Game Play

Greetings Mech Fans. My last entry, the Pure Tech series, got a few comments and some talks or discussion stirred and I am happy for that. A person that writes anything is always happy to have someone read what they wrote, it is even better when people make comments about it. That is what my blog is for, to post my thoughts on something and to let you readers post your thoughts as well. We don’t have to agree and many times we wont agree, but it is good to get the various points across so others can see them.

In the course of my last posting, my old (on-line) pal, GP mentioned that I should make a post about the various forms of play, mission play vs team battle vs team destruction. I have been thinking about that and then last night another thought popped into my head. Stock Play. So, today, I am going to attempt to put together a discussion about the various forms of team play and the use of stock variants all in one column. Hopefully, with a bit of word smithing I can put it so that it all makes sense and is readable, who knows, it might even be enjoyable by some.

Let me start off by saying that I am going to mix League play and Open Play in some of my comparisons based on some of things I have done while playing this game over the years. Normally, I would try to separate the two, but in this context it doesn’t matter if they get mixed up (or it doesn’t matter much and where it does I will try to point that out).

MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries offers many types of play for owners of the game. There is obviously the campaign or instant play games for single player. As most of you that played the campaign know, it is set up to take you through all the mech classes, you start with lights and work your way up to the assaults. The internal Solaris competition within the campaign is set up like that as well. My thoughts are that it was done this way to introduce the player to all the classes and allow the pilot to determine what is best for his play style. That, and the fact that it gets a pilot a wide variety of mechs to use in the game.

My personal feeling is that there is no better gaming experience than playing online. In fact, I think that is what keeps MW4 Mercs on its legs today, the online community. For those of you that do venture online, MW4 Mercs again offers many types of play. There is singles competition in various Battle or Destruction servers and there are several different types of game play for teams. Today, we discuss a few of those team oriented options so sit down, strap yourself in, button up your neuro-helmet and hold on. Stay in cover where possible, shoot straight and shoot first.

I don’t plan to discuss all the online options, but let me assure you, there are plenty of them and I am sure I would leave some out if I tried to mention them all, so I wont. A few, and I mean a very few are Urbie Dodgeball, Mech Racing, Mech McRugby, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill and many others. The ones I am going to discuss are Team Mission Play, Team Battle and Team Destruction.

Let me give a brief overview of each of these types and what they are all about before going in depth about any one or all three. Team Mission Play, known as Mission Play is probably the most complex game of the three types. Mission Play has multiple options for both teams. Usually, there is an attack team and a defending team, but not always, sometimes both teams attack. In the attack v defend scenario, usually the attack team has objectives to accomplish such as destroy something on the defenders side of the map OR they can kill all the defenders. Most times there is a time limit granted for them to do this, be it 5, 10 or 15 minutes. The defenders must keep the attackers from the objectives for that time limit or kill all the attackers within that time limit. The side that accomplishes their task wins the round. If the defenders keep the objectives in tact and DO NOT kill all the attackers, they still win so the pressure is on the attack team. There are some missions in which both teams attack, meaning that both teams have objectives they must destroy or kill all the other team to win the round. Usually these missions don’t have a time limit. Lastly, there are those where the objectives change from round to round. Team A could be the attackers on the first round and defend on the second round and both teams could be the attackers in the third round or any combination of the three. That’s the quick and dirty of mission play.

Team Destruction is pretty easy to describe. Read the name, T E A M - D E S T R U C T I O N. In this game type, one team tries to destroy the other. There are no other objectives and the time limit is the only factor. Team Destruction is all about kills. The team with the most kills at the end of the game wins. Sometimes the TD Games are played in waves. This means that the game is in rounds or waves. Each round has a time limit and the team with the most kills at the end of the wave wins the wave. Most Waves won wins the match. Sometimes TD games are respawn, meaning that after you are killed, your mech regenerates at your spawn or drop zone and you go back and fight again over and over until the timer runs out. The team with the most kills wins. Very simple, very basic game type.

Team Battle is also pretty simple. Two teams battling to score the most points, whether it is by waves or by match, kills don’t really count (but they help in the points). This one is often done in respawn mode meaning that if you get killed you come back to life to go inflict damage to the other guys until you die again.

More or less, that is basics for the three types of games on the board today. Over the years of play I have noticed some differences in these types of play from league to league and I will tell you a little about what I know of each. In some leagues, Mission Play is much different from what I spelled out above. I have seen Mission Play games be very quick in that there is only one wave. The attackers are generally set up to hit the objectives quickly. Get in, kill objectives, get out, game over. The Defenders are set up to kill the attackers in one or two shots. If the attackers take out the objectives, they win. It is hard to stop a team that works well together and comes in with a good plan to hit the objectives. Even a well oiled defensive team will have trouble killing 6 to 8 fast little jumping mechs before they can take down the objectives.

I have also seen Mission Play done in league play where you had to kill 50% of the opposing team before you destroyed the objectives. So if the match was a single wave, 400 ton, Mission Play Match, the attackers could not destroy both the objectives until they had killed at least 200 tons of the defenders mechs. This makes Mission Play most interesting. You can kill the turrets and one of the objectives, but you still have to kill at least half of the defenders before wiping out their base.

Open Play Mission Play is much different. You play in waves or rounds and there basically is not a weight limit unless it is set by the server (you could have a team limit or individual mech weight limit). The attackers try to move in and pressure the objectives while simultaneously trying to kill the defenders. Meanwhile the defenders are trying to put an end to this silly attack by taking out every attack mech encountered. In Open play, you see every type of mech used, heavy Assaults with massive alphas, speedy mechs that rush the objectives with a combo of weapons that is set up specifically to take out a building quickly, to general purpose mechs that can fight, move fast or take down buildings. Some folks prefer to concentrate on taking down the objectives while others prefer fighting mechs, but either way, Mission play offers it all.

Open Play Team Destruction is also pretty simple. Whether there are weight restrictions, or weapon restrictions, both or none, there are two teams set up to kill the other team. Matches can be waves or single rounds and they are usually not respawn (but they can be). When the map launches both teams set out to find the other and take them down quickly.

The league play version is not much different, except that there is usually a team weight restriction. You can take any mech you want but your team can not exceed the team weight limit. League play is generally a little more intense than the open play version. In League Play, the pilots are all part of one team, not a mix of teams, and there is generally one guy directing the team to battle. The team will run passive except for an electronics mech and maybe a couple of others and there may even be a scout. The Drop Commander will search for the enemy and for a place to stage the battle on terms best suited for your team. The mechs are usually predetermined including what type of weapons and armour to be used. Everyone on a team in a league should be on comms. In Open Play you get a mix-match of players on teams (usually, but not always) and some folks have comms and some don’t or they use different comms programs (TeamSpeak, Ventrillo and Roger-Wilco are the top three I think). The coordination is also less in Open Play because of these other factors. That is not to say that Open Play is not fun, it is. And LOTS of it.

Team Battle is another one that I have seen used differently. One league uses it LIKE Team Destruction in that only Kills count, not the score. Other leagues use it for the scoring. Team with the highest score wins. Almost always, team battle is a respawn fight. Because of the scoring and the respawn, Team Battle is very popular in Open Play. Set the map time limit to whatever (30 minutes is the norm) and drop and shoot. Team Battle is also very popular with the NHUA (No Heat Unlimited Ammo) crowd. Again, the League Play version will almost have restrictions on weight, chassis, weapons or any combo where Open Play may or may not. Either way, this is a fun version of the game.

I guess it is time to throw the Vettie feelings in on each type of play and give you my thoughts on them. As I mentioned before, I have played some of each of these in both League and Open Play. Let me start with Team Battle. I often like an Open Play Team Battle with unlimited respawn trying to rake up points. This type of play is just enough to relax you and let you forget about life’s pressures and stresses. Jump in a favourite mech and go out there and rip arms or legs off your enemy before you kill them to rake in the points. The smaller the mech you use the more points you get when hitting those big monsters that seem to kill me with one shot every time. Its great fun. As far as League Play, I don’t care for this type of play very much, but for just plain old fun its hard to beat. Lots of people love this type of League Play action and they are good at it. That’s great, its just not my preference.

Team Destruction, or should I say the concept behind team destruction, is probably my most favourite type of game play. Its all about killing mechs. Points don’t matter. Kill or be killed. League Play gets real in depth with lots of strategy and planning and coordination. Hit the dirt, find the enemy before they find you and take them down. Open Play is very close to League Play, but probably not as intense overall. For people that love to shoot at other mechs, this is the game type for you.

I forgot to mention something and now is a good time to bring it up. Team Battle and Team Destruction offer the most maps in the game today. There are literally over 250 maps available for play in MW4 Mercs and the majority of them are set up for Team Battle and or Team Destruction. Team Destruction is set up to be about kills, Team Battle is set up to be about points, but it CAN be about kills. Knowing that, Team Battle is probably the most flexible game type.

Vettie is all about the maps. I love playing on a map that I never have played on, or have only played a few times and have never checked out all the Drops Zones. It adds to the ‘fog of war’ if you don’t know the battlefield, or it does for me.

Ok, sorry for the tangent, but Im old. Where were we? Oh yeah, I was just about to talk about Mission Play. I am not sure Mission Play in the Open Server Sunder is so much different than it is in any League Play environment. As I said above, the League Play versions of mission play are usually very short and only one wave. Get in, kill the objective and get out, game over. The other League version is where you have to kill half the mechs first then kill the objectives, but still it is only one wave. Open Play in Sunder offers multiple waves and you almost always end up killing about half the other team before the objectives are destroyed IF the attacker manages to win.

The Open Play environment of Sunder exposes you to nearly every tactic you can think of as well as nearly every weapon and mech in the game. I have seen them all from Battle Armours to Behemoths, machine guns to rail guns, small pulse lasers to large continuous beam lasers, SRMs to Arrows, you name it in the game and I have seen it used. Maybe that is the attraction?!? You don’t know what you will be facing until you find an enemy. The weapons and tactics are always evolving in this game. Here is a good time to remind folks that this essentially an 8 year old game (Vengeance came out in 2000 I think, and Mercs is more or less an upgrade/improvement to that engine). I find it amazing that we are still experimenting with weapons and stuff this late in the life of the game.

Preferences? Well, that’s a tough one to decide. I would say that personally, Ol’ Vettie prefers Team Destruction type game play whether its in the opens or in a league setting. I prefer killing mechs over blowing up buildings. I would say that I play more Mission Play in the Opens than any other type, but that is not because of the mission play, its because that is where all my online ‘buds’ are. If I could convince more people to play Team Destruction I think they would actually like it better simply because of the variety of maps available. You can play for 4 or 5 nights solid and never play the same map. Don’t get me wrong, mission play, the way its played in Sunder, is a blast and I really enjoy it, I just prefer shooting mechs and new battlefields instead of the same maps.

Another thing of interest to me is that most Leagues use daytime or default settings and clear visibility or default settings here too. I know there were hacks that allowed folks to see through fog and some of the older video cards allowed you to ‘whack’ the fog, but MekTek has patched the hacks and I seriously doubt if any of those older video cards are still in use today. Sunder, still gives you the variety of weather, fog levels and day or night drops. That adds so much to the game and tactics. All this makes a better experience and I think it should be used in league play and open play.

I mentioned earlier something about stock play. Many people dislike stock play. I guess I simply don’t understand stock at all. I mean, I like it when the occasional stock mechs comes up in Sunder, but I don’t understand stock. What is stock? Almost every TRO I have seen offers multiple configurations, or variants. So which one is stock? And why is there ONE default stock config when the TROs offer more than one so-called stock variant? Why is there even A ‘stock variant’? Why not just a mech with empty slots? Maybe someone at MekTek is reading this and a ding will go off in their head. The fun of the game is in creating your own variant, so why even bother with stock? And if you do bother with stock, why not have ALL the TRO Variants (similar to what MW2 offered in the mech lab before you built your own, there would be 2 or three or four pre-builts available). Is there an answer to this or am I just beating a dead bush?

I have never read many of the battletech novels and I never played the tabletop game so I don’t know much about what is in there for the offering. I suspect that the game allowed you to create your own weapons load out within reason (slots or criticals available in a mech chassis) and I know I have read in the few books I did read that the mechs used were not always ‘stock’. So again, I ask, for the video game, why even have stock? Why not just an empty chassis?

Either way, I do enjoy the occasional stock match. I adds a ‘new’ dimension to the game. Not all the mechs have BAP and ECM, very few can jump and weapons load outs are set up for a ‘do-all’ situation with a combination of long and short range weapons and missiles. Pilots become dependant on their BAP and ECM AND their choice of weapons. Take that away and watch their kill numbers change. Stock keeps ‘em honest.

I like the occasional stock match, but I would not like it all the time. The ability to customize the chassis is real big in this game. It allows each player to make the mech ‘theirs’. I also think that if you could not customize the mechs, this game would have long ago bit the dust, even with the possibly the best online game play going.

Gather up your mechs and head for a server. There are Missions to Play and Destruction to inflict and points to score. Whatever your choice is, MechWarrior 4 Mercs offers it. Tell me about your favourite game type and why you like it. You can also tell me what you don’t like about the others I mentioned. I love reading the posts and I love discussion.

Pure Tech Part 2

Continuing the Pure Tech theme, I would like to talk about my “perfect” league for playing puretech. Indulge me if you will.

Currently, there are three major leagues out there for our beloved game. MWL, NBT and MCL. I am not sure if ISW is still operational, if so, ISW would make a forth league. I do not know that much about ISW so I wont make comments either way. My understanding is that ISW requires either NetMech IV mod or NBT-HC mod, but again, I am not sure. You can check for yourself by going to their website and poking around. www.iswars.com is the last address I had for them.

MWL is mostly a 3PV mixed tech ladder league. They have ladders for nearly every type play you can think of and if they don’t have it, if you get enough teams to sign up for it, they will create it. For awhile, they even had some FFP puretech ladders. I know at one time they had a planetary league too.

I am an admin for MCL. www.mechcombat.org. This league is also a ladder league but it caters to FFP play only. They have Mixed Tech Ladders and Pure Tech Ladders and are in the process of creating a Mission Play Ladder.

NBT is a planetary league. www.netbattletech.com. This league is probably the most in depth league if you are looking for planetary play. NBT is FFP, pure tech style play, however they use their own mod, NBT Hardcore.

I spent some time in each of these leagues and I am still a member of MCL. Before NBT went to the Hardcore mod, I was a member / co-leader of a team in that league. I have enjoyed each of the leagues that I have been a part of, and each offers some fantastic play for its members. All three are still active and have teams that are looking for players and are even accepting new teams if you have enough pilots to form a roster. If you are looking for competitive play in an organized league, I suggest that you look at each one and find one that fits your style. Join up and be a member, it’s a lot of fun. MCL and MWL both have Solaris type leagues so individual players can play and fight without actually committing to a team.

If I were going to create my idea of a “perfect” league, what would I do? Well, to start with I would take the NBT Planetary Model and change it somewhat. What? Why? The NBT system, throughout my playing time offers the best play as far as really getting in to what your team is about. My understanding is that ISW is/was this way too, and possibly even more in depth for the individual pilot, so maybe I would borrow some for each type of play.

NBT, as I have mentioned is a planetary system with Clans, Inner Sphere Major Houses, IS Minor Houses, IS Periphery Houses, Mercenary Units and even Pirates. All the major units from the BT Universe are or can be represented. They each have a little slice of the universal pie and each one is trying to get more of that pie. The Clans are trying to get to Terra as well as their own battles for supremacy and ranking within the Clan Worlds.

So how does this all fit in with puretech theme? As I said, I would start with the NBT model and take it a bit further. You see, when I played in NBT, you were either a Clan unit or and IS Unit. When you first signed on and started up your new unit, or took over and existing unit, you were given certain assets based on the type of unit you were. If you were an IS unit (this includes ALL units, Houses, Periphery, Mercs or Pirates, except Clan units) the majority of your assets were IS technology including your factories, jump and drop ships and battle mechs. I do not know for certain, but I am assuming it was the same in the Clan Side of things (I was never a part of a Clan Unit). You were given SOME assets that were opposite tech, but that was only a small percentage of your assets.

How would I further that? I would take it back to the BT Books and TROs. If House Marik built certain types of battle mechs, then that is ALL they would have to start with. Another way of putting is like this, if Steiner specialized in building the Thanatos and the Uziel, for example, then that is what they would start off having in their assets as well as having their factories being able to build. If House Davion built the Victor and the Wolfhound, then they would start with those mechs and the ability to build them.

As teams built their forces, and as the factories started to produce mechs and income, then the Houses could take their ‘goods’ to market and sale them to other Houses (either via auction (my personal fav) or public orders). After a House bought a certain number of another Houses goods, say the Steiners bought a 100 WolfHounds, then Steiner could buy the rights to build that model but still have to pay a percentage to the original House as royalties. Of course, if a unit captured or stole a certain number of a chassis, then they could reverse engineer it enough to produce their own. These captured tech could be manufactured and eventually sold, but ONLY on the Black Market. Some chassis would be shared by multiple (or possibly ALL Inner Sphere units). That is to say that ALL IS factories COULD produce an Argus (as an example) with no royalties to be paid to anyone.

IS Houses may also agree to share technologies and designs. This would mean that Steiner and Davion could become partners on battle mechs that were exclusive to them, like in the examples above, the Uziel and the Victor. Sharing would mean that both Houses give up exclusive rights on a design to another House in exchange for exclusive rights of another design. Each would then be the owners of that mech design and would be free to produce and sell the mech as they so desired. The royalties from these mechs would then be shared by both Houses going forward. This pattern could be repeated until all IS units are partners and then the unit becomes open technology among the Inner Sphere (like the Argus in the above examples).

Similar situations could be set up for the Clans. One Clan could have exclusive rights (as deemed by historical info from TROs or as set up by the Clan General Council) to build certain chassis such as the Mad Cat being built by Jade Falcon and the Kodiak being built by Ghost Bears. Now the Clans are so interested in monies or C-Bills like the IS folks are, so you would need to work out something on technology sharing amongst the Clans (even if they are warring among themselves). I suggest an allotment factor for each Clan.

Huh? How would that work? Simple. The General Council is made up of a Kahn from each Clan, major or minor. Among this group of Kahns, they elect a Leader of the GC and three member agreement board. Individual Kahns would submit their requirement ‘bids’ to the Allotment Board. The agreement board looks over the requirements for each Clan for each month and decides what new assets are delivered to what Clan. This would then be submitted to the Leader of the GC for approval. The Leader either agrees or makes adjustments and then each Clan gets what ever was submitted as their allotment for the month.

Also, if a Clan wins a ‘bid’ to attack an IS House, their allotment may be adjusted in increase their supplies as needed depending on their submitted bid, or as the GC sees fit to sustain, increase or decrease the flow of equipment. If a Clan is attacked by an IS house, they may also need more mechs than their allotment or even more than there ‘monthly bid’.

Why would you want to do this? In the beginning of a cycle (or whatever you want to call it), battles would be limited to only the mechs you have access to. How you trade and the agreements you make determine how technology spreads across the Inner Sphere and among the Clans. A team may spend months fighting a rival ‘house’ and never see an Atlas. Then one day they launch a assault on a neighboring planet in hopes of taking that planet for themselves and boom, there is an Atlas, or a few of them or many of them. Imagine capturing a planet from a rival only to discover some chassis being built there that you have not had access to, or only been able to buy through Black Market (extreme) pricing? Now imagine trying to work the logistics of deploying this new piece of technology to all your forces without losing it back, or having it stolen by pirates. Or, if you decided you weren’t happy with this new found toy, imagine the profits of selling through the Black Market o hiring Mercs to trade them off for something else or using ‘privateers’ to dispose of them for you on the Black Market if you don’t want to ‘dirty’ your hands.

Battle Mechs that were built by Houses or Clans that are not ‘filled’ while forming the league, could be bid on by other units. If Clan Ghost Bear did not have team filling that slot at the time of the league start up, or cycle, then any mechs built exclusively by Ghost Bear could be bid on by all the other ‘active’ Clans. Same for the IS. This would still allow for possibly all the chassis currently in the game to be used while the original ‘makers’ are not being used.

NBT has a very good system that allows for jump ship movements and record keeping as to what is in storage, on drop ships and jumps ships and what is on garrison as well as the size and type of factories on each planet. It also allows you to add factories if you have the C-Bills and it calculates income and maintenance fees. There is an overall universal map that can be drilled into down to individual planets. In the K-Cluster, planets may be sub-divided into territories owned by different Clans. It really is an impressive system and one that is fun to operate. Players can simply be pilots and fight using a multitude of chassis in a variety of different battle types, or they can have more assignments such as planetary garrisons or jump ship movements or financial operations or diplomatic relations officers or whatever.

More or less that is what my ‘ideal’ pure tech league would be like, chassis exclusive to certain Houses or Clans, Planetary Universe for warring and lots of diplomacy for agreements. This would make the pure tech aspect even more crucial.

How? As I stated in my previous post, the Clans had (have) an advantage in the 700 to 950 meter range and with lower tonnage weapons. The biggest thing in all the books and stories between the Clans and the IS was that the Clans would ‘bid’ on an attack. That is, the leader, or Kahn, would state tonnage or numbers of mechs or even which specific mechs they would use to capture a certain objective. A rival Clan would try to ‘bid’ lower by using less tonnage or smaller numbers and so on until one side passed and agreed to allow the other the right to be the aggressor for the battle that they were bidding for. This meant that the Clans would have smaller numbers of equipment available to them than there is counter parts, but the weapons technology was superior often weighing less (allowing for more firepower to be packed on) or having better range or both.

It wasn’t until the MekTek additions that things like the mini-gauss or Hyper Auto Cannons actually reduced that Clan advantage by taking away the range. Prior to MekTek MekPaks, the IS only had the Light Gauss Rifle and missiles (yes there were other weapons like the Long Tom and Arrow Missile System, but over all the Clans had an advantage). The IS had to rely more on tactics, stealth and shear numbers to overcome the Clan superiorities. In a video game, you cant very well ask one team to use only 5 or 6 chassis while the other gets to use 6 to 8 because overall it just doesn’t work out. Eventually the numbers game will catch up to the team using the lower numbers of chassis, especially in a planetary environment where it’s a one kill and you are out of the battle type of fight (meaning that there is no respawn, you either live or die in the battle).

In this suggestion of mine, you could recreate the Clan Invasion as well as the struggles between major houses. The Clans would still have their advantage of lighter / longer ranged weapons and the IS would slowly begin to realize that they need each other to survive the Clans (or at least they need some of their other IS chassis). Temporary alliances could be made, secret deals could be made, sales and trades could happen and Clans could fight each other as well as mount that drive on Terra…

Well that is my ‘perfect’ pure tech setting. The fun of facing mechs you don’t have access to or at least not yet. Realizing the strengths and weaknesses of the mechs you do have and the fun of going after what you want.

Pure Tech

Start a war? A debate? Maybe so.

We all know the radical differences between 3^rd Person View and 1^st Person view. We all know that there are many people on both sides of that razor edged fence. I prefer 1^st Person view and that is my choice. I don’t care if you prefer 3^rd person view because that is your choice. As long as you play the game, that is what matters.

The debate, the war, the topic for this rendition of Vettie’s Views isn’t about what view you use. No, instead I hope to spark some interest in one of the other oldest debates about this game, pure tech vs mixed tech.

Yes, my view will be slanted to the pure tech side because that is my preferred way of playing. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, its my blog, so I can put whatever I want in it. I do hope that this issue will spark some comments on both sides of this fence.

OK. Wow, where to start with this topic? Oh yeah, for those of you that may have stumbled upon my blog by accident, of for those of you that are new to MechWarrior, let me explain the differences and then I will state my case for pure tech. Pure tech simply means using Clan Technology Weaponry on Clan Technology Chassis and Inner Sphere Technology Weapons on Inner Sphere Chassis. Pretty simple. Mixed Tech is even more simple. Mixed tech means you can use any weapon on any chassis. Any questions? Ok maybe if you are new to the game you don’t know what is what. Simple enough. When you go into the mech lab and select a chassis or create a variant the chassis is there spinning around inside the lab. There is a brief description that tells you some key info like whether the chassis is Clan or Inner Sphere. On the left side is a list of weaponry. If it is Clan Technology, it will have a little “C” in the upper left hand corner of the weapon Icon. If it has and “X”, it can be used by either Clan or Inner Sphere and if it has nothing in the corner, it is an Inner Sphere weapon. If I figure out how, I will try to post pics of the different weapons and a chassis of each technology.

Well, I hope that my explanation was simple enough and I hope that I didn’t confuse anyone. Now on to my favourite, Pure Tech. Let me state this, I have never played the table top version of “Battletech” but I have a pretty good idea of how it works. I am a gamer and I play several table top games. My favourite is ASL or Advanced Squad Leader. Let me also state that I have read a few of the BT novels but not very many, so my dedication and love for this game actually stems from the game itself. I started playing way back in the MW2 days and I even played some online version back then. Vengeance and Mercs really got me interested and I have played for years.

My pure tech roots are not seated in the board game or the novel, its actually seated in the game itself. Vengeance and Mercs are very similar and I consider Mercs to simply be an improved add on to Vengeance even tho they are separate games. Way back in Vengeance (and in Mercs too) when you created a stock mech or a variant of a mech, it came pre-loaded with weapons based on the technology class of the chassis used. That is, if I created a Thor, it came with Clan Tech ER Medium Lasers, Clan LRM missiles and Clan Ultra Auto Cannons. If I created an Uziel (Carl’s favourite, “the ‘work horse’ of the Inner Sphere” if you remember the guy that ran the mech lab for Ian) it came with IS PPCs and IS Machine Guns and IS SRM missiles. This carried over into Mercs. I am not talking about the campaign game where salvage in Mercs nets you ‘the empty chassis and the weapons that would normally be installed on a stock mech’, I am simply talking about going directly to the mech lab and creating a mech (variant) for you to (possibly) use on line.

These ‘pre-existing’ stock models or variants have their roots from either the novels or the board game, I believe. I think they are called “TROs”. This is basically a listing of the mech, its variants (if any), the standard armament, the type of armour, the type of engine, the speed range and any electronics installed. Obviously, these “TROs” are more complex than what we get in the video game version, so our armour has been changed to three types, our engines are listed as speed upgrades or downgrades and the various electronics have been compressed into ECM, BAP, LAMs, Jump Jets and IFF and all the weaponry installed is same technology as the chassis.

If you ever read any of the books, then you know that early on the Clan Tech Mechs had a distinct advantage over the Inner Sphere mechs. The Clan Weapons had long ranges and the mechs had dual heat sinks to contain heat better. I also am under the belief that ‘early on’ the Clan Mechs were generally faster. This fact is brought about in the game we play. Inner Sphere Large Lasers are heavier (in tonnage) and have a shorter range than the Clan counter part. The same goes for all weapons that are shared by both technologies, like the PPCs, the standard Gauss Rifles, the Medium Lasers, the Pulse Lasers, the Ultra Auto Cannons and LBX Auto Cannons. All the Clan versions either weigh less (in tonnage) or have a longer effective range or both. For game balance, Microsoft and Mektek made the Clan versions of certain weapons run a bit hotter so it forces the player to either not shoot as much or use more heat sinks.

When I first started playing Mercs on line, I would play in a server called NBT-Thor (I think). Its now called NBT-Sunder, but it was a mission play requiring people to play FFP Pure Tech. I had no idea what all those acronyms were, but they played the same style that I played. I liked it. Before too long, I had joined a team in the NBT League. Here was a whole league that played 1^st Person View and Pure Tech Chassis loads. Wow!

It did not take long to learn the ranges of the weapons and when you were in range or out of range depending on the enemy you saw or picked up on radar. This became part of the strategy of how to play the game. You knew your limitations and you exploited your advantages. Clan Tech was nasty at 700 to 900 meter range while IS tech was great inside 600 meters or outside 900. Being an Inner Sphere Pirate team, MOST of our technology was IS but we did manage to have some Clan Tech.

Here’s the thing. If you saw a Gladiator or Mad Cat MKII, you new not to get within the 800 meter mark (or the 900 meter mark for the Glad) or you would get ripped to shreads UNLESS you could avoid being shot and close to the 600 meter mark where your (IS) weapons were as good as theirs. It just doesn’t seem right to see a jumping Glad Bag firing ‘red’ Gauss slugs at 1000 meters. Something is wrong with that picture. I hate to see a MKII firing what looks like regular Gauss slugs, but registering a hit at 1000 to 1100 meters.

You see, playing pure tech gives each chassis its own bit of character. There are many chassis in each weight class that can carry the same weapons load outs. The difference is the chassis itself. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses. Some mechs can not carry some weapons or some combo of weapons because of slot size or weight (of the weapons) without altering some other part of mech (like losing jump jets or speed or armour).

Let me put it another way. Mixed tech allows you to build some uber configs that you could not do in pure tech. I will show you an example using my favourite mech, the Victor. Using a mixed tech config, I can load two Clan Gauss Rifles and three ER Large Lasers with ECM, LAMs and Jump Jets with no adjustments to speed or armour. In a pure tech setting, I can load two standard Gauss Rifles and only one Large Laser and I would have one ton left over to add to the armour or as a heat sink. Now you may not think the twin gauss, triple ER Large Victor is uber, but for a Victor it IS. What it shows is that by allowing any tech on a chassis, you can build some pretty mean configs that you would not see in a pure tech environment or in a TRO or in any of the books.

Another way of looking at it is like this. If you went to buy a new Ford, when you opened the hood you would expect to see a Ford motor, not a GM motor. You would think that not only is there some performance differences between IS and Clan weapons, but you would think that there may actually be some technical differences, like size variations (English vs metric) or connection issues or wiring issues or who knows what. What was the chance that during WWII that if any Allied Unit captured a gun or tank that they could take that and put it own ‘technology’ without some sort of retrofit to make it work? I mean come on, you capture a German Tiger and ‘our’ ammo fits and works flawlessly when the ammo it had runs out? What about modern weapons? Can the U.S. Army take parts of an AK47 and use them on an M16 without modifying something first?

Yes, I do think that scientists and engineers would be able to come up with ‘retrofit kits’ to allow you to use a Clan weapon on an IS Mech, but I also think that such a kit would have to have some tonnage to it that would need to be calculated in addition to the weight of the weapon. I would also think that the reliability of ‘wrong tech’ weaponry would be decreased somewhat, you know, more prone to malfunction.

I just find it very hard to believe that Clan engineers and Inner Sphere engineers came up with the exact same idea at roughly the same time. No, I think more like the Clan came up with these things and the IS captured or recovered (more likely) one of these gigantic monsters and reverse engineered it as closely as they could. Then again, I guess these mechs were already around before Kerensky and his followers headed off to form the Clans, so the basic design may have already been there and the Clans ‘improved’ upon existing technology.

Now a quick bit about mixed tech. Yes I play mixed tech some times. I don’t care for it, but the first few times through the solo campaign I did use mixed tech based on whatever I salvaged. By the way, its much more of a challenge to play the campaign using only pure tech configs.

As I mentioned above, mixed tech allows you to build some killer configs. What it really comes down to using mixed tech is ‘what is your mission objective?’ IF you playing to get the most kills, then mixed tech is great, just pick a tough chassis and load it up with whatever weapon you need to kill a lot of other mechs.

I see that as a down fall. Seems to me, and again, I don’t play mixed tech very often, but it seems to me that mixed tech would put a lot of weapons and especially mechs on the shelf. I mentioned above how there are multiple mechs in every weight class that can carry the same weapons load. For mixed tech, in my opinion, it would seem that you would almost ALWAYS use the toughest chassis mech that would allow the load out needed.

I could be wrong. I would love to hear from the mix tech readers (if any) about your thoughts on this.

Well that’s all for now folks.