34 replies to this topic

[Woodstock]

Hey

When ask about the physical representation of weapon changes The wonderful guys over there in Canada said something like:

Yes. but some weapons will look very similar. A med laser buried in a torso will only show a lense and therefore a lens is a lens is a lens.

But what if say I take my hunchie and replace the medium laser on left arm with 2 small lasers on the left arm. Would there now be 2 lasers represented on the arm?

Same applies for the awesome. Say I'm irrationally bias against PPC's ... and replace both my arm mounted ppc's with dual large pulse lasers. Would I get to see paired laser weapons on each arm?

[Hef]

To my best understanding it will work like this:

If there are two weapon hardpoints on the left arm (not free equipment slots, they are related, but different) then you can replace your one medium laser with two smalls, and you will be able to see two lenses in the arm instead of the one that was there before.

So the answer is YES you will be able to see the extra weapons, IF your mech has hardpoints for it.

[The Cheese]

Quote from the dev blog:
The hardpoint system will be related to how many weapons are in the default loadout, and not how many slots those weapons take up.

And another:
Hardpoints will limit the number of weapons that can be placed in a location on the ’Mech. The number of slots those weapons can occupy is not predefined (outside of the maximum number of slots in the location). So let’s say that I’m allowed 2 energy weapons in my right arm. I currently have 2 Medium Lasers which occupy 1 slot each. I would still be allowed to put in 2 Large Lasers, which occupy 2 slots each.


My understanding is that if you had a single weapon in a slot, you can only replace it with another single weapon.

In your example, you can only put one small laser in the arm, because there is only space for a single weapon there. Likewise, you can't put dual pulse lasers in place of each PPC.

Edited by The Cheese, 18 April 2012 - 10:13 PM.

[Rejarial Galatan]

I think, and I may be wrong, but, if we are limited to a first person view from inside the cockpit, what our mech looks like is moot as far as seeing our weapons. BUT what our foes look like as far as weapons visuals on the mech, that will be interesting. But, ya, I THINK if you have dual lasers, it should and would make sense that both be represented visually

The Cheese, on 18 April 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

My understanding is that if you had a single weapon in a slot, you can only replace it with another single weapon.

In your example, you can only put one small laser in the arm, because there is only space for a single weapon there.

depends on the critical slot availability, tonnage and hardpoint availability

[The Cheese]

Rejarial Galatan, on 18 April 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

depends on the critical slot availability, tonnage and hardpoint availability

Yes, you need enough criticals, weight and the existence of a hardpoint in a given chassis section in order to mount something there, but even if you have all of those, you can still only mount, to use the dev's example, 2 large lasers in place of the 2 medium lasers that were there previously.

I think the confusion is coming from the old MW4 way of doing things, where the critical slots were directly related to how many weapons you could fit into one place. EG, a PPC took up 3 slots, so you could replace it with 3 med lasers, which only took up one slot each. That is no longer the case. A PPC takes up one weapon hard point, X tons, and X critical slots. A med laser takes up one weapon hard point, X tons and X critical slots.

It's the number of hard points we're interested in here.

[Rejarial Galatan]

Cheese I think your right. Still gonna be a freaky sight out on the battle field no matter what!

[100mile]

[DAVID] The hardpoint system will be related to how many weapons are in the default loadout, and not how many slots those weapons take up.

[DAVID] Hardpoints will limit the number of weapons that can be placed in a location on the ’Mech. The number of slots those weapons can occupy is not predefined (outside of the maximum number of slots in the location). So let’s say that I’m allowed 2 energy weapons in my right arm. I currently have 2 Medium Lasers which occupy 1 slot each. I would still be allowed to put in 2 Large Lasers, which occupy 2 slots each.

So basically slots do not matter except for overall slots available...it's weight, type and number of weapons in original load out per hard points that actually matters...it's going to be challenging to get most of what you want loaded in..but i like it cause you won't be able to create an all powerful machine...everything will be a trade off..

[Woodstock]

Okay to the guy who mentioned two lenses ... When they mentioned the lens thing they were talking about weapons which are fully embedded in the torso. I'm talking arm mounts where the weapons are external.

Incidentally it doesn't say anywhere that the number of lenses would increase. It makes sense but will it actually happen?

But for external weapons ... would you gain extra barrels?

To the person who said its a replace one weapon for one weapon ... that cant be right because in the blog they say you can replace a ppc with 2 med lasers.

My question is: If you put a xl engine in and gained the extra tons and crit slots and replaced a PPC in the arm with 2 large lasers (in the same arm). Will that PPC physically disappear and be replaced by two distinctly different looking weapons ... or will the model stay the same but maybe with 2 lenses instead of one?

[Woodstock]

Also ... Say I have a dragon. And I strip the AC out of the arm in order to upgrade the LRM's in the CT to an LRM/20. and increase the number of lasers in the other arm.

What happens to the AC arm? is it chopped off? does it gain hand actuators? does it remain unchanged? Does it become a stub?

My vote here is that it should gain hand and arm actuators and just be there for show. You shouldn't be able to add other weapon types apart from AC's. It should change for aesthetic reasons.

[Soviet Alex]

woodstock, on 19 April 2012 - 03:49 AM, said:

Also ... Say I have a dragon. And I strip the AC out of the arm in order to upgrade the LRM's in the CT to an LRM/20. and increase the number of lasers in the other arm.

What happens to the AC arm? is it chopped off? does it gain hand actuators? does it remain unchanged? Does it become a stub?

To answer the 1st part, you can't replace the CT LRM-10 on the Dragon chassis with a bigger launcher. There are only 2 free critical slots in the centre torso, & the LRM-10 fills them. If you wanted an LRM-heavy, you wouldn't buy a Dragon, you'd buy a Catapult. That's the whole point of the Mech-Lab: the right tool for the right job.

As for the 2nd bit, none of us know. We'll just have to wait & see.

[Woodstock]

Okay so a bad example ... but you completely missed the point of my post .... what happens to the ARM when you remove the AC.

If you want more justification you just replace the med laser in the right (or is it left)torso and arm with large lasers and heat sinks.

The key though is what happens to the AC arm?

no one knows? ... I get that WE don't ... BUT maybe the all powerful and all knowing dev's know! maybe they will let us mere mortals know

Edited by woodstock, 19 April 2012 - 04:15 AM.

[Ghostrider45]

The problem is you guys Do'nt know how many Hard points each mech has are where they are !!!!!

[Woodstock]

Ghostrider45, on 19 April 2012 - 04:27 AM, said:

The problem is you guys Do'nt know how many Hard points each mech has are where they are !!!!!

This has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

The thread is not about how many weapons CAN be fitted. It is about IF you can fit them how does it change the OUTWARD LOOK of the mech.

[Vandul]

Removing gun tubes and adding hand actuators when an AC10 is removed and filled with Heat Sinks is going to be a huge investment in modeling, skinning and programming when you consider how many possible combinations could stem from this.Personally, I would rather see them get the game finished and tuned before we start to worry about cosmetics.

Oh, and Weapons Slots = Mass, for easy reference.

Edited by Vandul, 19 April 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Woodstock]

define finished? For me the look of the game is very important and having massive immersion breaking gaps in the game would definitely take away from my enjoyment factor.

I honestly don't think the game would be finished without some core graphical elements.

Sure cosmetics like custom decals can wait. but major structural changes to mechs should be represented in my opinion.

[Vandul]

Lets put it into context.

Lets say there are 30 different mech types. Each Mech has two arms, two legs (no quads) head, CT/CTR, RT/RTR, LT/LTR for a total of 11 different weapon points, lets assume there are 20 different weapon types.

30*11*20

Thats a total of roughly 6600 __different__ pieces of the mechs models that would have to be modeled, skinned, fitted, etc...

These are all estimates, but you can see how much of an undertaking this would be. Now, if each of those is animated, well, it only gets worse from there.

When I say finished, I mean working, lag resistant, and balanced. Remember, this is a F2P game, without a huge developers budget. The cost in labor alone would be astronomical, putting in the range of SWTOR's deployment budget.

[MaddMaxx]

woodstock, on 19 April 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

define finished? For me the look of the game is very important and having massive immersion breaking gaps in the game would definitely take away from my enjoyment factor.

I honestly don't think the game would be finished without some core graphical elements.

Sure cosmetics like custom decals can wait. but major structural changes to mechs should be represented in my opinion.

Well we can assume that perhaps the weapons come as predefined packages. If I remove an arm mounted AC, and put back just HS's and or armor, the package may look like it would on a Stock design that does not have an AC mounted. If the Variant has hands, the package would include a hand, if not it would not.

The fact they are making cosmetic changes is great. What should be focused on it the weapons. Not whether a blank arm has a hand on the end. If you doesn't shoot **** at you, an arm that just butt ends with no weapons would be fine. no?

P.S. Sounds like if an arm has 2 HP's and you switch Laser types, you will still see 2 Lasers mounted. Perhaps a color change on the lense, but that may be not really be needed, as when it spits at you, you will know what/they are.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 19 April 2012 - 05:23 AM.

[Mechteric]

Rejarial Galatan, on 18 April 2012 - 10:10 PM, said:

I think, and I may be wrong, but, if we are limited to a first person view from inside the cockpit, what our mech looks like is moot as far as seeing our weapons. BUT what our foes look like as far as weapons visuals on the mech, that will be interesting. But, ya, I THINK if you have dual lasers, it should and would make sense that both be represented visually

well it will matter to our enemy who based on visuals is going to assume we could possibly have only say that 1 laser barrel, so it would be weird to see multiple lasers physically coming out of one barrel, or even non-laser weapons coming out of a laser lens barrel.

[Woodstock]

Vandul, on 19 April 2012 - 05:15 AM, said:

Lets put it into context.

Lets say there are 30 different mech types. Each Mech has two arms, two legs (no quads) head, CT/CTR, RT/RTR, LT/LTR for a total of 11 different weapon points, lets assume there are 20 different weapon types.

30*11*20

Thats a total of roughly 6600 __different__ pieces of the mechs models that would have to be modeled, skinned, fitted, etc...

These are all estimates, but you can see how much of an undertaking this would be. Now, if each of those is animated, well, it only gets worse from there.

When I say finished, I mean working, lag resistant, and balanced. Remember, this is a F2P game, without a huge developers budget. The cost in labor alone would be astronomical, putting in the range of SWTOR's deployment budget.

I would rather assume that they are capable of delivering an excellent game rather than making excuses for why they might not get there.

Its better to reach for the stars in my opinion.

[Orzorn]

A proper weapons-module approach to weaponry could make adding or removing weapons from mech models a much quicker thing. You don't model each individual part for each possible weapon combination. That is both a "work harder not smarter" approach...and...well, totally stupid as hell and really wasteful. The solution is to have weapons act as modules that can be applied to the parts of a mech, with parts acting like templates that you simply clip weapons on to.

MWLL does their weapons this way, and it sounds like MWO will as well.

Edited by Orzorn, 19 April 2012 - 12:26 PM.