10 replies to this topic

[Orzorn]

If anyone here has played Mechwarrior Living Legends, you'll know part of what I'm talking about.

For those who havent: You can put the same weapon in any combination of 6 groups. You can have it firing in two different groups, for instance, but no present in the other 4. I might want a group that fires all my medium lasers, but I might also have a group that fires all my medium lasers + my srms. Then I might have a group that fires only half my medium lasers + my srms.

This gave the mechwarrior much greater control than previous games in the series that only let you put your weapons in a single weapon grouping.

In addition, I don't recall whether MWLL did this, but I would like to be able to change weapon groups from group fire/chain fire/single fire individually. For example. I could have my medium laser group set to chain fire (I don't want to fire all them off at once and gain all that heat and perhpas miss all 4 at the same time), but my medium laser + srm group could be set to group fire. When I switch between them, it keeps that setting.

In previous mechwarrior games, you either used ALL group fire for ALL groups, or ALL chain fire for ALL groups. With this system, you wouldn't have to constantly press the toggle fire button, especially when moving between laser groups (which are very nice to chain fire so you won't build up too much ehat) to missile groups (which you generally want to group fire because you only have so much lock-on time before they get out of the lock or move behind terrain) and things like that.

Thoughts?

[Hayden]

I think this is actually a pretty solid notion. In MW games it's always bothered me. Especially the part about different group being set to different functions (Chain fire, group fire). It would also be great if they allowed you to bind a group to a certain button, I personally keep things to 2-3 groups, and it would be nice to be able to engage that on demand, instead of cycling through everything else.

[Larry Headrick]

This would be great i like the way i could have two groups the same weapons. One chain and one groupfire. I like this idea it gives me more controll of the weapon interface. I like the group hotkey also.

Great idea guys. Two thumbs way up.

[flyingdebris]

As far as MWLL is concerned i think they had independent group/chain settings for each firegroup for IIRC... 2 maybe 3 updates so far...i think?

I personally like to throw in LBX 20s and pulse lasers together in the same fire group, with another firegroup that is just the lasers (if i don't want to waste ammo). since at close range both are likely to hit and i don't have to worry about keeping independent track of 2 different recycle rates with 2 fingers, when i might have other weapon systems on this thing, and still need figners free to hit overrides and stuff, i just have to keep track of when that LBX is gonna be ready again after i start shooting as the lasers are simply going to keep on pew pewing.

Bushy B 4 lyfe

[Orzorn]

Here's a bit more of an abstract idea, but I think it has some promise:
There would be a toggle button for this, simple on and off. What does it do? Toggle Group Flow on and off.

Group flow, what the heck is that? Think of it like this. I have four groups of weapons.
2 small lasers.
2 medium lasers.
2 large lasers.
2 LRM 10s.

On my mech's customization weapon grouping screen (you do this before you get into a match), each weapon grouping is represented by an icon in the flow menu. You take arrows from these icons, and point the arrow to the next icon. In this manner, you would create a flow for you weapons to follow when firing them using Group Flow mode. You could also have a button that reset your group flow to the beginning point.



So if I were to toggle group flow on, my firing would start out using my LRM 10s. When I fired those, it would move to my large lasers. When I fired those, it would move to using my large lasers AND my medium lasers (I'm now in range for both to hit, so this is a good grouping). When I use that, it moves to my small lasers (I should be close enough now). But the really interesting part is that, once I fire that, it instead moves BACK to my large and medium laser group, letting me cycle between all my useful weapons. Once I destroy my enemy, I could simply hit the group flow reset key and return back to my LRM grouping, starting the cycle all over again.

Using this system, you could engage enemies and not even have to use your weapon groups. Of course, the disadvantages are lack of flexibility, but that's why you would toggle it off if you wished to be more specific about your weapon usage.

Now, this isn't nearly as important as my original ideas, but I do love giving players options.

Edited by Orzorn, 02 January 2012 - 02:23 PM.

[Nik Van Rhijn]

I like both the original and last post. I too liked being able to set up a group with all or ripple fire, amd would often put the same group up twice (I have plenty of buttons). It can help with ammo & heat management.

[Dlardrageth]

I think the keybind idea has major merit. Especially as we will have people playing the game with dozens of different input devices likely. Also gives those people who like to tweak some extra leeway in experimenting which combinations work best for them. There might need to be a limit to it, though. I really won't want to see the game devolve into something where you can press F6, F7, F8 one after another and down goes the enemy Mech. A bit more of a necessity for manual interaction should be retained.

[Kevin Kirov]

Should be the way in books. Switch thru each group. Make them count, but having the same weapon in different groups is cool.

[MuffinTop]

Dear Orzon, why wasn't a vote included with this topic? You missed a prime opportunity my friend and I would've voted>>>YES !

[Seth]

I have no complaints about how weapon grouping worked in MW4. I could reassign in the game, choose to chain fire weapons in a single group or fire all of them in the group on the fly and I could alpha strike easily enough. I hope they keep a lot of that in MWO.

[T0RC4ED]

Seth, on 04 January 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

I have no complaints about how weapon grouping worked in MW4. I could reassign in the game, choose to chain fire weapons in a single group or fire all of them in the group on the fly and I could alpha strike easily enough. I hope they keep a lot of that in MWO.

Im with seth on this one. I find MW4 grouping setup works well and allows me to toggle to single fire a weapon if need be. I like to group weapons by range and thermal output as well as ammo consumption so I dont chew through my ammo and heavy hitters when im finnishing off a crippled mech or demolishing a structure thats not going to return fire.