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3 Action Economist
May 22, 2002

Educate. Agitate. Liberate.

JacksLibido posted:

Alright, so there needs to be some more explination in the game.

It's a beta, not an early access, and it states right up front that there's no tutorial or any ramp-up help. Then they give you a link to the manual.

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Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
Looks like one of the things with "water OP!" is that it isn't actually increasing movement costs like forests or other terrain features do.

I think I'm going to do some experimenting with heat today, see what I can figure out in terms of heatsinks and capacity and so on.

On one hand, a shitload of the mechs in this era had really terrible heat profiles, and definitely had to pick and choose their weapons fired carefully, because they could overheat themselves in to serious penalty land fast in TT. But it feels like mechs that should have good heat management (I guess the Awesome is the most obvious one here) don't have it to the same degree.

The heatsink item definition doesn't actually mention how much heat it sinks, so this will need some testing.

AAAAA! Real Muenster
Jul 12, 2008

My QB is also named Bort

I imagine the Multishot skill will be great on something like an Awesome when you have to kill a bunch of vehicles in the campaign.

Skoll
Jul 26, 2013

Oh You'll Love My Toxic Love
Grimey Drawer

Sky Shadowing posted:

Not responsible if you mess this up and need to reinstall etc.
1. Backup any file you mod here.
2. ​ok if you want to make your own mw atm only way i can find is to replace the existing faces, to do that you need to get UABE which was originally made for modding 7 days to die, 2.1 with 2.1d + the 5.6.0f3 package type. They can be found simply by searching google for Unity Assets Bundle Extractor or here : https://7daystodie.com/forums/showt...undle-Extractor
3. once installed (unzipped) open up data\assetbundles​\mwportraits​ it will say this bundle file is compressed! do you wish to unpack it. (back it up first!)
4. hit yes. and save it as say mwportraits_uncompressed
5. you will now see someting like CAB-543524254213421234ab2ea16c etc in the drop down
6. click info, you will see the assets, find the texture you want to replace click plugins
7. export to png, save it, open in photoshop make your edits save it
8. to import click plugins - edit
9. load - select texture file.
10. ok.
11. close, save - MWportraits
12. open up Battletech and go to the MW list and it should have worked.

Thank you, my gentlegoon.

imweasel09
May 26, 2014


I definitely feel like the game needs some sort of combat log or death recap. I had a centurion explode from full health and it wasn't really clear to me why, it wasn't a head shot because it would have said cockpit destroyed in that case.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.


I don't know, I"m really just not having the survivability problems with lights that you are. I mean, they die, but frankly I'm seeing my mediums go down more frequently just because they tend to get tasked with taking on poo poo bigger than them a lot.

Are you using the initiative system much? Once things get going I routinely hold my lights at the edges of fights, reserve them to the last round, then run in and shoot something and run back out in the first phase of the next round.

Really the deadliest things to my lights have been urbanmechs because the AC10 is a motherfucker when you're in a commando and they get the same initiative profile as their speedier cousins.

As far as injuries, in every other MW/BT game that's been another resource to manage. In mech commander it's not uncommon to have your pilots get a bit hosed up over the course of a mission, and they heal at a set rate after that. HOld them out and they heal faster iirc. If you really need your ace pilot wrecking face in your Atlas this mission, stick him in with half health, but it's a risk. Or hold him back to heal up and run with a lesser pilot. I'm not that worried about that aspect of the game since it's something we've seen executed right in past MW-themed unit management simulators.

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

Cyrano4747 posted:

Are you using the initiative system much? Once things get going I routinely hold my lights at the edges of fights, reserve them to the last round, then run in and shoot something and run back out in the first phase of the next round.

This bears repetition. When I said that some Lights are back-stabbers, this is how you do it. Sit somewhere out of LoS and reserve action until everyone else has moved, then dash in for a free alpha on whoever's hurt the most, and then use your superior initiative to dash back out and cooldown at the start of next turn. Fragile, over gunned mechs like the Jenner excel at these kinds of tactics.

Edit: Like, with the way initiative works in this game I'm fairly sure a Light should beat an Heavy or Assult pretty handily so long as they have some form of cover within sprinting range.

Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Jun 2, 2017

Eldragon
Feb 22, 2003

Played two matches, one at 15m, one at 25m. Both ended with easy wins against the AI with no mech losses on my side and few with internal damage.

The AI seems to be very bad at dealing with skirmishers and flanking. It will gleefully stand in place and take fire on the front and back expecting the armor to weather the storm. Once the enemy has lost a mech its at a severe disadvantage turn-order wise. Once it as lost 2 its doomed.

So my observations:

This is going to be the best mech game we've had since cyberstorm.

PPCs need a buff.

LRMs with indirect fire are insanely good.

Players need to be able to move the camera while animation is happening. I didn't get to capture the game ending DFA because the camera locked itself behind a rock. :cripes:

Once we have a mechlab and able to start grooming pilot skills the holes in ruleset is really going to show itself. Its awesome for playing against a computer in a campaign, not so excited about what playing against a human with a tricked out team will be like. But to be fair, playing against humans in table top with tricked out teams sucks too.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Skippy McPants posted:


Edit: Like, with the way initiative works in this game I'm fairly sure a Light should beat an Heavy or Assult pretty handily so long as they have some form of cover within sprinting range.

Yeah, I've had more than one match where a gunboat light soloed a heavy or an assault that got isolated at the edge of things.

Anyways, I decided to try goon-favorite LRM squad. I ran two trebuchets, an Atlas, and a commando. I mis-clicked and got the LL commando instead of the SRM one I like, but it didn't matter. I faced off against the default assault lance with the awesome in it, since random under-tons them too much and I wanted to see how it really did. Skills were evade on the commando, bullwark on both the trebuchets, and I decided to experiment with sensors on the atlas but didn't realize the lock gets wiped at the beginning of the next turn so lol that was a waste.

I ended up winning with zero casualties, and my most hosed up mech was a trebuchet that lost an arm and had some serious internal damage on one torso and stripped armor on the other.

1) LRM knockdown needs to be tuned way, WAY back. Two trebuchets is a guaranteed knockdown. I killed the enemy Awesome at max LRM range that way without really loving up its armor too much. Knock down for a guaranteed pilot injury and slinging 60 LRMs a round you're going to get at least one, sometimes two head hits naturally. Repeat for 2-3 rounds and you have a dead assault pilot. As it stands right now LRMs are a hard counter to assaults. Well, really a hard counter to anything but if you do that with a medium or even the thinner skinned heavies you might just kill the mech before killing the pilot. Personally I'd put it at LRMs needing to do about half to two-thirds of the knockdown damage they do right now. If we had MP right now LRM gank squad would be THE way to roll.

2) Atlas armor is perhaps a bit too much. An enemy vindicator got to my rear and I was able to just ignore him with no ill effect for three turns while I ripped an Orion to pieces. I get that the Atlas is supposed to be, well, the motherfucking Atlas but yeesh.

3) the commando came out just fine through a combination of using the initiative system and running between patches of forest. The only real problem was that the Awesome pilot had precision strike and decided to kill the metal baby at one point. That required breaking LOS and going elsewhere for a while. One turn I hosed up and withheld initiative at the wrong moment and an enemy centurian got a shot at me without any buffs, but happily he missed with the AC and the forests mitigated the LRMs. Lights feel like they're in a good place to me with the high risk / high reward thing. Will I be using lights on an assault mission in the way late game of the campaign? I don't know, but I see a role for them in general.

4) game remains fun after 5 hours of playing a super restricted beta.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
OK, few bits of heat info.

All mechs have 10 base heatsinks included with their engine (The typical TT loadout, no surprise there.)
Heatsinks dissipate 3 heat per turn

The big thing is, they only work when you don't fire at all. That's what we're missing I think.

So, like, I put 20 heatsinks on a Battlemaster. If I fire 60 heat worth of weapons, it builds up. Next turn, I don't fire. My heat drops to zero.

If I fire two times in a row, then I don't dissipate any heat and end up taking overheat damage, while being on the edge of shutting down.

There's also something wonky, or just stuff I plain don't know going on as far as heat capacity is concerned. I see the variable saying max heat capacity is 100, but my mech shuts down when firing 85 heat worth of weapons.

Really the main thing for me is that heat needs a far far better UI than an inconsistent bar without any markings on it. (By inconsistent I mean I can select one PPC, and the heat bar barely increases, if I select two then it suddenly leaps all the way to a bit over half full. In theory each PPC should be exactly the same, and shooting two of them (25 heat per) should push a mech halfway to shutdown.

The Guts pilot skill is supposed to increase heat capacity too, but I didn't want to fuss with that for the moment so I set it to 0 on the pilots I used to test.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ghost Heat? NOOOOOO! :negative:



I'm the most Anti-Light, pro-Steiner Scout Lance motherfucker there is, but I haven't been having issues using my lights and keeping them alive. Sure, Sensor Lock is pretty important, and the fact that it has no cooldown makes it god like. But against the AI, I just don't rush my scout out ahead of the pack unsupported. He leads the way, but I move him up somewhere with cover to get a sensor lock and be bait. It's not that my scout never dies, but generally by the time he's died I've inflicted far more damage on the enemy, so I'm trading a single light for a medium+ or more.

If things get hot, start kiting back so they have to choose between chasing your scout or not getting jackhammered by your heavier assets. The AI bites on scout feints every time, just run the little guy right back into the jaws of your defense, and you'll murder their lead units before any of their heavier stuff is even in range to attack you.

I really wouldn't want to see Lights be stronger than they are. They are very powerful right now, just not as brawlers. But then, you shouldn't be brawling in a light anyway.

Zaodai fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Jun 2, 2017

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
Plz no ghost heat triggers /shudder

I think it's just the UI being weird and inconsistent as far as heat goes. Without being able to see numbers it ends up being really hard to say.

Also to be clear, I don't think the classic Mechwarrior game heat bar itself needs to go, it just needs some labeled markers and some detail text when you mouse over it so players have some context as to their heat capacity, etc etc.

Taerkar
Dec 7, 2002

kind of into it, really

That heat thing doesn't seem to be quite right unless there's some heat dissipation when you do fire.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Gwaihir posted:

Plz no ghost heat triggers /shudder

I think it's just the UI being weird and inconsistent as far as heat goes. Without being able to see numbers it ends up being really hard to say.

Also to be clear, I don't think the classic Mechwarrior game heat bar itself needs to go, it just needs some labeled markers and some detail text when you mouse over it so players have some context as to their heat capacity, etc etc.

Frankly it could do with being larger as well. In fact a lot of the UI elements specific to individual mechs need to be increased in size - poo poo like the icons for being in cover, etc.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

If you know in the mechbay how much heat you'll gain and dissipate every turn then there's no reason to hide that on the tactical screen.

'If the player could have this info by getting a pad of paper and a pen etc etc'.

Skippy McPants
Mar 19, 2009

Cyrano4747 posted:

1) LRM knockdown needs to be tuned way, WAY back. Two trebuchets is a guaranteed knockdown. I killed the enemy Awesome at max LRM range that way without really loving up its armor too much. Knock down for a guaranteed pilot injury and slinging 60 LRMs a round you're going to get at least one, sometimes two head hits naturally. Repeat for 2-3 rounds and you have a dead assault pilot. As it stands right now LRMs are a hard counter to assaults. Well, really a hard counter to anything but if you do that with a medium or even the thinner skinned heavies you might just kill the mech before killing the pilot. Personally I'd put it at LRMs needing to do about half to two-thirds of the knockdown damage they do right now. If we had MP right now LRM gank squad would be THE way to roll.

An Evasion Atlas and Two Trebs plus whatever else does feel very strong against the AI. It might be a bit less OP in multiplayer where the other guy will understand that he needs to push and punish the paper thin armor on your missiles boats. LRMs have a pretty large minimum range that might make them pretty crap against an enemy that sprints in with brawlers. Of course, the AI has no idea how to deal with that style of specialization, just like a wolf-pack of 4 Jenners which can murder any AI lance with hardly a point of damage taken.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
Here's some example screens:
(This battlemaster has 20 heatsinks, 10 in the engine and 10 additional)



Two large lasers selected, that's 40 heat generation. Barely registers on the heat bar.



Adding a third large laser, taking me up to 60 heat generated.

Some amount of heat must be getting sunk every turn I guess, or something along those lines, because with 35 heat worth of weapons selected I see no buildup:




e: More examples:
Jagermech with no additional heatsinks builds up a tiny bit of heat when firing 20 heat worth of weapons. It builds up lots of heat firing 30 heat of weapons every turn, even though in theory it should sink that much.

Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jun 2, 2017

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Maybe your cooling from "last" turn carries forward to this turn if you don't have any heat?

Like if you can vent 50 heat a turn, and you fire 80 heat worth of weapons, on turn 1 you only generate 30 heat, because you get credit for dissipating the 50 straight away because it has nothing to clear from last turn?

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


According to the manual, your heatsinks work every turn and Guts increases capacity.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Heat is really the only mechanic I've had trouble getting it to fit into my head. Even if it ends up making sense under the hood, it certainly doesn't feel well conveyed to the player.

Voyager I
Jun 29, 2012

This is how your posting feels.
🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥
I'm not sure this lines up with the numbers you've stated, but it looks like the bar is showing only heat in excess of cooling capacity. 35 heat doesn't show up at all because none of it will accumulate, 40 heat just barely edges over capacity, and 60 heat shows a huge spike in accumulation because it's all excess now.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

Rygar201 posted:

According to the manual, your heatsinks work every turn and Guts increases capacity.

Yea, I'm just trying to square what I'd expect to see with what is actually happening

Rygar201
Jan 26, 2011
I AM A TERRIBLE PIECE OF SHIT.

Please Condescend to me like this again.

Oh yeah condescend to me ALL DAY condescend daddy.


Voyager I posted:

I'm not sure this lines up with the numbers you've stated, but it looks like the bar is showing only heat in excess of cooling capacity. 35 heat doesn't show up at all because none of it will accumulate, 40 heat just barely edges over capacity, and 60 heat shows a huge spike in accumulation because it's all excess now.

That is what I assumed from my games.

If you already have heat you can see this. Firing nothing shows the loss, but firing weapons will appear to rapidly spike it.

Psion
Dec 13, 2002

eVeN I KnOw wHaT CoRnEr gAs iS
Heat is one of the things I've noticed where the UI needs better at-a-glance ways to convey information, yeah - because I don't really know what it's doing internally. Which pilots are available to select in a phase isn't really as well defined as I'd like. Unless I'm missing something even the loadout screens don't have a summary version of armament (instead making me look at each arm or torso location and total it up) and so on. Basically there are a lot of rough edges that need polishing down.

Cyrano4747 posted:

2) Atlas armor is perhaps a bit too much. An enemy vindicator got to my rear and I was able to just ignore him with no ill effect for three turns while I ripped an Orion to pieces. I get that the Atlas is supposed to be, well, the motherfucking Atlas but yeesh.

I think that's actually almost right? Atlas being able to just ignore a lovely mech while it chomps down a heavy is why you bring assaults. But also - the Vindicator has a PPC right? If those get buffed up it might help some. If 3 rounds of PPC and laser to the rear end isn't doing what it should, I'd point to fixing the Vindicator first. The Atlas is over 11M out of a 15/20/25 budget, that's a big drat deal, so I would prefer weakening that being a last option, not a first.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Are you using the initiative system much? Once things get going I routinely hold my lights at the edges of fights, reserve them to the last round, then run in and shoot something and run back out in the first phase of the next round.

I haven't done much of anything with the initiative/reserve system but I really feel like I absolutely have to learn that to learn how to use lights as more than 24/7 Sensor Lock Crew. I'm gonna try this tactic out and see if it works, this sounds good.

Psion fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jun 2, 2017

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

Rygar201 posted:

That is what I assumed from my games.

If you already have heat you can see this. Firing nothing shows the loss, but firing weapons will appear to rapidly spike it.

Yea, I think dissipation is definitely being factored in, but I just have no idea how much it's doing because as far as I can tell it has no relationship to the numbers that I can see heh.

isildur
May 31, 2000

BattleDroids: Flashpoint OH NO! Dekker! IS DOWN! THIS IS Glitch! Taking Command! THIS IS Glich! Taking command! OH NO! Glitch! IS DOWN! THIS IS Medusa! Taking command! THIS IS Medusa! Taking command! OH NO! Medusa IS DOWN!

Soon to be part of the Battletech Universe canon.
honestly i don't know how heat works right now. my combat designer has been Doing Things with my original (simple) design to make heat more relevant. I'll see if I can get him to explain it to me.

lights: if you're willing to only act every other round with them, you can pretty much 100% protect them for the whole battle. If you're willing to run more risks, sprinting to forests will give you quite a lot of survivability. and this is less relevant for AI opponents, but lights let you reserve to see what your opponent is going to do, so you don't over-commit.

i'm super excited to get the multiplayer to you all because it's really a completely different experience, in terms of how clever and cautious you need to be. The AI is reasonably credible, but another player is all kinds of weird feints and baited traps and stealth bullshit. Lights are a core part of any ambush strategy since you have to be able to move quickly while waaaay out of sensor range.

Oh also: multi-shot is for doing something with your LRMs while you're melting faces with your medium lasers.

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
I so can't wait for the MP.

There's no good violence like goon on goon violence.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


I can't wait to go 0-57 in matches against other goons. :v:

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

isildur posted:


Oh also: multi-shot is for doing something with your LRMs while you're melting faces with your medium lasers.

I think part of the issue with multi-shot is that there are way better skills for your LRM mechs. If your trebuchet or catapult is in face melting range you already kinda hosed up, and in that situation bullwark is going to be a better option anyway. I'd rather just take the shot at the mech in LRM range and leave whatever brawlers Im' running that match to deal with the guy in my LRM mechs grill. Plus, everything runs hot enough that you really need to do either/or 90% of the time.

I mean, I can see the uses, other poo poo just over shadows it. Sure, it would be nice to do something with that LRM on the centurion or the Atlas once you're in knife fight ranges, but in both cases evasion is hands down the superior choice because it keeps you from getting gutted out in the brawl. Or bullwark in that scenario for the damage reduction.

Personally I think it needs to do something and then have engaging multiple targets be a secondary, minor effect. Maybe extend the max ranges of weapons, or let you choose to take called shots on non-prone targets if you're not doing the multiple targets thing. I dunno, the issue is just that it's so clearly inferior to any of the other major choices.

Dallan Invictus
Oct 11, 2007

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
I'm probably missing something obvious here, but is there a way to tell how much of a defense mod you'll get from a certain move before you make it, or do you just have to guess based on how many points your move goes through? (and, similarly, is there a way to waypoint moves like control-clicking in XCOM in case you want to take some bizarre circuitous route to maximize move mods?)

deathbagel
Jun 10, 2008

isildur posted:

'death' won't always result in a lost pilot. it is likely to result in a pilot in the medbay.

But... um, yes, we have not tuned injury relative to the sim game, like at all. Combat tuning has been its own isolated silo for most of the project. So we're going to have to make a few more passes at things like injuries and headshots before I'll be happy with them.

(That said, I want you losing pilots and crying about it)

This is good! I WANT to lose pilots and cry about it!

I played a few skirmishes last night and this game is fantastic so far! I did lose my Battlemaster to a freak head shot right at the beginning of my first game, but still almost managed to pull it out (the enemy had a single Cent left with only 1 functioning med laser and I had an Awesome with 1 LL left, he managed to get behind me where my armor had been weakened by a sniping Vindi and kill me.)

The AI actually seems to be not horrible in the game which makes me really happy, though they do sometimes get overzealous. My second match the computer ran his Shadowhawk up far ahead of the rest of his mechs and right into the face of an Atlas with 2 Vindi's and a Griffon just waiting to ambush him which immediately gave me a 4-3 advantage.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Cyrano4747 posted:

I think part of the issue with multi-shot is that there are way better skills for your LRM mechs. If your trebuchet or catapult is in face melting range you already kinda hosed up, and in that situation bullwark is going to be a better option anyway. I'd rather just take the shot at the mech in LRM range and leave whatever brawlers Im' running that match to deal with the guy in my LRM mechs grill. Plus, everything runs hot enough that you really need to do either/or 90% of the time.

I mean, I can see the uses, other poo poo just over shadows it. Sure, it would be nice to do something with that LRM on the centurion or the Atlas once you're in knife fight ranges, but in both cases evasion is hands down the superior choice because it keeps you from getting gutted out in the brawl. Or bullwark in that scenario for the damage reduction.

Personally I think it needs to do something and then have engaging multiple targets be a secondary, minor effect. Maybe extend the max ranges of weapons, or let you choose to take called shots on non-prone targets if you're not doing the multiple targets thing. I dunno, the issue is just that it's so clearly inferior to any of the other major choices.

I generally agree with this. Using the Catapult as an example, you're never really going to be fine enough on heat to be alpha striking things anyway, because heat is either inconsequential or a brutal rear end-gently caress with basically nothing in between right now.

I'd much rather have either the initiative bonus, or evasion, or bulwark, or hell even precision shot even if it is situational. Plus there is the inherent issue of if you have that many weapons to fire, you're usually better off trying to kill one target completely so it is out of the fight rather than split-firing and dealing more damage to more targets but leaving more people to shoot back (since you are, by nature of the situation, in firing range of multiple enemies now).

Eldragon
Feb 22, 2003

isildur posted:

'death' won't always result in a lost pilot. it is likely to result in a pilot in the medbay.

But... um, yes, we have not tuned injury relative to the sim game, like at all. Combat tuning has been its own isolated silo for most of the project. So we're going to have to make a few more passes at things like injuries and headshots before I'll be happy with them.

(That said, I want you losing pilots and crying about it)

You need to be careful with this so players actually have an incentive to continue playing after pilot death.

In most games where characters have perma death, most players just reload the game and try the battle again. Because the cost of losing the pilot greatly exceeds the cost of redoing the battle.

e.g. Grinding a pilot from rookie to elite takes 10+ battles, redoing a battle is just a single battle, and 1 < 10.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


Cowards will reload half the time even if there is no penalty. They're not being forced to ironman, and if they're going to reload either way, why design the casualty system around their particular gameplay choice?

Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf

Dallan Invictus posted:

I'm probably missing something obvious here, but is there a way to tell how much of a defense mod you'll get from a certain move before you make it, or do you just have to guess based on how many points your move goes through? (and, similarly, is there a way to waypoint moves like control-clicking in XCOM in case you want to take some bizarre circuitous route to maximize move mods?)

I don't think there's a way to tell that that I know of.


re: Heat, I think compared to TT it definitely needed a bit more impact as a throttle on matches, but that opinion is also based very heavily on my TT play preferences, which amounts to "ALL THE ADVANCED CRAZY TECH I LIKE IT ALL." So I'm almost always playing with mechs that have more than ample DHS complements, and the only choices you'd typically make are related to range brackets/backup firepower.

Take the Stalker 8S for example, primarily a sniper packing two ERPPCs and a Heavy Gauss, but it also has a mix of 4 medium pulse and ER lasers. You have enough sinks to sit still and fire both ERPPCs and the HGR forever, but if something gets close in to laser range you can instantly overheat to likely shutdown levels if you want to bring all the lasers in to play along with the PPCs.

(Actually all the stalkers are good examples, probably why I like them so much. They're all over-gunned for what they can sink, but they're usually split up in to decent brackets so you have a good heat neutral punch, or a laughable overkill alpha strike if you find yourself in a position where the to-hit odds are very much in your favor)

Compared to DHS equipped stuff, there's not really many SHS mechs in base play that run cool, or even neutral.
The ones that are tend to be the ballistic based ones, which, while they were abysmal in TT because the AC2 and AC5 were a fuckin waste of space, are actually quite good in this game since ACs have been un-hosed.

I dunno where I was going with this, other than us thinking that heat is really harsh in this game is probably equal parts "Not remembering how much SHS mechs suuuucked on heat" and "Something's going on/the numbers are weird"

I think it's more numbers weird because my benchmark of the 3 PPC Awesome can't even fire twice without incurring internal damage. It sinks an almost imperceptibly minor amount of heat per turn while firing 2 PPCs, so if you did the classic fire 3->fire 3->cool back to nothing while firing 2 then you're still left sitting at 70% ish heat in the current iteration of this system.

Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jun 2, 2017

Eldragon
Feb 22, 2003

Zaodai posted:

Cowards will reload half the time even if there is no penalty. They're not being forced to ironman, and if they're going to reload either way, why design the casualty system around their particular gameplay choice?

Lets not frame the entire discussion around what constitutes a "hardcore" player or not.

The game should encourage players to accept pilot death, and setting up a gameplay system around grooming elite pilots is counter to that.

Really just having pilots be in "critical condition" in the medbay for X number of missions, and %Y change of dying of their injuries later would allow for pilot death without making the "gently caress it, reload" the easy out.

Zaodai
May 23, 2009

Death before dishonor?
Your terms are accepted.


My overall point remains. People who are going to reload at any setback are just going to reload regardless of how minor you make the penalty. If they were going to reload for the pilot being killed, they'll reload for the pilot being out for 3 missions.

There is no way to convince someone who does not want to eat a penalty that they have to eat that penalty. You do not design your system based around people who will reload to prevent it, you design your system to be fair to the people who choose not to reload.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Gwaihir posted:


I dunno where I was going with this, other than us thinking that heat is really harsh in this game is probably equal parts "Not remembering how much SHS mechs suuuucked on heat"

It's 100% this. My old TT group started with the 3rd edition boxed set and played a LOT of 3025 tech before picking up all the 3050 source books and going deep on clan invasion era stuff. We had a lot of fun with that, but in the end we liked the balance in the 3025 tech better (and the universe, frankly - merc for hire in an era of warring states is a lot more compelling than fending off an invasion) and ended up doing our last few campaigns in that setting. The addition of DHS to the game made heat management almost trivial, while it was an integral part of how it originally played. Playing with 3025 era tech it's as much about figuring out when to fire and when to cool down as it is about positioning.

Skoll
Jul 26, 2013

Oh You'll Love My Toxic Love
Grimey Drawer
If the AI is retardedly good, I'm sure as gently caress going to be save scumming. You don't go through the efforts of making goon pilots / people you know with the intention of killing them unless they're Ohsh.

Or Veedub.

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Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

Skoll posted:

If the AI is retardedly good, I'm sure as gently caress going to be save scumming. You don't go through the efforts of making goon pilots / people you know with the intention of killing them unless they're Ohsh.

Or Veedub.

Well, you do if you're running a LP or something.

I agree with Zaodai's general point that pilot death needs to be a thing and that you'll never stop save scumming. And, frankly, that's fine. Saying "that sucked, I'm reloading" is fun for some people while managing the chaos of perma death in an iron man game is fun for others. It's why XCOM lets you make the choice, for example.

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