413 replies to this topic

[Haeso]

Immediately or not isn't the point, the point is when a month or two in, you're down to a dozen viable 'Mechs. Unless there's a continued cost associated with the customization, be it through higher repair bills, or each 'new' 'Mech after salvage/destruction of the old requiring the same increased cost compared to buying a new stock/widely used variant.

No matter how you look at it, customization is going to create better 'Mechs than stock/variants currently in existence. And they will be min-maxed. Unless there's a continued cost, it's going to come down to always using those handful of best. If the cost of using the best outweighs the gain, then you have the choice to use them when you really want to insure a win, but you can't just sit in them all day.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 02:04 PM.

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 01:52 PM, said:

Another option would follow the books quite well, you know why they have more weaponry than their heat sinks can handle? Two reasons, spike damage and more importantly - they seem to lose weapons almost every single time they go into combat. Make losing weapons significantly easier and more common, and you're going to want more weapons on a starting loadout than your sinks can handle unlike MW of the past where the idea was maximize damage/heatsink ratio because by the time you're losing weapons, you've usually shot out the canopy in an ejector seat.

I'll be honest and say right now that I usually don't read derivative works (such as novels), due to some... bad experience with books whose authors had a tenous grasp on the universe at best, that end up being canonical and turn the whole thing inside-out. Please bear with me here, but are you sure losing weapons left and right isn't just for dramatic purposes in that case, like a character dropping a gun in combat with her nemesis and having to resort to a fistfight over the precipice?

Rather than the heat, I would be more worried about how to make the lowest caliber weapons viable - SRM2 and LRM5 being the biggest offenders. There's a staggering number of designs that mount them, both mechs and vehicles, so they have to work per canon - else common sense dictates they would've been discontinued (if Battletech nations are good at something, it's war). Yet in games so far they have been utter rubbish, and any mech mounting them is perceived as less of a threat than a stray Vedette. I really believe this has to be remedied, or we end up with another game with 80% trash weapons, 10% barely acceptable and 10% "only choice" (guesstimated, I could make a list).

I can't think, off the top of my head, of another game where such balance would fly and be left unpatched. It's basically a waste of time for all involved, and making them actual choices through some balance tweaks would be nice.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 02:05 PM.

[Haeso]

Alex Wolfe, on 06 December 2011 - 02:02 PM, said:

I'll be honest and say right now that I usually don't read derivative works (such as novels), due to some... bad experience with books whose authors had a tenous grasp on the universe at best, that end up being canonical and turn the whole thing inside-out. Please bear with me here, but are you sure losing weapons left and right isn't just for dramatic purposes in that case, like a character dropping a gun in combat with her nemesis and having to resort to a fistfight over the precipice?

Rather than the heat, I would be more worried about how to make the lowest caliber weapons viable - SRM2 and LRM5 being the biggest offenders. There's a staggering number of designs that mount them, both mechs and vehicles, so they have to work per canon - else common sense dictates they would've been discontinued (if Battletech nations are good at something, it's war). Yet in games so far they have been utter rubbish, and any mech mounting them is perceived as less of a threat than a stray Vedette. I really believe this has to be remedied, or we end up with another game with 80% trash weapons, 10% barely acceptable and 10% "only choice" (guesstimated, I could make a list). I can't think, off the top of my head, of another game where such balance would fly and be left unpatched.

They work exactly as they're intended to, you can't fit bigger, so you put something smaller.

As for losing weapons, losing weapons is far more common in TT than it has been in any of the MW titles. TT's critical system was devastating compared to the flat HP bars of MW.

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:06 PM, said:

They work exactly as they're intended to, you can't fit bigger, so you put something smaller.

As for losing weapons, losing weapons is far more common in TT than it has been in any of the MW titles. TT's critical system was devastating compared to the flat HP bars of MW.

This means that they don't work at all, They barely count as weapons and are ignored by all players, and you always can fit something bigger, even a large laser instead of your entire loadout, then strip some engine and armor and mount another large laser or a SSRM6. Every mech over 25 can spare 8 tons and enough room easily. When do players actually mount small lasers and regular AC5's, except for some kind of borderline exploitative build of the hour (like MW3 "Trip Boats")?

This begs the question: why doesn't the factory do that, if those weapon are supposed to be so woefully ineffective? Can't they do the stripping? Why are small lasers being produced at all? Don't you think the canon and the rules conflict horribly here? "Dear prospective buyer, we present to you this newest mech, please note its weaponry makes it less of a threat than a stranded lungfish". I don't buy it. Mechs have been around for centuries, one would think people would have noticed which weapons are the only ones using (the internet notices in a few days of a game going live after all), and the manufacturers would use only that on everything. I'd rather have weapons from canon variants hold some water than have the priviledge of replacing them on any mech I salvage, for the Nth time.

Between the canon and the rules, I'd go with canon most of the time. Canon variants are being produced and bought, thus they must work, Q.E.D. I'd like someone to make them work at last.

Thanks for the clarification of the TT rules, but I'm fairly convinced that's because you command several mechs per side there, and you need a resolution within a few turns, so they are made "somewhat expendable" and "somewhat more fragile" than one would expect there - like Space Marines in TT Warhammer possibly dying to a single hit of anything (because you only have 6 turns and a whole table of them), while in canon they're supposed to withstand grievous wounds and continue fighting.

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 02:23 PM.

[Yeach]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:06 PM, said:

They work exactly as they're intended to, you can't fit bigger, so you put something smaller.

As for losing weapons, losing weapons is far more common in TT than it has been in any of the MW titles. TT's critical system was devastating compared to the flat HP bars of MW.

Why is that?
I'm going to say it's because the mw games have placings shots far more accurately than the TT ever did.

Edit I've lost ersmalls on my scat laserboat in mw3; however it does seem much easier to die than losing all ersmalls and then dying.
Also Is this because of the TT roll again when you hit something empty?

Edited by Yeach, 06 December 2011 - 02:34 PM.

[Haeso]

When customizing, yes. I was talking about in regards to the stock/variants. As for smaller weapons being better, depends on the weapon type. LRM5s were sort-of better sort-of-worse than LRM20s because of the way missle hits worked compared to the tonnage/crits.

There's nothing ineffective per se. Actually one of the best setups in MW and TT too, was a metaphorical ton of Med Lasers. In MW4 for example, 2 LRM 10s took the same space and tonnage as an LRM20 with one extra ton of ammo (Leading to the same total damage, the LRM20's sole advantage was slightly less heat per damage. The real problem isn't the weakness of small weapons, it's the effectiveness of boating. Why put an LRM10 and a large laser and a smaller Autocannon when you could have two Larger Lasers or two LRM20s or whatever.



In TT 'Mechs are far more durable than in MechWarrior, actually. It's part of why pinpoint accuracy and the old damage/armor model conflict so much. The damage/armor models of TT are designed with completely random damage distribution lending to 'Mechs that last much longer.

The critical system is also, again, far more dangerous to components than total 'Mech health. The most dangerous location on a 'Mech isn't the cockpit, it's whatever section holds the ammo bin! An AC20 does 20 damage. An SRM ammo bin can deal 200+ damage that cascades to nearby locations. Boom! But again, overall, 'Mechs lasted much longer and took more actual damage before they were destroyed. In most MW matches, how often were you alive and still had all your weapons intact? Pretty often, single or multiplayer (On higher difficulties at least), because if you'd lost weapons, chances are you were about to die anyway. With the critical system, you could lose weapons before a segment was totally destroyed, it lead to pieces of equipment being far more likely to die.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 02:25 PM.

[Haeso]

Oh and because I forgot to directly address it, the reason canon/stock variants aren't using all the same weapons, it goes right back to the books actually. BattleMechs were designed to be fully functional on their own, to be able to handle any threat. It's just that it's more effective to have specialized 'Mechs covering each others weaknesses, look no further than the hunchback and catapult for specialized 'Mechs designed exclusively for a single role.

While some 'Mechs are designed for all purpose warfare, others are designed to fit within a lance as a specialized asset. It just so happens that specialized 'Mechs are better when properly supported by other specialists. But how often in those books did you see a proper lance with all it's bases covered? Battletech was a very rag-tag affair, you were scraping parts together trying to make anything work, much less trying to make a specific 'perfect' lance. Between weapons being lost left and right, and every 'Mech having it's own quirks, there's far too much in canon to say what's 'best' and I easily see why you'd want some mixed arms. Cut off from your unit with only big guns? Enjoy getting swarmed by infantry with inferno launchers buddy, cooking alive is a good way to go I bet!

Or look at a victor, pretty much a bad 'Mech by MW4 standards, but that's because the agility of 'Mechs and jumpjets in particular doesn't translate AT ALL to the TT/MW franchise, it's still not possible to make that agility usable in a computer game, we don't have good enough input systems. Perhaps one day we'll get a neurohelmet. Perhaps not. Until then though? No input device can capture the true agility of a BattleMech.

Consider MW4, if you went the all ERLL route and ended up fighting a few dozen tanks. Those ERLL might rock other 'Mechs, but they're woefully inefficient against tanks, you're going to be spending all day killing tanks with an ERLL boat, but if you had a large pulse laser or a small caliber autocannon?

Just like if you had an annihilator with 4 LBX20s, each shot is precious, and it'll take at least two for a small tank, a big tank might take more. What a waste, so you'd put a large pulse laser, or some medium pulse lasers, etc.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 02:38 PM.

[Alex Wolfe]

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:24 PM, said:

When customizing, yes. I was talking about in regards to the stock/variants. As for smaller weapons being better, depends on the weapon type. LRM5s were sort-of better sort-of-worse than LRM20s because of the way missle hits worked compared to the tonnage/crits.

You mean a merc with half a brain can customize a mech, but the company that made it in the first place didn't explore its potential? Sorry, but I still find this a hard sell.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:24 PM, said:

There's nothing ineffective per se. Actually one of the best setups in MW and TT too, was a metaphorical ton of Med Lasers. In MW4 for example, 2 LRM 10s took the same space and tonnage as an LRM20 with one extra ton of ammo (Leading to the same total damage, the LRM20's sole advantage was slightly less heat per damage. The real problem isn't the weakness of small weapons, it's the effectiveness of boating. Why put an LRM10 and a large laser and a smaller Autocannon when you could have two Larger Lasers or two LRM20s or whatever.

Actually, 2 LRM 10s would have a bigger percentage of missiles shot down than 1 LRM20 in MW4 (as AMS was calculated per launcher, not by the total sum of missiles incoming), so that was a huge advantage right there. And that's exactly the gist of the problem you mentioned: a ton of Med Lasers. What about the one laser Assassin is sporting? What about its SRM2? Is Assassin supposed to be a junk mech? That's the disrepancy I'm talking about. A boat of lasers or machine guns is useful, but the entire AC line, ultra AC5 and more, entire SRM line, streak 2 and 4, lower bracket LRMs? All rubbish weapons. Surely you cannot say that rubbish weapons are fine per canon? Do people go "oh, this mech has only those weapons. Let's ignore him for 5 minutes" in official books?

I know how it works in products made so far, all I'm saying is that I'd like to see it fixed.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:24 PM, said:

In TT 'Mechs are far more durable than in MechWarrior, actually. It's part of why pinpoint accuracy and the old damage/armor model conflict so much. The damage/armor models of TT are designed with completely random damage distribution lending to 'Mechs that last much longer.

The critical system is also, again, far more dangerous to components than total 'Mech health. The most dangerous location on a 'Mech isn't the cockpit, it's whatever section holds the ammo bin! An AC20 does 20 damage. An SRM ammo bin can deal 200+ damage that cascades to nearby locations. Boom! But again, overall, 'Mechs lasted much longer and took more actual damage before they were destroyed. In most MW matches, how often were you alive and still had all your weapons intact? Pretty often, single or multiplayer (On higher difficulties at least), because if you'd lost weapons, chances are you were about to die anyway. With the critical system, you could lose weapons before a segment was totally destroyed, it lead to pieces of equipment being far more likely to die.

More durable than in which Mechwarrior? In 2 and 3 mechs exploded after a few shots, and minimal damage to the leg caused limping in MW3, more damage caused destruction, there were also 1 hit kills. A bigger hit to the chest fried your internals. The armor was cardboard, assault mechs tripped from medium laser shots and arms were falling off all the time. Not hard to be more durable than that.

MW4 mechs were way more durable than 3 in general (at least there was way less random chance involved, and less tripping unless from truly overwhelming hits), it's the ease of core sniping that made it seem different. That too could go, and I sure wouldn't miss it. You do lose weapons often in the campaign, but on multi everyone just goes for the CT, since it takes up half your mech's surface anyway.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:34 PM, said:

Oh and because I forgot to directly address it, the reason canon/stock variants aren't using all the same weapons, it goes right back to the books actually. BattleMechs were designed to be fully functional on their own, to be able to handle any threat. It's just that it's more effective to have specialized 'Mechs covering each others weaknesses, look no further than the hunchback and catapult for specialized 'Mechs designed exclusively for a single role.

That's my whole issue with the thing, is that canon/stock variants can't handle anything. Someone would be bound to notice after... let's generously say "the first two centuries", and they would all become, even if not boats, exclusively higher caliber if those weapons were supposed to be rubbish like in games so far.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 02:34 PM, said:

Consider MW4, if you went the all ERLL route and ended up fighting a few dozen tanks. Those ERLL might rock other 'Mechs, but they're woefully inefficient against tanks, you're going to be spending all day killing tanks with an ERLL boat, but if you had a large pulse laser or a small caliber autocannon?

Funny you mention that, ERLL are one of the absolutely best ways to handle tanks and aircraft as well as mechs in Mechwarrior games as well. Do you know Black Knight's "Flank Guard" mission, the one where you escort a convoy and at least two dozen tanks come knocking? Nova Cat with 4 ER LL's on single fire makes it a breeze even on the inhuman BK's Elite, literally easiest possible. They are best for everything but brawling, they rock mechs, vehicles, turrets, dropships with a good angle, I've finished the latter half of the game piloting exclusively a Supernova-style 6 ERLL Daishi, and it was a walk in the park with max 3 tries per mission. It really isn't good.

Anyway, I guess I'll let this thread gently slide back on its track. Thanks for the conversation all the same!

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 02:59 PM.

[Xhaleon]

Alex Wolfe, on 06 December 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

A boat of lasers or machine guns is useful, but the entire AC line, ultra AC5 and more, entire SRM line, streak 2 and 4, lower bracket LRMs? All rubbish weapons. Surely you cannot say that rubbish weapons are fine per canon? Do people go "oh, this mech has only those weapons. Let's ignore him for 5 minutes" in official books?

Ho! SRMs are far from rubbish weapons. Sure, you have to boat them for their true potential to come out and maybe some special ammunition, but they can be devastating. If you get into range, that is.

Real time? Damage outputs are usually through the roof, and the semi-Inferno IS SRMs in MW4 can put on quite a bit of hurt fast if you knew how to shoot them. Tabletop? A total SRM boat will probably kill the pilot before his assault mech goes, but that is actually really desirable. lolclusterhitstable

---

Well, I get what you mean. Alone, some weapons can really seem useless, but definitely not SRMs. They're compact machine gun arrays with better range and less suicidal ammo levels.

Edited by Xhaleon, 06 December 2011 - 03:04 PM.

[Haeso]

Alex Wolfe, on 06 December 2011 - 02:45 PM, said:

You mean a merc with half a brain can customize a mech, but the company that made it in the first place didn't explore its potential? Sorry, but I still find this a hard sell.

Actually very little customization happened in universe unless you count poorly calibrated and neigh-impossible to aim 'replacements'. The only people with actual customization not 'frankenmech' repairs, were few and far between, and usually people of a very high station.

Quote

Actually, 2 LRM 10s would have a bigger percentage of missiles shot down than 1 LRM20 in MW4 (as AMS was calculated per launcher, not by the total sum of missiles incoming), so that was a huge advantage right there. And that's exactly the gist of the problem you mentioned: a ton of Med Lasers. What about the one laser Assassin is sporting? What about its SRM2? Is Assassin supposed to be a junk mech? That's the disrepancy I'm talking about. A boat of lasers or machine guns is useful, but the entire AC line, ultra AC5 and more, entire SRM line, streak 2 and 4, lower bracket LRMs? All rubbish weapons. Surely you cannot say that rubbish weapons are fine per canon? Do people go "oh, this mech has only those weapons. Let's ignore him for 5 minutes" in official books?

That's not a problem with the missile launchers, that would be a problem with the coding of the game for the AMS system, or poor design.
I used UAC2s almost exclusively in MW4 before Mercs iirc, was quite some time ago.

The other problem has to do again with input - the way aiming is described in the novels is so worlds apart from the only way we can reasonably handle aiming in real life. We don't have the input methods available to let us shoot all these different weapons separately and accurately. If you tried to fire an autocannon and laser at the same time, they're not going to hit together, Different velocities... Speed of light and whatever the slug is propelled at are rather different. So you can't shoot them together, requiring you to aim twice to shoot a mix of weapons. The problems aren't all with the weapons themselves or the numbers attached, there's too much going on to make it that simple.

Quote

I know how it works in products made so far, all I'm saying is that I'd like to see it fixed.

And I'm saying it's not broken as a whole. UAC2s were a great weapon, LRM10/15s had their place to 'fit' the last bit of tonnage, etc. Sure you wouldn't boat those smaller weapons, but they'd still get used occasionally.

Quote

More durable than in which Mechwarrior? In 2 and 3 mechs exploded after a few shots, and minimal damage to the leg caused limping in MW3, more damage caused destruction, there were also 1 hit kills. A bigger hit to the chest fried your internals. The armor was cardboard, assault mechs tripped from medium laser shots and arms were falling off all the time. Not hard to be more durable than that.

MW4 mechs were way more durable than 3 in general (at least there was way less random chance involved, and less tripping unless from truly overwhelming hits), it's the ease of core sniping that made it seem different. That too could go, and I sure wouldn't miss it.

MW4 'Mechs were paper compared to TT. And without the critical system, even if they switch to hitscan with random damage assignment or a cone of fire, but it still wouldn't be the same. You'd have 'parts' that are still too durable, nothing

Quote

That's my whole issue with the thing, is that canon/stock variants can't handle anything. Someone would be bound to notice after... let's generously say "the first two centuries", and they would all become, even if not boats, exclusively higher caliber if those weapons were supposed to be rubbish like in games so far.

Anyway, I guess I'll let this thread gently slide back on its track. Thanks for the conversation all the same!

If the weapons were poorly balanced in iterations of the game, it doesn't mean the overall system was bad. The round system of battletech rather than real time also made it more important and easier to target multiple enemies, so lots of smaller weapon systems were more useful in that regard, there's a lot more to it, so much more. Does that mean every stock/variant was considered equal? Nope. Even in universe some are regarded as 'bad', those are usually much cheaper in C-Bills, do they explain the technical reasons behind them being cheaper? Usually no, but it does explain their existence in the first place.

One can't expect the science to be perfect, but it's not as bad as you're making it out to be just because it was terrible in poor iterations of the game.

Edited by Haeso, 06 December 2011 - 03:03 PM.

[Alex Wolfe]

Xhaleon, on 06 December 2011 - 02:59 PM, said:

Ho! SRMs are far from rubbish weapons. Sure, you have to boat them for their true potential to come out and maybe some special ammunition, but they can be devastating if you get into range, that is.

Real time? Damage outputs are usually through the roof, and the semi-Inferno IS SRMs in MW4 can put on quite a bit of hurt fast if you knew how to shoot them. Tabletop? A total SRM boat will probably kill the pilot before his assault mech goes, but that is actually really desirable. lolclusterhitstable

My bad, I just always preferred Streaks and used them to shake rather than kill... but in general, that's what I keep talking about: it's boat or bust. I'd like a system where factory variants are effective, that's the long and short of it. Where there's an in-universe reason why they look like that.

I know real-world comparisons are icky, but please bear with me here: can you imagine Abrams tank to be supplied to the army with 3 machine guns and a LAW in its turret, rather than its main gun? And the army going "thanks for the threads", stripping everything, selling or junking 2 of the machine guns and the LAW and jury-rigging the cannon on every single model to actually make it into a viable MBT? For 20 years, without a word of complaint to the manufacturer, even though everybody knows that what's needed for a main battle tank is a main cannon? Even if the LAW tank is cheaper they still need to buy the cannon for it to be effective so the net gain is zero, why don't they just go to them and say "guys, spare us the hassle and mount the damn thing yourselves"?

That's pretty much what's been going on in BT universe with stock mechs, when viewed from the rules' perspective. For centuries.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 03:02 PM, said:

Actually very little customization happened in universe unless you count poorly calibrated and neigh-impossible to aim 'replacements'. The only people with actual customization not 'frankenmech' repairs, were few and far between, and usually people of a very high station.

I'd actually like the horribly expensive, time consuming and difficult customization.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 03:02 PM, said:

I used UAC2s almost exclusively in MW4 before Mercs iirc, was quite some time ago.

That's why I said "ultra AC5 or more", meaning 5, 10 and 20 were regarded as "bad" (or more accurately, were bad). UAC2 boat was quite formidable, for its range, rate of fire, damage per second, ammo count and shake. The rest was perceived as trash for various reasons, or at the very least outclassed horribly.

Haeso, on 06 December 2011 - 03:02 PM, said:

If the weapons were poorly balanced in iterations of the game, it doesn't mean the overall system was bad. The round system of battletech rather than real time also made it more important and easier to target multiple enemies, so lots of smaller weapon systems were more useful in that regard, there's a lot more to it, so much more. Does that mean every stock/variant was considered equal? Nope. Even in universe some are regarded as 'bad', those are usually much cheaper in C-Bills, do they explain the technical reasons behind them being cheaper? Usually no, but it does explain their existence in the first place.

One can't expect the science to be perfect, but it's not as bad as you're making it out to be just because it was terrible in poor iterations of the game.

Well, guess now we're reaching some sort of consensus. Down with the old system, don't make everything horrible because it used to be horrible so far. Some mechs are perceived as worse, but the old system makes them all worse (except for the natural boats). Tear it down IMO, build from the ground up. I doubt they'd lack beta testers.

Nice talking to you, I guess I'll bow out for now!

Edited by Alex Wolfe, 06 December 2011 - 03:26 PM.

[Haeso]

When viewed from the rules perspective of TT, stock/variants aren't hopelessly outclassed by munchkin 'Mechs like they are in MW4. You'd have to play it to understand it - a close range boat and a long range boat will probably beat two mixed-range 'Mechs. But those mixed ranged 'Mechs aren't going to be absolutely tooled like they would in MechWarrior, and in the TT those mixed weapons are going to make them far more able to engage the combined-arms nature of the Battletech universe that is... Completely unrepresented in every MechWarrior iteration.

[Brakkyn]

The thing with canon variants that are boats is just that--canonically, they are boats. Ballistic and missile boats can run out of ammo--energy boats run hot.

And simply because a boat variant exists, doesn't mean you'll be able to buy one. And said boat can still be destroyed just like any other 'Mech. You dropped 12,000,000 C-Bills for a boat and lose it in the first match. Too bad, so sad.

Not to mention we don't know if you have to purchase ammunition or not, or if coolant will be a factor. Lots of things can mitigate "natural" boats.

Edited by Brakkyn, 06 December 2011 - 03:11 PM.

[Matz05]

I suggest that MekTek's modified MW4 system be used, BUT allow 'Mechs to be built/refitted with variant limbs/etc.

EG. I blow up a mixture of 'mechs which are compatible parts-wise, but some have gun arms and others have missile pod arms/etc. I should be able to; with enough time, parts, and effort; construct a custom machine with the body of one type and the arms from another, or even mismatched if the weights are close enough.

(have a "frames compatible with" table on mech segments, especially for more modular designs.)

[Fulcrum]

Now, I support the concept of the ability to make very large modifications to an existing mech with a few notable restrictions:
Energy-weapons should be able to be replaced with other high-energy weapons that are of similar size and energy consumption due to the mech's power-system is set up. Replacing a PPC with a LL/SL combo, a few meds, etc, makes simple sense.

Replacing a low-energy consumption/ammo/etc system also seems to make sense to me... gutting that ac10 from your arm and replacing it with a SRM bank would probably not require much more than some body-work and some hammering to get the ammo-hopper to feed missiles instead.

This would provide a large amount of customization while keeping the mech mostly intact.

Yeach, on 05 December 2011 - 11:47 PM, said:

<snip>
Ultimately the reason I do not like full customization is the perchance to place all weapons in the torso/legs as opposed where they should belong -> in the arms of the mechs.

Now, I've noticed this same thing cropping up over and over again in the other threads and I believe I might have some insight that will cause this to be a non issue. Most of the targeting threads have come to a consensus: Arm weapons will simply be far more accurate than weapons mounted in the torso.. easier to 'focus fire' and so forth. Even if torso weapons had a gimbal-style ability to pivot, the firing arcs will be substantially smaller than anything arm-mounted.

Sure, the following departs from the tabletop, but to me, it'd make sense to work into the game:

1) Slots in the torsos would most certainly have a much more narrow arc of fire, and the spacing of them would prevent most 'focusing', resulting in a more even spread of damage across an opponent. It would also would force people to torso twist more often to target, (which might be a problem in and of itself if one can damage themselves on terrain), or to face their targets directly. Add the instability of movement to targeting into this equation and the arm-mounted weapons make even more sense. This might not be an issue when you're close enough to flip off the other pilot through your windshield, but at greater ranges this will undoubtedly make shots harder to take.

My own personal about weapons in the legs? I wouldn't ban it outright, but I'd be hesitant to do it... since there would be little in the way of a firing arc at all, even if one wasn't penalized at all for movement, (.... which I think would be pretty significant, even at close ranges.) No torso twist, limited gimbal movement would pretty much restrict weapon placements to tracking weapons (guided and semi-guided missiles).


Standing still might allow the same degrees of accuracy from non-arm mounted weapons on the battlefield as arm-mounted weapons... but we all know what happens to an unmoving target on the battlefield... regardless of if you're a purist TT player or a computer gamer. It's just up to the devs to implement it.

It's the age-old balance between accuracy, arc of fire and protection of critical systems.

[MaddMaxx]

The whole point of the Stock/Factory builds was mentioned. The Battlefield was rife with a mix of enemy gear. Infantry, Tanks, Aerospace etc. so a BattleMech had to be designed with this in mind to a certain extent. Yes, many, when facing just other BattleMechs, seem to be outclassed and in many cases they are, but in the IS, both sides faced the same Battlefield issues I noted above.

What the likely cause of some of the more mundane weapons load-outs was the result of having a battle go badly for a single weapon type design if suddenly faced by smaller but more numerous opponents.

The 1 weapon type custom job, say ERML or ERLL will have to use its heavy heat based weapon(s) to overkill the smaller units. It may get one every shot but has to cool in order to keep fighting. Before long it will simply be over-run.

Whereas a Stock design could use one of its alternative weapons to deal with those threats and save the heavy heat weapons for the larger prey.

I hope they stay Timeline, allow basic mods to the Stock chassis they provide, so everyone has an even playing field early on then let the "Dogs of Custom Wars" out of the bag. You won't make everyone happy ever so best to take it slow as going back from Full throttle never works...

Edited by MaddMaxx, 06 December 2011 - 06:53 PM.

[SeDevri]

Wolvers, on 06 December 2011 - 12:15 PM, said:

I wonder how many of those who voted for Mech 4 limited customization actually played the TT? I think we might be seeing part of the difference between the 2 groups, those who started off playing the computer games and those who started off playing the TT.

Customization costs c-bills, full customizations (changing internal structure, engine etc) requires factory refits, which costs even more c-bills. I don't think it's going to be that easy to munckin-up your mech.

On the TT, having played the full customization, I haven't seen it make that much of a difference, mechs still get damaged, head shots still happen, critical hits still go through.

In the single player PC games, the only thing I really noticed with customization was how good missile boats were, too good in fact. On the TT you still had to roll to see how many missiles hit after getting a "lock on". In the game it appears just about every missile hits and in the one location. According to their FAQ, they are already looking at avoiding this.

"LRMs will be semi-guided. What the heck does that mean? You will be able to lock on to your target but it doesn't mean the actual missiles will home directly to the target. The chance of missing will still be part of LRM gameplay."




"We want to make sure we bring the roots of the MechWarrior® titles back to the surface and also incorporate the basic rules from the BattleTech® Universe. Players will be able to customize their BattleMechs with weapon and armor upgrades"

"We are adhering very closely to the BattleTech® tabletop rules. Some mechanics in the tabletop version of the game do not translate well into a videogame and we are coming up with our own rule sets that mitigate these differences in an intuitive and fun manner."

^ Based on that, I would expect then that any customization will be limited due to cost and factory refit costs (even if they allow that).

I started out by playing the computer games, but i've gotten heavily into the BT/MW universe since then, this includes the novels and the TT game. From my experience with all these things, i would have to say that limited customization is the only why customization will work in a MW video game. Don't get me wrong i LOVE making custom mechs for TT but i understand that there has to be some limitations and sacrifices made to balance a game so that everyone can enjoy it. I think part of the charm of the BT/MW universe is the fact that the mechs AREN'T "perfect" all of them have flaw that to us seem silly but are part of what gives each mech its particular flavor/feel/character.

Anyway, just my $.02, I just hope people aren't getting their hopes up to high for "full customization" cause i just can't see that happening.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I wouldn't even object if they "modernised" the stock mechs to allow for the fact that we will only be fighting mechs (like droppimg MG's) or even making some of the variants "stock". The original Rifleman was designed as an Anti-Air mech, not to fight ither mechs,

[Dragorath]

I guess it would be nearer to "reality" if you keep in mind the original design. In therory you could take a Wolfhound and put a Gauss in it, but if you would rather compare Hollander and Wolfhound the mech design would be completely different. On the other hand a Hollander with a PPC sounds reasonible.
So at least the slot sizes like in old fashioned BT should be kept in mind. If there is no space, there is no space. Something could be mounted like jump jets or small lasers to the torso and limbs in an easy fashion. Of course limbs can be changed more or less completely. Also here... Wasp with PPC in his hand, but no armour? Don't think so.

Modifications definetely yes, new design from scratch, no.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I don't see why we couldn't get some "add ons" as well like improved optics (ie better zoom) or sensors etc. Maybe the "refit packs" they do could not just be for variants but also for roles. ie a"scouting pack" for certain models. Maybe even a "command pack" which would give improved comms, access to offboard assets etc at the cost of a few small weapons or some armour?