60 replies to this topic

[FRAGTAST1C]

Is it just me or is the game sound a little louder than usual this time around? Betty's voice interferes a lot when I'm trying to listen to the devs.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

oldbob's has nothing of the irritating sounds
https://youtu.be/q8602qyu_4M

[PhoenixFire55]

Restrictions on mech loadouts in a singleplayer game? ... GL selling that crap.

Also ... LOL @ #nomicrotransactions

[Peter2k]

Not the most interesting AMA

Waiting for modding AMA
Especially with the move to Epic, and the option of buying assets (and legally using; like Alien plants or rocks, ruins and so forth) from the Unreal Engine market store

When I hear "can't change single heatsink with double" and sized hardpoints and weapons, yeah, that will be fixed fast.

The Mechlab in MW5 will be modded to have no restrictions in no time
Probably the first mods coming out for the game, sooo, not that interesting to hear all that


More importantly, how comes optimization and DX12 along?
And modding, modding, modding.

Those brainf*rts will be fixed fast enough, just the underlying game needs to be solid fist.
Not seeing MW5 stuff in the background, with only a few months left, is not inspiring.

[Feral Clown]

Peter2k, on 06 September 2019 - 02:01 AM, said:

Not the most interesting AMA

Waiting for modding AMA
Especially with the move to Epic, and the option of buying assets (and legally using; like Alien plants or rocks, ruins and so forth) from the Unreal Engine market store

When I hear "can't change single heatsink with double" and sized hardpoints and weapons, yeah, that will be fixed fast.

The Mechlab in MW5 will be modded to have no restrictions in no time
Probably the first mods coming out for the game, sooo, not that interesting to hear all that


More importantly, how comes optimization and DX12 along?
And modding, modding, modding.

Those brainf*rts will be fixed fast enough, just the underlying game needs to be solid fist.
Not seeing MW5 stuff in the background, with only a few months left, is not inspiring.

LOL

But Russ did answer that...no modding support on release.

Aaaaand looks like it will be close to 'end of Epic exclusive'.

Sooooo typical PGI soon™.

[VonBruinwald]

Peter2k, on 06 September 2019 - 02:01 AM, said:

When I hear "can't change single heatsink with double" and sized hardpoints and weapons, yeah, that will be fixed fast.

Yeah, this seems like a stupid decision. It doesn't even fit with the lore.

Sure, I get an AC20 not fitting in a machine gun slot... but lasers... in TT there are rules to "dial down" lasers reducing their heat/damage during combat. Downgrading a large to a small should be as simple as switching out the lens and dialling down the input.

As for the heatsinks. I refer to the Catapult-C1b which SLDF Royal units were issued upgrade kits for, upgrade kits which included dubs.

Edited by VonBruinwald, 06 September 2019 - 02:33 AM.

[Vellron2005]

Seems like we'll be stuck with 6 weapons in 6 weapon groups, or some really stupid weapon combos, if you can't put a medium laser (or several) in a large laser slot..

I never liked the stock loadouts, as they mostly suck and are poised to overheat you, or use up ammo real fast..

God I hope this game produces some amazing story, cose' otherwise, we might end up with another magnificent what-the-****..

[Mighty Spike]

VonBruinwald, on 06 September 2019 - 02:32 AM, said:

Yeah, this seems like a stupid decision. It doesn't even fit with the lore.

Sure, I get an AC20 not fitting in a machine gun slot... but lasers... in TT there are rules to "dial down" lasers reducing their heat/damage during combat. Downgrading a large to a small should be as simple as switching out the lens and dialling down the input.

As for the heatsinks. I refer to the Catapult-C1b which SLDF Royal units were issued upgrade kits for, upgrade kits which included dubs.

How can you say that? Russ gives us the game we ALL dreamed bout^^ (still hoping someone buys that License and makes the Game we REALLY dreamed bout)......

[Koniving]

Feral Clown, on 05 September 2019 - 10:18 PM, said:

Why has this thread not been moved to the Battletech discussions with the rest of MW5 threads?

Because Sean Lang made it. Not sure if it is still true, but he is/was technically employed by PGI.
As such its here to get more attention as part of a promotion for MW5.

At least that's much assumption as for why.

[Koniving]

VonBruinwald, on 06 September 2019 - 02:32 AM, said:

Yeah, this seems like a stupid decision. It doesn't even fit with the lore.

Sure, I get an AC20 not fitting in a machine gun slot... but lasers... in TT there are rules to "dial down" lasers reducing their heat/damage during combat. Downgrading a large to a small should be as simple as switching out the lens and dialling down the input.

As for the heatsinks. I refer to the Catapult-C1b which SLDF Royal units were issued upgrade kits for, upgrade kits which included dubs.

Technically from the research I've been doing, its a lot more complicated than that.

But this said...
Here's an actual Battletech example:

The BLW Blow Mark III Large Laser
From TRO 2750

Quote

The Blow Mark III large laser uses five concentrations of firepower, ranging from a wide beam that does not inflict much damage but does disrupt the target's electronics and tracking systems, to a concentrated beam that can sear through even the most advanced armor. The pilot can control these settings, in contrast to many other lasers that must be adjusted prior to combat by a ground crew technician."

FASA-made Game rules once under a website called "TRL"

Quote

For game purposes, only three settings of the Blow Mark III are useful. The settings are chosen before each movement phase. The first setting is that of a normal large laser. The second setting halves the damage to 4 points, but if the target is hit then during the next round's Fire Phase that unit will be affected as if covered by a Guardian ECM under TacOps sensor rules. The third setting widens the beam, giving the attacker a bonus of 2 to hit, but only does 2 points of damage. In addition if the target is hit, then during the next round's fire phase that unit will be affected as if covered by a Guardian ECM (as with the Mark III's second setting), but the target so receive a penalty of 2 to hit during that following Fire Phase due to its thoroughly scrambled electronics and tracking systems.

In general Battletech, without getting into specific brand name weapons, the general ability you describe is to be able to reduce the power output to an existing laser. I.E. My Nova in the Megamek battle of MWO's Clan Invasion wave 1 versus MWO's Project Phoenix pack, after losing my side torso an arm and a leg and with 2 crits on my engine, I was having some serious issues with my heat. So my remaining 6 ER MLs were cut down to 3/7ths firepower to deliver 3 damage at 360 meters for 1 heat each, allowing me to make 6 shots for a total of 6 to hit rolls, each doing 3 damage upon hit and in total netting me 6 heat...accompanied by my 10 heat per turn due to the engine damage and made worse by the fact that we had the full heatsink ruleset in that if you generate X more heat than your heatsinks can handle, 1 or more heatsinks will fail.

Each turn I'd systematically lose 0 to 3 heatsinks...and very quickly it was becoming an extremely desperate situation especially since I could only maneuver using jumpjets due to having one leg -- while facing a very healthy Battlemaster head-on just after popping off a Shadow Hawk, a Thunderbolt, and later finishing off a legless Locust during my escape (the Battlemaster, SHK and Thunderbolt had eliminated my Summoner, Direwolf and Kitfox and of them, only my Summoner got in any real damage).

So it is basically I reduce how much power I'm pumping into my laser to reduce the actual heat / damage output of my weapon, like a Star Trek Phaser being set from vaporize to kill to stun to wide beam
(Vaporize)

(Wide beam)

The actual weapon is not being changed in any way.

The actual lasers lose 4 tons because you changed the lens....as such the logic of swap the lasers is pretty flawed.

Swapping a bigger laser for a smaller one was not really all that easy. If you're short on time and don't care to hear all kinds of interesting BT facts on unique laser variants and PPCs, the TL;DR version is they're physically different sizes and as depicted in some early BT blueprints, are often installed in pairs for example the Magna MK II Unlike MWO and recent BT artwork of the 32nd century, 31st century weapons generally depict large lasers as..
from TRO 3025 Drillson tank...
"The Drillson's main weapon is the turret-mounted Cyclops Eye Laser, unique among heavy [large] lasers for having a small emission blister instead of the typical long [ed. often cone-like] barrel.

Lancelot's arms are literally large lasers on a ten/eleven meter mech past the 'elbow'.

(Note some of MWO's light mechs are over 13 meters tall, so this may give you an idea of how big large lasers are supposed to be, and as such "Rifleman" and its long barrel appearance may make sense.)

Mackie, the twin pelvis barrels are medium lasers.

(Edit: TL/DR version from here: Lasers are different sizes both across actual classifications and even across brand names... so it'd be really grossly oversimplified to think you just swap out the lens and go..not to mention the interpretation of reducing the power output of the laser is the same as swapping out a large laser for a small laser. From this point onward, it's the wonders of weapon variants because it's exciting to talk about since I'm working them out into a mod to give us Battletech lore in a Mechwarrior game).

Diverse Optics 2 Medium Laser as depicted on the Wasp.



On my mod plan threads, Diverse Optics 2 is exceptionally detailed (actually many of Diverse Optics are) down to the science, the gain medium, the wattage, etc. Its an old, outdated design that's still in production in periphery worlds for its higher than normal per shot damage output in spite of its canonical sacrifice in range. (Its also literally the only medium laser of ALL of Battletech's lasers I've found so far that is actually green; and that's only because in order to assist with aiming its beam without the use of the Infrared targeting system, it has a secondary beam with a doubled frequency, giving off a green laser light to facilitate naked-eye-aiming. In FASA's Battletech, the typical medium laser is red (Martell, Defiance B3M, numerous others), orange (Magna MK II), yellow (Krieger), Blue (Rassal Blu Beam), and a few other colors. Small lasers are often green, teal or a few other colors. (That's bound to get confusing real quick; btw Mechwarrior 1 1989's colors for lasers were Green for small, yellowish orange for medium, and red for large).

But back on topic, those barrels are not unique either, some medium lasers use large barrels such as the Omicron 3000 (though this is in part due to the fact that the Omicron 3000 laser [still produced well into the Clan Invasion for the Stinger despite its flaws largely because of its merits] is a detachable hand-held gun powered by a connect made through the hand actuator). (Side note: despite Omicron's name being from the kilowatts/hours put into the laser, the "0.001" second beam time means about 1.5 MW is actually used, barely classifying the Omicron 3000 as a medium laser, its range output is also the lowest of any medium laser in existence, with the Diverse Optics 2 just slightly ahead of it. There are benefits, of course, but an ancient design is exactly that even if it is still in use.)

Mad Dog's lasers are depicts as long needle-like barrels. Though some lasers are depicted as less and those are expressed in their fluff, for example Defiance B3M lasers are much more modern and do not need those long barrels. However, Defiance B3L large lasers do still have semi-lengthy barrels and are exceptionally fat given that it supposedly fires a 10cm laser beam (2cm smaller in diameter than the highest caliber AC/5 round in BT) with a distortion around it often described as purple flames.

Did a quick search and found this; I didn't think I'd actually see the weapon's laser depicted. Awesome! This is a Defiance B3L Large Laser firing. The Large Lasers are almost as big around as the hand actuators, each on the inner-side of the arm.

To be fair, it is worth noting that the Cestus, in its typically depicted crouched state is 6 meters tall (shorter than MWO's Locust), standing it's supposedly an additional 2.5 meters taller. Maybe three going by this artwork at a glance. Didn't have much interest in this mech before other than like Hollander it crouches a lot and gets much taller just before getting into flanking speed. (Btw that is not the Gauss Rifle firing, the stub-barrelled Poland Main Model A GR is torso mounted as the only barrel on the torso). Its arm medium lasers are ChrisComp 39s.

Ceres Arms ML is effectively a really fat 'stub', while the non Ceres Arms-brand Hessen IX small laser on the Vindicator physically dwarfs it in length when you make the comparison.

Random insertion -- Omicron 950s, which from the name I assumed were older than the Omicron 3000, is much newer. Its mounted on an aircraft, and pumps 950 kilowatt/hrs into each very short beam.. It's apparently the medium-laser pre-cursor to the medium pulse laser, as its fluff was written before "pulse lasers" were introduced into Battletech as a game, but is basically described as a quick-to-fire 1 ton laser machine gun. Neat.

Krieger brand Medium Laser barrels are half as long as a Donal PPC barrel (the longest barrelled standard PPC in existence; known for its oversized [length] barrel and blocky power chamber). Krieger Medium Lasers, similar to Magna MK II MLs, fire a yellow beam (Magna MK II's closer to orange).

That's a Donal PPC on the turret, and Donals are the default PPCs of Warhammers.
If your Warhammer is given any other PPC, the length of those barrels would shorten by at least 10% (Tiegart). If they were Krupp Kinslaughter PPCs, they'd be 70% shorter but need to fire twice for the same 'umph', which it can do long before the Donal PPC is ready to fire a second time. Krupp PPCs are counted as having fired twice in standard tabletop, though in Solaris VII you can choose to fire it 'once' instead of twice. They also generate 6 heat per shot (so 12 if you want that 10 damage). The advantage in Solaris VII of a Krupp PPC (7 tons, 5 damage/shot, 6 heat/shot on standard tabletop scale [24 on Solaris VII scale with a threshold of 120 instead of 30)) over a Light PPC (3 tons, 5 damage/shot, 5 heat/shot on standard tabletop heat scale, 20 on Solaris VII scale with a threshold of 120 instead of 30) is a Krupp still shoots faster than a Light PPC.

Lets jump into another PPC.

Parti-Kill Heavy Cannons (PPCs) are a particularly interesting one, too. Unique in that they have the shortest fire delay, due to not having an energy collection chamber but being hardwired directly into the fusion reaction (which immediately draws power away from things like your maximum speed, reducing that to feed that PPC as quickly as possible where your average PPC would draw less immediate energy and fill a power collecting chamber to effectively charge up a PPC bolt). Instead, it immediately fills up a series of (TRO 3026 under Manticore really could have come up with a better name than this) magnetic bottles, which then fill a magnetic bottle shell, which is then fired. Unlike other PPCs, the Parti-Kill appears to fire a shell sparking with lightning around it, rather than a "wave" with lightning streaking from the barrel. At 540 meters it dissipates (unlike others which continue going but weaken as they go, this one's "magnetic bottle shell" collapses under its own power and whatever energy is left just 'poofs' in the air.

There's actually be a lot of really fun things I've been learning while studying up for my mod. I've also looked into how MW4 did its damage numbers (large laser did 1.5 damage/sec with a 5 second recycle rate, medium laser did 0.4 damage/sec with a 3 second recharge rate. The MG array did 0.1 damage/second. Ultra AC/2 did 0.25 damage/sec with a 2 second reload time, Ultra AC/5 did 0.45 damage/sec with a 2.67 second reload time. MRM-40 did a terrifying 6.4 damage (I could not make this up if I tried). Meanwhile MWLL's laser damage translates from its inflates numbers (by way of ratio calculator, if you assume the medium laser's 280 damage is "5" damage, then the 560 is 10 damage. Now, to be fair an older thing of the MWLL wiki had the numbers translate to 5 damage for ML, 8 for LL, and 4 for SL for IS "Standard beam lasers." The pulses came out to higher numbers, but if you plug in the MPL's damage = 6 damage in the ratio calculator, plugging in the LPL got you 9 for IS, 10 for Clan, and the SPL got you 4 for IS and 5 for Clan.

Funny how that works out.

Anyway, long and short. Its not that easy to just swap them out. But don't worry, mods are coming to give us the Battletech/Mechwarrior we (depending on the mod) wanted / deserved / asked for / decided to have / I like trains / etc.

I genuine would not be surprised if someone added this as a weapon in MW5: Mercs.

Edited by Koniving, 06 September 2019 - 05:32 AM.

[VonBruinwald]

Koniving, on 06 September 2019 - 04:20 AM, said:

Technically from the research I've been doing, its a lot more complicated than that.

I was referring to this rule from Tac-Ops:

Quote

Energy weapons:
Any energy weapon (either Direct Fire or Pulse) can dial down its Damage Value, cutting back on heat generated. Before a controlling player makes a to-hit roll for an energy weapon attack, he can announce that he is “dialling back” the Damage Value. For each 1 point less of Damage Value, the weapon generates 1 less heat point than normal, to a minimum of 1 heat

[Sigmar Sich]

Snakesh1t, on 05 September 2019 - 10:19 PM, said:

I don't remember this at all.....they previously stated the exact opposite.

My mistake. Timestamp around 1:14:20
He was talking about some weird question about allowing full mech customization after finishing the campaign. His wording set me off.
Apologies.

[Koniving]

VonBruinwald, on 06 September 2019 - 05:27 AM, said:

I was referring to this rule from Tac-Ops:

(Btw sorry about all the quotes from editing, etc.)

But I did address that here.

Koniving, on 06 September 2019 - 04:20 AM, said:

In general Battletech, without getting into specific brand name weapons, the general ability you describe is to be able to reduce the power output to an existing laser. I.E. My Nova in the Megamek battle of MWO's Clan Invasion wave 1 versus MWO's Project Phoenix pack, after losing my side torso an arm and a leg and with 2 crits on my engine, I was having some serious issues with my heat. So my remaining 6 ER MLs were cut down to 3/7ths firepower to deliver 3 damage at 360 meters for 1 heat each, allowing me to make 6 shots for a total of 6 to hit rolls, each doing 3 damage upon hit and in total netting me 6 heat...accompanied by my 10 heat per turn due to the engine damage and made worse by the fact that we had the full heatsink ruleset in that if you generate X more heat than your heatsinks can handle, 1 or more heatsinks will fail.

Each turn I'd systematically lose 0 to 3 heatsinks...and very quickly it was becoming an extremely desperate situation especially since I could only maneuver using jumpjets due to having one leg -- while facing a very healthy Battlemaster head-on just after popping off a Shadow Hawk, a Thunderbolt, and later finishing off a legless Locust during my escape (the Battlemaster, SHK and Thunderbolt had eliminated my Summoner, Direwolf and Kitfox and of them, only my Summoner got in any real damage).

So it is basically I reduce how much power I'm pumping into my laser to reduce the actual heat / damage output of my weapon, like a Star Trek Phaser being set from vaporize to kill to stun to wide beam

Also, the "Blow Mark III" laser I mentioned at the very start of my post is literally where the (edit: Laser/Energy) rules (edit: of dialing down power) for TacOps was derived from, and gives an example of 5 settings in official canon and implied to be somewhat global for lasers before an official rule was made global for the entire game.

Though the point still stands: They're so physically diverse and different, even ignoring different brands, that MWO's depiction of lasers based on the Battletech 32nd century (3100+) is just...all kinds of wrong and bound to make misconceptions of "I can change my M16A2 into an M3 by changing the barrel". Even if we use the more fair M4 assault rifle...it's a lot more than just a barrel, like 4 kilograms becoming 1,572 kg.

Course, you can find a mod that completely eliminates sized hardpoints altogether, I guarantee one will be made.

Edited by Koniving, 06 September 2019 - 05:43 AM.

[Koniving]

Oh damn, I forgot how things like the Martel ML / Magna MK 1 small lasers could actually come in an inseparable two pack as a cute little laser array. (Adorable!) That's for Warhammer as depicted by the Warhammer blueprint. Depicted on the left of the image.


(Google Warhammer Blueprint in image search, click the blue one on reddit for a good one. Its supposed to be 2.5 inches = 5 feet for that "scale", and the girl is depicted in her stance as exactly 5 feet..
Which makes this Warhammer under 10 meters tall.
Fun! It's dwarfed by the Macross version's canonical height, and that's going to the top of the missile launcher.)

(That full sized image wouldn't post on here and I'm not about to go out of my way to host it right this second. It is neat, though. Also: you stand in the Warhammer and walk to make it walk Robot Jocks style but have to sit in order to actually eject. More interesting are the controls, in a Warhammer the left and right arms are controlled independently; which is why you're required to physically walk/run inside the mech to make it move, since your left hand can't control a throttle and the arm at the same time).

[Nesutizale]

Where mech speeds not normaly controled with paddles like a car? Except that you had one paddle for each leg so you can have different speeds with each leg.

[JediPanther]

All I care about are:

1. Mods and modd-ability once/if/when mw5 goes to steam. Given pgi's record I am almost expecting some "unforeseen" consequence preventing pgi from getting mw5 out. Most game I play can and do have mods and mods from steam workshop/nexus mod community.

2. Functional lan co-op. Being ale to play with my family is a huge selling point. I'd say far more important than mods. One thing I miss about past games were the spilt-screen local co-op from the 16/64 bit eras. Now it's all single player/mutiplayer online.

[Feral Clown]

Koniving, on 06 September 2019 - 03:17 AM, said:

Because Sean Lang made it. Not sure if it is still true, but he is/was technically employed by PGI.
As such its here to get more attention as part of a promotion for MW5.

At least that's much assumption as for why.

Oh I know and Sean is an OK dude.

My point is PGI is very hap hazard about how they apply their rules. Like Tina coming into a thread and cleaning up politics, which was far from serious or heated, but she showed up randomly anyway when Trump and trumpwalls are an ongoing and continual joke amoungst the community at large. But she'd have be around and in touch with the community she 'manages' to understand that and well.....

[Nesutizale]

Yah Tina only seams to communicate in one direction, if she does that...we don't know since she isn't talking ot us.

As for the MechLab. I find that system interesting. Playing with certain limits can make a game much more interesting instead of just Metaing everthing all the time. That is boring and what made MWO boring.

[Feral Clown]

Nesutizale, on 06 September 2019 - 11:11 PM, said:

Yah Tina only seams to communicate in one direction, if she does that...we don't know since she isn't talking ot us.

As for the MechLab. I find that system interesting. Playing with certain limits can make a game much more interesting instead of just Metaing everthing all the time. That is boring and what made MWO boring.

Agree with first part, disagree with second.

The mechlab is a lot of what is fun about MWO and this game has such a wide variety of good compared to any other game I have played. I regularly use most of the weapons in this game. Only thing I don't really use at all on anything is light ppcs, heavy/light mg's, rac fives and regular clan ac20s. So there is a ton of stuff to play with and a lot of stuff that is good.

Also seeing the joke that was MWOWC stock mode convinced for sure that the lab is huge part of what is fun.

[Nesutizale]

Concrats to beeing one of the few that uses more then one config then. I so often saw just the same mech with another skin in the game that it became boring. That is where I welcome the change of haveing a limit that pushes me out of my compfort zone of just using the meta.

As for the MWO WC stock mode, I found that interesting to watch. Sure it had its own meta but at least they used something that was different. It also needs more skill to actualy get the best out of a ****** mech then just use an optimised one.

I also used to play stock matches with my friends in private matches and that was also quite some fun as you realy have to think about what you do. Building a mech that is just allways below the redline or where you have optimized the hell out of firing groups takes away a lot of the thinking about the right reaction to the situation.