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MechWarrior Online - News and Information Thread

Mupod

Member
So the early access on Aug 7th is just for open beta? Not the actual game launch?

From what the devs have said so far, the plan will be something like this:

August 7 is still closed beta. That's when we're apparently getting our Founder mechs and MC (real money credits), but there will still be periodic wipes. We are apparently going to be allowed to spend money on the game at this point, but whatever you spend will get refunded/reset periodically until OB.

Also bear in mind that the original plan to let all Founders in at this point is redundant, since all of us are in now.

When open beta rolls around (no dates announced), that will be the last wipe. Our MC will be set to whatever amount we're supposed to have. We'll also get our premium account benefits.

I'll give that a try. Do you remember where you saw that? I'd love any kind of manual or help resource.

The beta forums have some guides, I'm sure at least one of them goes over missile operation.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I've read that joysticks can't really match up with mouse/keyboard, in terms of aim. So, if you want a joystick, wait to test the game before making a purchase.

You can indeed get a USB joystick connected and mapped, and though support is a little bare bones at the moment. The HOTAS X is a pretty good stick for the price, so I think getting one for MWO would be a decent investment.

Thanks for the info, including some replies I got from outside the thread!
 
Getting the swing of things a bit. Just finished my best game: 3 kills (including the final kill) with my Catapult. I started with the straight missile model but I kept running out of missiles which left me dead in the water. Switched to the missile/medium laser model and am doing better. At least, I started doing better once I figured out how to set my weapon groups.
 
Yeah, the Awesome is indeed up.

jUXf70KAeeYcp.jpg


I really don't like this one as much as FlyingDebris' other designs. I think he tried too hard to please the grumpy old-timers who didn't want it to change at all.

Speaking of which, did FASA ever get sued by Japanese animation houses for ripping off their designs wholesale? I remember owning Mech Warrior art/data book that had images pretty much traced from things like Macross and others.
 

Tamanon

Banned
Speaking of which, did FASA ever get sued by Japanese animation houses for ripping off their designs wholesale? I remember owning Mech Warrior art/data book that had images pretty much traced from things like Macross and others.

Yes. Although I think it was Siembeda and the guys with the Robotech RPG that did the suit.

That's why you stopped seeing the Marauder/Warhammer/Stinger/Wasp and the like.
 

Orayn

Member
The "unseen" 'Mechs that were the subjects of lawsuits were licensed for the most part, but the US distributor with rights to release toys of them got uppity when FASA made them into miniatures, wanted more money, and yeah, things got messy.

LOL, so all the cool looking mechs got replaced with design disasters.

Well, we still might have FlyingDebris redesigns of them to look forward to.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
The "unseen" 'Mechs that were the subjects of lawsuits were licensed for the most part, but the US distributor with rights to release toys of them got uppity when FASA made them into miniatures, wanted more money, and yeah, things got messy.



Well, we still might have FlyingDebris redesigns of them to look forward to.

The worst thing is that that shit only went down a couple decades after they had been using them and making minatures out of them. There was so much legacy material on the Battle Tech side that involved their use, including but not limited to several famous mechs and mechwarriors like Natasha "Black Widow" Kerensky and her Warhammer.
 

turk128

Member
The "unseen" 'Mechs that were the subjects of lawsuits were licensed for the most part, but the US distributor with rights to release toys of them got uppity when FASA made them into miniatures, wanted more money, and yeah, things got messy.
Wasn't said arseholes Harmony Gold themselves?
 

Lime

Member
I started out with a standard Catapult with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM15, but the LRMs are kind of unbalanced in terms of damage/ammo/reload time.

I switched to a K2 variant, stripped its weapons, heatsinks, and implemented 2 Gauss Rifles with 50 rounds. Now I am getting around 2-4 kills pr. match.
 

Woorloog

Banned
I started out with a standard Catapult with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM15, but the LRMs are kind of unbalanced in terms of damage/ammo/reload time.

I switched to a K2 variant, stripped its weapons, heatsinks, and implemented 2 Gauss Rifles with 50 rounds. Now I am getting around 2-4 kills pr. match.

Whoah, K2 Arms are not Energy Hardpoints? Or did you plant the Gauss rifles in torso?

BTW, can you put 4 LRM 20 to a Catapult? I really, really want my uber-missile boat.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Whoah, K2 Arms are not Energy Hardpoints? Or did you plant the Gauss rifles in torso?

BTW, can you put 4 LRM 20 to a Catapult? I really, really want my uber-missile boat.

Given that each LRM 20 is 10 tons, you're not going to have much room for anything else (including engine or armor) with that load out.

But yes... I believe one of the variants (i think the 2 LRM15 only variant) has multiple missle hardpoints.
 

Dalauz

Member
I started out with a standard Catapult with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM15, but the LRMs are kind of unbalanced in terms of damage/ammo/reload time.

I switched to a K2 variant, stripped its weapons, heatsinks, and implemented 2 Gauss Rifles with 50 rounds. Now I am getting around 2-4 kills pr. match.

I just saw someone with that setup doing amazing
 

Woorloog

Banned
Given that each LRM 20 is 10 tons, you're not going to have much room for anything else (including engine or armor) with that load out.

But yes... I believe one of the variants (i think the 2 LRM15 only variant) has multiple missle hardpoints.

Yeah, Catapult base variant should have 2 LRM 15s and 4 medium lasers.

Critical slots are what worry me, not weight really. Weight i can save by reducing engine rating and by other things. If critical slots won't be a big issue, i'll use Endo-Steel and XL-Engine (this will be very expensive) to save weight...
Hmm.
Did you say 10 tons? *check's sarna.net*
Right. 40 tons just for LRM 20s... plus 4 tons of ammo, at least. So, 44 tons just for weapons. Catapult weights 65 tons... I wonder if one can free up to 44 tons in a Catapult.

EDIT hmm. 4xLRM15=28 tons. Plus 4 tons of ammo, at least. 32 tons. That should be manageable. Not quite as cool as 80 missiles at once though. Could afford more ammo though, so better longevity. Need to be careful about getting hit though.
I do like missiles.
 

Nickiepoo

Member
Be careful with the ol' NDA given that most of you have given your pilot names here.

Probably nothing to worry about but I'd hate to see it happen.
 
I started out with a standard Catapult with 4 Medium Lasers and 2 LRM15, but the LRMs are kind of unbalanced in terms of damage/ammo/reload time.

I switched to a K2 variant, stripped its weapons, heatsinks, and implemented 2 Gauss Rifles with 50 rounds. Now I am getting around 2-4 kills pr. match.
Sounds really cool. I may have to try that, although I do love my missiles, unbalanced though they may be.
 

Mupod

Member
4xLRM20 or LRM15 would be a terrible idea to be honest. Even if you crammed them in there, you'd probably end up firing 4 salvos (killing nobody) and then AFKing for 10 minutes. Probably smarter to just bring smaller launchers and a butt ton of ammo, with some backup lasers.

As for the K2 there's ballistic hardpoints in the torso and plenty of room in there, it's weight that is the problem. I've even heard of people using dual AC20s...but those don't fit if you're running an XL and you'd either have to gimp your engine or take off much of your armor to fit them. 2xUAC5 and 4xML feels real nice but without jumpjets a brawler catapult feels weak as hell to me, I'd rather bring SRMs. It sure does make me eager for the Cataphract though.

Bear in mind that all hardpoints are subject to change. The K2 itself got changed pretty recently.
 

Woorloog

Banned
4xLRM20 or LRM15 would be a terrible idea to be honest. Even if you crammed them in there, you'd probably end up firing 4 salvos (killing nobody) and then AFKing for 10 minutes. Probably smarter to just bring smaller launchers and a butt ton of ammo, with some backup lasers.

I see you do not see the appeal of massive missile salvos :p
You're right about their usefulness though. In smaller battles (say, lance vs lance, ie 4v4), massive missile salvos can work just fine... Wrecking one fourth of enemy fighting force in the opening salvo is a good way to start. But in a proper game, 12vs12, i'll need far more longevity than alpha strike potential.

I'll probably base my Catapult (in retail, not going to be part of the beta) to CPLT-C5A variant (LRM Cata is C1). It is a post-3050 variant but doesn't matter, ER medium lasers are interchangeable with medium lasers.
Artemis IV enchanced LRM 15s are the main armament. Endo-Steel will save weight though i'll also upgrade the engine to XL one, critical space won't be an issue (i hope). I prefer pulse lasers to standard versions, thus i'll exchanged the 4 medium lasers to 2 medium pulse lasers. Depending how much weight i have left, i'll either add additional ammunition, upgrade the LRM 15s to LRM 20s (with Artemis) or add more pulse lasers, heat be damned. LRM 20s plus standard medium lasers is also a possiblity but less desirable, even though medium lasers have longer range.

Not a fan of Catapult K2's concept. If i want a direct combat mech, i'll be using a Dragon or Centurion or something else. K2 is an abomination, removing what makes Catapult so awesome.

EDIT does K2 have jump jets by default or not? Also, if i recall correctly, only certain mechs can have jump jets (suchas Catapult), i assume those can be removed at will though?
 

Mupod

Member
Only certain mechs and variants thereof can mount jumpjets. You can't put them on a K2 at all.

You CAN remove them from mechs who have them to save some tonnage. Might be useful on a Jenner if you'd rather have more heatsinks or bigger lasers.
 

Orayn

Member
Wasn't said arseholes Harmony Gold themselves?

Yeah, I phrased that poorly. My understanding is that Harmony Gold had toy rights to designs FASA had already licensed for tabletop and made minis of, and they felt that the minis stepped on their contractual toes and started slinging lawsuits as a result. FASA didn't wind up losing that much money on the whole affair, but they permanently stopped using those designs to be on the safe side.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Only certain mechs and variants thereof can mount jumpjets. You can't put them on a K2 at all.

You CAN remove them from mechs who have them to save some tonnage. Might be useful on a Jenner if you'd rather have more heatsinks or bigger lasers.

Odd. Sarna doesn't describe as K2 being stripped of jump jets... Though neither does it say K2 has jump jets. I would have imagined K2 having them still...

LRM 15 and PPC weight the same, and K2 has additional heat sink and the medium lasers have been exchanged to machine guns. So, where did the jump jets go? No need to save weight by removing them. And removal of LRM ammo saves at least 1 ton, no?
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Odd. Sarna doesn't describe as K2 being stripped of jump jets... Though neither does it say K2 has jump jets. I would have imagined K2 having them still...

LRM 15 and PPC weight the same, and K2 has additional heat sink and the medium lasers have been exchanged to machine guns. So, where did the jump jets go? No need to save weight by removing them. And removal of LRM ammo saves at least 1 ton, no?

Ammo + jump jets = extra heat sinks.
 

Lime

Member
No. It's just the game being available to many other people coupled with the fact that it is a pretty good Mechwarrior MP experience that warrants discussion.

But we're supposedly still under NDA.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Is the Raven the only Capellan light mech that has been revealed?
 

Mupod

Member
We can talk about Beta now?

Most of what I've said is stuff that you can figure out without even being in beta.

And I'm pretty sure the NDA at this point only exists because they have yet to finalize the game visually. They planned to lift it before the end of July, but maybe that's not on track anymore because of the server hardware issues they had. At any rate they just don't want us posting screens and videos.
 

Lime

Member
Although I haven't said anything about the beta, I would guess that any discussion or bump of this thread on a heavily-trafficked user site like neogaf would do much more good to creating awareness and recognition of the MW:O name than restricting word of mouth through a NDA. Thus, I think the discussion about the beta in this thread does more good than harm, imo, as the game is very much worth talking about.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
While images and video are an obvious matter of importance, there are also various systems in the game that are still being worked on or haven't even been implemented in the beta yet, so I think they don't want people getting the wrong impression about the gameplay, either. I doubt that what has been said in the thread is much of a deal, though. You're just talking about switching out equipment, which they've done many times and had a few videos on.
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Awesome. I've been wanting to say how much I love this game for a while now.

Been rolling in a commando with a large pulse laser strapped to it. It's been a pleasure annoying the hell out of heavy mechs.
 

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport
Is there someone called "infected zero" trying to add me? It keeps saying invite failed when I try to accept.
 
So I finally decided to get a Founder's pack now that I upgraded my busted ass 4870 with a beautiful new HIS 7850.

Haha I was so pumped I accidentally clicked through Paypal without switching from my wife's credit card. She is gonna be pissed when I tell her.

I am pumped now. I don't think I will be sleeping tonight.
 

Lime

Member
I was sitting at work today and thinking of how I could customize my Catapult as efficiently as possible. It's like the Mechlab is a game in itself.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Is the Raven the only Capellan light mech that has been revealed?

Let's see about mech nationalities (or more specifically, their origins):

Light
Commando, Lyran Commonwealth
Raven, Capellan Confederation, Federated Suns uses it also to some extent, captured in 4th Succession War
Jenner, Draconis Combine
Spider, FWL, originally for SLDF, later exports to Combine

Medium
Trenchbucket, FWL
Centurion, FWL, later also FedSuns
Cicada, no specific nation, planet of origin is withing FedSun
Hunchback, no specific nation, multiple nations produce this

Heavy
Catapult, Capellan favored, originally for SLDF.
Cataphract, Capellan desing, stolen by FedSuns, both use it.
Dragon, Combine
JagerMech, FedSun, Capellan also fields.

Assault
Atlas, originally for SLDF, multiple nations construct and use
Awesome, original desinger from FWL
Stalker, one factory withing FWL, others also manufacture this mech.
Final Assault Mech, ???

SLDF: Star League Defence Force
FWL: Free Worlds League

I was sitting at work today and thinking of how I could customize my Catapult as efficiently as possible. It's like the Mechlab is a game in itself.

You trying to make it to do some specific job or what?
 

kagete

Member
I was sitting at work today and thinking of how I could customize my Catapult as efficiently as possible. It's like the Mechlab is a game in itself.

Too bad it is devoid of critical info about weapons like, you know, the damage/range/rate? I don't want to have to pull up the wiki each time to compare so it kinda sucks. There's also the bug where you can't buy a second mech too.

PPCs really seem to be shitty this game. I get perfect hits in a row on a stationary target with the 3 on my Awesome and I have never gotten a single kill yet. Laser boat, SRM shotgunning, and AC/Gauss seem to be the most effective overall right now.

I'm really only holding out for more graphics options to be patched in right now. If there's no way to remove the cockpit view and just show the HUD then I will never be able to play this game for more than 30 minutes. It sucks to get motion sickness easily :(
 

Woorloog

Banned
I'm really only holding out for more graphics options to be patched in right now. If there's no way to remove the cockpit view and just show the HUD then I will never be able to play this game for more than 30 minutes. It sucks to get motion sickness easily :(

Complain about the motion sickness a lot and loudly in the beta forums. I'm one of those players who can easily get motion sick... which is too bad since i love MechWarrior and i'm sure to love this game too.
I think all they need to do is to tone down the cockpit bobbing? No?
 

kagete

Member
Yeah the cockpit bobbing is too much. The Atlas is fine since it's slow as shit but the Awesome bobbed considerably more. This is magnified by the cockpit being clearly in focus and sharp while everything else you look at is a bit more blurred or has really bad textures so I can't help but notice that stupid bobbing easily.
 

Bizazedo

Member
PPCs really seem to be shitty this game. I get perfect hits in a row on a stationary target with the 3 on my Awesome and I have never gotten a single kill yet. Laser boat, SRM shotgunning, and AC/Gauss seem to be the most effective overall right now.
I was testing how damage works a little bit and have some theories on that, but feel reluctant to talk about it til NDA works (as it's system related as opposed to "MAN THIS IS FUN..which it is").

No idea what SRM shotgunning is, though lol.
 
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