22 replies to this topic

[Michael Rosario]

Here's a idea. What if in the game when your faction/merc team took a planet with factories/manufacturing centers, your faction/team had a say in what was produced there... i.e. if you took Independence Weaponry, you could have it create more Marauders and less Atlases. Or flooding the market with JagerMechs to drop the price significanly. Also, it might allow (if the game does indeed run on hardpoints) for the changing of hardpoints on a mech... i.e. swapping out energy hardpoints in a variant for a ballistic hardpoint variant so that your Atlas can be fielded as a ballistics boat, if that's what you want.

In that same vein, owning a factory could reduce the amount a mech/weapon/system costs for the faction owning it. Buying a mech from your own guys would be cheaper than having to buy it if it's being sold by one of your enemies, eh?

Also, it would add another layer to the economy of the game... when you buy a mech, the money you spend would be funneled towards the owners of the factories that make said mech. The same with weapons. Now, for the great houses, this wouldn't be that much of a noticable difference, as no one is going to be playing the leaders of said houses. But for merc outfits that somehow manage to capture a factory... what a haul.

What do you think?

Edited by Michael Rosario, 08 March 2012 - 01:39 AM.

[risky1337]

I thoroughly believe there should be an economic scale like that within the game. However im not too sure about the hardspots against specific weaponry. Maybe a more generalized armor. Like just heavily fortified sections of the mech. I like the complexity of weapon specific armor but i guess it comes down to how its implemented into the game.

If the developers create a dynamic economy in the game, it would create so much depth to gameplay and strategy. I think it would be amazing.

[Insidious Johnson]

Given you have the needed tech, resources, techs, facilities, component subcontractors, and licensing rights.... definate maybe.

[risky1337]

Would you have to do like an RTS type 'mini game' to create the necessary facilities using resources? maybe buy your licensing rights from an ingame weapons contrator? Im not so sure but its an idea.

But if you were to do this, the facilities would have to show up ingame and would probably have to be somewhat of a clan decision. unless resources are divided seperately. I would hate to be a part of a group where some dumb* decided to use our resources on stuff we wouldnt use/need. haha

[Michael Rosario]

Insidious Johnson, on 08 March 2012 - 02:15 AM, said:

Given you have the needed tech, resources, techs, facilities, component subcontractors, and licensing rights.... definate maybe.

The way I'm seeing it, rather than take it so realistic (in the entire time I've played battletech (admittedly not a lot) "component subcontractors" never came up) play it off more like an overlord-underling system. It's not having the faction/company start running the business end of the manufacturing plant... it's more like having said faction/company saying to the business that runs the plant "I own the planet you're on. Do what I say or pack up and leave." The business is being run the same as it always was, just now the land it's sitting on belongs to someone else. And the landlord has the right to exert pressure on the occupants to do certain things, especially in the warzone that the innersphere is.

risky1337, on 08 March 2012 - 02:27 AM, said:

Would you have to do like an RTS type 'mini game' to create the necessary facilities using resources? maybe buy your licensing rights from an ingame weapons contrator? Im not so sure but its an idea.

But if you were to do this, the facilities would have to show up ingame and would probably have to be somewhat of a clan decision. unless resources are divided seperately. I would hate to be a part of a group where some dumb* decided to use our resources on stuff we wouldnt use/need. haha

In my original idea, I was thinking that the decisions are made by the higher ups in the faction/company. That would add an extra incentive to keep a high loyalty score. Also, that would add a little bit of realism: you never have the peons making the big decisions.

You could also have it where, with the right factories, any member of the controlling group could spend their own money to create custom orders of what that factory produces, spending just a few more c-bills to have a mech created to specifications. That way even the peons have a reason to want to keep the factories, even if the higher ups are using them to create mechs that the player doesn't like or use.

[DooMachine]

it would be cool if a mech could only be purchased if your faction controled a certan planet but it would not be fair for one faction to possibly control all the access to a variant of a mech. I would like to see maybe skins that could only be purchased from specific places so that you wouldn't have access to that skin unless you controled that area.

its a cool idea but it would be unfair if the best variant of the hunchback was unavailable to 80% of the player population because one faction had an iron grip on that location.

[Michael Rosario]

DooMachine, on 08 March 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

it would be cool if a mech could only be purchased if your faction controled a certan planet but it would not be fair for one faction to possibly control all the access to a variant of a mech. I would like to see maybe skins that could only be purchased from specific places so that you wouldn't have access to that skin unless you controled that area.

its a cool idea but it would be unfair if the best variant of the hunchback was unavailable to 80% of the player population because one faction had an iron grip on that location.

The idea (in my mind, at any rate) is not that mechs created on planets you control are unavailable to other factions. The idea is that the mechs are available to all factions, but if you control the planet they're manufactured on, you get a discount. Controlling that planet also allows for you to have access to "custom jobs", i.e. mechs outside the current variants available. These custom jobs will cost you more, but will allow you to have a greater degree of individuality in you mech (and also, for those of you who find it fun, to create laser-, missile- and ballistics-boats.)

The other side of the idea is your faction has control of how many mechs are put out by the factory: each factory has a minimum of each mech they must make, but aside from that, it's up to the controllers' choice. They can dial it down to where the factory's making the bare minimum, and thus make sure there's rarity of certain mechs (which means you might not be able to have two or three atlases in your hangar) or dial up production to flood the market with mechs to force the price to drop.

[Redbear6]

Are you nuts, I so don't want to have to deal with retooling costs, lag time, changing part suppliers, retraining the workforce. this is so why a command economy does not work.

[Evgeny Bear]

I would say complex controll over types of products shouldn't be available in the game. But there should be reduced prices as well as a controll over the produced Tonns of certain products like cheaper weapons and ammo. So taking industrial centers are a viable target for the War. But I would say a factory can only hold a certain amaount of datacores for blueprints. This give them even more strategic value for attacks and raids. A faction and/or merc corp can plan their attacks better to gain certain bonii on certain weapons they need.

Edit:
With the appreance of the Clans they could also do a Trail of possession on certain Factories/Factory worlds to gain a hold on certain blueprints and weapon prototypes.

Edited by Andar89, 08 March 2012 - 04:00 AM.

[Kenyon Burguess]

i hardly think a merc company is going to "own" a companys manufacturing abilitiy on a planet they have won the rights to stay on. i think of it more like how wolfs dragoons and gray death legion works with the planets they stay on.

[Silent]

There should be benefits to controlling certain worlds, just so there's more to the overall war than trying to full up the map with more of your faction color or whatever. I don't think you should have control over the market/economy/mech construction to any significant extent, though.

[Fameth Sathronaveth]

Michael Rosario, on 08 March 2012 - 03:05 AM, said:

The idea (in my mind, at any rate) is not that mechs created on planets you control are unavailable to other factions. The idea is that the mechs are available to all factions, but if you control the planet they're manufactured on, you get a discount. Controlling that planet also allows for you to have access to "custom jobs", i.e. mechs outside the current variants available. These custom jobs will cost you more, but will allow you to have a greater degree of individuality in you mech (and also, for those of you who find it fun, to create laser-, missile- and ballistics-boats.)

The other side of the idea is your faction has control of how many mechs are put out by the factory: each factory has a minimum of each mech they must make, but aside from that, it's up to the controllers' choice. They can dial it down to where the factory's making the bare minimum, and thus make sure there's rarity of certain mechs (which means you might not be able to have two or three atlases in your hangar) or dial up production to flood the market with mechs to force the price to drop.

To some extant, yeah - it's an awesome idea. But at the same time, Mechs are these massive things. It takes forever to make a mech. "Mech Factories" were not giant assembly lines - they were workshops. Granted, some mechs, especially more common ones like the urban mech, jenner, or owens might have been "mass produced" - meaning a bunch done at once - still not an assembly line. But an orion? Maybe one at a time, two if there is a massive amount of manpower and finances.

Maybe you could jack up the cost of the final product for [specifically] some factions or corps, but not for others, or maybe even all of them. This in itself would effect the availability. But actual mech production in my mind has only two settings: off and a very slow on.

Cool idea about the factories though. I think that each planet or at least some of them, should have lore specific bonuses that accompany their possession, like getting a free or very low priced mech upon conquest if that type is produced on that planet [some were bound to be in production]. Or maybe not mechs but even weapon systems, armor, or electronics.

So many possibilities. MWO will rock.

Edited by Fameth Sathronaveth, 08 March 2012 - 06:32 AM.

[BarHaid]

Come on now, we're mech warriors, not mech salesmen. Leave the manufacturing and sales to the suits, and just take a cut of the profits and best gear that comes off the planet.

[Stovebolt]

Constructing anything, even handbuilt bespoke stuff, takes a large amount of product-specific jigs and processes. Just building a set of flat brackets (something I'm doing right now) requires me building a jig, 3 tool changes minimum, and two different machines - and these are 6" x 6" parts. Switching over a factory from one complex product of over 50,000+ parts (assumption) to another is a MASSIVE undertaking. Even with a large organization behind it retooling take several months at least, and that's for something as simple as a car.

So, that's a pretty big reason not to allow players to switch what a 'Mech factory produces.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Devs have said mechs are only going to vary in price by faction. That said, It'd be interesting if you could capture the factory and influence the price for your faction. Not outright stop people from buying.

[Randomm]

The short answer is "Yes", unfortunately the long answer is "within tight constraints". Stovebolt is dead on, switch what is produced in a plant is very difficult and time consuming. As such, the in play situation would have to have a Time Laging between producing X now and Y later. During the switch, little or nothing could be produced. In the background, it would mean creating a conversion chart for time to switch between closely related items vs completely different items.

[Solis Obscuri]

So, a few players could grief the whole server by capturing Hesperus II, St. Ives, Coventry, Irian, Quentin, Keystone, Tikonov, Kalidasa, Al'Nair and Robinson, and then forcing them to produce only Urbies and Vulcans?

Though really, most of the major manufacturing centers are on worlds that will be under faction control, not the periphery/fringe worlds that can be held by Merc Corps. I don't think it's likely players will get control of those facilities.

Edited by Solis Obscuri, 08 March 2012 - 05:03 PM.

[Dirk Le Daring]

Not gonna happen.

[Michael Rosario]

I know I wrote this up when I really should have been asleep hours before. Maybe I didn't speak clearly. And most assuredly, with how tired I was last night, I most certainly didn't think this idea through all the way.

I get most of the complaints:
1. That even though you own the planet that a mech is produced on, you still don't have a say about that mech being produced.
2. That if you capture a factory, players shouldn't have the right change which mechs they produce.
3. The logistics would be a nightmare, and you don't want to force players to spend all that extra time redesigning specs and contacting parts suppliers and stuff like that.
4. Mechs are built at such a rediculously low rate that it is game-changing to suggest changing what a factory produces.
5. There are so few worlds that produce mechs that having a small group capture them all would be devestating for the game.
and
6. Leave the logistics to a nebulous algorithm in space somewhere and give me something to shoot.

In that order, then, the answers I have are:
1. Think about in history. During war time, when you rolled into your enemy's territory and captured his factories, you didn't just say "ah, cool, a factory. Let's ignore it." Either you scuttled it (not likely to happen, due to battletech lore) or forced it to stop producing supplies for your enemies. Is it not concievable, then, that when, say the DCMS captures a world that is a major supplier of Hanson's Roughriders, they might say "hey, cut back on the Atlases already."
2. I admit, allowing everyone in a faction to start giving orders IS rediculous. I dunno if I didn't mention or didn't make it clear, but the people who would be changing which mechs are produced at the factories aren't the peons, they're the leaders... which at this point means NPCs/GMs/Devs. Maybe give those players with a high enough loyalty score the ability to "put in" for a custom job (i.e. pay extra and wait until they have free time to built you a mech variant to certain specifications).
3. In cannon, mech factories made different types of mechs and parts. I'm not suggesting that the factions can tell a light mech production factory to create Atlases. I'm suggesting that a factory that makes CN9-AH, CN9-D and CN10-B Centurions and JR7-A and JR7-K Jenners can be told "make more CN9-D's and JR7-K's, but make less CN10-B's". Since we know we're operating under a hardpoint system, Variants become pretty important and changing which ones are more readily available can drastically change how warfare plays out. Also, remember, as I said before, each factory must make a minimum of mechs each cycle, but have options of which mechs to make outside of that. There is no way to "lock out" certain types of mechs by not making them. ((And yes, before anyone mentions it, I know that those variations would probably never be made in the same factory. I just looked up variants on the centurion and jenner so I could make a point.))
4. Okay, I can deal with that. Instead of saying "you're making these mechs this month", it comes more under the heading of "here's which mechs we want you to make this year/cycle/whatever". You still get the choice, however, the choice may not have a visible effect for months.
5. If this idea is implemented, then their would have to be other worlds besides the canon ones that would have mech factories on them. In canon mechwarrior, each person had only a few select mechs, if they had more than one at all. That idea's not going to sit very well with players from the earlier games, who are used to having a bunch of mechs they can chose from when they go into battle. Not to mention that the "dropship mode" has you having at least three (if I remember the interview right) mechs that are deployed one after another. Off the top of my head, (and admittedly, I am not the most learned in the lore of battletech,) can you name at least 5 mech warriors who had at least three personal mechs? Thus, we are going to need lots of mechs on the market. I dunno about everyone else, but if I'm going to be forced to wait in a line for several months, just to buy a mech because there's only X being produced a month, and not being able to have a way to change that, then we're going to have some problems.
6. Awesome... then go kill something in another mission and leave this to the ones of us want to deal with this.

Sorry if I seem snippish, but the only time I can get on is after work, and that's pretty late at night/early in the morning. I would like to say thank you to all of you for your opinons and contributions.

Edited by Michael Rosario, 09 March 2012 - 01:10 AM.

[pursang]

I'm a MechWarrior, not a CEO damnit!