Interesting. I suppose you 'pay' for it by the wasted tonnage required for those 'junk heat' weapons, but as you say, it could be manipulated.
Yeah... it just feels kind of wrong for a mech to have a battle value of X, and then you add a bunch of weapons, and you end up with a value of Y that's less than X.
I think that BattleTech could be successfully FedCommed. But 4Eed... no, when you take something with such a cadre of brand loyalty and turn the fundamentals on their head, you'll end up with a revolt on your hands.
As someone who was around to see the really REALLY ugly backlash when Mechwarriorark Age was announced? Yeah. It didnt matter that the game was fun, and that the backstory was an outgrowth of things already in planning. It was DIFFERENT and thus WRONG and I know people who STILL use terms like 'DorkAge' and 'Whizkids', and complain about Wizkids ruined things forever.
I do think Battletech needs a balance based rewrite when it comes to the construction formulas. Autocannons need an overhaul (They're practically useless with DHS and energy weapons), DHS are WAY to effective, and I'd like a bit more leeway in assigning crits (IE, why do ALL engine and Gyro crits need to be in the exact same location?), and the various component costs make little sense (Autocannons are, supposedly, easier to maintain and build...you wouldnt really know it from the cost and availability tables). But I think the fans would have the mother of all hissy fits if you tried, so we get stuck with patches over the wonky parts.
All this talk makes me still want to run a session of BattleTech. And it wants me to create my own Mech combat system.
I am still repressing the urges by installing Mechwarrior 3 and 4 again (MW 4 doesn't run on my Vista, apparantly) and getting Mech Commander 2 (released under M$ Shared Source license and free!)
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
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...and getting Mech Commander 2 (released under M$ Shared Source license and free!)
MC2 is my favorite Battletech computer game - I still have it on my computer and replay the Carver V campaign from time to time.
Are you saying that they released the code? If so, do you know if anyone is actively working on modding the game, or even just creating some new scenarios?
BTW, anyone looking to simplify the board game should look at MC2. Mech design and customization is much more streamlined, and many of the choices are better balanced (though I still think autocannons are not quite good enough to match up with lasers).
MC2 is my favorite Battletech computer game - I still have it on my computer and replay the Carver V campaign from time to time.
Are you saying that they released the code? If so, do you know if anyone is actively working on modding the game, or even just creating some new scenarios?
BTW, anyone looking to simplify the board game should look at MC2. Mech design and customization is much more streamlined, and many of the choices are better balanced (though I still think autocannons are not quite good enough to match up with lasers).
They've released the code, apparantly some time ago. The installation package comes complete with the source code and the final build (so you don't need the XNA Framework or Visual Studio 2005+ to compile it.)
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
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Last edited by Mustrum_Ridcully; 10th February 2009 at 02:59 PM..
Man, this is tempting. I love me some rules-writing, and I adored Battletech back in the day, but I so do not have time for this. I wish I did.
*fondly recalls the oddest Battletech memory ever*
And friend and I had planned to spend our week-long 11th grade Thanksgiving vacation playing a huge Battletech scenario: a planetary invasion. We used, what was it, the Tactical Manual? Something like that? It had rules for fusion engines going critical, is all that matters.
Well, we each bought a regiment worth of mechs and vehicles and supplies, and we set up a few terrain locations using Geo-Hex (those wonderful styrafoam molded terrain pieces), and we planned to have a battle or two every day until one side won.
The first battle took place at a canyon that was sort of a moat defending the planet's capital city. Mechs from both sides descended into the canyon, and soon a close quarters brawl had ensued. Then I decided to focus fire on ... I think it was a Mad Cat. Pumped way too much damage into that mech in one round, and the engine went boom.
We eagerly flipped to the rules on engines exploding, and figured that with a 375 XL engine, it would do a ton of damage to all the mechs within 3 hexes. So we started assigning that damage, checking for critical hits as a few of the lighter mechs had their armor peeled away. Some ammo exploded, which dealt hundreds of damage to a medium mech.
Its engine subsequently exploded.
At this point we started laughing, as we realized that nearly every mech on the field was within 2 squares of another mech. We proceeded to spend an hour figuring out how far this chain reaction would go, as engine after engine went critical. Sure, a few mechs actually survived, but they had been half-slagged, and a lot of the ones that didn't explode were still crippled.
Of the twenty mechs that went into that battle, only 4 managed to walk out, leaving a nice radioactive crater in the middle of the canyon. We decided we could never top that, so the invaders just threw up their hands in frustration and left, and we played Goldeneye for the rest of the vacation.
__________________ Ryan "RangerWickett" Nock
Author of the War of the Burning Sky serialized novel, free at EN World. Part Two, The Irons Have Tolled, now available.
The more I think about this, the more ideas I come up with. Unfortunately, most of them are incompatible with each other.
What I'd really look for in a mech game is something that plays in under 2 hours (or under 1 hour), something where the typical game involves 4 to 8 mechs per side, something where a single mech's rules can fit on a single playing card (or half sheet of paper), and something that can encompass mechs from different genres so that I can have the western military styled mechs and the eastern anime styled mechs under the same roof.
I want to use a heat system, to retain the idea that specific weapons or components can be shot off of your mech, and to retain the idea that maneuvering for the right angle is an important part of playing the game.
But of course these are all concepts, not specifics, and I want to reinvent the wheel a bit rather than just copy battletech. In particular I want to skip the simulationist "every mech is a composite of standardized parts" idea from battletech, and make each mech a custom design. I think that will be better for the game in the long term.
I have a good heat system written. What sorts of things do you guys look for in a mech game?
I dunno. My dream is a bit more grittier, the mechwarriors are sweaty despite wearing a coolant vest and tank top. Oh, yeah, my dream would be of the Fed's Combat Regimental Team.
__________________ Anyhoo, just some random thoughts...
My philosophy is "you don't need me to tell you how to play -- I'll just provide some rules and ideas to use and get out of your way." --Monte Cook
Of the twenty mechs that went into that battle, only 4 managed to walk out, leaving a nice radioactive crater in the middle of the canyon. We decided we could never top that, so the invaders just threw up their hands in frustration and left, and we played Goldeneye for the rest of the vacation.
I love my BattleTech as well, but a friend of mine was part of Reaper Minis Black Lightning Demo Teams, and used to host demo games of Reaper's CAV mech game at my store. Great and fast little mech game. Doesn't quite have the same crunch or stuff as BT, but for something fast and fun it would be pretty hard to beat.
They mostly work. There are two major problems, in my opinion.
First, they don't effectively account for weapon synergy within a single mech.
Second, you can sometimes reduce the BV of a mech by adding more weapons. Because BV is pro rated, ie, because they add up the BV of your weapons and then reduce by a certain amount based on how well you can cool those weapons, you can sometimes add weapons you don't care about that generate a lot of heat and take up very little space, in order to bring the overall heat index up as high as possible. Then, in game, you simply do not fire those weapons- they existed purely to minimize your BV cost. This even happens in published mechs, although to be fair published mechs rarely gain more than pocket change in BV advantage by adding redundant weapons.
Does that make sense?
Basically, if you cool 10 heat, and you have 10 heat of weapons, and you add 20 heat of really crappy weapons to your mech giving you a total of 30 heat, you may have a lower BV than you did when you had only 10 heat worth of weapons. Then, in game, you just ignore the 20 heat of junk, and play with the original 10.
They've brought out BV2 which fixes most of the problems with BV.
Overheating only gives a discount on the worst weapons, not all weapons.
Thoughts of the Arch Chancellor - My weblog on EN World - containing game related material, like: house rules, design theories, reviews, play reports, adventure ideas
Secret Member of <Think we would just hide our secret with a spoiler tag, eh?>
ark Age was announced? Yeah. It didnt matter that the game was fun, and that the backstory was an outgrowth of things already in planning. It was DIFFERENT and thus WRONG and I know people who STILL use terms like 'DorkAge' and 'Whizkids', and complain about Wizkids ruined things forever. 
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