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Khorum · 08-09-2007, 07:08 PM

I was all over the PNP Battletech game but one thing I always felt they should've added were Drones. They can be DPS drones or sensor/ECM utility drones but they'd serve as 'pets' and could add a whole new dimension to gameplay. They could be flying drones or tiny little hover drones or even passive mine drones. The drones would fill up mass and heat/energy constraints on each mech 'chassis' like any other weapon, but they would be 1-shot drone 'bays'.

There's also a bunch of weapon mechanics I've always felt they could've changed. Specifically Missile behavior and ballistics. Even real ballistic weapons can behave radically different based on their ammunition. HEAP/HEAT/APFSDS ammo serve different roles vs. different types of armor. Missiles are the same, there's straight chemical vs hybrid shaped warheads that serve radically different purposes.

You could expand the survivability 'sphere' to allow different types of armor/agility/ECM that react differently to each weapon/warhead type too. I didn't like how HP was basically the only abstraction layer for survivability in Battletech, it could've easily tweaked with metrics that factored in the mech's agility, its size and current velocity (they sorta did but it was understandably abstracted to make the game sane).

Also although I liked ECM the way EVE implemented it, it felt pretty clunky and 'improvised' and often ended up being gimmicky. An ECM system would be great in a Battletech-type game but it needs to be built-into the core mechanics of combat. You could have ECM affect direct weapons range or maybe have ECM affect weapons effectiveness on a target. It won't need to be actual ECM in the modern sense, it could just be grabbag of information-warfare countermeasures that simulate one mech electronically reducing the range/effectiveness of another, but there should always be a recourse for the ECM victim.

If done well an ECM-like system could allow a gameplay angle for 'melee' mechs: mechs that are designed for speed and to close in to do their damage (not necessarily in hand to hand) and would even explain why anyone would need piloted giant robots anyway, kinda like what Minovsky Particles did in Gundam.

08-09-2007, 07:08 PM	#6 (permalink)
Khorum Registered User Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Chicago Posts: 4,594 -32 Internets	I was all over the PNP Battletech game but one thing I always felt they should've added were Drones. They can be DPS drones or sensor/ECM utility drones but they'd serve as 'pets' and could add a whole new dimension to gameplay. They could be flying drones or tiny little hover drones or even passive mine drones. The drones would fill up mass and heat/energy constraints on each mech 'chassis' like any other weapon, but they would be 1-shot drone 'bays'. There's also a bunch of weapon mechanics I've always felt they could've changed. Specifically Missile behavior and ballistics. Even real ballistic weapons can behave radically different based on their ammunition. HEAP/HEAT/APFSDS ammo serve different roles vs. different types of armor. Missiles are the same, there's straight chemical vs hybrid shaped warheads that serve radically different purposes. You could expand the survivability 'sphere' to allow different types of armor/agility/ECM that react differently to each weapon/warhead type too. I didn't like how HP was basically the only abstraction layer for survivability in Battletech, it could've easily tweaked with metrics that factored in the mech's agility, its size and current velocity (they sorta did but it was understandably abstracted to make the game sane). Also although I liked ECM the way EVE implemented it, it felt pretty clunky and 'improvised' and often ended up being gimmicky. An ECM system would be great in a Battletech-type game but it needs to be built-into the core mechanics of combat. You could have ECM affect direct weapons range or maybe have ECM affect weapons effectiveness on a target. It won't need to be actual ECM in the modern sense, it could just be grabbag of information-warfare countermeasures that simulate one mech electronically reducing the range/effectiveness of another, but there should always be a recourse for the ECM victim. If done well an ECM-like system could allow a gameplay angle for 'melee' mechs: mechs that are designed for speed and to close in to do their damage (not necessarily in hand to hand) and would even explain why anyone would need piloted giant robots anyway, kinda like what Minovsky Particles did in Gundam.