69 replies to this topic

[Red squirrel]

The Alpha
STK-5S

[Broceratops]

I didn't read through the thread but would it be possible for a textbox input for armor? It's a serious pain to have to hold down + for hundreds of points of armor

[Krazy Kat]

I have wanted to try this loadout ever since I saw the barking cricket video.

The Hunchback HBK-4P with 6 ERPPC's. Of course a 50-ton mech with 42 tons of weapons leaves no room for anything but a small engine and little armor (and no extra heat sinks.)

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...43e6549dca70519

Anyone with FRAPS and and more Cbills than common sense want to try this out?

Edit: upon further review, Smurfy pointed out that this mech lacked the minimum 10 heat sinks. By losing one ERPPC, dropping FF, switching to a 100XL engine, and adding 6 heat sinks, you could still make a 5 ERPPC Hunchback. Too bad there's only one ton left for armor.

I still might try it out some day, just for fun.

Edited by Krazy Kat, 28 December 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Krazy Kat]

Broceratops, on 28 December 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

I didn't read through the thread but would it be possible for a textbox input for armor? It's a serious pain to have to hold down + for hundreds of points of armor

Good suggestion. Or at least add a "Max" button. Then we could hit - after that.

[smurfynet]

Krazy Kat, on 28 December 2012 - 05:13 PM, said:

the Hunchback HBK-4P with 6 ERPPC's. Of course a 50-ton mech with 42 tons of weapons

this build is not possible, at least not possible to join a match with. you need at least 10 hs to join a match.

Krazy Kat, on 28 December 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Good suggestion. Or at least add a "Max" button. Then we could hit - after that.

the max button is already there, just click on "tools" and you will find it.

[Krazy Kat]

Thanks Smurfy. BTW I love the site. Playing with mech loadouts in a browser beats downloading program any day.

[AndyHill]

Now that we have the fantastic and brilliant cooling efficiency number, maybe it's time to look at the heat sink requirement thing and perhaps other requirements as well? As Krazy pointed out, the requirement for at least 10 sinks - and the total number including the ones hidden in the engine - is one of the more difficult things to understand in the original 'mechlab. Here's a few dumb ideas:

- Maybe create some kind of an info box for error messages? It would be quite useful for beginners especially to understand what is required to make a 'mech tick, so if you for example strip a 'mech it would say something like
ERROR: No engine installed
ERROR: Less than minimum amount of heatsinks (X / 10)
WARNING: Pacifism detected! This is not an agrimech, install weapons.
WARNING: Being soft and cuddly does not make enemies want to hug you. Adding some armor suggested.

- Add display of integral heatsinks / slots into the engine list (Heat sinks: 10 + 2). This may be difficult due to the list being already very long.

- Maybe dim and make unselectable from the list all engines and weapons that won't fit or are too heavy?

- Referring to the first point, maybe separate in-engine heat sinks and others in the list to the left? For example like
Heatsinks (double)
In Engine: 8
In Engine Slots: N/A
Outside Engine: 0
----------------------
Total: 8 (Too few!)
Note: In Engine double heat sinks have cooling power of 2.0, others function at 1.4


Most of these suggestions are probably problematic due to user interface design issues - too much info is too much, especially in small spaces. Quite a bit could be done with pop-up tooltips (perhaps for example when you mouse over an engine in the list, it displays the internal heatsinks & available slots either as a pop-up info or in a dedicated info window somewhere in the UI. Anyway, it would probably involve a lot of writing and coding and many of these ideas are not at all important really, but I would suggest somehow emphasizing the heatsink requirement thing.

Also talking about UI congestion, if you're at some point interested in adding all sorts of reports on calculated heat buildup at certain ranges etc., it might be best to add an advanced button or perhaps the ability to create a report with all sorts of spreadsheets so that the main window stays as simple as possible.

To keep feature requests per post at a high enough level I had to come up with one more suggestion. Now that we have the excellent and supremely useful and brilliant cooling efficiency, how about we take a look at the firepower as well. The obvious value that comes to mind is DPS, do you guys think it would make sense to divide firepower into MAx alpha and Max DPS? I think this info might be useful, since it correlates with the (fantastic etc.) cooling efficiency value; a high alpha build with a low cooling efficiency can be workable, but if the 'mech is obviously a DPM build, you should have a pretty good cooling efficiency as well.

[shadN]

1. I love this game.

2. You know why? Because it has a great community building things like this mechlab. We do have critics, we do have fans. And we do have a load of nerds who love the same scifi-franchise.

3 Thank you all!

[smurfynet]

@AndyHill

great ideas, i already added some error messages in the last version and i continue to do so.
Currently i only mark the heatsinks count red in the stats list if < 10, but i will add an error msg if you try to save it.
I can also add some warnings, but the rule for that kind of warning/error should be errors blocks you from saving, warnings don't.

I'm currently working on a "phase 1" of community features for the site, with some other small/medium changes, after that i will do more improvements.

Edited by smurfynet, 29 December 2012 - 03:57 PM.

[Red squirrel]

Okay here are some builds I did:

AS7-D-DC

YEN-LO-WANG
YEN-LO-WANG

CTF-3D

FLAME
FLAME
DRG-5N
DRG-1N

COM-1B

CPLT-C1

STK-5S

AWS-8T

Edited by Red squirrel, 29 December 2012 - 04:12 PM.