32 replies to this topic

[Sears]

Do you think a environments should affect your Mech's loudout?

An example would be a Hot arid planet causing your Mech to overheat sooner, on the flip side a cold planet would allow you to fire more rounds before overheating.

Boggy battlefields requiring you to reduce the weight of your mech ect ect.

[wwiiogre]

absolutely as well as canon

chris

[HUEY350]

yes. For example, if your on a planet that has big sand storms. your ballistics weapons would jam more often.

[Sears]

I'd quit like the odd night fight too. But actually pretty dark. Using your Mech's night vision (i think the Devs mentioned night vision) Which would be pretty tense as the enemy could be powered down behind some terrain making radar less effective. Good for ambushes.

[Draxist]

most definitely.

By doing so a lance has to tactically prepare that extra bit for a mission besides what kind of big guns to bring in.

For instance; on a desert world that's hot as Hades, a lance could speck their mechs with reactive armor so as to force their opponents to use laser based weapons and as such overheat faster.

Also a planet with a stronger magnetic field or higher concentration of magnetic ores could wreck havoc with sensor sweeps and scouting.

As said before it is canon, so there is no reason to shy away there. It works with the lore, and it challenges players to be better than average and not just packing a bunch of big guns and jumping blindly into a battle.

Edited by Draxist, 06 March 2012 - 02:23 PM.

[Tannhauser Gate]

YES.

windborne particles, wind itself, extreme temps, visibility (fog, haze), ice, precip, gravity differences, atmospheric density, combustability, electro mag interference, geological activity, all of it...

Leagues have imposed weapon and mech limitations for assumed planetary conditions for ages. It would cool to actually see how the physics actually affect weapon and mech choices.

Basically, a dev's nightmare.

[Kiyoshi Amaya]

Only to a sensible degree. There has to be a point where you draw the line or game will stop being fun.

[Mechteric]

Ya know polls are meant for opinions. I see no opinion to be had here. Hot environments are hot and cold environments are cold. Geography lesson complete!

[Cordrone]

Environment should always effect your load-out. You got to have the right tools for the job. A big part of the fun of MW is building your mechs. If you ONLY need to build 2 or 3 mech configs to cover ALL your bases ALL the time, things will get bland pretty quickly.

I actually had an affinity for running hot mechs on hot maps because i knew most of my enemies would run with reactive armor and not reflective. Plus I had to work hard to keep my mech from over heating and killing me which made things more challenging and fun. It's all part of the chess game between enemies that makes this kind of game really fun.

[Bloody Moon]

Obviously it should effect, however the game should also have a reasonable amount of "normal" maps (between 90% and 110% heat efficiency for example). Taking it to extremes is a no-go at the start of the game since if a player can lurk around in the mech lab before every single match then it would take forever to start one, while if a player can choose from his pre-defined mechs each game, he/she would be probably lacking in configurations necessary on certain planets right after he/she started playing the game. On the other hand when players reach the endgame content ie planetary assault/defend between companies then everything from the hottest desert to the coldest ice-moon should exist.

[Solis Obscuri]

Sears, on 06 March 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Do you think a environments should affect your Mech's loudout?

An example would be a Hot arid planet causing your Mech to overheat sooner, on the flip side a cold planet would allow you to fire more rounds before overheating.

This is affecting my 'mech's performance, not its loadout.

Sears, on 06 March 2012 - 02:03 PM, said:

Boggy battlefields requiring you to reduce the weight of your mech ect ect.

No, I don't think my 'mech's configuration, weapons and equipment loadout should have to change every time I go to a different planet. We aren't going to be in Omnis in 2049!

[CeeKay Boques]

flamers, plasma don't work well in the rain. Electrical storms bad for equipment, gravity slowing or changing jump distance... Who would mark No on this? This isn't really a poll it should be a statement.


Edit: Thank you Solis for correcting me. Some people might mark No on it.

Solis: Heatsinks are part of your "Load out" and effect weapon performance, so, kinda a semantic line drawn there that doesn't work.

But I can appreciate how how having to "futz" with your Mech every map would be annoying, if you didn't like that.

This is akin to "Map = Lunacy" or "Gatorbait" Not hard at all. In fact, in no time, you'll be adjusting your "load out" based on not just temp, gravity, and fog settings, but to exploit known terrain features.

Edited by Technoviking, 06 March 2012 - 03:07 PM.

[DooMachine]

not only should it effect loadouts I fully expect ambiant temp to be to come right before all systems nominal by betty on startup. thats how important enviroment is to the battletech universe.

I can see how if you are in a constant map rotation this could become an annoyance. you would not be able to just go from game to game. you would need time to prepare your loadout for each match knowing in advance what map you where playing on. i can see it now " well just great we lose because my team is all Beam loadouts and the match maker put us on a map thats 40 c".

[Kiyoshi Amaya]

Technoviking, on 06 March 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:

flamers, plasma don't work well in the rain. Electrical storms bad for equipment, gravity slowing or changing jump distance... Who would

Flamers don't work well in rain? I take it you haven't seen Lethal Weapon 4 then....

[Thomas Hogarth]

I voted no, since the canonical amount that heat affects 'Mechs is probably far off from what you are thinking.

The temperature range in which 'Mechs can operate without positive or negative effects is -30c to 50c. For F users, that is -22f to 122f. Outside of that, it's only 1 heat unit per 10 degrees celcius. So in order to get noticable effects on a 'Mech, you're well out of the boundary of comfortable temperature, and edging into enviromental climates that are deadly to unprotected humans.

[nubnub]

Thomas Hogarth, on 06 March 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

I voted no, since the canonical amount that heat affects 'Mechs is probably far off from what you are thinking.

The temperature range in which 'Mechs can operate without positive or negative effects is -30c to 50c. For F users, that is -22f to 122f. Outside of that, it's only 1 heat unit per 10 degrees celcius. So in order to get noticable effects on a 'Mech, you're well out of the boundary of comfortable temperature, and edging into enviromental climates that are deadly to unprotected humans.

You realise its more than just heat we are talk about here, even though I disagree with you on that too!

[Zakatak]

Cold: More efficient heatsinks
Hot: Less efficient heatsinks
Thick fog: Missiles have poor tracking
Dust storm: Ballistics jam frequently
Heavy rain: Lasers are less acccurate (think about rainbows/Pink Floyd, you'll see what I'm saying)

[Thomas Hogarth]

nubnub, on 06 March 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

You realise its more than just heat we are talk about here, even though I disagree with you on that too!

I'm okay with any planetary enviroment modifiers as outlined in Tactical Ops.

I didn't just pull those numbers out of my nether-regions, you know.

[Sears]

Shrekken, on 06 March 2012 - 03:16 PM, said:

Flamers don't work well in rain? I take it you haven't seen Lethal Weapon 4 then....

Speaking of flamers, the only weapon artwork i have seen on the site is a drawing of a flamer, but do any of the mechs that have been shown actually use one?


I chose temperature as i figured it would be the most common. With threads on the forum about how long it should take to swap parts about on your mech or whether you should be able to at all at first would all be reasons for people to vote either yes or no. Being a heat issue i figured you can micro manage it in game by firing less in a hot situation or more in a cold one.

Edited by Sears, 06 March 2012 - 03:45 PM.

[Thomas Hogarth]

Zakatak, on 06 March 2012 - 03:37 PM, said:

Cold: More efficient heatsinks
Hot: Less efficient heatsinks
Thick fog: Missiles have poor tracking
Dust storm: Ballistics jam frequently
Heavy rain: Lasers are less acccurate (think about rainbows/Pink Floyd, you'll see what I'm saying)

Interestingly enough, if a laser has enough energy to vaporize many kilos of composite armor layers, it's not going to care much about smoke/rain/dust.

Sears, on 06 March 2012 - 03:41 PM, said:

Speaking of flamers, the only weapon artwork i have seen on the site is a drawing of a flamer, but do any of the mechs that have been shown actually use one?


I chose temperature as i figured it would be the most common. And with threads on the forum about how long it should take to swap parts about on your mech or whether you should be able to at all at first would all be reasons for people to vote either yes or no. And being a heat issue i figured you can micro manage it in game by firing less in a hot situation or more in a cold one.

flyingdebris has a rather famous peice of art that involves a firestarter going crazy.