Battletech

[Archangel of Death]

Yes, but its one solid piece and I was hoping to at least have a single door for units to come out of when built or something. Hmm, it would be a good placeholder though so I'll throw it in and start getting an actual tech tree built up. I'll have to figure out some way to modify and make it more believable for building units though, just having them waltz through the walls wouldn't be cool .

Hmm, I just noticed the name fatmonkey13 in the other thread. I'd best find out what he is up too. A reliable source for all the data would significantly increase my productivity. And perhaps combine that with sifting Mechteck for more help, since they are ending their MW4 patching project and I may be able to suck up some lost and disillusioned ex-project members and give them a new purpose in life .

[Guessmyname]

How do you/we (I dpn't think I really count as a team member, as I haven't really done much) plan on releasing this?

With all the units and that, I think it would be best to release with the lower level tech units, and keep adding units in packs to it. Otherwise you'll never get around to a release!

PS Can anyone find me structural pics of the Sloth LT? (this thing), side and frontal views would be best. And I did try google image search. No help there

Also, for builders you could use the construction mechs on this page: http://www.brickcommander.com/DA-Frameset.htm

EDIT mk2: I've modelled the Partisan AA vehicle. There's a slight problem of conflicting sources though. Brickcommander says it looks like this:



While Solaris 7 says it looks like this:



I've modelled the brickcommander version, because I like that one more:



Problems:

Polycount = large (450 faces)
Aforemention clash of sources

[Archangel of Death]

Hmm, seeing as this is intended to closely follow classic battletech, the Solaris one might be a better choice .

[FizWizz]

well, it's a bit more complicated than that.
There is a total of 7 different designs for the Partisan, with varying weapon loadouts. They are:
(4) AC/5, (2) MG
(5) AC/2, (2) MG
(2) LB 10-X
(2) Ultra AC/5, (2) AC/2
(4) LRM-15, (2) MG
(2) Rotary AC/5, (2) LB 2-X
(2) LB 10-X, (2) AC/2

I would suggest making the model based on the Partisan variant that will be used. In all likelihood turrets were changed in different variants in the BTech universe, so there's no shame in using the Brickcommander model for the R/AC variant, or the TRO illustration if one of the 4-AC variants is used. However, for the base of the tank I would stick to the TRO illustration, because these are all variations of the same vehicle, not different vehicles (and they are all explicitly classed as Tracked vehicles by the sources as well)

[Gnomre]

450 quads is pie for spring to handle.

[bobthedinosaur]

hey we really need our own forums for this, organization is key in modding!
any how i was running thru some ideas for scripting and what not, and organization.

I think i mentioned this before; you need a system, for fbis, for models, for scripting, and everything. it will makes process much quicker and backtrack less of a pain! Also the wieght of the mod should sole be put on a few, you're going to need staff, models, balancers, bug fixers, scripters. looks like you already have fans willing to help. i will definately help when i get back. youll also probabyl need coders, specifcally for changing certain TA themes into Classic Battle Tech, and for adding heat and ammunition to units, maybe have a simple gui for units, small and simple but allowing an actualy reading of heat and ammuniton levels. maybe hidable with the health bars? also coding of unit years, allowing for the unit restriuction do to dates, so game play can be set on time lines for players, multiplayer, or maybe singleplay if created in the future.

universal model formats would be key in 2 aspects, easy scripting, and allowing for future implimentation of maybe a 3rd party program to design variants and follows mechlab rules. having a modular like peices would allow you to do these easily only by changing small portions in the fbi, and a script to be compiled for the new variants. then the new variants could later be added as official unit packs, or as player favorite variants to be traded around.


just ideas, to maybe help out planning...

any how ill pm you some more ideas i had for scripting and what not, but i have to wonder if theyll work. gnome does spring units target base plates like ota or the actualy weakspot designated in the script? if they do base plates its gonna be alot harder to make working jump jets, and more animated units.

keep up the mod and if im getting annoying with ideas no one cares then just say so.

[FizWizz]

hmm... throwing in 'Heat' 'Year' and 'tech' tags would be nice in FBIs, even if it were only for a future functionality.

[SwiftSpear]

hmm... throwing in 'Heat' 'Year' and 'tech' tags would be nice in FBIs, even if it were only for a future functionality.

What would these do? Bear with me I'm not a battletech fan, I just love the concept for an RTS... Are these functions that could be handled by a more powerful mod to game interface? I'm a little weary of adding new FBI tags for every possible mod as eventually our list of FBI commands will just be gaudy and huge... What I'm hoping is that functions like those will be able to be handled by a more powerful mod to game scripting engine like lua, I'm trying to figure out what changes need to be made to turn specific functions into more general commands that can be manipulated by modders to do whatever they want. If I figure out what I want to do I might even code it into the spring engine.

[FizWizz]

I should've been more specific. I'll spell these things out.

'Heat' for weapon TDFs, just in case at some point in the future we can actually use that tag for heat generation for each weapon, instead of using scripts

'Heatsink' which I forgot in my previous post, would be in unit FBI files and would be the heatsink values for the different mechs and such. Higher heatsink values would offset high heat output, if in some point in the future it becomes possible to make the mod implement these data in Spring.

'Year' would be like 2750, 3025, 3050, 3055...3067. Basically all the different years that source books cover for BTech. If people wanted to limit games to a certain timeline, then they could choose one of these years and all the years after it would be made un-buildable. I have no idea how to implement this...

'Tech' would be the tech level of units allowed. It breaks down into tech 1,2,3. tech 1 is really old stuff, or low-tech stuff. usually just Star League designs (like the King Crab for instance) are tech 1, but some periphery designs are tech 1 as well. Tech 2 is more-or-less the modern stuff, what you'll see in MW2-4. Tech 3 is 'new' stuff and advanced stuff like X-pulse Lasers, ATM, Heavy Lasers, and such.

Also, I'm not saying I really want any of these, so it wouldn't bum me out if these get axed.

[HildemarDasce]

Regarding modelling, what are you basing your designs on (except for BrickCommander :P)?
If you ask me, I personally like the MW4 design aesthetic (their interpretation of the Battletech universe gameplay wise not withstanding). The mechs there have a very military utilitarian feel to them. Best (and also coolest) example I think, is the attack helicopter style gun turret on the Vulture.

Anyway, love what you're doing, it's gonna be great to see how it turns out!

Oh yea, speaking of Brickcommander, you should have a look at that Blacktron site. Sadly it's offline now, but you can use the waybackmachine at archive.org.
Here's the link: http://web.archive.org/web/200409240845 ... ktron.net/
Sorry for going a bit off topic, but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it (and it seems like going off topic is common practice in these forums :P)

[SwiftSpear]

From what I understand zephors new scripting language should make both possible.

[FizWizz]

I'm not sure who else is modelling for BTech, but for the couple of models I've done I looked into Classic BattleTech illustrations and T.R.O.s, because a lot of stuff in BTech doesn't appear in any of the MW games...

[DopeFishhh]

I'm heavily into game balance, and the way i saw mech 4's balance stacking up made only assault mechs worth anything. furthermore the only weapons worth anything were the clan versions of the lbx20 and ultra ac 20's. The focus completely left from simulation and went to action, which quite frankly i wasn't happy with. I've played mech 2 (all of them) and mech 3 but mech 4 mercs is the freshest in my mind.

There were plenty of weapons in the game just that half of them were useless, almost totally. If you give a player a choice then there needs to be attractive reasons for either choice. In mech 4 light mechs should have had a advantage in being able to dodge hits and avoid detection, but that never seemed to present it'self as much as it should have. Also the costs of the weapons were badly scaled, when firing the big guns the player should have been panicing big time worrying if they'll hit or not because the penalty for missing should be big with the big weapons, but with a light weapon you can just take potshots.

Now i know alot of that was refering to mech 4 but there are some parrallels with an rts implementation, if you choose to attack with a light mech you have the advantage of scouting, and perhaps a greater survivability (meaning it can flee to fight another day), where as commiting an assault mech will hurt them alot but you may loose it if they somehow counter it.

I know you wanted to go with more authentic battletech rules, i don't know them, they may represent what i'm talking about. But i don't think you should blindly follow their statistics.

All that said, i'm really eager to see what you come up with.

[HildemarDasce]

And I completely agree with you, FizWizz, regarding non-mech vehicles. There's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on in the battlefields of the BTech universe except for the mechs, so I'd love it if the team put as much effort into all the various vehicles and infantry as into the mechs.

[Archangel of Death]

Rest assured that there is effort going into the non-mech parts of Btech. Vehicles and aircraft will have tech trees comparable to the mechs. Infantry would be somewhat more limited having only power armors, but will still cover several roles.

[mecha]

There were plenty of weapons in the game just that half of them were useless, almost totally. If you give a player a choice then there needs to be attractive reasons for either choice. In mech 4 light mechs should have had a advantage in being able to dodge hits and avoid detection, but that never seemed to present it'self as much as it should have

cost is a big balancing factor... ie you get what you can buy (both in terms of availability and cost).

Also not every unit will or needs to have distinct advantages take for example a roman legionaire vs a modern abrahms tank, both were considered elite fighting units in their time but are worlds apart in terms of capability.

Similarly in MW4 the higher weapons such as the ones you described (its been a while) were excellent to have but they also cost a hell of a lot and a big challenge with MW4 mercs was getting your 'company' to the point where you could deploy these weapons across your squad mates without deing too much in the red financially. Getting to this point meant going on a whole bunch of missions with cheaper weapons so that eventually you could buy that competitive edge.

The other weapons and mechs weren't unbalanced, its just that the competitive edge in MW4 in the form of assualt mechs and weapons was a bit more defined than it was in MW2.

Having the technological edge tends to skew a conflict anyway... look at the casualty count for both sides during the vietnam war and during desert storm... if you've paid for the advantage, why shouldn't you kick ass!

[HildemarDasce]

We were discussing the FPS mode in the general discussion forum, and I thought of this upcoming mod.

If you plan on releasing this thing as standalone, it would be interesting to implement a good FPS mode for controlling the mechs (by messing with the Spring source).
Such as allowing weapon grouping, active/passive sensormodes, toggling between targets and all that kind of stuff.

It would be like MechWarrior, but with grand scale battles and a depth of strategic control.

Just a thought

[Archangel of Death]

Messing with the source is outside the current scope of this mod for now, though who knows what the future holds.

[jasper_ward]

I know I'm probably late, but I just came across this, and would like to help, I don't have much in modding skills, but am a huge CBT, MW, MW:DA fan that has all sourcebooks, and Heavy metal at disposal, Have created own RPG based on pre invasion clan life, and have helped Derk over at Battletech simulator, I am well versed in CBT, and in the new clik game of Dark Age, is there any way i can help?

[emmanuel]

the "OMNIANTIindustry:tortur&demolition_tools(dept:usless_surgery)" notify to public the next release of the walker_combat_builder : CORbeastSS2