Optional NGNG Mod Pack file

MECHCOMMANDER GOLD - NGNG WEAPON REBALANCE PROJECT

by Scott aka HomerJr/SerEdvard, Phil aka SeanLang 9/8/2014

DESCRIPTION

This mod does two things: 1) completely rebalance IS and clan weapons to diversify weapon capabilities and give them different niches/roles in the game, and 2) increase the default screen resolution to expose ~4X more of the battlefield.

More specifically:

• Increased overall weapon ranges to correspond to larger visible battlefield increased screen resolution
• Give each weapon unique short/medium/long range brackets
• Increased weapon accuracy penalties at medium and long range brackets
• Damage and recycle time tuning to buff/nerf under/overperforming weapons
• All weapons renamed to TT names (e.g., medium laser, AC/5, LRM-5, etc.)
• Load values are unchanged form vanilla MCG to not disrupt default mech loadouts

Inner Sphere Weapons - Weapon Rebalance Mod by SerEdvard, Version 1.0

Clan Weapons - Weapon Rebalance Mod by SerEdvard, Version 1.0

CHANGE LOG v1, 9/8/2014

• Default resolution changed to 1024x768 (~4x more visible battlefield area)
• Player mech/vehicle visual range (map reveal) increased by about 2x
• Complete rebalance of all weapons, using default MCG load values
• All weapon ranges increased by about 2x (max range of long range weapons, e.g., LRMs/PPCs/ERLLs/AC-5s, is slightly less than 1 screen width at new 1024x768 res)
• Unique min/short/med/long range brackets for each weapon for greater weapon diversity and roles
• Weapon range accuracy penalties doubled, from -10/-20 for med/long range to -20/-40
• Tweaks to all weapon damage and recharge times
• Reduction in overall accuracy for energy weapons
• Significant increase to overall DPS of ballistic weapons
• Increased ammo for ballistic weapons
• New detailed statistics for all weapons in mechlab
• Load Value displayed in mechlab now includes ammo weight for ballistic/missile weapons
• Armored Car now shoots machine guns instead of medium laser

KNOWN BUGS v1, 9/8/2014

• Mechlab does not expand to fill up entire screen at new default resolution
• Purchasing tab in mechlab does not display new TT weapon names
• add by RizZ 2019: "Some standard values got overriden with modded values that should not be intended to be changed while the modding process. I recommend you recheck ALL entries in gamesys.fit file!"

SeanLang on NGNG 2014:

This is the current weapon re-balance for Clan/IS weapons! I've attached the .PDF's for you to download if you desire!

Here's a Google Drive link to download the weapon rebalance mod: Drive.google.com

Includes a readme with instructions for easy installation.

SerEdvard:

Here's a quick summary of the weapon rebalance philosophy:

• Increase overall weapon ranges to correspond to larger visible battlefield increased screen resolution
• Increase weapon accuracy penalties at medium and long range brackets
• Give each weapon unique short/medium/long range brackets to diversify weapon capabilities and give them different niches/roles
• Damage and recycle time tuning to buff/nerf under/overperfoimg weapons
• Keep load values unchanged form vanilla MCG

Here's how each weapon type was affected:

Lasers:

• Low max DPS
• Moderate range
• Good accuracy only at short ranges

Pulse lasers:

• Higher DPS but half the range of regular lasers

PPCs:

• Low max DPS
• Longish range
• Somewhat in inaccurate at all ranges (narrow optimum range bracket)

Ballistics:

• High max DPS
• Moderate/Long range
• good accuracy
• Limited ammo, but slightly more than vanilla MCG

SRMs:

• High max DPS
• Very short range
• Very inaccurate
• Streak SRMs still always hot but weigh more

LRMs:

• Low max DPS
• Long range
• Moderate/good accuracy
• Large min range bracket

RizZ note: This patch updates patches Firestarter, Centurion & Jagermech tonnage settings to work more canonlike. This fix only includes updatet BattleMech profiles!

Confused_Shelf on reddit 2017: Second mod in what will hopefully be a series of mods I'm releasing over the next couple weeks.
This mod aims to fix the Firestarter, Centurion and Jagermech tonnage error. In game those 'Mechs are listed as 30, 55 and 70 tons respectively when they should be 35, 50 and 65 tons.
This mod slightly changes the balance of these three 'Mechs and their variants:

• The W-variants of all three 'Mechs is much closer to the A and J
• The Firestarter has a very minor weapon tweak and slightly more armour
• The Centurion retains the exact same loadout (since it is canon) but has less armour
• The Jagermech has more armour but less guns

Original download (single download) from Confused_Shelf's googledrive

To install simply copy the "missions" folder into the DATA folder wherever the game is installed. If you already have a "missions" just copy the individual files but make sure the folder structure remains the same (DATA/missions/profiles/file).

Worth noting I only checked to see if these worked correctly in the mechbay and that they didn't crash the game. The balance might be way out of wack. The numbers all seemed reasonable but if you find they are made of paper/adamantium then let me know and I'll fix it.

Hope you guys enjoy.

RizZ note: This patch contains various profile changes for vehicles and vehicle crew artificial intelligence settings. This should make vehicles more competitive in the game.

Confused_Shelf on reddit 2017:

Drive.google.com

To install, extract the files from the zipped folder and paste the contents into your DATA folder. It will ask to overwrite OBJECTS (make a copy first) and then it should run just fine since I've already handled the folder hierarchy.

Mod Changes:

• NEW VEHICLE (Maxim)
• Complete armor overhaul
• Major speed corrections
• Internal Structure now modeled
• Minor ammo corrections
• Updated descriptions for all vehicles
• Unique pilots for all vehicles

Okay so first things first. This update was supposed to take a day or two. Ended up taking longer than the first two releases combined. Probably spent around 12+ hours doing this over the past week

IMPORTANT: Asking the game to load desc.fit from anywhere other than MISSION.FST increases the MechBay load time from around two seconds to six seconds. This is totally unavoidable if I want to edit that file. If you don't like this minor inconvenience then simply delete desc.fit (or move it somewhere else). You'll only ever notice this when you go back to the MechBay at the end of a mission, otherwise everything runs as usual.

I discovered the fantastic Solaris Skunkwerks (and Solaris Armor Werks too) which has a complete list of every 'Mech/Vehicle that has ever had a record sheet printed about it. This program has every bit of information you could ever wish to know about a vehicle, including the distribution of armor points.

Whereas before I was guesstimating what the armor points for a vehicle would be based on what I could find on sarna.net, now I have 100% accurate figures for every vehicle*. Took quite a while to update them all.

Couple of exceptions on the armor front (jesus christ, I've gone full american, I don't even think about spelling it 'armor' now). First of all, in MechCommander all vehicles have a turret. In BattleTech that is not true. To resolve this issue I've set turret armor to match side armor where relevant. This gives those vehicles without turrets a minor (almost insignificant) armor bonus over what they should have but it is the most fair way to go about things. Interestingly, their damage display on the HUD for vehicles without turrets doesn't have a seperate area to display the damage to this region but I've tested it and it is there.

Vehicle speeds have got a complete overhaul. Sarna.net had a mix of cruise speeds and flank speeds listed on the pages. Now I have set every vehicle to travel at its cruise speed. This restores some sense of realism, hovercraft accelerating to stupid speeds in an instant always looked goofy.

The only exception is the Mobile Artillery. It has a cruise speed of 6m/s but the game exe defines "walk speed" as 9m/s. Therefore you can get the vehicle to move faster by doing a regular move order rather than a sprint order. Honestly I think the 6m/s was too slow so I'm not too fussed.

Internal Structure stats has been added to every vehicle. This increases survivability of all vehicles over 10 tons. In the vanilla game the vehicles all had an internal structure of 1, far below what they should have.

You'll see a better descriptions for each vehicle you can buy that more accurately reflect their new canon loadouts. There's also a little fluff squeezed in there where I can.

The player vehicle pilots have all been rebalanced. By default light vehicles have skills of 35, medium 50, heavy 60 and assault 75. Vehicles with sensors have a sensor skill relevant to their purpose. For example an Alacorn has a sensor skill of 35 because it's purpose is not to scout. A Pegasus, even though it is a light vehicle, has a sensor skill of 75 because that is the entire purpose of that vehicle.

NEW VEHICLE: I repurposed some unused assets for an Elemental Carrier to create a new vehicle, the Maxim. The assets bear many similarities with the Maxim. Even better, there was a 3050s redesign for which there is no picture so I'm claiming my Maxim is the new model. Even, even better, the new model has a variant designed to carry Battle Armor (an Elemental Carrier if you will), so that's what I'm using for the stats. It won't appear anywhere in game yet but in the future I have plans to do a campaign reworking which will include the vehicle. Alternatively change things yourself, it is PV20400.

Hope you enjoy the changes. You'll find below a comparison table that shows the differences between the vanilla game and my mod.

This is the last update for the vehicle balance for now. v1.0 will launch after I've reworked the weapons, which is my next project. I'll then correct the weapons loadouts where needed and launch the final version.

Mod Changes:

• More accurate armour values for every vehicle
• Support vehicles and civilian vehicles now correct
• Bug from original game that displayed Regulator as Condor fixed
• Minor weapon corrections from v0.1
• Ammo tonnage now accounted for where I could find it
• Refit Truck now rebalanced (more below)
• Schrek, Condor and Mobile Artillery now correct speed

Special thank you to /u/EricAKAPode for explaining the finer points of Battletech mechanics, helped me a great deal.

Right, the Refit Truck. Originally a 35 ton vehicle. In the game files it has 168 repair points before it is exhausted. I did some testing on an Atlas-A (21 tons of armour, despite what the files say) and discovered that each repair point is equivalent to 0.5 tons of armour. So that 35 ton vehicle was carrying 84 tons worth of repairs. That's ridiculous to me and in my mind that vehicle made many of the missions too easy. I have no issue with the game mechanic of repairing mechs in a few seconds but it was clearly far too powerful.

So I made some changes. The vehicle now weighs 55 tons and carries only 25 tons of repairs (70% less). The Refit Truck shares its front end design with the Salvage Truck and Salvage Rig (40 and 50 tons). If I assume the Salvage Truck has 10 tons of cargo then I can deduce the empty version of such a vehicle would weigh 30 tons. Add 25 tons of repairs and you get the 55 ton total. That's still enough to repair an Atlas-A with literally every single component set to 0 armour (more damage than it would ever accrue in a real fight) so it still has a use, but is far less OP.

Plans for v0.3:

• Create a unique crew for each vehicle (all vehicles have 25% to hit currently)
• Update DESC.FIT (references old weapons loadouts)
• Investigate Internal Structure and Resource Points (former is set to 1 on all vehicles when it should be ~10% tonnage, latter is maybe HP so need to test)
• Change the Ammo Truck rearm values, still set to 84 tons

Please let me know if you encounter any problems.

As a small bonus here is a collection of the different civilian vehicles in the game, many of which don't even appear in the missions:

Civilian Vehicles

Hey everyone,

Got a little something for you today, an idea I've been planning for over a year now. Finally spent a few hours changing the files and testing them.

Have you ever felt that the vehicles in MechCommander don't pose as much of a challenge as they should? Well I have and so I decided to make some minor changes to the vehicles.

I researched every vehicle on sarna.net and changed the weapons to reflect their canon appearance. Speeds and armour have also been corrected.

Some of the major changes:

• Almost all vehicles are faster
• Many of the hover vehicles have speeds that look ridiculous in MCG so they have all been restricted to 36 m/s (the same speed as the Stiletto, the current fastest vehicle)
• Armour values have been bumped in most of the heavier tanks
• Von Luckners and Rommels will now wreck your day royally
• Many of the light vehicles have actually become even weaker
• No more AC/20 Bulldogs, no idea why they were a thing
• Rommels now take over that role, like they should
• SRM Carriers are tiny boxes of death (In testing I sent one up against a single Shadow Cat and it obliterated the 'Mech. Fear them more than you ever did an AC/20. 30 SRM/2s (10 SRM/6 is canon) are not to be laughed at)
• Rushing Strikers no longers works, many other vehicles now have a mix of ranges
• Saracens are no longer outfitted like Scimitars
• Mobile Artillery now have Long Toms in campaign
• And other things you'll just have to discover, all canon, no tricks

Drive.google.com

To install, extract the files from the folder and paste the contents into your DATA folder. It will ask to overwrite OBJECTS (make a copy first) and then it should run just fine since I've already handled the folder hierarchy.

Planned changes for v0.2:

• All vehicles are gimped with 25 gunnery (Hawk has 30) which is ridiculous
• The type of vehicle will now determine the skill of the pilot so things like the Alacorn will become even more dangerous
• Fix whatever weird bit of code is stopping me from increasing the speed of the Schrek. For some reason it is capped at 9 m/s (should be 15) and the game crashes when I try to increase it
• Same problem with trying to slow Mobile Artillery, won't go down to 9 m/s without crashing
• Change hovercraft speeds depending on feedback
• Look at rebalancing the various trucks/rigs which I glossed over
• Investigate modding elementals, can I create multiple types

Beyond that I have a couple of other ideas for MCG mods. Tomorrow I'm hoping to release a fix for the Firestarter, Centurion, Jagermech tonnage. I have an expansive weapons mod planned (~80 new pieces of equipment, all canon, more than double stock content) that I want to complete before I look at rebalancing the 'Mechs.

Enjoy. I welcome your feedback.

(c) by RizZen - thx to SerEdvard & Confused_Shelf