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[Koniving]

The briefest summary possible.


Kon's Updated/summarized MW5 Mercs mod plan

First, what's out thanks to Mw5's dropped features...

• Unique engine stuff. For now. MW5 doesn't even have engine space or an indication of whether you're using standard or XL engines. So that's a left-shoulder item.
  
• Unique targeting equipment / sensor equipment. Seems that this feature from the Pre-Alpha demo was also tossed out. This really sucks because I was looking forward to this.

What's on the backburner. Sub-hitbox system.
Breaking the primary hitboxes into smaller "sub" hitboxes within those hitboxes, in which the armor distribution for the area is a locked percentage of the total armor allocated. This element is necessary for allowing mechs to endure more damage as well as allowing players to focus on specific elements (such as a mech's big gun) to destroy them without having to go through all the armor. This would be the best way to represent "through armor criticals" without a level of RNG b.s.

Armor/Structure:
Due to the issue of decimal numbers in this mod, it's been decided to times all health and damage by 3. However if possible, they will be listed by 1.
This is because Battletech's damage breakdown per shot revolves around 3s. 3 shots at 1.6666667 = 5. 15 shots at 0.333(repeating) times = 5. Etc. (It might be understandable why HBS BT times health and damage by 5, but in a breakdown of damage per projectile would still have a lot of decimals without being a multiple of 3.)
If the times 3 is necessary, an AC/5 will do 15...which is really 5. This'll keep the 1:1 damage ratio.
Will try 1x armor/structure and damage first to see how the game handles decimals.
Fixing vehicle health. Vehicles in Mw5Mercs seem to have significantly reduced health in order to make them easier to deal with. While not the one-AC/5-shot-and-done that they were in early 2018 videos, one might question if they're sending cardboard cutouts after you.

Heat system

Spoiler

There's four tiers to the heat system. Though beyond moving to 30 threshold this will wait for phase 2.
Equipment heat - the heat of your weapons and other heat-worthy equipment. These will replace the "Cooldown" bars. When overheated, your weapon will either lockout or hit you with a negative effect that you can prevent by not overusing your weapons or equipment.
Surface heat - The heat of the surface of your mech. Related to the heat of the environment and things such as flamer use against you. A hot surface will make mechs and vehicles glow on thermals even when powered down.
Reactor heat - This is the heat of your reactor. The most costly spikes to heat are of course the use of energy weaponry. Shuts down when the reactor is overheated.
Heatsink capacity - This is the limit that the heatsinks can pull away from other systems and process for expulsion. If you close "disable" the heatsinks, this locks the heat inside your heatsinks to significantly reduce your thermal signature (as so long as the surface of your mech is cool and the heatsinks not expelling the mech will be able to blend with the background according to armor lore), but without expelling the heat it won't go away. You will also still register if your heat is over 33%. Regardless of enabled or disabled, there's a finite amount of heat that they can endure. Once they reach this limit your heatsinks may begin to fail.

In the first release, it is likely that equipment heat and separate heatsink capacity will not yet be implemented.

Other heat details

• There's 30 threshold for the reactor. This is SEPARATE from your heatsink capacity.
  
• Weapons have their own limits which can be reached faster or slower depending on the quality (and existence) of their cooling jackets.
  
• Large fires caused by weapons fire count as surface heat.
  
• Water over knee height can be used to help increase your dissipation (cooling) rate.

Lore-rooted shutdown/override
In Battletech and real life, a fusion reactor isn't a switch you can just flip up and down every 3 seconds when you overheat.

• Mechs cannot power up again until reaching 14 heat, which is 46.66667% of 30 threshold.
  
• There is no magic button to instantly turn the mech on when it shuts down.
  
  • Overheating to the point of shutting down is intended to be a life-ending experience.
• 2007's Tech Manual, much like 1987's BattleTechnology and confirmed by numerous novels, states that the 'override' is a weapons lockout. TechManual specifies it locks out at 80% heat, override can restore weapon functionality.
  
• This includes 'overheated weapons' as well as when the mech's overall heat is dangerously high. I'm hoping to use separate buttons for the two, but this probably will not be the case.

Heatsinks
- modified to address the issue that players have of "magic heat" with MWO when losing heatsinks.

• Are given a threshold (separate from the 30 of the engine) in which they can hold heat.
  
• Have draw power (sucks heat from other sources) and expel power (release heat into the atmosphere).
  
• The removal of 1 heat for a standard heatsink takes 10 seconds as per the BT/MW standard for an individual heatsink, 5 seconds to pull that full 1 heat from the mech (reactor or weapons) and 5 seconds to release it into the air.
  
  • In reality at that rate heat is being pulled from the weapon at 0.2 heat per second and is actually expelled at 0.1 heat per second.
    
    • This means that standard heatsinks will suck in heat twice as fast as it releases it into the air, allowing weapons and engines to cool faster without actually being double heatsinks.
  • The heatsink will always be expelling heat into the air at 0.1 heat per second, even if the mech is powered down, unless the heatsink is either destroyed or deactivated intentionally.
• Ten standard heatsinks can remove 10 heat within 10 seconds.
  
• Your heatsinks individually can only "hold" 1 heat [2 for DHS] (so 10 heat for 10 SHS) inside the heatsink's buffer [threshold] which is the limbo between the weapons/engine and expelling it into the atmosphere.
  
  • If your heatsinks are full, they will only continue to take in heat as fast as they can expel it.
• If your heatsinks become too overloaded (lots more heat than it can release, the heatsinks are not able to return to less than 50% capacity for a lengthy period of time) your heatsinks will begin to fail.
  
• Heatsinks, if possible, will be directed to pull from the closest source of heat first. As such if you have a heatsink near a weapon, the weapon is the priority for that heatsink. If it is near the engine, the engine is more important for that heatsink.
  
• Losing heatsinks [or sources of heat] due to loss of limb also removes the heat located IN THAT AREA.
  
• Your heat everywhere else, such as your engine, will only be affected in that you now have overall less coolant to take care of your needs.
  
• The above is the functionality standard. Brand name heatsinks may differ in different ways.

Heatsink failure - There are two types of failure.


Coolant failure, meaning it's temporary and if you resupply the heatsink with a fresh supply of coolant you can restore its functionality for the most part. There is a plan to add coolant trucks to the game. This is dependent on a more skilled programmer as well as a texture artist volunteering some time to the project in the future.
And outright heatsink failure, it has either ruptured or melted, rendering it completely broken until repaired or if necessary replaced.

Slot rework, size hardpoint system rework
Pretty straight forward. Sized hardpoints, good. However, I was thinking softpoints rather than hardpoints (that missile slot can be converted for lasers, etc., but it will take more time, cost more money and run the risk of being done with issues.) Some brand name weapons and equipment will be able to use different slots, for example the Thunderbolt A5M Large Laser is one of several large lasers considered to be 'compact' and as such will be made so that they can fit into medium energy slots instead of exclusively large slots.

Weapons - A risk versus reward philosphy is at play when dealing with weapon heat versus damage returns, as well as all factors.

Spoiler

• Every weapon is classified and rated by the output it can deliver in 5 seconds or less. For example, an AC/5 delivers 5 damage in 5 seconds or less, a medium laser delivers 5 damage in 5 seconds or less.
  
• Some exceptions exist such as the FarFire Maxi-Rack (a 5 tube LRM-20 on all Atlases except the K and the S/S-2). However, every single weapon is able to achieve its rated damage and be ready to do it again every ten seconds.
  
• From a standard baseline weapon in each class with known variants set around this standard, each variation is formed and compared.
  
• From the get-go, the goal is "different." No variant is intended to be blatantly superior to other variants, every perk has its quirk.
  
• Each weapon has allocations in its weight between several core elements (varies by weapon class). Variants are made by giving up one or more elements in exchange for other elements.
  
• As an example, you can take a standard assault rifle, cut down the barrel and use that weight to reinforce the receiver and if necessary put an improved cooling measure to keep the barrel from melting to sacrifice accurate ranges in exchange for higher firing rate in close quarters.
  
• A combination of Star Citizen's early "pentagon" for missile distribution and this entry on a typical PPC's weight distribution is what inspired this method to balance "an AC/5 is an AC/5 that's better suited for this style of play rather than that style and not a level 5 burst fire AC/25 instant-win cannon for 8 tons"
  
• Minimum accurate ranges are not hamfisted in as magical no damage ranges. They're accounted for in ways that make sense (if there's a firing delay/charge time, it's a lot harder to hit that fast thing speeding around you at 70mm than at 180+ because he's there and gone like *snap*. There's no need for magical levels of b.s.
  
• Ammunition depletes and needs to be resupplied. No freebies here. Economy weapons exist to fit the needs of a money-conscious mercenary.

Below is a large list giving an overview of each system including those I'm adding to the game, without getting into the individual brand name models.

Spoiler

Autocannons

• ACs generate most to all heat at the weapon.
  
• Some versions due to attributes can generate some reactor heat; UACs using the magnetic feed system will especially be guilty of this.
  
• "Accurate range" from tabletop give or take is the range you can reliably land shots in "one spot." These work out to 1,500 to over 2,000 meters depending on the weapon; though shot groupings will suffer significantly for burst and automatic fire.
  
• Calibers canonical to the IS range from 20mm (some LBX) to 185mm.
  
• Feature cassette (magazine reload) and belt (only delayed when changing between tons of ammo) weapon sets.
  
• Will have semi-automatic, burst-fire, and fully-automatic systems.
  
• ACs can have belt- and cassette[magazine]-feeds. Cassette feeds have to stop to reload. Belt feeds have a higher ammo-explosive risk but do not need to stop use to reload [except when changing between ammo bins].
  
• *Standard ACs and LBX can achieve double their rated damage but it comes at high risk encountered by overheating" the weapon.
  
• Like all overheats, it can be prevented by managing your fire so that you can get that double damage while keeping the weapon cool enough to prevent malfunctions/jams, explosions, or melting the barrel.
  
• A lore friendly AC that's never appeared in a Mechwarrior game before, the Flak AC, will make an appearance. This weapon is great against aircraft, infantry, and lighter armored vehicles. However, it is less effective against tanks and mechs.
  
• UACs can achieve superior rates of fire [with many brands taking less time than their AC counterparts of similr calibers to deliver rated damage) and have significantly less risk in achieving double the rated damage. However, there is a lengthy reload time for cassette exchanges.
  
• Some ACs, UACs, and LBX weapons will have an unjam feature or secondary feed option, one example is the Pontiac 100. Secondary feeds take as much as twice as long to reload from.
  
• LBX will have numerous variations. Afterall, rotary-barrelled LBX is canonical and existed on the Atlas II before rotary ACs existed, and that was just an LB-10X, also the Partisan AA has quad-barrelled rotary LB-2X.
  
• LBX is NOT a shotgun, its impressive range will make a lot more sense than it ever has in a Mechwarrior game, and it's "shotgun-like" reference will still make sense. Overall, the LBX is a superior weapon to the AC and will have an ammunition change key.
  
• LBX cluster-munitions explode, it is better to not be too close. This is because in Battletech they are bombs.
  
• Overall, significantly lower calibers can easily exceed the generic damage rating, while higher calibers may fall short of the rating with exceptions.

Rifles - Single shot, extremely high-caliber hefty hitting tank cannons.

• Impressive long ranges (increasing with size, up to over 4,000 meters while still doing some damage),
  
• Very accurate
  
• High recoil
  
• High damage on contact per bullet.
  
• Superior up-front damage potential to most ACs but inferior damage over time due to the slow firing rate.
  
• May be able to be used to net two ratings with fewer risks than an AC, but beyond the first exchange of fire or a good sniping position, the AC is the superior weapon for a reason. "In the time it takes me to line up a shot, they send a hundred at me!"
  
• In the future, once adding mechs becomes something I'm capable of doing, some civilian mechs may make an appearance including the Rifle-armed anti-pirate Arbiter.
  
• The following indented bullet points can be used to help you locate where to find them.
  
  • Not used by the big militaries, but used in periphery nations, some less fortunate mercenaries and by pirates. Is known to be used by some of Liao's territories.
    
  • Never went extinct with a modest civilian market.
    
  • It is possible to find them among Davion ballistic-enthusias ts/collectors (the shops).
• Damage is reduced against BAR 10 armor, still, at 8 tons the Heavy Rifle significantly outdoes an AC/5 in both damage per shot and in overall damage for a single rating.
  
  • Against lesser armor or exposed structure, the Heavy Rifle is almost comparable to an AC/10.
• Ranges of 2,000+ meters with every 400 meters after reducing the damage by 1 point (granually not suddenly), meaning the longest possible range of the largest Rifles is under 4,400 meters against BAR 10 armor, or just shy of 5,200 meters against structure and non-armored targets
  
• The Light Rifle, only 3 tons, is ineffective against mechs and tanks unless the armor is gone.
  
• At half of rated ranges (540/2 = 220 meters the for heavy rifle), Rifles can do penetration damage (through armor to structure). However, this should be considered an act of desperation and not a practical combat strategy.

Spoiler

As a noteworthy comparison, the powerful but low caliber (40mm) Pontiac 100 AC/20 would require around 46 shots to the cockpit to rip it apart.
A 180mm Tomodzuru or the Atlas's Mech Killer AC/20 would need 3 shots which is overkill.
A Heavy Rifle at 190mm even with the reduced damage against a barrier armor rating of 10 [Mechs] would need only 2, and it would be even greater overkill. Only one at a significantly close range.

MGs - the battlefield's peashooter has never been more lore-accurate, reality-grounded, and yet so damn useful.

• Generates heat at the weapon, but unless overused to a certain extent this heat won't even count against the mech's heatsinks
  
• Through the burst fire MG rules of Tac-Ops (pushing the heat without overheating), it's possible to achieve multiple damage ratings in quick succession at increasing risk.
  
• AMS is an MG on a turret. As such, MGs can be used shoot down missiles, as can anything else. However, I don't intend to make that easy to do but a skill you can be proud of.
  
• Penetration range is around 90 to 180mm against Barrier Armor Rating 10 (Mechs, tanks), effective to 1,500 meters against infantry armor (provided you hit them; also I plan to have infantry/power armor and for them to be a threat in groups or if too close). (VTOL Aircraft is generally BAR 5-7, so MGs will be useful against them at reasonable ranges).
  
• MGs, like ACs, come in numerous variations from miniguns to high caliber munitions to fully automatic shotguns.
  
• MGs can jam, overheat, and suffer critical malfunctions like every other weapon.

Lasers - (all types)

• Generates more heat at the reactor than at the weapon.
  
• Weapon can still overheat.
  
• Have varying firing delays to prime the laser (see HBS Battletech laser fire).
  
• Have a wide variety of differences from beam duration, shots to reach rating, beam types, etc.
  
• Have variations which can be pushed for some extra damage at risk.
  
• The sheer variety enables many lasers to be tangible in paper-rock-scissors-lizard-Spock scenarios. Something for every playstyle.
  
• Come in Star Wars blaster, Star Trek phaser, and Halo Spartan Laser varieties for standard/ER lasers.
  
• Pulse lasers are 'laser machine guns' with weaker hits per pulse versus standard lasers, but cumulatively over a short period of time will outperform a comparable standard laser in overall damage output.
  
• Pulse lasers are great for dealing with lots of small targets in quick succession.
  
• Will (eventually) be affected by smoke, particles, and anti-laser countermeasures. (I have an idea of how to do it but a better programmer's help might be necessary to not make it ugly / processor heavy).

PPCs - For the first time ever they will be the siege cannons they are claimed to be.

• Generate heat primarily at the reactor.
  
• Have varying firing delays to prime the system. This delay can be cut by 3/4ths by disabling the "Field Inhibitor."
  
• Does not have a magic "no damage" range, which that silly crap is NOT canonical but something PGI slapped in.
  
• Vary in ratio of thermal or kinetic (knock-down) power.
  
• Have some of the highest damage per shot in the game, allowing them to live up to the role of Siege Cannons" that make them so feared in lore, rather than the joke they have become in Mechwarrior games.
  
• May surprise with the variety that they offer.
  
• Have slow firing rates with lengthy cooldown times.
  
• It is NOT advised to push a PPC
  
• Multiple PPC strikes can affect the target's equipment. (a larger more sensor-numbing effect than MWO's "flicker").
  
• Despite 30 threshold, you can fire 2 ER PPCs or 3 PPCs at once without shutting down, since the heat accumulates over time rather than instantly. This makes them significantly more bearable, however, the heat is still so intense that like the Clan Wolf Timberwolf from MW2's intro, you'll be resorting to ballistic weapons for quite some time in order to avoid shutting down.

Gauss Rifles - What the **** was THAT!?!?!?!?

• Generate heat primarily at the reactor
  
• Early Gauss Rifles that first appear will generate much more heat than later refined ones.
  
• Have varying firing delays to prime the system. These cannot be reduced in timing, unlike the PPCs.
  
• Some models are planned to be able to pre-charged (toggled on and off) while others only charge when activated.
  
• Charged Gauss Rifles are dangerous to the user. Inert Gauss Rifles are not.
  
• Some Gauss Rifles deliver all the damage to a wide area of impact ("watermelon projectile of 40cm [400 mm]), the concussion having a chance of producing internal damage.
  
• Other Gauss Rifles deliver their damage to a small area, traversing through a target to potentially hit another target with the remaining kinetic energy (these produce less damage on target but are good for two-for-one shots).
  
• You will know when you are hit by a Gauss Rifle. It is the single deadliest projectile you will ever encounter in the field after my mod.
  
• Goal is to be able to hit targets as far as 6,000 meters, however, realistic expectancy to competently hit targets is still under a thousand meters under combat conditions.
  
• A Gauss Rifle under 660 meters should stagger even 100 ton mechs to some degree, and within a certain lower tonnage range will be knocked down.

LRMs - Don't need to blot out the sun. No MG spray of foam darts here.

• It generates heat at the weapon.
  
• A variety of lore-rooted missiles and rockets fall under the generic "LRM."
  
• Generally fire-and-forget and lock-on variants.
  
• No "holding lock" nonsense, except with Artemis. (If you lose the lock with Artemis, it behaves like a normal fire-and-forget LRM)
  
• Not affected by ECM, but can be affected by other countermeasures.
  
• Sensor warning-defeating (and thus AMS-defeating) ammunition exists in the early 3000s before the Helm Memory Core revitalized star league tech. (Novels only, in tabletop they're just regular LRMs). This ammunition is a bit inferior to standard LRMs however due to loss of agility as these cut off the thrusters in the air and literally 'fall' to their target.

Mech Mortar - Nothing like lobbing area-saturating death into an area you can't see.

• Generates heat at the weapon.
  
• Not reacted to by most AMS systems.
  
• Less commonly used but still in military use and never went extinct.
  
• Fire and forget system automatically tracks a target within range.
  
• Larger versions can be used to saturate an area.
  
• Does not alert sensors until exploding.
  
• Semi-guided. Upon falling toward a designated area, Mech Mortar shells try to seek out large metal objects, favoring the largest one it can find in a range of the target area.
  
• Plan for an intuitive aiming system. How well that works, well, that's another story.
  
• Can be shot down manually.
  

SRMs -

• Generates heat at the weapon.
  
• Is capable of some tracking.
  
• Does not feature AMS/sensor-defeating ammo.
  
• Some models can be locked for greater accuracy, but it is not necessary.

Artemis-enhancement - Will be worth the weight.

• Artemis does a whole lot more than "tighten the spread" of SRMs (Need to hold locks for Artemis Enhanced LRM/SRMs. If lost, the LRM/SRM will behave like normal).
  
• Missiles enhanced with Artemis will be able to perform significantly sharper manuevers, including circling around to double back should they completely overshoot the target, as the launcher itself is guiding the missile instead of the missile guiding itself. (Basically similar to MWO streaks, but without the physics-defying spin in place).
  
• Susceptible to ECM (within 180 meters of the user, of the target, anywhere within 180 meters of the direct line of sight through the reticle drawn in between.) ECM interference will be treated like losing sight of the target.

Streak SRMs - Rooted in physics.

• Streak launchers calculate firing with the intention of a 90% or superior probability of hitting, denying the command to fire if the chance to hit is insufficient.
  
• Streak Missiles are self-contained and not affected by Guardian ECM in ANY capacity in the air or at the launcher.
  
• Streak Missiles are unaffected by any other countermeasures.
  
• Streak Missiles will not chase a target but instead intercept the target using the shortest possible route.
  
• Streak Missiles "do not track" a target post-launch. Instead, the launcher anticipates reactions when choosing the pre-programmed flight path.
  
• (Due to limitations inherent in most game engines, this means the first 20% of the flight path is going to be 'chosen' which will make them seem unique and from there the missiles will behave like a somewhat faster and slightly more agile SRM. They will ignore any countermeasures and will not revert to standard SRMs under ECM influence.).
  
• (Once Angel ECM is implemented, if ever implemented, Streaks will be amended to turn into dead-fire rockets when the user is under ECM at the time of launch, this is because the launcher will fail to program the missile altogether.)

Arrow IV Artillery Missiles - Because why aren't they in Mechwarrior Online???

• The only thing that can actually use the TAG as a weapon's assistant rather than an information-gathering device within MW5's timeline (Tag-using LRMs don't exist until 3057. They didn't even exist in the Star League era!)
  
• You want more bullet points don't you?

This will be done in multiple phases.


The first phase will just be the weapon changes with and without the max heat change.


Additional plans:

Improve AI

Spoiler

Improve AI by studying and enhancing the behavioral trees. Especially the ability to see other AI blocking line of sight and distinguishing them as not destructible environmental obstacles (something the current AI in the beta is incapable of doing).
Further improve AI by creating a simple finite state machine to orchestrate and govern the AI, serving as "Central Command." They will be supplied with several RTS and basic military strategies attempting to take advantage of their composition.
This finite state machine will only be used on military AI.

Civilian AI and Pirate AI will not benefit from a central command, leaving each individual to act independently. This means civilians, resistance, etc.. that you may be in mission to save, will likely appear to be inexperienced compared to the planned coordination of the 'commanded' military AI units.

Pirate AI behavorial tree will be augmented with a special friendly fire clause. Being the recipient of friendly fire will mark the attacking allied unit as a viable target for that pirate, and an AI bark will play to give an audio queue with this happens so that the player knows the pirate is 'offended' by his or her comrade.

The AI appears to have basic behaviors for when an enemy is not detected. However, the player is "instantly" detected within range even when behind the mech unless glitched. I plan to modify this for more specific check methods for sight so that the player could use stealth options without being in scripted handcrafted events. This is necessary for certain elements to work, such as being able to shut off your heatsinks to significantly reduce your heat signature as well as set active/passive radar ranges, and to allow AI to both utilize and recognize the "Mech powerup" ambush tactic of old Mechwarrior games.

Movement tweaks

Spoiler

Jumpjets suck. If I can't go 180 meters forward with 6 jumpjets, then what the hell good are they?
Going to fix that as well as put in brands.

These mechs accelerate faster than my car, and I gotta say my car isn't 20 tons. Also despite how slow they might seem, since overall damage volume per second is going to be significantly lower and thus time to kill will be longer, the mechs aren't going to suffer from accelerating like vehicles instead of like an on/off switch.

Turning is to be tweaked too.

Other related tweaks in the distant future:
Knockdowns, emergency manuevers, melee.

Animation fixes.
Take a Flea or Panther 10P into the field and play in third person watching your mech.
If that's bad, then take a Nightstar and torso twist 90 degrees left or right..try to hold in your vomit 'cause you're cleaning it not me.

Edited by Koniving, 29 November 2019 - 06:23 PM.

[Koniving]

Some necessities to add..

Tweak mech speed in water... there's no loss of speed in water it may as well not even exist.
In fact there are no splashes, no interactive water effects of any kind... water barely even exists even having the camera under water does nothing.

AI navigation... Not entirely sure how to do this but my AI allies got stuck on something and kept complaining to me about sight seeing when I waited for them to catch up. Finally went about 2,000 meters away from them and they were still stuck. Was expecting them to teleport or some other Unreal engine trick. It wasn't until about 3 seconds after I got into combat suddenly both Centurions wound up at my flanks ready to back me up despite just seconds ago being over 2k meters back. Teleporting is fine, it's useful, but a little subtlety about it would be nice.

Using a mix of AC/2 single shot and burst fire, I found a bug where the burst fire can be stuck permanently firing. Hopefully PGI can fix that bug on their own.

AC/2 spammery allows a Panther sporting twin AC/2s (this time the standard) to butcher heavies like they're made of paper, and of the two assaults I've encountered the Zeus folded like paper and the Stalker wasn't much of a challenge just time consuming without using missiles.

The min range lock was an interesting touch. I'll use that as something that some brands do while others won't restrict you from firing (after all, from this scenario with all attacks on things other than the Atlas coming from front-mounted LRM-5s, and I hit all but the target beside me and you can see their ranges. (The one beside me, the missile landed in the hex behind him.)

So of a target 180, a target 90, and a target 60, I hit the 180 and the 90 with ease and the 60-meter one missed, possibly more because of how far over to the side he is as opposed to being in front of me. All targets moved, but to be fair the gunnery skill of the gunner was elite level.

I really like that the 'splash' from a PPC impact causes energy distortions even when they miss. Friendly Panther PPCs flew by me and caused distortions, though I think it might be because I was in the shockwave off-screen. But I'm on the fence on this being the trick every PPC has up its sleeve. So possibly different kinds of interesting effects.

The Gauss was interesting to see, but when I gaussed a Locust that was running at me he didn't even flinch even as he took hefty damage and then he shot me like it was nothing. In my mind I'm picturing canonical descriptions of mechs with prototype gauss rifles having so much recoil that they topple over, or hitting so hard that a 40cm (400mm) hole is punched straight through the side torso (front, structure and back) and goes on to cause a rock slide in a nearby cliffside of a ravine, while lifting the target 40 ton target off of its feet and through the air...
and I'm just not feeling that impact. Sure the damage is there (even if it's doing 7.5 damage when you consider that 15 is going up against double armor/structure).

Also, the Gauss Rifle available is called the Dragon's Fire. Dragon's Fire is known for the myriad of flames that surrounds the projectile when fired.. but the effect (while cool) is kinda blue and easily confused with a PPC at first.

Overall I like it. I was worried that my firing rates might seem a bit spammy, but there's a number of similar firing rates here. Using the single shot AC/10 and AC/20, I'm definitely feeling the frustration and the reward that I intend to give the Mech Rifles that I was replacing the high powered single shot ACs with.

It has a lot of potential for a modder. Despite my criticisms in other threads particularly in picking apart the AI I like what's here so far and I'm happy to have a chance to expand it. (I worked quite a bit with it in a skyrim-esque mod I was doing for the original Deus Ex with an FF7 setting; you know the original Deus Ex has an AI package for stalkers that pretend they're not following you? Anyway I was surprised to hear enemy AI barks on occasion coming through as intercepted radio transmissions of enemy reactions. In Instant action they are extremely rare but in campaign missions they could be extremely valuable).

[Koniving]

The first post has been read and fixed.
When I was originally posting it I was rushing to get ready for work and when done the net was out. When I got home I found out my wife closed the browser so I lost it entirely and had to work with a backup copy I made just in case.. then partway through I realized I was using the wrong copy. As such it was probably a chaotic mess.

I've also put spoilers in to condense the sections that run too long.
Finally, added tweaks, changes, and more stuff after thoroughly trying and breaking MW5's Beta.
Unfortunately the "I'm a building" exploit is not something I can fix.

[Koniving]

[Koniving]

Beyond the obvious tweaks of changing values and the like in order to create the variants, I also am making unique 3D models for them. Generally these 3D models are based on the most unique representation of the weapon.

For example, since most images of the Magna Hellstar are generic, I chose this image for representing the visual look of the PPC.

I know in this particular case it doesn't look all that unique, but you might be surprised.

This is across all weapon variants, with the 3D models though based on the artwork also intent on reflecting what makes them unique, such as the Magna series of lasers. Though much of the unseen art doesn't show this, Magna lasers in the 90s were given the unique trait of a wider than normal beam that covers a larger area. (Like many unique traits it was fluff only and had no effect in BT tabletop). So rather than ( ) this we instead have (__) this. Despite the wider area, it has more power going to it in order to ensure there is not a loss in damage potential. This apparently makes it more useful as an anti-infantry laser to cover a wider area and thus kill more people per shot. It's also quite convenient that most mechs carrying this laser either lack any other means of fighting infantry, or are expressly designed for fighting infantry. (Also if you haven't been able to tell, I want infantry in MW5 so I'm putting them in).

Here are firestarters wielding the Magna MK II medium laser.

Still, if you focus the beam so that its wider area is within the desired hitbox on the enemy, you'll actually get slightly higher focused damage (where if fired on the border of a hitbox you'll split damage between them). The main principle is this series of lasers give you an easier time hitting very small targets by not needing to be as pixel-accurate. As for the color, Magna lasers are yellowish-orange in hue.

Edit: The mechanical specifics of how that would work in a video game.

Spoiler

Rather than a wider laser, it'll be two side by side lasers both being called to fire with a modified effect, meaning it has two hit areas and as such it can register hits split between hitboxes. The two, separate, do half the total damage intended per trigger pull. Combined, they do the full intended damage. Since infantry targets are soft this won't have any negative effects like "survivors", so long as it wasn't battle armor...

Not every weapon brand will be available for every mech, as weapon brands are limited not only by slot size but also by the concept of slot location (arm, lower torso, upper torso, etc.) This is in part what makes being able to make so many unique weapons visually possible as I won't have to have them suit every possible place to mount them and instead only a limited selection of places and mechs.

In the earlier example of a Pontiac 100, a few of the mechs that could mount one (exclusively accounting for location and stock ballistic slot) would be the Victor, the Centurions (Yen Lo Wang is using this by default), Enforcers, Dragons, etc. All of these have a weapon arm that lacks a hand. (Not a complete list) Also, for example, the Hunchback series would not be able to mount one and neither can the Roughneck as its weapon arms possess hands, and it will not be mountable in a torso slot. (In real life you'd have to redesign the weapon in order to fit into a shoulder or gut-section of the torso, worked around other moving parts, and even in BT lore large lasers often need to be redesigned to fit in shoulders such as the Defiance A3M).

In turn, this also makes mechs much more unique from otherwise similar units. Because without that, once I unlock slots to accept ballistic, missile or energy options as soft points rather than hard-locking them as one type as hardpoints, mechs would likely have lost many of their uniqueness.

Also given the unique weapons, stock mechs will have significantly more variety as they will be equipped with lore appropriate weapons and have sub-variations relating to their use as pirate, civilian-run, and mercenary uses too.

I'm hoping to also create a unique mission type or 'drop' selection that plays only once so that I can have heroes in the field that you have a single chance to engage and capture. If it is possible, they'll get the most unique AI packages I can pull off. If for some reason it isn't possible to have it set to let you potentially collect the entire mech after defeating a hero, parts that you might need will be made available at some collector's planet. Every hero's likely got a fan that wants to replicate what the hero has. BT's lore is full of Allard fans that recreate his Yen Lo Wang.

12/2/19 update: Added a couple of lines, put in the game mechanics for exactly how a Magna laser would be pulled off within a spoiler.

Edited by Koniving, 02 December 2019 - 12:01 PM.

[Koniving]

Update 12/15/19
Reserved space for adding a complete weapons list with a brief non-stat summary as well as including visual graphics, in the hopes of getting the volunteered assistance of texture artists to accommodate for the skill I lack.
Note this post is a living document, it will be frequently and continuously updated over time and at first may be a bit bare as I started it on a workday an hour before I have to leave. (Pictures of models will be added every Sunday, regardless of completion [so some incomplete models may appear].

Side note, while putting in the list of conceptually completed autocannons, I've been listening to the MW5 OST. While it's not quite got the same vibes as the MW2 OST which I know many hoped for, but it actually is not bad. It just lacks unique sounds beyond the recurring theme of a particular electric guitar. Though Chip off the old block has some moments of MW2-soundingness, and Those Once Loyal is a good listen as well. A lot of the music is more suited to a somber story driven experience...which MW5 largely is not.
(I swear the first thing I'm gonna mod AI-wise is getting Ryana to move away from that damn table and to look at the player while talking (beyond her current 35-45 degree limit).)

List of (conceptually completed) weapons
Autocannons (the spray cannons)

Spoiler

AC/2

Spoiler

Armstrong JJ-Lite 40mm
Armstrong (unspecified) 60mm (Vulcan)
GM Whirlwind/L 30mm
Imperator Smoothie-2 40mm
"Imperator D" 70mm (a misnamed weapon in fluff as it defies the Imperator naming convention.)
Mydron Model D 30mm
SarLon Maxi-cannon 30mm (Warrior VTOL)
"Whirlwind-2" 32mm
Zeusbolt 90mm

LAC/2 (to be revealed when a DLC puts in the initial weapons)

Spoiler

Future proofing.

AC/5

Spoiler

Armstrong J11 80mm (Shadowhawk, some tanks)Torso external
Armstrong (?) 50mm (Clint) Forearm, internal
"Class 5 Armstrong" 105mm (Merkava tank).
Defiance Model F 50mm (Sentinel) Arm Mounted, No elbow actuator
Defiance Model J 75mm (Zeus) Forearm-oversized, internal
Deleon 5 100mm (Scorpion Light Tank) Turret / Arm mounted, no elbow actuator.
GM Whirlwind/5(H) 120mm (Marauder) Turret/Torso external
GM Whirlwind/5(MH) 90mm (Wolverine) Arm-mounted external
GM Whirlwind/5(M) 60mm (Wolverine) Turret/torso external
GM Whirlwind/5 (ML) 50mm (Marauder) Hand-held
Imperator-A 90mm (multiple mount types)
Mydron Model C 80mm (Multiple mount types)
Pontiac Light 40mm (Striker) Forearm Internal
Scarborough Original 5 70mm (economic)

LAC/5 (to be revealed when a DLC puts in the initial weapons)

Spoiler

Future proofing.

UAC/5

Spoiler

KWI Ultra Class 5 50mm (The very first UAC/5)
GM Nova 5 Ultra 50mm (Binding Force version)
GM Nova 5 Ultra 40mm (Illusions of Victory version)
Imperator Ultra/5 80mm (Storms of Fate version. Carried by Vulcan, Daikyu)

AC/10

Spoiler

Armstrong Buster 150mm
Ceres Arms Model T (100mm)
Defiance Mech Killer Type T 150mm (Patton tank)
Defiance Mech Killer Type C 120mm (Patton tank)
Federated Autocannon 80mm
Federated Autoloader 10-A 70mm
Federated Autoloader 10-B 90mm
Imperator-B 90mm (Rifleman, Urbanmech)
Kali-Yama Class 10 90mm (Orion 1K)
Kali-Yama Big Bore 120mm (Multiple mechs/vehicles, Hunchbacks after 3029)
Luxor D-series 70mm (Centurion)
Mydron Model B 80mm (Bushwacker, many others)
Pontiac 50 40mm
SarLon Maxicannon (Rotary) 30mm
SarLon Maxi-Heavy-Cannon (120mm)
SarLon Maxi-Super-Heavy-Cannon (150mm)
Western Heavy (100mm)

LB-10X

Spoiler

Filling out soon

AC/20

Spoiler

Armstrong (?) 120mm (Von Buckner tank)
Armstrong Requiem 150mm (Rommel tank alt cannon)
Chemjet Gun 185mm (Demolisher) -- "charge up" AC/20, indirect fire capable.
Crusher Super Heavy (auto)cannon 150mm (Hetzer) -- indirect fire capable
Deathgiver (automatic) 100mm (Atlas)
Deathgiver (burst) 120mm (King Crab)
Defiance Mech Hunter 180mm (Atlas, Rommel tank)
Imperator D 90mm (Many mechs and vehicles)
Imperator Zeta-A 105mm (non-spoiled 100 ton Aerospace Heavy Fighter)
Luxor D-DX5 Heavy 120mm (Centurion CN9-AH)
Luxor D-DX6 Super Heavy 150mm
Luxor Devastator 20 120mm (UAV mounted)
Mydron Model A 80mm (Many mechs and vehicles)
Scarborough Original 20 70mm (economic AC/20)
Tomodzuru Mount Type 20 180mm (Hunchback pre-3029)
Zeus 30, Mark III 75mm
Zeus 33, Mark III 100mm
Zeus 36, Mark III 150mm

Rifles (the big cannons)

Spoiler

Forthcoming

Standard Lasers (and ER large)

Spoiler

Forthcoming

Pulse Lasers

Spoiler

Forthcoming

MGs

Spoiler

Forthcoming

LRMs

Spoiler

Forthcoming

SRMs

Spoiler

Forthcoming

Missile Ammos.

Spoiler

See this post.

OneShots

Spoiler

Forthcoming

Mortars

Spoiler

Forthcoming

Mines

Spoiler

Generic Vibro-Mine
Magnetic Thunder-Mine

Currently filled: Autocannons, Missile Ammo types.

Fluff section:

Spoiler

Defiance Industries: Manufacturer of weapons, equipment, vehicles, machines and renown creator of the Axman. Defiance Industries is a Lyran (Steiner) based company that has a tarif on its goods sold outside of its Steiner's borders (though between 3020 and 3028 this tarif is removed from Davion territory until 3057). It is run by House Brewer, a Lyran noble family, and defacto rulership on the planet Hesperus II. Naturally largest selection of their equipment is publically available on Hesperus II, and is home to the largest surviving mech factory in the entire Inner Sphere. Though many of Defiance's weapons are set the standards for many classifications, a few of their weapons show a technological prowess that is unseen anywhere else with the likes of a laser-PPC hybrid and compact weaponry.

Spoiler

Small laser
Defiance B1S
Defiance B1A
Defiance B2S
Defiance B3S
Defiance A5L

Medium laser
Defiance B1M
Defiance B2M
Defiance B3M

MPL
Defiance P5M
Defiance P3M

ER ML (placeholder)
Defiance Model XII

Large Laser

ER Large Laser
Defiance model 6

LRM
Defiance Doombud
A series of launchers (Doombud 5 through 20) that fires its missiles so that they initially appear to fly straight for the target for 30 meters, which then spread suddenly in multiple directions and converge again when reaching 45 meters from the target. The idea behind this is to make it incredibly difficult to shoot down the missiles.

PPC
Defiance 1001

Heavy PPC (Placeholder)
Defiance 980

Autocannon/5
Defiance Model F
Defiance Model J

Autocannon/10
Defiance Mech Killer Type T
Defiance Mech Killer Type C
Defiance Blaster Type F

Autocannon/20
Defiance Mech Hunter

LB-10X
Defiance Shredder
Defiance Disintegrator

MG
Defiance Kicker

Minelayer
Defiance AquaDrop

Diverse Optics: One of the two oldest and most trusted laser manufacturers in history and pioneers of a new heavy laser that became the first weapon to of a new classification known as "E.R." (extended-range).

Spoiler

Diverse Optics lasers use "type" as an identifier. The number simply means a design number for a combination of internal parts, and some crossovers of types with different classes of laser do exist.


Small Laser
Diverse Optics 10

SPL
Diverse Optics 10p

Medium Laser
Diverse Optics Type 2
Quick beam type. Model's been used for over 600 years. Produces heavy-hitting shots, higher than standard accumulative damage rating, but the damage over range is neutered. Also, limited in that it MUST be carried in the mech's hand. Green.
Detailed:

Spoiler

One of the two oldest lasers still in production today, first produced in 2464 where against what is now considered primitive armor the laser thrived and its currently negative traits did not matter.


(Incomplete art, based on the Macross origin of the Wasp with a planned "25% difference", as well as some combination with this version (will supply link soon as I find it again, somehow lost it) of the same Macross weapon from a Stinger and this version of the Wasp weapon.)

Demand is high for this weapon by users of light mechs due to its ability to use a Small Slot in Hand-Equipped Arms. Part of this is due to the ease of repairing and replacing it, given that the weapon is carried in the hand. Another part of this favoritism is the fact that it produces higher than rated damage in fewer shots than many other lasers of its pulse-beam type. However, it also has a higher than standard energy demand and its extra damage is best at 180 meters because after that it suffers from a high dispersion (bloom / focus-loss) rate. Has an invisible infrared beam that's artificially colored green. Its highest common presence is on Wasp 1 series Battlemechs. And yes that's a hint; the look of a Wasp is simple enough I can make one.

Diverse Optics Type 14
Coming soon.
Detailed:

Spoiler

Coming soon.

Diverse Optics Type 18
Pulse-type. One of the medium lasers that set the standard for medium lasers. Nothing exceptional, no flaws. Just middle ground all around. Generic internal mount.
Detailed:

Spoiler

One of the three medium lasers that set the standard for all modern medium laser classifications, this is the embodiment of nearly 400 years of laser research and has been in service for at least 250 years. This red-beam pulse-type laser is weaker than its ancestor but is more energy-efficient, is not so easy to overheat, and is small enough to be equipped internally at virtually anywhere that has a medium slot. Unlike its ancestor, Type 18 sets the standard for medium lasers with a bloom only starting after 270 meters.

Diverse Optics Type 20
Repeater pulse-type. The weak predecessor to the Diverse Optics 20P MPL and Diverse Optics 20 LPL. Pulses have a turquoise hue.

Spoiler

Coming soon.

MPL
Diverse Optics Type 20p
Rapid pulse-type. Laser pulses have a teal-hue.

Spoiler

Coming soon.

Diverse Optics Type 27p
Coming soon.

Spoiler

Coming soon.

Large Laser
Diverse Optics Type 30
Coming soon.
Details:

Spoiler

Coming soon.

LPL
Diverse Optics 20
Repeater Pulse type. Strong and effective. Laser pulses have a sapphire-teal hue.
Details:

Spoiler

Coming soon.

Diverse Optics 30p
Sustained pulse type.
Details:
[Coming soon]

ER Large Laser
Diverse Optics Sunbeam
Continuous beam type. Known for a blinding orange beam and is mounted on many mechs. It is a bit inefficient in vaporizing armor, resulting in some damage potential traded for the excess heat of semi-melted but not vaporized armor.
Details:

Spoiler

The very first large laser to be classified as ER but not the first large laser to achieve a range of 570 meters. Until 2640, the longest ranged large laser was the Intek. However to achieve those ranges Intek used methods that made their laser suffer in power and required too much of the pilot. When the Sunbeam was first demonstrated, it astonished due to the fact that it could achieve full damage at those impressive ranges in significantly less time than the Intek Large Laser. As such it pioneered a new class of large laser, the "ER" large laser. The Sunbeam uses an orange-hued sustained beam. It loses one damage per shot compared to the modern standard but inflicts 3 heat per shot.

Spoiler

(In reality, Diverse Optics didn't so much produce this laser as provide a critical part for it in exchange for becoming the sole rights holder of its vehicular scale models. The Sunbeam and Nakjima corporations were legally obligated to use a different name for the laser rifle that made the D.O.S. ER Large Laser possible, and as such they used the name Starfire.)

Diverse Optics Type 30x
Quick Beam type.
A modified Diverse Optics Type 30 trading cooling power for the power and lens arrangement necessary for the ER classification.
Detailed:

Spoiler

Coming soon.

Intek: High energy efficiency and believers of not putting all the eggs into one basket, Intek pioneered the most energy-efficient energy power cell for infantry laser weapons, easily able to supply twice as many full power shots as can be pulled from other power sources. Their actual laser weapons are equally energy-efficient and preferred by power-amplified ICE/Fuel Cell users for fuel economy while some fusion engine users prefer them due to the ability to string together large firing groups, their rapid-fire, as well as unprecedented range which was completely unmatched until the release of the Diverse Optics Sunbeam "ER" Large Laser.
The tradeoff for these advantages is that each individual shot is fairly underpowered and requires almost twice as many shots compared to the industry standard lasers in order to achieve the same damage rating. Even with very little to no extra time to achieve that compared to other laser weapons, this is enough to keep them from dominating the market.

Their critics have pointed out: Who is worried about fuel economy when your life is on the line? What good is extra range when virtually any other laser and being a bit closer can do the job in less time with fewer shots?
To one of those critics, a Crusader 3R pilot once said: "Bet you wouldn't say that when my medium laser can reach your weakspot at 360 meters for maximum damage."

Spoiler

Intek Laser Rifle: An infantry laser rifle that is so energy efficient, it can fire twice as many shots from the same power pack compared to the industry standard laser rifle. In addition, this is again doubled when using Intek brand power packs for 4 times the combat effective standard, with the longest range ever achieved by a laser rifle (until the Starfire Laser Rifle set a new 'ER standard' by the Sunbeam and Nakjima corporations.) This comes at the cost of each shot individually being a bit weaker in comparison to the industry standard.

Small Laser

SPL

Medium Laser

MPL

Large Laser
Intek Large Laser: A pulse-type large laser with an exceptional range that only begins to degrade at 570 meters rather than the typical 450 meters. Once held the record for the longest ranged large laser ever created, but lost that in 2640 on the debut of the Sunbeam which simultaneously stole Intek's record on both the large laser and the laser rifle markets (under the name Starfire).

LPL

Fusigon Heavy Weaponry, an energy weapons manufacturer in Marik for centuries. During the Andurien Secession War Flametech's plant in Campbelton is sold to Fusigon, expanding its production into flamers as well. Despite its long-standing history, Fusigon's lasers make extremely little progress or change over time, though this is related to license agreements with the creator of their Omicron series. (Omicron licenses out its properties to manufacturing companies). Their real progress, although limited, is in Particle Projector Cannons where they had one of the earliest examples of ER PPC, and strive to stay ahead of the game with research into enhancing this technology. Though perhaps development progress has been slowed down significantly due to riots, protests, and sabotage in relation to selling 90% of its production to the Federated Suns which, in turn, has used them against Marik soldiers.

Spoiler

Medium Lasers
ChrisComp 32
(Placeholder at moment)

Omicron 950
A highly power-efficient medium laser designed to compete with Intek's domination of the non-fusion markets, this laser met with little fanfare and is no longer actively produced here for military use, though shipments of them tend to leave from here to the periphery for civilian use. The Small Slot undersized medium laser can fit into virtually any location, is dirt cheap and quite underpowered with its only saving graces being a rapid-fire capability and no firing delay. In periphery states the Omicron 950 can be found in the hands of civilian militias, as well as numerous troop transports.

Disappointed with the sales of the 'highly fuel-efficient' Omicron 950 medium laser intended for use with power-amplified ICE vehicles, Fusigon was surprised to find the Terran Hegemony so interested in it. In order to clear stock and produce more PPCs as well as meet the high demand of Omicron lasers that actually sell, Fusigon sold the hundreds in stock, sub-licensed the Omicron 950 out to the Terran Hegemony and stopped producing it. 13 years later, the Terran Hegemony introduces a new class of laser based on it and both Fusigon and Omicron's creators could do nothing about it. Omicron settled in court, though Fusigon's Lawsuits lasted over a decade before they were dismissed with prejudice. Enough of the design changed that neither Fusigon nor Omicron had a leg to stand on. In essence, the Omicron 950 is the predecessor to the medium pulse laser, and its military use model is an MPL. Today, Cal-Boeing of Dorwinion on the planet Belladonna in the Chaos March of the Federated Suns produces the only military-used models sold to mercenaries, though Comstar also produces its own.

Omicron 3000
Famous as the weapon in the hand of every Stinger, this weapon is nearly as old as the Diverse Optics 2. The number in the Omicron series of lasers refers to the number of Megajoules going into each shot. The civilian-grade Omicron 950 for example only pumps 950 megajoules into each shot.


Pre-polish.
(Based on this version as chosen by Unleashed)

The Omicron 3000 is a small-slot arm-mounted medium laser. It pumps the peak power of its namesake into the laser to get a shot. This is 50% higher than the industry standard DO Type 18 medium laser would pump and fully twice that of the Fuersturm-b. The result is a medium laser that hits hard for a pulse-type weapon, comparable to or harder than a 150mm autocannon shell. However, this high peak energy draw is met with the restriction that it can only sustain this for a millisecond (0.1 seconds due to game limitations) to prevent damage. The actual power output consumed due to this barely qualifies as a medium laser. So despite hitting harder than many medium lasers per shot, it actually falls short of its expected damage rating. If fired again too soon after the first shot, the weapon will lock-out for 5 seconds to prevent damage. However, if paced, it can squeeze in a third shot for 50% more damage before overheating and surpass expectations for a medium laser.




Omicron 4000
ER PPC

Edited by Koniving, 16 December 2019 - 01:19 AM.

[Reno Blade]

I knew you would detail out a great list of improvements and I like most of what you listed.
Best of all is the heat system you lined out.
If you need any assistance, I planned to do pretty much the same kind of modding (with few less new weapons).
I just hope that we can find a way to implement all of this.

Do your PPCs cover different hit effects?
Some delivering a "stream" of particles (strong short-duration beam) and others having a large blast radius that deals huge area damage (including yourself if you are too close)...

In the current beta, i like the disrupt effect, but its mostly visual and the crosshair disruption doesnt seem to have any effect on aiming.

[Koniving]

Reno Blade, on 04 December 2019 - 12:13 PM, said:

I knew you would detail out a great list of improvements and I like most of what you listed.
Best of all is the heat system you lined out.
If you need any assistance, I planned to do pretty much the same kind of modding (with few less new weapons).
I just hope that we can find a way to implement all of this.

Do your PPCs cover different hit effects?
Some delivering a "stream" of particles (strong short-duration beam) and others having a large blast radius that deals huge area damage (including yourself if you are too close)...

In the current beta, i like the disrupt effect, but its mostly visual and the crosshair disruption doesnt seem to have any effect on aiming.

Welp, despite there being a lot of interesting and unique looking PPCs out there (my favorite is the ER PPC by Krupp as it is absolutely enormous in diameter with almost no barrel length and lives up to its elaborate name), not many are very specific in their visual effects.

Of note there's the Parti-kill is noteworthy for a "bottle" (their wording) that it fills with energy before launching out in what appears to be a ball of energy. This is what the MW2's effect is based on which kinda sorta stuck for quite some time in the MW franchise.

Some describe lightning. The Timber Wolf's default PPC in the Prime configuration fires a stream that has a double helix spiral in a hexagonal shape...

So there's some pretty wild stuff, but short of only two IS PPCs, three if you count the Cyclops Large Laser which is technically half PPC, there isn't a lot of specifics out there so for visual effects there's a lot of open room for creativity. Beyond Parti-kill, everything else fires streams or 'lightning' or weird stuff that's fun to look at (such as the effects from the "Aliens" in Turok Dinosaur Hunter on the N64) so it's the imagination is the limit.

As for impact effects (status-inducing/"physical" effects not visual effects), I currently have 5. Six counting PGI's.
There's PGI's effect to which I would just add a delay action to the AI in aimingbto reflect that there's a human inside dealing with the effect, then there's...

1) Similar but different, there's an electrical sensory overload, which will distort the detection blips into removing the real ones and throwing in fake ones as well as other possible effects such as making thermal go wild. This is probably the hardest to pull off because if the AI doesn't react to it appropriately then what's the point?

2) Incinerate, a napalm-like effect where part of the damage is actually tripled in thermal output. (So if 3 damage is lost [as in traded in], it'd instill 9 heat to the enemy in its place, localized in the equipment of the area of impact. The idea is to be able to jam/overheat a weapon by hitting it, though likely some of the functionality might be dumbed down to just pumping in heat to overload the nearest heatsinks or worst case, pump it into the engine and call it a day). Boils down to some PPCs not having enough thermal energy to completely vaporize the armor but more than enough to overcome how "efficient" the surface of armor is to dissipate heat around it.

3) Slimjim, the nickname I have for a PPC bolt that'll partially bypass armor by slipping its damage underneath. Just imagine it giving out a Randy Savage "YEAH" as it bursts through. Effect against armor is reduced to allow it to gush inside and get some internals. If pgi does armored fortification walls I might do a pass-through effect similar to what certain Gauss rifles will have


4) Kinetic push -- requires knockdown ability otherwise it's just gonna throw your aim off with a camera shake / recoil effect with a possible forced slowdown for 'stagger'. While a single one won't do it, two or three in rapid succession should be able to knock down anything short of assaults. Comes from a cinematic idea where an Awesome hits a Raven 2X and the shot hits so hard it crushes the shield arm in a ball of kinetic heat as it knocks the Raven over.

5) Blinding light. This one's less of an impact effect and more of a "don't look at it while it's charging." As you know I was more into charging PPCs like in the Pre-Vis video of the original MW5 where they charge up to fire rather than the charge up Gauss we got in MWO. Lord's Light is a PPC particularly known for a slow charge up to fire, but living up to its namesake (never shown in an MW game frustratingly) is a blinding light. Against the player it'd just be a blinding light, literally. Against enemies the effect should force their shots to miss until the weapon is fired if they're looking at the user charging it. Basically "I'm charging my weapon so if I'm looking at you and you're looking at me, you're blind and have like a 15% chance of hitting me" restriction to the AI.

Speaking of, rather than a hold to charge release to fire, I'm more of a firing delay kind of person so press to fire and once its charged it'll fire off. With an option to flip off the delay at risk of the weapon overheating in a very bad way. (Heat based, not RNG based. The importance of the weapon heat mechanic is to remove the RNG so you can manage your risk versus reward). Standard PPCs gradually build the heat up during the charge up, so the longer the charge up the less "sudden heat" you'll have, making it softer and kinder to Single Heatsinks.

The ER PPCs differ in that the delay is very minimal to reflect that similar to the laser buildup mechanic (to reflect the effect of HBS Battletech for lasers priming to fire). That is as opposed to having the kinda long delay that PPCs do to simulate the field inhibitor forcing the weapon to gradually build up energy for the minimum accurate range explanation regular PPCs. It also helps to make the extra heat make sense, and really show that unlike standard PPCs, you pretty much must have DHS to run ER PPCs.

The biggest hurdle is how to integrate a button that will toggle the PPCs, and whether it would toggle the selected PPC or all the PPCs.

As for visual effects, many are blue, I seen also violet, white, teal, and shades of orange/red/yellow in descriptions of PPC blasts, with blue, violet and white being the most common. Exactly how to do the visuals, well that's where a texture artist would be of great help. I'm an animator and modeller, doing the textures myself would clash with the quality. God knows fixing animations in mw5 even just as tweaks will take over a year unless I can edit them in engine.

Edited by Koniving, 04 December 2019 - 03:11 PM.

[Koniving]

Side note, thoughts on Stalker?

The concept art has one leg forward and one backward.
Naturally that's stupid but I think it was to show it could move them both ways.

Where I'm conflicted is I found a running Stalker image with forward legs and it...actually looked good.

[Jackal Noble]

Out of curiosity, have you ever made an actual mod for a game?

[Koniving]

Jackal Noble, on 05 December 2019 - 07:54 PM, said:

Out of curiosity, have you ever made an actual mod for a game?

Yep.
Though not since 2008.

Keep in mind we're gonna use the old trend of posting things from about a decade ago... I'm too lazy to blackout names but nobody uses yahoo anymore.

Modded two units into Total Annihilation, one of them being the Proud Clod model I pieced together for my FF7-2 mod.

Spoiler

Using this as a reference

I learned how to do it and got this.

And later..

This is the "deploy" mode for the Proud Clod.

TA is a wonderful but very old game. 1995.

No need to watch it, but I saw Total Biscuit had a TA video.

Silent Hill experimental projects in Deus Ex.

Spoiler

I've got another of silent hill itself but it's the street layout without enemies, with a car crash start point and random dogs retextured to look creepy and with experiments in ambient sound.

Had a minor one in which I replaced Denton in Deus Ex with a dog. It was funny.

Deus Ex (the first one), made a mod to make an FF7 sequel. This was quite a bit too ambitious as you'll see below. Basically, I was making something oblivion/skyrim-ish, and after 7 years the hard drive with most of it fried so I said **** it and gave up on modding for a bit.

Spoiler

Yin-Yang


My own gunblade.
But into the modding bit.
Learning how to create cinematics in game.


Mapping the weapon systems of the Proud Clod.

Some redesigning for the Proud Clod MK II.

But that color had to go.

Didn't like those guns, so replaced the gatling guns on the sides with these MGs.

One of my better forays into texture mapping, sometime in 2004.

Security room below Rufus's office.

Receptionist's desk, below Rufus's office.

Shinra MP placeholders

Planned replacements




Yes that's Yuffie disguised as a Shinra guard.
In Engine as part of a cinematic control experiment.

Learning bone influences to have a 'cloth' like effect on the coat while animating. Had to shorten the coat so it didn't cause too many issues with the legs while running.


Barret and Mr. Dolphin (Dolphin's a stock model)

Early Aerith

Placeholders, Mighty Grunt and Rufus Shinra

Actual models.
Female Mighty Grunt (out of heavy armor)

Female Mighty Grunt (in armor)

Grunt performing a backflip / evasive, landing on hands first.

Rufus Shinra (static mesh in-game as a test)

Concepts of a post-injury augmentation.



Rufus being used as a holstered equipment concept.
Keep in mind this is 2001. One year after the PS2 came out..

So I was pretty ahead of my time on that. Mass Effect, Gears of War, 2008 Turok... Beat them to it.
Random Cloud render in the anim8or.

Because hair doesn't matter when you're disguised.

Was so proud of that body, I was able to get it to morph so that things moved organically like on ~then~ newer PS2 games. But with so many models put together as separate pieces, I wasn't about to start from scratch. Still it was something neat to add to shirtless dudes and girls to make them more organic.

Such as Kotch from Corneo's mansion.

Rude from the Turks

And Dogs


Speaking of dogs, contributions from an artist.


Rufus had the dogs Terror Break and Blood Taste to replace Dark Nation. Sadly I never modeled them.



And my early 2001 attempt at that hair.

I failed horribly.
Keep in mind, I was still in high school, it was just a name. Shinra was the primary focus of the mod.


As an early project, turned a micromachines turret into one to use in game.


But compared to what I was producing some years later, it was kinda meh.

No texture beyond a gray slab, but fully animated and functional.
Meant to work alongside...


Tutorial conversation.

An original enemy. Kinda reminds me of a Locust or Cicada now with the shield arms.

Back to Yin Yang.


Character concepts

"Wynter" had some important role but it's been so long..


Village Chief's Son of Fort Condor. Battlestance and aiming to fire.


Shadow Cloud (figment of tormented imagination), Corneo Lackey, Chief's Son, and Dyne beside Diamond Weapon.


Late 2000 noobness at 3D modeling.

Months later.

This gun was called the Siren's Wail. It was loosely based on the MagSec/9 from Perfect Dark.


Falcon is loosely based on the Falcon 2 from Perfect Dark

I really liked it though I didn't learn that silencers don't look like that for a long time.

Falcon

Shinra Cola vending machine, texture thanks to someone that donated a few simple texture photoshops... back before photoshop was a common word.

Handgun based loosely on Fallout 2.



Jackhammer, based completely on Fallout 2, grafting the sprite as a texture.

As a tribute, one of the more generic-looking LBX's will get a vague Jackhammer look.

Before I was working on the mod, I made this fan art of the Turok N64 assault rifle. I was so bad, but I put it into the hands of my first-person model.

Tifa concept


Nano "MP" from Red Faction 2. I lifted a screenshot of the game and grafted that on as the texture.


Flashlight from BCT in Fort Jackson.


Grease Gun Fallout 2.


Early pistol


Getting more confident.
An Airsoft Shotgun I got in 2002.
An MG I saw in Battlefield 1942.

Yay image limits.

Edited by Koniving, 06 December 2019 - 04:52 AM.

[Koniving]

Continuing.. Enemies would exist in the world, have breathe, drink, eat, sneeze (yes, I made it so that they could sneeze as one of 20 idle animations that each monster had. Not every monster sneezed, but it was dedicated to something like that. Even had four Sahagins named after famous painters living in the sewer that'd occasionally order pizza.

Spoiler

Rufus's Shotgun, "Widowmaker."

A friend's art sent to me. I liked the gun.

A random gun drawing I found online I liked its name "Windstile"


Troop transport helicopter to use in-game.

That was 2002...
FF7 Dirge of Cerberus comes years later...and has a troop transport helicopter. Stealing my ideas!

Variations


Truck concept.


Howitzer concept, based on my MLRS in the 116th field artillery.


New character, Dyne's brother Bastian.


Recreating the Dyne Barret scene. Before learning how to do better skyboxes.


Buggy concept for transportation overland on my world map.


Shiva concepts.


This was called a Persocom, after an anime called Chobits. It was to double as a walking personal computer. The chest plate would open to reveal a terminal and screen. I dropped the idea before following through.

I ended up using that idea to solve how to open Diamond Weapon's chest plates.


Diamond's latest appearance in FF games:




Guard Scorpion.



Scarlet, Shinra troops against a Sweeper (all placeholders)

The black on the dress was supposed to be transparent but couldn't get it to work right.

Security camera setup by Rufus's desk.

The last room was a preference to a role play.

Progress.


Concepts


Various..










I like turtles.




An attempt at a hairstyle I saw a picture of.

Original monster. Later learned these things exist and they're called harpies. I was pretty upset at the time 'cause I thought it was something I came up with on my own.


As I said I tried to do something Open World, the world began using that phrase.. This is how I solved the question "How the heck does a Grand Horn drink???"


Boss concept, "CarryBlaster", a mix of a HammerBlaster and Carry Armor.

How I got so many animations so quickly...

I'd play them in the FF7 viewer, and then recreate them.


Final Fantasy magazines inside a Final Fantasy game.


Some tweaks to existing Deus Ex stuff.

Making animations on commission for Second Life.





Carry ARmor another view.


And into 2007 for someof this..






The next day the hard drive died.

A quest in the FF7-2 mod.

Spoiler

And then this was a contingency to allow the player to drop items, etc., to be able to use this.

I've since learned total conversion mods aren't for me. Start simple, work in stages.

But yes, I have made actual mods.
There's also the one that the first DLC broke for HBS Battletech.
Replacing all the original files was...stupid.

Have I ever released a mod to the public? No.

[Nesutizale]

Koniving, on 04 December 2019 - 03:14 PM, said:

Side note, thoughts on Stalker?

The concept art has one leg forward and one backward.
Naturally that's stupid but I think it was to show it could move them both ways.

Where I'm conflicted is I found a running Stalker image with forward legs and it...actually looked good.

You got pictures? Personaly I wouldn't put to much thought into it. Use the Starker as it and if you have time to spare, then think about the legs.

[Unleashed3k]

@Koniving:
I expect you have learned a lot from mistakes and that you will be a great contributor for mods in future.

Take your time, feed us with so many details, because it's really nice to learn all that stuff.

As I said several times before, your PASSION is a great gift for the whole com!

Thanks for your work, keep it up!

[Koniving]

Nesutizale, on 06 December 2019 - 04:56 AM, said:

You got pictures? Personaly I wouldn't put to much thought into it. Use the Starker as it and if you have time to spare, then think about the legs.

Saw it at work so I had to look for it.

At some point, I want to undo the "baby-step power walk" assault syndrome for those using the Stalker walk cycle (Stalker, King Crab, Nightstar).

And the flip-flop torso syndrome (Use King Crab or Nightstar, twist 90 degrees, go full speed in third person and cringe..)

[Karl Streiger]

Well when you start to add some of your different weapon family's and plan to have different visuals for them, remember whom to ask;-)

Good Luck, may Blake's Wisdom be your guiding light in PGIs darkest code.

[Koniving]

Random thought while looking through the new Objective Raids and "low accurate ranges" for weapons...

Spoiler

While there's no way I can fix the core issue, one of the most common misconceptions about range is even with everything being dozens of shots to do the stated damage, etc.. etc.. "if it's 18 meters tall how the **** could you miss at 400 meters?"


The answer is... they're not that big. They are no where near as big as people think.

"a three story building with each story being 15 feet (45 feet total), or a three story building with each story being 11 feet tall (33 feet total.)"
At 12.6 meters, the Timber Wolf is 41 feet and 3.96 inches. The building here is four stories tall.
I am personally 1.9558 meters tall (6'5"). Meaning I am (after rounding) slightly less than 1/6th of the height of a Timber Wolf.

SHD: 1987

SHK 1992



SHK 1987 versus PGI's decided height., next to a 54 Metric Ton US tank.

2017 and 1987, 30 years apart. (Note the person inside the Wolverine on the left)... and the size and scale still holds up.

It's worth noting that the Wolverine's cockpit is "Cramped." Like...holy crap cramped.

The same artist in a newer TRO with the NewSeen Wolverine, published 15 days later.



Now, compare MW3's opening.

And the size is pretty consistent... The Atlas here is close to 14 meters.

Know what was around that size in MWO?

So the next time you go to shoot that short-medium Hunchback and you miss, just remember...
That's an Atlas.
So imagine trying to land burst fire ACs on those machines at range at their proper size.

Karl Streiger, on 06 December 2019 - 12:39 PM, said:

Well when you start to add some of your different weapon family's and plan to have different visuals for them, remember whom to ask;-)

Good Luck, may Blake's Wisdom be your guiding light in PGIs darkest code.

I can always get ideas from you, but your models would kill the engine.
https://3dwarehouse....lStar-PPC?hl=en
This has more polies a dozen mechs in mechwarrior online
https://3dwarehouse....9dfe8/centurion

Edited by Koniving, 06 December 2019 - 01:23 PM.

[Karl Streiger]

Already have low poly versions,

And 2/3rds of those old works polys are not necessary because it's the inside

Edited by Karl Streiger, 06 December 2019 - 01:31 PM.

[Koniving]

Incomplete and in need of polish, but mine is only 220 polygons. The block is there as a size reference and is not staying with it.

[carl kerensky]

Koniving, on 06 December 2019 - 11:52 AM, said:

Saw it at work so I had to look for it.

At some point, I want to undo the "baby-step power walk" assault syndrome for those using the Stalker walk cycle (Stalker, King Crab, Nightstar).

And the flip-flop torso syndrome (Use King Crab or Nightstar, twist 90 degrees, go full speed in third person and cringe..)

Yes please improve the animations! By the looks of things at least IK is implemented but more animations need to be improved and added. When I get the mod tools I will try to dig into this as well.