16 replies to this topic

[Remillard]

I've seen mention of this in a few places and I understand the point but I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the layout in Mechlab.

For a mech that has multiple hardpoints in the torso (or arms I suppose but I think it's less relevant there), how do you control what order they are? So, let's take a Banshee torso with 3 energy hardpoints in the torso. This gets a little weird with Endo-steel interior floating slots but it does seem like for the most part they go in the order they are added, so if I add:

1 Large Laser
1 Medium Laser
1 Small Laser

They show up in the mech diagram in that order (I am not saying I would build it this way, just using different sizes so there's no mistaking).

However, is that how they show up on the front torso? Will the LL have the top hardpoint, the ML have the middle hardpoint, and the SL have the lowest hardpoint? I have seen places like Metamechs suggest that you put on some weapons after others to "push them up". Does the diagram reflect the correct order?

If a mech has multiple location hardpoints and only 2 are used, do they align to the bottom or to the top? For example, Banshee might have 4 ballistic hardpoints on one side with enough room for 3 AC/5. However for instance, say I want to put on 2 UAC/5's. Will the 2 autocannons take the top two hardpoints, or the bottom two hardpoints?

I think that's the big shooters for questions there. Thanks.

[Zoeff]

It depends on the mech, each mech will have a certain order for the hardpoints to be filled up. Usually this is the lowest first, but there are exceptions. This means that the first weapon you put on goes to the lowest most hardpoint, with each new weapon higher from there.

There's also some inconsistency when it comes to modifying an existing loadout. I remember reading that the order of weapons can sometimes depend on which weapon you have to buy new and which one you have in your inventory.

It's one of those things that should (and hopefully will) be changed in the future.

[Remillard]

Oh lord, that's ridiculous (the buying and inventory).

Do you know if the order seen on the mechlab layout is correct then? If I add and subtract enough to get it in the order I want, will it be in that order top to bottom?

[Zoeff]

The weapon order in the mech building screen won't always be the order on the mech, what I do is look at the model on the right side of the screen to see where they are placed. If it popped up in a place I wasn't expecting and isn't desirable then I remove it and place the weapon I was planning to put there.

[Buehgler]

It is a bit of a pain, but the best thing to do is buy all the weapons you will place, then watch the model as you place things. If something goes "wrong" follow Zoeff's advice and pull the last weapon you placed, and place the ting you wanted in that location.

Be happy, back in the "old days" it was not uncommon for your weapons to get rearranged at unexpected times.

[Zoeff]

Buehgler, on 28 February 2016 - 04:11 PM, said:

It is a bit of a pain, but the best thing to do is buy all the weapons you will place, then watch the model as you place things. If something goes "wrong" follow Zoeff's advice and pull the last weapon you placed, and place the ting you wanted in that location.

Be happy, back in the "old days" it was not uncommon for your weapons to get rearranged at unexpected times.

Yeah I remember in the past my weapons would sometimes be rearranged in some weird order after pressing the save button. Haven't seen that recently, guess that was fixed..

[Remillard]

Yikes. Okay, I'll try to use the model method, though things like lasers, since they just put a "lens" on in some fashion, I imagine that'll be a bit tricky to see as that's the scaled down version. They definitely have some work to do in this arena.

[Zoeff]

Well if the weapon you put on is a large laser, then the last lens that popped up is that large laser.

[Shura1986]

Hello to put 2 uac on top have to put 2 mg first to use the low hardpoints

[Takashi Uchida]

I made a tutorial about the Banshee's finicky hardpoints about half a year ago. It covers the importance of placement order for all applicable weapon types. Pretty much explains everything!

[Remillard]

Yes, thank you. It is indeed the Banshee that I was struggling with, but I figured it was relevant to building the other mechs as well. I had no idea there were two gun groups and two energy weapon groups based on their barrel extension.

And yeah, I did have my energy points backwards on the 3M. Up to this point I had been using the expanded view which hides the mech. The video was helpful in illustrating how the column view shows where the weapon actually gets mounted in real time so I'll have to be using that viewpoint more often when there are oddball hardpoints.

[GenghisJr]

Its the order they are placed in with my mechs, its always a good idea to go to the testing grounds and check the weapons are where you want them.

[Takashi Uchida]

Remillard, on 28 February 2016 - 07:29 PM, said:

Yes, thank you. It is indeed the Banshee that I was struggling with, but I figured it was relevant to building the other mechs as well. I had no idea there were two gun groups and two energy weapon groups based on their barrel extension.

And yeah, I did have my energy points backwards on the 3M. Up to this point I had been using the expanded view which hides the mech. The video was helpful in illustrating how the column view shows where the weapon actually gets mounted in real time so I'll have to be using that viewpoint more often when there are oddball hardpoints.

No problem. The rules vary from mech to mech but the Banshee is one that has some weapon-specific restrictions. It's definitely done for balance reasons. The Banshee is a pretty good mech as it is, they probably don't want it running around with an AC20 high on its shoulder or like a ton of high mounted PPCs.

The visual weapon models will vary slightly from mech to mech, but in general
-Lasers, Tag: looks like a dark camera lens
-Flamers: A gray slit or nozzle
-(ER)PPC: looks like the end of a telescope lens, colored light blue
-Standard Autocannons: looks like a cannon (duh). as you go higher in caliber they get stubbier and broader
-Ultra Autocannons: gatling style barrels
-LBX: very short barrels
-Machine guns: very small little twigs
-AMS: weird little cylinder thing
-Missiles, narc: well show up as the number of tubes your specific weapon has. If the specific weapons has more tubes than the maximum tubes for that particular hardpoint, it will just show the max tubes

[Tickdoff Tank]

Takashi Uchida, on 28 February 2016 - 08:23 PM, said:

If the specific weapons has more tubes than the maximum tubes for that particular hardpoint, it will just show the max tubes

If you have a Max of 10 tubes on the mech and then equip a LRM 15 or 20, Each time you fire your LRM you will get 2 salvos, 10 missiles in the first followed by 5 or 10 in the second. The same thing for a mount with only 5 tubes, you would fire in 5 missile salvos. Your weapon will not begin to cooldown until all missiles have been fired, that is why it is seldom a good idea to fire a LRM 20 through a 5 tube hardpoint.

[Takashi Uchida]

Tickdoff Tank, on 29 February 2016 - 07:31 PM, said:

If you have a Max of 10 tubes on the mech and then equip a LRM 15 or 20, Each time you fire your LRM you will get 2 salvos, 10 missiles in the first followed by 5 or 10 in the second. The same thing for a mount with only 5 tubes, you would fire in 5 missile salvos. Your weapon will not begin to cooldown until all missiles have been fired, that is why it is seldom a good idea to fire a LRM 20 through a 5 tube hardpoint.

Yep, it is one of the many reasons why the Victor sucks a-s.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

GenghisJr, on 28 February 2016 - 07:50 PM, said:

Its the order they are placed in with my mechs, its always a good idea to go to the testing grounds and check the weapons are where you want them.

BEST ADVICE SO FAR!

Put 'em in in what you THINK is the right order. Go to Testing Grounds or MW Academy. Fire at stuff. Are they in the right order? If YES, then you're done. If NO, then go back and remove everything. Save loadout. Reinstall in reverse order. Save, retry academy/TG.

KINDA time consuming, so be sure to write down how it works out with each mech so you'll remember it next time you have to rebuild.

[Remillard]

I'll be honest, I thought I did have the lasers in the order I wanted them and did try it out in the training grounds. However since we don't exactly get a third person view of the front of the mech it's really hard to see the origination points on beam weaponry.

I think the safest and most reliable way of knowing precisely where your weapon went is to use the Column view over the Expanded view when creating the mech. This is what I was referring to when thanking Takashi for his video. I had seen that column view but it seemed unwieldy to use so up to this point I had almost entirely been using the expanded view. However for the issue of weapon and hardpoint matching, the fact that you get to see a real-time updated mech as you add and subtract weaponry from hardpoints is invaluable for at least seeing what happens (even if you can't wholly control it due to the gun sizing issue.).