Saturday, November 17, 2007

Super Mechs, Haxors or WTF?

Vettie’s Views Special Edition # 2

Super Mechs, Hackers or What?

I am sure you have all seen it. The Mech that would not die. Every panel blinking. Bright reddish brown flashing like a caution light at a dangerous intersection. Almost like a strobe light. Yet, somehow, some way, this mech continues to be hit, absorb the shots and even return fire, without exploding. You pound and pound at the super mech even managing to blow off arms and torso slots, but this thing continues to move and come at you, away from you or even shoot you, but it simply will not die. On comms we scream “Hacker” or “This guy wont take any damage!” or “WTF???? Three alphas and no damage!” or something along those lines.

It is very likely that you have seen this happen. You may have chased the mech around the battlefield pumping round after round into it hoping for the kill. You may have noticed that when he returns fire, you show damage right away, maybe you go crit or even die before this super mech does.

There is even a chance that you may have been super mech yourself. Maybe you got lucky and had one of those ‘out of mech’ experiences where you took shot after shot and were still functioning. You look at your damage bars and see that you head is green, but there is no armour anywhere else on your mech, but you are not yet legged and you still have most if not all your weapons and are able to return fire.

I have been the lucky one a few times, having a mech that I wondered what was holding it together. I am almost positive that Cow had that experience way back in NBT when he managed to take down 4 or 5 MC Marauders in a Strider after the rest of us had been destroyed.

Is this some form of hacking? Is it a packet filter of some sort? Is it lag? What causes this? Well, I personally don’t believe it is a hack or packet filters and I really don’t believe it is what we think of as lag.

Let’s look at the opposite side of this. Ever kill a heavy or an assault mech in 2 or 3 shots? Ever been in a no radar situation, make a jump only to find the enemy right in front of you about 200 meters or so, shoot and see the mech explode? Ever work with your wingman and lay into an enemy only to have it explode after just a few rounds?

Have you ever been in a mech that you thought had little or no damage, only to be killed in seconds? Ever been in a mech that seemed to die in just 2 shots? Ever get destroyed in a mech and you never saw what did it, but it SEEMED to happen in 1 shot?

I don’t know what causes it, but I can speculate. I have been involved with the game for a long time and seen all kinds of things. As I said, I don’t think it is any kind of hack (in most cases) because it has happened to me. I have even seen this in ‘instant action’ games or in a private server against bots. Every once in a while, it just happens. I would say it was something to do with the internet or the net code, but I have seen the same phenomena in instant action where there is no internet connection involved. I am guessing that it is just something in the game, the game engine.

I suspect, knowing very little about programming or how ‘game engines’ work, that what we are experiencing is something similar to lag, but it is happening within the game engine, or the game’s rendering engine. Again, just guessing here, but I think what we are seeing is some sort of internal lag that accumulates around 1 player, or mech or bot, and even though we see the mech being hit, the game engine has not caught up to us yet. Eventually of course, 1 of 2 things happen. #1 the engine catches up and all those shots you were pounding super mech with ‘hit it’ and it explodes, or #2, all the players or bots shooting at super mech get destroyed before the engine catches up with super mech and obviously the game respawns resetting the game engine / rendering engine. Put another way, and each of you may have run into this as well, ever notice how once in a while you get no sound warnings about things that are happening then all of the sudden you get all the warning sounds, one after another? The sound in the game is catching up with what has happened and what is happening.

I cant help but wonder if it has something to do with the speeds of the microprocessors we are using now, or even the quality of the graphics cards we are using. If I remember correctly, Mech Warrior Mercenaries had a recommended CPu of 700mhz and a 16mg video card with 128mg of ram. Now how many of you use that kind of set up? I know on my gaming machine, I am running 2.4Ghz CPu, 128mg Video Card and 1gig of ram. Yeah my machine will run Mercs just fine. Hell, even the +PT+ MP3 Mission Play server runs something close to that, 2.0Ghz CPu, 128mg Video Card and 2gig of ram. Even my kids pc well exceed the requirements for playing mercs, with a 900Mhz CPu, 128mg Vid Card and 512mg of ram.

My thoughts are that the game engine was designed to handle what, at the time, seemed phenomenal processors and video cards. 700Mhz up to (guessing) double that, or 1.5Ghz CPu with video cards starting at 16mg up to 64mg. Another factor in all of this is the speeds of the individual devices. A 700Mhz processor (most likely) ran somewhere in the neighborhood of 266mhz up to 333mhz front side buss while the vid cards ran somewhere in the 180mhz to 250mhz speeds. Todays CPu’s and Video Cards are MUCH faster, especially the video cards. Both NVidia and ATI have continued to up the bar in graphics rendering and speeds. Intel and AMD continued to boost speeds on their CPus until the last year or so where they branched out into 64-bit processing and dual core processors.

I think it is these technological increases that have brought this to the game we love. I think if we all played on 800Mhz CPu machines with 256mg of ram and a 2xAGP 64mg Vid card that we would see less of the super mechs and even less of what we have come to love as lag or no damage bug (NDB). Yes, I am saying our computers are too fast for the game and as a result we see unusual things like mechs that don’t take damage, super mechs if you will, and NDB run rampant. Sooner or later the engine catches up with what went on and it all applies, simple fact is you may not be there to see it, or you may get destroyed before it does so.

I am not trying to say that that is no one hacking or running packet filters, not at all. What I am saying is that, possibly, there are fewer running these things than we think, in my opinion. Sure there are guys that ‘print screen’ and I am positive there are some people messing with their packets and I am even more positive there are some playing with the memory hack because I have been a victim of this and even have had it shown to me.

I absolutely agree that connection issues have a great deal to do with what we see on screen. Lag or latency is a big issue, but the game is set up for many types of connections. I also think that MOST players set their connection at a speed and don’t screw with it after that. I am sure that there are some that tweak and tweak to get what is best for them out of their settings. By that, I mean I think some connect to a server and see what is happening and maybe even play a round or two. After determining that they are taking too much damage or not inflicting enough, they disco and go tweak their connection settings and re-join the game. Now they hit harder but take less damage coming back. Yeah I am sure there are those that do that.

I would like to hear from you and get your thoughts on Super Mechs, engine speeds, connection issues and hacks. Take a few minutes, think about what I have said here and let us know your thoughts.

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Friday, November 16, 2007

Stories

Sometimes I like to write short stories. This comae from our time in NBT, we had to 'role play' our team and the things we were going to do or had done. I enjoyed this as it lets you 'become part of the game' so to speak.

Any way, here is a little short story I put together sometime ago in about 15 or 20 minutes. Its not very in depth and there is no real background for it, its just a story about a bunch of pirates being hunted down and how they use their 'contacts' to worm out of a tight situation. I hope you enjoy it. Its called 'Early Capture'.
It involves some NPCs (Non Player Characters - folks we 'made up') and a few of the teams we played against or made alliances with over the years. I like it, I hope you do.


Dawn broke over the landscape. The sun slowly began to rise. The grass was covered with morning dew, so much so it looked like a lake reflecting the sunlight back to the sky. The guard tower was nestled in the side of hill giving it a spectacular view of nature’s beauty only blocked in the distance by a ridge of mountains.

Just to the other side of the mountain ridge, two lances of battlemechs were forming up preparing to do battle for the base that is suspected of housing the pirate troop known as The Blood Pearls.

Sgt. Arista was on guard duty in the tower. He was patched into the base’s sensors and vid cams allowing him readouts and visuals to any area within 2000 meters of the base. Movement sensors were currently showing all normal. Visuals were clear as well.

The Lyran Lance Leaders were both driving Black Knights for the electronic packages installed. The basic plan was to cross the mountain ridge and split into separate lances, one going right and the other going left. Other than the two Black Knights, the rest of the warriors would run in passive mode to avoid detection as long as possible. Each Lance consisted of a Black Knight and three Thanatos.

The sergeant had a feeling that something was in the air other than the morning coolness. He ran diagnostics on each of the systems and then initiated deep scans in hopes of losing this feeling he had or, if there was something out there, picking it up in time to respond. He picked up his transmitter and radioed base.

“Guard Dog to big house, the yard is empty,” reported Arista.

“Roger Guard Dog, almost time for your walk,” was the response.

Still not satisfied, Sgt. Arista picked up his field binoculars and manually started scanning the mountain ridges for any signs of life. Starting on his far left and slowly sweeping to his right, he stopped suddenly near the end of his sweep. Tweaking the binoculars and trying to zoom in as much as possible, the sarge felt the blood began to flow through his body as a tingling came over him. He spotted what looked like a tree breaking just to the top of ridge line about 2500 meters from his tower. He strained to see but now there was nothing out of the ordinary. To be sure, he turned on some motion sensors that were rarely used in the mountain range because of the wildlife in the area.

“Damnit Black-Two, be careful and watch out for trees. A Tree break can be seen for thousands of meters. We need to get real close WITHOUT being seen!”

“Sorry, boss, I..”

“Maintain radio silence Black Lance!”

Sgt. Arista was sure he had seen a tree break even though the sensors were not picking anything up. “Guard Dog to big house, I need some bloodhounds to look for a fox.”

“Guard Dog, have you seen the fox?”

“No big house”

“Then why do you need the hounds?”

“The fox might have broke a branch”

“Did you or do you have a picture, guard dog?”

“No”

“Get a picture or lay your eyes on the fox, then call for the hounds.”

The sergeant was getting pissed. He was sure he had seen a tree break on the ridge. The sensors showed nothing, but did not always pick up things in that area. The base refused to send a recon lance to search for whatever was out there until the sensor showed something or until the Sergeant spotted something himself.

As quickly as possible, trying very hard to avoid trees and staying under cover, Black Lance was making their way along the ridge line just north of the base. Green Lance was doing the same heading south. With any luck, they would be at the base within minutes, hopefully to capture the pirates while they slept.

Continuing to manually scan the area, Arista again stopped almost due north. This time he took a picture as a tree broke just below the top of the ridge line. The slight morning fog kept him from seeing what broke the tree, but he did see the tree break. “Guard dog has seen the fox. Request bloodhounds!” he shouted over comms.

“What is it now Arista?”

“Sir, I saw a tree break about 2 clicks from my tower, due north. Sending the vid to you now. The morning fog has kept me from seeing the cause, but there is definitely a tree break on the vid.”

“Roger, guard dog, confirm tree break, sending four bloodhounds your way. Rover 1 will be your contact. Continue to observe and advise.”

“Roger, big house, will do, tell Rover 1 to hurry.”

“Heard your request guard dog, will be there soon, Rover 1 out.”

Black Lance had come to a complete stop after breaking a few more trees. They did not want to be seen. SOP would be for them to hold position for 5 minutes, scan the area, then resume if the scans were negative.

Rover 1 had made it to the tower where Sgt. Arista was on duty. Rover 1 was the call sign given to the 1st of 4 Bushwackers assigned to the ‘Bloodhound’ Lance. Their basic job was to investigate possible sightings that were just outside base perimeters. Bushwackers were used because of multiple factors; they had a good weapons load out, they were fast and they were tough as nails. A Bushy, as they were called by pilots, could stand up to a lot of fire power from mechs much bigger and live to tell about it later. The rest of Rover Lance was now at the tower awaiting instructions from Rover 1.

“Guard Dog, this is Rover 1. you need us to sniff out something for you?”

“Roger that Rover 1. Vid shows some serious tree breaks due north just beyond the big house perimeter.”

“Roger Guard Dog, Rover will go check it out. Keep this frequency open and we will report back to you with our findings. Rover Lance let move out, form on me.” Rover lance went into a line abreast formation with about 10 meters between each mech. They seemed in no hurry as they made their way through the grass field towards the ridge line.

“Well, they are sure to send out a scout party Black Lance. We need to take up positions behind this ridge line and be prepared to start this party a little early.”

“Roger Black Leader.”

“Commander Vettie? Sorry to wake you sir, but you did say let you know if we got visitors. Commander Vettie? Sir?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Sir, you said to wake you if we got vis……”

“Who’s here? Where are they? How many? Did you wake the rest of the Blood Pearls?”

“No Sir. You were the first one I tried to wake, sir I can…”

“I’ll do it. These guys are likely to blow you away just for touching them. How many bad guys are out there?”

“Commander, we don’t know. We have sent a scouting party north of base to investigate a possible.”

“Alright. Have you notified your base commander?”

“No Sir, you were the first to be notified, Commander.”

“Better let him know. I am sure that the Lyrans will be after us. They wont be real happy with anyone that is friendly to The Blood Pearls, especially after we stole their new prototype assault mech in broad daylight.” With that, I began to sound the alarm for The Blood Pearls to be ready to go. Our drop ship was just south of the base in a heavy wooded area. We could make it there and be on our way in just about an hour.

“Green Lance this is Green 1. We are parallel to the Taurian Base. Black Lance has had some trouble. Green 2 and 3, ready your Long Toms and smoke. We are gonna bombard that base and get our damn mech back. If you see any of the Blood Pearls, their equipment, men or mechs, do not hesitate to blow it away. I would like to take Vettie back to stand trial, but taking him back dead is better.”

“Roger Green 1, Smoke and Long Toms ready.”

“Black 1 this is Black 3. I got Bushwackers 1000 out and closing. Looks to be 4.”

“Black Lance, this is Black 1, passive radar please. Black 4, you and I will ready jump jets for sniper fire. We wanna try to take out the leader, concentrate on the middle mech, shoot for his cockpit.”

“Rover Lance this is Rover 1. Closing in on the foxhole keeps your eyes open and radar pinging. Just up that ridge line is where the action was. Let head up there, follow me…”

“Green Lance, fire on my command. Ready…..Ready…”

“Now! Black 4! Jump jets and fire! Get the lead mech in formation. Rip that cockpit out!”

“Fire Green lance FIRE!!!”

“This is Rover 1, I thin………”

The base was quickly covered with a thick, black smoke as the ground shook from the long toms that were raining in.

“Holy CRAP!!! What was that sir?”

“Sounds like long toms hitting the base. Inform your commander that The Blood Pearls have enjoyed the hospitality, but we will be leaving before breakfast. Tell him he can send me the bill for damages.”

“Yes, sir, Vettie, I will”

Black Lance had managed to ambush Rover Lance killing 3 of the 4 Bushwackers in just seconds. Those Black Knights and Thanatos were deadly accurate in cockpit shots. The mechs had barely any damage, but the cockpits were fried. The forth Rover was totally destroyed as he tried to return fire on the uninvited guests. All of Black Lance made it through with very little damage and were now heading right towards Guard Dog’s outpost.

At the same time, Green Lance opened up fire with smoke to cover their advance and long toms to clear the way of any ground personnel. Three Thanatos and a Black Knight jumping the wall of the base at the same time is a fearsome sight.

Vettie and The Blood Pearls had mounted up and headed out the south gate as Green Lance came over the east wall. The smoke from Green Lance actually aided the pirates as they scrambled southward towards their drop ship with their booty they lifted from the Lyrans.

Guard Dog was on Comms screaming for help from the base as Black Lance closed on his position. Remembering one of the articles he read during his many months of training, he recalled that the field north of the base was an electronic minefield. To work, it only had to be activated. Anything weighing over 35 tons would set off an explosive charge strong enough to rip the leg from an Atlas, if it stepped on a mine. Quickly he logged into the security comms and searched for the activation sequence for the minefield. Black Lance was closing fast and was now starting to fire on the tower. The computer controlled laser turret automatically began to return fire.

Guard Dog found the activation module. He entered the security code and confirmed the activation. The mine field was now active, Guard Dog just need those Heavy Lyrans Mechs to step on a mine or two.

“Green lance Spread out and use your cameras to locate our property, destroy anything that tries to stop you!” Those huge Thanatos began stomping around the small Taurian Base blowing up buildings and looking for their Marauder II. Buildings, trucks, men and equipment were either crushed under the feet of the huge mechs or blasted by weapons fire.

The Leader of Black Lance saw the large pulse laser on the guard tower and fired a volley of Light Gauss rounds and a PPC ripping the laser from the building in 1 easy shot. He gave the order not to kill the guard but to keep going to the base. Black Lance began to spread out putting a bit of distance between them. Just as Black 4 stepped forward the left leg of the massive Thanatos was torn completely off by a blast from below.

“Mines!!! Damnit!!! Kill that S.O.B. in the guard shack!!! Black 4 are you ok? Careful Black 3, ah shit….! “

Black 3 had also found a mine. As he stepped down on it, the blast from the mine disrupted his mech enough that he lost balance and fell to his left. The fall landed him face first on another mine that blew the cockpit out of the back of the mech.

Seeing one of his best friends being blown out of back of a battlemech was just too much for Black 1. He turned in place in fired an alpha right into the guard tower.

Stories have it that when a PPC blast hit human skin, the human never knows what hit them. It is said that the force and the heat rip the skin right off the bones while the body is still alive, for a second or so anyway. Sgt. Arista knew what was to become of him as he watched the mech turn and fire. He knew…

“This is Black 2, I got a medium pulse laser I can fire in rows in front of us and clear us a way to the base”

“Fire away Black 2, fire away.”

Black 2 did exactly that. Using his pulse laser as a detonator, he fired a few meters in front of the 2 mechs as the crept their way to the Taurian base.

“Green 1 this is Black 1”

“Go ahead Black 1”

“We’ll be there soon. I lost 2 Thannies, with 1 dead. We ran into a minefield. We are clearing a path to the base. We took out 4 Bushwackers.”

“Roger Black 1, no hurry. Vettie and The Blood Pearls are not on this base. Neither is our Marauder II!”

“But I thought..”

“Oh they WERE here, but they made it out before we got here.”

“And the Taurians?”

“I think the base commander is an old friend of Vettie’s. I don’t think the Taurians had anything to do with helping those damn pirates, I think they were just following the orders from their base commander, what a mess.”

“What you gonna do Green 1?”

“I am going to take him into custody and let our boss deal with the politics. When you get here we can form up and head back the way Green Lance came in, its clear.”

“Roger Green 1 be there in a bit. Still blowing mines.”

“Lt. Please Raise Triple X of the Taurian Concordat. I think The Blood Pearls are gonna owe TC some serious cash and we need to let them know, the Lyrans have taken Sir Paul under arrest for helping pirates”

“Yes sir Vettie. On your secure channel. Good to hear you boss”

“Thank you Lt. Always nice to hear your voice. Ah, Triple X, how are you old friend? Long time, huh? Well, let me just ask you how good my credit is with you, see we ran ……”

“We interrupt regularly scheduled programming to bring you this News Flash from the Lyran Alliance. We go now to Horendo Revolver, special investigative reporter on the scene…”

“The Lyrans lost a top secret proto-type assault class mech based on the heavy class Marauder. On a planet owned by the Lyrans but guarded by Taurians, a small band of pirates walked right in to a heavily guarded secret military testing ground and walked out with this proto-type mech. They did it without firing a shot in broad daylight with the base on full alert. Supposedly, this same set of pirates walked into a nearby Taurian Base and held the Base Commander captive demanding supplies, food and rest or they would kill the base commander in front of his wife and children. Again, supposedly, when two Lyran Lances and a Taurian Lance staged a rescue mission, these same pirates killed the 4 Taurian pilots as they tried to mount up in their defensive battlemechs, then managed to take out two of the would be rescuers by using dishonorable tactics like legging and managed again to walk out in broad daylight before the other rescue squads reached the base. How The Blood Pearls came across this data about the secret base and the proto-type mech remains a mystery. This is Horendo Revolver reporting from Lyran Air space for Pirate News Network.”

“How’s that Vettie?”

“That should do it for now Horendo. I made a small donation on behalf on the Lyrans in your account. See ya soon my friend.”

“Roger Vettie, thanks for the, WOWWWW! Small donation my Ass!!!”

“Lt. O’Hara, please close that channel. Navigator, take us home. We got a mech auction to plan.”

“Roger that Vettie.” “Aye, Aye, sir”

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The "Wayback Machine"






















Any of you ever watch Bullwinkle? On that show, there was a segment, and I cant remember the name, but it featured Mr. Peabody and Sherman. I think it was Mr. Peabody’s Improbable History, like I said, I cant remember for sure. Anyway, on this part of the show, Mr. Peabody, a brainiac little beagle that stood upright and was basically a genius, and a little kid named Sherman would go on fantastical adventures in history. They used this thing called a ‘way-back’ machine to teleport them back through time.

I ask each of you to step with me now into the ‘way-back’ machine. I am setting the controls to the year 1995. Hold on ‘cause here we go… *machine noises start as the world starts spinning backwards all around us real fast.

I hate time travel, gives me a queasy feeling for a little bit and I get a little dis-oriented. That all blows over pretty quickly. So… here we are in 1995. Interesting year, 1995. Some of the top movies were Die Hard with A Vengeance, Toy Story, Apollo 13, Braveheart, The American President, The Bridges of Madison County, and Get Shorty. Some of the top selling albums were Smokin by a kid named Jonny Lang, Jagged little Pill by an angry little lady from Canada named Alanis Morissette, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins and P-U-L-S-E by a band called Pink Floyd. The radio was filled with songs like 1979, All over You by a group called Live and Cant Stop Lovin You by a group called Van Hagar, I mean Van Halen. Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers and Frank Zappa all get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame but we see Rory Gallagher, Jerry Garcia, Burl Ives and Dean Martin all pass away. Dire Straights and The Grateful Dead disband.

Oh yeah, I forgot 2 more things that are very important. There was this small company based in Redmond Washington, what was the name, oh yeah, Microsoft that released a new software package (at least new looking to non Apple users) called Windows 95.

The other thing? Another small company, Activision, released a game called MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat.

I was working for an electronic contract manufacturing company in Huntsville, Alabama. We had contracts to build every HP, Dell, Pavilion (HP) and NCR computer or server. We had been building these things for these companies for sometime (years). Our factory ran 7 days a week, pumping out the computers. I was a material manager for this company and was lucky enough to have a purchasing department as well as shipping, receiving and program planning all working for me. I was part of several high level meetings to talk about ‘product road maps’ and how my company could support the growing needs and industry changes. We were industry innovators we just didn’t know it at the time.

None of us knew in those days what the future would bring, we had no clue that the ‘consumer’ versions of the HPs (called Pavilions) and Dells would be obsolete less than 1 year after we shoved them out the back door. None of us ever thought that a 1gig hard drive would ever be filled. Man, can any of you imagine using a 1 gig drive today?

As I mentioned, I was involved with several ‘high’ level meetings especially ones about new products being introduced and a production ramp to cover the forecasted consumer needs. In 1994, I was asked to represent my company at a meeting in Palo Alto, California. The code name of the meeting was ‘Chicago’ and we had to sign some non –disclosure agreements before they would let us attend. When I get there, I go to the conference room where I am checked for recording devices. Once the meeting got underway, the highest ranking HP officer got up before the room and started narrating a slide show on the big wall about where HP was headed in the next year. Then a guy named Steve Ballmer from Microsoft got up to speak to the room about a new and exciting product that they (Microsoft) were working on. Some fancy new software package that was going to revolutionize computers and make every body want to own one. The package at that time was called Chicago but later became known as Windows 95.

In July of 1995, we had built over 40,000 of these machines and were just waiting on the OS to be delivered. On August 24, 1995, the sale of Windows 95 began. The 1st 40,000 machines we built and delivered were followed by another 50,000 orders from something called a kiosk. Off to the races we went.

After a successful launch and support of the new HP Pavilions, HP decided to visit us and hand out some ‘goodies’. I was fortunate enough to receive a HP Pavilion Computer. I got serial number xxxxxx0000094 from right off our production line. It was a DX66 machine with a 840mg Hard Drive, a 15” monitor, 8mgs of ram and a 4mg ATI all in wonder video card and a 2xCD Drive.

Last year, after several upgrades, the power supply in that machine died. I have not replaced it, but when it breathed its last breath, it was a DX100 machine with 128mgs of ram and a DVD burner with 2, 20 gig hard drives and a 3DFx VooDoo 3 16mg PCI vid card and a Sound Blaster 16 sound card (ISA interface). That thing worked for 11 years and would possibly work some more if I replace the power supply. The last OS installed on it was Win98 SE.

While building lots of these Pavilions for folks and even shipping some directly to their homes, I was deeply involved in every ‘new’ version that was introduced and any new hardware or software.

In July of 1995, I was out shopping at Best Buy and I ran across these game called MechWarrior2: 31st Century Combast. The cover of the game had a Timberwolf (Mad Cat) on it but I didnt know what it was at the time. All I knew was that it looked pretty cool and was fairly inexpensive. I read the requirements and the machine I had at home (prior to the Pavilion mentioned above) would play it. It was a DOS version of the game. I bought it. That was on a Sunday.

Sunday’s afternoons and nights and Wednesday nights were reserved for board gaming with some of my buds. We played ASL (Advanced Squad Leader) every week and I had to go to the war room (a garage type building I had added to my home specifically for game) and crank up the AC and study the game board. We were in the middle of a campaign where the Germans were attacking a munitions factory in Stalingrad in October of 1942. I was in control of ½ of the Russian forces while my team mate had the other half. I had called him earlier and asked him to show up earlier than normal if possible so we could go over a possible counter attack I had in mind.

The nights gaming went well for us and the following Wednesday night did as well. With work and board gaming going on as well as the kids playing softball, I had forgotten that I bought that computer game until one afternoon at work.

One of my board gaming buddies was a manager of the integration lab. He wrote software for a living and bossed around a few design engineers. I was at my desk after a conference call with HP when Ron called me. “Come to the lab, I have something to show you.” That was all he said and hung up before I could even answer.

I never had much professional interface with Ron’s group and I had never been in his ‘lab’ because I never had reason to go there. When I walked in, after entering the passcode on the finger lock to the lab area, I was truly freaking. Here were some 6 engineering techs seated at their work benches playing a networked game against each other. That game was MechWarrior 2. HP was going to install this game as part of the software package on some up coming promotional machines for the coming Christmas season.

WOW! Here were these big robotic machines being piloted by guys I knew shooting each other on the latest cutting edge technology, using stuff we couldn’t even buy yet!!! Ron said, “Grab a seat and shoot awhile, Its Great!” and it was. We blew up stuff for about an hour before I needed to get back to my group. Just before leaving I asked him what the name of the game was and he told me, MechWarrior 2.

On the way home that evening it came to me that I already had that game, I just had not installed it yet. My little pc with Windows for 3.1 for Work Groups was just about to get a work out.

The 1st thing that grabbed me about the game was the intro video. Here is a link, but be warned this is for DIVX and you must have drivers/codec/software or you will be asked to install it. Nothing harmful in there, but I just wanted you guys to have a heads up. Anyway, the link http://www.lokety.com/mw2_videos.html . This video was super cool. I have watched that vid probably a hundred times and I still love it.

OF course MW2 had ground breaking graphics and game play but it was nothing compared to that video. I always wanted to see the game in that type of graphics. That n00b in the Mad Cat (Bravo 3) getting picked on by a Summoner (Thor) when the other Timber Wolf comes to help him. The OTHER Thor blows him away, then blows away the rescuer in the other Mad Cat. WOW, that was great stuff. I couldn’t wait to get this game installed and running.

Well, I installed the game and went from there. I played every mission on that game for both sides. I played instant action and the trials. In fact, I played every mission with a Nova, a Ryoken and a Mad Dog trying to beat them all using that. It was great. OF course, later I bought the Windows Edition and of course the add-ons, Ghost Bear Legacy and MW2 Mercs! Ron and I often played online via modems (I had a 14.4!!! and later swapped it out for a 28.8, w00t!) What a hoot.

Ghost Bear’s Legacy had a great intro as well. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EjUtOP1ZMuI

That Kodiak jumping up from under the ice and attacking the Mad Dog. Awesome!

And of course, MW2 Mercs http://youtube.com/watch?v=at9hxU864Fg&mode=related&search=

“Look at the bright side Kid, YOU get to keep ALL the money.”

I personally think that the MW4 Vengeance intro movie is still possibly the best one of all,

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QxfKZZ4RNng , but those early ones were really cool and set me off on my way to battling Mechs for years.

Well, the ride is almost over on the ‘way-back’ machine. We’ll be coming back to current day in just a moment. It was fun going back and looking at where we were and what we were playing. We have come a long way in some ways and yet, some 12 years down the road and I am still working for a company that makes servers (different company and we build for Sun) and I still play Mech Warrior. Ron is still my friend and we still do board gaming, just not as often.

I still have the MW2 series of games and I have an older computer that I am considering stripping down and rebuilding and then installing Win98 on it just so I can play those old games again. Sure, compared to todays graphics they will be terrible, but it’s the game itself that was fun. There were good scenarios and interesting play in those games. I have some other older games that I will put on there as well, but the Mech stuff is the main reason.

I would love to hear your stories about your start in the Mech Warrior Universe.

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Thursday, November 15, 2007

The Bushwacker

Greetings Mech Fans. I have put together a few reviews of various mechs, mostly assault class and given you my thoughts on each one so far. Today I will venture into the medium class mechs.

The Medium Class mechs offer speed and the beginnings of some big firepower. I would venture to say that in many league settings, the Medium Class of Battlemech sees the most action. I do not have any stats to back that up, it is just a gut feeling.

The reason I say that is the weights of this class, 40 to 55 tons. There is also a good variety to choose from. In this class, a drop commander can find something for all purposes, something that packs a bit of a punch and stays up until the last shot is fired.

The Bushwacker fills this slot nicely. At 55 tons, this machine can fill many roles. Lets take a closer look.

To start, let’s look at the electronics package. The Bushy has the following options available to a pilot, BAP, LAMS, IFF and Advanced Gyro. This is a decent package. BAP and IFF allow this ground pounder to see things a long way off while keeping itself difficult to target. The Advanced Gyro keeps this baby on its feet when the shots eventually do find it. Most of you already know how Vettie feels about LAMS (take 'em if you can).

At full Ferro armour, the Bushwacker holds just over 11 tons with standard internals. The Chassis is very low slung, near “V” shaped. This is one of the toughest mechs in the game, regardless of class. The shape, the small profile and the standard internals make it hold up very well in the course of a battle.

Offensively, this mech is well rounded. The right arm holds up to a 3-slot ballistic weapon. The nose has another 2-slot ballistic and a 2-slot energy. The missile slot on the rear of the torso can hold a 2-slot weapon and the left arm can hold a 3-slot missile weapon. Initially, one would think of the Bushy as a good missile platform, having BAP and all those missile slots, but you do not see many of those on the battlefield. The missile slots are often emptied in favor of the ballistic slots.

This mech is often used as a brawler. Those ballistic slots allow for some fine weapons, as well as some speed, and if you choose, the Advanced Gyro makes it one tough customer in battle. One of the most brutal configs for this machine is 2 RAC5 Auto Cannons and a Large X-Pulse laser. Set the speed at 84 and rip away.

Along the brawler theme, one of my favourite configs is to load full reactive armour, LAMS, IFF and Advanced Gyro while setting the speed to 77. For weapons, I like the LBX20 with a double load in the right arm, a medium pulse laser in the nose and in the torso missile rack I put the InfernoSRM. This combo smacks the enemy with an LBX very hard. The medium pulse laser seems to work very well against an opponent in a brawl allowing for multiple shots in rapid succession. Usually, your opponent will have reactive armour as well and the pulse lasers seem to just rip the armour away. Finally, the ISRM does not do much damage, but it heats the opponent up very quickly, often times shutting down their mech as they scramble to flush coolant. You, on the other hand are very cool in your ride as you come up to the shut down mech and blast away with that LBX hammer and rip holes with that pulse gun in your nose.

Briefly, I touched on the defensive part of this battlewagon. The shape of the Bushwacker has a lot to do with its longevity in battle. The sloping nose and “V” shaped torso seem to make many ballistic shot glance off without doing full damage. The center torso of this mech is hard to find, although it does have one. Most of the damage absorbed by the Bushy is taken in the side torsos or arms before the center takes critical damage. In battle, you will often see ‘armless’ Bushwackers limping towards you still firing from the nose trying to do you in. Legs of the Bushy often are favourite targets for the enemy as they are probably the weakest part of the mech.

I like the Bushy, but do not use them very much. I have used a few in situations where I knew it was going to be a brawl or in city fights. Make no mistake, this is a tough mech. A Bushwacker pilot skilled in spreading damage can often be the last guy standing in battle. You can load weapons that support a ranged fire game. The BAP option helps in locating the bad guys up to 1200 meters away. It can pack an ARROW TBOLT or Cluster making for lots of missile punch. It can hold 2 Lt. Gauss for extreme range fights. In closer, 2 AC10s and an X-Pulse will hurt anyone. All in all, I would say this is a well-rounded mech.

Well, I do not know what else to say about this mech, time to rate it. Vettie’s Rating? A solid 4 minutes, excellent for its weight class, good in most situations and a tough mech to bring down.

Bushwacker – 55tons of stomping toughness.

The first review of the Bushy brought us a very good rating talking about the toughness of this mech. MP3 visited this mech but I don’t believe much was changed. The slots are still the same, the speeds seem to be the same and the electronics package is the same.

I went through this mech and bounced it against my earlier review. The Bushwacker has not changed for MP3. It is a very tough mech and well designed. The low slung body (very similar to the Clan Ares) shaped like a cigar appears to be the best torso design for our Battlemechs.

Take a look at the ‘tougher’ mechs, the ones that seemingly are the hardest to kill, the ones that just seem to be a bullet sponge and continue to take damage. The Bushwacker, Ares and Marauder all share a very similar torso design, long and narrow, rounded or pointed at the nose. The Ares got a boost in body size, that is, the overall scale of the mech was increased to make it more in line with others of its size, but it is still one tough mech.

There are a couple of problems that I see with the Bushwacker, but overall, it is a damn fine mech. The issues? I see overall speed and weak arms as the two things that keep this battlemech from being uber. The basic speed is just over 77kph. To put a good weapons load on this mech with full or near full ferro armour, you only get about one speed increase up to 84kph. Sure you can strip some armour or drop some weapons to increase your speed, but most will opt for firepower, I would.

The arms are a tad on the weak side. The missile arm almost always is used to strip armour from (similar to a Thanatos) but the ballistic arm is not much better. This arm holds a 3 ballistic slot that is very important to the overall firepower of the mech. Pilots will need to learn to shield this arm from incoming enemy fire.

That about wraps up the Bushwacker. Few if any changes for MP3 as this mech was already pretty good. My original rating still stands.
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The Wolfhound

Today I cover one of the mechs that I have used in many battles. About a year or so ago, I managed to get 5 kills in a drop against CapCon (CC) and 1 friendly kill, I hope Alistair forgives me. Killing a friendly is never fun, but it did manage to piss off Futher and added to driving him from our unit. Sorry, I digress.
The IS Light Class Wolfhound is today’s subject. 35 tons of fast energy mech that performs like a mech of much higher class. I have to try to be objective, and I will, but I do like this mech.
I feel I am very well qualified to write a review on this battlemech because I have spent a lot of time in the driver seat. I know the ins and outs as well as probably anyone else. So here goes, Vettie’s view on the Wolfie.
My first experience in one of these was not so pleasant. I was a mercenary, part of the Black Knights Mercenary Unit. I don’t remember who we were fighting, but I did not have much experience in light mechs, in fact, I did not even have a config for a Wolfhound at the time of the battle. I wasn’t to be in the first drop, but some of the regulars had not made it in time for drops. Hugh and I were rushed into service.
Boomer helped me set up my 1st Wolfie, a 3 Large Laser config, I was to be a scout and engage the enemy while the rest of the team got into position. I found the bad guys easily enough and managed to get off a few shots before a BK and a Thor sent me to the sidelines, some 45 seconds into the actual fight, that we lost.
It took sometime before I could be coaxed into driving a Wolfhound again. I thought they were crap. Problem was, I didn’t know how to use one.
You see, the Wolfhound is not a fragile mech, and it has a use, but you can’t charge right into an enemy position and expect to live very long. No, it is better suited as a scout; one that keeps at range and slowly rips away at the bad guys while constantly moving.
The profile of the mech is a strong point. Even though it is tall, very tall for a light mech, it is very thin and very hard to hit from the side. Run, twist and fire, keep your side to the enemy, turning only to hit them is a very good tactic for this little guy.
Lets get to the technical specs of this mech. 35 tons coming from the factory with reflective armour, standard internals and offering a very good electronics package. ECM, LAMs and IFF are all offered. ECM and IFF are 2 choices I almost always use. If fully armoured, this battlemech holds a little more than 11 tons of reflective armour. That converts to more than 7 ½ tons of ferro for those of you that don’t like spec armour.
The weapons on the Wolfhound are all energy class weapons. The slots are very nice. The right arm is a 3-slot, allowing you to pack a PPC. The right and left torso slots are 2-slot with a 1-slot in the center and left arm.
A good config for the Wolfie is to put a PPC in the arm and a Large Laser in the Left Torso. This gives the Wolfhound some very good range and smack with the PPC and the laser can be pulled into service as the range closes.
Another config that I used many times in battle is the full reflective, 2 large laser config. Putting a large laser in each torso and stripping the arms a little, allows you to pack the electronics and up the speed from 100kph to 105. Alternate firing the lasers and you keep smacking the enemy while they try in vain to hit a skinny lag stick running at 105kph. Many bad guys try for ‘the’ arm first, assuming it has a PPC or a Large Laser. After 3 or 4 wasted shots the arm blows off, but doesn’t hurt you any as you packed your payload in the torso.
One of my favourite Configs is to put a LXP in one torso and a standard Large Laser in the other. The LXP gives you an extra 50 meters of range and packs a bit of a knock when you hit, as well as some decent damage. This config tends to get hot, so pack on heat sinks when you can or use it on cooler maps.
One of the best configs, especially for brawling (yes Wolfies can brawl) is the 9 ML option. When in range you can continue to hit your enemy with a stream of laser fire, either in groups or chain mode. The speed of the Wolfhound allows you to circle or move away from your opponent then close back in hitting him again and again with multiple bursts.
If used in packs, the Wolfhound becomes just that, a Wolf Pack. Two or three of these things can really disrupt your opponent and can not be ignored because they potentially pack a heavy load out, almost always 2 to 3 large lasers each. A pack of these things can lay down a devastating reign of laser fire, drawing the bad guys after you, allowing the rest of your, hopefully heavier teammates, to close in and put away anything you haven’t killed already.
The bad things? Well it is very tall. If you present a full Monty expect to take some fire. It is a light mech, weighing only 35 tons, so it won’t last long against heavy fire. It is susceptible to knock downs, especially from missile fire (take LAMs I say!) and LBX20s. Ballistic weapons wear down this mech if you use Ferro or Reflective Armour, so be evasive and don’t give them a big target.
The Wolfhound seems to get legged a lot. This is very effective in stopping the hit and run. A Wolfie dies pretty quickly after being legged because of its height and now lack of speed. Protect your legs, keep moving and wear full armour on them. IF you have to cheat on armour, cheat in the arms and the back. The arms get blown away relatively quickly anyway, so cheating on armour is not that big a deal.
This mech is one of my favorites. It has brought me many kills, and helped any team I was part of to many victories. I am not a light mech kinda guy, but I like this one.
Vettie’s rating? 4 minutes. Solid for any class, exceptional for a light.



One of the things I like to do is set my server up with a few maps and some bots and then take a mech in and see what I can do with it. I like to try different configs including speed changes, different electronics; different weapons load outs and different armours. For the BOT team, I try to select what we would see if we were in a drop. What I mean is, I don’t always pit a Wolfhound against a Wolfhound; sometimes the other team is all Clan so you might see an Ares, a Thor, a Shadow Cat, and a Hellhound and so on. I try to set the BOT team to be as close to the load out another might take using 5 or 6 mechs. Sometimes, I will load the server with light vs. light fights to see how one mech performs against its own class. I always set the BOT names to match the mech they are representing. This is helpful when the match is over to instant tally kills and deaths. If I have more than 1 BOT of the same chassis, I note the difference by the name, like Wolfhound LS (for reflective) and Wolfhound FF (for ferro), unless there is no difference, then I simply call them Wolfie 1 and Wolfie 2.

I have used some of my time off to go through the mechs I already reviewed and bring the reviews up to date with the current mekpak, MP3. After reading the problem reports in the beta test forum, I may actually be going back and reviewing mechs a third time if some of the changes are brought to fruition. But what else am I going to do? So on with the report.

The Wolfhound was mostly untouched by MP3 with one notable exception, they took away the LAMs option. This frees up some tonnage for the little Wolfie, but it takes away a big lifesaver in my opinion. With the introduction of the Artemis system for the Inner Sphere and of course, the Advanced Tactical Missile Systems of the Clans, missiles have become an ever increasing danger to mechs of all classes. More and more missile boats are showing up on the battlefield and racking up the damage. LAMs were by no means a complete answer to missile attacks, but it was/is the best thing available to a mech pilot.

LAMs (in MP3) provide random coverage against missile attacks. Prior to MP3, LAMs would knock down a percentage of incoming missiles, almost to the point that the LRM5 was useless by itself. As I said, now it is random. LAMs might destroy a complete salvo of LRM20s and let a LRM5 zip right through, or it may knock out 1 group of the LRM 20 (5 missiles) and stop the LRM 5 at the same time. LAMs are dicey, but still worth the tonnage if there is even a thought of bad guys with missiles.

So back to the Wolfhound. LAMs is no longer and option. Just ECM and IFF, as far as electronics. Not much else changed. The speeds and slots appear to be unchanged.

The Wolfhound is still a tough mech. It is still one of my favourites in the small or light class. No change really to Vettie’s rating except to say that a Wolfie pilot now has to master missile evasion. That task is much easier in a Wolfhound that it is in a Black Knight.

Yep, the previous review on the Wolfhound stands. Its tough, its fast (enough) and with 2 or 3 large lasers or 7 to 9 medium lasers, it packs plenty of firepower for its weight. Even with the heat scale change, the Wolfie runs is a cool running mech. Fewer heat sinks are required to keep it cool than on mechs much larger.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Mech Lab

By now, anyone who reads this forum knows that it is packed with Vettie’s Views on things. The views may not be politically correct and you may not agree with them, but they are my views on things, the way I see them. It’s mostly about MechWarrior, a favourite past time of mine, but sometimes I throw other thing in there too.

MekTek has recently released a new patch, MP3.02b. Its main purpose is to defeat a few known hacks. Hacks, not cheats, but hacks. I don’t understand why there is a need for hacks, especially in a game this old, but they are out there. I have seen some, had some used on me and even had some given to me. Come to think of it, I have even ALMOST figured out how to create one. I am not a code writer, I don’t know GOTO from if statements. Personally, I have no use for hacks and I really don’t care for people that use them. Folks, IT’S A GAME! A game is supposed to be played for fun and enjoyment and like most things in life; you have to put a little work into to be good at it. I am still working on that part of it, but I have fun and that’s what a game is about, having fun. Thank you any MekTek guys that read this.

On to the subject of today’s review, the Mech Lab, or how I create a battlemech. I am sure that everyone has their own way of doing this. I can spend hours in the mech lab generating configs and have often done this. My MP3 variants folder has over 1375 files. Most of those are Victors (not really), lol, w00t! How about you, how files in your variants folder?

So how do you go about it? Sure copying a configs you saw someone use is easy, but lets say you want create your own special configs, how do you go about it, where do you start and finally how do you test it?

Well for me, it all depends on what I want to accomplish with the mech. Will it be for Brawling, Sniping, scouting, support or any other myriad of things? Once I know what I want to do, I decide on two or three chassis that would fit that role, and of course one of them has to be a Victor. Not really, but I do like the Victor (shocker there, huh). In choosing a chassis, of course it has to match the requirements of the role meaning that it must carry the right electronics, if needed, and it must be a mech that I am comfortable in. I like a daisy, but it drives like a bus and doesn’t handle well to me so I don’t drive one very often.

Once I have narrowed the chassis choices down, I create one in the mech lab renaming it FF or something. I eventually will rename it, but I almost always start with FF. My mech naming convention is pretty simple, because I am old and because I have so many mech configs, I cant remember whats on all of them. To fix that, I use the following naming routine: Type of Armour, Speed, Electronics and Weapons. In short it looks lie this when I am done: FF72ELJ Gax2PPC. This would be a FF (Ferro armour) with 72K speed, ECM, LAMS, Jumpies, 2 Regular Gauss and a PPC. For Reflective Armour, I use Ls, meaning Laser Safe; Reactive gets Gs or Gun safe. I always list Ballistics 1st, Beam Class 2nd and Missiles last.

Now that I have created a mech, I strip it of electronics and heat sinks. Next I go into the weapons room and remove all the stock weapons and finally to the armour area and strip ALL the armour off. This gives me a clean slate to work with other than the speed. Now, back to my objective, what is this mech for? That is what determines the weapons I add.

I have to say there are some weapons I don’t use very well, simply because I have not taken the time to learn how to use them. For the sake of this article, let’s say I was about to build a general purpose mech for use in Sunder. Playing in that server, you never know what map will come up and you never know the environment (settings) until the map rotates. That calls for mech that can do anything. Sunder Junkies for the most part take Heavy or Assault Mechs. To survive through a wave, I will need something that can stand up to some fire as well as dish it out AND I will need something I am comfortable in. My three chassis choices, in order of preference for this purpose are the Victor (shock and dismay), the Highlander and the Wild Cat.

I have already generated a Victor in the Lab naming it FF and stripped the weapons and amour. Now I know the purpose or mission of the mech, kill and survive in multi environments. I need a mech that wont run hot and shut down every few alphas and one that has speed enough for me to get to a ‘hot spot’ to help someone on my team, or run away from the current danger and reposition myself to better dish out punishment. In the weapons lab, I scroll thru all my choices. WOW! Way too many. Ok, let’s keep this simple. A good solid choice with some decent range and damage is a standard gauss rifle. Two gauss rifles inflict lots of damage, so I put 2 on my Victor. Scanning through the weapons, the PPC stands out. Good range, good damage, splooge (effects), not much heat (manageable without heat sinks) and the recycle rate matches that of the gauss rifles making for a decent alpha of 48pts. Alpha damage is important, but not as much as being able to continue to fire (without overheating) and be able to alpha over and over without waiting forever for weapons to recharge or reload. Also, all these weapons are very close in range making it possible to apply an alpha to a target.

After selecting my weapons, I set up my groupings. I like things simple, a couple of weapons classes and as few fire groups as possible. I like to set my long range weapons (usually ballistics) to group one, and next longest to group 2. Group 3 (if ever) is set for missiles. I NEVER have more than 3 groups. I use a mouse for torso twist, speed and firing weapons groups 1 and 2. I use a nostromo for everything else. (Thanx Cow for turning me onto that. I just wonder what I COULD have done back in the NBT days when I used an EVO joystick). In this case, the twin gauss rifles (one in each arm) get set to group 1 and the PPC goes to group 2. There is no group 3. Pressing both my mouse buttons gives me an alpha and I have a button set on the nostromo for chain fire mode. Well I am all done with weapons so it’s on to the electronics.

I don’t need any heat sinks because I have only one PPC and even on hot maps the heat is manageable. I want ECM, LAMs and Jumpies. I don’t use the Advanced Gyro much, except for brawlers or ground pounders. Next I check the speed. Its pre-set at 72 and the Victor handles well at that speed so I leave it. All done here for now so lets add some armour.

In the armour add section of the Mech Lab, you simply hit max armour and the lab will fill your mech armour slots using all of tonnage available, but it doesn’t always fill them equally IF you don’t have enough tonnage to max out your mech, as in this case. When I know its not going to be full armour, I generally start with the areas I know that will need the most. Center Torso on most mechs are big, on ALL my mechs they are full. Most pilots in the game are honourable enough and generally try to CT an enemy. For that reason, my CTs are full. Next are the arms. Many IS mechs have the majority of their weapons payload in the arms, so they get full to protect those weapons. Legs are a prime target for many warriors, so on to the legs goes full or near full armour. The chest area, right and left torsos are next. These areas depend on weapon loads and the general strength of the mech. IF these areas are ‘weak’ the get full armour, if they can stand up, I may not fill them. The Head on most mechs leads right to the CT as the actual HEAD is generally a small area enclosed in the top of the mech. I fill it if the mech is prone to head shots, otherwise I may cheat some here and the rear torso. Most of my fighting is done face to face or side torso to face, rarely do I get attacked from the back except in no radar maps where the opponent snuck up behind me. IF I have to ‘cheat’ armour, I try to keep the armour at least 75% if not more.

I ran a series of tests on the Thor sometime back using a level 0 stationary bot. I created a mech with no weapons and loaded up its armour completely full. I took a Canis with 2 gauss and 2 erppcs (a popular configs on sunder) and walked up to the bot to about 100 meters away. I alpha shot the Thor CT and RT/LT until it died, noting how many shots it took. I went back to the mech lab and deducted 1 slice of armour across these torso areas and tried again, noting the results. I kept doing this until I found the break point. That is the point where it took 1 less alpha to kill it. I added the points of armour back in and retested running this test over and over to get a good number of results to measure. I found the amount of armour I could remove across the 3 torsos and the mech take as much damage as if it were fully armoured. I don’t suggest everyone do this, but it is helpful if you need that extra tonnage for speed or ammo, or LAMS or ECM or BAP or whatever.

Finally back to the main screen in the mech lab. This is where I rename my mech, add camo and save it. This one would be the name I mentioned earlier (FF72EJL Gax2PPC) and I will choose a camo for woodsy type terrain and save my mech. How many of you use camo? I always thought it would be nice if in NON Battle maps you could select your own camo.

I repeat the process for the Highlander next. The Highlander gets a bit of a different load-out, selecting a CapPPC instead of a regular PPC and it gets IFF. The speed is lower at 67, but it still handles well at that speed. Again, the armour is not full, so I have to ‘cheat’ away some of it of give up the IFF. IFF is good for the Highlander. I have found the Highlander to be a bit fragile for such a large mech, so the IFF saves it some beatings from a distance. The CPPC adds a bit to and alpha and makes this a damn good 800 meter sniper with a 54pt hit.

Lastly, I create the WildCat. The Wildcat will have a bit of a different load-out, but a damn good one. ECM, LAM, and Jumpies, 2 Clan Gauss with double ammo and 2 ERLLs with 2 heat sinks. To keep the speed up reasonable, 75k, I am going to have to strip some armour. I put the ERLLs in the Torsos, not the Arms, so I can completely strip out the arms. A few other ‘armour cheats’ here and there and I am done. The Clan Gauss and ERLL were made to go together. Both have 800 meter range, it just too bad they don’t recycle the same. Adding an extra ton of ammo for each gauss rifle allows you to use those gauss rifles more often and in an extended battle on maps with no time limit, it could mean the difference in staying alive or dying.

Well that was fun huh? Now the question is, ‘I built a mech, but how do I know if it works?’ Ever ask yourself that? I mean, some configs look good in the lab or on paper, but they just don’t work well in the game. I like to test them. I set up a server and lock it, not advertising and go into test mode. I pit each of these mechs against known good configs on maps similar to what I will be driving on. Example, I pit the Victor in a level 9 BOT against a level 9 BOT Canis (2Gauss/ 2ERPPCs) on a 100% heat efficiency rated map, say Aspen. I might mention that I have altered my BOT files so that they act more human like and that if hit while attempting to fire, the knock COULD cause them to not fire or knock their shot off. Mine use their jump jets if they have them and they don’t just charge the enemy blazing away like a n00b rush. In any event, the BOTs then got at each other for a bit and I record the wins/losses. I do this with each mech, then I do it with the group of them. For the defense, I will load a Canis (mentioned above), a Gladiator with 3 gauss and 1 erppc, a Cyclops with a Heavy gauss, a regular gauss, a PPC and a large laser, and a BK covered in reactive armour and loaded with PPCs and all the electronic toys. Again, I let them play, taking a camera and recording the outcomes. Finally, I take the above BOTs and I climb in one of each of my new creations to see how they work. When Im all done, I know which configs worked, how it performed on the battlefield with a competent driver and how it performed with me driving it.

That is pretty much how Vettie picks a keeper config.

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Sunday, November 11, 2007


The Greatest Game?

Microsoft Game Studios presents Mech Warrior 4 Mercenaries. Possibly the greatest game ever. Is it? I mean, come on, do you really think this is the greatest game ever? Well, what do you think? Before you answer, read on.

There are plenty of games out there like Doom, Warcraft, Guild Wars, Clancy’s Recon Titles, the Battlefield series, and many, many more. There are probably several of you that played or tried these games. I have the older Battlefield Games myself as well as some baseball games and Halo as well as a few others. The thing is, when a new title is released people rush out and get it and they play the crap out of it for weeks and maybe even months until, well, until it gets old.

I don’t know how many of you look at many forums beyond the Sunder Junkies (sometimes we forget about this, but let me say thanx to Prawnie for this web site), but I look at several different forums including, but not limited to, MekTek, MechStorm, The Blood Pearls, MWL and NBT. Yeah these are all Mech related, but I also do some others as well. One common theme runs on all of them. People get bored with a game and they then go through their old titles and reinstall a game and try it again.

Mech Warrior is like that too, except, MW4 Mercs seems to be the game that a lot of folks fall back on. Check some of the forums yourself. Count up the number of “I’m Back” posts there is. For some reason, this old game also seems to draw in a bunch of new folks. Look at Wilson and Macrae, both are new to MW4.

Yeah our community is small, but the numbers of players seems to stay about the same all the time, old guys stop playing and new guys fill their slots. Sunder is a prime example of what I mean. Almost every night Sunder fills up to full or near full with players. I know that’s only 20 players but look at MekMatch; there are other servers with LIVE folks in them playing this game called Mech Warrior.

What is the draw? MW4 is an old game, very old, with an outdated game engine (for the most part) and many things that defy the laws of physics. The graphics are not anywhere near the best out there and for many the game can be laggy and aggravating. Yet, people come back to it and play it almost every night, or least weekly.

I don’t want to leave anyone out, but I am going to name a few groups (and individuals) that breathe new life into the game for us. It all started with Microsoft. Yes, I said Microsoft. In the early days of MW4 there was Vengeance. For its time, Vengeance had a great engine and some decent, not great, but decent graphics and a pretty cool story line for those of you that like that sort of thing for single player. Microsoft later introduced us to the Mech Packs (notice I spell the MS packs as P A C K S and MekTeks as P A K). Shortly later or maybe even around the same time they released a few additional maps for multiplayer. You could download them and install them (no installer, you had to put them into folders) unless you bought the Mech Packs (these included the maps and the PR1 patch. After that came Black Knight introducing more missions and more Mechs.

It was after Black Knight that Microsoft changed it. All this time, everything was an addition to Vengeance. Microsoft had some management changes and team changes and instead of making the next add on to Vengeance, they released a stand alone game called Mercenaries (following the theme from Activision and the MW2 series but slightly different). Mercs (as we have come to call it) had an updated engine and of course updated graphics and new mechs.

All along this path way one thing really stood out above all the others that any version of MechWarrior 4 offered, and that was multiplayer. The single player version of Vengeance was pretty good and you followed a story with a few possible different endings. Black Knight more or less followed a small band of Mercs that lost their leader, from a lance of lights to an all out assault lance kicking butt and taking names. But the most interesting part of the game was not so much the story or stories, but the multiplayer part of the game.

Multiplayer was not anything new, but it was a different part of the game all together. You could log on to the in-game browser and see servers filled with folks playing Mech Warrior. There were leagues and open servers and it was damn near impossible to get onto a server at ‘primetime’. Even way back then I sometimes had to set up a server (manually) just to get a place to play and it wasn’t long before it filled up.

When Mercs was released, many of the MW4 folks jumped onto the new ship in the docks. Mercs storyline was ‘ok’ but it wasn’t all that great, but we did get introduced to Solaris (I think this was a break built into the game to let players go kill stuff, but they tied into the game using ‘Duncan Fisher’s’ commentary, nice touch Microsoft). Again, the drawing point was the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Somewhere during this time, Groups of people like MekTek, NBT, MechStorm, Alpha Studios and New BattleFields (just to name a few, lord knows there were many others) started adding more to our game. Each of these groups (and many I didn’t name) added something to the game we all play today. We got new maps giving us plenty of new playgrounds on which we try to kill each other. We got new Mek Paks that gave us new Mechs and weapons as well as more maps. We got the High Definition Pack to improve our graphics and sounds. People figured out ways to add to the number of players a server could hold and still play with acceptable levels of lag.

The multiplayer aspect of the game is really what makes the game. Every game is different even if you play the same map over and over. You can take a different mech or try a different load out. You can try different tactics, snipe, rush, missile, cherry pick, brawl oh the possibilities are countless and that is what keeps us coming back. Variety.

At this stage of the game the regulars are a tough group of players. By regulars, I mean the crew that can usually be found in Sunder on any given night. Too many to name, but all who read these forums should be included in that statement. Yeah some folks are better than others but anyone can kill anyone else at any time and that is another thing that makes this game great. A little teamwork, the right weapons mix, the right tactics and a lot of luck, hell, even I can kill any one of you at any time. Next round, I may not make it very far from spawn before I am watching the rest of you from my dead camera view.

That’s another thing that Microsoft had the forethought (or copied from others) to do, was to put various games types into the game. Not only the game types, but the styles as well. Our choices are not limited to mission play (my fav), you have team battle, regular battle (Solaris style), Capture the Flag (just straight up fun), King of the Hill (also a lot of fun) and some that groups or teams or individuals created like Urbie Dodgeball and Thunder Scats. On top of all that, you can play from inside the mech or outside using an external camera view. Microsoft made the Mech Lab simple (much easier than that of Activisions MW2, maybe less confusing is a better choice of words) so that any weapon from either tech base will fit in the correct slot type and size on any mech (in short, mix tech).

Mercs generated lots of leagues. Many no longer exist, but two have withstood the test of time. NBT and MWL. NBT uses (Our style) Forced First Person View on Puretech chassis. MWL allows mixed tech play with Third Person View (FFP is available if you want it). NBT is about territory while MWL is about wins and losses. NBT gives us Clans, Inner Sphere Houses, Pirates and Mercs while MWL gives so many ladders it difficult to name them all. The point is, both these leagues have been around and are still around. Both have lots of members. Both lose members everyday and both gain members everyday. There are also several open servers for people to play on if they choose not to be part of a league or if they are part of a league and just want to play for fun.

Another thing about both those leagues, they both had endeavors to other games. NBT had its own Battlefield 2142 league and MWL did too as well as other games. I find it very interesting that, even though they had their own leagues, the Mech Warrior part of it all still stands and is still the most popular. Sure there are plenty of servers out there with lots of other games and tons of players playing them, but people find their way back (or never leave) Mech Warrior.

What is it? What makes people want to play this game? Is it the mechs? Is it that you are supposed to be the pilot of some gigantic war machine? Is it the comradery? Is it the customization ability? Is it the fantasy? Is it the books? Is it the old board game? What is it?

Lets look at some of these things. First the mechs. I agree they are pretty cool, but you have to be interested in this in the first place right? So what go you interested? Was it the books? I gotta tell you some of the writing in those books is not the best. Was it the board game? I doubt there are too many of you that actually ever saw the board game much less actually played it. Yeah a few of you did, but I bet the majority of you never played the board game. A bunch of rules, card board counters or miniatures and a few maps or some ‘modeled’ terrain. I played Advanced Squad Leader for years (and still do) even to the point of having some of the miniatures. Those games are fun, but they are very ‘rules intense’ and you spend a lot of time ‘rules questing’.

Board games like BattleTech and ASL take lots of time. LOTS of time. The ASL game I am involved with is a simulation of the Germans invasion of Stalingrad in 1942 (Overall, ASL is about ALL of the infantry actions from all the major and some minor participants in WWII. There si some aerial action and some naval action, but it is mostly about the ground war). The part we are doing is only about a few blocks of the city. The Nazis are moving in on a Russian Arms Factory named Krazni Barricady (Red Barricades) and it simulates roughly a month of actual history. There are stuka attacks as well as hand to hand fighting. The fighting, for the most part is very close quarters. All the weapons and vehicles are represented that were actually there. I am on the team playing the Russians and I have to hold the (From my point of view) right flank where the German Assault Engineers have just set off a couple of demo charges wiping out a fortified stronghold I had assembled. My sniper has been deadly accurate killing 2 German officers and 3 squad members as well as pinning 2 other squads in place allowing me to send some conscripts to the factory interior to hold the line while the rest of my troops dig in. My Offboard Artillery has done a decent job of scattering the Germans while my own Engineers are making their way thru the sewers to try a rear flank if they don’t get lost in the sewer. The Germans have pulled a couple of Panzers into position to try to take out a machine gun nest I have in the upstairs of a very tall building. They have fired a couple of times on me but have not yet been able to penetrate the walls with enough fire power to bust up my elite gun crews. We are on day 6 of a possible 31 day fight, we have been playing roughly once a week for 2 months. We leave this ‘set-up’ and un-disturbed until the next ‘game night’. We play anywhere for 3 to 6 hours at a time depending on what day or night we play.

Needless to say, there are many better books out there about wars and the things that have happened in history. Hell, there are even better written fantasy books about things that might happen. I’m not taking anything away from the fiction writers that brought us the BattleTech Universe; I’m just saying that there is better stories and writing available to us. I suggest for those of you who never read any of the BattleTech books that you do so. IT adds a lot to what we do. I also suggest that you don’t start with one called “The Trilogy”. It is certainly not the best of the BattleTech books by far, but it is very readily available at most book stores.

The ‘friends’ aspect does come into play as to why we play and so many others come back to the game. I consider lots of you my ‘friends’ even though I haven’t met you. I suspect many of you feel the same about some of the people you play with. I know my board gaming group asks about ‘you guys’ every time we get together. “Still Playing Mech Warrior?” or “How are the Blood Pearls?” or “How goes the Sunder Junkies?” comes every time we get together. None of these guys have ever played MW4 on line (a couple played MW2) but they do play things like Black Hawk Down and World of WarCraft, but they always want to know about MW4 and have even watched me as I took part in a few league games (back in NBT) and thought it was great. They have played at my house, we had a LAN party and played some kickazz 2 v 2 games and they had a ball.

I know I look forward to starting up my game and connecting to teamspeak. For those of you that don’t have it, I high recommend downloading teamspeak and jumping on comms with us. It’s a free download available from www.teamspeak.org . One of the other posts in the Sunder Junkies forums gives you some addresses to connect to. For team play, this is essential. For fun, you cant beat it. Every night there are 3 to 15 people on the Blood Pearls Comms. IF we go into my server, we split the channels based on teams and we go at it. Sometimes, we leave everyone in the same channel so you can hear the taunts back and forth.

Maybe this is the cement that holds this game as a centerpiece, the ‘friends’ or comradery of it. I think that is a big piece of the mystery, but the game itself would need to be good and fun or people would just get bored and move on taking their friends and comrades with them. There must be more to it than that.

Maybe it’s a combination of all those things. I learn something new about the game almost every time I play. I have been playing Mercs since it came out (what is that 4 or 5 years?). You could say I am dumb or a slow learner and that may be the case, but I do learn something nearly every night. I try to share some of the intimate secrets that I have learned through Vettie’s Views. I find it fascinating that I have so many configurations of so many mechs and yet every night I play, I see a new possibility, something that someone has put together either with a lot of thought or on a whim, but something I never considered. I learned a lot by being privileged enough to be on the beta team for MP3. I have learned a lot about bot scripting from the team over at MechStorm (thank you Griskard). I have learned a lot about map making from both MekTek and MechStorm. I have learned a lot about tactics from many of you.

Every year that MekTek decides to do a new MekPak a funny thing happens. People you haven’t seen in ages show up out of the wood work to play the game again. Some come back to see what MekTek is up to and to whine and complain about this being changed or that not being changed. Some come back to see the new models and will play for a bit then fade back to obscurity. Other will come back and stay. New people will come on board and some of the old folks will leave because of changes or additions. Another thing you will see is a bunch of ‘smurfs’ you have never seen before. Some are old players trying to get their gaming legs back before they come back. Some are actually people on the MekTek team getting feel for how things currently work outside of ‘Area 51’, you know, some real life experience so they know how to adjust things. They also use this time to get a feel for the player’s feelings about certain parts of the game and whether things should be changed or left alone. They look at what mechs are being used and the weapons. They look at the damages and the complaints by players. They also look at the positive comments and actual usage. This happens every where, not just Sunder because remember, they have multiple communities to serve.

This game is old, but it holds our fascination. It sucks up our spare time and draws us to the computer night after night. You can quit and walk away. You can not play for weeks at a time, but something draws us back to it. No other game that I have played pulls me back like this one. I can get frustrated and pissed. I can get excited and full of laughter. I can have lots of fun or I can have a sucky night. All of those, sometimes all of those in the same round! But every time I go online, I go to play the greatest game of our time. Sure we all have ideas of what would make it better and sure all of us have things we totally despise about the game and sure we see things that are obviously screw ups from Microsoft or the map makers or the modders, but there is something about this game that keeps us or draws us back. I am not saying this game is the perfect game and I am not saying Mercs is the best ‘programmed’ game ever, but I am saying all in all, it’s the greatest game of our times. All the things I talked about, the mechs, the maps, the customization, the comradery, the fantasy and maybe even a few things I didn’t mention all rolled up together in this thing called Mech Warrior 4 make this the greatest game.

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