655 replies to this topic

[Kristov Kerensky]

Pinkamena Pie, on 31 December 2011 - 08:31 AM, said:

The way I'd approach the customisation issue is as follows:

- You can buy mechs as their standard varients.
- You can refit mechs from one standard varient to another.
- You can make modifications using a standard varient as a baseline, but each such modification causes cumulative drawbacks to the mech.

Ultimately, players will have the freedom to create whatever monstrousities they feel like, but they won't have quite the same efficiency as they would if they were built as a standard varient. This would also mean that minor personalisation would only have a small (probably insignificant) effect on the mech's effectiveness, but a full rebuild would not become overpowering.

Pink..IF the stock variants were all effective for their purported design specs, I'd be willing to agree with your customization limits. However, since that is so far from true that's it not funny, I'll have to disagree. Some of the stockers are just laughable designs, even in TT they are Mechs you look at and go...what was that fool thinking?

[Pinkamena Pie]

All the more reason why there's probably some behind the scenes drawbacks to what are non-stock fittings. In "reality" designing a mech would be a whole lot more complicated than a plug'n'play slots'n'weight system, and it will be these other factors that designers would have to consider.

Ultimately, we use a simplified mech designer, and that means it will be open to abuse. Whilst I'm quiet happy to say let the munchkins munch on, the troubles start if the munchkins are then allowed to inflict their creations on other players. This would lead to an arms race situation whereby players can't compete using canon mechs.

The most straight forward solution would be to not allow custom mechs in the live environment, or only in certain tournement matches. This may well annoy anyone who wants to personalise their mech (even the ones who only want to use minor mods, not just the munchkins). This is why I think it's better to come up with a way of representing that custom mechs are not the optimal designs that could be achieved in canon reality. Ideally, this should have minimal effect on minor mods, and should more strongly affect a mech which is effectively rebuilt from scratch.

As I say though, I think the worst possible option would be if nothing is done to stop munchkin designs from taking over the game. If no method is used to place a limit on such designs, it's better that they're kept out of the game altogether.

Edited by Pinkamena Pie, 01 January 2012 - 08:55 AM.

[Johnathon Henrick]

one time we need to remember .....first of all to design a mech you need to have a income of minor successor state . and it really should left to mech factorys. I could see adding a heat something like. but after seeing some of the posts on here .....well.

its 3048 and i want a clan tech ........no dont give those people access designing mechs it would really hurt the game

[Kristov Kerensky]

Pink, there's no behind the scenes reason,some of the stock Mechs are just...useless even in TT. Fluff chassis tossed in to let people customize into something that's actually useful.

Sorry, but customization and building an entirely new chassis from the ground up ARE part of the TT system, each has their own costs and times associated with them. And if you have the money in TT, you can build whatever it is you want to build, TIME doesn't matter at all..get a drink, bang, Clan Invasion from start to finish..done! And it doesn't take the resources of a Minor House, it just takes c-bills...less then 10 MILLION c-bills for an Atlas brand new off the showroom floor.

And you can't exactly make an uberMech, it's been tried over and over, there's a lot of give and take in TT Mech bulding, it isn't the system used in MW4, those abominations are impossible to build in TT. Just look at the Sarna wiki, peruse the Mech listings, all the stockers and their variants..go on, tell us one more time that we can't put any weapon on any Mech because it wasn't designed to use it. I can't help but laugh when I see that line, someone obviously has no BTech background at all and is trying to tell everyone how BTech works.

[Johnathon Henrick]

The clans come late in 3049 and hit home in 3050 , I have been playing 20 plus years ...I dont claim to know everything, but i do know that ...all i see it seems is "clan this" or "clan that" ...there are no know such things as the clan at this point in time. I know Jamie Wolf and his boys know this, but no one else does, except maybe Comstar.

As for designing your on custom mech.....take it to the gaming world and try it there. It does cost a lot to build a mech and, if you know the world, mechs are really quite rare. Based on tonnage and size, it depends where you're from as to what you get. So, I guess you're right, if you have enough c-bills you can build it .

Economics: If a mech cost 10,000,000 c-bills you have to do a break down of the cost of a mech by house or periphery. The monetary value (or economy) of each house or government is different. Some are stronger, like Steiner, and some are much weaker like House Lio or Periphery Nation. So in fact, cost must be weighed against the individual economies.

In closing, if you're a house unit, you get paid in house funds, not c-bills. If you're a mercenary unit, you get paid by the house in it's own monetary funds, unless you're bonded by Comstar and have it in a contract obligation to be paid in c-bills. Houses don't give up c-bills unless forced to. The only exception would be if you're with House Steiner, but at this point they are considered Fedcom because they merged with House Davion which resulted in a secession war due to economics.

[bikerbass77]

I believe what is meant by scratchbuilding is taking parts from several different mechs to make your own. I think this is a cool idea and is the obvious next step from the mechlab which has been with us in one form or another since the original Mechwarrior game.

Also, to those against it, if you read the battletech wiki on the different mech types you will find that the lore of battletech is filled with customised 'frankenmech' designs. It is already in the cannon and about high time we got the ability to make our own. With the proper limits in place (energy limitations, and structural strengths limitations, etc) this could be great. Labour time would also be a good way to curb people from overdoing it.

Just remember, because a feature is there, does not mean you have to use it. If you want to play with stock designs fair enough. Me, I never got on with them. To me, customising your mech loadout to suit an upcoming mission is half the game.

[BeforeLife]

In my opinion I think they should have the mechlab like the MW4 Mechlab, that allowed you change weapons and how much armor on each part and how big an engine you had (with a cap to both of corse) as well as a couple modules. In my opinion that is perfect for how much customaztion MWO should have.

[Kristov Kerensky]

The MW4 lab was one of it's biggest problems BeforeLife, it allowed abominations to be built that are literally impossible by the BTech system, and didn't allow variants that ARE canon to be built at all. MekTek fixed some of that by actually creating NEW Mech chassis using the Stock model and redoing it's hardpoints. That's the problem with set hardpoints, Mechs in BTech actually aren't designed to ONLY hold 1 type of weapon or 1 particular weapon loadout, they are specifically designed to be modified and carry whatever loadout the chassis can physically contain by tonnage and space. Even the so called 'specialist' Mech designs that are built around using 1 particular weapon..check the variants..that weapon isn't on all of them in more then a few cases. Catapult, http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Catapult one I use as an example because it's one of the most obviously 'specialist' Mech designs, a stand off LRM boat. Only, there's a PPC version that has no LRMs at all, the K2, a DCMS favored variant. Mad Dog/Vulture..that's an OBVIOUSLY stand off LRM boat right? http://www.sarna.net...d_Dog_(Vulture) Guess again. Mad Dog is an OmniMech, so it stands to reason it would have all sorts of possible configurations, but the Catapult is NOT an OmniMech, it was designed and produced BEFORE the Clans were introduced in BTech, and yet..look at it's variants. Now, look at MW4 and it's hardpoint system..you can't make some of the Catapult variants at all..same with the Mad Dog...but MekTek actually put in the Vulture C and Katapult..that's a Mad Dog C config and a Catapult K2 config..SAME Mechs, but they had to create new chassis for them JUST so you could make the canon variants..or some of them at any rate.

Now, if MWO were to go stock only, I could actually live with that, I've played that in TT and in some of the BTech computer games(MPBT/BTech 3025). However..seeing that PGI has made clear that customization will be part of the game and they are sticking with the BTech TT system for their basis as much as possible, hardpoints shouldn't be in the cards at all.

[Gorith]

Kristov that depends on the tech level your using... at level 1 your mostly right it's hard to make a wtflolbbq mech. once you start using level 2 though it starts to change... and at level 3 making that kinda mech is VERY easy

Once your maximum damage output/tonnage starts nearing 1/1 anything smaller cant really put a dent in you before you completely destroy it

[Kristov Kerensky]

Gorith, IS Tech, 3049, no Clan Tech..go to it. Keep in mind, much of that lvl 2 and 3 stuff..it ain't around yet. And with luck, PGI will avoid the CotM stuff all together.

[Pht]

Kristov Kerensky, on 01 January 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

Pink, there's no behind the scenes reason,some of the stock Mechs are just...useless even in TT.

Actually, the guys that make the stuff for the BTUniverse over at CGL have said that some of the 'Mechs they design are actually intentionally designed to be crappy. They have even commented about how hard of a time they have building crappy mechs.

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Sorry, but customization and building an entirely new chassis from the ground up ARE part of the TT system, each has their own costs and times associated with them. And if you have the money in TT, you can build whatever it is you want to build, TIME doesn't matter at all..get a drink, bang, Clan Invasion from start to finish..done! And it doesn't take the resources of a Minor House, it just takes c-bills...less then 10 MILLION c-bills for an Atlas brand new off the showroom floor.

Sure, and there's sentient bird aliens on some planet somewhere, morgan kell can make his mech disappear from everyone's sensor readouts, and there's a crazy mad scientist from the NAIS who wound up on solaris 7 making mechs that interface with their pilots via almost exactly a "matrix the movie" headjack virtual reality, making the 'mechs equipped such almost unbeatable, not to mention the first star league having a mech that could literally disappear like the predator and be almost impossible to hit - oh, and so do the toaster worshiping blakists, too, but just much later; and they have their own version of the crazy head-jacking pilot control setup... piloted by cyborgs.

This is all a part of the BTU. Shall we add all of it too? Or do we acknowledge that for fun factor and giving equality of chance to players, we simply do not allow many of these things? Under which is allowing *any* player in a video game to build from scratch any mech, or to allow them to turn whatever mech they want into anything they want, as long as there's room and carrying capacity in the 'mech they're starting with?

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And you can't exactly make an uberMech, it's been tried over and over, there's a lot of give and take in TT Mech bulding,...

Mixtech 100 tonner with jumpjets, full armor, 4 or 5 clan large pulse lasers and a TC with around 20 clan double heatsinks will, in over 90% of all conditions, given the tiniest shreds of equality of opportunity, turn anything in the BTUniverse into slag, with ease.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Pht, do you honestly need to be told what plot characters and plot devices are and how they ignore anything that might interfere with the plot? Go on, name ALL the things in the novels that aren't by the TT system or violate it so badly that Gary Gygax felt it!

Battledroids and BattleTech 2nd Edition, which is literally Battledroids with the name changed to avoid the lawsuit Lucas was ready to throw at FASA, allowed for construction and customization of Mechs from the start, long before the novels came out. The guys at FASA, you know, the actual creators of BTech in the first place, they designed Mechs to be customizable, swap out weapons, change up armor, engines..or built an entirely new Mech from the ground up, it was about letting the players make what they wanted within the rather strict and simple rules FASA designed for that specific function. Cost c-bills and time..and FASA knew that time was pointless, it's a TT game, who cares how long it takes to do things outside of combat..get a drink and it's done. THAT had already been going on for almost a decade when they created BTech in games like D&D, time was just when you made some random encounter rolls, if you even did that.

And as to making an ubermech..sure..give me access to the full timeline and all the CotM gear I want, I can make one, anyone can. However, we won't be having that in MWO, remember? IS Tech, year 3049, no Clans in the IS, no one even KNOWS about the Clans and their amazing Tech, much less is able to use it. Going by the lore, it'll be a year before the Clans become known about..and it'll be a few years before the first Mechs using IS and Clan Tech come to be..remember?...3058 for the Avatar, the first IS Mech with Omnitech incorporated. And lets not forget something important..Clan and IS Tech..NOT compatible for a while, special rules on trying to mix the two in TT, with the most common result being..you just ruined whatever Clan equipment you tried it with. So this really isn't an issue for a while, like..9 years if PGI sticks with the 1:1 time ratio they are currently using. You should know all this Pht, it's all in the manuals, it's been around for what, 21, almost 22 years now, since 1990 and TRO 3050. And that is the timeline we're looking at, that's the tech we're looking at, PGI seems to be pretty clear on that so far. Ain't so easy to make that ubermech anymore, some really great designs can be created, just look at the TROs, but an ubermech?

[guardiandashi]

in the "pre omni" period its not that mechs are unmodifyable its that many of them are somewhat "challenging to modify"

if the customization and modification rules take into account "cost" and "time" then customization can be more "ballanced"

example lets say you have a
SHD-2H shadow hawk, under the tt customization rules it takes ~2 hours to pull the ac5 off and replace it with a ppc, this would also be a class A or B refit, granted your shadow hawk would now be 2 tons under weight but shrug

if you wanted to replace the 12 SHS with 10DHS it would be a class C or Class D maintenance refit and take ~40-60 HOURS under the standard rules (these 2 refits would free up 4 additional tons) allowing say a couple extra lrm5's to be mounted or something

now I agree that if you only have 1 chassis to use having to wait 40+ hours to get a mech upgraded from single heat sinks to doubles would be either frustrating or a "deal breaker"

however if they did a "minor" time compression aka changing hours to minutes, or charge "cbills" to reduce the time spent or something similar i could see it being acceptable at least to me

additionally the rules for repairs and modification do allow for up to 3 tech teams to work on a mech simultaniously plus if you have enough tech teams available they could work 24 hrs/day so 40 hours could be reduced to 13 and 2/3 hours (potentually) IE overnight

additionally better (more skilled techs) would typically work faster than less skilled ones

Edited by guardiandashi, 01 January 2012 - 01:24 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Or buy the Kurita variant 2K which has already done it?

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 01 January 2012 - 01:17 PM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Most of these canon-variants are being "customized" in either Mech factories or major House-sponsored military facilities, not some ordinary Mercenary's garage. To change a Catapult from missiles to PPC's might not be available to a low-end player in this game... but could be available to players with more Chassis-specific XP or something like that.

[Pht]

Kristov Kerensky, on 01 January 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

Pht, do you honestly need to be told what plot characters and plot devices are and how they ignore anything that might interfere with the plot? Go on, name ALL the things in the novels that aren't by the TT system or violate it so badly that Gary Gygax felt it!

Lets see: the phantom mech skill is laid out in the old kell hounds TT source book, the NAIS mad scientist stuff/tech is in the "MW Unbound" TT Sourcebook, the first star league mech I mentioned has been known since almost the beginning of the BT franchise, and its rules are listed in the latest set of TT core rules books, and the WOB stuff is in their TT source books.

These are all "plot" devices and writer fiat characters?

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And as to making an ubermech..sure..give me access to the full timeline and all the CotM gear I want, I can make one, anyone can.

Kristov Kerensky said:

And you can't exactly make an uberMech, it's been tried over and over, there's a lot of give and take in TT Mech bulding,...

Which is it?

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However, we won't be having that in MWO, remember? IS Tech, year 3049, no Clans in the IS, no one even KNOWS about the Clans and their amazing Tech, much less is able to use it.

Anywhere that doesn't have really broken ground: 100 tons 3/5/3, four large lasers (that's 40 damage, which is a LOT in the BTU), 32 heatsinks (zero weapons heat), 88.6% armor coverage.

On broken ground: 75 tons, 4/6/4, 3 LL, 24 heatsinks (zero weapons heat), 66% armor coverage.

[Larry Headrick]

Prosperity Park, on 01 January 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

Most of these canon-variants are being "customized" in either Mech factories or major House-sponsored military facilities, not some ordinary Mercenary's garage. To change a Catapult from missiles to PPC's might not be available to a low-end player in this game... but could be available to players with more Chassis-specific XP or something like that.

You could probably get it done but the thing to remember is how much c-bills you are willing to through at it. In the cannon there are places that do nothing but customization of mechs. Check your sources though because some pass of salvaged items as new and the final result might not be what you really wanted.

Remember you always get what you pay fore. But sometimes you dont. Read the fine print before you turn over that mech to the teckies

[Thrask]

I think being able to modify mechs is important; although changes don't need to be drastic. If a mech only has say, one type or one variation, it risks getting pidgeon-holed into a predictable (predictable is bad in war) role. Associating a time balancing factor and c-bill balancing factor seems absolutely appropriate.

If I want to take that AC10 off and replace it with a PPC, shouldn't I have that option, so long as there's some cost associated with me doing so? If I want to take that SRM-6 and replace it with an LRM-10, shouldn't I have that option? And when I say I, I mean *we*.

[SilentWolff]

MW4 mechlab was horrible. Mech 3 probably had the best. Any MW title worth its salt has to have a great mechlab. I'd like to see the new game model off of MW3, but add some minor restrictions so we dont see Catapults that are laser boats or that type of thing.

[Kristov Kerensky]

You are cute Pht..why don't you try using source books from before the Invasion and novels from before the Invasion, to support your argument. Oh..right..the Tech you rely on doesn't exist prior to the Invasion..my bad!

And I was pretty clear, using the Tech we're getting and the time we're starting in MWO according to PGI...uberMech, not an issue. Can you make uberMechs, yes, using that CotM approved Level 3 Tech you seem so hot for, but that stuff comes into the BTU years from when MWO is starting..again..you keep forgetting that...or ignoring it totally, not sure which. That old Star League null sig/chameleon stuff..that's not IN the original TROs except as showing just how far tech has dropped since the days of the SLDF..forgot that huh? The Spectors used in the McCarron's Armored Cavalry sourcebook and later in the TRO 3058..NO null sig armor on them..missed that did ya? That stuff existed, it ceased to exist, now it's being relearned..well..technically, it WILL be relearned in the IS in about..7 years for the null sig and 12 for the chameleon..and neither work as well as the original SLDF equipment worked. Really Pht, you should know better.