First off, a huge thank you to SicSix1 for the work on this. I feel like this mod massively improves the pacing of the game, and I almost find it unplayable without it.
I wanted to express my interests as a user that imho would make this a more widely received mod and I would hope would be relatively simply to implement. You're doing a few different things all at once here without a lot of adjustability from the end-user. I find the core value add to be the changes to the pacing of combat. I would love to be able to turn on or off the other features of the mod--mainly the disabling of weapons, and the disabling of hero mechs. Is it possible to add a toggle for these items in the mod options?
For my use-case, I tend to increase the overall difficulty somewhat substantially through other mods and enemy lethality/accuracy and I want there to be enemy heros that I have to fight, especially in arenas. I can choose to simply not use these mechs in my own lances. I play the game tactically with VonCommaders and such, and I like bringing 8 cheap mechs and losing 5 in a hard fought battle--but controlling the economy without rifles is more challenging. Secondly, I like having more weapons options as the playthrough gets stale with vanilla weapon sets. But I really don't want to lose the pacing of combat that your mod provides. I agree that PPCX is way overpowered (and maybe things like SB Gauss) but it would be cool to have an option to nerf these items without completely removing them. (I think that's a second ask that would be a little more difficult to implement than a simple toggle for "disable/enable xyz").
So I guess in summary, is there a way to separate the pace-of-combat changes from the weapon/unit restrictions?
Firstly, a huge thank you for MechwarriorVR - I’m researching for my first time mechwarrior experience and the diegetic VR interface + Glass mod + ultra graphics and weather you guys have turned out is something else.
Im looking at ruleset mods now, seeking a more in-depth tactical experience, and like the sound of this one,but am a bit concerned with what people tend to say about YAML - namely that it lifts build restrictions to the point of being highly unbalanced with a player-end power creep that makes everything overpowered.
Does Battletech 3015 somewhat reign in on that unbalancing sort of freedom? I read the descriptions extensively, am aware of removing hero mechs and such, so I wander about other factors perhaps more specific to YAML.
I am planning to try this mod out, but the lack of Rifles is definitely trying to drive me away from it, to be honest. I like the old primitive weaponry of Battletech, and Rifles were both useful in early game and not more powerful than ACs in vanilla balance, and not having cheap and crude weapons to replace expensive Autocannons feels not ver Battletech-ish. Maybe bringing them in-line with ACs by any means would be better? They have horrible heat generation, very low ammo count per ton, maybe cooldown time for rifles was fine to begin with? If AC20 have ~10 seconds cooldown and AC10 have ~6 seconds, heavy rifle wit it's 10 or 12 seconds cooldown is still far worse than AC10, it's just shifts their role from intermedate ballistic filler to actual AC alternative. Maybe a heat penalty would have worked better than increasing already terrible cooldown time?
Besides, you haven't mentioned chem lasers at all, and afaik they are not canon for this time period as well - were they removed too?
Another question: does Yet Another Revamped Quirk and Equipment work with this mod and Battletech Beyond 3015?
EDIT: Another question - will Scary Tanks mod completely ruin the game for me with this balance?
Tabletop has also a special rule for primitive weapons like the rifles, they deal 0 damage to non primitive armor. Only Exception is the heavy rifle for dealing a singular point of damage.
I remember this rule to be a bit different: rifles get -3 to all their damage to non-primitive armor, so only light rifles do 0 damage, medium rifle deals 3 damage instead of 6, and heavy rifle deals 6 damage instead of 9. What you described seems to be far too harsh, and i never seen this iteration before.
This mod does not have adjustable settings to my knowledge. The settings it is asking you to change in the installation instructions are in the YAML mod settings, which is why Mod Options is required.
I just have one thing to report -- When I hit "Fodder" level reputation from Arena winnings, I get rewards including the weaponry you've removed to keep things lore friendly. To be specific, I get rewarded with 2 Light rifle BF, 1 PPC-X, and an AC2 RF (not sure if this is not lore friendly). I definitely could just sell them but it still breaks "immersion" haha. If you have plans for updates, I really hope these are looked into as well! Thank you :)
The problem with having extended damage fall off ranges, not including that it's not how it works in TT, is it devalues the heavier and hotter long range weapons and ruins playing range gaps. The ML is a really really efficient weapon, the LL only has the advantage of a 180m window where it can do damage but the other can't.
Of course blindly sticking to TT rules in a real time game with no dice makes no sense, so some liberties need to be taken to get it somewhat balanced and feeling right, but I feel having hard caps on weapon ranges where possible helps more than hurts the tactical element.
I've been waiting for so long for this! previous Mechwarrior games more or less stuck with TT values and it worked out just fine for them. I understand that MW5 has way more enemies to kill than previous titles so a little leeway needs to exist. With that being said though, my only gripe so far is laser duration. In TT and previous MW games they were hitscan weapons and while I do not think it's a good idea in MW5, I still think a short laser duration (at least vanilla values) would be beneficial to this mod. I did notice that the ER PPC only has a range of 630m when it should outrange the gauss rifle with a range of 690m
There are a few things I would like to see added. 1) TT rebalance of clan weapons and equipment, as well as post clan invasion IS weapons and equipment (maybe as a separate mod?) 2) head structure values reduced to 3 3) AC/2-BF and AC/5-BF do 8 and 15 damage respectively and have their cooldowns quadrupled and tripled 4) PPC minimum range of 90m 5) Mod Option menu to tweak weapon settings to our liking.
I've gone with slightly extended laser durations to nerf them a bit. In TT if you shoot 8 lasers at once they'll randomly hit 8 locations, here they'll all hit the same spot provided you can keep it on target. Given the lowered armour and structure values, mechs like the HBK-4P will just blow straight through stuff if all 40 damage hits the same location. The extra duration is intended to make it harder to keep on a single body part and add a bit more skill to the equation, but I'm open to slightly reducing it.
Yeah, you're right I've put the wrong number in for the ER PPC, I'll fix that up in next release.
This mod is sticking to the timeline of the game and campaigns and slightly past it at the moment, so no plans to do clan gear.
Burst fire AC/s are balanced as basically the same as their non burst counterparts with a small damage buff and small cooldown buff as they have the disadvantage of scattered damage and the possibility of some rounds missing. I have been meaning to reduce the cooldown buff a touch though.
No plans on adding a PPC minimum range or minimum ranges for the ACs either, there's no simple way to do it and they AI would need to be told about it somehow too.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to change a lot of the weapon values dynamically, including cooldowns, so there wouldn't be much point in an options menu. I'll release the source soon anyway so you can configure it to your liking.
I did not dig enough into the blueprints for managing weapon ranges, but I am thinking that, since upgrades are changing the weapon ranges dynamically, one could use the same code path to do that from options menu? Maybe if not per weapon itself, but rather for a limited more controversial set, or per weapon category.
On a different note, I have been playing your conversion quite a bit with your modifications and I started to really like it. Tactics are so much more important now and when one commits to combat, happens fast, is personal and it is thrilling AF. Really good stuff!
Maybe you could share the MW editor source for your mod, if you want?
after playing a bit more. There are a couple of things that I do really want to see. these *should* be doable but I wanna see what you think. I noticed that you removed all the standard SRMs and LRMs and are using strictly the stream versions. So these are the propositions I have.
1) make SRMs track their targets. it is canon that SRMs have a lock on ability, so it fits into the lore. Obviously should not be as effective as streak SRMs, but using the stream version as well as having a much longer cooldown makes them much more difficult to use. 2) remove the LB 10-X AC-SLD and just keep the LB 10-X AC and add in ammo switching, kind of like YAW. It streamlines the weapon list further as well as add more lore-friendly gameplay, as well as allowing it to stand out more compared to the AC/10. 3) Maybe add in dedicated Artemis IV FCS units and remove the +ART IV missiles.
I like these suggestions. I also think SRMs should have some basic lock-on ability. Also, can we have the option to allow energy weapons to work past their range?
2 is definitely something I want to do if and when I get some time, 3 might be possible if the AIV control unit is set up to provide mech wide buffs through a quirk or something, but would also need to automatically change ammo type of all launchers. Probably possible, but fiddly, and not sure how it would work in with the MechLab.
Not sure on 1, would need to spend a bit of time playing around with missile turn rates or use some other method to make sure it doesn't become too strong. The further away you are the more time the missiles would have to turn and hit the target, so unless there's some extra code to intentionally make some missiles completely miss it would basically become an SSRM.
you can get in touch with LittleTex and find out how his missile logic works. he has tracking SRMs in Yet Another Revamped Weapon. He might share his source files too.
So uhhh, I might have released an expansion pack for this mod. BattleTech - Beyond 3015... Its weapon balancing is mostly in line with BattleTech 3015, but with some additional features seen in YARW. Also, all the canon weapons already in YARW are included, which is the main point to it.
Interesting idea but you can get shredded in seconds with half armor and since missions are never fair (you're always outnumbered) you end up losing money on missions more often than not. Also even with AI mods the bots are still just too dumb to deal with this lethality and die or take so much damage its not worth it, my locusts would vaporize on level 0-1 missions.
Consider turning take/heli HP way down so they are distractions while the real fights are mech v mech.
Overall, if you made missions had equal fights, like 4 v 4, this would work better, but I think that would break too much of the game in other ways.
Bear in mind the overall DPS considering armour is practically identical to vanilla. Yeah, actually getting hit by a single shot hurts more, but early game missions your enemies come in 1s and 2s where you have a full lance of 4, isolate them and blow them up as a group and you'll barely take a scratch. Identify the most dangerous target and take them out first or at least blow their most dangerous weapon off. Early game enemies are also awful shots, but even still, until your light pilots get good dodge ability make sure you're distracting your target before sending your swarm of paper thin armoured mechs onto them.
Yeah, it's a little tougher than vanilla and you need to think more about how you engage, but that's the whole point. Vanilla is a walk in the park once you know how to play :)
if i remember right stomping on tanks insta kills them in tt, shouldn't that be turned on then? pretty sure even a locust stepping on tank barrels would bend them into the ground. if i remember wrong then my bad, still turning it on though cause imo the equivalent of dropping a dump truck on top of a tank is gonna wreck it or bend the barrels enough to make it incapable of firing. the rest sounds not bad though.
i might be wrong though, last time i played tt was like 30 years ago....
In TT you kick tanks which for a lot of lighter tanks will basically be an instant kill from a heavier mech. The faster it moves the harder to land the kick though, and you run the risk of losing balance and falling over. None of that actually exists in MW5 though, and just stepping on tanks to kill them trivialises them.
39 comments
I wanted to express my interests as a user that imho would make this a more widely received mod and I would hope would be relatively simply to implement. You're doing a few different things all at once here without a lot of adjustability from the end-user. I find the core value add to be the changes to the pacing of combat. I would love to be able to turn on or off the other features of the mod--mainly the disabling of weapons, and the disabling of hero mechs. Is it possible to add a toggle for these items in the mod options?
For my use-case, I tend to increase the overall difficulty somewhat substantially through other mods and enemy lethality/accuracy and I want there to be enemy heros that I have to fight, especially in arenas. I can choose to simply not use these mechs in my own lances. I play the game tactically with VonCommaders and such, and I like bringing 8 cheap mechs and losing 5 in a hard fought battle--but controlling the economy without rifles is more challenging. Secondly, I like having more weapons options as the playthrough gets stale with vanilla weapon sets. But I really don't want to lose the pacing of combat that your mod provides. I agree that PPCX is way overpowered (and maybe things like SB Gauss) but it would be cool to have an option to nerf these items without completely removing them. (I think that's a second ask that would be a little more difficult to implement than a simple toggle for "disable/enable xyz").
So I guess in summary, is there a way to separate the pace-of-combat changes from the weapon/unit restrictions?
Im looking at ruleset mods now, seeking a more in-depth tactical experience, and like the sound of this one,but am a bit concerned with what people tend to say about YAML - namely that it lifts build restrictions to the point of being highly unbalanced with a player-end power creep that makes everything overpowered.
Does Battletech 3015 somewhat reign in on that unbalancing sort of freedom? I read the descriptions extensively, am aware of removing hero mechs and such, so I wander about other factors perhaps more specific to YAML.
Besides, you haven't mentioned chem lasers at all, and afaik they are not canon for this time period as well - were they removed too?
Another question: does Yet Another Revamped Quirk and Equipment work with this mod and Battletech Beyond 3015?
EDIT: Another question - will Scary Tanks mod completely ruin the game for me with this balance?
Here's my mod load order (top loading last, bottom loading first):
BT3015
MWVR_DitherRemoval
MWVR_Cockpits
MWVR_Overrides
MWVR
Mod Options
Lore-based Mech Variants-YAML Edition
Purchase Salvage
YAML
TTRulez
MW5 Compatibility Pack
YAML has just a few overrides from other mods, but they are ones that seem sensical and that wouldn't make the BT3015 mod options not display.
Any ideas?
I just have one thing to report --
When I hit "Fodder" level reputation from Arena winnings, I get rewards including the weaponry you've removed to keep things lore friendly.
To be specific, I get rewarded with 2 Light rifle BF, 1 PPC-X, and an AC2 RF (not sure if this is not lore friendly).
I definitely could just sell them but it still breaks "immersion" haha. If you have plans for updates, I really hope these are looked into as well!
Thank you :)
Of course blindly sticking to TT rules in a real time game with no dice makes no sense, so some liberties need to be taken to get it somewhat balanced and feeling right, but I feel having hard caps on weapon ranges where possible helps more than hurts the tactical element.
There are a few things I would like to see added.
1) TT rebalance of clan weapons and equipment, as well as post clan invasion IS weapons and equipment (maybe as a separate mod?)
2) head structure values reduced to 3
3) AC/2-BF and AC/5-BF do 8 and 15 damage respectively and have their cooldowns quadrupled and tripled
4) PPC minimum range of 90m
5) Mod Option menu to tweak weapon settings to our liking.
Yeah, you're right I've put the wrong number in for the ER PPC, I'll fix that up in next release.
This mod is sticking to the timeline of the game and campaigns and slightly past it at the moment, so no plans to do clan gear.
Burst fire AC/s are balanced as basically the same as their non burst counterparts with a small damage buff and small cooldown buff as they have the disadvantage of scattered damage and the possibility of some rounds missing. I have been meaning to reduce the cooldown buff a touch though.
No plans on adding a PPC minimum range or minimum ranges for the ACs either, there's no simple way to do it and they AI would need to be told about it somehow too.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to change a lot of the weapon values dynamically, including cooldowns, so there wouldn't be much point in an options menu. I'll release the source soon anyway so you can configure it to your liking.
On a different note, I have been playing your conversion quite a bit with your modifications and I started to really like it. Tactics are so much more important now and when one commits to combat, happens fast, is personal and it is thrilling AF. Really good stuff!
Maybe you could share the MW editor source for your mod, if you want?
1) make SRMs track their targets. it is canon that SRMs have a lock on ability, so it fits into the lore. Obviously should not be as effective as streak SRMs, but using the stream version as well as having a much longer cooldown makes them much more difficult to use.
2) remove the LB 10-X AC-SLD and just keep the LB 10-X AC and add in ammo switching, kind of like YAW. It streamlines the weapon list further as well as add more lore-friendly gameplay, as well as allowing it to stand out more compared to the AC/10.
3) Maybe add in dedicated Artemis IV FCS units and remove the +ART IV missiles.
Not sure on 1, would need to spend a bit of time playing around with missile turn rates or use some other method to make sure it doesn't become too strong. The further away you are the more time the missiles would have to turn and hit the target, so unless there's some extra code to intentionally make some missiles completely miss it would basically become an SSRM.
Consider turning take/heli HP way down so they are distractions while the real fights are mech v mech.
Overall, if you made missions had equal fights, like 4 v 4, this would work better, but I think that would break too much of the game in other ways.
Yeah, it's a little tougher than vanilla and you need to think more about how you engage, but that's the whole point. Vanilla is a walk in the park once you know how to play :)
i might be wrong though, last time i played tt was like 30 years ago....