Heavy armor working as HEAVY armor

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

Flyingdebris - this kinda reminds me future-RPG style where just by shooting the gun it got better and better... too weird for me. But the idea of creating attachment to the unit is great - only perhaps not in this way in my humble opinion.

but how you will implement the damage of inner subsystems, heat sinks or gyro for example? The only thing I have in mind is Flyingdebris' idea from "damage systems" thread.

Some things shouldn't be damageable, like gyros, for gameplay simplicity. But as for the heatsinks - the Flyingdebris' idea was great I even didn't notice his topic. Great stuff there!

[Flyingdebris]

well... yeah it is kinda like that, sorta.  And i totally understand the unrealism of it.

but mainly its just a thought on how to apply small minute bonuses to make your mech feel yours.

Alternatively, what if, similar to how you buy ammo, you can buy those aforementioned totems  and cosmetic addons and each one sort of provides a tiny bonus to something.  In a way, the game's slightly fudging the numbers in your favor based on how pimped your ride is.

if you ever played the old interstate 76 game for example, there were a number of pieces of equipment that seemed pretty much irrelevant but actually had subtle unmentioned bonuses associated.
For example
Heated seats = 10% more ammo
Curb feelers = less chance of flipping
Mud flaps = reduced chassis damage from hitting road debris

so in the case of MWLL

what if you could buy a sharkmouth cockpit decal and it gave like a 2% damage bonus to your weapons? or a red paintjob for 5% more speed. Flame decals for 5% extra cooling ability. you get the idea

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

I can see where items giving bonuses starts to go the way of RPG and where people might find issue with that.  Nonetheless, players get fairly attached to things that are purely cosmetic and that might be a place to start sans bonuses.

[=KoS=Zeus]

Having a separate stat "Mechs Lost" might fit the bill. Anytime a mech you purchased is deleted or destroyed in the game, this stat goes up. It's kind of like deaths, but it only applies to mechs and doesn't require you to actually die.

If you want real in game incentive, then this stat can affect the victory points in the game. The team with the lower total of Mechs Lost gets some final bonus points.

This idea could use some refining, just throwing it out there.

[(TLL) Zeh]

Customization I like, bonuses I do not.

[(TLL)Siilk]

Customization I like, bonuses I do not.

 I agree. Being able to hold in the same mech for the whole match already means the pilot is damn good, being that good is already a bonus. It just a good thing to have some cosmetic details to accentuate that. I think something like Blhurr's idea, decals or cosmetic details, like different pattern camo or ace insignia maybe, which are different for every asset, and are unlockable by, for example, piloting a mech for 10 minutes without it being destroyed, or repairing an all-red mech back to all-green, as it shows your dedication to that particular mech.

[Flyingdebris]

achievement based aesthetics?  i like the sound of that

[~SJ~ Blhurr]

Yeah.  It just sort of ups the ante a bit too.  People are already gunning for you because you are 24/0 so when your Hollander with a bright red, venomous Hgauss rounds the corner of a swampy hillock pilots in the area mutter words that span from "Oh S#$t" to "Let's get him!".  A feature like this ought to be meted out judiciously and not overplayed like the custom purple armor of games gone by.
 

[CHHs Cyan]

maybe something simple like new colour schemes when you hit various ranks, so we can see and hunt the enemys khan?, and follow our own to victory!

[Flyingdebris]

rank based striping patterns perhaps? 

would be interesting to see the rank of the opponent in the target bracket as well.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

paint skulls on the mech for kills
hehe,

But seriously though: it depends on what's possible with the engine. Perhaps simply adding more burns on armor for mech that survived a lot of hits would be nice & realistic at the time - like... the brand new mech shines polished, but one after 3 hangar visits is very dark with multiple visible "wounds".

[Flyingdebris]

ok

ok, i think i got it now...


Upgrade kits!!!!



In the ammo purchase window, what if you could buy for fees of varying significance upgrade kits that can upgrade different aspects of your ride.  However the upgrades would not so much be different equipment so much as maintenance tweaks to get better performance.

For example

Extended magazines.  Hold an extra ton of ammo
Cooling weapon jackets. Weapons produce 10% less heat
Readjusting the power governers. Get 10% higher top speed.
Fine tuning of recoil dampeners.  Slightly tighter groupings on recoil causing weapons
Coolant system reconfiguration, lose the ability to coolant flush for increased heatsink efficiency
High performance nozzle replacement, jump jets consume fuel 15% slower
Autoloader calibration- missile and ballistic weapons recycle 10% faster
High performance capicitors- energy weapons recycle 10% faster
Seismic scanner- gain an extra 150m to sensor range when stationary

etc etc

You create a long list of subtle upgrades, some of them expensive, some of them not. And you pass them off as the sort of tricks of the trade that mechanics might partake in.

So with the proper money, a player could get the ride he or she wants, but if they have cash to spare at purchase, or when coming back to rearm, they could get themselves some performance tweaks to give them a tiny boost.

it sure as hell would give players somethign to do with their spare cash on aside from giving away cash to banker players.

[(TLL)Siilk]

Upgrade kits!!!!

 Could be somehow exploitable, but as long as it costs at least a half of upgraded mech price, I'm ok with that.

[(TLL)Sky_walker]

If it'd be accessible for everyone this could be a poor man's mechlab.

Perhaps combine two ideas, and make the upgrade kits accessible only for players who scored certain amount of points in a single life? So... if you've inflicted 50k damage you get Extended magazines, for 75k you get access to Seismic scanner, for 100k you get access to High performance nozzle replacement... something like that.

Only these things would need to be canon in some way... like the fact that some mechwarriors had different upgrades to their mechs (yet they would have to be inaccessible via mechlab).

Nah... I'm not sure if that's really good. Perhaps till the moment we have mechlab it would work, but beyond that? I'm not so sure.

[Flyingdebris]

heck yeah they should be expensive.

well the idea behind it kinda comes from having grown up around a dad who is a car nut gear head.  There are so many ways that you could adjust performance on a car just to eke out  a little more power.  There always seemed to be some higher quality 3rd party part to replace the cheap one the car came stock with.  Messing with air fuel ratios, timing, pounds of boost, etc could make an engine feel completely different after some tweaking, tweaking with the suspension and you could totally change a car's maneuverability.  So on and so forth.

Considering the prevalence of battlefield customization in battletech and how often techs have to constantly replace and repair things, just seems to me like that same culture of trying to boost performance via any means available would still exist.  Any mechanic can just drop a huge engine into a frame and call it a day, but it takes a real mechanic to make the beast of an engine reach its full potential, ya know.

Same customization culture exists among pc hardware enthusiasts, gun culture, motorcycle culture, engineers in general, and crazy people that build stuff in deserts for burning man, so it seems natural that the tradition should continue.

So if you have the money to burn, sure...that uller you've been driving all game to the exclusion of all else will be slightly deadlier than the average uller.  But just slightly