I don't regularly use your builder but I downloaded it and tried out due to curiosity. Knowing that you want feedback I'll give you some, but taking into account that's my particular vision and I have numerous biases. That's the reason why my own planner has no resemblance with the ingame mech bay, like for example I don't care about how much armor exactly has each location, only about max total armor, max frontal armor and current armor; or I don't care about melee damage. Those kind of details are only accounted for when I translate the setups from the planner to the game. I mention all of these so you are aware of my biases and preferences.
Also it should be unnecessary to mention that all of the following are just my opinions, so don't take it as facts, and (again) remember this suggestions are after a very short time of using the app.
Not in any particular order:
Also it should be unnecessary to mention that all of the following are just my opinions, so don't take it as facts, and (again) remember this suggestions are after a very short time of using the app.
Not in any particular order:
- I feel the weapon selection, while very compact is very clunky, annoying. A floating window which you could pin and put it aside would be much better and clearer, even as a fixed toolbar at the left, for example. Then if you don't select any location before clicking on a weapon to add it, it will be added automatically on the first free slot available for that kind of weapon, provided you have enough available slots.
- An option for choosing favorite variants for each weapon, the same for mechs. So if for example the setup you want to build has 5xML++ and 1xML then you click six times on ML, adding 6xML++ and modify one of them afterwards to a regular ML, for example.
- Related to the above, when choosing a mech automatically selects the favorite variant of the mech, but with the possibility of changing that variant once the mech is generated. Weapons are readjusted to the new positions whenever possible. If some weapon could not be reallocated then show a warning indicating that, with a chance to change to a a different mech/variant before committing. This allows you to think first about a role with a basic set of weapons, and then see how it would fit in several mechs and variants.
- A quick access toolbar for mechs which you perhaps could select the position (left side or down, for example). That could be just the mechs you save in a specific folder inside the install folder. That way if you want to load one of your favorite setups you just click once on that always shown panel (which you can build already (and always) shown in the screen (because you save it as *favorite* or quick access). So the few ten or so builds that you use most of the time will be always at one click of distance.
- Get rid of the the Focused/Scatter damage thingies. It adds to the information clutter while not being useful. SRMs with 12 damage per missile are scatter damage but 20 dmg SLs or AC2s aren't?. I think it's not useful because while there is some truth to that, it lacks the nuances, like a 6ML 6SL will scatter a lot, but it won't with a high level Precision Shot. A big LRM will scatter but not nearly as much as many people think, and in fact a big LRM boat (few but very big LRM weapons) will scatter less than a ML/SL boat with regular non-PS salvos due to clustering.
- Now, if you don't mind to add more info to the clutter that I think may be useful, it could be showing damage per range, like 90m -> 75 dmg, 270m -> 200 dmg, 360m -> 50 dmg. Personally I wouldn't add it, though. If you're into mech planning then you should have an approximate idea of the weapon ranges.
- I think it would be a very good idea to revamp the data presentation, mostly font sizes; perhaps even colors, if you want to go wild. Things like DFA dmg, DFA self damage, Heat damage... should not have the same visibility as Alpha damage or Heat per turn. That should streamline the info in a better way, and perhaps even allowing you for adding more info, but just not competing in visibility with more important data. And that kind of thing helps even when you're used to the layout.
- As mentioned before, max frontal armor and current frontal armor I think is a valuable stat, because although you don't always neglect rear armor, is useful knowing that for example one mech may have less total armor but more in the front than a different setup.
- Probably related to the use of my own planner I miss the damage for each weapon each weapon or group of weapons (like 4xML --> 100 dmg) not being show, although perhaps not practical with your layout, not sure about how to deal with it without messing a lot.