Idea For Loreful Increased Mech Customization In MechWarrior 5 Clans

[Starker]

I have an idea for how MW5 Clans can have more customization without being overpowered, while staying connected to the lore of Battletech, and not requiring an inordinate amount of modeling work.

I recommend reviewing Battletech Strategic Operations, Page 188, for information on refit classes before continuing.

I recorded the idea in a google doc because most forums don’t have indented bullet support: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSrgjtFxiFf888mm0oZnm7KWmrRuvX_qNtd9pQeYjdA2m3Xs2UeBsRfRqf564QKWVPKRPb2zRJJ3WTe/pub

[pete]

Prob best to post this over in the MW5 Clans forums

[Stalectos]

chances are in MW5 clans you are mostly going to piloting omnimechs for which normal mech customization rules do not apply. engine, gyro, armor type, structure type, cockpit, and armor value are all fixed while everything else is freely changeable in omnipods. chances are they go closer to how MWO works though and have pods with different hardpoint types for weapons and let you change armor value despite canonically that not being a thing. afaik nothing in strategic operations' refit rules applies to an omnimech and most clan battlemechs (as in mechs that aren't omnimechs) during the invasion were relegated to second-line roles.

also "Critical slots for weapons were generalized into 3 sizes, Small, Medium, and Large to cope with modeling limitations in Unreal Engine 4." this is blatantly untrue. YAML exists and removes the hardpoint size limitations with 0 issues either in gameplay or visually which would suggest this was actually just an intentional game design decision.

[Hykril Tynyx]

Yeah, wrong forum + doubt anyone at PGI will care.

[Starker]

Originally posted by Stalectos:

chances are in MW5 clans you are mostly going to piloting omnimechs for which normal mech customization rules do not apply. engine, gyro, armor type, structure type, cockpit, and armor value are all fixed while everything else is freely changeable in omnipods. chances are they go closer to how MWO works though and have pods with different hardpoint types for weapons and let you change armor value despite canonically that not being a thing. afaik nothing in strategic operations' refit rules applies to an omnimech and most clan battlemechs (as in mechs that aren't omnimechs) during the invasion were relegated to second-line roles.

also "Critical slots for weapons were generalized into 3 sizes, Small, Medium, and Large to cope with modeling limitations in Unreal Engine 4." this is blatantly untrue. YAML exists and removes the hardpoint size limitations with 0 issues either in gameplay or visually which would suggest this was actually just an intentional game design decision.

You are partially correct. YAML is open source and thus has access to far more labor than PGI has. Despite that, YAML definitely has modeling issues. Whether or not YAML has gameplay problems is beyond the scope of this thread and is subjective.

Find some time to read through conversations on the YAML Discord about getting around modeling limitations. One of the creators of Yet Another Clan Mechs specifically states they are forced to use placeholder models to allow for large numbers of weapons per location. There is no easy way to tell the game to place two mediums where a large used to be. YAML models work well when the weapon quantity per limb is near that of vanilla so that the new model snaps to the same position of the old. Swap around the weapons on the Blood Asp from their mod and you will immediately see what I am talking about.

It is technically possible to replace a large weapon with many small weapons and have it look corrrect, but a separate model of the location (arm, side torso, etc) is required for every combination of weapon sizes. The amount of manual work required would be insane. Prevous games got around this by not changing the appearance of the models which would not be acceptable in modern day. MWO got around this by putting hard arbitrary limits on weapon quantity per location, a mechanic that was fabricated for MWO specifically.

In other words, the hardpoint sizes are an indirect consequence of reducing the number of hardpoints per location. Because each variant now had less hardpoints, they needed to add sizes to those hardpoints to keep them interesting and unique.

[Starker]

Originally posted by pete:

Prob best to post this over in the MW5 Clans forums

Originally posted by Hykril Tynyx:

Yeah, wrong forum + doubt anyone at PGI will care.

Whoops. I didn't realize there were forums for unreleased games. I'll repost there.

[Explore]

Regarding models, they could just take the approach they've taken in every other mech game, which was to have the model fixed regardless of equipment and weapons. It's nice to see the little changes when you add or remove stuff, but I don't consider it essential. It's hard to notice if you don't look for it.

BTW I'd suggest discarding the google doc and doing it in a regular post, just to make it more visible. There are ways you could code it to make it look almost identical, though I think indents within indents are confusing anyway.