Okay, I see it's time to set the record straight...

That's just not a great idea there.  How about using the BattleTech RULES, instead, which only MW3 ever really stuck to.

Unrealistic, unfathergameistic, stupid.  Gameplay result: You're joking, right?

You're right, because Zipper was trying to get people to be MechWarriors as the name of the game infers, not jet jockies.

Only if you couldn't play the larger 'Mechs.  I was NEVER ineffective in that game with larger 'Mechs, and the speed difference between Light and Assault 'Mechs was not so different -as it is in MW4- as to make it near-impossible to hit a Light 'Mech, whereas the Light 'Mech is squarely capable of kicking the Assault 'Mechs ass just because it can move at utterly ridiculous speeds.  In MW3 I could take any stock 'Mech and, 9 times out of 10, knock out 'Mechs up to 15 tons heavier than I was without getting beat up too badly.

That's all they were built for was extra mobility, not so you could jet around all over the place.

Then feather that button to land gently and keep moving.

Yes, so players could be MechWarriors.  Oh, am I turning into a broken record, here.  My apologies.

No one removed the ability to DFA, you just had to have real skill to use it.  I will agree that most of the time, as in MW4, it was useless to perform that maneuver.

You're right that the controls were clumsy, but you COULD direct your jump not only up, but left or right as well, and you could turn while you were in the air, in accordance with CBT rules.  I absolutely agree that they were unnecessary to survival and, used improperly, could get you into a lot of trouble.  However, I repeat, the game is MechWarrior, not Flight Simulator 3057.

This, in and of itself, along with that ignorant ass pod system, was stupid.  They should have allowed players to develop their own designs as they could in accordance with BT rules in the entire MW2 and 3 series'.

Y'know, I've practiced and practiced to make a DFA happen in MW4, and I've never been able to successfully achieve one.  It might be a disparity in controls though, as I only use a mouse and keyboard.  Though I find piloting on the ground to be as easy as the other games, I find using the jump system in MW4 is cumbersome and unnecessary.

We agree on something... YAYYYY!!!!

I never found Jump Jets to be either necessary or helpful in leveling the playing field in MW4.  Perhaps if one jump-snipes, which is a cowardly tactic -yeah, I said it-, it could be useful.  I actually tried jump-sniping once, and found it to be so distasteful I abandoned pursuit of perfection of it.  If a person can't win the fight unless they do the equivalent of cheat, the game isn't worth playing, and MW4 made it so people would desire to cheat in order to survive.

Though I agree that the laws of physics should be relaxed in a game such as this, I feel the rules about how jump jets are used in BattleTech is the best way to go.  The absolute best representation of that endeavor is found in MW3, hands down.

I agree with these.

Y'know, there's gonna be AeroFighters in this mod... if you want to have such loose jets, why don't you fly instead?

I apologize if my vehemence strikes anyone as odd... I've been up since early this morning, I'm tired, and I would absolutely hate to have a mod closing in on beta, hopefully soon, going a wrong direction because someone's idea of gameplay -which does NOT match everyone's, including my own- influences how the game MIGHT run.  That being said, I'm certain our devs have already considered and examined all possible positions and solutions to make the game as fun as possible while keeping us fogies in mind.

OMG! Thanks Red, I needed a good belly laugh to start my day off!

WELLL... I had to come up with something unusual.

I don't know, that's sure to be a pretty expensive crime; after all, how many copies of MW4, Black Knight, and Mercs did Microstupid sell?  I can't find numbers myself, but even though it sold less than MW3, it still made a pretty penny.

Okay, lemme put this another way, then... it is not fun for me, playing on the battlefield, to have some 17 year old with a joystick, foot pedals, mouse, and keyboard -all provided by mommy and daddy- jumping all around me, jump sniping the shit out of me, and winning because he can jackass more than I can.  I prefer the level playing field in order to have fun, and extraordinarily loose jump jets do not make for a level playing field.  Loose jump jets are boring to those of us who actually care enough to play the game, anything more than a slight arc and a pinch of lateral movement is boorish.

Not no, but hell the f^(& NO!

Keep in mind, Microsoft shutdown basically all of their Computer Game Studios and shifted all of their attention to consoles.  The reason for this... a little thing called the XBox.  Notice how they cancelled MW5 but then churned out MechAssault 1 & 2?  That's because the order from up on high was to push all available gaming properties onto the XBox so it could compete with Sony and Nintendo.

As for jump jets, they need to do 3 things. 

1.) Give you the mobility that your legs cannot provide (i.e. circumvent obstacles too tall to walk over.)  This is almost impossible NOT to put in for the JJs, if you go up, you can go over.

2.) Make your tough to hit while blasting through the air.  The ascent should be fast and sudden, and the descent should be jittery as the retros brake your fall to earth.

3.) Make it extremely difficult to hit anything you aim at while jumping  Shake the crap out of the mech while it's boosting and as it drops the retro thrusters are firing like crazy to keep the mech from destroying itself.  Make the crosshairs jump all over the place, rattle the cockpit around, widen the aiming circle, whatever it takes.  Mechs that are accurate jumping = jump snipers.

As for all mechs having the option to install jump jets, show me where in Classic Battletech that a mech can have jump jets installed without a.) the design being a factory made variant or b.) a complete mech overhaul that takes months to perform?  Even clan omni mechs cannot install jump jets into pods.  You want a jumping heavy clan omni, you've got the Summoner.  No jumping Mad Dogs or Mad Cats for you.

That also goes for weapons.  Omni mechs are different from IS mechs because they are designed to have their weapons easily replaced.  An archer is not easily retrofitted with 10 medium lasers in place of its LRM-20s, nor is it even easy to rip the LRM-20s out and install a different missile system.  It has taken 300 years for the IS to field the few variants of each mech that they do because those are the ones that work.

Personally I felt that the Color Coded weapon slots in MW4 were awesome.  If you see a Catapult, you KNOW that it has missiles and/or lasers.  You will not run into a Catapult with an AC/20 or it's missile arms suddenly bristling with Machine Guns.  Likewise, if an Argus hits you with some LRMs, you KNOW that those LRMs are in it's left arm because that arm is modeled with all the FRIGGIN MISSILE TUBES.

MWLL is going to try and take it a step further by replacing the modeled weapons as the pilots kit their mechs out.  It is a daunting task by any means but will do a lot in reinforcing the role of a mech with it's look. 

What's the point of having more than 4 heavy mech models in the game if you can swap out weapons, armor, engines, Internal Structure, Actuators, etc?

I know where you are coming from Wolf, I LOVE the battletech design rules, but letting people use rules that were made to make unique NEW mechs, rather than kitbash the hell out of existing designs and basically make their entire asthetic look and feel moot?

An archer has missiles, I don't care if they are long or short, LRM-5's or 6 racks of SRM-6s.  If you stuff in a crap ton of medium lasers it's no longer an archer, now it's some new mech that there isn't a model for yet.  If you go down the road of putting in everything by the book CBT then you end up with the problem that Battletech 3025 had, medium lasers = victory.  A Jenner could alpha strike anything up to half it's weight again and blow it apart with it's 4 medium lasers.  Imagine letting players customize that and decide to swap the SRM-4 out for 3 more medium lasers, now the thing is coring Warhammers in a single blast (practically.)

Maybe MWLL can get the art in to support swapping out every piece of gear on a Marauder so that it can be armed with 15 medium lasers and 20 double heat sinks, but honestly, I'm not sure that's the type of GAME PLAY that I would want to participate in.

20, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, and 100 tons.  Variations in speed, armor, and weapons loadout.  MW4, Black Knight, and Mercs 4 did NOT represent all of the tonnage values, instead having multiple 'Mechs under single tonnage brackets.  MW3 at least allowed an individual to design within all the tonnage brackets, even if you still had to use one of the few models available for the game.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the underlying reason.  Video games, to this point, have not been made where the avatar changes with the design, and that is unfortunate.  It is still very important to have a way to make variants, as it was in the MW2 and 3 series; the MW4 series is the only one that destroyed ALL of the numbers of BattleTech -movement, armor, weapon ranges and damages, all of them- and then decided to limit people to very few chassis and only allowed us to work within those chassis types if we wanted variants.  Very dumb on their part.

I would love to see a 'Mech game with a MechLab that allows an individual to put in their base design and then select from rendered parts based on the mass of the 'Mech and what's mounted where.  Yes, it would be thousands of pieces, and it would take a while to accomplish, but if a MW5 or BT MMO is built by SnT I hope they make it so we can build our chassis types and variants, and then frankenstein them together if nothing else.

Tell that to the guys at FASA Corporation, who designed the 'Mech and then, in the fluff text, said the Archer has so many variants it could fill its own TRO.

Only if you continue to play in the utterly idiotic rules set developed for the MW4 series.  On the table top, that Jenner is going to be little more effective than its base model, and it was the same in MW3; if I modded a Jenner to take against a Warhammer, I still had to get within range of my medium lasers to work that Warhammer over.  Because the movement rules in MW3 were the most correct possible, that Warhammer could remove my entire Center Torso by the time I was within range.

MW4 is ASS, it's always been that way, and no matter how much sweeter the guys at MekTek, MechStorm, and NBT-HC try to make it, the numbers are still NOT right, and never will be, because Cyberlore basically said, "screw the BT players, we're going to make Heavy Gun III with BattleTech names and images".

As long as the heat's done correctly, and AoP has already explained that MechWarriors need to look forward to steam in their cockpits and heat blur, which sounds to me as if it will be done correctly, then no matter what manner of variants people come up with, they will work within their classes, and against other classes, as intended.

Now, I'm not going to say what I was originally going to say about placing all of one weapon type on a 'Mech, because it's just mean... instead, I'll be constructive and explain that I try to split my weapon tonnage by between 3 and 6, either 1/3rd for each weapon type, laser, ballistic, and missile, or 1 point for smaller weapons, 2 points for medium weapons, and 3 points for larger weapons.  Yes, I have my own system, based on range and damage, for determining weapon types.  I then purchase lasers or smaller weapons first, missiles or medium weapons second, and ballistic or large weapons last.  It depends on my mood and/or the purpose behind the 'Mech. 

I like to build 'Mechs that are able to deliver an equal amount of damage at short, medium, and long range so an opponent closing with me, believing my long range weapons will have minimums will try to come closer and then I can continue to drill them.  I like to place a number of heat sinks equal to weapons + running movement heat generated on the 'Mech so I cool down well enough.

This formula doesn't always work and I have to go deeper by splitting my 'Mech designs armor, weapons, and movement by 3 or 6 in the same way as weapons.  Sometimes even that doesn't work.

What I'm trying to say is a player placing all their eggs in one basket -say 12 Medium Lasers on a Marauder- is ignorant, at best, and they deserve the defeat they will receive at range.  Using that type of 'Mech in a team environment, the Marauder will move up to ONE 'Mech, its first, core it, and the pilot for that 'Mech will shout out a warning, and then the Marauder becomes useless unless it supports other friendly pilots by trying to move into range BEHIND an opposing 'Mech already engaged with another.  That's still stupid, and ineffective.
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But, see, that's where one of the larger problems came in with MW4, IMO.  In MW2 and 3 I never, NEVER played against anyone who favored a single weapon type so much that's all they put on their 'Mechs.  People were encouraged in those two game series' to use all manner of weight classes and weapon loadouts, and were given the tools to do so. 

Not in MW4.  If you don't have a Fafnir or Deimos or some big nasty Assault 'Mech with Gauss and ER Large Lasers, and yes the game encourages the use of Assault 'Mechs more heavily than any other weight class, then you're screwed.  If you're allowed to bring a variant and you don't have a 'Mech mounted with ER Large Lasers -which kick harder than any other weapon in the game, except perhaps for the AC/2 and Lb/x-2- so that it knocks your opponent around so very badly they cannot recover at all -which is not tactics, it's just crap- then you're going to lose.  I took some of my most effective variants of all time -BattleTech, MW2 series, MW3 series, and MW4 single player- on the battlefield and consistently got my tail stomped, and that's when I decided enough was enough.

I came back because I heard Mercs 4 actually changed a lot of that stuff and was closer to CBT rules, but it's not, even with MekTek, MechStorm, and NBT-HCs mods.

Jump Jets actually don't build too much heat, actually, a minimum of 3 points on a scale of 30, +1 point of heat per hex moved, up to the 'Mechs max jump rating.  Then again, jets only allow a finite amount of control, as well.  When jumping, you can spin the 'Mech like a top, face any heading you want, and you can jump in circles.

My take is that I would like to see...
1) limited jets that allow the 'Mech to move a number of meters equal to it's jump ability in the game, though there would be a little better control than in MW3, though no where near as loose as MW2
2) The jets recharge over the course of 10 seconds, meaning control of jets is locked out during that entire time, and on the battlefield, 10 seconds is an eternity
3) I think I would just like to see what our devs are coming up with for MWLL.

Zeus, that's the biggest crock of crap I've ever heard in my life.  I'm sorry, but MW2 did it, MW3 did it, and they got the numbers right.  MW4 was made by M$, and they didn't care less about the IP, period.  MW4 was NOT BattleTech, it wasn't even MechWarrior, and it wasn't even in the ball park... like I said, names and images only, nothing BattleTech in there in the least.

Any BattleTech based game that doesn't use the numbers in the background where the programming is, really needs to concentrate on putting the frontload where it belongs, with the right numbers.  Make a translation algorithm so I, the BT fanboy, can see they're right, that the game does register right within its own framework.

When the primary armor is Ferro-Fibrous, and it's 30 points a ton between Clan and Inner Sphere, rather than 18 for Inner Sphere and 19 for Clan, and when EVERY 'Mech in the game has Endo-Steel II, and when a company introduces Reactive AND Reflective armors at 20 points per ton each, rather than 16 points per ton and no such thing as Reflective -doesn't exist- then there are things massively wrong.  When the speed of an Assault 'Mech matches that of a moderately-fast Light 'Mech, there's SOMETHING wrong with that.

That's the way it should be, too.  The Medium Laser has almost perpetually been the ultimate workhorse of BattleMech combat.

Ditto