164 replies to this topic

[DocBach]

I think it would be awesome to have the manufacturer of your weapon system matter. Complete with different animations for them. Not sure if any of you played Star Wars Galaxies: Jump To Lightspeed, but there was a looting system for your starships where everything looked different and shot different stuff. It'd be really cool to see that in MechWarrior Online.

When this forum first came online there was a pretty in depth discussion about this and the possibilities it would bring, it'd also help against boating if weapons are loot based.

[Xaks]

As someone who's had more than a few discussions on this very subject, both here and otherwise, I'll add my 0.02 c-bill opinion thusly:

I vote yes, but ONLY if it does NOT come at the delay of release. That means if you want to add it later or whatnot, you have my full support.

If they cannot add it without delaying release.....no.

[screw ball]

thiss would just be way to hard to balance everything i feel like. im not a programer or anything but thats just my opinion

[Volthorne]

screw_ball, on 23 April 2012 - 11:30 AM, said:

thiss would just be way to hard to balance everything i feel like. im not a programer or anything but thats just my opinion

Balance and programming are two completely seperate entities.

[screw ball]

Volthorne, on 23 April 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

Balance and programming are two completely seperate entities.

i get that but im just stating what i think not how it should be implemented in the game i just think it would be to hard

[Volthorne]

screw_ball, on 23 April 2012 - 11:43 AM, said:

i get that but im just stating what i think not how it should be implemented in the game i just think it would be to hard

Hard? Typing a list of stats out and then writing a couple lines of code to reference said list for X weapon is hard? I had no idea.

[Kedma]

They have so much freedom here.. its hard to believe really.. Think about it.. the books, and the series is a huge guide.. but they can lean a little to the right or left, and make some new things up..

for instance.. PPC's.. when the first came out.. do you think they improved them? I know they would have.. so you can have something like.. Light PPC's, and Heavy PPC's.. Improvements to weapons, classes.. type of ammunition.. its endless..

Auto Cannons, with explosives rounds.. Depleted Uranium rounds.. or just hard slugs.. Explosive tipped ammunition for Gause Rifle..with different prices for different ammunition.. make it extreme expensive to fire of these bad boys off.. but its worth it.. kind of thing..

this is just one opinion.. but it could lead to endless game play, and endless Varients.. just a thought..

Edited by Kedma, 23 April 2012 - 08:57 PM.

[Dayuhan]

Variations on the same weapon might be nice as far as cosmetics, that is a Martell Medium Laser has a different physical appearance from a Sunglow - but their operational specs remain the same. This would allow same class and chassis 'mechs to have a slightly different look simply by mounting non-standard weapons. However, I do not think a weapons combat specs should be changed.

However, if a weapon from differeing manufacturers did include operational changes then every good change should be balanced by a correspondingly bad drawback. For example, The Martell Medium Laser is highly efficient at close range doing 1-point of extra damage when it is fired within its short range, but the weapon's optics cannot focus the beam properly over longer ranges and it suffers a 1-point loss to damage at medium and a 2-point loss to damage at long ranges.

[Sassori]

No. That is all.

As for time... Ten seconds is a long time yes, but we're also dealing with mechs that do not turn on a button, are not the fastest thing around. Ten seconds /might/ be just enough time to fire a salvo and get the heck back under cover for a light or medium. If the firing time is shortened then it /destroys/ light and medium mechs, and the bigger mechs become king since they have more armor to weather the storm and can put out stupid amounts of fire in tiny amounts of time.

I know there are those who will say 'It is the same damage over that ten seconds' except it's not. That damage would spread all over the place, you could sweep an area and hope for head/cockpit shots much easier, and it completely changes the dynamic of the game.

One effective shot per ten seconds imho. Keep all weapons standard.

[DooMachine]

variety would be cool but it would require a complex market system. i would be neat to get special weapons from controling areas with your corp but Its looking like all weapons will be available to everyone. It would be fun trying to win control of a planet that had an advanced weapon factory on it that manifactured a slightly more efficent pulse laser but i don't see the game going like that. It would be neat but would probably come at the cost of ballance issues.

[Havoc2]

Short answer: No.



Long answer: FRACK NO!


It's too much added work for the developers. For those who are saying "just write the table, then code to call on that table" haven't given thought to those who need to write the tables.
Different stats mean different costs, different damage/heat/whatever. Different damage/heat/whatever means that another line of code needs to be called on for damage, another for heat etc etc.

Would it be nice to have? Sure, but it does nothing to add to the gameplay that we've all been waiting for other than to delay it.
Now instead of needing to code that an AC20 does 12 points of damage, 3 heat and weighs 16 tons a XYZ AC20 does 10 points of damage, 2 heat and 12 tons while a ABC AC20 does 14 points of damage, 5 heat, 17 tons etc etc FOR EVERY WEAPON SYSTEM.

I doubt the programmers would be chiming in overjoyed at the prospect of coding each system 2, 3 or more times almost the same.

[DocBach]

The programmers are paid to make a game that is fun -- if more weapon variations in the form of an "Intek Medium Laser" or "Diverse Optics B3M Medium Laser" or "Martell Medium Laser" with individual stats makes the game more fun and varied then having just a "Medium Laser", then they're doing the job they are getting paid for.

[Sassori]

The programmers are paid to make a game that is successful. Fun is not a factor that can be applied evenly to everyone. Not everyone finds the same things fun. This is where variety comes in to play and different 'classes' factor in. There are already enough weapon systems, mech types, module combinations, and mech variants that I don't think adding in /another/ area of min-maxability is going to help make anything more 'fun'.

If you want to say your medium laser is from a different brand? Cool, but it's still just a medium laser, and it still fires for the same damage as a medium laser.

Since they've already said they intend to stick as close to TT as they can while making it viable for an online game... I certainly hope we don't start getting oddball made up weapon damages and firing ratio's.

[Nowan123]

People should stop saying "It's too hard, it will take ages, so no No NO NO!!!"
As a programmer, I know that it's EASY to add a few variables for how much each individual weapons deviate from the standards. Point-wise, percentage-wise, etc. And it takes a byte or two for each weapon (precision's not a big deal, so floats suffice ), so it's very light-weight.

Now when you buy a weapon, it just gets "attributed" the variable, which is calculated, or randomized, or copy-pasted from a little table in a small database where all the weapons and manufacturers are listed.

It's also easy to make that database: just get the "historians" a.k.a. battletech know-alls to list the corporations, and add an ~1-3% deviation from standards for each company, along with maybe a ~0.5% deviation from that company's manufacturing standards. And this all delays launch for, oh, say about 15-45 minutes of programmer time (given good documentation ) and maybe 2-3 hours of "historian" time.

So, you've got about 2 less guys in the next alpha-test, big deal. It'll all get out on time. You got a very neat feature for little risk, which brings in immersion with almost no gameplay changes other than "my favorite PPC" and about 2 kb of overhead.


Just another note, this mechanic can also simulate wear and tear. You've had that PPC all your life, and it's capacitors have deteriorated a bit due to constant charging and discharging. Or that autocannon's barrel is a bit crooked from all those hits to the center torso on that battle on Styk.

The only good argument against this is a firm "no feature creep" from the dev's decision.

[Pht]

No.

Too much effort in man hours for returns that would at best bring questionable in actual gameplay returns.

It's not the data entry that will take too long; it's dealing with the unitended consequences beforehand and afterwards that make this insanely complex.

It's simply not worth it.

[DocBach]

Pht, on 24 April 2012 - 01:52 PM, said:

It's simply not worth it.

Not worth what? This game is free.

[neodym]

while I respec TT rules,more variants would be best idea I have saw on these forums ever...... like AC20 that have bigger fire rate but makes more heat per shot

but question here is


if more people vote yes,will actualy anybody from devs even think about maybe doing it? isnt this just like barking on moon?

Edited by neodym, 24 April 2012 - 03:22 PM.

[Wyzak]

DocBach, on 24 April 2012 - 02:16 PM, said:

Not worth what? This game is free.

Well, for it to stay free to try, it would help if we didn't bog the admins and programmers down in nitpicky feature requests. Since the community is hoping to get some additional propulsion from the gaming community at large spending their entertainment dollars here, it may not make sense to invest a lot of effort in a complicated feature that only a few well-versed players will see as a benefit.

[Volthorne]

Nowan123, on 24 April 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

People should stop saying "It's too hard, it will take ages, so no No NO NO!!!"
As a programmer, I know that it's EASY to add a few variables for how much each individual weapons deviate from the standards. Point-wise, percentage-wise, etc. And it takes a byte or two for each weapon (precision's not a big deal, so floats suffice ), so it's very light-weight.

Now when you buy a weapon, it just gets "attributed" the variable, which is calculated, or randomized, or copy-pasted from a little table in a small database where all the weapons and manufacturers are listed.

It's also easy to make that database: just get the "historians" a.k.a. battletech know-alls to list the corporations, and add an ~1-3% deviation from standards for each company, along with maybe a ~0.5% deviation from that company's manufacturing standards. And this all delays launch for, oh, say about 15-45 minutes of programmer time (given good documentation ) and maybe 2-3 hours of "historian" time.

So, you've got about 2 less guys in the next alpha-test, big deal. It'll all get out on time. You got a very neat feature for little risk, which brings in immersion with almost no gameplay changes other than "my favorite PPC" and about 2 kb of overhead.


Just another note, this mechanic can also simulate wear and tear. You've had that PPC all your life, and it's capacitors have deteriorated a bit due to constant charging and discharging. Or that autocannon's barrel is a bit crooked from all those hits to the center torso on that battle on Styk.

The only good argument against this is a firm "no feature creep" from the dev's decision.

THIS. FOR ALL ETERNITY.

Wyzak, on 24 April 2012 - 03:30 PM, said:

Well, for it to stay free to try, it would help if we didn't bog the admins and programmers down in nitpicky feature requests. Since the community is hoping to get some additional propulsion from the gaming community at large spending their entertainment dollars here, it may not make sense to invest a lot of effort in a complicated feature that only a few well-versed players will see as a benefit.

Nit-picky? Maybe. Complicated? Sort-of. Extremely cool? Hell yes.

I'm sure if you wanted to squeeze out a little more performance from your 'mech for your play-style, and had 5 different weapon brands to choose from, each with different stats, you'd head straight to the store and then the Mechlab for tweaking and adjusting. I sure as hell know I would.

Edited by Volthorne, 24 April 2012 - 03:39 PM.

[DocBach]

All weapons are standardized in the board game because a turn lasts 30 seconds -- recharge/reload rate isn't addressed in standard gameplay (though the Solaris 7 boxed set came around and changed that). In a real time simulation you've got an ability to add way more depth to the game in all aspects by diversifying the available weapons by manufacturer. Especially in this climate of MMOs where loot is a reward to players - looting the same boring stuff sucks, getting a rare Krupp PPC, you know, the one that has a little extra range but not as much as an ER PPC but takes a little longer to recharge that you could either use on your 'Mech or sell on the player economy, would make things a whole lot more interesting. It also helps limit the effects of super-optomized boats as it might be difficult to salvage all of the super-high end gear, so even similar weapons might be on different recharge cycles or range brackets.

It would add a whole lot more depth to the game, and ultimately the quest for gear is what keeps a lot of people involved in MMOs, so offering different "tiers" of equipment would add to the longevity of the game.