106 replies to this topic

[Roh]

Im sort of confused as to what people didnt get. The explanations we've been given so far gave me a very good picture of how things will work and is far more detailed then Ive ever gotten at the very beginning of a closed beta before.

[Pht]

Garth Erlam, on 20 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

All we can truely do is ask you to wait until you get your hands on it before making any judgements as to what will break and what will not break etc.

Hit a nerve, did we?

Well, on the nice side ... game developers interacting in public forums about their baby (game)? That's a forumla for insanity. No, seriously, it is. I've seen it before; and you'll never *not* get ripped a few new holes (with some salt tossed in for good measure). It seems to be the nature of the beast. So, to quote our ex-philanderer in cheif ... "I feel your pain." Sanity breaks are a necessary thing...

On the constructive side ... it's easier to fix something before it's released, yes? The forums could rightly be considered public beta-testing for game concepts/ideas. Faulty concepts followed = faulty implementations.

On the meanie side... If you release info ... um, we're going to assess it. We're rabid like that, you know ... unless we get into 1984 style tactics of making things go down the memory hole, which I somehow don't think you guys are considering doing.

Edited by Pht, 24 April 2012 - 02:29 PM.

[Hayashi]

William Petersen, on 23 April 2012 - 04:27 AM, said:

I'm curious why this hasn't been sticky-ed. <.<

Done, since it might stop the flow of "BUT HOW DOES IT WORK" threads. Will unsticky when Open Beta comes out. Or if another mod disagrees. Gwahaha. Also, locked the original Q&A thread, since it seems they're not going to answer any more questions there anyhow. Wouldn't want to use up people's time in asking questions that never get answered.

Lastly, linked that thread to here so that people who still haven't read it yet will be able to when that locked thread eventually gets buried by InnerSphereNews posts.

And so that they'll think I'm doing something.

[Pht]

Anyways ... this doesn't seem nearly so complex now that we have a few more bits of information; it should be easy to clear up by maybe a few more simple answers to simple questions.

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The total space in any section of a 'mech: defined by number of "critical" spaces in a tabletop 'Mech record sheet. This amount of space cannot be changed.

Everything OTHER than weapons must fit the amount of unused space and tonnage in the aforementioned section and otherwise follow all other incidental tabletop rules that might crop up (for instance, can't mount jumpjets in the arms or head, that sort of thing).

INSIDE that total space in a section of a mech there are special spaces which PGI is calling "hardpoints," even though they do not behave like MW4 style hardpoints in most aspects.

Inside of these "Hardpoints" are the only place that weapons can be mounted. You STILL must work within the aforementioned "total space" in in whatever section of the 'mech you are working in; you cannot put in weapons larger than the total space. You also can not put in weapons larger than the unused free space in that section.

They ARE NOT (developer, someone who knows, would be nice to confirm this) putting in only one mech for each chassis and trying to make it "work" for all of the many variants of any 'mech in the lore. They are putting in multiple variants of each basic chassis.

Each variant has a unique set of hardpoints. The number of hardpoints in any given chassis DO NOT CHANGE IN NUMBER and may not be moved around the mech from section to section.


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Developers, am I right so far? Simple stuff, anyone can follow this!

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Now for a few simple questions for clarification:

Hardpoints: are the at least like MW4 in that you can only put energy weapons in an energy hardpoint (weapons type restricted)?

If the hardpoints are weapons type restricted, can the "type" of a hardpoint be changed?

Hardpoints, do they change size?

If hardpoints can change size, can all hardpoints change size to take up all of the free space in any given section in a mech?

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If Hardpoints change size and can take up all free space in the section of the mech they are mounted in:

A:Must that free space also be contiguous?

B:Or may hardpoints expand size using non-contiguous free space inside of a section?
---

It was stated in an earlier thread that the hardpoints would have further restrictions on what they could mount that are determined on a per-chassis variant basis.

Keeping in mind that we are working inside of the already mentioned restrictions, what is the basic guiding *concept* that guides the team in implementing these further restrictions on any given chassis variant? You have already mentioned that you're doing this, so there's not much cat to let out the the bag, I would guess.

[Volthorne]

Pht, on 24 April 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:

Now for a few simple questions for clarification:

Hardpoints: are the at least like MW4 in that you can only put energy weapons in an energy hardpoint (weapons type restricted)?

If the hardpoints are weapons type restricted, can the "type" of a hardpoint be changed?

I'm going to answer these so more people don't waste brain cells on silly questions.

The Devs HAVE confirmed that hard-points will only be able to mount type-specific weaponry (lasers to lasers, missiles to missiles).

It has ALSO been confirmed that hard-points CANNOT be "swapped out" for another type of hard-point (honestly, at what point did common sense leave your mind while writing the question corresponding to this answer? We'd have Awesomes running around with full AC/20 load-outs if it was possible. "Hard-point" by definition is a structural design intended to hold a weapon or other feature. Please use some common sense before asking your next set of questions.).

Edited by Volthorne, 24 April 2012 - 03:31 PM.

[Hayashi]

Volthorne, on 24 April 2012 - 03:31 PM, said:

Please use some common sense before asking your next set of questions.).

Please use some courtesy before your next reply. But thanks for posting the informative part of that post.

[guardian wolf]

All of you guys hating on this system, We really need to not hate on it, until we see it, as for all I know, it could ole moe in his garage, and saying, "Well, I think I can rig somethink like tha'? Tho', wes sures is goin' to need a bi' o' grease for it,"

[GrizzlyViking]

Nooooo....I wanted an extremely detailed video instead of Beta!

[Watchit]

guardian wolf, on 25 April 2012 - 09:57 AM, said:

All of you guys hating on this system, We really need to not hate on it, until we see it, as for all I know, it could ole moe in his garage, and saying, "Well, I think I can rig somethink like tha'? Tho', wes sures is goin' to need a bi' o' grease for it,"

But if we don't hate on it we won't have anything else to do until open beta!
... Except for hating on mechs with hands... or people wanting quads... or why we don't get clan tech right away... or MADCATS... or......

[tynaiden]

Watchit, on 25 April 2012 - 01:00 PM, said:

But if we don't hate on it we won't have anything else to do until open beta!
... Except for hating on mechs with hands... or people wanting quads... or why we don't get clan tech right away... or MADCATS... or......

... Urbies, LAMS, Battle Armor, Unseen, mixed forces, on-board artillery, Autocannon stats / firing patterns, '80s TRO 'Mech styles, Protos, Jihad, expanded crit rules (less space for lighter 'Mechs).

Ok so maybe the last one is something I would like to see in a Mechwarrior game but know it would catch major flak. It's also Level 3 rules from when I used to play so that alone could DQ the notion.

[Hayashi]

GrizzlyViking, on 25 April 2012 - 10:18 AM, said:

Nooooo....I wanted an extremely detailed video instead of Beta!

Someone NARC him. Readying an alphastrike.

[Blue Shadow]

Not that I had any concerns about how the mech lab would turn out :-) but thanks for communicating with the community, is much appreciated when developers do that.

[Solarflux]

Cool, thanks for this post. Also nice to read Beta is almost upon us.

[Kyuui]

works for me, also nice to hear you're already listening to feedback, hopefully we as a community have given you some good ideas. Either way, all I will say is

I CAN HAZ NAO?

[Charles Martel]

Best. Devs. Ever.

I admit, I haven't looked forward to a MechWarrior game this much sense MW2, and everything I've seen here convinces me that this game is going to deliver and then some. Thank you for your hard work and taking time from what is an undoubtedly hectic schedule to communicate with us, it is appreciated.

[karish]

one way to look at the hard points is this. to mount an enery weapon on (insert location) you have to have power conduits to feed said weapon its energy to fire. with an ammo based weapon be it missles or balistic you have to have ammo feed lines to get the missles to the launcher or ammo to the gun changing these out in a real life would not be possible with out a major systems overhaul. Now we do know there are going to be variants of some of the mechs, how we get those we do not know yet. But one thing this system does give is, is that there will not be an Atlas crawling around with 10 PPC to take things out with one big alpha strike becuase they stripped out all the other weapons its armor and downgraded its motor becuase some monkey boy did some math

[AztecD]

Garth Erlam, on 20 April 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

"MechLab is the most complex system in the game. It's almost as large as Mech combat itself.

Just love this part

[Ravn]

I agree with best Devs ever. I've never felt like I've had a hand in steering the possible development path of a game till now. I like that they actually read through the suggestions and arguments we get into. A lot of it is trollers trolling trollers, but there are some gems of game play logic in there.

[Soviet Alex]

An interesting aside: Mechwarrior Tactics have confirmed in a new batch of interviews that they are going to use the same "variants & hardpoints" system as MW-O. I guess they realised the same thing: full customisation = everything stuffed with medium lasers.

[EDMW CSN]

Soviet Alex, on 28 April 2012 - 01:13 AM, said:

An interesting aside: Mechwarrior Tactics have confirmed in a new batch of interviews that they are going to use the same "variants & hardpoints" system as MW-O. I guess they realised the same thing: full customisation = everything stuffed with medium lasers.

All of which are in line with the rules of the relatively new Strategic Ops released by Catalyst (new rules >>> old rules).