73 replies to this topic

[Protoculture]

ArcDemon, on 12 January 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Spider mech hardpoint and loadout files where included in the last patch. It is unlikely that they'll change the hardpoints this late but nothing is final until they officially add the mech to the game by putting it in the main item list file.

My abandoned Mechlab and smurfy's online mechlab also extract from the game files, but use the main item list to avoid loading potentially incomplete items. I'm working on map data right now and there are a lot of incomplete maps in the game client (including the upcoming Tourmaline Desert which appears to have twice the area of Caustic Valley).

Define: A lot and Incomplete. How long do you think they will take to finish or have they just been abandoned and no one cleaned up?

[Wile Ee Coyote]

Elepole, on 12 January 2013 - 08:49 AM, said:

Well, i would advise to add support for community theme, so the design is made by other people. But i don't know how much code it would take you to do that.

Well, the theming is in two xml files. But I dont know how many ppl can create a xaml theme?

lordkrike, on 12 January 2013 - 11:52 AM, said:

See my excel sheet. Feel free to rip the formulae off of it if you want, please just give me credit somewhere if you do so.

I'll take a look at it, but you probably just got yourself eternal thanks and mentioning in the about box/readme.

[lordkrike]

Wile Ee Coyote, on 12 January 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Well, the theming is in two xml files. But I dont know how many ppl can create a xaml theme?



I'll take a look at it, but you probably just got yourself eternal thanks and mentioning in the about box/readme.

No problem. If there's something you don't understand in there, let me know.

[Elepole]

Wile Ee Coyote, on 12 January 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Well, the theming is in two xml files. But I dont know how many ppl can create a xaml theme?

If it's something readable, using standard value, that would be perfect !

[Dragonkindred]

Thanks for a great little program mate.

This is very helpful.

Taizan, on 12 January 2013 - 11:07 AM, said:

I like the usability, no drag & dropping and armor values can be set manually,this is a bit more efficient imo.

Its really cool that you read out the data from the game, like this any minimal changes will be visible immediately. Who knows how often things get adjusted without them being mentioned in patch notes.

The heat value of 1.68 - for a HBK-4H with AC10 and 5 ML with 5 DHS & 200 Engine seems a bit odd (is this the ingame heat value?) I'd prefer to see the ingame value or a percentage number - better even both! :-)

The armor rounding seems to be a bit off somehow instead of the expected 50 tons, it shows 49.94 although it should be 50.

Else wise this program is really nice, GJ.

I'm also concerned with the heatsink cooling numbers coming out. It's not the same as in the game, from what I'm seeing.

Could you check this for us?

[Wile Ee Coyote]

Dragonkindred, on 13 January 2013 - 02:37 AM, said:

I'm also concerned with the heatsink cooling numbers coming out. It's not the same as in the game, from what I'm seeing.

Could you check this for us?

The difference is that the game doesn't show heatsink cooling power. In the game lab, when you add a weapon the number goes down, if you remove a weapon, the number goes up. There have been some algorithms that get almost the same result, but the exact calculation is not known to me.
For now I've added a tooltip to explain, but a tooltip on a bit of text is not expected. I'll have to change the text a bit around to make space explaining this.

Elepole, on 12 January 2013 - 04:44 PM, said:

If it's something readable, using standard value, that would be perfect !

Sadly no. It contains a lot of details on how the controls (buttons, lists, tabs, text, etc) are displayed. Including things like animation when you hover over an item. If you are not fluent in XAML , than it is not very readable (I can find my way around with it, but it still puzzles me on a regular basis).

What I want to do in a future version is make the item colors you see in the mechlab (weapon = red, ammo = greenish, module = blueish, etc) user configurable. I think that should solve most issues.

Protoculture, on 12 January 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

Define: A lot and Incomplete. How long do you think they will take to finish or have they just been abandoned and no one cleaned up?

The program just reads whatever is in the files. It seems that the spiders that are already present are looking quite valid, but during my development (it takes a bit of time to make a program ) I also parsed the files while the Stalker was not yet in game. Lets just say that mech was NOT configured correctly.
Basically, anything that is not yet released should be taken with that in mind: anything you see can and probably will be changed before release.

Hotpatch
I've uploaded a hotpatch. Fixes a crash bug when you press Cancel in the open file dialog, should also improve readability a bit.
There is a very basic start on heat management. It will take quite a bit of time before that is finished though (think weeks). I've you have any request regarding what you want to know with regards to heat management, let me know.
Download: http://www.ottoschel...uilderSetup.exe or http://www.xs4all.nl...uilderSetup.exe

[WolvesX]

Wile Ee Coyote, on 12 January 2013 - 02:55 AM, said:

Edit
Hotpatch to 1.0.1. Two issues fixed: Crash when you press Cancel in the Open mech file dialog. Also changed theming a bit to make selected tab / mech more readable (see updated screenshot below). Download location remains the same.
Unless other crash bugs are found or an import problem on the next game patch, the next update will be some time out, I've got heat calculations to start working on . Download link remains: http://www.ottoschel...uilderSetup.exe or http://www.xs4all.nl...uilderSetup.exe

After installing (and paying good c-bills for) endo-steel on a mech, I find out my guesstimate of used critical slots was off by 2: I can't configure the Atlas as I wanted. Since it wasn't the first time this happened to me, I started looking around for program that allow me to tweak a mech, but didn't find anything that used the data from the game (there are some good/interesting programs for tabletop, but those don't have the exact stats from the game).

So I decided to create my own.
Since I was working on that, I also wanted my program to do a bit more than just let me configure a mech, but also give me some more information about what damage I do / at which range.
For instance, if you mount 4 AC/2 on a CTF-4X the game gives you a firepower of 8, which is less than 2 medium laser and looks like the equivalent of a wet paper towel. If you take a bit more data into account: range and rate of fire, it becomes a much more interesting weapon.
Anyway, the mech layout looks like this: you can see your whole mech layout, enable/disable of upgrades is on the right.



And if you do a firepower analysis on this hunchie you would get:


If any of you are interested, you can download it here: http://www.ottoschel...uilderSetup.exe (this is the installer)

It needs .NET 4 client profile, but the installer should auto detect and download this if necessary (that is one thing I can't test, since I already have it installed). Besides that it needs about 4 MB of disk space and the game installed. I've tested on windows 7 - 64 bit, and on a Windows XP 32 bits virtual machine. Also, there have been a few friendly people that have helped me testing the beta versions, so it should be stable, but if you do encounter a problem, please let me know through PM.
The first thing the program will do when you start it, is import the current data from the game. Using an import mechanism makes sure that the program uses the actual data from the game, without having anybody doing manual updates that might go wrong. There is one downside to this: if some expected data no longer exists within the files, I have to create an update before importing works again. Since the game is still in beta, I do expect this to happen, but I'll update the program as soon as possible when it happens. Usually the Tuesday/Thursday patches are deployed early in the evening for me, so you shouldn't have to wait for to long .

Great job man!

[Joseph Mallan]

ConnorSinclair, on 12 January 2013 - 03:35 AM, said:

Mine kick your *** on a daily basis, not just in game, but in these stupid debates on these ******** forums.

His program is literally an upgraded iteration of the java mechlab we had way back when.

Why bother downloading it when you can literally just click smurfys link regardless of download.

I wouldn't say yours kicks the other ash. I wouldn't say it is better than the other Program. Both are easy to use, Like McKenna I like the downloadable program better. It just a feel thing. I can E-mail my friends my Builds and since I grew up on Pen and paper games I don't have a problem waiting a few minutes for my friends to give my builds a once over. You do know there are something like 4-5 MechLabs for TT and each has a following. There is room for both your programs. Grow up a bit and accept not everyone will prefer your program.

[athlonduke]

I keep getting import errors when I point to my game folder of c:\mechwarrior online. tried it as administrator as well. running win8 x64.

[ArcDemon]

Protoculture, on 12 January 2013 - 01:25 PM, said:

Define: A lot and Incomplete. How long do you think they will take to finish or have they just been abandoned and no one cleaned up?

Most of the incomplete maps where clearly not designed for actual play, they are for internal testing and are made of mostly placeholder art. These are not the maps you would actually play a match on and that's why we deliberately filter out anything that isn't marked as usable in the game's main data files. For example in addition to factions like House Kurita and House Davion there is also what appears to be House Lady Gaga and House Justin Bieber.

Of the incomplete maps that seem like they might be playable in the future there is the Tourmaline Desert which is already known and will probably be released soon. There is also a night version of Caustic Valley (who knows if that will ever be released, some people seem to whine about reusing maps) and finally a new map that seems to be called Alpine Peaks which is a little larger then Tourmaline Desert overall though I suspect the playable area might be smaller.

[Elepole]

Wile Ee Coyote, on 13 January 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

There is a very basic start on heat management. It will take quite a bit of time before that is finished though (think weeks). I've you have any request regarding what you want to know with regards to heat management, let me know.
Download: http://www.ottoschel...uilderSetup.exe or http://www.xs4all.nl...uilderSetup.exe

Yes, that's good info !

Edited by Elepole, 13 January 2013 - 12:20 PM.

[athlonduke]

athlonduke, on 13 January 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

I keep getting import errors when I point to my game folder of c:\mechwarrior online. tried it as administrator as well. running win8 x64.

I think I figured it out...I never actually installed MWO on that laptop, and as such no registry keys for you to look at for pathing. I just tried on another machine of mine and it works fine.

[Boozifer]

I keep getting "Unable to parse the gamedata" on this. It finds the game folder and starts importing, but stalls at 40%/95% with that error message.

[Odins Fist]

ConnorSinclair, on 12 January 2013 - 03:26 AM, said:

+ http://project-2501....-weapons-stats/ + %windir%\system32\calc.exe

OH MAH GURDS I HAD THIS PROGRAM ALL ALONG.

.
Yeah I have been using that for a while now, it gets updated as well.... OLD NEWS

[smokefield]

after using it for several days in parallel with other mechlab programs i think this is the easiest program to use at the moment.

a big + for me is that it can hold several different builds in the same time and you can compare them in a second.

Maybe a color change although i get used to it as it is lol.
Also I would suggest to add weapons and engine caractheristics directly on them when you add them to the mech. There is enough space to add range/damage/heat/weight even for the 1 crit weapons...adn will be usefull to see them there all the time, I know i would like to see them there .

another thing - maybe add the possibility to set the timescale on the firepower analysis. default is 10 sec but i want to see over 20 for example and set it as default.

put a max armour button to fill instantly the armor.

thanks for the program and don't let it die, don't pay attention to others who were bashing your work. It is a great program.

[smokefield]

another suggestion - add the c-bill price and mc price where there is one for mechs/items. Probably it can be imported from game files aswell.

thanks.

[ConnorSinclair]

smokefield, on 16 January 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

another suggestion - add the c-bill price and mc price where there is one for mechs/items. Probably it can be imported from game files aswell.

thanks.

Stop necroing this and let his 5th variant of java mechlab die.

[Joseph Mallan]

smokefield, on 16 January 2013 - 04:35 AM, said:

another suggestion - add the c-bill price and mc price where there is one for mechs/items. Probably it can be imported from game files aswell.

thanks.

Not a necessity but a nice suggestion.

Connor... Stop hatin'

[ConnorSinclair]

Joseph Mallan, on 16 January 2013 - 04:48 AM, said:

Not a necessity but a nice suggestion.

Connor... Stop hatin'

Hey I'm thinking of doing an Awesome 8R build, mind helping me?

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...788122cec9e8908


OH LOOK IT EVEN GOT UPDATED WITH CBILL PRICING THAT SMOKEFIELD TALKED ABOUT.

[smokefield]

its the best there is at the moment and can be improved. you don't like it - don't use it.