This is amazing. Each bullet in your feature list makes me nod, while making me realize how much I'll miss some of the imbalance I've learned to rely on. Very reasonable changes, not just "let's make everything harder". Even the ones I was initially reluctant to agree with are growing on me, like the AC2 weight change. The AC to-hit debuff makes SO much sense -- I sure remember my aim getting knocked around in MechWarrior 3.
Agreed with Koshea69's point about the SRM heat; a few other mods do this but often do other things I don't want. Looking forward to your update.
Consider: visibility/sensor range affected by skill? Or perhaps inverse by mech size -- give Lights a bonus.
This mod hits almost everything I'm interested in changing for my second playthrough, with the exception of changing the weight of the AC2 and adding stuff to the Blackjack/Jaeger. How hard would it be to change those things, and is there any chance you would offer a variant without them?
Love the idea of what this mod changes. Additinoal Contracts, Visibility, Gunnery not being so accurate, called shots nerfs, indirect fire, Clustering and Heat changes! It's like you knew everything that has been bothering me after getting high enough level to be playing with heavys and assaults.
I'm ecstatic to have good PPC's, not gimped with a handout PPC's, so awesome in TT, so nerfed in the game.
I like the idea of the debuff being added to the smaller autocannons like the 2, 5, and 10 but the 20 definitely doesn't need it, and not sure how I like it stacking for any of them other than the 2 but guess we'll check it out. Any chance you could fix the heat for the SRM's? The 4 needs to be brought up one and the 6 needs to be brought down 2
I like the accuracy changes, high base chance, high gunnery, and no medium range, was just making it too easy to hit high evasion mechs. Hoping your changes are enough to help lighter mechs, I had been using the evasion part of the weapon and evasion mod to buff evasion numbers. Guess we'll see how this works to make Light's and Mediums last now.
The CBT balance overhaul brought down the accuracy on all missiles (instead of giving us increased accuracy on the holly's?!) to account for the extra innaccuracy of missiles in the TT, might help bring them down from being so good right now. Any chance to add this in since your touching every weapon file anyway to add back in medium range? Not really sure how to stack mods and I don't want everything from that mod but it's a good enough of a change on it's own it belongs in here I think.
I contemplated not having the debuff on the AC/20, but figured I'd see how it plays, see if it is actually an issue before I make the 20 an exception. In my experience so far, I don't think it's been an issue. The AC/20, in the hands of players, tends to end fights, plus you have to get close before you can use it. It's more the AC/2 and 5 users that work on stacking the debuff. Though if i hear from people that it is an issue, I can strip it and change the AC/20's flavor text to read something about how its low velocity, high explosive shells don't have the same effect as other ACs.
I'll look into the SRM heat tomorrow, if I have time. If not, then next week. I sort of didn't want to touch more files than I had to, but I guess I wound up touching everything to get medium range back in anyway, so might as well have a look at them. Need to fix the skirmish lances I inadvertently broke anyway.
As far as missile accuracy goes, I considered going that route. Ultimately, I decided to hold off a bit, for two reasons. The first is that missiles have been hit by a 20% reduction in damage over TT, which somewhat counteracts them hitting with a greater quantity of missiles. And the second is that I wanted to see how the clustering and accuracy changes impacted things. So far, now that they properly sandpaper things, I'm finding their regular damage is okay. Stability though... well, still too easy to knock mechs down I think, so if I tweak them more, that's probably the aspect I'll focus on. Though it might be something to put on SRMs. Problem is I've been a bit busy figuring out how to add mechs/vehicles to the game, so haven't had too much time to really get a feel of playing with all my changes. So I welcome feedback, if you want to try it for a bit, and then let me know what you think, if anything, still needs tweaking on missiles.
Oh, and as for the Holly SRMs, I didn't buff 'em. I fixed a bug that gave them an accuracy bonus. So now instead of getting an extra 5% and 25% to hit, those two are the same as every other missile: 0%.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback, and I'll take a look at those SRMs in the near future, and will definitely keep a close on missiles, both long and short, in my "with mod" playthrough .
With the 20, it's a nice little side bonus but you bring it because it's big and scary, with the 5 and 10 you bring them because they punch holes too but I can see getting a bonus for the investment in tonnage. The 2 on the other hand, this is it's new bread and butter so make it the best at it.
Spent some time with it tonight, managed to mod in a +2 accuracy penalty to all missiles and get the SRM's heat back to balanced and made the debuff not applicable to the AC/20 and only stacks for the AC/2 (a 3xAC/5 Jagermech would be brutal if he could triple stack a different mech every turn). If I could get the stack with a 5 the AC/2 would be back to no reason to bring one for me, as it is I don't have one but I can see a reason to bring one with the ability to stack.
Ran 3 missions so not a huge sample size but some initial thoughts
I think Missiles feel really good with no grouping, indirect fire penalty, 10% lower hit chance (and SRM's usually sit right next to Medium lasers that have an inate +1 so it really stands out) missiles do miss quite a bit (which lowers their stability damage in a very natural way), LRM boats are nice and useful but not necessary at this point. I was perfectly comfortable leaving mine at home for the first time in ages for a 4th up close mech.
Didn't try out large lasers but oh man have I missed my PPC's! Heat is still an issue but a dual PPC mech is definitely doable, didn't bring one to a hot map though so still more testing to be done.
I really like not seeing 85%+ hit percentages across the board, medium range alone was a great advantage on top of a lower base and lower boost from skills. All my pilots are gunnery 8 - 10 though so not sure how the lower levels would feel. Lower level LRM boats might not be able to be a thing in this enviornment and I'm OK with that.
And the beauty of those lower hit chances is that the TTCs gain value as well. Which could help a lower level missile focused build with your tweaks, investing 1 ton in a TTC-Missile.
I also noticed that you have every weapon json file in the data folder. Are all of them modified in some way or just the ones you listed in your description? I would like to know so I can merge your mod with another.
Edit: never mind, i derped hard and realized that you DID edit all those files lol.
Yeah, I did edit them all. Was necessary to add the medium range modifier back in, as HBS not only set the medium range modifier to 0, they also defined short range for every weapon to be the same as medium range. So I had to change that on every single weapon.
It wouldn't be too hard to merge Mharius's mod with mine, I'd expect, as there aren't too many files. I'd suggest using Notepad++ or something similar, if you don't already have that. Let's you have multiple files open at once, search and replace in open files, and so on. You'll basically be looking at three changes from my side: - My heat values for LLs and PPCs are the TT ones (x3, of course). If he didn't do that, you may want to adjust his to match mine, by weapon type. Although if he gave them other buffs, then maybe keep his heat values. Since they're all lostech things, it shouldn't create any issues with the AI's use of stock designs, as it doesn't get to play with lostech at all, pretty much. - You'll want to add medium range back in to his versions. It's usually just 1/3rd of max range = short, 2/3rds = medium, and long = max. Some weapons whose ranges are not divisible by three are different, like the ERs and Gauss, but the breakdown in my version is the TT breakdown. - And that leaves the removal of the PPC proc. Either remove it from his or add them back into my PPCs, whichever you prefer. I did keep the name of the debuff the same, so adding it back to PPCs might cause issues with the ACs. Or it might not, since the game does seem to keep track of each instance of the debuff's duration separately.
grinningsphinx wrote: what is your rationale for moving a well known PPC effect and giving it to autocannons?
A mix of two things. First was that it isn't a thing PPCs have in table top, and with the restored heat values and the stability damage, it didn't need it. The second was that I felt fixing PPCs and LLs made ACs a bit bland, so they could use a little sizzle. Especially the AC/2, which doesn't compare that well to LRM 5s. So I decided to move the the debuff to ACs and let it stack a few times, giving them a unique flavor.
12 comments
Agreed with Koshea69's point about the SRM heat; a few other mods do this but often do other things I don't want. Looking forward to your update.
Consider: visibility/sensor range affected by skill? Or perhaps inverse by mech size -- give Lights a bonus.
P.S. Can you make a ModTek version?
I'm ecstatic to have good PPC's, not gimped with a handout PPC's, so awesome in TT, so nerfed in the game.
I like the idea of the debuff being added to the smaller autocannons like the 2, 5, and 10 but the 20 definitely doesn't need it, and not sure how I like it stacking for any of them other than the 2 but guess we'll check it out. Any chance you could fix the heat for the SRM's? The 4 needs to be brought up one and the 6 needs to be brought down 2
I like the accuracy changes, high base chance, high gunnery, and no medium range, was just making it too easy to hit high evasion mechs. Hoping your changes are enough to help lighter mechs, I had been using the evasion part of the weapon and evasion mod to buff evasion numbers. Guess we'll see how this works to make Light's and Mediums last now.
The CBT balance overhaul brought down the accuracy on all missiles (instead of giving us increased accuracy on the holly's?!) to account for the extra innaccuracy of missiles in the TT, might help bring them down from being so good right now. Any chance to add this in since your touching every weapon file anyway to add back in medium range? Not really sure how to stack mods and I don't want everything from that mod but it's a good enough of a change on it's own it belongs in here I think.
I'll look into the SRM heat tomorrow, if I have time. If not, then next week. I sort of didn't want to touch more files than I had to, but I guess I wound up touching everything to get medium range back in anyway, so might as well have a look at them. Need to fix the skirmish lances I inadvertently broke anyway.
As far as missile accuracy goes, I considered going that route. Ultimately, I decided to hold off a bit, for two reasons. The first is that missiles have been hit by a 20% reduction in damage over TT, which somewhat counteracts them hitting with a greater quantity of missiles. And the second is that I wanted to see how the clustering and accuracy changes impacted things. So far, now that they properly sandpaper things, I'm finding their regular damage is okay. Stability though... well, still too easy to knock mechs down I think, so if I tweak them more, that's probably the aspect I'll focus on. Though it might be something to put on SRMs. Problem is I've been a bit busy figuring out how to add mechs/vehicles to the game, so haven't had too much time to really get a feel of playing with all my changes. So I welcome feedback, if you want to try it for a bit, and then let me know what you think, if anything, still needs tweaking on missiles.
Oh, and as for the Holly SRMs, I didn't buff 'em. I fixed a bug that gave them an accuracy bonus. So now instead of getting an extra 5% and 25% to hit, those two are the same as every other missile: 0%.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback, and I'll take a look at those SRMs in the near future, and will definitely keep a close on missiles, both long and short, in my "with mod" playthrough .
Spent some time with it tonight, managed to mod in a +2 accuracy penalty to all missiles and get the SRM's heat back to balanced and made the debuff not applicable to the AC/20 and only stacks for the AC/2 (a 3xAC/5 Jagermech would be brutal if he could triple stack a different mech every turn). If I could get the stack with a 5 the AC/2 would be back to no reason to bring one for me, as it is I don't have one but I can see a reason to bring one with the ability to stack.
Ran 3 missions so not a huge sample size but some initial thoughts
I think Missiles feel really good with no grouping, indirect fire penalty, 10% lower hit chance (and SRM's usually sit right next to Medium lasers that have an inate +1 so it really stands out) missiles do miss quite a bit (which lowers their stability damage in a very natural way), LRM boats are nice and useful but not necessary at this point. I was perfectly comfortable leaving mine at home for the first time in ages for a 4th up close mech.
Didn't try out large lasers but oh man have I missed my PPC's! Heat is still an issue but a dual PPC mech is definitely doable, didn't bring one to a hot map though so still more testing to be done.
I really like not seeing 85%+ hit percentages across the board, medium range alone was a great advantage on top of a lower base and lower boost from skills. All my pilots are gunnery 8 - 10 though so not sure how the lower levels would feel. Lower level LRM boats might not be able to be a thing in this enviornment and I'm OK with that.
And the beauty of those lower hit chances is that the TTCs gain value as well. Which could help a lower level missile focused build with your tweaks, investing 1 ton in a TTC-Missile.
I would like to know so I can merge your mod with another.
Edit: never mind, i derped hard and realized that you DID edit all those files lol.
It wouldn't be too hard to merge Mharius's mod with mine, I'd expect, as there aren't too many files. I'd suggest using Notepad++ or something similar, if you don't already have that. Let's you have multiple files open at once, search and replace in open files, and so on. You'll basically be looking at three changes from my side:
- My heat values for LLs and PPCs are the TT ones (x3, of course). If he didn't do that, you may want to adjust his to match mine, by weapon type. Although if he gave them other buffs, then maybe keep his heat values. Since they're all lostech things, it shouldn't create any issues with the AI's use of stock designs, as it doesn't get to play with lostech at all, pretty much.
- You'll want to add medium range back in to his versions. It's usually just 1/3rd of max range = short, 2/3rds = medium, and long = max. Some weapons whose ranges are not divisible by three are different, like the ERs and Gauss, but the breakdown in my version is the TT breakdown.
- And that leaves the removal of the PPC proc. Either remove it from his or add them back into my PPCs, whichever you prefer. I did keep the name of the debuff the same, so adding it back to PPCs might cause issues with the ACs. Or it might not, since the game does seem to keep track of each instance of the debuff's duration separately.
A mix of two things. First was that it isn't a thing PPCs have in table top, and with the restored heat values and the stability damage, it didn't need it. The second was that I felt fixing PPCs and LLs made ACs a bit bland, so they could use a little sizzle. Especially the AC/2, which doesn't compare that well to LRM 5s. So I decided to move the the debuff to ACs and let it stack a few times, giving them a unique flavor.