I really hope there's environmental considerations as well - ie: lakeside laser gatling cooling, deep-space frybabies, Desert "ballistics or die" loadouts.....

Hrm, yeah, 330k for the tricked out PPC is going to take a loooong while, especially if there's repairs, etc, that need to be performed.
Erm, I'm not expert on Battletech/Mechwarrior Lore - but aren't EPPCs around a little later than '49?
Lostech and all that.

Tir.

God, if only you could incorperate airspace and groundpounder assets.

Rumors have it that later on, ground pounders and Aerospace might make an appearance somehow. WOT is doing Battleships and Planes too.

And yes, Ice-Worlds and Desert-Worlds will have an affect on the Heat-Dissipation, that much is clear by now.

Also, think about this:
A good BattleMech can cost about 30 MILLION Bucks.
While a crappy light Mech may cost less than certain weapons alone.

I wonder if I can re-create my flame-jacker mech.

Basically a mech outfitted with max speed, max cooling, and a giant bank of flamethrower units capable of skyrocketing a target mech's heat into shutdown.

Land next to enemy 'mech, heat-shutdown enemy 'mech, hey, guys, I got a free 'mech! It was just sitting here!



-k

Should, in theory, work as intended . .
we'll have to see how good the light ones are in dodging fire and how much more heat you can pile upon other mechs via flamers . .

Heavy Large Laser.

Costs are wonky. An Akuma is around 9 million C-bills. Not bad for a Solid B Assault mech. Put in some pulse lasers and star-league/clan equipment though, and you could easily quadruple that. Odd part is, canon states the Fists, and especially the Snakes, are sitting on LOADS of clan tech, *and*, can produce their own.

In my opinion, The writing and stories of Battletech were great until the old guard of Nystul and co stepped down. They were okay with Randall at the helm, but now, with Herb and Rome? It's horrible. I can't stand it. I haven't even looked at a BT product in 6 years that I thought was worthy of purchase.

At game-start, nobody knows of the Clans.
Kurita took the main brunt of the attack.
They may be sitting on loads of the clan-stuff, but seeing how nobody but the clans can actually produce clan level stuff, it's still hellishly rare and expensive.
IS ER-Weaponry and the such are cheaper than clan stuff.

Yeah, sorry to kind of threadjack. I'm just not all that excited. Oddly enough, if it wasn't free to play, I'd have pre-ordered the super mega-edition. F2p just sucks though. Look at TF2. Great game. Went free to play. Unplayable now.

Besides, when their solution to the dumbfuck circle of death that every MW multiplayer match turned into, is 'Well, we added buildings!' it leaves me with little faith in their design abilities.

Looking much more forward to the Tactics game.

Unless they had a ballistic or missile weapon system. Then you just blew their ammo; and seeing as most IS don't bother casing their ammo (and some loadouts even keep an ammo bank in CT) well... I would say free salvage more like.

Multiquote doesn't seem to work

@Stahl- Actually, a full 10 seconds to reload is hellishly slow in a real-time game. Rumors of Aerospace and whatnot are just that, rumors. Aerospace and VTOLs are nothing but grief engines in the Living Legends mod. Most of the people posting on the MW:O forum say they don't want them in the game at all. The prospective Command tree they've given us lets Command focused pilots call in UAV scans and artillery strikes, but nothing player controlled.

@Tiralee- ER PPCs are in the game. Check Ask the Devs 1 - Answer! for the list of weapons/equipment that will be in for launch.

@almost normal- Heavy lasers don't exist in 3049. Clan Star Adder developed them in 3059. And their solution to the "circle of death" is far more than just buildings. More than this I am forbidden from saying.

@X-Kalibur- There won't be a salvage mechanic, at least for a while. They've said you will get C-Bill bonuses for doing extra things, like destroying components, but you don't get to loot the other team's 'Mechs.


P.S.
Where in the lore does it say Steiner and Kurita are sitting on loads of clan tech with the ability to produce their own?

The whole 'I'm under NDA' doesn't carry much weight with me, so until shown otherwise, I'll assume the problems will remain problems.

The lore question is from various TROs, field manuals, and novels. I used to be a giant fan, the last decade, not so much. Anyway, specifics, the medium pulse laser and streak-6 were all retrogrades from stockpiles of clan tech the Dracs had from beating back the clans.

One of my biggest problems I always felt was that they didn't make the weapons for most mechs varied enough at different ranges to make them really seem potent.

One of the biggest things for the table top was that certain weapons were better at certain ranged, the mechwarrior games missed out on a lot of this, while commander did not. By making weapons do less at sub-optimal ranges or be less accurate I feel like they can make the player either be super specialized (catapult) or more varied (hunchback is a prime example) to meet the variety of roles, terrains and purposes.

What do you mean?

Minimum ranges for LRMs against their ability to indirect fire. PPCs and Gauss Rifles with minimum range (Which, btw, dilutes the potency of large-bore autocannons).

How so?
IN BT, AC2 and AC5 have Minimum Ranges and the AC10 and 20 don't.

The autocannons also make absolutely no fucking sense in regards to physics.

The AC2 and 5 should have LESS range than AC10 and 20.

Don't you dare bring physics into a game about hugw stompy robots! ò,Ó;,

We don't try to bring physics into a discussion about magic either, usually . .

Why? Have you seen any of the artwork for the AC/20? It redefines the term "snub-nosed." The thing barely has a barrel; that plus the giant shell mean it shouldn't have a long range.

By that logic, a .223 Remington should have less range than a .45 ACP.

My big gripe with autocannons is that they have no standard calibers, only "classifications."

"I knew she was trouble the moment she pointed her pair of snub nosed .38s at me. The revolver in her hand was also a hint, but far more subtle."

You should check out artillery some time. Because realistically a .223 is a larger round than a .45. Try firing the .223 from a pistol and let me know after your wrist heals.

You are right to some extent on the classifications which only further muddies the water - some AC20s are considered a single large shell, while others are described as firing 2 to 4 cannons simultaneously. That would mean in some cases it is firing 4 AC5s which makes even LESS sense on their ranges.

Well, smaller diameter, but a longer warhead, and a lot more charge behind it.

I've fired a .223 from a pistol. It's not that bad. But it being a larger cartridge (the round itself is actually smaller) was my point.

The main problem is that a Hex is given a listed value of 100 meters. Consider the size and range of a modern day MBT main gun, it's effective range is over a mile and would be closest in relation to an AC2. Then you start getting into naval guns which would be more in line with an AC5 or 10 and the effective ranges are even greater. Now, from a game development standpoint I understand where they are coming from, but aside from completely ignoring physics almost no one bothers with ACs because the ammo is a liability in 3 fashions (count, heat related explosions, critical related explosions). I mean, hell, machine guns are more likely to get YOU killed than the people you are shooting at. All of a sudden 200 rounds of ammo cook off somewhere (it really doesn't matter where) and you're out. I'm a huge fan of the Ultra ACs, LBX, and RACs but when it comes down to it, you're generally better with a laser boat

Although, speaking of machineguns in Mechwarrior.... I promise you laughs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhOqr0-Z44E

correction, it is worse actually, seeing how a hex has a diameter of 30m from tip to tip, not even from side to side.

and don' you hate on MG's. if they implement a kind of crit hit system, MG's will be fearsome boating.

Nah, just go legging with an LBX 10.

It's 30 meters.

There is a huge uproar on the forums there about just this subject right now. heh.

There always is . .
Some Servers running MWLL actually ban people who leg . .

Qu'est-ce que c'est "legging?"

In Battletech, Legs are pretty hard to hit, (You can only hit one leg on a 5, and the other on a 9) and they're very well armored. On top of that, a Mech can withstand the destruction of a leg and still stand, alternatively, it can lay on the ground prone and fire most of it's weaponry. In online shooters, Mech destruction results from a single leg loss, and only takes 'Aiming low' to accomplish.

ENGLISH MOFO! YOU SPEAK IT!

Legging is shooting out the legs from under the Mech you are targeting.
People who complain about it usually go and strip the Legs of Armor to free up weight for other stuff and then complain about other people using the Legs as preferred target exactly because they are usually weaker than they should be . . They complain about this being unfair behaviour, targeting, you guessed it, probably safe made weak spots in their Armor for a quick Kill. They thus deride it as being a noobish tactic.
Even though the Legs usually are the fastest moving pieces on a Mech and thus, usually, should be the hardest to hit. But this, sadly, is only true if the Hit-Boxes are only on the Model of the Leg, and not anything more than that. Then legs can, reliably, only be hit from directly in front or directly behind, because they won't be moving as much relatively to your crosshair and line of fire.
MWLL has it like this, which means, usually, shooting at the Legs of a fast moving Mech usually means you miss 95% of your shots. And the other 5% usually don't all hit the one leg you were aiming for, but also the other leg behind the one close to you, simply because of how the movement makes the legs appear.

Also, a destroyed leg in MW4 slowed every Mech down to a crawl, which made it a good way to annoy Heavy and Assault brawlers, which are slow to begin with and have to get into range to effectively fight back . .

In MWLL, Legging became a bit meaner still, because shooting out a Leg from a Mech did not just topple the Mech but let it lie on the ground and usually in a prone position from which it could only fire in a very restricted arc, if at all . . so a sitting duck target for Tanks and Power-Armor Infantry. And it did not allow the pilot to respawn near his home base to buy another asset with which to wage war again.

This is, actually, the closest thing you will EVER see to the CBT Board Game Rules in ANY Video-Game. Only in MW2 Mercs, i think, you could, with some Luck, remain standing with just one Leg. But not move anymore either . .

Yeah I was a big fan of hobbling big mechs, that or focusing the cockpit. Only took 1 critical hit to almost obliterate a cockpit and if you were nova'ing a full barrage of lazers at close range, you could pump out a lot of shots. Got high on energy? Screw it, overload the system and keep firing for a couple more seconds.

I was a huge fan of pushing the limits of my mech designs in previous MW games, especially commander.

Hobbling big Mechs and hitting their weak sauce rear Armor is all a Scout-Mech can hope to do.
If they get the relativ sizes right, at close Range a small light Mech simply has not enough of a firing Arc upwards to hit anything above the Hips and maybe Belly of a tall heavy or assault Mech.

As for the Customizing:
It's going to be a MIX between the MW4Mercs and CBT Board Game Rules.
There will be Variants of the Mechs. The CANON Variants to boot it seems.
Those can be modified limited to what their role usually is.
You can't mod an Energy-Boat into anything else but an Energy-Boat with a different Load-Out.
You can't mod an walking Cannon into anything that does not use any number of different Cannons.
You can't mod an Missle-Carrier into anything but another Missle-Carrier.
You can only swap out the Model of the installed Weapons, but not their Kind.
And you can change the Ammount and Allocation of Armor and Ammo. And some other Equipment.

That seems exceptionally boring when you think that most mercaries utilized their own custom load-outs. Additionally many of the varients were insultingly bad in my opinion, usually based off either the contract limitations between a group and the manufacturer or things that the group had quantity of.

But that's the charm of the Canon Variants. Else, why have different Mechs at all?
You could just say:"It's a 65t Mech with optimal Loadout." And everybody has the same.
Maybe there's the 65t optimal Loadout for Ballistics, for Energy, for Missles. But not even a Mix between those.

Look at the Hunchback. The HBK-4G is the Base Variant with the AC20. It's a devastatingly stupidly bad Weapon. And it comes with only enough Armor for about 12 shots or so i think. Armor which can explode and destroy the entire Mech in one go too. And as a Backup? Only 2 Medium Lasers and one Small Laser. And not even enough Heat-Sinks to actually do an Alpha-Strike without becoming an immobile Target or a shut down immobile Target or, worst of all, an Ammo-Explosion.
It is specialized to be a surprise in tight Circumstances like a City with ample ECM going on to hide it untill it steps out from behind a Building and blasts something else at really close Range with the biggest Projectile you can safely shoot from anything below a dedicated Artillery Piece.

Now comes the Hunchback HBK-4P. Swayback Variant. You have now 8 Medium Lasers and the Small Laser. And enough Heatsinks to fire 7 of the Medium Lasers continually without ANY kind of Heat Buildup. AND you have MORE ARMOR. AND NO EXPLODEY AMMO. And no Ammo-Shortage either. And you have more Crit-Spaces padded with Stuff that won't instantly hurt you too much to continue Fighting when hit.
It's flat out BETTER. But it's not meant for close Combat Surprise Attacks. This one is an open Field Brawler and Guerilla Mech, because it does not need much in Maintenance and Ammo.


Better Example:
Catapult. 2xLRM15, 3 Medium Lasers. Jumpjets. Paper thin Armor for it's Weight, but quite a Wallop at extreme Ranges and capable of standing behind something and delivering indirect Bombardement-Type Fire.

Now the KURITA Catapult. Or Katapult.
It gets rid of the Ammo and the Missle-Launchers and replaces these with some Heat-Sinks, Armor and big Energy-Weapons. Voila, another Guerilla Variant open Field Brawler right there, with practically no Work on designing another Mech for that, when you have a good Base-Chassis.

[citation needed]

Seriously, your stereotyping of the opposition kind of sucks man.

Yeah but here's my problem with it... Assuming battle field conditions, varients wouldn't exist outside of fresh off the factory. To me the core of mech-warfare has always been the fact that in both stories and in games your mechs are sometimes cobbled together from the shit you salvage. Without the ability to customize down to that depth a lot of the feel of the game is lost for me anyways.

Then again I was always a merc and assume that the longer a war goes on the less chance of finding a standard varient mech on the battlefield exists. The fact that any mech could be retrifitted as long as it had the load-out slots and required infrastructure was what was cool for me anyways.

Come on now, you're just getting opinionated without substance, on top of making shit up. An Alpha-strike from the HB will put out 14 heat, and it's got 13 heat sinks. Even if you ran, you're not hitting any modifier to movement, nevermind this 'immobile target' nonsense. If you want a laser boat, the 5/8/5 Komodo blows the Hunchback out of the water. If you want an old standby medium mech to open up a tin-can, you can do a lot worse then the Hunchback.

MOST of the Canon-Variants exist, because the Base-Variants could not be produced any longer due to the Los-Tech Phenomenon.
Endo-Steel Chassis, Extra-Light Engine, ER-Weapons, LB-X and Ultra-Auto-Cannons, Ferro-Fibrit-Armor, Double-Heat-Sinks, Streak-Missles, NARC, guided LRM's and many other Things were simply LOST to War. But the Plans to build the Mechs itself, in many cases, did not get lost.
So they needed to rebuild them with what was able to be produced. So they had to make certain Cuts. For example, swapping out the Extra-Light engine. This frees up Space, but takes up 50% more Weight for the Engine alone. Which is, usually, about 20-40% of a Mechs total Weight.
This means some Weapons have to go and maybe some Armor, to get it to move at all. And with some of the Weapons that needed to go, some Ammo and some Heatsinks could be left out to make it cheaper and easier and thus faster to build too.

And then there are, of course, cases where replacement Weapons for example simply were not Available. So, out with the Good Old, in with the Bad New. For example, replacing PPC's with AC10's in the Case of Marik for example, so as not to lose any FirePower. Or replacing an AC10 with a Large-Laser to save Ammo at a 20% Loss of Firepower from that Weapon.

Slightly untrue, you can fire 1 arm while prone (as the other is used to prop yourself up) if prone and no torso mounted weapons. In MW4 taking out a leg simply hobbled a mech really badly. What made the LBX broken was when you'd start going internal with it. You basically would roll so many chances for a critical that you were almost guaranteed to cause some major structural damage. If not outright scrapping it if you rolled for snake eyes for a CT crit.

Also, Stahl, with it being 3049 I'm sure it won't be long before we start seeing Endo steel, XL engines, ER lasers, pulse lasers, LB-X and Ultra ACs, etc.


As an aside, from a tabletop perspective, has anyone ever tried rear mounting their LRMs for laughs? You can start running away from the opposition and pepper them liberally. Admittedly it only works the first couple of times before everyone figures it out.

Hah, not with LRMs but I did have a flamer back there, just to do insult to out of commission mechs as I passed.

@X-Kalibur:
Look at the Stalker.
The CANON Variant has the LRM's in the Arms with the M-Lasers and can flip these to the Rear.
So yes, you can, with that Mech, get 2xLRM10 and 4xM-Laser into your rear Firing Arc.
Yes, that's more Firepower than most Heavy Mechs have at all, why?

I usually change that to swap the SRM's and the LRM's positions so i can have 4xM-Laser and 2xSRM6 in the Arm-Flip on the STK-5M.


Also, one of the MadCat Variants has 2xSRM6 rear mounted. Several Mechs have one or more small or medium Lasers rear mounted.
I think there is one Mech with an AC10 rear-mounted, but i am not sure about that right now . .


Same Problem as with the LB-X goes for SRM Fire too.
Once Armor is gone in a Location, you are more or less guaranteed Crits there . . But that's what these ARE THERE FOR.
And to abuse the TAC Rule, that lets you CRIT THROUG H ARMOR. So yes, a completely clean Mech, can, on a REALLY lucky roll, be destroyed by a single LB-X-Pellet . .

Worse than that is the greatly increased chance for that head hit. Even if 1 damage to the location isn't gonna crack it... you still forced a consciousness roll. Sure, they have a small chance to fail that initial 3... then 5, etc. I would imagine nothing would piss someone off more than getting nailed by LB-Xs and getting knocked out by the shot pellets.

Is the rule from TAC the "floating critical" rule? Where rolling a 2 means you roll for crit and then roll for location rather than JUST CT crit?

Might be the floating Crit, yes.
I have seen a floating crit hit the COCKPIT Location.
LB-X10, ONE pellet hit.
Snake-Eyes. Location: 12. Crit-Roll: 8, so exactly one crit. Location: 12. Cockpit.
Yes, a Centurion with an LB-X10 took out an Awesome in one, single, awesome shot.

Clean out the cockpit, and you got a shiny new Mech!

Basically, Yeah.
That was one of those WTF Moments where i got my MWO Signature from . .

'any kind of discussion of randomness ALWAYS WILL EQUATE to being able to critically hit a mech's reactor by firing a micro beam laser while facing 80 degrees to the side, shooting the ground, which would cause a random explosion which would randomly crit his entire team's reactors which would randomly cause the server itself to explode which would randomly generate a strange quark which would randomly hit the earth and randomly randomness randomfapp the shit fapp random!'

The Grand Crusader originally mounted twin rear LRM 20s.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/images/2/22/GrandCrusader.jpg

Those two big smoke stacks are the LRM tubes. No, I'm not joking.

Ugh, I forgot about the Grand Dragon. I'm more familiar with 3029 models.