75 replies to this topic

[Sandpit]

Mercules, on 15 November 2014 - 03:10 PM, said:

It kinda would be Lore Accurate. The Hollander was specifically built the way it was to mount a Gauss Rifle. Note it's appearance.


Basically what you are calling for is Stock Mechs with some sort of very limited customization available.

what you're really showing is that they can adjust the art to place any weapon on any mech. In other words, they adjusted the fluff to give players a "reason" that smaller mech mounts that weapon.

Fluff =/= rules

[Krivvan]

R Razor, on 15 November 2014 - 01:50 PM, said:

The mere fact that PGI has seen fit to allow near unlimited customization has killed variety, not encouraged it........as soon as a build is shown to work that is the build you see on well over 90% of that particular mech. This is a direct result of poor game mechanics, bad balancing and poor implementation of the hard point system.

Even stock mech events have limited variety because a few stock mechs are overwhelmingly better than others.

[Mercules]

Sandpit, on 15 November 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

what you're really showing is that they can adjust the art to place any weapon on any mech. In other words, they adjusted the fluff to give players a "reason" that smaller mech mounts that weapon.

Fluff =/= rules

Correct, fluff not equal Rules. However if you go by the rules it would take one hell of a good mechanic a lot of good rolls or a lot of attempts and time to swap the engine and internal structure around on a Raven and then mount a Gauss rifle on it. Why does the fluff depict a mech being BUILT around a weapon? Because according to the rules you don't easily customize mechs and to do something like the Hollander it would be better to BUILD it that way in a factory.

Krivvan, on 15 November 2014 - 03:15 PM, said:

Even stock mech events have limited variety because a few stock mechs are overwhelmingly better than others.

True, but a mech is more than a shell that can carry X/Y/Z with decent hitboxes. It becomes, "Hmmmm... those lasers are arm mounted for close in fights while the big gun is in the torso. It goes this speed with that much armor and has decent hitboxes. I think I'll try this."

[RazorbeastFXK3]

There's a Raven 'mech that comes equipped with a NARC on one of its arms. If you swap out that NARC for an LRM5~20 and launch the LRMs, the LRMs will fire one at a time from that arm.

It would be cool if the size of the weapon was standard to where it wouldn't get resized to fit the 'mech equipping it. I guess there are different calibers of the same weapon according to sarna.net http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Light_PPC

Quxudica, on 14 November 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

If weapons and equipment had actual size requirements. I don't mean critical slots, but actual set dimensions. What if an SRM six was to big to fit in a Raven, an LRM20 to large to drop in a Stormcrow or a Gauss Rifle to big to fit in a K2? What if a PPC cannon, that is the size of a Spiders torso on a K2, couldn't just be dropped into a Spiders energy arm?

What if you weren't able to jam any weapon into any chassis that had enough vaguely defined "critical slots"? How would the game play If the heaviest weapons could only be carried by the heaviest chassis, or special lighter chassis designed specifically to hoist and support a vastly over sized gun?

What would the game be like if weapons didn't exist in a vacuum? If slotting a large laser into a chassis only worked if that chassis had the power infrastructure to support such weapon? Or slotting an AC20 only worked if the ballistic slot had the mechanics to accommodate it?

How would the game play if ammunition had to be placed in logical locations, and you couldn't magically pull AC20 shells from your left foot to a gun mounted in your right arm? or siphon high explosive missiles from under your pilots seat?

Scifi isn't reality and video games don't need to be realistic, but would the game be improved if it swayed further toward the sim side of things?

I enjoy the customization aspect of the game. But sometimes limitations are good things.

I don't know if it's lore accurate, I don't know if it would actually be better. But part of me would be rather interested in playing the game this way.

[Sandpit]

Mercules, on 15 November 2014 - 03:17 PM, said:

Correct, fluff not equal Rules. However if you go by the rules it would take one hell of a good mechanic a lot of good rolls or a lot of attempts and time to swap the engine and internal structure around on a Raven and then mount a Gauss rifle on it. Why does the fluff depict a mech being BUILT around a weapon? Because according to the rules you don't easily customize mechs and to do something like the Hollander it would be better to BUILD it that way in a factory.

That has nothing to do with whether or not a mech CAN carry a weapon.
You tech costs and fees are already accounted for in your earnings here in MWO. There's no techs, tech fees, etc. It follows the exact same build rules (in this particular regard anyhow) as any other iteration of Btech, MW, etc.

According to the rules you don't easily do ANYthing to a mech. You don't easily replace a medium laser and a medium pulse laser for that matter. Again, that has nothing to do with disallowing a weapon on a mech just because of it's fluff size. Urbanmechs don't have anything spectacular in their fluff appearance to account for an AC20 loadout, they simply move insanely slow.

If you really want me to I can provide you with official fluff art straight out of TROs that show MANY small(er) mechs carrying heavy payloads without anything even remotely like you see with the Hollander. It's fluff. It doesn't affect the build rules. It's a piece of art that looked "cool" and the creators liked.

[Tincan Nightmare]

Quxudica, on 14 November 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

If weapons and equipment had actual size requirements. I don't mean critical slots, but actual set dimensions. What if an SRM six was to big to fit in a Raven, an LRM20 to large to drop in a Stormcrow or a Gauss Rifle to big to fit in a K2? What if a PPC cannon, that is the size of a Spiders torso on a K2, couldn't just be dropped into a Spiders energy arm?

What if you weren't able to jam any weapon into any chassis that had enough vaguely defined "critical slots"? How would the game play If the heaviest weapons could only be carried by the heaviest chassis, or special lighter chassis designed specifically to hoist and support a vastly over sized gun?

What would the game be like if weapons didn't exist in a vacuum? If slotting a large laser into a chassis only worked if that chassis had the power infrastructure to support such weapon? Or slotting an AC20 only worked if the ballistic slot had the mechanics to accommodate it?

How would the game play if ammunition had to be placed in logical locations, and you couldn't magically pull AC20 shells from your left foot to a gun mounted in your right arm? or siphon high explosive missiles from under your pilots seat?

Scifi isn't reality and video games don't need to be realistic, but would the game be improved if it swayed further toward the sim side of things?

I enjoy the customization aspect of the game. But sometimes limitations are good things.

I don't know if it's lore accurate, I don't know if it would actually be better. But part of me would be rather interested in playing the game this way.

So limit the larger more powerful weapons to the larger mechs, as they would be the only ones with the ability to carry them? How does that help variety, as it would simply increase the amount of assaults already seen on the field as people love their firepower. All the weapons have a set weight and slots (which represents how much 'space' it requires), those are its real dimensions. Constructing a mech has always been a balancing act of various stats of speed, armor, and weapons, only limited by how much weight and space you had. As it stands, the 'heaviest' weapons can normally only be mounted by the heaviest mechs, like the AC20 or gauss, due to weight. Any light trying to carry one has to sacrifice a lot, which is why the AC20 Raven is more of a joke build people run just for fun.

And for all the people upset by dual gauss cats, blame PGI for giving it ballistic quirks instead of PPC quirks. Maybe some good PPC quirks would have seen more K2's running with a stock build instead of the ballistic centric ones.

[Tezcatli]

The number of slots a weapon has is supposed to be a generic approximation of what a mech is able to accommodate. But for simplicity sake the table top has it so every mech has the exact same number of slots barring modification or differing actuators. So it's not like they exist in a vacuum. It's just not realistically represented in the mechlab. Certainly 1 slot from a Locust shouldn't be equal to that of an Atlas. But it is.

[Mercules]

Sandpit, on 15 November 2014 - 03:22 PM, said:

That has nothing to do with whether or not a mech CAN carry a weapon.
You tech costs and fees are already accounted for in your earnings here in MWO. There's no techs, tech fees, etc. It follows the exact same build rules (in this particular regard anyhow) as any other iteration of Btech, MW, etc.

According to the rules you don't easily do ANYthing to a mech. You don't easily replace a medium laser and a medium pulse laser for that matter. Again, that has nothing to do with disallowing a weapon on a mech just because of it's fluff size. Urbanmechs don't have anything spectacular in their fluff appearance to account for an AC20 loadout, they simply move insanely slow.

If you really want me to I can provide you with official fluff art straight out of TROs that show MANY small(er) mechs carrying heavy payloads without anything even remotely like you see with the Hollander. It's fluff. It doesn't affect the build rules. It's a piece of art that looked "cool" and the creators liked.

Look, the guy said he wasn't sure limiting what a mech could take based on it's chassis design was "lore" friendly or not. I said yes and pointed at the Hollander which is, as you pointed out, very LORE friendly. So what exactly are you arguing with me about?

[Sandpit]

Tezcatli, on 15 November 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

The number of slots a weapon has is supposed to be a generic approximation of what a mech is able to accommodate. But for simplicity sake the table top has it so every mech has the exact same number of slots barring modification or differing actuators. So it's not like they exist in a vacuum. It's just not realistically represented in the mechlab. Certainly 1 slot from a Locust shouldn't be equal to that of an Atlas. But it is.

you're forgetting
actuators
tonnage

yes, one slot on a locust is just as available as 1 slot on an atlas. crit slot spaces are not designated by any size. you either have the open slots or you don't. Just because you have 10 slots doesn't mean you have tonnage. Try sticking an AC20 on a locust in MWO, then come back and tell me how that works. It's a combination of tonnage and slots. You don't consider one without the other. You can't.

[Mercules]

Tezcatli, on 15 November 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

The number of slots a weapon has is supposed to be a generic approximation of what a mech is able to accommodate. But for simplicity sake the table top has it so every mech has the exact same number of slots barring modification or differing actuators. So it's not like they exist in a vacuum. It's just not realistically represented in the mechlab. Certainly 1 slot from a Locust shouldn't be equal to that of an Atlas. But it is.

Actually there are option rules that limit the amount of critical slots Lights and Mediums carry in each section. No one uses them.... but they do exist.

[Sandpit]

Mercules, on 15 November 2014 - 03:33 PM, said:

Look, the guy said he wasn't sure limiting what a mech could take based on it's chassis design was "lore" friendly or not. I said yes and pointed at the Hollander which is, as you pointed out, very LORE friendly. So what exactly are you arguing with me about?

I'm not arguing with you (or anyone actually), I'm pointing out that limiting weapons as the OP suggested is incorrect and showing how tonnage and crit space works in tandem. You don't have one without the other and weight is considered in the equation as is crit slots. Having 10 slots doesn't mean having tonnage for a weapon, but if the tonnage is open then the mech should be allowed to use it.

I have no desire to see stuff like OP's suggestion implemented in the game so I'm giving the reasons as to why it isn't, hasn't and (in my opinion) shouldn't be implemented.

[Mercules]

Sandpit, on 15 November 2014 - 03:36 PM, said:

I'm not arguing with you (or anyone actually), I'm pointing out that limiting weapons as the OP suggested is incorrect and showing how tonnage and crit space works in tandem. You don't have one without the other and weight is considered in the equation as is crit slots. Having 10 slots doesn't mean having tonnage for a weapon, but if the tonnage is open then the mech should be allowed to use it.

I have no desire to see stuff like OP's suggestion implemented in the game so I'm giving the reasons as to why it isn't, hasn't and (in my opinion) shouldn't be implemented.

See, and I didn't start agreeing with him on his limitations, I singled out one part of his post and commented on that. Yes, limiting weapons by chassis size is somewhat LORE friendly which the Hollander shows in a very exaggerated manner. The "hunch" on a Hunchback is another LORE thing showing what it takes to mount an AC/20 on the smaller torso of a Medium mech. Thus why it has a lopsided hunch.

The rules obviously don't prevent you from making a light mech that goes 1/2 and carries a huge weapon payload but the lore based drawing/sculpt of it shouldn't show something as leggy and willowy like a locust/jenner. In fact look at the Urban mech, Squat and well braced design and it only carries an AC/10 stock not an AC/20.


Sadly the LORE based designs have a rules impact in MWO in that they determine hitboxes and size of targets making them easier or harder to kill.

I think they can do enough with Quirks to encourage what weapons you drop into a mech without having to go to the extreme the OP listed.

[Fut]

Quxudica, on 14 November 2014 - 06:05 PM, said:

What would the game be like if weapons didn't exist in a vacuum? If slotting a large laser into a chassis only worked if that chassis had the power infrastructure to support such weapon? Or slotting an AC20 only worked if the ballistic slot had the mechanics to accommodate it?

Mercules, on 15 November 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

The "hunch" on a Hunchback is another LORE thing showing what it takes to mount an AC/20 on the smaller torso of a Medium mech. Thus why it has a lopsided hunch.

It has always bothered me that the HBK-4G has an oversized (extremely easy to hit) RT in order to support the 'massive' AC20 in the small frame of a Medium... yet other similarly sized or smaller Mechs can cram AC20s in and PGI makes the cannon shrink in order to fit within the chassis.

Forget who made it, but there's an amazing thread kicking around that actually compares the sizes of a weapon when installed on various chassis. It's ridiculous how much the PPC morphs to accommodate some builds.

Edited by Fut, 15 November 2014 - 03:53 PM.

[Sjorpha]

I DON'T want sized hardpoints, weight limits + crit slots eaten by ferro already makes the biggest weapons a rare sight on lighter mechs. And for the few viable builds that use them, like the gauss cicada or PPC spider, I have absolutely no problem with their existance.

I DO want "realistic" scaling. So putting a big weapon on a small mech it should actually look like a BIG weapon. I'm not sure sizes should be exactly the same on all mechs put things like the way a PPC spider (doesn't) look is just ridiculous.

I also think that it's boring how all the lasers look exactly the same. I'd like a less "strapped on" and more "built in" look as well, I don't like the lego brick type of design you see with lasers etc.

[Sandpit]

Mercules, on 15 November 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

Sadly the LORE based designs have a rules impact in MWO in that they determine hitboxes and size of targets making them easier or harder to kill.

That was just poor implementation in my opinion. I forget who, but someone posted some REALLY good hitbox adjustments on just about every mech out there that would have made some of the less used mechs much more desirable. It simply increased sizes for torsos, ars, legs, etc. that helped spread damage out on mechs like the Awesome.

I agree, quirks are an interesting idea that PGI could use to make some huge changes in how "adequate" a mech can be. I'm hopeful on the quirk system, but as with everything else here it will come down to implementation.

[Tezcatli]

Sandpit, on 15 November 2014 - 03:34 PM, said:

you're forgetting
actuators
tonnage

yes, one slot on a locust is just as available as 1 slot on an atlas. crit slot spaces are not designated by any size. you either have the open slots or you don't. Just because you have 10 slots doesn't mean you have tonnage. Try sticking an AC20 on a locust in MWO, then come back and tell me how that works. It's a combination of tonnage and slots. You don't consider one without the other. You can't.

The original post was not about tonnage. It was purely looking at the weapon sizes as a way of restricting larger weapons on certain mechs. So I was trying to convey that while unrealistic, the slot system is practical and simple in a way that doesn't make the game convoluted or super restrictive.

[RazorbeastFXK3]

Kind of like how this body is carrying weaponry that's normally mounted on vehicles and turrets? http://img831.images...88308301596.jpg

Tezcatli, on 15 November 2014 - 04:20 PM, said:

The original post was not about tonnage. It was purely looking at the weapon sizes as a way of restricting larger weapons on certain mechs. So I was trying to convey that while unrealistic, the slot system is practical and simple in a way that doesn't make the game convoluted or super restrictive.

[Gwendolyn Myra]

I loved the particular mechs the OP chose to complain about because of a few stock configurations. Note some aren't in game but some are or could be.

Stormcrow and LRM 20s - Both the A and D configs run lrm20 stock
Raven and SRM 6 - 3L, 4L, and 3M all come stock with SRM 6
Spider PPC - no timeline appropriate varients do this, some later ones have snub nosed or light ppcs
Jagers with dual ac/20s or gauss - Well now here you have me, no variants in game come stock and none have ac/20s stock, but there was a dual gauss field refit version the DG
Catapult K2 and gauss - yeah this one wouldn't fit those normally, and no other variants would either

So there are some possibly valid complaints about why this stuff shouldn't fit some mechs, but choosing the stormcrow and raven to pick on aren't very good examples.

[ollo]

R Razor, on 15 November 2014 - 02:25 PM, said:

So, in your considered opinion, having 4 or 5 different mechs used consistently constitutes variety. Ok, got it.

So, in your considered opinion, further reducing customization options leads to more variety. Ok, got it.

[R Razor]

ollo, on 15 November 2014 - 04:56 PM, said:

So, in your considered opinion, further reducing customization options leads to more variety. Ok, got it.

Common sense says there would be more mechs..............that's an opinion that may or may not be validated if the OP's thoughts were actually implemented.

Having 4 or 5 mechs in use consistently IN THE GAME NOW is a fact, and by most reasonable standards, 4 or 5 mechs do not a variety make............sorry if that's not something you can wrap your intellect around and digest.