MechWarrior: Living Legends

One of things that I think of when I hear the word mechwarrior is pick a mech, select a loadout then lock and load.  I'm curious as to whether or not we will be able to customize the loadouts of our mechs.  I know this isn't your typical mechwarrior but I believe customization is a must have feature.  My second question is: Whether or not any Mektek mechs will be eventually added to this mod.  My third and final question is whether or not you will be taking any of the suggestions from Mektek "what I want to see in mechwarrior 5 thread."  I know this isn't mechwarrior 5 but there are some suggestions worth considering in the thread.  Here is the link: http://www.mektek.net/forums/index.php?s=e26ffe8870231fd1d6fd1a96f09caacb&showtopic=9149

Thank you for your time,

Aurora Paradox

... guys (erh ... Defender) there´s a lot of worthy points in this (old) txt too! but I´m assured that you have read it (again and again)!

Yes, some mech customization will be allowed. Definately weapons, MASC, and enhanced optics. Armor has to be a fixed quantity though because of the way the engine works. You'll be able to add things like jump jets and so on also.

Good to hear that. I agree armor has to be a fixed quantity but will we have different types of armor available?  Such as reflective and reactive.

Thanks,

Aurora Paradox

Can we paint the things?

Unknown as of yet, but we'd like to implement some form of painting (even if it was something like custom logos or choosing smallish areas to paint)

The F.A.Qs, forum states that the handheld PDA will be the means for ordering a mech.  Will there be a way to program our PDAs with standard mech orders to speed up the process, or will we have to scroll through the lists of items each time to load up our favorite mech?

The idea behind that is you'll be able to have a "Mech Lab" option in the Main Menu. This will take you to a Mech Hangar (In game) where you can run around as infantry and bring up any Mech you choose. From there, you will be able to customize your Mech like a Crysis rifle by see which Hard Points are where and be able to scroll through all the options available for that attachment point.

After creating your Variant, you will be able to save it (just like saving custom load out profiles in Crysis multiplayer) and have the ability to call that Variant any time you have enough money to purchase that Mech in a Mech Hangar in multiplayer.

As far as Painting, you will be able to select from a list of predefined camo schemes that we have created.

All of these addons will have their C-Bill value attached to them, but I cannot tell you the exact price since they are not final.

Custom logos and custom paint-jobs on "our" gears would be a most welcoming idea (old but good)!

ewww he Just called a Mech a gear... i hated Gears... :) ;)

Will we be able to customize item locations like heatsinks, weapons and other items?

Also, will we be able to upgrade engines?

I miss the mech 2 and mech 3 customization days.

Will we be able to take armor off our makes so we will have more tonnage for more weapons, engine upgrades, heat sinks, and electronics?

Sorry, let me clarify... armor has to ba a fixed quantity because of the way the engine works...

I'm sure those of you who have dabbled in the tabletop know of programs like The Drawing Board or Heavy Metal Pro that let you generate record sheets for the game, with the option to build your favorite 'Mech from the ground up with the equipment you want on it. What my question is, is could you implement (not necessarily on first release) a system like this with tonnage and crit allocation to "import" 'Mechs in the game? It would be really cool later on to take a chassis you want and fit it with the loadout you want, and other equipment, such as Triple Strength Myomer, or Endo Steel, different types of armor, different weapons blah blah etc etc and of course taking into account the cost of all this said equipment. Would that be a possibility?

I don't like too much customization.
It kills the 'Mechs. When you see a 'Mech you should know what it is and what can be the weaponary.

That takes the fun out of it.  Building a good mech is half the key to winning battles.  If there is too little customization then everyone will end up using the same mech builds.  With customization you get variety and granted a few crazy builds but thats part of the fun.

They can't take all the same 'Mechs because they don't have the c-bills to get anything they want.
The fun is the action, not hours in any lab. This is a FPS, not the tabletop. Two completely diffrent things.
I also hate rockets comming out of nowhere because the modell/original 'Mech just doesn't have any.
Fully customization just kills any fun of the game for me.
It's no BattleTech to me just because the 'Mechs are called 'Mechs.
In my opinion custimization is against nearly anything BT stands for.

I have no problem with full on customiation if stuff like weapons and some equipment is actually visibily represented on the mech.  That way if you do make a "swayback" out of a hunchback by replacing the autocannon with just about anything else, you see it.

If thats not the case, a mw4 style system of weapon type hardpoints would probably be best.

As for customization in general, i think its a fine line.  If you give too much customization, you end up with less variety unless there is some really thorough balance work.  Because after a short while of experimentation, people will end up with the few most efficient variants possible, dismissing weapons and equipment that are simply seen as not worth it.  Like how no one really ever bothers with ac2s, small lasers, srm 2s, lrm 5s, and to a lesser extent, IS equipment in general, instead going for the ac20s, gauss rifles, er ppcs, large lasers, and putting as many missle racks together.

we've all done it. Don't lie.

In all honesty i don't see anything wrong with customising mechs, to an extent, i cant agree with the purist philosophy though of locked load outs.
it doesnt make sense for mwll to have to create every single innersphere variant of every mech their including  just so that the players are locked to the same what 16 different available IS mechs? they cant take away the customisation of clan mechs  being omni designs, and for balance reasons they need to make that also available to IS players, kinda a hard place to be for them. if you truly disagree with customising your mechs and keeping to TRO then only play with fasa official designs, but we cant ask people not to use a perfectly good customisation option available especially when it could mean the difference between winning and losing, and on that note when you've played as many CBT games as i have (and maybe you've played more) the one thing you start to realise is that, well fasa weren't always so great at designing mechs if you know what i mean, firestarter anyone? ;D

FASA did not design their Mechs around the optimal CBT loadouts, they designed them with a back story to fit into the whole BattleTech storyline.  My biggest pet peeve about custom configurations is they cannot take logistics into account.  Yes, you may be able to design the most über Mech ever made but it is probably a one shot wonder and would not be supportable in any sort of campaign.

Isn't that the only real difference between Omni's and normal 'Mechs?
AFAIK normal 'Mechs can be customised anyway you want but not out in the field, while Omni's could go into a mobile repair bay and switch out most of their equipment to suit their needs, if enough spare weapons are available.
At least that's how I always understood Omni Mech technology...
Didn't make any difference for the MW games, as you just had one mission and off to the 'mech bay.

Therein lies my gripe.  Most custom configurations rely upon unlimited access to even the most difficult to produce items.

It would have been really cool to see differences in the weapons by the different manufacturers in a Single Player campaign. I still dream of a Mechwarrior 1 remake with a persistent multiplayer campaign with a Diablo-esque or Borderlands weapons stat randomizer.. that would be pretty fun to do..

maybe not for this game, but in a mechwarrior game in general yeah, i'd love to see all those manufacturer names actually mean some kind of difference.   Hellstar, Hollis, Imperator, Lords light, etc etc

AMEN to that brother, I mean look at the kodiak for example, the Large laser is ment to create insane heat but at the same time its supposed to soften up enemies quite quickly at range, in games like MW4 this was not the case as one ER L.laser by itself is crap.

Oh and while I remember this, do you guys plan on making the guns more true to their original damage ideals? by this I mean you won't be able to stack more than 2 ppcs on a mech, but at the same time even one PPC should be able to do noticeable damage like it did in MW2.

What about the Awesome?
And from what source is this information that mechs can't carry more than 2 ppcs?

PPCs terrify me, the Shrek carrying 3 is horrifically bad for vehicles, but god does that thing have heat issues.

Large lasers are a significant anti-vehicle weapon, definitely useful for softening targets.

Also not sure what you mean by a mech not "being able" to carry more than 2 PPCs.

one of the warhawk variants carries 4 er ppcs.  And since ppcs are my favorite weapon, that was my favorite mech.

however, yeah, there should be some serious repercushions to boating the same weapsons.  Don't know what, but something to make balanced loadouts not far so badly in comparision.

sorry let me rectify that, what I ment was that mechs that are not omnitech and that do not have the ability to stack silly amounts of PPC fire, I am aware that the awesome can swing 3 PPC,  but not many can, what frustrated me most about MW4 mercs was that every one seemed to have between 3-4 ppcs loaded on all their mechs (that said MW4 in general was very average in multiplayer, mostly due to the massive amount of BK jumpers). I was merely wandering if you guys were going to have some kind of mech build standard, so we don't see epic boats or excessive ppc builds, I am sorry if I made it seem otherwise?


Exactly man, I understand that some mechs can do it, but there should be massive heat repercussions or maybe you should appear as a massive dot on the radar due to massive heat build up (don't know how it would work on a logical level though :P)


See in MW2 the PPC scared the crap out of me, don't get me wrong it was slow and avoidable, but in close range you could feel it when it hit, you knew your mech was hurting when that big blue flash went across your screen, but in the later games it just felt like they were supplementary fire, the kind that had to be supported by Gauss other wise you needed lots of them, BTW can we please have a sneak peak at the Gauss in the next newsletter? It must look sooo pretty when it cracks an opposing mech up the side of the cockpit :o

´

Thumbsup Aurora. If there isn´t any way to customize our small kittens,  we will end up seeing the same ´Mech, over and over again! And that kills the fun!

And if I remember correctly, the ´Mechs in MWLL shows the Loadout, visually. :drool: just as in MekTek´s AT1.


There is no ruling for this! And I would like to thank Chunga, admin of CBT. ;D for this clarification.
It´s only the ´Mechs design and tonnage that sets the limit.

wasn't there some kind of rule on whether certain weapons when mounted on arms allowed a mech to have hands?  That always seemed iffy to me.

I never remember there being a rule that limited hands when using certain weapons.

Lower Arm Actuator, Upper Arm Actuator, Hands

All three took up single slot criticals on the TRO readouts.

The penalty for mounting 4 ER PPCs is that you produce 60 points of heat.  The Masakari Prime with the 4 ER PPCs can only dissipate 40 heat.  Generally a Masakari will switch between firing 2 or 3 ER PPCs a turn and resort to firing all 4 when they have that perfect shot.

At any rate, the balance for the weapons is heavily skewed in favor of clan energy weapons since double heat sinks are so effective.  Even the mighty Gauss Rifle is a piece of crap compared to a clan ER PPC.  Same damage, less range than ER PPC, double the weight, 3-4 times the critical space, minimum range, ammunition concerns, can explode.  The only advantage it has is that it runs cool, but thankfully the ER PPC's weight savings enables enough extra double heat sinks to be slotted in to nullify that drawback.  Of particular note, the ER PPC is cheaper to slave to a targeting computer, which is just another point in favor of using it.

That's why I wish they added armor penetration rolls to ballistic/energy weapons in the board game. A slug is more likely to penetrate armor and hit internals than a Laser or Energy weapon.

... on the subject of future additions of weapons in MWLL ...

Will there be implemented MML launchers´s? and if so, will it be possible to use both LRM and SRM ammunition?
It will make ´Mech customization more diverse.

No, this will not be possible. You will only be able to select from either LRM launchers or SRM Launchers. However, you can swap out one for the other in the same slot. You will also be able to equip Arrow IV Launchers as well (if you have the money and tonnage ;)).

We currently plan on allowing for all "Missile" type slots found on the Stock versions of Mechs to be swappable with other Missile type weapons. However you will not be able to place guns in those slots (this is due to Art Placement swapping issues as well as Game Balance concerns(Sorry, no 2 PPC Catapult variant)). On the other hand, all "Gun" type weapons (PPCs, Gauss, Lasers, ect..) will be interchangeable in the same slots according to gun size. You'll know more once we work on the customization some more :).

As far as MRMs are concerned, they are not coming in the initial release on MWLL.

aff! sir!

good, i hate mrms anyway.  What good are a spam of 40 missles if they aren't gonna hit anything

Give it a good spread and it just might hit something.. :)

Depending on the mech, I kinda agree with this. Obviously, the masakari has 4 PPCs, but that's fine - it's a massive assault mech. On MW2 I can create a Stormcrow build with 7 ER PPCs and 14 double heatsinks - which in my opinion is ludicrous. I really don't think a medium mech should be capable of mounting that much weaponry.   I'm certainly hoping that with MWLL mech customization is constrained sufficiently to make 'obscene' builds impossible. For example, if in MW2 you couldn't remove all the mech's armor, or decrease its engine to 1T, and if the number of available criticals increased with chassis size then it would be much harder to have a medium mech with 7 PPCs.

I like customization, but I think there should be some sensible limitations. And if customization will exist then weapons will need to be finely balanced so that the small lasers and AC2s of the world have a place.

yeah thats another thing that was kind of wierd that kaldskryke brought up.  Old school  cbt rules had 20 ton mechs have just as many crit points to shove equipment into as 100 ton mechs. which is kinda weird.  Shouldn't be an issue in mwll considering the more mw4 approach to weapon customization though

The thing is, that ludicrous builds will never work no matter how high the customisation level. A mech with 7 PPCs would cook itself to a clot in the event of an alpha strike, not to mention non-existant armor and engine. So IF it can move its guns out of the hangar, and IF it survives long enough to charge them up, it could bring down another mech in a single volley, but would be a perfect waste of creds in the next few seconds as it melts into a formless metal blob. As is the case with the record sheet generators, custom mechs tend to be more expensive, but they have to be balanced or you will lose those C-bills you just invested. In a sense, most mechs not belonging to a successor state regular army ARE custom jobs, since they're worth a small fortune and often passed down across generations within families, resulting in some interesting mods slowly accumulating over the years. A fully customised mech could reflect that, provided you have the cash to build it. I've used a heavily customised Battlemaster throughout my tabletop and PnP years, which was an awesome machine geared towards every possible battle calamity, but that thing also costs 31mil to bolt together. I'd be very reluctant to take it out for a skirmish, if that meant I could lose it, or the investment it represents. So I guess the C-bills will take care of unbalanced or unrealistic designs, since it would be a complete waste of hard earned resources. I say bring on me tools, me parts and an extra bottle of PPC.

I like that the mechs are being restricted based on what the chassis looks like.  There are certainly enough mechs in the game to find something in your price range with the right missile or ballistic/energy placement to customize your mech how you want.  I strongly dislike squaring off against a mech that is obviously designed to carry a lot of direct fire weapons and then have it end up being a missile boat, it starts to break emersion for me.

Landros, check out Renegade Tech http://www.fluency.paintedtarget.org/rtech/ it uses the FASA template weapons and widowing armor rules made famous in Renegade Legion and Crimson Skies for Battletech.  I find it infinitely more interesting to play that normal battletech since certain weapon combos work extremely well together, like an AC/10 and PPC, or LRMs and SRMS, or, AC/20 + Gauss Rifle.  It really matters which weapon you fire in what order.

As for the 7 PPC mech, yeah, I did that in MW2 also.  The key was to just chain fire the things and make a wall of PPC fuzzies that the target couldn't avoid.  Heat buildup was actually minimal firing in chain mode, but the ludicrous thing was that the PPCs had unlimited range.  If you could catch an enemy on radar and then line up with it and back up until it was off your scope you could still blow it apart and generally the AI wouldn't react since it couldn't detect any enemies to go after. 

i read through that renegade ruleset for BT, it looks like a bit of pain to run it in a tabletop game without every round taking forever.  But damn, if that can somehow be worked into a MW game where the computer can handle all the penetration rules, that'd be awesome.  A whole lot more interesting than simply armor as HP.

I think I'd seen that damage model before but never took a long look at it. I really like it because it seems like a mix between Criticals, MW4 Hardpoint System and something I had thought about before! Very cool, thanks for the link Zeus!

i just love how it actually makes the weapons feel different.  lasers bore through but leave a lot of armor intact, autocannons and gauss rifles leave for lack of a better word, wound channels that can undermine surface armor who's connection points they sever due to deep explosion, missles and other high explosives blast off exterior sections in chunks...

i love it.

Gawds but I loved Renegade Legion's mechanics.  Well, right up until my friend managed to ruin it by always being able to figure out the optimal sequence to blast my armor.  Bastard.  >:(