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GenTask

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Mar 16, 2018
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  • BATTLETECH - Initiate of the Order
  • BATTLETECH - Beta Backer
  • BATTLETECH - Backer
This mod is not a balance mod so much as it is a weapon variety mod.

All weapons in Classic BattleTech, that are equipped on anything, normally are made by specific manufacturers and have different brand names. While HBS did this somewhat, I felt that manufacturer/brand naming to be a bit vague and wanted to expand on their work, so I changed the descriptions to match better existing brands in CBT. On top of that, I added many MANY new variations for existing 3025 Era weaponry.

It is ModTek compatible and includes an 'enhanced' version that integrates @Justin Kase JK_MinorAdjustments mod.

Download Link: {mod edit: link removed}
Includes:
ModTek Integration in two different varieties:

Basic Edition

1. GT_WeaponDiversity
  • Only adds weapons to skirmish mode and mainly to single player in-game shops, and you may have a chance to locate rare extinct weaponry from shops with the star league tag
  • Most weapons are available at shops and for sale either on Black Markets or for the most part are only sold from where the manufacturers are located
    (sold by certain Factions)
  • New weapons include new 'bonuses' such as: Low Cost, High Cost, Ignore Evasion, No Recoil, Plus or Minus Heat Generation (Cooling Jacket or Not), Minus Ammo Clips, and other various combinations of Crit, Damage, Accuracy, or Stability Damage bonuses.
  • All Autocannons now fire in Bursts representing their "clips" being expended for 1 ton of ammunition (This is only a visual aesthetic)
  • Integrates MG and Flamers Mod

Enhanced Edition

2. GT_WeaponDiversityPlus
same as above, plus
  • Adds all lore-based weaponry to all 'Mechs in-game for SP and Skirmish (Example: A Hunchback-4G will come automagically equipped with the Tomodzuru AC/20 and Hellion-V Medium Lasers, sometimes these are just basic weapons)
NOTE: This also changes the prices of those 'Mechs in Skirmish which means some may go over budget for specific Lance Budgets (which means you will need to select the next largest lance budget or unequip the 'Mechs)
EXTRA NOTE: This ALSO means any AI you encounter in-game, or 'Mechs that you buy, will come equipped with their stated weapon brands from Technical Readouts (either so-so, above average, and sometimes very good weapons). This has the tendency to make the combat portion of the game a little more challenging, but a little more rewarding in that you will want to take care of the gear you own and the stuff you may encounter and salvage in battle.
  • Some 'Mechs come equipped with 'Extinct' weaponry that is very rare and expensive (may able to locate on 'Star League' planets)
  • Additionally adds the correct brand name weapon to Vehicles where possible (A Demolisher will use 2 185mm ChemJet AC/20's)
  • This version also integrates JK_MinorAdjustments

Contains (new stuff):
  • 4 Machine Guns
  • 3 Flamers
  • 5 Small Lasers
  • 19 Medium Lasers
  • 9 Large Lasers
  • 5 PPC's
  • 1 AC/2
  • 2 AC/5s
  • 2 AC/10s
  • 5 AC/20s
  • 4 LRM5s
  • 4 LRM10s
  • 3 LRM15s
  • 2 LRM20s
  • 1 SRM2
  • 4 SRM4
  • 5 SRM6
Examples for Medium Lasers alone (G indicates an HBS weapon renamed):
  • Martell (new)
  • Aberdovey Mk III (new)
  • Argra 3L (new)
  • Ceres Arms (new)
  • Defiance B3M (new)
  • Diplan M3 (new)
  • Diverse Optics Type 18 (G)
  • Harmon Starclass (new)
  • Hellion-V (G)
  • High Burn (new)
  • Ichiba 2000 (new)
  • Intek (G)
  • Irian Weapons Works (new)
  • Jackson Model 17 (new)
  • Magna Mk II (G)
  • Maxell DT (new)
  • Omicron 4000 (new)
  • Photech 806c (new)
  • Sorenstein IV (new)
  • Sorenstein V (new)
  • Tronel II (new)
  • Victory 23R (new)4

Installation Steps:
Ensure that you have ModTek and BTML installed!

{mod edit: links removed}

After you installed BTML and ModTek
  1. Create a "Mods" folder if you haven't already in your "steamapps\common\BATTLETECH" or similar GOG folder. (this is also where "ModTek.dll" will end up residing)
  2. Extract contents of file to the "Mods" folder you created
  3. Determine which version you want to use, navigate to its folder and open the "mod.json" and set enabled to "true". Both are set to false, choose one or the other and save the document.
  4. Launch the game, voila!
Other Info:
  • Please note if you use this mod in Single Player or Skirmish and save configurations with these new weapons and then disable or delete the mod, then attempt to load your saves again, you will find that they will not work.
Possible Future Plans:
  • Adding variations of same Mech chassis to encounter in campaign; for example encountering a rare Komiyaba Type VIII Hunchback 4G or a more recent Crucis Type V Hunchback 4G (same weapon loadouts, different brands).
  • Adding a PlusPLUS version to integrate JK_Variants
  • Adding a PlusCBT version to integrate CBT Balance Overhaul (for purists)

All feedback and testing is welcome.

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Liking it :) Is Quikscell a real BT corp? If not, it should be ;)

Queued up for d/l from my phone even ;)
 
Yes, all the companies listed next to a weapon are really from BattleTech. And those listed really create the weapon in question (and a few are most ''likely" creators).

Quikscell specifically are known for having bad quality control and they sell pretty much to anyone.
 
For those that have tried this or incorporated it into your own mods, would people prefer if the MG/Flamer mod is separated into a 3rd edition (like the regular and plus editions)? I want to ensure this is not really a balance mod, and more or less just additional weapons based on how HBS has them, but that part of it can make it seem as such.

If there is an interest in the MG/Flamer remaining in the HBS Vanilla state, I can alter the new Flamer and MG's to be more like the HBS ones.

Also for those that are using this, feel free to provide any suggestions or feedback for the bonuses given to the new weapons. I tried my best to make sure a good portion of them have different enough bonuses to tell them apart from one another. The Medium Lasers were the toughest, since there are so many. Some are just a lot cheaper or more expensive and nothing else, so in a campaign game if you are strapped for cash you can buy cheapo knock off brands, etc.
 
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I certainly don't mind the different take on the MG/Flamer. It is kind of interesting seeing them in the 'wild' of the game side by side with the Vanilla stuff (been using both to compare).

Really liking the extra flavor :)

It is a shame that the mechdef determines the salvage instead of the chassisdef - otherwise we could have 'stock' versions of 'Mechs with their actual equipment, without having each show up as an individual 'salvage' item.
 
I amusingly had an idea along these lines myself this week, however what I considered was not brutally buffing everything but really giving all weapons tradeoffs - like some of yours actually offer. For the sake of game balance and also for tactical considerations: do I want more damage for more heat? Do I want higher accuracy for less damage? - that being said, do you know if its possible for a non-coding person to plain remove some of the default (+/+/+) weapons in the game? :O
I can modify json stuff, but the metadatabase is something I have no clue about :/

Either way, inclined to try your mod ... once its final enough (is it? :D) that I feel safe to go through the chore of modifying it to the base weapon values I use (inbetween tabletop and vanilla).
 
I amusingly had an idea along these lines myself this week, however what I considered was not brutally buffing everything but really giving all weapons tradeoffs - like some of yours actually offer. For the sake of game balance and also for tactical considerations: do I want more damage for more heat? Do I want higher accuracy for less damage? - that being said, do you know if its possible for a non-coding person to plain remove some of the default (+/+/+) weapons in the game? :O
I can modify json stuff, but the metadatabase is something I have no clue about :/

Either way, inclined to try your mod ... once its final enough (is it? :D) that I feel safe to go through the chore of modifying it to the base weapon values I use (inbetween tabletop and vanilla).

Do you mean removing the weapons from appearing in the Stores?

If so, that is pretty easy - you can either remove the shop reference from the VersionManifest.csv or you can go into the various shops json files and delete the references to he weapons you don't want to use.
 
From stores, you can edit the shops files (StreamingAssets/data/shops)

You will see multiple files that start with "shopdef_Weapon_" - these control what appears where.

Inside the files, you will see things categorized either under Inventory or Specials

Inventory is stuff in stock all the time at the applicable planets.

Specials is the stuff that 'might' be available. This is based on the Count and Weight values. Count is how many may appear (0 being infinite amount, I believe). Weight being the chance of it appearing.

Easiest way to remove something is to delete the entry for the specific item - everything between the { } , including those brackets. Try not to leave any lingering commas as well.

Not sure how the salvage works - likely something that is based off the item rarity and the mission parameters that it choose stuff randomly.

That help?
 
So I'm debating using this mod with the IS map mod (and all of the optional mods it comes with) does anyone know if this works?

Also, I've got a thread on a mod idea thats sort of close to this, with the idea being that you have "crappy" "worn-out" versions of weapons. Would you consider adding some of that in. (I'm not making my own mod to do it). I.e. rebuilt LL's make more heat, or worn out AC's have more recoil etc.

Thread with more detail: (please use my idea and put it in this mod :) )
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/garbage-tech-mechs-mod-idea.1100856/
 
I think this mod is made for something like the IS Map - to keep things fresh and interesting.
 
Cross-posting my bug report(s) from NexusMods (submitted as NeoSeether):

v1.0a - Enhanced Edition: shopdef_Weapons_blackmarket.json still has missing commas

Addendum: the folder structure for Enhanced Edition isn't correct; files to be overridden need to be placed in 'GT_WeaponDiversityPlus\StreamingAssets\data\<sub-folder(s)>'; only new files get placed in the root folder.

I can upload a cleaned-up .rar archive (most overwritten files have unnecessary clutter stripped out, blame my OCD; JK_MinorAdjustments aspects also removed, I keep 'em in a separate sub-folder on my installation), if you want it.
 
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Im running JK variants modtek version and I have the manual install of Battletech Enhanced - More Gear More Options and then this plus a buncha other stuff. At first while waiting thru a seriously long load time to start the game... it finally loaded. And it all works. Thanks a bunch!

Edit, just gotta say, these three mods are the ones that make this game amazing. The other mods I have are great, but these three... just awesome.
 
This looks quite interesting.