8 replies to this topic

[SirNotlag]

I've noticed that building mechs in this game feels more like just another grind rather than making any choices in what I bring to the battlefield. Whenever I get a new mech I always have to play a bunch of matches just to earn the C-bills to throw on endo steel and double heat sinks before I can start seeing what the machine can actually do. I feel it is just stupid that Endo is just straight better than ferro and I feel even worse at the fact the Clan mechs don't even get the option to choose upgrades, which ends up making certain chassis better than their counterparts because they are simply gifted better upgrades.

So I thought up 2 ideas for the upgrades system that would improve variety of builds.

1) My idea for the IS is simple and turns out already has several topics:
http://mwomercs.com/...__fromsearch__1

In short it would be a change to allow Ferro fiber armour to use the weight it saved to throw on additional armour points on IS mechs making them slightly tankier.

I really like this as it actually create a choice between endo and FF, currently all the heavy mechs run endo there just isn't any point to running FF but if it made them tankier they now get to choose between more fire power and equipment or more armour. Lets use an Atlas as an example currently he will save 5 tonnes using endo steel allowing him to carry abit more fire power, with this system if he ran FF he would get 14 extra armour points on centre torso and 10 on the side and legs, and 8 on the arms ( currently FF saves him 2.1 tonnes at full armour... completely pointless). Since he uses up the 2.1 tonnes to get the extra armour onto the mech he can now choose between the extra armour or the extra tonnage but he wont be able to run both as he doesn't have the slots for it.

It also self balances because the additional armour isn't free, it isnt a damage reduction or a magic quirk they have to spend weight on it so builds that run both endo and ferro would have to drop a heat sink or 2 to get to use the additional armour points.

This idea only works for IS as the Clan ferro saves more weight and takes up only 7 slots it would just make the clans stuff much better and would not do anything to fix the fact certain clan chassis are just better than others.





2) My second idea is for the clans and It it is to unlock the upgrades for their mechs and let them choose . Their Ferro fiber armour would remain unchanged so endo steel would save more weight for them but the choice would come from slot allotment. While the upgrades for the IS take up a dynamic slot allowing them to fill up whatever part of the mech isnt used the Clans have fixed structure and armour slots which cant be shifted. To provide meaningful choice between them have the ferro fiber generally use more favorable slots than endo.

Ex. when equipping endo steel on a clan mech the structure slots would fill the legs the head and 1 on each side torso. When equipping Ferro fiber the armour slots would take up 2 on each arm and then the side torsos and center torsos for the rest. Simply by equiping endo steel a mech would loose the convenient place to put ammo or heat sinks. This would have to be set up on a per mech basis so mechs like the storm crow or adder which can throw lasers in the head don't have a hard point blocked for equipping endo.

The one thing I'm on the fence about is how to work this with the clans fixed equipment, some chassis just wouldn't have the slots to equip both because they have so much fixed equipment already taking up slots. My 2 ideas for this is to either replace some of the fixed equipment based on the upgrades or have partial dynamic slots for the clans but only on certain chassis when they have equipped both upgrades.

1. For the replacement idea ill use a nova as an example, with ferro the slots could take up 2 on each arm the head and then the last 1 on the each side torso for all 7. when equipping endo however it would replace all jump jets on the mech to use their slots taking up the 4 on the legs 2 on the center and 1 on the right side torso. This makes it so a Nova can equip ferro if they want to save some weight but cant equip endo if they want to have jump jets. If they never use them anyway and want to save as much weight as possible endo also gives them the option to actually remove the jump jets. A nova could also run some builds if it decides to equip both upgrades.

2. For the partially dynamic idea I will use a warhawk as an example. When it only has one upgrade equipped it would be exactly as it is now taking up the slots that the armour slots take up (you might want to go to smurphy now and look at a warhawk so you can visualize what I'm talking about). These would be interchangeable so when equipping endo steel and standard armour those same slots would be used. However when throwing both endo and ferro on those slots would be used by the first upgrade, the second upgrade would take 1 slot on the cneter torso and 1 slot on the right torso the other 5 slots needed would become dynamic filling in whatever was left on the mech, just like how IS slots shift around.

Anyway those are my ideas I'm glad you read this far and I want to see what other people think of this as it turns out I'm not the first to think about these sorts of things, since there have been Topics on it before.

Edited by SirNotlag, 13 July 2015 - 05:08 PM.

[Firewuff]

With idea 1 ferro is ALWAYS a better idea as its more flexible. The second breaks the clan balance and makes them even scarier

[Night Thastus]

Sorry man, hate to say it, but I said no to both.

On IS Mechs:
Ferro would become an alternative to endo, possibly increasing variability. Some would trade for more tonnage, some for more armor. Not sure where most would fall

On Clan Mechs:
All Clan 'Mechs with FF (almost all of them) would suddenly be more heavily armored. I honestly don't like this idea.

Unlocking clan equipment is only viable if you do one thing: Remove the ability to swap omnipods.

Do you know what that is called? A clan BattleMech. Not all Clan 'Mechs were Omni'Mechs. Plenty were IS-style BattleMechs that didn't have omnipods, but could change their engine, FF, endo, etc, while retaining the bonus's that clan 'Mechs get normally. (2 slot XL's, 7 slot FF and Endo, lighter FF, clan weaponry).

Those are the style of 'Mechs that are coming with the newest Clan Wave that adds the IIC models.

[RolfS]

I think you should try to keep your posts small SirNotlag

The problem with the mech design is game balance and that the original mech construction is based on a pen and paper game. Lots of options that arent visible or don't translate into a 3D game logically. A mech with different loadout should look different. Originally changing different weapons didn't change the appearance of the mech, but it has gotten somewhat better.

I don't think we need a reason to use FF over Endo Steel. Both options are almost identical anyway and there are worse balance issues in the game to fix.

Personally I think PGI should have opted to customize mechs by swapping body parts between mechs (similar to the current omnipod system but between different mechs) instead of using the original build system from battletech. It would solve a number of issues currently plaguing the game.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

It'll increase IS mech durability and make heavy IS mechs with XL less squishy.

I'd probably go one step further and make STD structure increase the toughness of your internal structure by say 10% as well.

As for clan tech... unlocking FF and Endo needs to be done for the sole reason that it will help with balancing the various clan chassis against each other without giving them some serious quirks.

[SirNotlag]

Night Thastus, on 13 July 2015 - 01:57 PM, said:

Sorry man, hate to say it, but I said no to both.

On IS Mechs:
Ferro would become an alternative to endo, possibly increasing variability. Some would trade for more tonnage, some for more armor. Not sure where most would fall

On Clan Mechs:
All Clan 'Mechs with FF (almost all of them) would suddenly be more heavily armored. I honestly don't like this idea.

Unlocking clan equipment is only viable if you do one thing: Remove the ability to swap omnipods.

Do you know what that is called? A clan BattleMech. Not all Clan 'Mechs were Omni'Mechs. Plenty were IS-style BattleMechs that didn't have omnipods, but could change their engine, FF, endo, etc, while retaining the bonus's that clan 'Mechs get normally. (2 slot XL's, 7 slot FF and Endo, lighter FF, clan weaponry).

Those are the style of 'Mechs that are coming with the newest Clan Wave that adds the IIC models.

my idea for the ferro was an IS only change because yeah it would give storm crows and timberwolves a **** tonne of extra hits if it was for both IS and Clan.

[SirNotlag]

RolfS, on 13 July 2015 - 03:07 PM, said:

I think you should try to keep your posts small SirNotlag

The problem with the mech design is game balance and that the original mech construction is based on a pen and paper game. Lots of options that arent visible or don't translate into a 3D game logically. A mech with different loadout should look different. Originally changing different weapons didn't change the appearance of the mech, but it has gotten somewhat better.

I don't think we need a reason to use FF over Endo Steel. Both options are almost identical anyway and there are worse balance issues in the game to fix.

Personally I think PGI should have opted to customize mechs by swapping body parts between mechs (similar to the current omnipod system but between different mechs) instead of using the original build system from battletech. It would solve a number of issues currently plaguing the game.

I feel making the post shorter could lead to confusion as people wouldn't understand the suggestions fully (see above comment, i did state in original post the ferro idea was IS only).

as for Ferro and endo being identical... well they both do the same thing which is to save weight but endo always saves more weight for the same number of crit slots, so there isn't any point to taking ferro unless you already have endo. Making ferro do something different would offer choice and between the 2 where there isn't any now, my intention isn't to make Ferro suddenly the better choice it was to make it different.

[SirNotlag]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 13 July 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:

It'll increase IS mech durability and make heavy IS mechs with XL less squishy.

I'd probably go one step further and make STD structure increase the toughness of your internal structure by say 10% as well.

The problem with also buffing standard structure is it would stack with the Ferro upgrade making the ferro choice the superior option since you would become tankier from the addition armour and the standard structure. Also adjusting structure is free improvements theres no downside like the weight it would take to add the extra armour with my suggestion. Then agan 10% isn't a lot but I don't like the idea of free hit points.

Narcissistic Martyr, on 13 July 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:

As for clan tech... unlocking FF and Endo needs to be done for the sole reason that it will help with balancing the various clan chassis against each other without giving them some serious quirks.

That was the idea since the top dogs on the clan side already have both upgrades they don't benefit as much as the other chassis by unlocking upgrades.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

SirNotlag, on 13 July 2015 - 05:06 PM, said:

The problem with also buffing standard structure is it would stack with the Ferro upgrade making the ferro choice the superior option since you would become tankier from the addition armour and the standard structure. Also adjusting structure is free improvements theres no downside like the weight it would take to add the extra armour with my suggestion. Then agan 10% isn't a lot but I don't like the idea of free hit points.

It has a downside. You don't have the extra tonnage to put into weapons, engine speed, ammo, or heat sinks. More importantly it gives a reason to want to use both standard structure and FF which increases durability, decreases firepower and over all increase TTK.