9 replies to this topic

[AdrenaHawk]

Since MWO's inception, the Mech building meta has always been to cram as much firepower into a mech as possible. Although there has been some discussion regarding additional armor types in the past, it never really went anywhere. With the recent speculation about moving the timeline forward, I think it's time to not only revisit the idea of making armor options a viable alternative to increased firepower, but also to look at alternate forms in which it can be implemented.

There are two options from Battletech that I think can easily be re-worked to fit into MWO that would give players more options to make their Mechs hardier, while also having enough drawbacks to prevent making them a 'must have' part of the customization process. The first concept is that of Armored Components, a method of increasing the toughness of the equipment mounted on mechs. In Battletech, it provides critical hit protection at the cost of increased weight. Each individual component can be armored at the player's whim, but I think in MWO it would be more suited to providing flat HP buffs to Mechs and their components. I've worked on two concepts I think would be easy to implement in game, would provide valuable benefits to pilots, and would also add some depth to the Mechlab.

1. Armored Internals. When enabled, the Mech recieves an extra 10% of it's max tonnage as base weight but in return would recieve an extra 100% internal structure health. As an example, a completely unequipped Atlas with standard structure would go from 10 tons to 20 tons, but it's Center torso would have 124 points of internal health, up from 62. All other locations, except the head, would recieve similar increases in health. The weight applied to the base is not affected by Endo-Steel, and is applied after the adjustment. An Atlas with Endo-Steel and Armored Internals would have a 15 ton base weight, as the Endo-Steel reduces the internal structure weight to 5 tons, then the armor increases it by an additional 10 tons. This could be applied with a tickbox ala Endo-Steel and FerroFibrous Armor.

I feel this implementation could give any mech a sizable durability boost, at the cost of reduced available weight for other equipment, without changing how armor is applied. This would essentially give roughly a 25% durability increase for any mech, at a cost of 10% of it's tonnage. This might sound like too much an increase for too small a sacrifice, but considering that critical hits are still a factor, I think it sounds reasonable.

2. Armored Equipment. An alternate, or even additional, implementation to the first is to give every player placed component aside from CASE, ammo bins, and armor/structure slots a boost in their own HP to protect them from critical hits. Since I've heard PGI doesn't want to add duplicates of existing items due to programming concerns, I see this implementaion working akin to the Artemis upgrade for missiles, but encompassing all pieces of equipment. With Armored Equipment enabled via tickbox, all applicable pieces of equipment (weapons, heatsinks, jumpjets, engines, etc, but not CASE, ammo, or endo/ferro) recieve double their normal internal health (heatsinks that can withstand 20 points of damage opposed to 10), at the cost of a weight increase of 1 ton per item.

At first glance, this upgrade seems lackluster, but I feel it could be used to bolster the practice of crit-padding by making components more resistant to destruction and thus protecting the internal health of the Mech. The Battletech rules state that each item recieves a weight increase of 0.5 tons per crit slot used, but I feel that with the blanket option I've proposed a flat 1 ton increase that affects all items equally offers a good compromise.

The Battletech rules for Armored Components point out that it "must be integrated into the manufacturing process" and thus Omnimechs are not able to mount Armored Components as a pod system. This means that the Armored Internals upgrade would be locked and disabled from existing Omnimech variants, but would be available to all Battlemechs, Inner Sphere or Clan (IIC). Armored Equipment, however, would be available to all Mechs, Battle and Omni alike.

Another smaller option that could be adopted by MWO comes in the form of Modular Armor. It's a fairly simple piece of equipment, a 1 ton, 1 crit slot item that can be placed on any part of a Mech to give that part an additional 10 points of armor, with the caveat that only one instance of Modular Armor can be mounted per location of a Mech. Additionally, Modular Armor pieces affect the movement speed of a Mech, slowing it down until all points of Modular armor are destroyed. I feel like this could be easily worked into MWO as extra considerations for pilots with either an armor focused loadout in mind, or a few extra tons leftover they want to fill.

The easiest implementation is to make this a new piece of equipment that can be drag and dropped into a critical slot and will provide the intended 10 point armor bonus at the cost of 1 ton and 1 crit slot. An additional item could be created that would allow the pilot the option of placing the 10 points of armor on the front or rear of a torso. I feel it wouldn't be out of the question to remove the "one unit per location" restriction, allowing certain mechs to "over-armor" important components. Ten points of armor per ton is small enough (especially with MWO's half weight armor) that it would be prohibitive to mount in excess on most Mechs. This high weight to armor ratio also prevents the need for a speed reduction, though if necessary, a small 5% top speed decrease quirk could be applied.



So, yes, I think having an option for players to sacrifice firepower for survivability is an important option to have. Not everyone will use it, but I think it could change up combat in MWO for the better for some players to occasionally surprise you that they ARE STILL Up!

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Certainly interesting possibilities.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Yeah... PGI isn't gonna skip Operation Bulldog and Operation Serpent. Plus I'd wager they're gonna redo the invasion come steam release.

[TheArisen]

I think these, plus others a little farther out in the timeline, would be great additions to the current firepower centered gameplay.

[Kiiyor]

HARDENED ARMOUR!

[Water Bear]

tl; dr.

I don't like the idea of laser reflec armor type ideas because it furthers the style of gameplay where a build does OP well or laughably poorly. Hardened armor maybe, but I can't recall exactly how it works.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

reflect armor, do it. and we can send those laserboats, where it belongs. to the jankyard.

[TheArisen]

More good points, if we could choose between different types of armor and increase the armor on certain mech parts, I'd bet some mechs that aren't XL friendly could become such and maybe the Atlas, for example, wouldn't lose it's ballistic so quickly.

[Andi Nagasia]

id love some of these to make it in game,

[TheArisen]

Andi Nagasia, on 17 July 2015 - 06:02 PM, said:

id love some of these to make it in game,

Seriously, wtb more customization!