Mercs 1.1 suggestions
Braden N. McDaniel
Dave, I appreciate the attention Activision is (finally) giving this issue,
and I'm glad to see you soliciting this group for feedback. Here are some
of my thoughts on questions which haven't been asked yet, but (IMO) should
be ...
Shell User Interface
Whoever designed the shell UI for Mercs was very inexperienced at doing
so--it really shows. It's amateurish and counterintuitive in many respects,
and the patches to make it more usable are very obviously just that:
patches. I sincerely hope you will amend these design flaws for version
1.1.
General Issues
In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
superfluous screen to get to your objective. For example, if I want to get
to the 'Mech/equipment bay, I have to select that door from the office, and
then go through a special screen, whose only apparent purpose is to delay
me in getting the the 'Mech bay, where I have to click on a monitor to
proceed. This is annoying and brain-dead from a design perspective. There
are similar instances elsewhere, where it seems that the options accessible
through multiple screens could be consolidated into fewer screens.
Another glaring design flaw is the extensive use of dialog boxes to tell
the user he or she has made an error, when the option shouldn't have been
available in the first place. Many UI paradigms choose to "gray out" such
options, making them visible but obviously inaccessible. A few examples...
o The availability of CASE for Clan 'Mechs--rather than take this off of
the menu, the designers decided to present the user with a dialog saying
"you don't need that" when trying to apply the CASE.
o The ability to assign too many lancemates--once the maximum number has
been reached (including aerotechs), it should not be *possible* to go
over.
o In the mission briefing screens, the "View" button is sometimes
inactive. By that, I mean that pressing it has *no* effect. Nonetheless,
the graphic remains the same, just as if it were available.
There are many places in the game where the text scrolls past the
right-most boundary, or, far worse, scrolls past the bottom of the
screen!!! In the latter case, there is NO WAY of seeing the text! This
crosses the line from "design flaw" to "bug." Do *something* to fix
this--use less text, smaller type, or (drum roll) a Scroll Bar.
The 'Mech Lab
We've kind of gotten used to it by now, but when Mercs was first release,
there was a loud cry of "What the hell is this thing???" from this
newsgroup. Ideally, the design paradigm here should be totally scrapped.
The 'Mech Lab in MW2 was no epitome of design perfection, but it did have a
very important advantage over the Mercs 'Mech lab: it was divided into two
screens: one where you defined the load-out and could see the stats
immediately, and another screen where you assigned criticals. This paradigm
really works!
Weapons and Equipment
Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous
As was the case in MW2, it doesn't matter where you put these criticals.
This doesn't make sense. Why should you be able to put all your armor in
your arms and still have it effective everywhere? Such a thing seems even
more ridiculous for the 'Mech's internal structure! At least in the
FASA-designed BattleTech chassis, these criticals are considered "fixed"
(just like engine criticals), and they always take up certain available
critical slots on the 'Mech (which are fairly evenly distributed around the
various body parts). Mercs should behave this way. That is, upgrading to ES
or FF would be much like upgrading to an XL engine. When you upgrade,
certain criticals are taken up by the ES or FF, and anything that is there
is displaced. An exception to this could be applying FF on top of ES--if
there are criticals normally taken up by FF that are already in use by ES,
the FF criticals could be "bumped down".
Weapons
I like most of the proposed changes to the weapons systems, and those I
don't like I can live with. More than anything, I will be glad to see the
missiles stop doing hairpin turns. Many folks on this newsgroup have been
clamoring for this to be addressed ever since MW2 first shipped, and I find
it surprising that only now are you considering changing this (well, I
guess "surprising" isn't really the right word).
--
Braden N. McDaniel, bra...@shadow.net
Home Page: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/
VRML 2.0 Home World: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/home.wrl
Unsupported CSS in IE 3.0: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/nostyle/
Trouble
Hey Bishop,
Hehehe, I go away for a week and there you go getting yourself into
trouble again.
In case you haven't notice, Mr. McDaniel here has been one of the people
here who has been trying to accomplish the same thing you have: getting
Activision to fix the few problems Mercenaries still has. Are you so set
on your crusade that you fail to recognize an ally? Do you think the
only way to do things is the way you go about it? You seem to be lashing
out left and right, at everyone and everything.
My suggestion: take a break from all this and wait a few months for the
patch. Sorry if things don't happen as fast as you and everybody wants
(including me), but life is not perfect. Meanwhile, enjoy Mercnet as it
is. It is actually playable (surprise!).
Trouble
Braden N. McDaniel wrote:
>
> In article <5k3lth$ovd$2...@gail.ripco.com>, bis...@ripco.com says...
> > Braden N. McDaniel (bra...@shadow.net) wrote:
> > : Dave, I appreciate the attention Activision is (finally) giving this issue,
> > : and I'm glad to see you soliciting this group for feedback. Here are some
> > : of my thoughts on questions which haven't been asked yet, but (IMO) should
> > : be ...
> >
> > Brown-nosing session...
>
> You demonstrate the same eye for subtlety as a man weilding a jack-hammer...
> (and I didn't even think I was being subtle!)
>
> This is cute, Bishop. One would think that after managing to hopelessly
> discredit yourself in another thread, you might lie low for a bit and let
> the short attention span of the Net do its thing. But, no, here you come
> fearlessly blazing a trail of idiocy...
>
> > : Shell User Interface
> >
> > : Whoever designed the shell UI for Mercs was very inexperienced at doing
> > : so--it really shows. It's amateurish and counterintuitive in many respects,
> > : and the patches to make it more usable are very obviously just that:
> > : patches. I sincerely hope you will amend these design flaws for version
> > : 1.1.
> >
> > I like this part. This is where I say, "If you think you can do better, than
> > do it yourself!!!"...but that would be counter-productive, right?
>
> Bishop, unless Activision is going to start handing out their source code
> and allowing users to compile their own versions of the game, this isn't
> exactly accessible to me. Of course, I can see how you might overlook such
> an insignificant problem in your desperation to wring some snide remark from
> your mind which might possibly be mistaken for wit under dim lighting and a
> double-digit IQ.
>
> If you'd resume your prescribed dosage of Ritalin, your attention span might
> lengthen sufficiently to let you realize that I go on in that article to
> specify *exactly what* can be done better (which, as far as I can tell, is
> the best I can offer in the absense of any means of "doing it myself"). If
> you'd care to comment as to what about these aspects of the game *you* think
> could be done better, or in what respects my suggestions might be lacking,
> please comment. Otherwise, what is your reason for posting here?
>
> Don't worry, you don't need to answer that one ... it's abundantly obvious.
> You're just pissed off at me because I've elicited comments from you that
> clearly demonstrate to both this newsgroup and *you* that you have been (and
> continue to be) truly useless as far as effecting any change in Mercs goes.
> I can see why that'd piss you off, since this has apparently been your sole
> reason for living during the months since Mercs was released--but, sometimes
> the truth hurts.
>
> So, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to get back at me, here you are
> flinging half-assed and utterly nonsensical attacks at statements which
> haven't the slightest bearing on you. Tell us... Do you enjoy being
> demoralized?
>
> > So..Activision should drop everything and help Braden???
>
> Ah, no... The reason I posted my comments to this group, rather than just
> mailing them to Dave, is so that anyone who had similar thoughts (or thought
> I was way off the mark) could say so. If a lot of people think my ideas
> Suck, then I don't think they should be implemented.
>
> Thanks for the constructive contribution, BTW. I'm sure it will help
> Activision produce the game that *you* have been bitching about.
>
> > Doh!! Sorry! More baseless, ad hominen, and unsubstantiated attacks!! So
> > sorry...
>
> Well, at least you know what they're called now. I guess that's progress...
>
> --
> Braden N. McDaniel, bra...@shadow.net
>
> Home Page: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/
> Home World: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/home.wrl
> CSS Support In IE3: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/nostyle/
Brian Edmonds
Braden N McDaniel <bra...@shadow.net> writes:
> In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
> superfluous screen to get to your objective.
I agree it can be a bit annoying at times, but OTOH, the MW2 games are
sims, and in real life to get to the mech bay you would have to go
through your office, so it doesn't offend me all that much.
> Another glaring design flaw is the extensive use of dialog boxes to
> tell the user he or she has made an error, when the option shouldn't
> have been available in the first place.
Definite agreement here. The UI could be greatly streamlined in this
respect. I also agree with you comment on text scrolling past screen
boundaries. I can only recall it happening once on the ComStar
terminal, but I still wonder what else it said. A scrollbar or multi-
page interface would be just the thing it needs.
> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
But that's the way it is in Battletech. For a sim you definitely have
to change some things for playability, but the goal should be to stay as
close as possible to the original game, and this doesn't strike me as a
major playability issue. Any sillyness you can blame on FASA.
--
o Brian Edmonds <edm...@cs.ubc.ca>, Team Jubal Mech Labs
\\_/\_, Moderator: rec.arts.anime.creative, rec.music.info
(*) (*) Are you tired of spam? Visit http://www.spam.abuse.net/
Bishop
Braden N. McDaniel (bra...@shadow.net) wrote:
: Dave, I appreciate the attention Activision is (finally) giving this issue,
: and I'm glad to see you soliciting this group for feedback. Here are some
: of my thoughts on questions which haven't been asked yet, but (IMO) should
: be ...
Brown-nosing session...
: Shell User Interface
: Whoever designed the shell UI for Mercs was very inexperienced at doing
: so--it really shows. It's amateurish and counterintuitive in many respects,
: and the patches to make it more usable are very obviously just that:
: patches. I sincerely hope you will amend these design flaws for version
: 1.1.
I like this part. This is where I say, "If you think you can do better, than
do it yourself!!!"...but that would be counter-productive, right?
: General Issues
: In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
: superfluous screen to get to your objective. For example, if I want to get
: to the 'Mech/equipment bay, I have to select that door from the office, and
: then go through a special screen, whose only apparent purpose is to delay
: me in getting the the 'Mech bay, where I have to click on a monitor to
: proceed. This is annoying and brain-dead from a design perspective. There
: are similar instances elsewhere, where it seems that the options accessible
: through multiple screens could be consolidated into fewer screens.
: Another glaring design flaw is the extensive use of dialog boxes to tell
: the user he or she has made an error, when the option shouldn't have been
: available in the first place. Many UI paradigms choose to "gray out" such
: The 'Mech Lab
: Weapons and Equipment
: Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous
: As was the case in MW2, it doesn't matter where you put these criticals.
: This doesn't make sense. Why should you be able to put all your armor in
: your arms and still have it effective everywhere? Such a thing seems even
: more ridiculous for the 'Mech's internal structure! At least in the
: FASA-designed BattleTech chassis, these criticals are considered "fixed"
: (just like engine criticals), and they always take up certain available
: critical slots on the 'Mech (which are fairly evenly distributed around the
: various body parts). Mercs should behave this way. That is, upgrading to ES
: or FF would be much like upgrading to an XL engine. When you upgrade,
: certain criticals are taken up by the ES or FF, and anything that is there
: is displaced. An exception to this could be applying FF on top of ES--if
: there are criticals normally taken up by FF that are already in use by ES,
: the FF criticals could be "bumped down".
: Weapons
: I like most of the proposed changes to the weapons systems, and those I
: don't like I can live with. More than anything, I will be glad to see the
: missiles stop doing hairpin turns. Many folks on this newsgroup have been
: clamoring for this to be addressed ever since MW2 first shipped, and I find
: it surprising that only now are you considering changing this (well, I
: guess "surprising" isn't really the right word).
So..Activision should drop everything and help Braden???
Doh!! Sorry! More baseless, ad hominen, and unsubstantiated attacks!! So
sorry...
-MWS-
On 29 Apr 1997, Activdave wrote:
> > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
> Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
> evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
> don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
> remaining criticals they have available...)
>
> I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
> Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
>
> -- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision
Won't this make it impossible to add AC/20, Arrow IV, or other "large
criticals" weapons to the torso and/or arms when you use XL engines
(necessary to get the free tonnage required by those weapons)?
Hauptmann, CO 9th Lyran Guards
Email: haup...@concentric.net
CServe: 72607,1456 (Modemgames Forum Staff)
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
and do not reflect the official or unofficial views of any company
I happen to be working for at the time. So there! <G>
Braden N. McDaniel
In article <37bu6xg...@mornir.gweep.bc.ca>, edm...@cs.ubc.ca says...
> > superfluous screen to get to your objective.
>
> sims,
They're 'Mech combat sims... Not "moseying around the base" sims.<g>
> and in real life to get to the mech bay you would have to go
> through your office, so it doesn't offend me all that much.
In "real life," I'm sure I'd have to do a good deal more than that.
Actually, I'd like to have *more* things accessible directly from the
office, since that is more or less your headquarters once you start the
game. For instance, the 'Mech/Equipment purchase screens are *not* directly
available from your office. You have to go through this screen that just has
the console and the easter egg in it.
But, I don't want to harp on this too much, mainly because I think it's
probably unfeasible for a patch. Addressing it properly would involve
creating new backdrop artwork, and that kind of thing is probably beyond the
scope of what Activision has in mind for this patch (not that I wouldn't
love to be proven wrong there). There are plenty of other flaws in the UI
(as I mentioned) which should be more feasible to address.
> > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
> But that's the way it is in Battletech.
Well, yes and no... The rules for 'Mech building may state that you can
place these crits anywhere; however, a look at all the FASA-designed
variants shows that where this equipent is used, there is obviously
deliberate attempt to balance it out across the various body parts. Maybe,
rather than give them fixed places, it would be better to give some penalty
for losing these criticals in battle. That is, losing ES crits would weaken
your structural integrity, and losing FF crits would weaken your armor. That
would definitely provide incentive to keep most of these criticals confined
to the head and torso!
What about not making these upgrades available in the campaign game, except
on new 'Mechs (as is already done with XL engines)? These, like engines,
strike me as core components that could not simply be replaced (especially
ES!).
> For a sim you definitely have
> to change some things for playability, but the goal should be to stay as
> close as possible to the original game, and this doesn't strike me as a
> major playability issue.
Major? Probably not. But it does strike me as rather cheap the way you can
place all your ES/FF crits in your arms.
> Any sillyness you can blame on FASA.
I'll be very interested to see how FASA addresses this issue for MW3.
Braden N. McDaniel
[This followup was posted to alt.games.mechwarrior2 and a copy was sent to
the cited author.]
While we're on the subject of criticals...
Please give us back the ability to add/remove hand and lower arm actuators.
This was possible in Mech2 and GBL. I can see how this should not be a
possibility in the campaign game, but for Instant Action it's very handy (in
fact, the inability to remove these criticals actually prevents one from
being able to reproduce certain FASA-designed variants). What's more, it
*is* possible to remove these criticals with a utility like NAIS txt2mek--
something which could conceivably be considered cheating under the current
paradigm.
Iv...@no.spam
bra...@shadow.net (Braden N. McDaniel) wrote:
>[This followup was posted to alt.games.mechwarrior2 and a copy was sent to
>the cited author.]
>
>While we're on the subject of criticals...
>
>Please give us back the ability to add/remove hand and lower arm actuators.
>This was possible in Mech2 and GBL. I can see how this should not be a
>possibility in the campaign game, but for Instant Action it's very handy (in
>fact, the inability to remove these criticals actually prevents one from
>being able to reproduce certain FASA-designed variants). What's more, it
>*is* possible to remove these criticals with a utility like NAIS txt2mek--
>something which could conceivably be considered cheating under the current
>paradigm.
The FASA-designed variants which lacked hand and lower arm criticals
also carried with them a targeting penalty and decreased firing arc
because of removal of these actuators. How to you replicate that in
the game? Pehaps add on the 'drunken' aiming characteristic that you
can in Quake when firing such weapons because the upper arm actuators
are not as precise as the ones that were removed in favor of space?
Ivory...
[ E-mail header altered to releive spam mail. ]
[ Please send mail responses to the following address. ]
[ Ivory (at) Concentric (dot) Net ]
Richard Kuo
On 29 Apr 1997 21:08:50 GMT, acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>remaining criticals they have available...)
>
>I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
>Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
>
>-- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
Well, as far as I recall, it's not in the rules at all that
you have to evenly distribute FF and Endo crits.
Davey Jones
acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>remaining criticals they have available...)
hmm if you are thinking of this change i have one big question.. will .mek files
from 1.05/6 be compatible with 1.1?? or am i going to have to re create my
350+ .mek files (remember this game has been out for a long time here..
and has spawned many leagues.. there are alot of 1.05/6 mechs out there
and alot of favorite varriants that would be lost.. and many many people pissed
about that loss..)
>I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
Usualy FF or ES are the last things put on a mech..(needing to free up a bit of
tonnage for something) this would mean bumping any crits in the areas that the
ES or FF wants to have either off the mech or into a seperate holding screen...
far as i am concerned it works fine the way it is.. and i need to remind any who
complain that it doesn't follow the compendium rules that this is a real time
sim.. not a paper and dice based game.. and in the translation things are lost
and things are added (i think it's called evolution..)
and certain things in the dice and paper game just do not translate into a real
time sim.. (firing modifiers for not having acutators.. cmon here in the RPG
weather you hit or not is defined by the roll of dice.. in a real time sim if
you hit is determined by your skill)
randall floyd
Activdave wrote:
>
> > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
> Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
> evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
> don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
> remaining criticals they have available...)
>
>
>
> Producer, Activision.
how does this sound?.. crits in the left and right torso is taken up
auto by a certain number of FF and ES <much like XL engines>... a few
should be left over for optional placement because sometimes people use
the arms for fodder to attract fire but contain nothing so they lose
nothing if the arms get wasted <but it wouldn't be bad if you made the
arm crits mandatory when using FF and ES> and the legs and central torso
only have two crits available so they should be optional for FF and
ES... the head... hmmm... i'll leave that up to you guys but i usually
put a crit of FF on the cockpit if i'm using FF... it should probably
still be optional tho... anyone else think this is reasonable?...
Ookami
randall floyd
-MWS- wrote:
>
> On 29 Apr 1997, Activdave wrote:
>
> > > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
> >
> > Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
> > evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
> > don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
> > remaining criticals they have available...)
> >
> > I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
> >
> > Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
> >
> > -- Dave Georgeson
>
> Won't this make it impossible to add AC/20, Arrow IV, or other "large
> criticals" weapons to the torso and/or arms when you use XL engines
> (necessary to get the free tonnage required by those weapons)?
>
> Hauptmann, CO 9th Lyran Guards
> Email: haup...@concentric.net
> CServe: 72607,1456 (Modemgames Forum Staff)
>
> The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
> and do not reflect the official or unofficial views of any company
> I happen to be working for at the time. So there! <G>
aren't central torso crits also supposed to be able to carry a couple
ARROW IV crits in Battletech?... i know at least one 'Mech does this in
one of the TROs... not sure which tho and i'm too lazy right now to go
thumbing thru them... but perhaps ferro fibrous and endo steel should be
left as they are because they aren't broke so why fix them... go for
fixing the flame weapons <flamer and inferno> instead.. they are very
unbalanced for power <way too much damage>... also power up
Elementals... they seem way too weak as it is and if i remember right
they are supposed to be able to take 15 points of damage from 'Mech
class weapons... it seems like it takes a whole lot less to kill them
<or get killed if you are one> in Mercs and Mercnet <i'm more concerned
with Mercnet tho>... the I.S. battlesuits are fine as they are i
think... well with all the ideas being throw around Mercs 1.1 this patch
might just make it the super game we were all expecting at first...
Ookami
Michael Nahas
In article <19970429210...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>remaining criticals they have available...)
>
>I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
>Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
>
>-- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
I tend to agree but how about instead of having the program choose,
have a minimum requierment. Example if you choose to add FF then you
have to put one in one of the legs, two in the left torso, two in the
right, maybe require one in the center. Then if you ad ES you're
required to put one in the other leg, two in the left torso, two in
the right. I agree about leaving the head alone.
MW is all about trade offs, if you want max space you have to
leave out FF or ES. As long as everybody has to 'play' by the
same rules fine. Then you have to be creative to optimise your
design.
Great changes comming up!
val...@wt.net
Braden N. McDaniel wrote:
>
> In article <37bu6xg...@mornir.gweep.bc.ca>, edm...@cs.ubc.ca says...
> > Braden N McDaniel <bra...@shadow.net> writes:
> > > In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
> > > superfluous screen to get to your objective.
> >
> > I agree it can be a bit annoying at times, but OTOH, the MW2 games are
> > sims,
>
> They're 'Mech combat sims... Not "moseying around the base" sims.<g>
I disagree, Mercs is a combat sim, but also a RPG in a way. I never even
thought about this till you mentioned it.
> Major? Probably not. But it does strike me as rather cheap the way you can
> place all your ES/FF crits in your arms.
Maybe so, but the arm seem pretty useless to me. I would never put
anything important in them, and they can't be used for hand-tohand
combat as they are in BattleTech.
RLL
Iv...@no.spam
acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>remaining criticals they have available...)
>
>I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
>Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
If you're considering leaving out the Head and Legs because of the few
criticals they already have, then perhaps that should include the
center torso as well. This only has 2 critical slots like the legs as
well. Personally, I would say that you could 'span' across the center
torso with ES from the side torso areas to 'justify' it. Perhaps they
can be split like so...
IS Clan
Head 0 0
Center Torso 0 1
Left Torso 3 2
Right Torso 3 2
Left Arm 3 1
Right Arm 3 1
Left Leg 1 0
Right Leg 1 0
The fact that 1 of the two Center Torso crits is used up on Clan
balances the 'load' and also makes up for some of the other misgivings
of Clan vs. IS tech. Perhaps because Clan mechs are built with the XL
engine in mind taking up space in the side torsos, that 1 crit in the
center torso is needed. *shrug* Looks good though
Considering the Arm area goes up into the shoulders where all the
'pivoting/aiming' actuators are, you could justify the amount of crits
used there compared to Torso/Head. Legs you can justify how ever you
want, but since they only have 2 crits to start with, I'm with you in
thinking that you shouldn't 'waste' them just for realism in
armor/endo dispersal that isn't even in the FASA game at this time.
Braden N. McDaniel
In article <33679dac...@ion2.ionet.net>,
spam.me...@i.hate.spam.com says...
> hmm if you are thinking of this change i have one big question.. will .mek files
> from 1.05/6 be compatible with 1.1?? or am i going to have to re create my
> 350+ .mek files (remember this game has been out for a long time here..
> and has spawned many leagues.. there are alot of 1.05/6 mechs out there
> and alot of favorite varriants that would be lost.. and many many people pissed
> about that loss..)
I've got over 200 variants myself. But if we want the important changes to
be made, something's gotta give--and it'll probably be compatibility. Folks,
everyone should have seen the possibility of having to abandon compatibility
for the 1.1 upgrade--after all, that's exactly what happened with 1.0 ->
1.05. It may be frustrating to have to rebuild a lot of variants, but it
comes down to this: do you want the game fixed/improved or not?
That said, it would be *great* if Activision would provide us with a batch
conversion utility to any new format.
Joona Vainio
randall floyd wrote:
>
> Activdave wrote:
> >
> > > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
> >
> > Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
> > evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
> > don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
> > remaining criticals they have available...)
> >
> > I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
> >
> > Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
> >
> > Producer, Activision.
>
> auto by a certain number of FF and ES <much like XL engines>... a few
> should be left over for optional placement because sometimes people use
> the arms for fodder to attract fire but contain nothing so they lose
> nothing if the arms get wasted <but it wouldn't be bad if you made the
> arm crits mandatory when using FF and ES> and the legs and central torso
> only have two crits available so they should be optional for FF and
> ES... the head... hmmm... i'll leave that up to you guys but i usually
> put a crit of FF on the cockpit if i'm using FF... it should probably
> still be optional tho... anyone else think this is reasonable?...
> Ookami
A reasonable suggestion if you ask me. But it brings up one a lot more
important point about arms in Mech 2 series.
The reason nobody (i.e. nobody who has some sense and experience or
nobody who does not intentionally want to use anything but strictly
Btech published mech configs) uses weapons in the arms is that there is
nothing to gain. In "reality" you would be able to swing those weapons
further back, which would be a considerable advantage in certain
simulator combat situations as well, I'd assume.
This has been discussed before in different context, but bear wih me if
I repeat this suggestion as briefly as I can:
There's no need to overly complicate the controls by making arms
separately controllable. Just improve the torso twist so that it will
twist further back. Lets say, twisting right beyond the 90 degree mark
would automatically leave only the right-arm weapons active. There
should also be some kind of "failsafe" to prevent one twisting past 90
degs by accident - a simple additional button-push to confirm would
suffice.
The same could apply in vertical plane as well.
The point being: make the arm mounted weapons useful and there's no need
to artificially restrict folks putting everything "disposable" into the
arms.
-lark-
randall floyd
Joona Vainio wrote:
>
> randall floyd wrote:
> >
> > Activdave wrote:
<snipity snip snip snip>
> A reasonable suggestion if you ask me. But it brings up one a lot more
> important point about arms in Mech 2 series.
>
> The reason nobody (i.e. nobody who has some sense and experience or
> nobody who does not intentionally want to use anything but strictly
> Btech published mech configs) uses weapons in the arms is that there is
> nothing to gain. In "reality" you would be able to swing those weapons
> further back, which would be a considerable advantage in certain
> simulator combat situations as well, I'd assume.
>
> This has been discussed before in different context, but bear wih me if
> I repeat this suggestion as briefly as I can:
>
> There's no need to overly complicate the controls by making arms
> separately controllable. Just improve the torso twist so that it will
> twist further back. Lets say, twisting right beyond the 90 degree mark
> would automatically leave only the right-arm weapons active. There
> should also be some kind of "failsafe" to prevent one twisting past 90
> degs by accident - a simple additional button-push to confirm would
> suffice.
>
> The same could apply in vertical plane as well.
>
> The point being: make the arm mounted weapons useful and there's no need
> to artificially restrict folks putting everything "disposable" into the
> arms.
>
> -lark-
definatly a good idea... but if left fairly simple i don't think that
seperate arm controls should be that complicated... make a shift or alt
or cntrl + direction key or something <this makes sense to me... anyone
else?>... but your idea has more immediate merit than mine because it is
the simplest way to implement use of arm actuators... if even half of
what is being suggested is put into the next patch <if all of it was put
in then i would be willing to buy the game again> then Mercs is going to
end up being the best 'Mech sim just about anyone could hope
for...<because honestly as it is i want to like the game but i'm just
not THAT impressed with it currently but i'm sticking with it in hopes
of improvement because i love BTech so much>... if you want to talk
about difficult things to add in then that would be 'Mech balancing...
whew... imagine the piloting you would have to do then <i don't even
think it would be possible to put this in>... anyway i'll end this by
once again saying that i think your idea has more merit for changing the
arm use rather than changing the armor... good thinking..
Ookami
Iv...@no.spam
val...@wt.net wrote:
>> Major? Probably not. But it does strike me as rather cheap the way you can
>> place all your ES/FF crits in your arms.
>
>Maybe so, but the arm seem pretty useless to me. I would never put
>anything important in them, and they can't be used for hand-tohand
>combat as they are in BattleTech.
Arms with a full compliment of actuators (hand, lower, upper) are used
for FAR more than hand to hand combat in BattleTech. Each loss of
actuator contributes a successive penalty to aiming if I remember
correctly, and then DEFINATELY restrict your firing arc once removed.
Unfortunately, in the Sim, there is no 'firing arc', you can only fire
all weapons where your targeting reticle is pointed (+- a few degrees
for guided weapons).
So the question is this... If you allow pilots to remove arm/hand
actuators, how do you penalize them like BattleTech does? One
suggestion I made was to have the reticle act a little "drunk" in
aiming as the shoulder actuator is less precise than the elbow, elbow
less than the wrist, etc. I know this doesn't apply to REALLY large
weapons like Gauss, PPC or some of the Large Lasers and Ballistic
weapons cause a hand actuator shouldn't really affect them, but it's
an idea.
Iv...@no.spam
spam.me...@i.hate.spam.com (Davey Jones) wrote:
>acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>
>>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>>
>>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>>remaining criticals they have available...)
>hmm if you are thinking of this change i have one big question.. will .mek files
>from 1.05/6 be compatible with 1.1?? or am i going to have to re create my
>350+ .mek files (remember this game has been out for a long time here..
>and has spawned many leagues.. there are alot of 1.05/6 mechs out there
>and alot of favorite varriants that would be lost.. and many many people pissed
>about that loss..)
Anyone who has time to 'use' that many different mek variations should
certainly have the time to rebuild them as they need them once again.
Personally 2 or maybe 3 variants of each mech type that you use
regularly is plenty except in very special cases where you're using C1
or otherwise. Priority should be to "Fix" the game first, and worry
about compatibility second. If it can be done, great. If not... as I
said, it's not priority.
Iv...@no.spam
Joona Vainio <joona....@pp.kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>randall floyd wrote:
<snip...>
>A reasonable suggestion if you ask me. But it brings up one a lot more
>important point about arms in Mech 2 series.
>
>The reason nobody (i.e. nobody who has some sense and experience or
>nobody who does not intentionally want to use anything but strictly
>Btech published mech configs) uses weapons in the arms is that there is
>nothing to gain. In "reality" you would be able to swing those weapons
>further back, which would be a considerable advantage in certain
>simulator combat situations as well, I'd assume.
>
>This has been discussed before in different context, but bear wih me if
>I repeat this suggestion as briefly as I can:
>
>There's no need to overly complicate the controls by making arms
>separately controllable. Just improve the torso twist so that it will
>twist further back. Lets say, twisting right beyond the 90 degree mark
>would automatically leave only the right-arm weapons active. There
>should also be some kind of "failsafe" to prevent one twisting past 90
>degs by accident - a simple additional button-push to confirm would
>suffice.
>
>The same could apply in vertical plane as well.
>
>The point being: make the arm mounted weapons useful and there's no need
>to artificially restrict folks putting everything "disposable" into the
>arms.
Perhaps making this even more 'realistic', would be for twists beyond
90 degrees to move only the targeting reticle and the pilot's
viewpoint. (IE, you're looking out the side of your cockpit.) This
would make it look MUCH more like you are firing an arm weapon further
around than your cockpit is able to twist. As above, once past 90
degrees only the weapons on the arm on that side will fire. I'd say
adding +60-90 degrees range to weapons on the arms is plenty. I think
in BattleTech is was more than that... but I would settle for the cool
effect of firing arm mounted weapons out the side window of my
cockpit. :) This perhaps is too 'big' of a change for the patch to
encompass, but I sure hope not. It would be WAY kool.
Joona Vainio
Yeah, I definitely like your ideas (maybe that's because I've been
poring over the same issues time after time :) The reason I kept MY
suggestion as simple as possible was only to keep it even a remotely
feasible thing to address in a patch.
As Ookami pointed out (once again :) it would be ultra cool to someday
have a mech sim that went as far as making the player responsible for
mech balance and all those fun little details. Also have spent a lot of
thime thinking how this could be implemented with just a basic joystick
and keyboard (you can't expect that everyone has the full CH or
Thrustmaster rig after all). I have (as many others here) some wild
daydreams about the "perfect" mech sim. Unfortunately that would require
high-end specialized controls (TM and CH I just mentioned) to be
enjoyable. And that would not be a feasible marketing venture for a
publisher :(
-lark-
Braden N. McDaniel
In article <Pine.OSF.3.95.970501100447.24463A-
100...@saul3.u.washington.edu>, bla...@u.washington.edu says...
>
> wow, I think you guys hit it right on. By implementing what you suggested
> you'd solve the FF/ES, actuater, and 'weapons-in-arms' problem all in one
> shot. Nice!
This kind of approach has been covered on the newsgroup before, and I expect
FASA Interactive to implement something along these lines for MW3.
BUT... Let's be realistic: this kind of change is far beyond the scope of a
patch. It demands that the cockpit POV behave differently when you're
piloting your 'Mech, and (probably more difficult to implement) it demands
that arms be made movable and controllable.
nobody
bra...@shadow.net (Braden N. McDaniel) wrote:
>In article <37bu6xg...@mornir.gweep.bc.ca>, edm...@cs.ubc.ca says...
>> Braden N McDaniel <bra...@shadow.net> writes:
>> > In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
>> > superfluous screen to get to your objective.
>>
>> I agree it can be a bit annoying at times, but OTOH, the MW2 games are
>> sims,
>
>They're 'Mech combat sims... Not "moseying around the base" sims.<g>
>
>> and in real life to get to the mech bay you would have to go
>> through your office, so it doesn't offend me all that much.
>
>In "real life," I'm sure I'd have to do a good deal more than that.
>Actually, I'd like to have *more* things accessible directly from the
>office, since that is more or less your headquarters once you start the
>game. For instance, the 'Mech/Equipment purchase screens are *not* directly
>available from your office. You have to go through this screen that just has
>the console and the easter egg in it.
>
If I remember correctly (from WAY back when I played this game a time
when activision promised to get rid of forced retirement and fixed
salvage....) you can QUICKLY access the Mech/Equipment bay ... by
using Function keys. Which ones I don't remember but I think it was
F5-F9 for Factory, arms dealer ....
Did they ever get rid of forced retirement? Fixed salvaged? or do I
still have a $50 coaster?
val...@wt.net
Iv...@No.Spam wrote:
>
> val...@wt.net wrote:
>
> >> Major? Probably not. But it does strike me as rather cheap the way you can
> >> place all your ES/FF crits in your arms.
> >
> >Maybe so, but the arm seem pretty useless to me. I would never put
> >anything important in them, and they can't be used for hand-tohand
> >combat as they are in BattleTech.
>
> Arms with a full compliment of actuators (hand, lower, upper) are used
> for FAR more than hand to hand combat in BattleTech. Each loss of
> actuator contributes a successive penalty to aiming if I remember
> correctly, and then DEFINATELY restrict your firing arc once removed.
> Unfortunately, in the Sim, there is no 'firing arc', you can only fire
> all weapons where your targeting reticle is pointed (+- a few degrees
> for guided weapons).
>
> So the question is this... If you allow pilots to remove arm/hand
> actuators, how do you penalize them like BattleTech does? One
> suggestion I made was to have the reticle act a little "drunk" in
> aiming as the shoulder actuator is less precise than the elbow, elbow
> less than the wrist, etc. I know this doesn't apply to REALLY large
> weapons like Gauss, PPC or some of the Large Lasers and Ballistic
> weapons cause a hand actuator shouldn't really affect them, but it's
> an idea.
>
> Ivory...
That may be so, but what about mechs that do not come with Hand or lower
arm actuators to begin with? Since we don't have a firing arc, I guess
we are already penalized :P I know they are used for more, sometimes for
grabbing supplies on hit and run missions etc..., but is something else
we can't do. Until we have Neuro-Helmets, there are unfortunately
certain things that can't seem to be carried over as precise as we would
like it.
RLL
val...@wt.net
> 90 degrees to move only the targeting reticle and the pilot's
> viewpoint. (IE, you're looking out the side of your cockpit.) This
> would make it look MUCH more like you are firing an arm weapon further
> around than your cockpit is able to twist. As above, once past 90
> degrees only the weapons on the arm on that side will fire. I'd say
> adding +60-90 degrees range to weapons on the arms is plenty. I think
> in BattleTech is was more than that... but I would settle for the cool
> effect of firing arm mounted weapons out the side window of my
> cockpit. :) This perhaps is too 'big' of a change for the patch to
> encompass, but I sure hope not. It would be WAY kool.
>
> Ivory...
Now this is a DAMN good suggestion. This would give of some of the
functionality these actuators present us.
RLL
val...@wt.net
Well I would like to see the Lazer AMS, it is supposed to shoot down
twice as much missles if I have the facts right, but caused a lot of
heat. Then you would have to add the coolant systems I suppose to deal
with this heat for the Lazer AMS, and other weapons etc... There are so
many things like the Artimis IV FCS etc... that have been left out, but
I am not asking for a miracle either, just something a little closer the
BattleTech universe.
RLL
Activdave
About the placement of armor criticals...
...good feedback, folks. I think I agree with y'all now that I should
leave well enough alone and let *you* decide where the crits should go. If
you want them evenly divided throughout the mech, then go ahead. If you
want them all in the arms, well, that's just good rules lawyering.
Basically...forcing the crits to divide between all the parts evenly ends
up restricting creativity of mech creation too greatly. (Especially if you
take endo AND ferro.) And, besides, the BTech rules let you do it that
way, so who am I to argue? :)
We'll leave that the way it is and fix the REAL problems.
-- Dave Georgeson.
Jason Nyte
nobody <no...@none.com> wrote in article
<3368e8ac...@news.mindspring.com>...
>
> If I remember correctly (from WAY back when I played this game a time
> when activision promised to get rid of forced retirement and fixed
> salvage....) you can QUICKLY access the Mech/Equipment bay ... by
> using Function keys. Which ones I don't remember but I think it was
> F5-F9 for Factory, arms dealer ....
>
> Did they ever get rid of forced retirement? Fixed salvaged? or do I
> still have a $50 coaster?
>
>
"promised", although earlier it was stated that they would be looked into,
the same posts usually ended saying "but no promises".
HOWEVER, now (within the past couple of weeks) it has been stated that
Mercs 1.1 will have both.
--
From Passage to Dawn by R.A. Salvatore page 62 through the voice of Drizzt
Do'Urden
"...if, as rational beings..., we place our needs and desires above the
needs of our society,...there is no community. I have seen this way of
selfishness. I have seen it fail miserably."
Tank
On Thu, 01 May 1997 04:48:47 +0300, Joona Vainio
<joona....@pp.kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>randall floyd wrote:
>
>A reasonable suggestion if you ask me. But it brings up one a lot more
>important point about arms in Mech 2 series.
>
>The reason nobody (i.e. nobody who has some sense and experience or
>nobody who does not intentionally want to use anything but strictly
>Btech published mech configs) uses weapons in the arms is that there is
>nothing to gain. In "reality" you would be able to swing those weapons
>further back, which would be a considerable advantage in certain
>simulator combat situations as well, I'd assume.
>
>This has been discussed before in different context, but bear wih me if
>I repeat this suggestion as briefly as I can:
>
>There's no need to overly complicate the controls by making arms
>separately controllable. Just improve the torso twist so that it will
>twist further back. Lets say, twisting right beyond the 90 degree mark
>would automatically leave only the right-arm weapons active. There
>should also be some kind of "failsafe" to prevent one twisting past 90
>degs by accident - a simple additional button-push to confirm would
>suffice.
>
>The same could apply in vertical plane as well.
>
>The point being: make the arm mounted weapons useful and there's no need
>to artificially restrict folks putting everything "disposable" into the
>arms.
>
>-lark-
I've thought about that one too, but it's not so simple as it sounds.
True, if you have torso mounted weapons, they could get a 160' firing
arc, while a laser in each arm would get say a 220' firing arc, but
what happens when there is a laser in only one arm? Then the firing
arc for that weapon becomes 110' in one direction but only 90' in the
other? What happens when torso and arm mounted weapons are grouped
togther? Does the torso mounted weapon suddenly "grey out" and become
unavailable when you get past a certain point? Imagine having someone
in your sites, and just as you press the trigger, your main weapon
greys out because you went 1' past it's allowed firing arc. Not very
good in a computer game. You could perhaps dymamically change the
allowed torso rotation, depending upon the weapons selected, using a
least common denominator approach, but what if you switch to a torso
mounted weapon while being rotated fully with an arm mounted weapon?
A BT fanatic might like this restriction, but BT players are
probably in the minority as far as buyers go, so I can't see a
reasonable way of implementing this... unless somebody has a better
idea of course.
__<TANK>===--- ©
....<O_o_o_o_O>.....
randall floyd
Tank wrote:
>
> On Thu, 01 May 1997 04:48:47 +0300, Joona Vainio
> <joona....@pp.kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>
> >randall floyd wrote:
<snip>
> A BT fanatic might like this restriction, but BT players are
> probably in the minority as far as buyers go, so I can't see a
> reasonable way of implementing this... unless somebody has a better
> idea of course.
i always hate hearing this... if it wasn't for Battletech then there
would be no MW2 games so have a little more respect for people who want
the game to be very close to Battletech... i think the arms should be
able to rotate out to the side for an increased firing arc and up and
down can be considered well enough as it is... this isn't an
unreasonable suggestion i think because of the simple ways it could be
implemented... nobody wants to shoot themselves in the torso so don't
let the arms turn toward the torso only let them turn away <or outwards>
this would simplify the controls for arm use because you would only need
to press perhaps alt + the respective directional key <which might
necessitate a recentering key for these also depending on how it is
done>... i think this is a reasonable suggestion and would be a fine
addition... if you don't like it then don't use it but i sure will be
using it if it ends up being added...
Ookami
Doug Gould
In article <3367F6...@pp.kolumbus.fi> Joona Vainio <joona....@pp.kolumbus.fi> writes:
> [...]
> The reason nobody (i.e. nobody who has some sense and experience or
> nobody who does not intentionally want to use anything but strictly
> Btech published mech configs) uses weapons in the arms is that there is
> nothing to gain. In "reality" you would be able to swing those weapons
> further back, which would be a considerable advantage in certain
> simulator combat situations as well, I'd assume.
>
> This has been discussed before in different context, but bear wih me if
> I repeat this suggestion as briefly as I can:
>
> There's no need to overly complicate the controls by making arms
> separately controllable. Just improve the torso twist so that it will
> twist further back. Lets say, twisting right beyond the 90 degree mark
> would automatically leave only the right-arm weapons active. There
> should also be some kind of "failsafe" to prevent one twisting past 90
> degs by accident - a simple additional button-push to confirm would
> suffice.
>
> The same could apply in vertical plane as well.
>
> The point being: make the arm mounted weapons useful and there's no need
> to artificially restrict folks putting everything "disposable" into the
> arms.
>
> -lark-
Arms are also *WAY* too easy to hit. I realise that this is due to
the bounding sphere's used to calculate hits, but I still don't think
I'd put weapons in a mech's arms even if the field of fire was greatly
improved. What's the point of having a weapon that you can shoot
backwards with, if it's going to be shot off 10 seconds into the
scenario? The way the bounding spheres are right now is rather silly.
Getting back to weapons, the thing that bugs me about them is how
unbalanced they are. Is seems that a double standard was used in
"keeping to the FASA rules". First, to claim compatibility with the
board-game the exact weapon stats were kept. Second to improve
playability, rate of fire was increased to be different for each mech.
The smaller lasers and mg/ac weapons are now vastly more efficient in
tonnage and criticals. In the board game you want to be able to shoot
a ER Small Laser 10 times the rate of fire as your Gauss Rifle you had
to put 10 ER Small lasers in your mech. 10 crits and 5 tons. In
MW2/GBL/Mercs you get the same punch from a single (1 crit 0.5 ton) ER
Small laser. In addition it's easier to actually hit your target with
the laser because it travels faster. It should be easier to hit with
a Gauss than with a small laser because long range for a SL is short
or medium range for the Gauss.
I was thinking the other day, If one wanted to really balance out the
weapons:
1. The damage ratios of the quick firing weapns would have to be
reduced (in comparision to the slower firing weapons). Up the slower
or down the quicker, I wouldn't care.
2. Longer range weapons (Large Lasers, Gauss, PPC) should fire
*faster* than shorter range weapons. That way it really would be
easier to hit with them. An alternative would be to introduce a
random inaccuracy to shorter range weapons.
I guess I really am a purist when it comes to BT. I'd rather see a
laser that travels slower than a gauss round [relativity
shmelativity] than a weapon that is unbalanced in game terms.
Oh, well. Maybe it's just me. I'd really love to be able to smash a
leg out from under a kit-fox with a single gauss shot at 100 paces.
Right now, it'd take more rounds than I could carry. (And in Mercs it
would probably stay red forever anyway, but that's another story.)
I'm not really expecting that Mercenaries will ever feel like "real"
battletech, but I can hope can't I?
Cheers,
Doug
--
Douglas Gould - Nortel Montreal
( Mail address in header is mangled. Mail non-commercial
correspondance to: gould AT nortel DOT ca )
Davey Jones
bra...@shadow.net (Braden N. McDaniel) wrote:
>In article <33679dac...@ion2.ionet.net>,
>spam.me...@i.hate.spam.com says...
>> hmm if you are thinking of this change i have one big question.. will .mek files
>> from 1.05/6 be compatible with 1.1?? or am i going to have to re create my
>> 350+ .mek files (remember this game has been out for a long time here..
>> and has spawned many leagues.. there are alot of 1.05/6 mechs out there
>> and alot of favorite varriants that would be lost.. and many many people pissed
>> about that loss..)
>
>I've got over 200 variants myself. But if we want the important changes to
>be made, something's gotta give--and it'll probably be compatibility. Folks,
>everyone should have seen the possibility of having to abandon compatibility
>for the 1.1 upgrade--after all, that's exactly what happened with 1.0 ->
>1.05. It may be frustrating to have to rebuild a lot of variants, but it
>comes down to this: do you want the game fixed/improved or not?
well if it came right down to it i would rather see it fixed :)
>That said, it would be *great* if Activision would provide us with a batch
>conversion utility to any new format.
yeah it would! you guys at activision listing to this??
Tank
On Thu, 01 May 1997 18:04:29 -0500, randall floyd <ook...@cei.net>
wrote:
>
>i always hate hearing this... if it wasn't for Battletech then there
>would be no MW2 games so have a little more respect for people who want
>the game to be very close to Battletech...
Hahahaha.... you know nothing about my involvement with the game. <g>
I was one of the fortunate people who were discussing MW2 design
concepts with Tim Morten *before* the game came out. We helped to
clarify BT construction rules and weapons specs, etc. to make MW2
adhere to BT *as much as possible*. BT is a great board game, but the
rules were not designed with a computer sim in mind. Yes, there is
much in the BT rules that *does* make for a balanced sim, but you
can't neglect game play. Activision isn't in this to satisfy BT
fanatics; they're in it to make money.
What we, as BT fans, can do is help them to keep as true to the BT
universe as possible, while they try to make it as fun a game as
possible. Adhering to BT dogma doesn't make a good computer game
(well, ok... I guess it would come damn close <g>). Knowing when to
stick to the rules and when to compromise does. Even the BT pods run
by Virtual World bend the rules a little <gasp>!!! They changed
armour and increased weapons strength recently on some systems to
allow for more kills and less time managing other mech systems. Don't
get me wrong... I think that the weapons specs from the Solaris VII
rules work just fine the way they are, but if tweaking them a bit
makes the game more fun for people who don't know BT as well as you or
I, who are we to argue?
I just wish that Mercs would have included the final battle for
Tukayyid <g>. Leveraging the history of BT to make a great storyline
does make the game much more fun for me. Oh well, maybe some other
time.
> i think the arms should be
>able to rotate out to the side for an increased firing arc and up and
>down can be considered well enough as it is... this isn't an
>unreasonable suggestion i think because of the simple ways it could be
>implemented... nobody wants to shoot themselves in the torso so don't
>let the arms turn toward the torso only let them turn away <or outwards>
>this would simplify the controls for arm use because you would only need
>to press perhaps alt + the respective directional key <which might
>necessitate a recentering key for these also depending on how it is
>done>... i think this is a reasonable suggestion and would be a fine
>addition... if you don't like it then don't use it but i sure will be
>using it if it ends up being added...
>Ookami
The problem with that is that many people like to use the mouse /
keyboard option for game control. This works very well and is one of
the more accurate ways for targeting. It also means having to keep
one hand on the mouse and the other on the arrow keys for steering.
If you suddenly had to reach for an <alt> key to twist further with
arm mounted weapons, then how do you continue to steer your mech? I
suppose you could implement it using a multi-function joystick with
all of those extra buttons, but you would be alienating other players
without that hardware in the process.
You also failed to address the other questions I had. How would you
handle these potential difficulties?
>>True, if you have torso mounted weapons, they could get a 160' firing
>>arc, while a laser in each arm would get say a 220' firing arc, but
>>what happens when there is a laser in only one arm? Then the firing
>>arc for that weapon becomes 110' in one direction but only 90' in the
>>other? What happens when torso and arm mounted weapons are grouped
>>togther? Does the torso mounted weapon suddenly "grey out" and become
>>unavailable when you get past a certain point? Imagine having someone
>>in your sites, and just as you press the trigger, your main weapon
>>greys out because you went 1' past it's allowed firing arc. Not very
>>good in a computer game. You could perhaps dymamically change the
>>allowed torso rotation, depending upon the weapons selected, using a
>>least common denominator approach, but what if you switch to a torso
>>mounted weapon while being rotated fully with an arm mounted weapon?
Graham Wiseman
On 29 Apr 1997 21:08:50 GMT, acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
>> matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
>Does anyone have ANY good reason why the armor criticals SHOULDN'T be
>evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
>don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
>remaining criticals they have available...)
>
>I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
>Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
>
>-- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, that is the way FASA
designed the criticals to be allocated, and it works fine, so why change
it? If you start automatically allocating the criticals anywhere then
it will make it impossible to use some official FASA designs, as well as
a general decrease in designing flexiblity. I find it challenging to
try to fit all the components that I want into a battlemech as it is,
automatically assigning the criticals will make it frustrating instead
of challenging. I expected this patch to fix some bugs and add a few
features, not change the rules of the battletech universe. If people
don't like the rules of the Battletech universe, go play Earth Siege 2
or something else.
Graham Wiseman
wis...@soonet.ca
mike pentecost
Graham Wiseman wrote:
>
snip
> I was browsing through the Battletech Compendium after reading your post
> and I came across this:
>
> " BattleMechs may be constructed without hand and lower arm actuators.
> These BattleMechs have the ability to flip armed-mounted weapons over so
> that they can fire directly into their rear arc.
>
gee just like the rifleman is described numerous times in the novels.
it would be neat , but a sim implimentation would probably be a bear to
add in for control and display both. although a single key rear target
mode switch and the view/hud would be reset to rear maybe.
that could sure break up circle of death attacks ( ha ha ha i'm running
rings around you, OOOPS! )
mike pentecost
J.M. Capozzi
It's a wee bit different, but the rear firing weapons in I76 are pretty
accurate, once you get the hang of using the rear view mirror. Turreted
weapons are pretty handy too..once you've got a lock on a target, it'll
track and attempt to hit..accuracy is not exceptional, it's pretty
realistic.
Some of that code could be used for rear firing weapons in Mercs. Have
the rear camera on, with crosshairs..you'd have to learn to move
opposite the way you wanted to aim, and would be damn hard to engage
front and rear targets at once, but it'd work.
val...@wt.net
Tank wrote:
> =
> On Thu, 01 May 1997 18:04:29 -0500, randall floyd <ook...@cei.net>
> wrote:
> =
> >
> >i always hate hearing this... if it wasn't for Battletech then there
> >would be no MW2 games so have a little more respect for people who wan=
t
> >the game to be very close to Battletech...
> =
> Hahahaha.... you know nothing about my involvement with the game. <g>
> I was one of the fortunate people who were discussing MW2 design
> concepts with Tim Morten *before* the game came out. We helped to
> clarify BT construction rules and weapons specs, etc. to make MW2
> adhere to BT *as much as possible*. BT is a great board game, but the
> rules were not designed with a computer sim in mind. Yes, there is
> much in the BT rules that *does* make for a balanced sim, but you
> can't neglect game play. Activision isn't in this to satisfy BT
> fanatics; they're in it to make money.
> =
> What we, as BT fans, can do is help them to keep as true to the BT
> universe as possible, while they try to make it as fun a game as
> possible. Adhering to BT dogma doesn't make a good computer game
> (well, ok... I guess it would come damn close <g>). Knowing when to
> stick to the rules and when to compromise does. Even the BT pods run
> by Virtual World bend the rules a little <gasp>!!! They changed
> armour and increased weapons strength recently on some systems to
> allow for more kills and less time managing other mech systems. Don't
> get me wrong... I think that the weapons specs from the Solaris VII
> rules work just fine the way they are, but if tweaking them a bit
> makes the game more fun for people who don't know BT as well as you or
> I, who are we to argue?
> =
> I just wish that Mercs would have included the final battle for
> Tukayyid <g>. Leveraging the history of BT to make a great storyline
> does make the game much more fun for me. Oh well, maybe some other
> time.
> __<TANK>=3D=3D=3D--- =A9
> ....<O_o_o_o_O>.....
I understand what you are saying, but if you are going to make so many
comprimizes why even use the BattleTech universe? I might understand
small adjustments here and there, but they seem to be almost everywhere
in the MW2 games. Many weapons do not behave the way they do in BT,
"many". Who is to know what is and isn't going to be fun? Was there a
version of the game that was made with BT rules, that someone played and
said "it isn't fun"? I understand that they are in the money making
business, but maybe they should have said MW2 was kinda sorta based here
and there on the BattleTech universe, maybe that way people would not be
so disappointed with the final product.
RLL
val...@wt.net
I definately agree that you should not change the rules. One thing that
I just remembered is weapons grouping. I would be very happy if you
could find some way of incorporating saving of weapons grouping in
MercNet. At the very least make it where we don't have to redo the
groups when we regenerate. I would love to be able to have the weapons
pre-grouped though. BTW you guys have some battletech books right,
please read then carefully :P
RLL
Graham Wiseman
> The FASA-designed variants which lacked hand and lower arm criticals
> also carried with them a targeting penalty and decreased firing arc
> because of removal of these actuators. How to you replicate that in
> the game? Pehaps add on the 'drunken' aiming characteristic that you
> can in Quake when firing such weapons because the upper arm actuators
> are not as precise as the ones that were removed in favor of space
I was browsing through the Battletech Compendium after reading your post
and I came across this:
" BattleMechs may be constructed without hand and lower arm actuators.
These BattleMechs have the ability to flip armed-mounted weapons over so
that they can fire directly into their rear arc.
During the reaction phase, a BattleMech that does not have these
actuactors mounted in either arm may elect to flip arms over rather than
perform a torse twist. (Both arms must flip if this maneuver is
performed.) If the arms are flipped, the BattleMech may fire any arm
mounted weapon into the rear firing arc.
Note that BattleMechs that are constructed without lower arm and hand
actuators suffer no weapons fire penalties for lacking these
components."
Battletech Compendium (first edition), Page 55
It would be cool if you could flip your arms over to fire backwards, it
would provide some incentive to put weapons in the arms of mechs. Even
if you can't implement that, at least add the option to add or remove
hand and lower actuators in a campaign or instant action game without
any firing penalties, as this would be consistant with the battletech
rules and would allow for more design flexiblity. Since this is a game
set in the Battletech universe, stay as close as possible to the rules
defined by FASA for it, even if the rules don't make much sense in our
"Universe".
Graham Wiseman
wis...@soonet.ca
val...@wt.net
aaul...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> It makes no sense to be able to put all your criticals in the
> arms...Endo steel is beefed up "bones" of your mech. If I were to
> beef up the bones in my human body, the extra mass for a beefed up leg
> bone would go in my leg, not my arm. That's the way it should work in
> MW2 & Mercs. Same thing for Ferro Fibrous Armor. There's a reason
> they both add 7 criticals...cause they add extra bulk to the following
> areas: Ctr torso, left torso, right torso, right arm, left arm, right
> leg, left leg.
Just like he says below, it doesn't matter if it makes sense or not.
Maybe if they have something similiar in Heavy Gear they will do it the
way you want. However, this isn't heavy gear, and I don't want them
changing things to be too different from the BT universe. There are a
lot of things that don't make "sense" in BattleTech, and it doesn't
matter that they make no "sense" in our minds.
RLL
> On Fri, 02 May 1997 17:04:30 -0400,Graham Wiseman <N/A...@soonet.ca>
> wrote:
> >It doesn't matter if it makes sense or not, that is the way FASA
> >designed the criticals to be allocated, and it works fine, so why change
> >it? If you start automatically allocating the criticals anywhere then
> >it will make it impossible to use some official FASA designs, as well as
> >a general decrease in designing flexiblity. I find it challenging to
> >try to fit all the components that I want into a battlemech as it is,
> >automatically assigning the criticals will make it frustrating instead
> >of challenging. I expected this patch to fix some bugs and add a few
> >features, not change the rules of the battletech universe. If people
> >don't like the rules of the Battletech universe, go play Earth Siege 2
> >or something else.
> >
> >Graham Wiseman
> >wis...@soonet.ca
>
> ********************************************************
> *DAMN! The junk emailers found me. For email replies,*
> *REMOVE the 1st "a" from my name. Hope this works! *
> ********************************************************
Aleck McDeir
>I definately agree that you should not change the rules. One thing that
>I just remembered is weapons grouping. I would be very happy if you
>could find some way of incorporating saving of weapons grouping in
>MercNet.
NAIS Shell 2.0 will have that feature, it automatically groups your
weapons in instant action and mercnet, well, most of them anyway.
Should be out soon, with some 90 custom mechs and other neat stuff.
Col. HawkEye
Crescent Hawks CO
NAIS TDL Member
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/9645
val...@wt.net
That sounds good, but what are they going to have to do to be compatible
when the new patch comes out? I thought they were gone, but I guess they
were just lying low.
I have gripes about the Nias patch, mostly the mechs. Some mechs don't
even exist, and ones that do are almost totally wrong! The BattleMaster
is not 100tons, it is 85tons. The only reason I hate this, is because
the NBT league accepts NIAS mechs as they are.
RLL
Iv...@no.spam
val...@wt.net wrote:
>I understand what you are saying, but if you are going to make so many
>comprimizes why even use the BattleTech universe? I might understand
>small adjustments here and there, but they seem to be almost everywhere
>in the MW2 games. Many weapons do not behave the way they do in BT,
>"many". Who is to know what is and isn't going to be fun? Was there a
>version of the game that was made with BT rules, that someone played and
>said "it isn't fun"?
Actually, I would bet that's EXACTLY what MW2 started out like before
play testers etc got their hands on it and it was altered to be a
playable network game vs. a "roll dice all night long" board game. The
fact that some of the weapons are based on BT rules tells you that it
was in mind when the game was created. I can't think of a reason why
they'd make some of them BT and some of them otherwise 'before' it was
playtested to see what worked and what didn't.
Iv...@no.spam
MercF...@Solaris.com (Tank) wrote:
>> i think the arms should be
>>able to rotate out to the side for an increased firing arc and up and
>>down can be considered well enough as it is... this isn't an
>>unreasonable suggestion i think because of the simple ways it could be
>>implemented... nobody wants to shoot themselves in the torso so don't
>>let the arms turn toward the torso only let them turn away <or outwards>
>>this would simplify the controls for arm use because you would only need
>>to press perhaps alt + the respective directional key <which might
>>necessitate a recentering key for these also depending on how it is
>>done>... i think this is a reasonable suggestion and would be a fine
>>addition... if you don't like it then don't use it but i sure will be
>>using it if it ends up being added...
>>Ookami
>
> The problem with that is that many people like to use the mouse /
>keyboard option for game control. This works very well and is one of
>the more accurate ways for targeting. It also means having to keep
>one hand on the mouse and the other on the arrow keys for steering.
>If you suddenly had to reach for an <alt> key to twist further with
>arm mounted weapons, then how do you continue to steer your mech? I
>suppose you could implement it using a multi-function joystick with
>all of those extra buttons, but you would be alienating other players
>without that hardware in the process.
You mean like you have to do already for the Jump Jets? I think that
having to hold down the 'alt' key to control arm rotation is too much.
Just simply hit a key which 'allows' the mech to rotate past 90
degrees. Once you return to less than 90 degrees the 'lock' is
automatically engaged again and you'll have to hit it again to go to
'one arm control' mode.
> You also failed to address the other questions I had. How would you
>handle these potential difficulties?
>>>True, if you have torso mounted weapons, they could get a 160' firing
>>>arc, while a laser in each arm would get say a 220' firing arc, but
>>>what happens when there is a laser in only one arm? Then the firing
>>>arc for that weapon becomes 110' in one direction but only 90' in the
>>>other?
As far as firing arcs go, weapons fire what you're aiming at and the
targetting reticle in MW follows the torso, so ALL weapons have 180
degree firing arc as it currently stands (90 in each direction). Arm
mounted weaons would get an 'extended' arc of 60 to 90 degrees in one
direction only, making their firing arc up to 270 degres. You're
right... both arms would NOT have the same firing arc, but that's what
we're trying to accomplish with this discussion. To realistically
simulate the arm's capability to move independently from the torso and
swing further around to that side.
>> What happens when torso and arm mounted weapons are grouped
>>>togther? Does the torso mounted weapon suddenly "grey out" and become
>>>unavailable when you get past a certain point? Imagine having someone
>>>in your sites, and just as you press the trigger, your main weapon
>>>greys out because you went 1' past it's allowed firing arc. Not very
>>>good in a computer game.
If there is a key that you must hit to momentarily disable the 90
degree twist 'lock' then this will never happen. Weapons which are
mounted in the torso and 'other' arm should 'grey out' when rotated
past 90 degrees exactly as if destroyed. (Ie, you can't select them).
>>>You could perhaps dymamically change the
>>>allowed torso rotation, depending upon the weapons selected, using a
>>>least common denominator approach, but what if you switch to a torso
>>>mounted weapon while being rotated fully with an arm mounted weapon?
See above, you can't, or rather, shouldn't be able to.
randall floyd
the people at NAIS do some good work but i have to agree about the
non-existant 'Mechs and totally wrong ones <especially the non-existant
ones because there is still so much good stuff still in the TROs to work
on>... also some of the people are rather snotty and adamant about
keeping the stats they put on them at first... even if they are wrong...
take for instance the 30 ton Locusts... wha?... but at least it looks
good <same for the BattleMaster> ... in 2.0 someone decided to take the
name of the Lineholder 'Mech and make one without even knowing much
about it... it doesn't even look good either... but in this case i guess
the way to get what you want would indeed be to do it yourself <i'm
trying to learn to myself>... they are changing the BattleMaster tonnage
back to 85 tons in NAIS 2.0 so don't worry about that... you have to
admit tho that the Phoenix Hawk in 1.9b is an absolute work of art... i
can almost it looks even better than any of the FASA illustrations i
have seen of the P-Hawk... when i learn how to make chassis you can
trust that i will be working from the TROs before i try to release
something of my own design... 2.0 also has some new anti-cheat stuff...
but i'll leave you to check it out yourself in the final version <i got
the beta of 2.0 because of some friends on KALI>...
Ookami
Activdave
('Wulff) says:
>>one thing that i don't get is the armor ratio should directly affect
the damage susceptabilty overall.
in my mind if you have 15 crits worth of ferro on your mech then you
should have a base damage ratio,if you decide to use up all the armor
placements in the arms and then lose them, then that ratio should drop
to the original damage before the mods.
I realize this is overly simplistic but it seems to me that it would
make mech designing a lot more of a thought out process rather than
making sure you pound as much weps in the torso as you can.<<
Okay, this took me a sec to figure out...but it does make sense.
But, honestly, I don't think you'd ever notice even if we implemented it.
(The game does *not* currently do this.)
Example:
A clan mech with 50 armor points purchases ferro-fibrous. His armor points
now jump to (50*1.2) = 60 points. He places seven crits in one arm (to be
extreme).
Now, during battle, he has four of those crits blown out (57%). This means
he should lose 57% of the extra 10 armor points (about 6).
However, you probably lost at least that many while getting pounded in the
first place. Also, you (as a user) have no idea how many remaining armor
points (exactly) that you have anyway. The reduction due to FF crit loss
is pretty miniscule and hard to follow.
Also...if you do this same example for an I.S. mech, the result is even
skimpier. (50x1.12) = 56 armor points. Have to assign 14 crits. Lose four
crits due to damage and only lose 1-2 armor points.
Basically...it'd be a lot of work to track and you probably wouldn't
notice much difference.
Thanks for making my brain work hard though. : )
Graham Wiseman
Iv...@No.Spam wrote:
>
> val...@wt.net wrote:
>
> >I understand what you are saying, but if you are going to make so many
> >comprimizes why even use the BattleTech universe? I might understand
> >small adjustments here and there, but they seem to be almost everywhere
> >in the MW2 games. Many weapons do not behave the way they do in BT,
> >"many". Who is to know what is and isn't going to be fun? Was there a
> >version of the game that was made with BT rules, that someone played and
> >said "it isn't fun"?
>
> Actually, I would bet that's EXACTLY what MW2 started out like before
> play testers etc got their hands on it and it was altered to be a
> playable network game vs. a "roll dice all night long" board game. The
> fact that some of the weapons are based on BT rules tells you that it
> was in mind when the game was created. I can't think of a reason why
> they'd make some of them BT and some of them otherwise 'before' it was
> playtested to see what worked and what didn't.
>
> Ivory...
Actually, MW2 doesn't follow the official BT rules, it follows the rules
stated in Solaris VII (an official FASA Battletech addon for 1 on 1
arena fighting), and as far as weapons fire rates (and ranges in Mercs),
it follows these rules closely.
Graham Wiseman
wis...@soonet.ca
Tank
On Fri, 02 May 1997 23:29:20 -0500, val...@wt.net wrote:
>
>I understand what you are saying, but if you are going to make so many
>comprimizes why even use the BattleTech universe? I might understand
>small adjustments here and there, but they seem to be almost everywhere
>in the MW2 games. Many weapons do not behave the way they do in BT,
>"many". Who is to know what is and isn't going to be fun? Was there a
>version of the game that was made with BT rules, that someone played and
>said "it isn't fun"? I understand that they are in the money making
>business, but maybe they should have said MW2 was kinda sorta based here
>and there on the BattleTech universe, maybe that way people would not be
>so disappointed with the final product.
>
>RLL
How many do yoy consider many. Yes, I was hoping for all weapons to
be present in MW2, but unfortunately we had to wait until Mercs for
many of them.... that was a time constraint. Some of the gripes have
to do with compromises, but others were matters of interpretation and
some were plane mistakes.
Having infernos and flamers do armour damage was a mistake. The
flight mechanics of LRMs needs work too. The PPC and Gauss cannon
were someone's interpretation who obviously had never read a BT novel.
But as far as the raw weapons specs go, they came right out the BT
Compendium. This alone doesn't quite cut it, though. You have to
add some randomness to shots and toughness to mechs to make it a
viable game. Otherwise it becomes way too easy to down a mech and
then game gets boring fast.
So why base the game on BT? Well, the BT board game mechanics are a
very good place to start. The game has been under revision long
enough that it is fairly well balanced as it stands, but like other
board games (say D&D) you need to make adjustments to have things fit
properly in a sim. Also, with BT you get the rich history of the
characters and political factions that make the game so much more
interesting. Take Star Wars for example. A game modelled after
X-wing or Tie-Fighter would never sell as well because it lacks the
rich history of the Star Wars universe. Likewise, Wing Commander does
so well because Origin created their own universe and built upon a
good story-line.
As to people being disappointed, well, I'm sorry but you can't argue
with sales. MW2 was one of the top selling games and I bet that MW3
will be a big hit too. There will always be those with complaints
about a game.... hell, I got a few gripes of my own about MW2, but
what else is there? Given a choice between Shattered Steel, Earth
Siege and Mechwarrior, I'ld take Mechwarrior hands down any day of the
week. Herc... what the hell is a Herc anyway??!! Gimme a Mech!!!!
And if they stray too far away from the BT universe, then we'll be
here to let them know what they did wrong <g>.
Iv...@no.spam
acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>('Wulff) says:
>
>>>one thing that i don't get is the armor ratio should directly affect
>the damage susceptabilty overall.
>in my mind if you have 15 crits worth of ferro on your mech then you
>should have a base damage ratio,if you decide to use up all the armor
>placements in the arms and then lose them, then that ratio should drop
>to the original damage before the mods.
>I realize this is overly simplistic but it seems to me that it would
>make mech designing a lot more of a thought out process rather than
>making sure you pound as much weps in the torso as you can.<<
>
>Okay, this took me a sec to figure out...but it does make sense.
>
>But, honestly, I don't think you'd ever notice even if we implemented it.
>(The game does *not* currently do this.)
>
>Example:
>
>A clan mech with 50 armor points purchases ferro-fibrous. His armor points
>now jump to (50*1.2) = 60 points. He places seven crits in one arm (to be
>extreme).
Armor * 1.2 is a MW2 thing, and not a Mercenaries thing... right? In
Mercenaries when adding FFA your armor points doing jump from 50 to
60... instead the 'weight' of the armor decreases. Please correct me
if I'm wrong. If true though, it's another reason not to try to track
loss as you'd end up with less armor 'points' than you began with
because of losing a critical.
Unknown
On 5 May 1997 22:27:24 GMT, acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>('Wulff) says:
>
>>>one thing that i don't get is the armor ratio should directly affect
>the damage susceptabilty overall.
>in my mind if you have 15 crits worth of ferro on your mech then you
>should have a base damage ratio,if you decide to use up all the armor
>placements in the arms and then lose them, then that ratio should drop
>to the original damage before the mods.
>I realize this is overly simplistic but it seems to me that it would
>make mech designing a lot more of a thought out process rather than
>making sure you pound as much weps in the torso as you can.<<
>
>Okay, this took me a sec to figure out...but it does make sense.
>
>But, honestly, I don't think you'd ever notice even if we implemented it.
>(The game does *not* currently do this.)
>
>Example:
>
>A clan mech with 50 armor points purchases ferro-fibrous. His armor points
>now jump to (50*1.2) = 60 points. He places seven crits in one arm (to be
>extreme).
>
>Now, during battle, he has four of those crits blown out (57%). This means
>he should lose 57% of the extra 10 armor points (about 6).
>
>However, you probably lost at least that many while getting pounded in the
>first place. Also, you (as a user) have no idea how many remaining armor
>points (exactly) that you have anyway. The reduction due to FF crit loss
>is pretty miniscule and hard to follow.
>
>Also...if you do this same example for an I.S. mech, the result is even
>skimpier. (50x1.12) = 56 armor points. Have to assign 14 crits. Lose four
>crits due to damage and only lose 1-2 armor points.
>
>Basically...it'd be a lot of work to track and you probably wouldn't
>notice much difference.
>
>Thanks for making my brain work hard though. : )
>
>-- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
>
Thanks for the answer and I do see your point,
the main reason i brought this up is that in netmech,
i have a few mechs with grouped AC's which i like to use for long
range surgery,but with the lag you mostly take out the arms first
unless your opponent is coming right at you.
so if i take out the arms before he gets too close he would be
fighting with no extra armor.(this wouldn't be just my advantage as i
put the armor in the arms as well<G>)
I just figured it might kill off some of the missle boats out there by
forcing them to distribute them a little more carefully.
if they had no choice but to put some racks in the arms then people
like myself who like to take a mech without missles would have a
fighting chance.
sort of a penalty for using too much of a good thing.
just my opinion...
Ciao.....
'Wulff
Activdave
Ivory says:
>>Armor * 1.2 is a MW2 thing, and not a Mercenaries thing... right? In
Mercenaries when adding FFA your armor points doing jump from 50 to
60... instead the 'weight' of the armor decreases. <<
You're not wrong. Currently Mercs does not track the increased armor
points (as it should). It just decreases the weight.
However, in the v.1.1 patch, the armor points WILL increase AND the weight
will go down.
-- Dave.
Graham Wiseman
Activdave wrote:
> Okay, this took me a sec to figure out...but it does make sense.
>
> But, honestly, I don't think you'd ever notice even if we implemented it.
> (The game does *not* currently do this.)
>
> Basically...it'd be a lot of work to track and you probably wouldn't
> notice much difference.
>
> Thanks for making my brain work hard though. : )
>
> -- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
I think the easiest way to deal with this issue is to leave it the way
it is. It works, its the way FASA designed it, and everyone is used to
it being this way. If people want to start changing everything that
doesn't make sense in the game we're going to end up with a tank
simulation of the Gulf War. Most of the rules or designs in the BT
universe don't hold up to "real" science, so just leave them the way
they are.
Graham Wiseman
wis...@soonet.ca
val...@wt.net
aaul...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On 5 May 1997 22:27:24 GMT,acti...@aol.com (Activdave) wrote:
>
> >Example:
> >A clan mech with 50 armor points purchases ferro-fibrous. His armor points
> >now jump to (50*1.2) = 60 points. He places seven crits in one arm (to be
> >extreme).
> >Now, during battle, he has four of those crits blown out (57%). This means
> >he should lose 57% of the extra 10 armor points (about 6).
> >notice much difference.
>
>
> Once again thank you for your participation in the group and at least
> listening and responding to user suggestions: Plain and simple, the
> best way (in my not so humble opinion) to handle the crits assignment
> for both FFArmor and Endo steel is to make the criticals automatically
> and unchangeably assigned as 1 crit to each of the non-head body
> locations.
>
> This makes perfect sense when you think of what the two items are:
> FFArmor is stronger **bulkier** armor (that weighs less). The
> criticals can be thought of as the extra bulk or attachment points for
> the armor. If you add extra armor bulk all over the mech, it would
> not all attach on one arm (which is exactly how most people design
> mechs for netmech).
>
> Same for endo steel: it is stronger/lighter/bulkier "bones" for the
> mech. You don't make the arm bones stronger to give the legs of your
> mech more strength, therefore the crits should be spread evenly.
>
> It should be like arm and hand actuators, sensors, engine, etc...the
> placement is automatic and unchangeable.
>
> My two bits worth, anyway.
I disagree, even though it would make sense. Unless in battletech the
endo-steel and FFA crits are handled this way in BattleTech, I don't
think it should be changed at all. If I have my facts right, in
battletech they are not preassigned to certain crit slots. So as far as
Endo-steel and FFA crits go, let the guy/gal designing the mech deside
where they want them.
If it makes you feel better, when you are designing a configuration for
your mech that includes Endo-Steel and/or FFA place the crits how you
think they make sense to you, then you can say we are lazy bastards
cause of the way we do it :P
RLL
val...@wt.net
Heh. Forgive my abuse of the english language. :P
RLL
Unknown
On Tue, 06 May 1997 14:16:09 -0400, Graham Wiseman <N/A...@soonet.ca>
wrote:
>Activdave wrote:
>> Okay, this took me a sec to figure out...but it does make sense.
>>
>> But, honestly, I don't think you'd ever notice even if we implemented it.
>> (The game does *not* currently do this.)
>>
>
>> Basically...it'd be a lot of work to track and you probably wouldn't
>> notice much difference.
>>
>> Thanks for making my brain work hard though. : )
>>
>> -- Dave Georgeson
>> Producer, Activision.
>
>I think the easiest way to deal with this issue is to leave it the way
>it is. It works, its the way FASA designed it, and everyone is used to
>it being this way. If people want to start changing everything that
>doesn't make sense in the game we're going to end up with a tank
>simulation of the Gulf War. Most of the rules or designs in the BT
>universe don't hold up to "real" science, so just leave them the way
>they are.
>
>Graham Wiseman
>wis...@soonet.ca
I suppose i should clarify my recent posts by saying i'm not pushing
for the changes i mentioned but rather commenting on how i feel the
armor should work.although i would like it done different,
it pretty much stays within the FASA guidelines as you said, so who am
i to change it?
just another opinion thrown in for the hell of it<g>
Ciao.........
'Wulff
Graham Wiseman
That doesn't seem right, if you change from Standard armor to FFA, then
the armor points should be increased by 20% (Clan Tech), or 12% (IS
Tech), and the weight should remain the same. This is the way that the
MW2 Mech Lab handles it. Or, you could have the Armor points remain the
same and decrease the weight by 20% (or whatever), but that would be
hard (or impossible) to do with .5 ton increments. If you had the armor
points increase and the armor wieght decrease you would get weird
results...
Graham Wiseman
wis...@soonet.ca
randall floyd
i second this... they should be pretty much left as they are... it is as
it is in Battletech and therefore belongs in the Mw2 games that way...
now you are trying to fix things that aren't broke instead of things
that are <think flamer.. think inferno... think too much DAMAGE on both
of these and no heat on infernos>... if you are looking to add things to
the game then start adding things in Battletech that you left out before
but would be good in the game <such as more arm use in some form or
other> or things that ARE JUST PLAIN INCORRECT but are already in the
game <which there have already been several discussions about here so i
won't go into that>... since this is a Battletech game you should set
your mind on Battletech... and i'll say it again if i have to...
if you really want to add something new then put in proper tank controls
for the hover tank mission and make those controls accessable to people
who are making new chassis to play with... i know people are going to
whine 'but this is mechwarrior' but i'd really appreciate the addition
<i'm sure others will too... sure would add depth to that mission and
would add depth to playing the tank chassis that people have made <NAIS
gave me my beloved Manticore that i missed so dearly from Battletech>...
it isn't like i'm asking for a flight sim engine for the aerospace
fighters <tho that would be nice too> or anything... just a little
something extra for the tanks and trucks... i guess you probably
couldn't do this now but it would also be nice to see the parts for the
lost 'Mechs like the Rifleman <and IIC>... Warhammer <and IIC>...
Marauder <and IIC>... Wasp... etc etc.. <by parts i mean the polys and
animations... you don't have to do anything to them... we'll put them
together ourselves... if the mechs are just parts when we get them then
it's nobody's fault if we just happen to assemble those parts to look
like the 'lost' Mechs... i heard something about an in-house prj file at
Activision that contained those 'Mechs FASA had to disclude because of
bullying by Playmates toys... some of the animations for those mechs are
still in the prj that was released also... so why not just throw in the
polys for us to play with?>... so if you are looking to add things then
think about that...
Ookami
Brian Edmonds
aaultman <aaul...@mindspring.com> writes:
> Plain and simple, the best way (in my not so humble opinion) to handle
> the crits assignment for both FFArmor and Endo steel is to make the
> criticals automatically and unchangeably assigned as 1 crit to each of
> the non-head body locations.
Except for the one problem that Mechwarrior 2 is based on the Battletech
universe, and that's not the way it's done in Battletech. Obviously
they have to make a few tweaks transating a board game to a sim, but
this doesn't seem like one of those cases. There are a number of other
mech games available if you don't happen to like Battletech's rules.
OTOH, I would have no objections whatsoever if Activision were to make
the MW2 games more configurable, and add things like this as options,
then people can play it as they like, and leagues can set whatever rules
they wish for online play.
--
o Brian Edmonds <edm...@cs.ubc.ca>, Team Jubal Mech Labs
\\_/\_, Moderator: rec.arts.anime.creative, rec.music.info
(*) (*) Are you tired of spam? Visit http://www.spam.abuse.net/
Tank
On Mon, 05 May 1997 13:48:24 GMT, Iv...@No.Spam wrote:
>
>You mean like you have to do already for the Jump Jets? I think that
>having to hold down the 'alt' key to control arm rotation is too much.
>Just simply hit a key which 'allows' the mech to rotate past 90
>degrees. Once you return to less than 90 degrees the 'lock' is
>automatically engaged again and you'll have to hit it again to go to
>'one arm control' mode.
>
.......
>As far as firing arcs go, weapons fire what you're aiming at and the
>targetting reticle in MW follows the torso, so ALL weapons have 180
>degree firing arc as it currently stands (90 in each direction). Arm
>mounted weaons would get an 'extended' arc of 60 to 90 degrees in one
>direction only, making their firing arc up to 270 degres. You're
>right... both arms would NOT have the same firing arc, but that's what
>we're trying to accomplish with this discussion. To realistically
>simulate the arm's capability to move independently from the torso and
>swing further around to that side.
>
.............
>If there is a key that you must hit to momentarily disable the 90
>degree twist 'lock' then this will never happen. Weapons which are
>mounted in the torso and 'other' arm should 'grey out' when rotated
>past 90 degrees exactly as if destroyed. (Ie, you can't select them).
>
>>>>You could perhaps dymamically change the
>>>>allowed torso rotation, depending upon the weapons selected, using a
>>>>least common denominator approach, but what if you switch to a torso
>>>>mounted weapon while being rotated fully with an arm mounted weapon?
>
>See above, you can't, or rather, shouldn't be able to.
>
>
>Ivory...
Some interesting ideas.... might actually work <g>. Hopefully
someone at Activision or FASA can test this idea, as it is starting to
have some merrits.
Mudge Wolf
On Thu, 01 May 1997 21:34:38 GMT, MercF...@Solaris.com (Tank)
wrote:
>I've thought about that one too, but it's not so simple as it sounds.
>True, if you have torso mounted weapons, they could get a 160' firing
>arc, while a laser in each arm would get say a 220' firing arc, but
>what happens when there is a laser in only one arm? Then the firing
>arc for that weapon becomes 110' in one direction but only 90' in the
>other? What happens when torso and arm mounted weapons are grouped
>togther? Does the torso mounted weapon suddenly "grey out" and become
>unavailable when you get past a certain point? Imagine having someone
>in your sites, and just as you press the trigger, your main weapon
>greys out because you went 1' past it's allowed firing arc. Not very
>good in a computer game. You could perhaps dymamically change the
>allowed torso rotation, depending upon the weapons selected, using a
>least common denominator approach, but what if you switch to a torso
>mounted weapon while being rotated fully with an arm mounted weapon?
You could set something up to hit a shift key when you went past 90',
and yes the torso weapons would grey out, or you would fire them off
in a direction that you aren't aiming. Also, to add this to the
vertical plane would be great. You should be able to fire at a
helicopter or something directly above you, instead of 60'
Mudge Wolf
Mudge Wolf
On Thu, 01 May 1997 17:58:22 +0300, Joona Vainio
<joona....@pp.kolumbus.fi> wrote:
>As Ookami pointed out (once again :) it would be ultra cool to someday
>have a mech sim that went as far as making the player responsible for
>mech balance and all those fun little details.
As far as balancing, and other details like that, that is what the
neurohelment was invented for, so that you don't have to manually
control the balance. In reality, the controls would probably be even
simpler, because they would get commands from the helment to turn and
twist too.
Mudge Wolf
Mudge Wolf
On Fri, 02 May 1997 20:06:48 GMT, MercF...@Solaris.com (Tank)
wrote:
> Hahahaha.... you know nothing about my involvement with the game. <g>
>I was one of the fortunate people who were discussing MW2 design
>concepts with Tim Morten *before* the game came out. We helped to
>clarify BT construction rules and weapons specs, etc. to make MW2
>adhere to BT *as much as possible*. BT is a great board game, but the
>rules were not designed with a computer sim in mind. Yes, there is
>much in the BT rules that *does* make for a balanced sim, but you
>can't neglect game play. Activision isn't in this to satisfy BT
>fanatics; they're in it to make money.
So you are an older memeber, does that make you more right?
>
> I just wish that Mercs would have included the final battle for
>Tukayyid <g>. Leveraging the history of BT to make a great storyline
>does make the game much more fun for me. Oh well, maybe some other
>time.
>
Yeah, but that would run the hell out of your puter. You know how many
mechs would be involved there. I agree it would be cool, but I
understand why it was not included.
> The problem with that is that many people like to use the mouse /
>keyboard option for game control. This works very well and is one of
>the more accurate ways for targeting. It also means having to keep
>one hand on the mouse and the other on the arrow keys for steering.
>If you suddenly had to reach for an <alt> key to twist further with
>arm mounted weapons, then how do you continue to steer your mech? I
>suppose you could implement it using a multi-function joystick with
>all of those extra buttons, but you would be alienating other players
>without that hardware in the process.
I use a mouse/keyboard combo, and would probably never use a joystick
if I had one. How do you adjust your speed or do a weapons dump or
watever while steering? You use other fingers. The control panel for a
mech is not sposed to be a simple thing, it's a massive
machine.Hitting a shift button to enable my arm to swing another
60-90' would be well worth it, and if you didn't like it that way, you
wouldn't have to. It would solve the problems of there being no reason
to put weapons in the arms.
>
> You also failed to address the other questions I had. How would you
>handle these potential difficulties?
<snip>
As stated above, and in previous posts. Your questions were answered,
you just didn't like the answer.
Mudge Wolf
Davey Jones
Graham Wiseman <N/A...@soonet.ca> wrote:
but those "wierd" results are exatly how BattleTech Does it... so thats what we
are gonna get
Crusader (S.Walker)
How about haveing a head twist like the torso twist (so we can still
see who we are firing at) and when we do this head twist the arm
automatically turns with it. By doing this (and graying out the none
arm base weapons, and also doing this with the arm thats no in range,
a person can first torso twist and then do a head twist to get the 180
degress or he can just head twist and just use the arm weapon only at 90
degrees. And for mechs such as the Naga who dont have the actuators
their head twist have no effect (or you could just have it were the head
wont twist w/o arm actuators knowing this is a small stretch of the
rules =-)
By doing this it can kill 2 birds with one stone, fix the arm firing
problem and give function to the actuators.
> You could set something up to hit a shift key when you went past 90',
> and yes the torso weapons would grey out, or you would fire them off
> in a direction that you aren't aiming. Also, to add this to the
> vertical plane would be great. You should be able to fire at a
> helicopter or something directly above you, instead of 60'
>
> Mudge Wolf
--
Email add has been changed to help curve spamers.
The real one is shan...@ix.netcom.com
val...@wt.net
Crusader (S.Walker) wrote:
>
> OK you asked for it =-)
>
> Battletech Compendium (The Rules of Warfare 2nd edition, copyright 1994)
>
> Page 116 2nd Paragraph:
>
> "Battlemechs Built with endo steel need allocate only half standard
> weight to the internal structure(rounding up to the nearest half-ton),
> but the bulk of the alloy takes up 7 critical slots in clan mechs and 14
> in inner sphere Battlemechs. The PLAYER may allocate these slots
> WHEREVER he sees fit, even filling up whole locations if desired, but
> the indicated number of slots must be filled by the endo steel.
> Critical hits against an endo steel critical slot have NO effect and
> should be rerolled".
>
> I hope this helps clear up any confusions =-) And of course these rules
> also apply to endo steel. Now whats this about proof of
> ignorance ;)
THANK YOU! BTW you did mean it applies to FFA in the last part right?
RLL
> > Can someone post a reference (perhaps in the Rules of War Compodium
> > (sp?) - which I don't have, or maybe the Clan Sourcebooks) that
> > **specifically** states you can add FFA and then assign all 7
> > criticals in one arm?
> >
> > If not, I think we need to quit posting that it is that way in
> > BattleTech, when indeed it is not.
> >
> > Proof of my ignorance gladly accepted!
> >
> >
> > ********************************************************
> > *DAMN! The junk emailers found me. For email replies,*
> > *REMOVE the 1st "a" from my name. Hope this works! *
> > ********************************************************
>
val...@wt.net
Tank wrote:
> =
> On Fri, 02 May 1997 23:29:20 -0500, val...@wt.net wrote:
> =
> >
> >I understand what you are saying, but if you are going to make so many=
> >comprimizes why even use the BattleTech universe? I might understand
> >small adjustments here and there, but they seem to be almost everywher=
e
> >in the MW2 games. Many weapons do not behave the way they do in BT,
> >"many". Who is to know what is and isn't going to be fun? Was there a
> >version of the game that was made with BT rules, that someone played a=
nd
> >said "it isn't fun"? I understand that they are in the money making
> >business, but maybe they should have said MW2 was kinda sorta based he=
re
> >and there on the BattleTech universe, maybe that way people would not =
be
> >so disappointed with the final product.
> >
> >RLL
> =
> How many do yoy consider many. Yes, I was hoping for all weapons to
> be present in MW2, but unfortunately we had to wait until Mercs for
> many of them.... that was a time constraint. Some of the gripes have
> to do with compromises, but others were matters of interpretation and
> some were plane mistakes.
> =
> Having infernos and flamers do armour damage was a mistake. The
> flight mechanics of LRMs needs work too. The PPC and Gauss cannon
> were someone's interpretation who obviously had never read a BT novel.
> But as far as the raw weapons specs go, they came right out the BT
> Compendium. This alone doesn't quite cut it, though. You have to
> add some randomness to shots and toughness to mechs to make it a
> viable game. Otherwise it becomes way too easy to down a mech and
> then game gets boring fast.
> =
> So why base the game on BT? Well, the BT board game mechanics are a
> very good place to start. The game has been under revision long
> enough that it is fairly well balanced as it stands, but like other
> board games (say D&D) you need to make adjustments to have things fit
> properly in a sim. Also, with BT you get the rich history of the
> characters and political factions that make the game so much more
> interesting. Take Star Wars for example. A game modelled after
> X-wing or Tie-Fighter would never sell as well because it lacks the
> rich history of the Star Wars universe. Likewise, Wing Commander does
> so well because Origin created their own universe and built upon a
> good story-line.
> =
> As to people being disappointed, well, I'm sorry but you can't argue
> with sales. MW2 was one of the top selling games and I bet that MW3
> will be a big hit too. There will always be those with complaints
> about a game.... hell, I got a few gripes of my own about MW2, but
> what else is there? Given a choice between Shattered Steel, Earth
> Siege and Mechwarrior, I'ld take Mechwarrior hands down any day of the
> week. Herc... what the hell is a Herc anyway??!! Gimme a Mech!!!!
> And if they stray too far away from the BT universe, then we'll be
> here to let them know what they did wrong <g>.
> =
> __<TANK>=3D=3D=3D--- =A9
> ....<O_o_o_o_O>.....
Well, I don't like the "it's this or nothing" part of it, even though it
is right. I don't even want to talk any more on the subject, nothing I
say will make it any different. BTW you left out the Arrow IV. With the
way the computer fights, I could possibly see how some weapons would
make short work of them. I would still like to see for myself how it
would turn out, fun or not. Maybe thats too much to ask, but you
understand where I am coming from don't you?
BTW did you notice that there is still a small part of the stand on one
leg "feature" left from MW2 and GBL? I still can not to this day believe
that, but maybe when MW2 first came out it was beyond their abilities to
do anything about it. =
RLL
off topic: I really like Star Wars, but I don't like X-wing/Tie
Fighter/X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, but that is probably because I never day
dreamed about flying them. :P
Crusader (S.Walker)
Yes sorry bout that. Though it didnt say it strait out that it applied
to ferro fiber it was in the same context as endo steel though =-)
> THANK YOU! BTW you did mean it applies to FFA in the last part right?
>
> RLL
--
Joona Vainio
Well, I wasn't actually suggesting em to make every step controlled by a
push on the pedals :)
And I do know what neurohelmets do. Considering that, adding the need
for balance control would be "unrealistic". Why should anyone need to
learn how to "walk" again with awkward
stick/throttle/pedal/keyboard/mouse controls? Yeah, I understand that
point too.
But what I meant was actually that it would add to the gameplay and
sense of "being there" to SOMEHOW implement balance controlling in the
game when you are hit or collide, for example. Even if it is
unrealistic, as the "real" pilots don't have to do it with a joystick or
whatever.
It's a simulator, right? As an example, do martial artists kick with
stick twists and button pushes...? Hell no! And in Real Life (TM) they
don't even need neurohelmets to move their own bodies :)
Oh well, just thought introducing balance somehow into the gameplay
would be interesting and fun.
-lark-
Joona Vainio
Joona Vainio wrote:
> It's a simulator, right? As an example, do martial artists kick with
> stick twists and button pushes...? Hell no! And in Real Life (TM) they
> don't even need neurohelmets to move their own bodies :)
Erm.. that was a bad example especially as I hate the whole beat em up
genre :) A better would be Origin's System Shock (one of the greatest
games of all time IMHO). The way you could crouch and lean to the sides.
Point being, it'd be cool if the mech could be simulated to be more like
an extension of your own body than just a helluva big tank with legs.
Even making the mech wobble when hit with no particular balancing action
required from the player would add to the feeling of being in a 10-metre
bipedal metal abomination.
-lark-
randall floyd
aaul...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On Thu, 08 May 1997 15:42:57 +0000,"Crusader (S.Walker)"
> <shan...@ix.netcom.com.NOSPAM> wrote:
> >OK you asked for it =-)
>
>
> >Battletech Compendium (The Rules of Warfare 2nd edition, copyright 1994)
> >Page 116 2nd Paragraph:
> >I hope this helps clear up any confusions =-) And of course these rules
> >also apply to endo steel. Now whats this about proof of
> >ignorance ;)
>
> prove it! ;)
>
> The Compendium seems to contradict the Technical Readouts, but since
> it is 4 years newer, it must be more accurate. You didn't mention if
> it specifically says the same about FFArmor...?
>
> Thanks for the clarification though.
it does indeed say the same for FF armor... placement is only subject to
the choice of the player <or whoever is making the 'Mech>... i don't see
how it contradicts the TROs in any way really... those 'Mech configs in
the TROs are simply manufacture standards <suggested all around good set
up if you don't want to spend the big money and time to make the custom
configs> but should not be looked at as the rule for 'Mech configs... as
a side note the 3050 TRO states the same thing about placement of FF and
ES as is stated in the Compendium... so placement choice of these items
should be left as they are now... let's let them FIX stuff before they
start thinking about changing things that aren't even wrong.. know what
i'm saying?...
Ookami
C Carlile
Braden N. McDaniel wrote:
>
> Dave, I appreciate the attention Activision is (finally) giving this issue,
> and I'm glad to see you soliciting this group for feedback. Here are some
> of my thoughts on questions which haven't been asked yet, but (IMO) should
> be ...
>
> Shell User Interface
>
> Whoever designed the shell UI for Mercs was very inexperienced at doing
> so--it really shows. It's amateurish and counterintuitive in many respects,
> and the patches to make it more usable are very obviously just that:
> patches. I sincerely hope you will amend these design flaws for version
> 1.1.
>
> General Issues
>
> In going from area to area, you must often pass through an apparently
> superfluous screen to get to your objective. For example, if I want to get
> to the 'Mech/equipment bay, I have to select that door from the office, and
> then go through a special screen, whose only apparent purpose is to delay
> me in getting the the 'Mech bay, where I have to click on a monitor to
> proceed. This is annoying and brain-dead from a design perspective. There
> are similar instances elsewhere, where it seems that the options accessible
> through multiple screens could be consolidated into fewer screens.
>
> Another glaring design flaw is the extensive use of dialog boxes to tell
> the user he or she has made an error, when the option shouldn't have been
> available in the first place. Many UI paradigms choose to "gray out" such
> options, making them visible but obviously inaccessible. A few examples...
> o The availability of CASE for Clan 'Mechs--rather than take this off of
> the menu, the designers decided to present the user with a dialog saying
> "you don't need that" when trying to apply the CASE.
> o The ability to assign too many lancemates--once the maximum number has
> been reached (including aerotechs), it should not be *possible* to go
> over.
> o In the mission briefing screens, the "View" button is sometimes
> inactive. By that, I mean that pressing it has *no* effect. Nonetheless,
> the graphic remains the same, just as if it were available.
>
> There are many places in the game where the text scrolls past the
> right-most boundary, or, far worse, scrolls past the bottom of the
> screen!!! In the latter case, there is NO WAY of seeing the text! This
> crosses the line from "design flaw" to "bug." Do *something* to fix
> this--use less text, smaller type, or (drum roll) a Scroll Bar.
>
> The 'Mech Lab
>
> We've kind of gotten used to it by now, but when Mercs was first release,
> there was a loud cry of "What the hell is this thing???" from this
> newsgroup. Ideally, the design paradigm here should be totally scrapped.
> The 'Mech Lab in MW2 was no epitome of design perfection, but it did have a
> very important advantage over the Mercs 'Mech lab: it was divided into two
> screens: one where you defined the load-out and could see the stats
> immediately, and another screen where you assigned criticals. This paradigm
> really works!
>
> Weapons and Equipment
>
> Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous
>
> As was the case in MW2, it doesn't matter where you put these criticals.
> This doesn't make sense. Why should you be able to put all your armor in
> your arms and still have it effective everywhere? Such a thing seems even
> more ridiculous for the 'Mech's internal structure! At least in the
> FASA-designed BattleTech chassis, these criticals are considered "fixed"
> (just like engine criticals), and they always take up certain available
> critical slots on the 'Mech (which are fairly evenly distributed around the
> various body parts). Mercs should behave this way. That is, upgrading to ES
> or FF would be much like upgrading to an XL engine. When you upgrade,
> certain criticals are taken up by the ES or FF, and anything that is there
> is displaced. An exception to this could be applying FF on top of ES--if
> there are criticals normally taken up by FF that are already in use by ES,
> the FF criticals could be "bumped down".
>
> Weapons
>
> I like most of the proposed changes to the weapons systems, and those I
> don't like I can live with. More than anything, I will be glad to see the
> missiles stop doing hairpin turns. Many folks on this newsgroup have been
> clamoring for this to be addressed ever since MW2 first shipped, and I find
> it surprising that only now are you considering changing this (well, I
> guess "surprising" isn't really the right word).
>
> --
> Braden N. McDaniel, bra...@shadow.net
>
> Home Page: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/
> VRML 2.0 Home World: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/home.wrl
> Unsupported CSS in IE 3.0: http://www.shadow.net/%7Ebraden/nostyle/
Most of what you say is true, but the ES/FFA critical issue is wrong.
In BTech, as you know, you can place those criticals whereever you want,
although, as you point out, FASA tends to place them in balanced
proportions on it's stock mechs. That's probably because they like to
make it look 'clean' on paper. ES and FFA crits have nothing to do with
that actual EFFECTIVENESS of the ES/FFA, they simply show that this
substance, while being lighter is bulkier, requiring more space on the
mech. The crits are just to make you use up space that could otherwise
be used to place something else, like ammo or a weapon, that the extra
tonnage you've saved using ES/FFA would allow. It's a trade off, extra
tonnage for space used up, that's all. A game balance thing, something
that may seem silly, but works quite well in actual usuage.
Primus Kristov
Retired
ComStar
Net BattleTech 3068
C Carlile
Activdave wrote:
>
> > Endo-Steel and Ferro-Fibrous. As was the case in MW2, it doesn't
> > matter where you put these criticals. This doesn't make sense.
>
> evenly divided between left/right arms and left/right/center torsos? (I
> don't think head and legs should have to automatically give up the few
> remaining criticals they have available...)
>
> I'm specifically looking for MECH DESIGN reasons.
>
> Obviously, I'm considering putting this in the patch.
>
> -- Dave Georgeson
> Producer, Activision.
Aside from the obvious design problems like ArrowIV, AC20s, and LRM20s
for ANY Inner Sphere mech, which would be totally prohibited if you did
this, nope, not a single DESIGN reason.
Now, for simplier reasons, straight out of FASA's books.
ES and FFA use more criticals for a simple reason, they are lighter but
BULKIER then normal material used for the same functions. This means
you can get some tonnage back by using them, and extra armor protection
with FFA, BUT at a cost, that cost being space on the mech. The
criticals being used have nothing to do with the actual material or it's
placement, they are simply a game balance equalizer, that's all.
Otherwise, you would HAVE to put ES crits in ALL parts of the mech,
since ES is the skeleton of the mech, and for FFA, well, unless you
don't put armor on a area, you'd HAVE to include FFA crits everywhere
too. Since the head only has 1 crit free, this would totally preclude
using both at the same time.
FASA lets us put the crits where ever we wish because hitting a crit for
these two items does nothing to the mech(outside of the damage already
done by the shot doing the critical hit), where as almost every other
item on a mech that gets a critical slot hit loses ALL of it's
functioning, exceptions being sensors, gyros, engines, and life support,
which are all allowed 2 or 3 hits before being destroyed, and ending the
mechs usefulness(a kill).
In BTech designs, you won't find any mech with all the ES or FFA crits
being stuck in the arms, because in BTech, that's where you WANT your
weapons, they do the most good there, unlike MW2 designs, where the arms
are a liability when it comes to weapons. Fix the targetting spheres,
reduce them, better yet, make them ONLY cover the 'actual' target area,
and you'll find that people will use the arms for weapons again.
Right now, the arms and legs are the biggest and easiest areas on a mech
to hit in MW2 games, which is rather backwards. They should be much
harder to hit, since they are smaller in ALL cross sections AND are
almost always moving.
You want to SERIOUSLY make an improvement, then redo the targetting
spheres.
Leave the ES and FFA placements alone.
Chris Carlile
aka
randall floyd
well i agree with Kristov's points about the arm and leg spheres being
far too vulnerable... and it's also agreed that the ES and FF placement
ability shouldn't be changed because that is how it is in Battletech and
the MW2 games are Battletech games... fix stuff before you start
changing stuff that doesn't need fixing... why do you want to unbalance
ES and FF?... instead why not reduce the damage <to almost nothing> done
by the now devestating infernos which happen to cause no heat to the
target... and fix the flamers
too... as it stands they also do too much damage i believe... make the
ARROW IVs do proper damage and take the direct homing off of them... fix
the missle homing <no swarming around the target>... hmmm.. what
else?... oh yes... the autocannons sure do suck in mercs... make them a
bit more powerful... no matter where you look in BTech the autocannons
are said to be quite the effective weapons so you can't blame it on the
tech year <although i do believe they are prone to screw ups so why not
make ACs a little more prone to ammo explosions when over used within an
ammount of time... this is I.S. ACs and not Clan ACs mind you>... for
multiplay <Mercnet> you could make the Elementals a bit tougher... sorry
guy but Elementals can take up to 11 pts of damage from 'Mech class
weapon hits before being destroyed <this info is in the Compendium...
check it out sometime>... the missle homing problem is one of the main
things that makes Elementals too easy to kill <i suggested that it only
be like this in Mercnet because too many people would whine about it if
it were put into the Mercs single player part>... although they might be
a bit tricky in Mercs to kill you should check them out in Mercnet... it
just about only takes one hit to kill them there... Elementals are
tougher than that <trust me>... you could also put in three different
options of radar <full/partial/off> instead of two <i described my idea
for partial radar in a previous post... anyone who missed it and/or
wants to hear it again just say so and i'll say it again>... i'm sure
i'll think of more later... but for now how about getting these things
covered before messing with stuff that isn't even wrong <i.e. FF and
ES>...
looking forward to a great 1.10 patch...
Ookami
Iv...@no.spam
"Peter Jack" <Peter...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>When will this wonder patch 1.1 hit the streets, and do you think all
>registered users should be posted the patch free of charge.
Nope, I think that they should download it. There isn't many people
who can't either download it themselves, or find a place to do so
(CyberCafe, School computer, friend's house, etc). A simple magazine
article and/or postcard to registered users who have 'not' downloaded
it yet based on info gathered at the download page would allow them to
notify those who don't already have the patch.
Tank
On Thu, 08 May 1997 23:00:30 -0500, val...@wt.net wrote:
>Well, I don't like the "it's this or nothing" part of it, even though it
>is right. I don't even want to talk any more on the subject, nothing I
>say will make it any different. BTW you left out the Arrow IV. With the
>way the computer fights, I could possibly see how some weapons would
>make short work of them. I would still like to see for myself how it
>would turn out, fun or not. Maybe thats too much to ask, but you
>understand where I am coming from don't you?
>
If you mean that you want better AI, then try replaying GBL set to
HARD and use only medium and heavy mechs... no assault. It gets
plenty tough for me <g>.
>BTW did you notice that there is still a small part of the stand on one
>leg "feature" left from MW2 and GBL? I still can not to this day believe
>that, but maybe when MW2 first came out it was beyond their abilities to
>do anything about it. =
>
>
>RLL
They *could* have done something about it, but it would have meant
more delays for a game that was already way behind schedule. Making
mechs fall and stand up again with JJs required some rework of the
graphics engine.
>
>off topic: I really like Star Wars, but I don't like X-wing/Tie
>Fighter/X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, but that is probably because I never day
>dreamed about flying them. :P
Then you obviously aren't as big a Star Wars fan as I :-P <hehehe>.
Tank
On Sun, 11 May 1997 17:48:10 -0500, C Carlile <kri...@mindspring.com>
wrote:
>Leave the ES and FFA placements alone.
>
For anyone jumping in late on this thread, the decision has already
been made by Activision. They are going to leave the placement of ES
and FF crits that way it is.
Michael E Riches
I am running Mercs 1.1 under DOS and I cannot seem to get past the startup
screen on a few missions. It sits there on the EKG screen and goes for a
while, then stops. It will then sit there until you reboot it. I have
tried fooling with TSR's and they are not the problem. What can I do to
fix this? It happens on the FINAL MISSION. I am, needless to say,
frustrated.
-Mike Riches
t...@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu
http://nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu/~tsp/home.html
Activdave
My replies are below:
>>1. The Mech lab is awful compared to the one in mechwarrior. I still
see bugs too, even with 1.05 like the other day
when I went to modify a Timber Wolf and although on one screen it was
indicated at 75 tons, when I started modifying it
it was only 70 tons. So I somehow gained 5 tons.<<
MAJOR fixes are coming for this. Specifics will be posted in this
newsgroup as they are completed.
>>2. Enhanced Vision should be implementable and when implementable,
lasers
should be visible. This wire frame mode is
great for speeding up the game on slower computers.<<
YUP. Wireframe will be available. (The improved version that was in
Battlepack.)
>>3. The Catapult is so very amazingly easy to kill. I actually tried
an
experiment to prove this to myself because whenever I pilot
one I am killed in 2 seconds. Ok I have done instant actions against
many lances of differnet mechs and the Catapult Lances
go up in smoke in like 3 grouped laser shots to the torso region. I think
that it takes head shots really too easily. (snip)<<
Hmmm....I'll look into it.
>>4. Make a Gauss gun worth using somehow. (snip) So are srms which are
not streaks.(snip again) <<
Yup and yup. Fixes are on the way.
Salivating yet? : )
-MWS-
In article <5m0np3$g...@lal.interserv.com>, nau...@sprynet.com****** wrote:
>> ...it's too early to tell. I anticipate that it will be less than 20MB and
>> probably less than 10MB in size. Maybe smaller. There's not that many
>> asset changes...mostly just code changes involving the DLL files.
>
>What's the expected date it will be ready? I'm leaving the country
>in mid-June, and I hoped to have it with me to play it over the
>summer.
Mid-June? ... as in two weeks away? ... no way ...
Hauptmann, CO 9th Lyran Guards
Email: haup...@concentric.net
CServe: 72607,1456 (Modemgames Forum Staff)
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views
and do not reflect the official or unofficial views of any company
I happen to be working for at the time. So there! <G>
Activdave
>>What's the expected date it will be ready? I'm leaving the country
in mid-June, and I hoped to have it with me to play it over the
summer.<<
Sorry to disappoint, but...although I'm too paranoid to announce when the
patch WILL be ready...I can categorically state that it will NOT be ready
by mid-June (three weeks from now).
Maybe you can download it from wherever you WILL be?
-- Dave.
Audrey Springer
Michael E Riches <t...@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu> writes:
>I am running Mercs 1.1 under DOS and I cannot seem to get past the startup
>screen on a few missions. It sits there on the EKG screen and goes for a
>while, then stops. It will then sit there until you reboot it. I have
>tried fooling with TSR's and they are not the problem. What can I do to
>fix this? It happens on the FINAL MISSION. I am, needless to say,
>frustrated.
I am experiencing the exact same problem on two missions, one of which
is the final one (Luthien Defense). I launch the first scenario of
the contract, and the machine locks up after a few seconds of the
"EKG" screen. I don't know what the problem is, but here's my setup:
MW2: Mercs 1.05 (At least, I see merc105.txt in the game directory
after installation. It's annoying that there's no version string
visible from within the game...)
Running from DOS mode (after restarting from W95 SR2).
P200 MMX CPU
AMI BIOS
Diamond Stealth 3d 2000 2MB video
Mitsumi (Gold Star) 8x CD-ROM
The crash doesn't seem to care what kind of mech I have chosen for the
mission, or whether I have any lancemates or not.
I tried doing a full install, but then instead of hanging, the machine
just reboots at that point.
This problem doesn't seem to be described in any of the help files that
came with the game.
Does anyone know how to fix this? If you're experiencing it, please
post your setup too. It'd be nice to be able to finish the game.
Thanks,
Jonathan S.
(No, not Audrey)
Audrey Springer
spri...@world.std.com (Audrey Springer) writes:
>Michael E Riches <t...@nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu> writes:
>>I am running Mercs 1.1 under DOS and I cannot seem to get past the startup
>>screen on a few missions. It sits there on the EKG screen and goes for a
>>while, then stops. It will then sit there until you reboot it. I have
>>tried fooling with TSR's and they are not the problem. What can I do to
>>fix this? It happens on the FINAL MISSION. I am, needless to say,
>>frustrated.
>I am experiencing the exact same problem on two missions, one of which
>is the final one (Luthien Defense). I launch the first scenario of
>the contract, and the machine locks up after a few seconds of the
>"EKG" screen.
Well, it turns out this was mentioned in an FAQ on Activision's site.
The trick is to eject the CD while the "EKG" screen is going. Then,
just close it again, and presto, it works. Note that the FAQ just
says that they've heard that ejecting the CD helps, which might be
interpreted to mean eject it after things hang, but that didn't work.
Eject while it's loading the scenario.
It feels as if (and this is complete speculation) there is a
fixed-size buffer into which the CD data is being read, which is also
being emptied at the same time. Data is being fed in faster than it's
being read out, so for a very large scenario, it overflows, crashing
the machine. Ejecting the CD stops it from filling and allows the
data to be read out, freeing up enough space for the remaining stuff
when the CD is put back in.
On the other hand, maybe it's gremlins...
SELIEGHE
i thought they were still developing 1.1 where did you pick it up at???