27 replies to this topic

[Hive Rat]

I have a question about ‘mech hardpoints in MWO.

Does, for example, a ballistics hardpoint correspond with a single weapon system (be it MG or AC-20), or can you put multiple weapon systems on a hard point provided they are the same type?

Reason I ask is because on the TT game I prefer grouping LRM5’s instead of installing a larger missile system. Will this be possible in MWO?

Thanks!

Edited by Hive Rat, 28 June 2012 - 06:11 PM.

[Joseph Mallan]

One system equals one hard point. The system take the normal # of crits from TT. So a side torso with 4 laser HPs could hold 4 PPCs (4 PHs and 12 Crits total), but nothing else.

[Hive Rat]

Got it, thanks for the info.

[AlphaKale]

Hive Rat, on 28 June 2012 - 06:20 PM, said:

Got it, thanks for the info.

Apparently there will be more hardpoints available than shown for most mechs. For instance a hunchback might have several ballistics hardpoints in its right torso, but only one is taken up by the AC20. If you take out the AC20 you could pop a couple AC5s in its place as multiple hardpoints will have been provisioned in. Basically the devs wanted a way to let you replace one big weapon with maybe a couple smaller ones of the same general type, but also limit 'boating' where people jam 12 medium lasers into one mech, etc.
I'm speculating a bit on this based on earlier mechlab reports, so if anyone has better/confirmed info please correct me.

Edited by AlphaKale, 28 June 2012 - 09:37 PM.

[Hellgardia]

It should be possible to replace an AC20 with 2 or 3 AC5s but like AlphaKale said, i hope we don't get those 20 medium laser boats which basically rain inferno on everyone.

[Phasics]

Call me crazy but I think I saw on that mechlab vid the hunchback had 3 energy HP in both arms, and if the 6 laser varient that replaces the AC20 with 6ML has 6 energy HP in the torso then there's your 12ML

However the varient might just be 6ML HP total

It'll be what it is and people will find what can and can't be abused

[Elizander]

Phasics, on 28 June 2012 - 11:40 PM, said:

Call me crazy but I think I saw on that mechlab vid the hunchback had 3 energy HP in both arms, and if the 6 laser varient that replaces the AC20 with 6ML has 6 energy HP in the torso then there's your 12ML

However the varient might just be 6ML HP total

It'll be what it is and people will find what can and can't be abused

I'm not sure if there is an overall total limit on HP. From what I understand (now) is that each mech location is allocated a certain number of Energy/Ballistic/Missile hard points and you can fill that up as long as you can meet the critical / weight requirements for the weapons you want to put in.

Heat from 12 ML isn't that hard to deal with when using DHS from the TT but it depends on the way they implement the heat system in MWO. For example, in an older game of MW (not sure if it was MW3) I got a 100 ton mech with 6 LRM20s and technically enough heat sinks to handle it. The moment I pressed the Alpha Strike button the mech immediately exploded from heat without firing a single shot.

[Toldor]

AlphaKale, on 28 June 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

Apparently there will be more hardpoints available than shown for most mechs. For instance a hunchback might have several ballistics hardpoints in its right torso, but only one is taken up by the AC20. If you take out the AC20 you could pop a couple AC5s in its place as multiple hardpoints will have been provisioned in. Basically the devs wanted a way to let you replace one big weapon with maybe a couple smaller ones of the same general type, but also limit 'boating' where people jam 12 medium lasers into one mech, etc.
I'm speculating a bit on this based on earlier mechlab reports, so if anyone has better/confirmed info please correct me.

What is see is, that they basically use the normal TT rules to construct your mech. And sure, you can put in your mech 12 medium lasers, but you also have to think about heatsinks. it will be not useful to have your mech shutdown after firing first time. and the more weapons and heatsinks you put inside, the less armor you will have. so you have a mech with a lot big guns inside, but your armor is a piece of paper. i dont think this will be much fun. not only for you, but also for your teammates and opponents.

[Toldor]

Aniquilator6, on 28 June 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

It should be possible to replace an AC20 with 2 or 3 AC5s but like AlphaKale said, i hope we don't get those 20 medium laser boats which basically rain inferno on everyone.

Like i said before, you can put in 20 medium lasers for sure, but then you will have a very unbalanced machine. There is a reason, why there are some useful configurations inside the technical readouts. And there is a reason, why there are not so much configurations with 20 medium lasers.

[-Mobius-]

wait... I wasn't aware of this. If I understand what's been post previously, each mech has designated hard-points dictating what type of weapon can go in that location? So I couldn't take an Uziel and replace the two ERPPC's with two LBX5's? (Not that I would, just an example) Simply because I would switching Laser weapons with Ballistics weapons? I hope it's not limited like this. That was one of the changes I hated going into Mechwarrior 4. In the orginal table-top Battletech, when designing a mech of your own, you could design it however you wanted provided you didn't exceed that tonnage or critical spaces available on that location. I think that would seriously limit design imagination. Yes, you could do a mech with 16 ML's... but you would have so many heat issues it's not funny, plus a light or med mech with speed could simple pick away at you at from father out than the 300m (or 400m with ER-ML's). *sigh* Please don't limit us.

[AlphaKale]

MobiousOne, on 29 June 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

wait... I wasn't aware of this. If I understand what's been post previously, each mech has designated hard-points dictating what type of weapon can go in that location? So I couldn't take an Uziel and replace the two ERPPC's with two LBX5's? (Not that I would, just an example) Simply because I would switching Laser weapons with Ballistics weapons?

You are correct. As Toldor says, the mechs will be built with the standard TT rules, HOWEVER, PGI is adding the additional limitation of hardpoints. Each mech chassis will have a fixed number of hardpoints for a specific weapon type. I.e. if you buy a standard Catapult, you will have (for instance) four hardpoints for missiles, and four hard points for energy weapons. You can pop the LRMS and lasers out and go ahead and put two PPCs in there because the 'energy' hardpoints the lasers previously occupied can be filled by the PPCs. Since the Catapult has no Ballistic hard points at all though you couldn't add any autocannons. You also couldn't stuff 12 medium lasers in the thing because you only have energy hardpoints for four weapons total. Note that it doesn't matter how big or heavy the weapons are (up to the weight limit of your mech); if you run out of hard points of a given type you can't put any more weapons of that type onto the mech.

MobiousOne, on 29 June 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

I hope it's not limited like this. That was one of the changes I hated going into Mechwarrior 4. In the orginal table-top Battletech, when designing a mech of your own, you could design it however you wanted provided you didn't exceed that tonnage or critical spaces available on that location. I think that would seriously limit design imagination. Yes, you could do a mech with 16 ML's... but you would have so many heat issues it's not funny, plus a light or med mech with speed could simple pick away at you at from father out than the 300m (or 400m with ER-ML's). *sigh* Please don't limit us.

What they are going for is to encourage people to get chassis that have a loadout similar to what you want and tweak it. That way you won't have laser beams shooting out of the LRM bays on a Catapult, or missiles flying out of the autocannon on the shoulder of a hunchback. Note that each mech chassis will have multiple variants, with different starting loadouts with different hardpoints. For instance there's that PPC version of the catapult, which will probably have only energy hardpoints; but it will probably have a lot of them so you can go ahead and shove say 6 medium lasers or so on that version if you really wanted to because it would have the hardpoints. Just try to find a mech chassis and variant that is closest to what you want to do.

[MuffinTop]

Hive Rat, on 28 June 2012 - 06:10 PM, said:

I have a question about ‘mech hardpoints in MWO.

Does, for example, a ballistics hardpoint correspond with a single weapon system (be it MG or AC-20), or can you put multiple weapon systems on a hard point provided they are the same type?

Reason I ask is because on the TT game I prefer grouping LRM5’s instead of installing a larger missile system. Will this be possible in MWO?

Thanks!

Look at THIS straight from the Devblog about mechlab and hardpoints.

Edited by MuffinTop, 04 July 2012 - 01:57 AM.

[HANGMAN1962]

uhm for the cat is 3/3 energy hardpionts and 3/3 missile hardpiont soo you could run 6 med lasers and 6 srm6's
personaly i'm thinking 2 ppcs and 6 streak2's for short range combat lols

[NeonKnight]

What would be sweet is for HP, saying OK, Hunch as an AC 20, so this a Ballistics HP, but could also be a missile HP (Do we know yet if it's 1:1??)

so could take out the AC20 and replace with an AC10 and a LRM 5 for example? I would hate if I am limited to to HPs that limit me to only missles and nothing else.

I mean if it IS a 1:1 ratio, then we won;t have Laser Boats as a Hunchies Right Side is say 1 Ballistic And/or 1 Missle.

[Glythe]

Toldor, on 29 June 2012 - 01:00 AM, said:

you can put in your mech 12 medium lasers, but you also have to think about heatsinks. it will be not useful to have your mech shutdown after firing first time. and the more weapons and heatsinks you put inside, the less armor you will have. so you have a mech with a lot big guns inside, but your armor is a piece of paper.

The hardpoint system prevents boating. Now there is a laser hunchback who has 8 medium lasers but I don't think you can fit any more than that. You can still kinda alpha strike but lasers in this game require 2 seconds of contact for full damage. After firing 2-3 volleys you are going to be in trouble as you will probably overheat if you fire again.

NeonKnight, on 04 July 2012 - 03:00 AM, said:

so could take out the AC20 and replace with an AC10 and a LRM 5 for example? I would hate if I am limited to to HPs that limit me to only missles and nothing else.

You have to buy the mech with the right hard points. The 4G hunchback has 3 ballistic HP in its right torso and 0 missile HP. You can't trade ballistic HP for missile HP or energy HP. I don't think the 4G has any missile hard points. You might in theory have some missile HP in your center torso but each arm of the 4G has 3 energy HP.

Edited by Glythe, 04 July 2012 - 03:43 AM.

[Feindfeuer]

If you take a look at the Mechbay video, you can see that some weapons take up more than one hardpoint. For example, both the AC/20 and the AC/5 take up 2 ballistic hardpoints in the mechbay video when he equips/unequips them on his Hunchback, leaving only the machinegun and AC/2 as viable selections as they seem to take up only one hardpoint.

source:

[Elizander]

Feindfeuer, on 04 July 2012 - 03:55 AM, said:

If you take a look at the Mechbay video, you can see that some weapons take up more than one hardpoint. For example, both the AC/20 and the AC/5 take up 2 ballistic hardpoints in the mechbay video when he equips/unequips them on his Hunchback, leaving only the machinegun and AC/2 as viable selections as they seem to take up only one hardpoint.

source:

Actually I believe it is the reverse. What you see there as 2/3 is for the available hard points and not spent hard points. You see that it has one AC/20 and that the hard points say 2/3 then when he removes the AC/20 it becomes 3/3 which means the AC/20 only took up 1 hard point.

Someone correct me if I am wrong on this. I also had the same notion until I looked at the video again.

[Feindfeuer]

Yes, after rewatching it i have to correct myself. It is indeed that way. So each gun only takes up one hardpoint but the other guns dont fit cause of other limitations (critslots/weight/etc)

[Fooooo]

Feindfeuer, on 04 July 2012 - 04:14 AM, said:

Yes, after rewatching it i have to correct myself. It is indeed that way. So each gun only takes up one hardpoint but the other guns dont fit cause of other limitations (critslots/weight/etc)

Pretty much.

However many hardpoints there are on that location is the amount of that type of weapon you can put there.

3 energy hardpoints = any 3 energy weapons as long as you have the available tonnage and crit space as well.

[TheOneGunslinger]

with all this i really hope there is a fireing range or some thing to try out heat managent on your mechs before a game. got a feeling i will make what i think is a cool well done mech only to have it melt the first time i fire anything :-(