12 replies to this topic

[tyrone dunkirk]

I was reading another topic on this and somebody posted something that I really agreed with on the topic of salvage. If and when I destroy someones mech, how would salvage work? Well, in my opinion, I would like to see a way to get a copy of the defeated players mech, but since you will ( most likely) kill more than one person, that seems problematic. Still I think something along the lines of this would be cool:

- Destroy a Players Mech- With body shots.
- Salvage could include several of their weapons, but the chassis would be too messed up to be claimed.
- Destroy a Players Mech- By Legging
- Salvage could include, again several of their weapons, and also a damaged copy of the dead players mech.
- Destroy a Players Mech- Head Shot
- Several weapons, and a ( for the most part) undamaged copy of the dead players mech.

Just my thoughts, what about yours? Any other ideas from the community?

Edited by tyrone dunkirk, 05 November 2011 - 08:53 AM.

[itchies]

It really depends. IF they are indeed following along the rules for the board game, which they stated they are, then salvage will be very valuable and especially when the game first starts, will set the pricing structure for how things are traded/sold.

[macmerritt]

Unfortunatly I dont see them awarding you a mech for killing it in game. That would totally throw off the economy and leave your mechbay full of mechs to be repaired/rebuilt. What I see them doing is giving you C-Bills equal to a percentage of the mech not damaged. I.E. if you Headcap and only do say 5% damage you get 95% worth mechs value in XP and C-Bills or something similar. More damage you do the less you make. But again I still see even this being "watered down" so as not to allow people to buy mechs and equipment superfast.

Look for them to have a set fee for killing Assaults, Heavies, Mediums, Lights, Commanders, Scouts, etc.

Alot of people are comparing this game to World of Tanks so far, even though it is still early in development or at least released details. In WoT you might kill an IS3, a heavy tank costing 2mil+ and when you kill it you might get 20,000. They seem to award about 1% of the tanks worth plus a 50% bonus if you win the battle, thus 1.5% of the tanks worth.

MWO might do something like that in order to keep the economy under control and make people work hard to get those bigger mechs thus reducing the amount of massive Heavy and Assault mechs trying to dominat battles.

[GI Journalist]

Salvage is one of the things that makes BattleTech a great game. People will fight differently if they have to be concerned that they might lose their Mech. This might include retreating off the board.

Plus when you're winning, there is little more satisfying than a few well placed shots that let you take home a new ride, especially if a few have already been shot out from underneath your mercenary company. Mechs are expensive, but I'm not playing to earn money. I'm playing to earn the right to a better ride.

I think a better question might be if it will be better to have all salvage go to the mercenary company, or whether it should go directly to the lance as the personal spoils of its members.

Salvage is the treasure of BattleTech, and if you want to earn it, you keep your Mechs alive and try to capture and cripple as many of the enemy as possible without blowing them up.

I'm looking forward to seeing how they decide to handle this.

[Rendall]

It would be interesting if you salvage part of a mech, such as a torso, an arm, both legs, and eventually over time complete a full mech, or be able to sell the parts off as "salvage" (but still allow the original owner to keep thier mech, although heavily damaged and in need of repair). killing the same mech, and/or buying the parts of the mech you dont have be required to acquire a fully salvaged mech for use. Another way to go might be Mechcommander 2's method, which is after battle, it costs the winner some C-bills (a lot perhaps) to salvage a mech from the field. A side note: the original mech you start with should not be salvageable by the enemy, or be Destroyed completely (after battle). It allows the player to attempt to make some kind of come back.
One more thing: When starting, your first mech should be a choice between a couple or a few different mechs of the same tonnage. Like a locust, Flea, and Thorn.

[TheRulesLawyer]

If you can really lose a mech it becomes a whole different game. It even solves the custom mech issue partially as you'd have time and money restrictions on building them. Go out and lose it? Pay for the custom work all over again. That said I really doubt it would be like that. Any mech you got would be more like a rental than a purchase.

[tyrone dunkirk]

Rendall, on 08 November 2011 - 10:48 AM, said:

It would be interesting if you salvage part of a mech, such as a torso, an arm, both legs, and eventually over time complete a full mech, or be able to sell the parts off as "salvage" (but still allow the original owner to keep thier mech, although heavily damaged and in need of repair). killing the same mech, and/or buying the parts of the mech you dont have be required to acquire a fully salvaged mech for use. Another way to go might be Mechcommander 2's method, which is after battle, it costs the winner some C-bills (a lot perhaps) to salvage a mech from the field. A side note: the original mech you start with should not be salvageable by the enemy, or be Destroyed completely (after battle). It allows the player to attempt to make some kind of come back.
One more thing: When starting, your first mech should be a choice between a couple or a few different mechs of the same tonnage. Like a locust, Flea, and Thorn.

I was thinking the exact same thing when it came to salvaging different parts of a mech body. Hell, maybe they'll even let (the more desperate of) us make Frankenmechs

[KuruptU4Fun]

Why not make salvage even narrower, you can't pick apart the base frame of a mech obviously. You have to buy those with real money or C-notes. But you can salvage COMPONENTS of a PPC or LRM from a mech, but not the whole thing. You have to collect all of the components of that weapon to rebuild it (or buy what components you don't have with money) once you have that weapons components in hand you can reverse engineer it (over time) and have the set of blueprints to create it in the future(again requiring time and components)but the build time is much shorter with the blueprints.

Take for example an LRM battery for a Mad Cat. You have to have the frame, the electrical components, the guidance components, missles, and cockpit controls in order to engineer the whole LRM system for the mech. But it takes a week in real time to recreate it and have a set of blueprints that you backwards engineered. But once you have the LRM blueprints for the Mad Cat you only need a short time and the components to build the system from scratch that were damaged or salvaged off of your mech.

If you had bays you could either buy mech straight out or choose to hold components in that bay to build a specific mech...

Edited by KuruptU4Fun, 12 November 2011 - 01:42 PM.

[Du shar]

Wow, pretty much all my thoughts are covered already, only thought / concern I have is if ejecting is put in the game, whats stopping any one from just punching out out mid battle, gotta remember ejecting cause a core self destruct, there goes any salvage.


Du

[KuruptU4Fun]

Du'shar, on 12 November 2011 - 01:38 PM, said:

Wow, pretty much all my thoughts are covered already, only thought / concern I have is if ejecting is put in the game, whats stopping any one from just punching out out mid battle, gotta remember ejecting cause a core self destruct, there goes any salvage. Du

Simple, change the rules to where the eject is a bomb that explodes inside the frame, it does damage to systems and destroys ALL ammo, but individual components can be salvaged from a system.

[Kumakichi]

Not sure how many mech bays we all will get when the game starts but you all are suggesting you salvage an arm here, a leg there and piece meal a mech together. Thats one approach but if thats the case I wonder how long it would take to assemble an entire mech? I'm fine with getting paid c-bills for salvage. At first I was against the thought of salvage but now you all make it sound more interesting. And I'm not really sure if there needs to be a grind to MWO, does it really need one? I mean our grind is truly conquest of the Inner Sphere for whatever faction you represent.

I like the idea of supply and demand also. In MW4 leagues some mechs were plentiful and some were not. And at times some houses might provide mechs to mercs to fight there battles. Clans and Houses built there mechs at mech factories using c-bills generated from an economy. Interesting stuff and added to the fun. I remember having fought battles and taking losses of some of the more desired mechs only to fight the next battle in a mech you didn't really care for but its all that was available. And a lot of times that put you in a David vs. Goliath role which was fun in itself.

I hate ejecting. I remember a lot of weenies in MPBT3025 who would eject because they were getting pwned and they would deny the better pilot his fair reward. IMHO if you eject then you need to penalize the person ejecting like -25,000 c-bills and award the winning pilots full mech salvage as if they captured that mech in its entirety.... say 100,000 c-bills. If ejecting is allowed in the game then definitely penalize someone willing to punch out and flee during a battle.

[Draco Argentum]

TheRulesLawyer, on 08 November 2011 - 01:57 PM, said:

If you can really lose a mech it becomes a whole different game. It even solves the custom mech issue partially as you'd have time and money restrictions on building them. Go out and lose it? Pay for the custom work all over again. That said I really doubt it would be like that. Any mech you got would be more like a rental than a purchase.

I'm certain they won't. Most players will get destroyed in at least 50% of battles*. All but the top 5% of players would find themselves constantly stuck in the cheapest mechs. As far as customer retention goes this would be a disaster.


*My WoT score is 19% survival with a 50% win rate for example, even winning matches usually result in me being dead.

[Du shar]

KuruptU4Fun, on 12 November 2011 - 01:46 PM, said:

Simple, change the rules to where the eject is a bomb that explodes inside the frame, it does damage to systems and destroys ALL ammo, but individual components can be salvaged from a system.

good answer