Zaardu, spider9473, you could find working copy of this mod inside Battletech Revised folder. Despite of being part of Battletech Revised it is basically the same mod, but working with 1.9. And it works with Vanilla just fine.
The mod breaks lance loading before the mission. You can't see what you are collecting for the mission, the mechs and pilots disappear in the interface.
I use this mod as part of the 'simulation' mode in BEX CE, and honestly feel it's one of the most game changing mods there is. A major issue in the stock game is that lighter mechs tend to lose relevance in the later stages. There really is no incentive not to go full Steiner Scout all the time.
This mod changes all that. The real-life reason light armor stays relevant is that it's cheap to buy and maintain. As Battletech is, at its heart, a mercenary business simulation (the only way to lose is to go bankrupt) financial considerations should play a major role in force deployment. This mod forces a choice between taking a Griffon to increase firepower, at the cost of decreasing pay significantly, or taking a Locust to increase money at the risk of increasing challenge/risk. In my current game I have increased the costs by a further 20%, and I find it really makes the choice to drop with a minimum lance a good option.
Also, as Edmon has shown, well set up lights with skilled pilots can rape a heavy lance. However, although in the stock game this can be a fun exercise, there is really no incentive to balance the considerable risk (A lucky roll from a Warhammer can ruin a Jenner's day!)
With this mod, the added potential risk of running light drops is balanced by a significant increase in profitability. Run a game that requires 5 or 6 build parts, and suddenly your finances become a prime concern. Honestly, this feels like the way the game should have been balanced in the first place.
Kudos and many thanks to Morphyum for this great mod.
price=K*cost+W*weight+free it is still linear and to high price for the beggining off the game. But it is too low at the end with the same values (K, W free). You may consider price ~ K*cost^2 or so...
Drop costs based off tonnage is fine, but maintenance costs need to be adjusted to a low base number for keeping active Mechs ready but more intensive for mechs you used, to reflect the costs of reloading and repairs to armor.
The posting is messing with the format of my comment, God alone knows what you'll end up reading but know it's not how I submitted it.
*Suggestion* I do not like the drop by tonnage ! What I would like to see in its place is a system that makes you only pay for ammo that loaded in dropped mechs but will first look for ammo in inventory and have the option to pay for the ammo out of cbills or take from inventory ... as that is the only cost that actually makes sense every drop ,,, if your gonna make us pay for fissionable material the engines should be able to last at least a week in use/ not in mech bay before needed to be refilled so at least 3-5 missions not refueled every mission.
I added a new setting that allows you to set a drop limit per difficulty, and if you go over that difficulty then (and only then) are you charged the configurable amount per tonnage:
Source, dll, and my personal settings (based off of the new v1.0 release on github):
I'd like to see more settings added: 1) Another array that's a cost per ton multiplier for each difficulty level (so cost per ton can increase as difficulty rises if you want) 2) Another array that's a hard limit per difficulty level for the number of tons you can go over, beyond which you cannot deploy at all 3) A flat sum amount that's added if you go over the limit, in addition to the standard cost per ton 4) Another array that's a flat sum multiplier per difficulty (so the flat sum can increase as difficulty rises if you want)
The only one that looks difficult to add to this mod is #2, but thankfully another modder did the work on that for his own mod so it's not like flying blind... but it's literally the only thing his mod does, so I'd feel a little dirty adding it to this mod... and it's not really a required feature for me to enjoy the game anyways as long as #1, #3, and #4 are implemented.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that battle values seem to be implemented in code and json files. In table top, deployments are balanced around battle values and not tonnage. But unless there's a way to display battle values for mechs and equipment in the game's user interface in the refit screen and such, it's wouldn't be a fun mechanic to actually enable during play imho. Tonnage is good enough for me since we're limited to a max of 4 mechs anyways, but I could imagine in the future someone hardcore into battletech tabletop balancing deployments around battle values instead.
EDIT: Here's an updated version of the above which incorporates all the changes I wanted:
For the solution to #2, I stuck with this mod's flavor of soft limits instead of using a hard limit by using flat fees -- there are two grades of flat fees: the first one is added when you exceed the tonnage limit, and the second one is added when you exceed the tonnage limit by a set amount. So, while you CAN go crazy with tonnage and have four 100 ton mechs, you probably won't want to. All highly configurable.
30 comments
A major issue in the stock game is that lighter mechs tend to lose relevance in the later stages. There really is no incentive not to go full Steiner Scout all the time.
This mod changes all that.
The real-life reason light armor stays relevant is that it's cheap to buy and maintain. As Battletech is, at its heart, a mercenary business simulation (the only way to lose is to go bankrupt) financial considerations should play a major role in force deployment.
This mod forces a choice between taking a Griffon to increase firepower, at the cost of decreasing pay significantly, or taking a Locust to increase money at the risk of increasing challenge/risk.
In my current game I have increased the costs by a further 20%, and I find it really makes the choice to drop with a minimum lance a good option.
Also, as Edmon has shown, well set up lights with skilled pilots can rape a heavy lance.
However, although in the stock game this can be a fun exercise, there is really no incentive to balance the considerable risk (A lucky roll from a Warhammer can ruin a Jenner's day!)
With this mod, the added potential risk of running light drops is balanced by a significant increase in profitability. Run a game that requires 5 or 6 build parts, and suddenly your finances become a prime concern.
Honestly, this feels like the way the game should have been balanced in the first place.
Kudos and many thanks to Morphyum for this great mod.
Any chance you plan to update it for 1.8? That would be awesome.
it is still linear and to high price for the beggining off the game. But it is too low at the end with the same values (K, W free).
You may consider price ~ K*cost^2 or so...
The posting is messing with the format of my comment, God alone knows what you'll end up reading but know it's not how I submitted it.
Source, dll, and my personal settings (based off of the new v1.0 release on github):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GG64WO8EDWVzNIOXx0NR4WPUYCBAseJ0
I'd like to see more settings added:
1) Another array that's a cost per ton multiplier for each difficulty level (so cost per ton can increase as difficulty rises if you want)
2) Another array that's a hard limit per difficulty level for the number of tons you can go over, beyond which you cannot deploy at all
3) A flat sum amount that's added if you go over the limit, in addition to the standard cost per ton
4) Another array that's a flat sum multiplier per difficulty (so the flat sum can increase as difficulty rises if you want)
The only one that looks difficult to add to this mod is #2, but thankfully another modder did the work on that for his own mod so it's not like flying blind... but it's literally the only thing his mod does, so I'd feel a little dirty adding it to this mod... and it's not really a required feature for me to enjoy the game anyways as long as #1, #3, and #4 are implemented.
One thing I noticed while doing this is that battle values seem to be implemented in code and json files. In table top, deployments are balanced around battle values and not tonnage. But unless there's a way to display battle values for mechs and equipment in the game's user interface in the refit screen and such, it's wouldn't be a fun mechanic to actually enable during play imho. Tonnage is good enough for me since we're limited to a max of 4 mechs anyways, but I could imagine in the future someone hardcore into battletech tabletop balancing deployments around battle values instead.
EDIT: Here's an updated version of the above which incorporates all the changes I wanted:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MZK11c3S5oRijSm0qdYqEkvIBVwAIWV4
For the solution to #2, I stuck with this mod's flavor of soft limits instead of using a hard limit by using flat fees -- there are two grades of flat fees: the first one is added when you exceed the tonnage limit, and the second one is added when you exceed the tonnage limit by a set amount. So, while you CAN go crazy with tonnage and have four 100 ton mechs, you probably won't want to. All highly configurable.