Ways to individualize mechs other than hardpoints

[scJazz]

@scJazz which ruleset are those quirks from? Just wondering because I've never seen TT quirks like that. I may have left the TT scene before they came along though.

It is probable that you did leave the TT Scene before the Quirks and even the Quirks as written are vague. TT !=BATTLETECH, still there is a space that is available to utilize.

 

[Jade_Rook]

Lots of great ideas here! I would certainly like to see each mech variant be more unique. As @scJazz points out, there is little reason to take a Griffin or Wolverine when a Shadow Hawk can fit the same weapons and have better melee. My concern is that some of these ideas add a lot of complexity. I'm always a little wary about that. We want depth, relevant options, interesting tactical and strategic decisions, not necessarily complexity.

My proposal would be to break the classic Battletech construction rules. Currently the modification rules match the tabletop construction rules with only a few differences (rear armor isn't linked to front, available slots have been adjusted, etc.). All mechs can mount armor equal to double their structure. All mechs can mount jump jets equal to their walk speed (except the Urbie). All mechs with the same walk/run speed have the same movement profile (with a few little adjustments for weight class, I think). I would propose unlinking these. Some mechs get better melee and hardpoints, so perhaps they shouldn't be able to mount as much armor.

Currently the SHD-2D is one of the best mediums because it has great melee, good hardpoints, and once it gets modified it can have great armor too. My modifications would reduce its max armor, probably by 2 or 3 tons spread across the mech (this would be a change to max armor, not default starting armor). The 2D brings a lot of guns, but has crap armor. The 2H wouldn't have as big of a reduction in max armor, but it doesn't have as good of hardpoints.

Out of the other 55 tonners, I would make the Griffin the mobile one (max 6 jump jets, +10 m walk speed, -1 ton max armor). The Wolverine gets the best armor (no change from standard and full jump jets, maybe -10 m walk). The Kintaro also gets full armor, but wasn't designed to jump (max 2 jump jets).

I would repeat this process across all of the mechs, making each one a little more unique compared to the other mechs of the same or similar weights. This would all be doable without needing to change existing systems or create new rules for people to understand. There would be no RNG involved.

I don't know that I would propose these adjustments for the base game, but I would like to make them into a mod at some point. I just need to get around to it sometime...

 

[Yeach]

Well mech quirks have been brought up before

1. Different mechs have different melee damage (existing mech quirk)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-any-other-name-would-smash-as-sweet.1073707/
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-smash-as-sweet-repost.1105942/#post-24375808

2. Different manufactures weapons for stock mechs; uses Battletech manufacturer for said weapons on stock mechs;
some weapons get bonuses ie Aberdovey Mk III Medium Lasers on the Spider
some weapons get flaws such as -1 ammo for the Luxor-D autocannon on the Centurion
Gentask's weapon mod
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-release-gt_weapon-diversity-mod.1099053/
also
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...mech-loadouts-quirking.1104428/#post-24379627

3. Mech quirk's discussion in mod forum
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...quirks-mods-discussion.1107551/#post-24415809

You can mod
-weapon values in the weapon json files
-mech attributes (melee damage, stability, dfa damage, hardpoints, etc) in the chassis json files.
-mech loadout in the mechdef json files

I am currently playing a campaign with some personal mods
-All stocks mechs have weapons made by various manufacturers
-Weapons by different manufactures have different bonuses
-all mechs getting a cockpit mod and targetting computer mod (essentially head has 3 invo slots)
-Light mechs generally have longer-range sensors, Command mechs getting the morale bonus and brawlers getting resist injury cockpit mod

 

[mjbroekman]

TT !=BATTLETECH, still there is a space that is available to utilize.

Oh definitely, just as MWO != BATTLETECH.

Let HBS develop the best game possible without diluting or eliminating known BattleTech Maluses.
...
Never implementing known BattleTech BattleMech Maluses - poor Ankle Joints, Weapon Feed Problems, etc just because a gamer might might feel poorly about it and reload is to me a disservice to the game itself.
...
BATTLETECH is a BattleTech game, I would LOVE to see BattleTech BattleMech Maluses in BATTLETECH.

Now when it comes to environmentally-produced Temporary (pending something along the lines of “Deep Maintenance” time aboard the ARGO) or Permanent Maluses? Yes, there is a very good case for not including this in Baseline BATTLETECH. But as a feature of Advanced BATTLETECH or an addition to the Granular Difficulty Settings~ yes, I would very much like to see it. : )

I respect your position, @Prussian Havoc ,but I must disagree. The Design Quirks that represent "known" maluses (and bonuses) are an optional ruleset. The idea that not implementing them is somehow a disservice is contrary to them being optional.

Yes. It would be well within HBS' power to expose the various rulesets in a gameplay menu (and I'm sure people would use them, just like people use RogueTech), but I'm not sure calling it "Advanced" is fair to people that think "optional" != "Advanced". To me, "Advanced" would be more piloting / gunnery / guts / tactics checks to influence play. Adding "shaky ankles" (or other things like that) to some mechs just sounds like complexity for the sake of complexity whereas adding environmental / event driven maluses / bonuses, to me, adds depth to the gameplay.

• "Oh damn, this mech overheated on a desert biome, now there's a chance for heat sink damage that needs to be repaired (or if you don't care, drop with slightly worse heat management for some amount of time)."
• "Oh, you got knocked down in water, there's a chance for jump jet damage because water plants were sucked in and tangled the valves, gotta take care of that or your jump distance is limited until it's fixed."
• "Oh wow, you never went over 50% heat capacity on a polar map, your heat sinks are now super cold and, if you drop within 2 days, the heat sinks are at +1 to their heat management."

Also, as @Jade_Rook mentioned, the differences in mechs could be made a bit more stark in terms of movement, armor, etc and the "jump jets everywhere" does seem to be a stretch (though I do love me some high flying King Crabs).

OTOH, I tend to disagree with the assessment of the ShadowHawk. I much prefer the Centurion, Wolverine (the laser boat), and Kintaro over the ShadowHawk. Maybe it's me, but the mixed loadout of the ShadowHawk just never seems to be effective for me. I find little difference between the ShadowHawk, the ballistic Wolverwine, and Griffins, perhaps because I tend to avoid engaging in melee. Melee (to me) is for when you need to cool off, when you have no weapons left, or when you want to make a statement to the enemy by simply curb-stomping the last lone enemy with an entire lance.

As an additional role-playing nod, I really like the idea of mechwarrior 'favorites'. Right now, they're just flavor text / tags, but they could totally become actual depth to the pilots and make them more than just cookie cutters with fun voices. And putting in events / 'achievements' for hitting various milestones would allow for things like earning 'sniper' (X missions with a kill over 500m away, for example, gives +1 accuracy over 500m) or 'brawling specialist' (X melee kills, gives extra stability damage in melee) tags with various weapon/mech combinations.

 

[Yeach]

also

 

[Yeach]

Item III was a part of Beta. The pre-generated test pilots (aka Ronin types) included verbiage regarding Mech and Weapons that they like. Working from memory here as ATM I don't happen to have a Ronin. So HBS clearly considered it and hopefully they continue working towards.

Check spoiler here.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...estion-assigning-mechs.1109425/#post-24478331

 

[Yeach]

@scJazz which ruleset are those quirks from? Just wondering because I've never seen TT quirks like that. I may have left the TT scene before they came along though.

Apparently from The 3025 Battlemech Special Abilities are from Dragon Magazine #166
https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg166.pdf
page 19

 

[scJazz]

Apparently from The 3025 Battlemech Special Abilities are from Dragon Magazine #166
https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg166.pdf
page 19

Not sure if you are trying to be funny
There are extensive lists of Quirks that can be used in TT. The depths of which haven't even been touched. That Dragon Mag reference doesn't even come close or is correct.

 

[scJazz]

Oh definitely, just as MWO != BATTLETECH.
OTOH, I tend to disagree with the assessment of the ShadowHawk.

As an additional role-playing nod, I really like the idea of mechwarrior 'favorites'.

Let us not get hung up with the MWO !=BATTLETECH !=TT thing. This way leads to madness.
I tossed out the SHD comparison as a simple illustration of 4 55 ton mechs that we do have and how they could all be different... but they aren't. A segue into a deeper convo about Quirks.
I would love some Pilot Favorites or the reverse... which I do not think has been mentioned much at all... the XXX Mech is best piloted by a YYY.

 

[Prussian Havoc]

Just as Rotary Wing Pilots today are Combat-proficient on one or another but not all Helicopters, I quite like the idea that MechWarriors might be Combat-proficient on one or another but not all BattleMechs.

 

[Yeach]

Not sure if you are trying to be funny
There are extensive lists of Quirks that can be used in TT. The depths of which haven't even been touched. That Dragon Mag reference doesn't even come close or is correct.

Oh well. I couldn’t find the exact reference because I was looking at another forum for it.
Quirks from TT here
http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Design_Quirks

Also try looking through this
Fan made 3028 TRO (which includes some mech quirks in the descriptions)
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/technical-readout-3028.1074121/

 

[mjbroekman]

Let us not get hung up with the MWO !=BATTLETECH !=TT thing. This way leads to madness.
I tossed out the SHD comparison as a simple illustration of 4 55 ton mechs that we do have and how they could all be different... but they aren't. A segue into a deeper convo about Quirks.

Well, yes and no. The hardpoint locations do add flavor and uniqueness to the mech. The WLV has the Ballistic hardpoints in the arm, giving it a natural +1 ACC bonus while the SHD has it in the torso, which means it's better protected by armor. Similarly, the WLV has the highest top speed of the 55 tonners (150 vs 80 for the rest). The SHD is the stand-out for melee (though all 55-tonners have the same DFA stats). Additionally, the WLV and SHD have hardpoints in the head, though the SHD has missiles there and WLV has either energy or support weapons.

The SHD's have their hardpoints scattered over the entire mech and, while that makes for a mech not prone to being easily stripped of all its weapons, it also means that it doesn't really have the ability to "shield" with one side or the other or leverage the accuracy buff from arm-mounted weapons very well. Both the GRF and WLV have the bulk of their weapons in a single arm with only missile hardpoints in the torsos, so yes, you can strip them of most of their weapons by removing that one arm, but you can also shield with the opposite shield and make sure the opfor doesn't have easy shots on the weapon side.

As far as loadouts go, each SHD is only able to duplicate the loadout of one other 55-ton mech.

The SHD-2D can duplicate the loadout of a GRF-1N. The WLV-6R can carry an extra ballistic weapon. The GRF-1S and WLV-6K can carry more energy weapons.
Similarly, the SHD-2H can duplicate the loadout of a WLV-6R, but that's it.

I guess I'm just not seeing how these 3 (I'm not even going to bring the KTO into the discussion given its highly specialized hardpoint loadout) are "too" similar.

Could other things be changed to make them more different? Sure. As I've mentioned before in this thread, the idea of every mech getting JJs is a bit of a stretch even though I do like jumping King Crabs. I would not object if mech variants were changed to have differing numbers of JJs to fit the fluff in their description.

I would love some Pilot Favorites or the reverse... which I do not think has been mentioned much at all... the XXX Mech is best piloted by a YYY.

That's an interesting suggestion, having mechs that perform better with a certain kind of pilot (Lancer, Sniper, etc). I think the loadouts kind of help dictate that too, but I could see some flavor being added about that. "The Locust is a speedy mech in any hands, but Evasive pilots are able to perform miracles in it." (Having the Evasive Move skill gives +1 max evasion, +20% movement distance, and +1 evasion generated).

 

[ntw]

This came up in another thread; I think the hardpoint system works but is a little clunky, and I wanted to brainstorm alternatives...<SNIP>

The thing is, IMHO...If you play Stock mechs, then all the mechs become way more individualised. Mechs which are currently (with unlimited mechbay modifications) OP or useless, suddenly become more balanced.
The ShadowHawk becomes a jack of all trades and can't be modified into the only 55 tonner worth having, suddenly the Griffin and Wolverine become more viable.

Now I'm definitely NOT advocating removing the mechbay, I love tinkering and building frankenmechs as much as anyone. I'm just observing that the stock mechs have individuality in spades, which we as the players commonly remove in the pursuit of min/maxing our resources.

Maybe adding a "Stock Mechs only" difficulty option could be interesting? Of course I'd want more mechs and variants added to the game first...

 

[Nick_S]

That's an interesting suggestion, having mechs that perform better with a certain kind of pilot (Lancer, Sniper, etc). I think the loadouts kind of help dictate that too, but I could see some flavor being added about that. "The Locust is a speedy mech in any hands, but Evasive pilots are able to perform miracles in it." (Having the Evasive Move skill gives +1 max evasion, +20% movement distance, and +1 evasion generated).

I like that idea. One reason why I ended up liking my part IV ideas (have ++ weapons interact with the chassis in some way) is that ++ weapons are already a new element in BATTLETECH which doesn't come directly out of TT, and so playing with the way that gets implemented doesn't affect any of the other implementations of TT rules. The same is true of the special skills.

My two thoughts are (a) I like pairing a positive with a negative, so if the Locust, for example, can get additional bonuses to Evasive Move perhaps the multi-shot skill can't be used (which would make sense with the base locust). That's still a net positive because one doesn't really plan on using multi-shot with a locust anyway, but it at least gestures at a tradeoff. You could also say, for example, that a Stalker can't take advantage of Evasive Move, but can fire both LRM pods at a single target and use Breaching shot. On that note you could make a general rule which said that mechs which have matched (identical) arm weapons (BJ, Catapult, Stalker, King Crab) could generally fire both of them at a single target for a combined breaching shot. That would make the King Crab a scare mech. (b) one very fun part of this approach is that the NPCs could use it as well, since they do have special pilot skills. Suddenly the AI locusts would also be more difficult to hit . . .

I think that idea has potential.

The thing is, IMHO...If you play Stock mechs, then all the mechs become way more individualised. Mechs which are currently (with unlimited mechbay modifications) OP or useless, suddenly become more balanced. ...
Now I'm definitely NOT advocating removing the mechbay, I love tinkering and building frankenmechs as much as anyone. I'm just observing that the stock mechs have individuality in spades, which we as the players commonly remove in the pursuit of min/maxing our resources.

I'll mention, again, my IV.c idea which I like a lot, which would be an optional rule in which ++ weapons can only be used when they match a weapon that is carried on stock. People would still be free to use the mechbay as much as they want, but they couldn't put a PPC++ on the ShadowHawk (and take advantage of the bonuses).

I realize that could be a bunch of work (because it would add a lot of checks to the mechbay interface) but it would be a big incentive to keep mechs related to the stock design and make changes on the margin, rather than completely re-designing it. I would really enjoy that option.

 

[Almond_Brown]

Given the use of the Modules available, I guess we got Perks and not so much Quirks. Extra protection for DFA damage, more Melee damage for Arms, Pilot protection via Cockpit hardening, Weapon +'s, etc. etc.

As to any "negative" side to those type of "Perks", well for myself, 3 tons less of either Weapons or Armor, or Heat dissipation I always view as a "negative" (imho).

So we do sort of have a Quirk system, although limited in scope currently, but I also vote NO to any form of RNG based Negative Quirk/Perk system, even if you could pay to have them removed... (roll the Dice.... "Please deposit 1.4 million C-Bills to remove! Thanks and have a nice day!"

Just nope...