655 replies to this topic

[Phades]

kamikaziechameleon, on 22 December 2011 - 01:32 PM, said:

Sorry you misunderstand, I mean in front mission(maybe I'm thinking of armored core, they blend together in my mind) you can change everything about the chasis to the point that they are not recognizable. I don't want to be able to change arms legs etc, just the representation of what weapon I arm, maybe by changing the barel or something subtle.

Everything is recognizable in both front mission and armor core. You can tell visually what a chassis can do based upon the look of its arms, legs and torso. Only a few combinations in a couple of the games (front mission mostly) did synchronizing the parts of all the same kind really benefit the player. By comparison to MW, you could have anything happening under the hood of any chassis and have no idea what is going to be brought down upon you. Oh hey look, its a Behemoth. Does it have the heavy lasers and pull the guass for ACs for closer range work? Or did they swap in PPCs and adjust other factors to make it an artillery piece? YOU COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE VISUALLY AT ALL AND THE REPRESENTATION ON THE MODEL NEVER CHANGED.

So which is it? You want the model to change to reflect what is mounted, or do you want basically no customization? You are contradicting yourself. Remember, even "official" variants required different model representations in order to be accurate, yet were never put in place. Think a catapult mounting auto-cannons looks anything like the original? Should auto cannons of different calibers look the same? Lots of moving parts here.

[kamikaziechameleon]

Phades, on 22 December 2011 - 01:43 PM, said:

Everything is recognizable in both front mission and armor core. You can tell visually what a chassis can do based upon the look of its arms, legs and torso. Only a few combinations in a couple of the games (front mission mostly) did synchronizing the parts of all the same kind really benefit the player. By comparison to MW, you could have anything happening under the hood of any chassis and have no idea what is going to be brought down upon you. Oh hey look, its a Behemoth. Does it have the heavy lasers and pull the guass for ACs for closer range work? Or did they swap in PPCs and adjust other factors to make it an artillery piece? YOU COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE VISUALLY AT ALL AND THE REPRESENTATION ON THE MODEL NEVER CHANGED.

So which is it? You want the model to change to reflect what is mounted, or do you want basically no customization? You are contradicting yourself. Remember, even "official" variants required different model representations in order to be accurate, yet were never put in place. Think a catapult mounting auto-cannons looks anything like the original? Should auto cannons of different calibers look the same? Lots of moving parts here.

I'd rather have the parts appear different than not honestly. I imagine with proper customization limitations in place it wouldn't be a problem.

When I think about the mods that go on with the japaname series I personally only notice a difference in heads, lol.

It all comes down to how much variation will they allow, can you put a cannon in place of some LRM? The more you open up modding the more difficult it becomes to balance I hope they keep it grounded to some extent. I know there is some insane mods allowed in the P&P RPG I'm not sure if I want catapaults with auto cannons as that kinda defeats that chasis design doesn't it. I don't know it doesn't bother me so much the more I think about it I trust the more customization they put in the game the better represented it will be, this isn't 2004 after all.

[Caggar]

I've enjoyed the Mech games over the years and loved the ability to customize. It seems that you almost have to have customization and I think it should be as "real life" as possible. If it takes two weeks to load an AC-20 it takes two weeks. I certainly agree that impossible "Frankenmechs" should be avoided.

[washout]

The two things that make an "unlimited customization" mechlab a terrible idea are:

1. It actually promotes LESS variety, not more. Everyone will find the best gun that uses heat for medium range, best heat sniping, best no heat medium, and best no heat sniping. Then those 4 guns/missiles or whatever will be the only ones you ever see (with maybe one other odd gun out to put it up to exact weight). Since they are the best damage/weight ratio or whatever there is no reason to ever put anything else on any mech. And in a competition based PvP game everyone will min max anything to the utmost, guaranteed.

2. It's retarded to see a model for a rifleman or whatever and then it has missiles in the arms instead of lasers or what have you. They can't appreciably make the models actually show the guns in hardpoints. Sure they could easily do a few arms for them, but all the other customizations would be hell to model.

If they had some kind of limited mechlab, where a few of the smaller hardpoints could be configured that would be alright. Everyone would still fill those hardpoints with whatever FOTM was best at the time, but it would at least have less impact.

[Hellen Wheels]

Ghost73, on 18 December 2011 - 01:28 PM, said:

You actually want to wait hours in between rounds to repair your mech?

An example why this is bad: A new player only has one mech, and it comes with a very high likelihood that it WILL be destroyed their first match. You want to force this player, who has no other available mechs or enough money to buy one, to wait just to play one more round? I am sure that this player will stop playing this game immediately, as I know I would.

I think we can all agree that the most fun we will have playing this game is when we are in the cockpit of our own mech, and you want to introduce a mechanic that restricts that? That is a little ridiculous considering the point of playing a game is to have fun. The playerbase would just drop off if this was included, and I highly doubt it will be included for the very same reasons I listed above.

Also, it doesn't make sense to include only one aspect of the canon that affects gameplay, so if you want time delay repairs then you should also include: one mech per pilot, time delay for transit, permanent death, and you can't choose where or when you want to fight. That sound fun to you?

It's great to be enthusiastic, but don't let it become zealotry. A game is just a game, not a full-blown alternate reality, and if you are expecting something like that, just be prepared for a let down.

Absolutely agree. I expect to be able to relax after work and play on the battlefield and have fun doing it with time I have to do it.

I will not be playing this game if it means sitting there twiddling my thumbs for half an hour waiting for my "mech" to be "fixed"...

I really don't care if we get a mech lab or not. Stock mechs are fine by me.

If we get a mech lab, all the better.

Just my two pfennigs.

[Alekto Serenis]

Type/Model: Dragon DRG-AS
Tech: Inner Sphere / 3050
Config: Biped BattleMech
Rules: Level 2, Standard design

Mass: 60 tons
Chassis: Alshain Type 56-60H Standard
Power Plant: 300 Vlar XL Fusion
Walking Speed: 54,0 km/h
Maximum Speed: 86,4 [97,2] km/h
Jump Jets: None
Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor Type: Starshield Stealth
Armament:
1 Rotary AC/5
1 Large Laser
1 Guardian ECM
1 Telos DecaCluster LRM 10
----------
--------------------------------------------------------
Type/Model: Dragon DRG-AS
Mass: 60 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass
Int. Struct.: 99 pts Standard 0 6,00
Engine: 300 XL 12 9,50
Walking MP: 5 [6]
Running MP: 8 [9]
Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks: 10 Double [20] 0 ,00
Gyro: 4 3,00
Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3,00
Triple Strength Myomer: 6 ,00
Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA 15 ,00
Armor Factor: 201 pts Stealth 12 13,00
(Armor Crit Loc: 2 LA, 2 RA, 2 LT, 2 RT, 2 LL, 2 RL)

Internal Armor
Structure Value
Head: 3 9
Center Torso: 20 30
Center Torso (Rear): 10
L/R Side Torso: 14 21/21
L/R Side Torso (Rear): 7/7
L/R Arm: 10 20/20
L/R Leg: 14 28/28

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass
--------------------------------------------------------
1 Rotary AC/5 RA 1 40 8 12,00
(Ammo Locations: 2 RT)
1 Large Laser LA 8 2 5,00
1 Guardian ECM LT 0 2 1,50
1 LRM 10 CT 4 24 4 7,00
(Ammo Locations: 2 LT)
Stealth Armor Heat 10
--------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS: 28 70 60,00
Crits & Tons Left: 8 ,00

Calculated Factors:
Total Cost: 13.740.480 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1.382
-------------

Ye those are full for customizing are all about minmaxin yeeeee, i rather would love to earn me such a custom, then have to field standards only

Heres, again, a idea to balance this, let me work(grind) for the cbills and tech and add some costs to have this build


(oh ye straight copy from hmpro)

*edit* i could offer you guys a minmaxed machine to the tt rules that is far superior to anything you could think, and it is not a boat only a 5/6/4 100ton mech with a possible 140dmg per turn+melee

Edited by Alekto Serenis, 22 December 2011 - 04:08 PM.

[Hellen Wheels]

Kristov Kerensky, on 21 December 2011 - 01:18 PM, said:

I have a question for the people wanting no or extremely limited customization, which MW games did you play?
....
So..all of you against TT customization or for allowing ONLY stock variants..which of the MechWarrior games did you play, MW2 titles, MW3 titles, MW4 titles or MA titles(yes, they were 3 MAs made..I'm not surprised no one knows this, MA2 was a failure and MA3 was for Nintendo DS only..yes..you read that right).

Crescent Hawk
MW2
NetMech on Kali in TKZ and Grand Council
MPBT:3025 (I *still* have the font from that LoL)
MW3 on the Zone
Pirate's Moon
MW4
MechAssault
MA2

You didn't play NetMech on Kali? There were plenty of boats in Netmech. I fondly recall the mech I outfitted with about six or eight racks of LRM20s...I called it "The Organ Grinder"....and I also fondly recall the heavy gravity games with nothing but PPCs...the canyon with nothing but AC20s....yup, plenty of boats could be found in NetMech. Still a fun game.

MechAssault was a fun game to play, too, both offline and online, despite it being strictly arcade. JMHO.

I'm neutral about MechLab being in MWO. If it's there, all the better. If it isn't, it won't be a game killer.

H

[Kyzar Kon]

I like the idea of having factory installed equip with an ability tto costumize afterwards. I just hope its limited to actually give 'character' to each mech so people are aware of thier strengths weakness and capabilities. I don't want to see a Marauder packing 4 PPCs and a **** load of LRM but I wouldn't mind some flexibility in the build.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

@Alekto Seranis Problem is the game starts in 3049, the Rotary AC% doesn't come in until the 3060's. most of us are not interested in other peoples ubermechs. We prefer to roll our own, but thank you for the offer.

Edited by Nik Van Rhijn, 22 December 2011 - 04:27 PM.

[Ceefood]

when I played the TT game & we built our own mechs (from scratch if wanted) there was no golden weapon of choice - everyone had their favourites sure but BT didnt have any golden weapon based on heat/damage/space ratio sure their were some bad ones like a flamer but no outright good ones in my experience

you also have to remember the Devs have said this game is about teamwork & not solo play as much - SO a boat full of LRMs or PPCs will have weakness that the other team can exploit & the other team may have the same which balances each other out doesnt it???

@ Kaiser No Offense meant here I am just using your example (could easily use similar examples) but you dont want to see Marauder with 4 ppcs - why not? isnt that a surprise & an interesting combatant? is the mech going to pack enough heatsinks to offset all that heat? Yen Lo Wang has been cited many times & to me a marauder with 4 ppcs is no different than someone making a Yen Lo - it didnt exist as a factory standard but why should players be limited to factory - there were so many underpowered mechs from factory as standard why else would there be so many configs/alts in the tech readouts & thats not including merc based changes either due to extra or lack of funds

I would love to be able to customise my mech with a mech lab & preferably have the mech look similar to what I am packing eg if the standard had LRMs & I choose to replace with lasers then I would love it to show it. Maybe I want my atlas to go faster but have less weapons so as to surprise a heavy mech by catching or keeping up with it - would I be optimal? probably not but maybe it suits my style & means I have fun & lets face it thats what we ALL want

you build a missile boat or whatever & if teamplay really makes that much difference as the Devs indicate then I expect you might take out a temmate or 2 from an alpha strike but more likely I will watch you burn as my team works together against you using your weakness that will be fun for me & not for you

[John Frye]

Kristov Kerensky, on 22 December 2011 - 11:12 AM, said:

-Big Snip-

Something tells me that you'll find most of the fans of the MW series share the same feeling on that, make our SKILL count, do NOT impose some outside arbitrary limitation on what we can do because it's not 'fair' to people who don't have the same abilities.

So the quick twitch skill are the only ones that should count? What about someone else's tactical skill? How about another person's logistics skill? I think the point that is being made is that many players want to see a variety of skills needed, not just who can twitch the biggest guns the fastest.

[Alekto Serenis]

@NIk
That dragon variant is just my favourite for tt, it "can" be a monster and in my mind looks cool (as i imagine how the refit looks) [usually my luck jams the rac on the first shot anyways]

But most people only scream boats boats ubermechs or that they cannot adapt to a unusual situation, so i only wanted to show what those of us that just want to play in their own way and style would probably do

I only want to have a mech fitting me and probably do nothing more then small swaps, yet i want to be capable of doing this true to the tt

*edit*
@frye
Those that have only twitch skills will loose to these that master tactics and planning

Edited by Alekto Serenis, 22 December 2011 - 05:04 PM.

[John Frye]

Alekto Serenis, on 22 December 2011 - 05:04 PM, said:

*edit*
@frye
Those that have only twitch skills will loose to these that master tactics and planning

Point. How about I restate it as don't want to see a game that is overwhelmingly quick twitch. I don't mind the idea of quick twitch being included, but making it 95% of the game would be limiting. After seeing the high Tiers of WoT, I have come to the conclusion that always seeing the same thing under different names, shapes, and especially gameplay is bland (E-100, IS-7, T-30).

[Kristov Kerensky]

Pht..you should read that link in your sigline someday, not just use it as a sigline...once you do, you see why I'm telling you this.

Mech chassis is just that, a chassis, it's a combination of the skeleton, actuators and armor. Weapons mount ON the chassis, they are not part of it. That Cyclops you listed..same skeleton and electronics as the stock model with an AC20, just replace the weapons, that's all, comes from the factor in either variant, you pick, they just attach different weapons to the chassis is all. Seriously, read that link you've got, learn something about the BTech game and how it works.

Hellen, I know we had boats in NetMech, I built a few myself, but I also know that boats weren't very productive usually. Sometimes..1v1 situations, they could be, but common and everyone driving the SAME design? No, we both know that's not even close to true. Grand Council..doing C combats..sure, you saw the same designs, but when you purposely limit yourself to a SINGLE weapon type, what do you expect to happen? Same thing in MW3 and MW4, you limit yourself to a single weapon type, which is exactly what people did, that's what you will get, a single weapon type dominate game. You can't blame the game or the Mechlab for the players forcing a specific weapon type combat, that was choice, nothing to do with the game design at all. And boats..please..hit Sarna, spend a few hours perusing the Mechs, tell me how BTech doesn't have boats and that that is a result of the Mechlab...you gonna sell me a bridge too?

John, I said player skill, I never said twitch skill, there's a huge difference and it's something you see in really good PvP based games. MW games, it was always as much your tactical and strategic abilities as much as twitch skills, anyone who says different is lying..or only played C1 in the various kiddie leagues like Grand Council or..what was it called..Vengeance League on the Zone? You know the leagues I'm talking about if you played back then, full of kids who weren't interested in anything but C1 in SCats! Sorry, but I did help design, start and ran NBT originally, please note that we didn't have that in the league, we were for the adults. I was also death walking in a Mech, but that wasn't just twitch, that was tactical and strategic thinking, my Mechs tended to have a mix of weapons, I wasn't a big boater, unless I was running a fire support Mech for team play. Even then, I'd have a mix of weapons

[Dihm]

You know, the more I think about it, if they don't have the stupid "coolant flush" and handle heat and shutdowns right, I'm not sure I really care about boats in the end. As long as the mech physically adjusts to match whatever the configuration is.

Edited by Dihm, 22 December 2011 - 06:38 PM.

[John Frye]

Kristov Kerensky, on 22 December 2011 - 05:58 PM, said:

-Snip-

John, I said player skill, I never said twitch skill, there's a huge difference and it's something you see in really good PvP based games. MW games, it was always as much your tactical and strategic abilities as much as twitch skills, anyone who says different is lying..or only played C1 in the various kiddie leagues like Grand Council or..what was it called..Vengeance League on the Zone? You know the leagues I'm talking about if you played back then, full of kids who weren't interested in anything but C1 in SCats! Sorry, but I did help design, start and ran NBT originally, please note that we didn't have that in the league, we were for the adults. I was also death walking in a Mech, but that wasn't just twitch, that was tactical and strategic thinking, my Mechs tended to have a mix of weapons, I wasn't a big boater, unless I was running a fire support Mech for team play. Even then, I'd have a mix of weapons

I will be honest and state that I don't believe I ever tried the NBT league. The leagues I did try were so shallow that they held my interest for what couldn't have been more than a couple of days tops (as you say, it was awhile ago). So I ended up going back to the MUSE / MUSH games which I felt had significantly more depth to them. Maybe if I had tried the NBT league, my opinion would be different. Unfortunately, since I didn't have that opportunity, I will have to continue to base my judgements off the BT games I know worked (and were persistent to boot).

[Alekto Serenis]

Dihm, on 22 December 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

You know, the more I think about it, if they don't have the stupid "coolant flush" and handle heat and shutdowns right, I'm not sure I really care about boats in the end. As long as the mech physically adjusts to match whatever the configuration is.

Coolant pods are actually a level3 tech, would had to unbury my maxtech to state specifics but i know they are 1 ton each, 1 time uses and explode on hit and are restricted to non omnimech designs.

Actually used them alot on some designs (and got killed by them as often as they gave me that extra shot). Yet another thing id love to see going back to the core (and not gone). This way anyone who wants a flush coolant option has to live with a potential deadly critcal.

*edit* if i am not mistaken there was a rule in one that you could "flush coolant" always but it had both the potential to ruin your heatsinks and also reduced remaining heatsink efficency

Edited by Alekto Serenis, 22 December 2011 - 06:59 PM.

[Win44]

Kristov Kerensky, on 22 December 2011 - 05:58 PM, said:

Hellen, I know we had boats in NetMech, I built a few myself, but I also know that boats weren't very productive usually. Sometimes..1v1 situations, they could be, but common and everyone driving the SAME design? No, we both know that's not even close to true. Grand Council..doing C combats..sure, you saw the same designs, but when you purposely limit yourself to a SINGLE weapon type, what do you expect to happen? Same thing in MW3 and MW4, you limit yourself to a single weapon type, which is exactly what people did, that's what you will get, a single weapon type dominate game. You can't blame the game or the Mechlab for the players forcing a specific weapon type combat, that was choice, nothing to do with the game design at all. And boats..please..hit Sarna, spend a few hours perusing the Mechs, tell me how BTech doesn't have boats and that that is a result of the Mechlab...you gonna sell me a bridge too?

Kristov; I didn't league play in MW3 for very long, however, matches I remember were map centric min/maxed and always the same. You had maps that forced med/short range and everyone in an assault brought as many UAC's and LBX as possible, anything smaller had ERMed beams. Then on long range maps it was all about how many Gausse/PPC you could fit with an LRM boat here and there.

MW4 ended up being similar, except you didn't see as many chassis played because they couldn't support a min/max config for the various maps.

I agree with you that the community "chose" the best weapon type but it happened because results showed that players could deal the most damage in the shortest amount of time given the terrain being fought over. It's inevitable, but it creates stagnant game play, and IMO the dev's do need to work with this in mind.

Dihm, on 22 December 2011 - 06:37 PM, said:

You know, the more I think about it, if they don't have the stupid "coolant flush" and handle heat and shutdowns right, I'm not sure I really care about boats in the end. As long as the mech physically adjusts to match whatever the configuration is.

Totally agree with you on the coolant flush system. If we see customization, I also want to see the results to look right on the chassis.

Edited by Win44, 22 December 2011 - 07:04 PM.

[Kristov Kerensky]

Ah...yes, MaxTech toys..the Church of the Munchkin's little dream printed up and turned into canon..*sigh* Lets hope PGI avoids that stuff..pray they avoid it..it's horrible stuff, totally unbalances the game mechanics because that's what they are designed to do. Some of the rules are nice, I'll admit, they add nice touches to a system that sometimes overlooked things, but for the most part..it's CotM bs.

[Phades]

kamikaziechameleon, on 22 December 2011 - 02:29 PM, said:

It all comes down to how much variation will they allow, can you put a cannon in place of some LRM? The more you open up modding the more difficult it becomes to balance I hope they keep it grounded to some extent. I know there is some insane mods allowed in the P&P RPG I'm not sure if I want catapaults with auto cannons as that kinda defeats that chasis design doesn't it. I don't know it doesn't bother me so much the more I think about it I trust the more customization they put in the game the better represented it will be, this isn't 2004 after all.

CPLT-C2 - The C2 Catapult is built using a Hollis Marik III Endo Steel chassis and is powered by a Magna 260 extralight engine. The saved weight is used to make the C2 a dedicated long range 'Mech. The primary weapons are two Federated LRM-15 launchers mated to an Artemis IV fire control system. The Medium Lasers have been replaced with two Defiance Shredder LB-X Autocannon/2s. While this makes the Catapult vulnerable to close range attacks, it makes it extremely deadly at long range. BV (1.0) = 1,281, BV (2.0) = 1,346

CPLT-K2 - Breaking the mold of the Catapult, the K2 model removes the LRM-15 launchers and replaces them with two PPCs which allow the Catapult to act as a direct fire support 'Mech and take a more active role in front line combat. The 'Mech has additional single heat sinks to help dissipate the added heat from the PPCs. The K2 also has two Machine Guns to deter infantry attacks. BV (1.0) = 1,052, BV (2.0) = 1,319^[9]
CPLT-K2K - An upgrade to the K2 Catapult, the K2K model upgrades the engine to an extralight model. The twin PPCs have also been upgraded to two ER PPCs. The 'Mech also carries two ER Medium Lasers for close range firepower. To handle the added heat from the upgrades, the 'Mech uses 20 double heat sinks. Finally, the K2K model carries thirteen and a half tons of armor. BV (1.0) = 1,500, BV (2.0) = 1,716<sup>[citation needed]

Catapults with all the crazy cannons you can think of.</sup>