall.
For a genetically engineered super soldier in power armour, 10kph is really poor. It's not that good for an average human walking.

For MWO game play purposes I feel they should be about 4m in height in battlearmour with a top speed equal to a Direwolf.
The additional height (and subsequent bulk) will put them at half the height of a light mech. About the size of a leg.
That should make them a reasonable target, yet still be small enough to improve their survival. The ability to side step will also give some options.
The top speed of around 50kph fits in with the Clans liking to group units of a similar performance level together. (It's actually mentioned as their speed under the Thunder Horse mech).
A reasonable speed for their size,combined with a jump distance of about 90m gives them the agility needed to get around the battlefield.
Of course, riding onto an Omnimech will be the preferred and fastest method.
With about 16 to 20 points of armour, they will be able to take a few hits but still be fairly fragile.

The Battlearmour firepower obviously increased based on how many were alive in the point.
With a small laser and SRM2 a single Elemental Battlearmour doesn't deliver that much. 5 is a pretty decent alpha and will outdo some mechs.
As there is some option to allow customisation of the armaments and equipment, this could change a fair bit.
The battle claw is a significant part of the weaponry and obviously there isn't anything like this in the game yet.
I would think that it would deal a bit more damage than a machine gun, but balanced with the more manual click release (aka gauss rifle) it will be marginally slower.
Combine the battle claw attack with the ability to latch onto an enemy mech where the mech cannot target them and the loss of firepower is reduced.
For this reason I believe it would be easier to balance, implement and manage the single piloted unit with the re-deployment option.

Battlearmour mech consumables as one off attacks should be easy enough to add in. I might suggest that if the Battlearmour was a pilotable unit, that these consumables then are only available for Battlearmour.

As an AI unit that can be deployed, there is a bit more involved, but the functionality is very similar to the existing turrets.
I feel that this sort of 'deployable' would be best added as functionality to the team commander role where it may be deployed and controlled via the Battlegrid and at the same time improve that aspect of the game.

Many of the features to add Battlearmour into the game will provide a pathway for other features such as melee attacks, vehicles as 'deployables' and even multi-legged mechs needing unique controls.
That can only be a good thing.

[DI3T3R]

I think, we are approaching a feasible solution...

Here's my suggestion:
A player plays a whole Elemental-Point at once. The five Elementals stay in formation at all times. Like this:
X_X
_X_
X_X
We can essentially use a Mech-layout to treat the whole Point as one entity, a four-legged Mech: LA, RA, CT, LL, RL. If the CT (the Point-Commander) gets destroyed, the Point is destroyed.

- Half the height of a Spider.
- Doesn't show up on radar.
- 30-50 kph
- JJs
- 5x SL, 5x SRM2, 0.5 tons of SRM-ammo, new Elemental-only weapon "Leg Attack" with high damage and very short range
- 10 points of armour per section

The Elementals can walk alongside the Mechs into battle. (Riding along too much effort to program for now.)
They are difficult to spot and difficult to hit, but they are geared specifically towards close-combat. (They will rule River City...)
Respawns can be implemented later to balance their low Battle-Value.

[50 50]

Edit: To elaborate a bit more and provide appropriate references to fellow posters. So much easier to do from home... for some reason my connection at work is rubbish and I do have problems with the quote function, Sorry Di3t3r, at the time I wrote this I was specifically responding to your comments and trying to build on them.

If they were to be introduced as a pilotable option, I'd rather they take the time and work on the difficult aspects to make them function correctly.
A proper melee claw attack. There isn't going to be a lot of animation on them, lets get the claw attack, grab and rip looking and functioning nicely.
Being able to leap onto an enemy mech an use the claw to latch onto the area hit.
A way to mount and dismount from friendly Omnimechs and maintain the ability to look around and shoot at targets.
Whether it's done so that the player controls a whole point or a single entity (Maybe that could be a selection option?) these particular aspects are what make the Elementals so exciting.
I think there are a lot of extra complexities to making a whole point pilotable which is why I favoured the respawn but I would love either (or both) options in game.

On the note of consumables, these could be added as well. I don't see why both options couldn't be added.
Two points here.
The consumables are options for the mechs and are one shot area of effect attacks.
Whether an Elemental Battlearmour Consumable is air dropped in, pops up from hidden spots in the ground, or launches from your mech at the target like an SRM, it gets used once and it's gone. Probably the main difference to be had is that the attack is going to be against a single target.

The second option is what I am now thinking of as deployables.
This is a new option that I feel belongs in the battlegrid to be controlled by the team commander.
Allowing the commander to deploy a star of Elementals to a location on the map based on certain conditions, ie, a secondary objective of some sort, team points or a timer, then you can add a tactical element to areas of the map that will really change up the battles.
They could be redirected to new locations via the Battlegrid, or they are simply stationary objects.
Effectively this idea is to take the existing turrets, modify them in appearance and loadout and bring something very new into an area of the game that really doesn't get used at all.

These deployables are not just restricted to the Clans and Elementals, there are a number of players after the introduction of some sort of combined arms. Wouldn't this be a fairly effective way to introduce it without taking away the 'mechwarrior' focus that many other players want to maintain?
Perhaps this is also an effective way to change up the community warfare battles.

So, there we go. Two new expansion packs.
Clan Combined arms.
Introduces the Elemental Battlearmour as a piloted unit.
Adds the new Battlearmour swarm consumable.
Adds new Battlearmour deployable unit for the commander.

IS Combined arms.
New Cyclops command mech as pilotable unit. (Bet you didn't expect that to be thrown in here, but got to keep those IS mech jocks happy)
Adds new Tank deployable unit for the commander.
Adds new VTOL deployable unit for the commander. (Why not)

Sign me up now.
(I'm excited by the possibilities)

Edited by 50 50, 15 April 2015 - 03:51 AM.

[DI3T3R]

WTF? Neither "quote" nor copy&paste work??????????


@50:50

1. You haven't adressed the problem that giving one player one Elemental at a time would massively increase the need for players per game because one Elemental-player represents simply way less Battle-Value than a Mech-player.

2. "Leap onto an enemy Mech and attach to it." Suuuure. How would attaching work programming-wise? Does the attached Elemental receive friendly fire? Does he attach only to one spot on the Mech or for example to torso and arm at the same time, gluing them together? What happens when the elemental attaches to an arm and the Mech starts flailing that arm? Which spot on the Elemental sticks to the Mech?

3. "Leap onto friendly Mech." Suuuuuuuuuure. All the problems above, plus: What is the field-of-view while being transported? Do the Elemental-hitboxes sit on top of Mech-hitboxes? Because you need line-of-sight for shooting? Does an attached Elemental still count as a separate unit programming-wise? What if an Elemental attaches on a friendly unit right on top of the muzzle of a weapon? How would unattaching work? By respawning?

4. Consumable Elementals: That means, PGI will have to divert programmers to building an AI that can run and shoot and is as little a drag on the servers as possible, because it effectively increases the number of objects that have to be taken care of.

5. Tanks. They would also need a wayfinder-AI that can navigate them through a maze of canyons and streets. That's why I suggested a while ago to start with dropships and helicopters as NPC-units.

[50 50]

@Di3t3r

Apologies for not detailing my thought process there without a formal PDS but lets work through the ideas because I believe it is worth getting the Elementals into the game as a pilotable option as well as looking at the other possibilities and where that could lead..... and no, I'm not going to quote or use copy and paste.

1. To balance the direct loss of firepower that a single light mech can add to a team by only having a single Elemental take it's place, I was looking at the possibility of a respawn option as a way to negate it.
* You drop in as the first Elemental of your point, with your lance/star (If stars are implemented for CW).
* On death you go to the spectate mode as normal, but have an additional option to jump in from the mech you spectate from.
* You get a total of 5 drops to keep it in line with standard Battletech concepts of a point.
But, we can agree that the sum of the whole point is greater than it's parts so this does not entirely alleviate the loss of firepower.
Hence:
* A proper claw attack. Once the Elemental is attached, how do you get it off? What is to stop it chewing through the armour and eventually destroying the mech. Lets get back to defensive options for mechs later.
* While it would be easy enough to use the existing weapons for the Battlearmour, I believe it would be easier to manage using new items specifically designed for them. Particularly for Machine Guns and the SRM with their smaller than usual ammunition loads. If going this far, it would also be a small step to add in additional options if that were deemed worth while or necessary.
Eg. Swap out the small laser and missile launcher, which together weight in at 1 ton according to the current weapons, put in a medium laser.... not counting ammunition or the claw weight.
* Perhaps that's not enough. If they have their own weapons then we have the luxury of adjusting those items without upsetting everything else. Change range, cooldown, damage, critical %. What if the Claw, instead of having a somewhat unreasonable damage rating or for some reason a range more than 2m, it has a very high critical chance?
Does the combination of the possibilities begin to balance out the immediate loss of firepower?

That said, if it worked better to pilot the whole point of 5 Elementals as a single drop I'm all for that Di3t3r.
If the unit conformed to terrain, could shift formation to navigate obstacles and bring weapons to bear, behave properly if you jump at a target or location and one of the Elementals misses, survive beyond the death of each member until they are all gone and function as per their design with regards swarming and mounting Omnimechs, the movement and animations of the individual parts is equivalent to the load a single mech might impose on the server, excellent.

2. Attaching during an attack. As it currently is, we can target specific areas on a mech to maximise the effect of our attack.
We hit the location, that get registered and the damage effects are applied.
* Apply the same concept to how an Elemental might leap onto a mech to then deal damage.
* Use that location to determine where to position the Elemental. It's a little similar in concept to the NARC beacon. When you hit the target, you mark an area on the target and that becomes the reference point.
* Torso areas are going to be better as they have less individual movement,
* Rapid movement of a limb, ie. a mech that runs past a certain speed or going arms free to shake an Elemental loose is how a mech can defend against them. As an Elemental, attaching to the leg or arm is riskier, go for the torso.
* Because the Elemental is it's own entity, it has it's own hit area. You might need to be a bit more accurate with your shot to try and get rid of one off a friendly, but this isn't much different to having another mech stick their arm in front of the area you were shooting at.
* Elementals are positioned at the location they hit when using the claw attack but remain their own entity.

3. Mounting friendly Omnimechs to go for a ride. Because using the claw to latch onto a friendly would cause unintended damage as a weapon we want to have a different option,
* Utilise a key binding to take up a position.
* Omnimechs (only) had positions to carry 5 Elementals on their Torso.
* To avoid blocking weapon hardpoints where possible, 3 of these can go on the back, Seeing as the Omnimechs often mount their weapons on the arms, the front right and left torso are the other two locations. This will make some mechs more suited as transports ... behold the Nova, rumoured the first mech to carry Elementals into battle.
* Order these location as CTr 1, RTr 2, LTr 3, RT 4 an LT 5 so there is a way to identify in order of best position which location an Elemental will attach to using the new key binding. Nothing stopping the omnipods themselves actually determining if they have a mountable location to prevent the blocking of a weapon. It would also be possible to have specific positions that the Elemental may attach to so as not to block weapons. After all, the weapon hardpoints each take up a specified position in their area. The same could be done for Elementals. They have a designated spot on the Omnipod where they can be positioned.
* Use the same key to dismount from the location without causing damage.
* The dismount, or release from the attack simply causes the Elemental to drop to the ground unless they perform another action such as jumping.
* By positioning the Elemental at the specified location, as before, their hit box will be in the way of incoming fire so they will absorb the damage before it applies to the exposed section of the mech.
* If you happen to be on the front RT or LT and the mech you are on fires weapons in that location, well, that's unfortunate. Tip when attacking, note if there are any weapons on the front torso locations before latching on.
* Want to latch onto another friendly for a ride? Use the claw.
* While attached, either using the mount/dismount key or via the claw attack, there is nothing to stop an Elemental from looking about, taking a shot using their other arm or simply admiring the paint. Another reason to have the mouse act as the turn instead of the twist, but, if you wanted to make it more simulated, have this as the only time the Elemental effectively goes arms free and limit the rotational movement, that seems a little excessive though. They should be able to act as a turret for the mech they are mounted on and in doing so add their firepower to their allies... refer to point 1. This is harder to manage as a full point as some Elementals will not be in a position to target the same enemy and we therefore would need a 'don't fire if friendly is blocking the way - friendly RFID' bit of coding for each entity in the point.

4. Battlearmour as a consumable. Other than a brief bit of movement to reach the target there isn't much special about this.
Treating them like an SRM shot seems like a fun way to do it, so I'll use that as the example.
* Load the consumable as normal.
* Target your enemy and activate it.
* 5 Elementals blast off from your mech. Don't even need to animate their limbs.
* Treat them as one shot ordinance, flames, smoke.
* Short range.
* They launch a barrage of missiles, then a barrage of laser fire at the intended target.
* Then they are gone.
* Shorter delay on activation and a single target for the damage.
Looks a little cooler, but nothing more complicated than that and it's the same idea if they popped up out of the ground or dropped from the sky. They are consumables, there is very little or no AI.

5. Deployable units that need to be destroyed. These are a bigger task and as you say Di3t3r, getting a reasonable AI for path finding is a decent enough step so I completely agree with the Helicopters as an easy start point. An alternative might be to have the commanding player set way points.
This could open up all sorts of possibilities once it's there but as a first step it should be relatively simple to introduce any number of units as stationary objects. Tanks, Elementals and VTOLS can all swivel on the spot like the turrets.
* New models for each.
* Very little animation.
* Some unique ordinance for each. Ie. give tanks an AC.
* If they don't move at all then it's a way to improve fortifications in an area, which was something that was being considered for CW.
* It creates a way to control the battle area and set up danger areas.
Fairly simple to begin with and perhaps better suited to CW but it can evolve into something more complex and I'm sure there are other very good posts out there worth referring to for this aspect of play.
I was thinking that this would be a feature added to the battlegrid functionality for the commander and have certain conditions on when and how it could be used.

Edited by 50 50, 15 April 2015 - 03:38 PM.

[DI3T3R]

@50:50

1. Sure, there would be less Elementals running around at a time, but we can adjust that: It takes 2 Points to take down an IS medium Mech in tabletop? Buff the Elementals in MWO so it takes ~3 Elementals to take on a medium IS-Mech.

2. This "Leg Attack" as standard-weapon sounds good (It's also his most powerful attack in tabletop IMO): The Ellie jumps at the Mech, takes a swipe and scores at hit if he got close enough. If he scores a hit, he does little damage, but there's a big chance to land a crit on a Leg-component. (Any succesful hit anywhere leads to a crit-roll on a leg.) But the Mech is running away, so the Ellie has to follow, jump again andsoforth.
The battlefield-role of an Elemental would not be to destroy Mechs with their firepower, but to cripple their legs so his team-mates can take them down.

3. I don't see a problem using Mech-weapons for Elementals. It doesn't matter if a combat-suit half the size of a Spider carries (SL+SRM2+0.5tonsammo+3JJs) 3 tons of loadout plus armour. One Elemental weighing 5-10 tons sounds fine with me in MWO.

4. Swarming. IMO there's just too much that could go wrong. It's too complicated. I would leave it out.

5. Riding along. How about this:
The Elemental mounts a friendly Mech and disappears as a battlefield-unit. He is visible as hanging on the Mech, but he's not actually an object that can be interacted with. (No problems with where he's hanging, exploits with ablative armour and so on...) He's just a lump on a Mech. Pure optics. When unmounting, he actually gets respawned and turns into a battlefield-unit again.
And: He doesn't get respawned on the terrain next to the Mech. That terrain could be inconvenient as **** for the spawning-process. Instead, he gets spawned on the head of the Mech. This way, the program can spawn him on a terrain that is perfectly well-known and defined.

6. One-Shot consumable Elementals don't sound that bad. The bigger question would be their usefulness. You essentially spawn a one-shot turret next to the enemy, because the Elementals would be responsible for picking their target, unlike artillery, which attacks a piece of terrain.

7. Tanks for base-defense. We could establish "streets" in a base. The NPC-tanks are not capable of leaving those streets, thus ensuring they always stay in terrain the AI can handle. The NPC-tanks approach the nearest enemy (if he gets coser than X00 m) and open fire on the nearest enemy if there is line-of-sight and he's within range. (Dropships can already do that!) All we need is keeping the NPC-tanks out of confusing terrain.

[50 50]

@Di3t3r
You're quite right about their functionality in the table top and I would certainly think of them that way if added as a Deployable unit that guarded an area. The table top board game wouldn't be able to put down in rules what an Elemental on their own might be able to achieve with direct player control. It would be like bringing in role playing elements to a strategic board game.

A player controlled Elemental in MWO is going to do things that the board game couldn't cater for and I find that possibility very enticing.

So in response to your points:
1. Effectiveness vs Mechs. Hard to say without some testing. At best they will be great ambusher's. We certainly won't see them chasing down any Mechs unless said Mech is missing a leg. That would be pretty scary actually.... perhaps it might lead to people buying and using the speed retention module?
It would be possible for a single Elemental to take out a Mech but there are a lot of IFs in that statement. That's part of their balance in the game however.

2. The role of an Elemental. That's a really good point. Though the whole 'role based warfare' has gone a little sideways, the Elementals fit into that support role very well. An increased critical chance, and I would only suggest it for the claw, will give them a really good purpose in helping to disable an enemy mech. To me, there is a much closer aspect of teamwork that would come about between a player using an Elemental and one in an allied Mech. Hitching a ride into battle, leaping off to engage an enemy mech, trying to disable components so that your team mate can get the upper-hand, get the kill and survive.
I wouldn't limit it to just leg components though. Risk vs reward. IF the player is going for the risky move, having that chance to get a lucky hit and disable a component is the reward.
Considering that we are suggesting they are a bit larger in size and top out at the speed of a Direwolf, getting in close enough is going to be near suicidal.

3. Using Mech weapons. They are a good basis to start with and would be easy enough to adopt. However, unless the Elementals get a bunch of quirks, having their own unique weapon set means the weapons can be directly modified and adjusted for balance without affecting the same ones the Mechs will use. It will be much easier to apply balances and tweak the settings without upsetting the whole apple cart.

4. Swarming. Tougher to get it right with a full point and I wouldn’t suggest it for consumables or deployables.
I’d love to see it.
In the end, there isn’t anything stopping us from jumping our Mechs onto the back of another one and sitting there firing away.
It’s an extension of that simple prospect and if it was implemented I would expect the hit detection and collision work that would go into getting it working would be useful for other aspects of the game.

5. Riding along. Pretty much what I was thinking but I believe the devs are quite capable of getting it working as a separate entity.
What might be difficult is the damage modelling for the Elemental while attached if they were integrated as part of the mech.
Is it a simple question of saying that any damage to the Mech in the location the Elemental occupies is applied to the Elemental first and then transferred to the Mech?
If the mech is destroyed is the Elemental also destroyed?
Probably a couple of other things to consider there to get it working right that we would need to think through. Animations perhaps.
Where the Elemental player decides to detach from the mech is up to them, if they happen to do it over a cliff edge, well… they’ll just have to deal with it.
Safety tip, be careful where you dismount on Terra Therma!

6. Targeting with a Elemental Consumable. Maybe it could use a targeting process like the streak srms. Otherwise I would think that it could use your currently selected target in the HUD.
I think that would be better than letting them fire their lasers and missiles at any enemy within range.

7. Base defence. Don’t see why that couldn’t be done. It’s like putting the existing turrets on rails. Nice one Di3t3r.

Would be great to get some feedback from the Devs on these ideas

Edited by 50 50, 20 April 2015 - 08:21 PM.

[DI3T3R]

@50 50

1. I think, making them small and invisible to radar will make the difference. (And there are less features to be animated when they are really small.) About a third to half the size of a Spider. That will be hard to spot and really hard to hit, especially if the Elemental keeps running and jumping. A group of Elementals would easily be able to 1. sow confusion, 2. drive enemy Mechs from a fortified position with the threat of leg-crits.

2. While the idea of a pure Elemental-unit would be fun, I think they would be impractical for MWO (balancing, amount of players) and because Elementals have tactical weaknesses. Combined-Arms warfare would be best: The Supernova could replace the Company in Clan-units...

3. You are right: Independent weapons makes for easier balancing.

4. I think it's the wrong approach to figure out collision (and for all pactical purposes melee-combat) in a difficult scenario and then to use this to build a simple scenario.

5. That's a balancing-issue whether Elementals double as ablative armour:
Elementals are small, so they MUST have low hitpoints. And if they have low hitpoints, they are no real protection to the Mech they are riding on and riding on the Mech as ablative armour would be too dangerous for them overall.

6. ...

7. Hello? PGI? Ehrm... We have an idea here!

[DI3T3R]

Okay... I'll try something comprehensible.

- IS-teams get 12 Mech-slots. Clan-teams get 10 Mech- and 2-Elemental-slots.

- An Elemental-player plays one Elemental at a time, but has 1 spawn + 4 respawns.
* The Elemental is half the size of a Spider.
* Invisible on radar.
* One hitzone. 20 armour.
* 54kph, 3 JJ.
* 1x Elemental-SL, 1x Elemental-SRM2, SRM-ammo, "Leg Attack"
* "Leg Attack" is an Elemental-only short-range weapon. Damage upon hit is automatically rerouted to Mech-legs. (We can use the mechanism from falling-damage.)

- Respawns happen at the coordinates of a friendly Mech of choice, but a little bit up into the air.

- Elemental-only consumable "Swarm Attack". Swarm Attack consists of 2 components
* a weak artillery-barrage without delay
* NPC-Elementals get spawned that jump up and down and all around
* "Swarm Attack" targets the area where the crosshair is pointing




1. The Elementals could effectively "ride along" without actually riding along. The could "swarm" without actually swarming.

2. Their tactical profile would be to sow confusion by tangling the enemy in ambushes and short-range fights. Hence all the fake Elementals jumping around in "Swarm Attack": They are just decoys for obscuring the presence of the real Elementals.

3. The main-weapon of Elementals would be "Leg Attack", crippling the enemy and slowing him down instead of destroying him. Ambush, bust his leg, retreat.

4. The Clan-Team would have less raw firepower, but would be geared towards a faster, more aggressive playstyle that favors concentrated attacks. (And not endless shootouts through a gate, trying to grind the enemy down because nobody has the guts to lead the rush...)



To balance the Clan-advantage in attacks, we could give the IS NPC-tanks to bolster their defense-abilities.

[50 50]

Totally agree with that one Di3t3r.
If Community Warfare is updated so that clans use the stars and only get 10 mechs, that would work a treat.
Probably want to adjust the drop deck tonnage limits again if that happened.

Just a thought:
Because at the moment CW matches use the drop deck and you take the 4 mechs into a single match, if using the respawn we would need a little adjustment in the system to allow the player to trigger the respawn as you don't normally get to the spectator mode in between where I was thinking it would be easy to add the function in. Would be nice though.
(Though I do have some thoughts about how the drop deck could be used for CW)
Otherwise the next one just pops up somewhere or there is a little window to trigger it manually.

But perhaps there is a compromise.

You have for CW the Elemental point of 5, either as the additional option as you just suggested or the equivalent of a 20 ton light mech in terms of weight limit. They would fit nicely into the more epic warfare of CW giving more of a unit feel.

Then for the standard Assault, Conquest and Skirmish matches which are the single drop, we have the respawn option which might be easier to implement under those game modes. A hero Elemental that you only see one of at a time.

Perhaps I'm being too ambitious but I reckon we have had some really interesting ideas here and I'd love to see all the options added. Especially now that there is another wave of IS mechs. Good on you Silverlance for putting up the post and getting those creative juices flowing!

[eblackthorn]

I don't think elementals could ever be effective player units. One big reason being the top speed of 10.8 km/h

[Lily from animove]

some city battlemode would be fun, one player randomly chosen gets a stock urbie, on each side, the other 11 get an elemental.

everytime someone dies, he can respawn in an elemental after 30 seconds of deth.
the side killing te other urbie first wins.

but 6kph elementals vs our current mechs make not much sense.

[50 50]

Depends on which article you read.
If looking at the battlearmour on Sarna it says 10kph. That's poor even for a human walking down the road let alone a futuristic super soldier wearing powered battle armour.
Other spots on Sarna say 50kph. Under the Thunder horse mech for example it lists them as 50kph.
The Elementals themselves were listed as being between 2 and 2.5m in height. Seems a little inconsistent for a genetically engineered being and perhaps small by todays standard of top athletes.
In Battlearmour they measure 3m in height with the missile pack.
The suggestion for them should they be introduced is to make them larger, 4m in height with the missile pack, which makes them half the size of a light mech.
Top speed to be the equivalent of a Direwolf which is around 54kph which also makes sense with the way the Clans like to group units of similar performance.
Plus the jump jets give them good agility and a jump range of 90m.
Their main form of transport is meant to be riding into battle on the Omnimechs and that's a fairly important aspect for them.
Given that all the existing mechs have needed some tweaking and changes when introduced to MWO we don't feel that this is such a drastic alteration of them from cannon as well as being reasonably balanced.
More than that, the Elemental Battlearmour units are a pretty big part of the Clan lore and arsenal and would introduce a level of team work that the game currently doesn't have.

[50 50]

I did a tally the other day.
Over 200 variations of mechs for the Inner Sphere.
Over 70 for Clan.
How awesome is that?

The Clans are missing a 20 ton chassis at the moment.
Unless the Firemoth can be implemented with MASC and a top speed over 200kph I put forward the Elemental with the suggestions detailed above to fill that 20 ton light mech spot!!

The IS have all their different variants and that cool and unique little Urban Mech.
What could be more unique and befitting than the Elemental for the Clan!