439 replies to this topic

[Anvil Dragon]

Though not final, this appears to exceed 90% of the requests within MechLab and much sooner than I would have predicted. Well done.

[Galenthor Kerensky]

I disagree with limiting loadout changes to weapons of same type... I am not a fan of autocannons, so I switch em out for a ppc and heatsinks, or maybe a missile rack... you just locked off a good 3rd of the mechs in the game for use for me...

[Skwisgaar Skwigelf]

Galenthor, on 04 April 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

I disagree with limiting loadout changes to weapons of same type... I am not a fan of autocannons, so I switch em out for a ppc and heatsinks, or maybe a missile rack... you just locked off a good 3rd of the mechs in the game for use for me...

Those mechs may have variants that you can purchase with the changes you describe already made, so don't go rushing to judgement just yet.

[Victor Morson]

Silent, on 04 April 2012 - 09:41 AM, said:

It would be nice, but it looks less and less like that is going to happen.

If they are considering payment for camo patterns, colors, and complete schemes then that probably rules out the community making their own decals and skins from scratch.

I wouldn't say that necessarily; I think it's quite likely that it will be one of their biggest money making options, however. Got example if you buy a stock insignia for $3-4 it's cool, but $10 to allow a custom decal upload would be an automatic sell to a LOT of people - including myself and all the Ace leadership.

Galenthor, on 04 April 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

I disagree with limiting loadout changes to weapons of same type... I am not a fan of autocannons, so I switch em out for a ppc and heatsinks, or maybe a missile rack... you just locked off a good 3rd of the mechs in the game for use for me...

It just means it's setup MechWarrior 4 style in terms of gun placement - restricted by slot choice to give each 'mech a role and allow them to maintain their flavor - unrestricted turns every 'mech into pretty much the same thing if the weight is equal.

In other words say you have 2 level 2 missile racks, 4 level 2 energy racks. If you want to turn that variant into a laser-heavy design, you could tear off the LRMs (freeing tonnage) and then fill the tonnage with more armor, heatsinks and large lasers to fill all the energy racks.

Basically you'll end up with 'mechs that are heavy into one focus, but you're not locked into just trading X gun for Y gun - likely there will be a lot of unused slots in any variant to give you wiggle room. You probably won't be turning the Hunchback into a missile boat, but it's likely you could mod a Catapult into being an effective brawler for example.

That said I hope the PPC Catapult has a variant, because that is pretty awesome.

Edited by Victor Morson, 04 April 2012 - 11:22 AM.

[CoffiNail]

Thought this was in here, but i had it in the Q&A, so reposting it here
So, Paul's weapons will lock on to mechs that look like this?

We all know Paul will secretly troll us with a pink Atlas or Jenner with the username of PinkThunder

[wwiiogre]

Well done PGI, thanks again for using so much TT influence, warms an old grognards ice cold heart a lil bit.

chris

[CGDynamo]

Well I put all of the information found here into a calculator... it made a happy face.

I'm loving the setup, feels like the perfect mix between mw3 and mw4. The lack of customizable tech on the 'mechs in mw4 was frustrating, sure a BAP on a Daishi bristling with LBX's may not be the best idea but it's my mech dangit! I actually was afraid of what the mechlab was going to look like, it is my favorite part of the mechwarrior games after all.

This setup also looks omnimech compatible where the hard-points will just be multi-capable to use any weapon type.

[Midgie]

Galenthor, on 04 April 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

I disagree with limiting loadout changes to weapons of same type... I am not a fan of autocannons, so I switch em out for a ppc and heatsinks, or maybe a missile rack... you just locked off a good 3rd of the mechs in the game for use for me...

No they didn't. You did by choosing not to use 1/3 of the weapon types available.



Edit: Oh and...great job PGI. This is EXACTLY what I was looking for in the mech lab.

Edited by Midgie, 04 April 2012 - 11:25 AM.

[osito]

I like it. Hopefully it allows enough customization while keeping to cannon enough so everyone is happy. I like to tweak my mech but i personally against full rebuilds that change the mech entirely. Nicely done guys.

[Soule]

daneiel varna, on 04 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

I am not so happy with the weapon swapping - > that give you a chance for radical change of the weapon ranges - example ->if you have AC/20 you can change it with Gauss Rifle - not acceptable , another example -> you have 2 medium lasers -> 1 large laser - again not acceptable . That weapon replacing give you a chance to remove some disadvantages from some chassis and make them better . Personally i don't wanna see Hunchback with Gauss Rifle or AS7-D with Gauss Rifle instead of AC/20 or swapped 4 ML for 2LL .

it's already been said buuuut.... changing your ride is why most of us play dude, if you could only change a weapon with the same tonage and space then... you would have the same weapon.

[Alfonso McQuirko]

Classy as hell.

[Victor Morson]

daneiel varna, on 04 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

I am not so happy with the weapon swapping - > that give you a chance for radical change of the weapon ranges - example ->if you have AC/20 you can change it with Gauss Rifle - not acceptable , another example -> you have 2 medium lasers -> 1 large laser - again not acceptable . That weapon replacing give you a chance to remove some disadvantages from some chassis and make them better . Personally i don't wanna see Hunchback with Gauss Rifle or AS7-D with Gauss Rifle instead of AC/20 or swapped 4 ML for 2LL .

Not to derail the thread, but there is a canon Hunchback with a Gauss Rifle already.

Honestly, this is perfectly acceptable. The hard point system gives each 'mech a certain character, and I'm excited about the fact the different stock variants will have subtle differences in customization options as well. The entire Mechlab spiel is pretty much like a check box of everything I've ever wanted out of a mechlab: More detail and crit assigning but with weapon and gear restrictions to give each 'mech a unique style.

[Ghost]

This is exactly what everyone wanted to know! Thanks guys!

(I'm particularly enjoying the 12th Vegan Rangers shout-out in the decal screen.)

[Reinhardt Drescher]

well pants, I was quite looking forward to changing out my centurion's autocannon with a ppc. PLUS, I was kind of expecting actual shots of the mechlab rather than a mockup that just explains the basics

[verybad]

Hartsblade, on 04 April 2012 - 09:17 AM, said:

Now that I had a chance to read a little more in depth...

Still Awesome!!
Nice to see the Rangers represented
The 'mech repainting is not as robust as I would have liked, but I can understand why they are going this way.

Probably an RGB map, with each level of color standing for a primary, secondary, and tertiary color.. Tihs way you can say have all different colors but iot takes up less memory than mapping everything in every color (which would be an amazingly stupid thing to do). Similiar to other games in the past (like Homeworld for instance. )

deathabarbar, on 04 April 2012 - 09:24 AM, said:

it would be nice if we can make our unique skin and deacals

Skin is very unlikely, lets say the mechs have an average of only 1024x1024 in just RGB (no alpha channel). if 24 people made their own skin for a game, you'd have to share about 72 megs of data before the game commenced. Remember, this is an online game, data has to be be shared with everyone. In addition, I don't want to see images of genitalia covering a mech by someone that thinks they're funny and original. Skins by players is almost definately not going to happen freely. Now if Piranha has contests to develop them or unit symbols, that might happen...

Edited by verybad, 04 April 2012 - 11:49 AM.

[Victor Morson]

Listless Nomad, on 04 April 2012 - 10:20 AM, said:

1. Boating
- While it would appear that minmaxing with respect to armor is again likely an issue - it's nearly impossible to avoid. Boating is a separate issue, and does not appear to have been adequately addressed. Take for instance the flashman. Canon stock loadout is 3LLs and 5MLs. Using the given example from the vase study - say I remove all three LLs and put 6 MLs back in to replace it. I've now created an 11ML boat, turning a laser boat into a bigger laser boat. Combine that with 2 lasers per weapon group and one could manually chain fire reasonably effectively. Some will say that I should not complain, that customization has always been a part of the game and I need to be quiet. This leads me to my second point however.

Boating can be solved via a BV system, if it's necessary. Personally I don't mind boating. The only 'mechs that can boat in a slot-based system are ones designed for that purpose (i.e. they have enough hardpoints of the same type to pack in the maximum number of repeated weapons) so it's never been a complaint of mine.

Still, MWLL approaches the price calculations with a modifier for repeats of the same weapon, depending on said gun. For example if there are multiple Clan ERPPCs on a 'mech, the price becomes drastically inflated, with each successive gun costing far more than the original.

Between these two things, I don't think it'll be an issue. If we were talking a non-hard point system, then boating is an honest concern because there is zero limitation to repeating the optimal weapon over and over.

Listless Nomad, on 04 April 2012 - 10:20 AM, said:

2. Variants
- Most of us are familiar with the "Swayback" hunchback shown in the teaser trailer. It would appear from this release that the main way variants are going to be implemented is merely to provide different combinations of hardpoints across a chassis. This is a step forward from MW4, and is to be applauded. However, I would have liked to see variants be less flexible and/or have a more solid purpose for the reason below.

I know, I really dig the idea of each variant still having a reason to exist in a customizable environment, by changing it's load out capabilities in some way. While they only mentioned modules, I hope to see this taken to further extremes - i.e. things like the PPC Catapult would effectively give an entirely different 'mech to the game, despite being the same chassis.

Listless Nomad, on 04 April 2012 - 10:20 AM, said:

3. Visual Representations
- Without proper visual representations - the art and effort put into variants is largely wasted. Take for instance the "swayback" example again. From the video we saw, it would appear to have 6 MLs grouped in the right shoulder as opposed to an AC/20. Even if it ends up being 3 and 3 on each shoulder - that's still likely 3 hardpoints per area. Theoretically, it's possible that a PPC requires only 3 hardpoints. Now say that a person puts a PPC into that location instead of the MLs. Now, I go into battle against this person and see on my target info it is the HBK-4P. I plan my strategy accordingly, planning ranges etc for the MLs - only to see a single PPC bold shoot out from where I expected MLs. This may be an extreme example, and may seem vain - but for a game that counts itself as more of a sim - and will rely on team and unit tactics, the ability to have an idea of what to expect (or better yet, not being led astray) is not an unreasonable thing. In the example they used in the dev post - when they swapped that LL out for two MLs - did the visual appearance of the mech change to reflect the new weapons?

I just feel that the idea of having visually distinctive variants will be wasted, if when customized they still look the same. How can I trust that the AS7-D identified on my scanner is really an AS7-D and not a laser boat that I need to watch out for. Boaters will boat, and they have ways to be beaten. I'm not complaining about that. I'd just like to know what to expect and I though variants was how that could be achieved.

They brought up in an earlier blog post about the different levels of radar scanning, with the upper tier offering variant information. If that means that the scout 'mech can pull actual loadouts from 'mechs, this will add - rather than detract - from tactical options, and increase the importance of recon even more.

[Namwons]

this sounds like the first TRUE mechlab...i cant wait to start building

[Listless Nomad]

Victor Morson, on 04 April 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

They brought up in an earlier blog post about the different levels of radar scanning, with the upper tier offering variant information. If that means that the scout 'mech can pull actual loadouts from 'mechs, this will add - rather than detract - from tactical options, and increase the importance of recon even more.

This is true, and was alluded to in my post. If things stay the way they are, then recon will be more important than ever within the game. Still, I believe if I recall correctly, that variant name - and actual mech loadout were offered at different levels of scanning. Hence my suggestion for the HBK-4P (custom). That way, if you are only able to achieve a lock for a small amount of time, you at least aren't tricked into thinking that swayback is a standard swayback.

Of course the ultimate solution it to just make it so that every weapon changed has a unique visual appearance.

Edited by Listless Nomad, 04 April 2012 - 11:42 AM.

[00dlez]

Galenthor, on 04 April 2012 - 11:14 AM, said:

I disagree with limiting loadout changes to weapons of same type... I am not a fan of autocannons, so I switch em out for a ppc and heatsinks, or maybe a missile rack... you just locked off a good 3rd of the mechs in the game for use for me...

What difference does that make if you only play 1 type of mech anyway?

[Fameth Sathronaveth]

Hmmm. Looks like it panned out rather nicely - a good blending of the MW3 and MW4 systems. Something I have always considered good: taking the better parts of each, and coming closer to canon.