So I suggested this way back before release (when I was a wee little Kickstarter backer) and got the patented Mitch Gitelman "In success all things are possible".
So, persistent multiplayer. A lot of people want it, Battletech is very well suited for it and there is already a fan-made project that does it (Megamek) from which I think much inspiration can be derived. I am going to offer a series of suggestions which grow in complexity from a bare-bones implementation.
Bare-Bones
Little company management. No mech customization. No map. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds. They pick a faction and join a queue when they want to play. Winning/losing a fight yields experience (based on the BV and/or tonnage of the engagement), funds and/or salvage (if they win). They can use those funds to buy new mechs and repair mechs. Winning a fight earns their side a certain amount of points, at the end of a time period the faction with most points wins and the process can begin anew.
Basic
Little company management. No mech customization. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds. They pick a faction and start at that faction's home system. If they wish to play a match they can do two things: attack another faction's system or respond to an attack on one of their systems. An attack on a system spawns a glowing sign on the map (just like a flashpoint), clicking on the flashpoint will show the opposing player's company name, logo, faction, BV and likelihood of biome. Then any player can move over to that system and engage, provided they field a lance that is within +/- 200 points of the attacker. For every 50 point difference in BV, the disadvantaged side gets one use of a focus ability. Winning/losing a fight yields experience (based on the BV and/or tonnage of the engagement), funds and/or salvage (if they win). Winning a fight earns their side a certain amount of control/sovereignty of the system, once that reaches 51% that system flips. At the end of a time period the faction that has gained the most sovereignty wins and the process can begin anew.
Crucially, players can only jump from a neutral system or one their faction controls, unless they are jumping back to their own territory. This forces at least a level of strategic coherence to the map.
Full
Some company management, players can use funds to increase their hangars and also for repairs. No mech customization. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds based on their starting faction. Same reward and sovereignty mechanics are above. Planets produce specific battlemechs, so losing a planet loses the ability to purchase that battlemech at the store (and vice versa). To prevent craziness, capital planets will produce enough of a variety so players aren't hosed until the cycle resets. Any mechs sold by players will also appear on a black market, available to all, a bidding system could be implemented for these.
For funzies, players can join the pirate faction, which can't take sovereignty but gets a bonus to post-battle funds and salvage (at the cost of having a diminished faction store).
Addendum
-Map could be the current map (though it would skew heavily in favor of cappies for the first time in Battletech history) or a re-cropped map or the whole IS. Map could also change between cycles to suit specific conflicts (like the Andurien crisis).
-No mech customization is important because it averts a whole slew of problems that come with gimmicky builds, it also greatly simplifies buying and selling.
-Players pick a faction at the start because that alleviates the frequent problem of people spying in chats (since they would be logged into their paradox account, they would need a second copy of the game, in which case, god bless them). You could allow players to be mercenaries working for different factions but that creates many problems.
-I have specifically tried to avoid this but you could create a 'tick' mechanic (like Mekwars has). Every five minutes (or whatever) the server ticks and everything happens: factories partially build mechs, players jump from one system to the next, repairs are made etc. It basically turns the days mechanic of the single player game into realtime.
-You could have planets with the 'lostech' tab randomly generate a lostech mech every couple of days for their faction. Or, more interesting, you could have a chance to obtain a lostech mech as salvage whenever you flip a losstech planet's sovereignty.
-After a certain period of time (10 minutes ish) that a planet is attacked and no one opts to defend the attacking side gets an automatic victory with reduced rewards and sovereignty (say, 15% instead of 25% or whatever). This is to force factions to defend and not just attack.
-I would strongly suggest keeping the focus abilities available only as a counterweight to BV differences.
-A leaderboard/ELO of the most succesful/feared companies for each faction could be made visible.
-As server hosting ain't cheap and the BT universe is full of heraldry, you could have specific unit patterns (like the Northwind checkerboard) as multiplayer microtransactions.
So, persistent multiplayer. A lot of people want it, Battletech is very well suited for it and there is already a fan-made project that does it (Megamek) from which I think much inspiration can be derived. I am going to offer a series of suggestions which grow in complexity from a bare-bones implementation.
Bare-Bones
Little company management. No mech customization. No map. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds. They pick a faction and join a queue when they want to play. Winning/losing a fight yields experience (based on the BV and/or tonnage of the engagement), funds and/or salvage (if they win). They can use those funds to buy new mechs and repair mechs. Winning a fight earns their side a certain amount of points, at the end of a time period the faction with most points wins and the process can begin anew.
Basic
Little company management. No mech customization. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds. They pick a faction and start at that faction's home system. If they wish to play a match they can do two things: attack another faction's system or respond to an attack on one of their systems. An attack on a system spawns a glowing sign on the map (just like a flashpoint), clicking on the flashpoint will show the opposing player's company name, logo, faction, BV and likelihood of biome. Then any player can move over to that system and engage, provided they field a lance that is within +/- 200 points of the attacker. For every 50 point difference in BV, the disadvantaged side gets one use of a focus ability. Winning/losing a fight yields experience (based on the BV and/or tonnage of the engagement), funds and/or salvage (if they win). Winning a fight earns their side a certain amount of control/sovereignty of the system, once that reaches 51% that system flips. At the end of a time period the faction that has gained the most sovereignty wins and the process can begin anew.
Crucially, players can only jump from a neutral system or one their faction controls, unless they are jumping back to their own territory. This forces at least a level of strategic coherence to the map.
Full
Some company management, players can use funds to increase their hangars and also for repairs. No mech customization. Players are given a starting allotment of mechs/pilots and/or funds based on their starting faction. Same reward and sovereignty mechanics are above. Planets produce specific battlemechs, so losing a planet loses the ability to purchase that battlemech at the store (and vice versa). To prevent craziness, capital planets will produce enough of a variety so players aren't hosed until the cycle resets. Any mechs sold by players will also appear on a black market, available to all, a bidding system could be implemented for these.
For funzies, players can join the pirate faction, which can't take sovereignty but gets a bonus to post-battle funds and salvage (at the cost of having a diminished faction store).
Addendum
-Map could be the current map (though it would skew heavily in favor of cappies for the first time in Battletech history) or a re-cropped map or the whole IS. Map could also change between cycles to suit specific conflicts (like the Andurien crisis).
-No mech customization is important because it averts a whole slew of problems that come with gimmicky builds, it also greatly simplifies buying and selling.
-Players pick a faction at the start because that alleviates the frequent problem of people spying in chats (since they would be logged into their paradox account, they would need a second copy of the game, in which case, god bless them). You could allow players to be mercenaries working for different factions but that creates many problems.
-I have specifically tried to avoid this but you could create a 'tick' mechanic (like Mekwars has). Every five minutes (or whatever) the server ticks and everything happens: factories partially build mechs, players jump from one system to the next, repairs are made etc. It basically turns the days mechanic of the single player game into realtime.
-You could have planets with the 'lostech' tab randomly generate a lostech mech every couple of days for their faction. Or, more interesting, you could have a chance to obtain a lostech mech as salvage whenever you flip a losstech planet's sovereignty.
-After a certain period of time (10 minutes ish) that a planet is attacked and no one opts to defend the attacking side gets an automatic victory with reduced rewards and sovereignty (say, 15% instead of 25% or whatever). This is to force factions to defend and not just attack.
-I would strongly suggest keeping the focus abilities available only as a counterweight to BV differences.
-A leaderboard/ELO of the most succesful/feared companies for each faction could be made visible.
-As server hosting ain't cheap and the BT universe is full of heraldry, you could have specific unit patterns (like the Northwind checkerboard) as multiplayer microtransactions.
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