7 replies to this topic

[mooneyboys]

HI there! I'm new to the whole MegaMek thing although i do know how the game and some of the other mechanics work. But I have some questions I hope you guys can solve for me.

I learned how to Port forward and got to play using LAN on different computers. If I wanted to bring friends in the same server, Do I give them the IP address that worked for using LAN or do i need a different IP address? (i would like this one answered first please)

I absolutely adore the Arrow IV artillery missile system. The problem is, i can't make the stupid thing work. When i do make it work, I love the stupid insane amounts of splash damage it does. I looked it up, and the Arrow IV weapon system is treated as a artillery attack. What does that mean? And why can't I fire the stupid thing via direct line of fire if the target is less than 6 tiles away? Is there a way to get around this? Because trying to hit things from 7-8 (9 if i turned on that extreme range thingy) isn't very fun. Or accurate.

Along that line of thinking, the only way i got the Arrow IV to work consistently is if i load it with the indirect fire ammunition and have someone tag for it. The question here is, why does it do no damage if it misses (Be it i couldn't tag something or the roll.....missed) I thought it did splash damage?

In another train of thought, in MegaMekLab, how do you give your mek appearances? For example I made a K2 catapult variant with 4 LPL instead of the PPC,ML,MG combo. I have it made already and it works as intended; for brawling. But it has a catapult C1 skin. How do i give it a K2 skin?

Well this is all I have so far. I'll post more when I think of them as time comes by. Thank you in advance!

[TheSilken]

The MegaMek forums should have all the answers to your questions and more. They would prove to be very useful for you.

[Koniving]

mooneyboys, on 14 December 2014 - 05:14 PM, said:

HI there! I'm new to the whole MegaMek thing although i do know how the game and some of the other mechanics work. But I have some questions I hope you guys can solve for me.

Mkay, happy to help.

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I learned how to Port forward and got to play using LAN on different computers. If I wanted to bring friends in the same server, Do I give them the IP address that worked for using LAN or do i need a different IP address? (i would like this one answered first please)

Your IP plus the port number.

Quote

I absolutely adore the Arrow IV artillery missile system. The problem is, i can't make the stupid thing work. When i do make it work, I love the stupid insane amounts of splash damage it does. I looked it up, and the Arrow IV weapon system is treated as a artillery attack. What does that mean? And why can't I fire the stupid thing via direct line of fire if the target is less than 6 tiles away? Is there a way to get around this? Because trying to hit things from 7-8 (9 if i turned on that extreme range thingy) isn't very fun. Or accurate.

Arrow IV attacks anything marked by a TAG, equipped by a different mech.

You need a scout using a TAG laser. Said mech needs to target said enemy.
Now fire away and watch things die.

Your Arrow IV unit does NOT need line of sight.
Also, Arrow IV can fire up to 9 MAPS away... O.o; Just food for thought.

Basically you could stand in Forest Colony, fire... it'll climb to the sky over River City, fly high over Crimson Strait, go over Alpine, Frozen City, over Terra Therma without issue, begin tilting down at Caustic Valley, fly over both Boreal and Sulfurous Rifts and land in Mech Factory.

The largest Megamek maps pre-built are 80 hexes long. That's 2,400 meters, so roughly the size of some of the medium-big maps of MWO. So roughly across 9 MWO maps is how far away you can fire the Arrow IV.

Or for a rougher idea... take a look at this map from the game DayZ.
http://www.dayzdb.co...narus#2.061.090
Going from the bottom left corner of the landmass to the top right corner of the land mass took me 3 hours going in a straight line with all buildings and forestry removed from the map, and deliberate course adjustments to avoid the 'walking' up hills.
The map itself is 225 sq km, which is many times farther.

You can zoom in with the mouse wheel and move the map with left click. Start at the harbor of Elektrozavodsk. Zoom in all the way. Now follow the yellow dots North. It takes about 10 minutes to sprint to Topolka Dam. But don't stop. When the dots fork follow the ones on the left. Staroye is about 40 minutes from Elektro. Keep going. Shakhova is another good 10 to 15 minutes away from Staroye. Black Forest... we're now looking at over an hour and 10 minutes from Electro on a straight path. Now slam that missile into Gorka... and remember you still could have hit something even farther away.

But you're concerned because you're having trouble hitting something less than 180 meters away with a missile fired directly into the sky?

This is what you're effectively using.

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Along that line of thinking, the only way i got the Arrow IV to work consistently is if i load it with the indirect fire ammunition and have someone tag for it. The question here is, why does it do no damage if it misses (Be it i couldn't tag something or the roll.....missed) I thought it did splash damage?

I'd have to see what it says. When a missile misses, however, it flies past the target and hits a different hex, doing splash in THAT area. It should also start fires and the like.

Quite frankly if you're trying to hit something only 180 meters away, chances are it was still going skyward, in which case it'll land in another map. For another comparison you're trying to hit your neighbor's house with a cruise missile fired at a ballistic angle akin to a Howitzer. You're overshooting your target and chances are it'll be landing miles away.

For another comparison, try hitting a tank 5 feet away with this.

While firing at this angle.

It doesn't...really work.

Here's a Megamek example: Follow the lines from the tank.

Aside from the ones aimed at the Atlas... all are LRM-5 lines. Going from bottom target to top.. Hit, hit, hit, (skip the Atlas), and miss. Why did the top one miss? Many of the others are in the minimum accuracy range but it was overcome by gunnery skill. Except the last one. This is because the LRMs had to both do a sharp 80+ degree angle immediately after launch in order to not overshoot the target, where it then had to tilt downward to avoid going over the target... and it simply could not be done.

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In another train of thought, in MegaMekLab, how do you give your mek appearances? For example I made a K2 catapult variant with 4 LPL instead of the PPC,ML,MG combo. I have it made already and it works as intended; for brawling. But it has a catapult C1 skin. How do i give it a K2 skin?

Open your custom K2 variant's "MTF" file in Megamek/Data/Mech with notepad.
Open the folder Megamek/Data/Images/Units/Mechs/ and find the CatapultK2 icon, use its EXACT name and capitalization in place of "CatapultC1.gif"
Note they do not follow a strict naming code so it could be lower case, it could be CaTaPULTk2.gif, so get the exact spelling and capitalization.
Save as type 'Any' with the same name.

It now has a K2 graphic.

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Well this is all I have so far. I'll post more when I think of them as time comes by. Thank you in advance!

You're welcome.

Also check out this thread. http://mwomercs.com/...ts-of-tabletop/

Edited by Koniving, 14 December 2014 - 07:14 PM.

[mooneyboys]

Koniving, on 14 December 2014 - 06:57 PM, said:

Arrow IV attacks anything marked by a TAG, equipped by a different mech.

You need a scout using a TAG laser. Said mech needs to target said enemy.
Now fire away and watch things die.

Your Arrow IV unit does NOT need line of sight.
Also, Arrow IV can fire up to 9 MAPS away... O.o; Just food for thought.

Basically you could stand in Forest Colony, fire... it'll climb to the sky over River City, fly high over Crimson Strait, go over Alpine, Frozen City, over Terra Therma without issue, begin tilting down at Caustic Valley, fly over both Boreal and Sulfurous Rifts and land in Mech Factory.

The largest Megamek maps pre-built are 80 hexes long. That's 2,400 meters, so roughly the size of some of the medium-big maps of MWO. So roughly across 9 MWO maps is how far away you can fire the Arrow IV.

Or for a rougher idea... take a look at this map from the game DayZ.
http://www.dayzdb.co...narus#2.061.090
Going from the bottom left corner of the landmass to the top right corner of the land mass took me 3 hours going in a straight line with all buildings and forestry removed from the map, and deliberate course adjustments to avoid the 'walking' up hills.
The map itself is 225 sq km, which is many times farther.

You can zoom in with the mouse wheel and move the map with left click. Start at the harbor of Elektrozavodsk. Zoom in all the way. Now follow the yellow dots North. It takes about 10 minutes to sprint to Topolka Dam. But don't stop. When the dots fork follow the ones on the left. Staroye is about 40 minutes from Elektro. Keep going. Shakhova is another good 10 to 15 minutes away from Staroye. Black Forest... we're now looking at over an hour and 10 minutes from Electro on a straight path. Now slam that missile into Gorka... and remember you still could have hit something even farther away.

But you're concerned because you're having trouble hitting something less than 180 meters away with a missile fired directly into the sky?

This is what you're effectively using.




I'd have to see what it says. When a missile misses, however, it flies past the target and hits a different hex, doing splash in THAT area. It should also start fires and the like.

Really? Then why does it only give me 8 tiles to work with (this is the IS version, not the clan one. Not that it matters i think). Is it something I'm doing thats the problem?

And I'm sorry! The testbot just blindly charges my units! then its in range and I can't do anything with it

EDIT: Also you said the tag has to be on a different mek. So by that logic of reasoning, I can't just custom make a 100 ton mek with 2 or 3 Arrow IV and put a tag on it and have it being self sufficient?

Edited by mooneyboys, 14 December 2014 - 07:17 PM.

[timaeus]

Battletech standard map sheets are 15x17 -plus a half hex on each side for tiling- hexes(@1.25in across) in dimensions. When range is given in maps that's the size that is being given to calculate from (or should be.) So the large 80 hex length maps in megamek would be not quite 5 maps per the rules.

Ok wow thinking about it megamek can run some really big areas.

I don't have a total warfare book in front of me to go over the rules in depth, but having done a quick match with some arrow iv units it looks like you want to make sure you're carrying some homing ammo as that looks like it can be fired on the same map as your target. Regular ammo needs to be fired from a different map in the indirect attack phase.

[BarHaid]

NECRO THREAD ARISE!!
So I just recently got back into Megamek to do some theory crafting. I immediately ran into the issue that you can not use non-standard engine sizes. Is there a hidden advanced setting that will allow this? I want to print out some frankenmech technical readouts with a “properly” off-sized engine listed.

[Rondoe]

How did you get Megamek to work?

I Dl'd it, installed the java plugin, updated it a few times. Got Megamek to work one time. Now all I get are errors telling me my java runtime is wrong, needs to be updated and a bunch of other bleh! lol

Tried on a few different browsers as well. No joy!

[BarHaid]

well, I haven't done ay more than load up the Megamek Lab, but it starts just fine. Haven't actually started a game yet.