Bay 12 Games Forum

In truth I'm REALLY interested in this mech design thing, but so far it's beating the crap out of me. I mean, I get most of the basics, but the Mechtype/number at the top (Buruburus, Vadels and Duams are Battleroid 5, where as the Galah is Battleroid 4.. the Wraith is Aerofighter 4, the Corriach is Aerofighter 6 and the Kraken is Aerofighter 10) is still a bit beyond.. is it a reference to locations?

Th'folks above covered the rest of the questions related to this well, but here's some confirmation on what Beorn said:

Those numbers in particular refer to size, specifically the size of the mecha in general. A aerofighter 1 will be smaller (weigh less, have less slots for equipment per component, have less armor/HP per body part, etc.) than an aerofighter 10. This is independant of any mass modification or whathaveyou inherent to the limbs themselves.

As for adjusting MV/TR, in GH2 it's accomplished (outside of changing mass) primarily by software. Iirc, it was different in GH1, but I can't recall exactly how at the moment.

To your next set of questions:
1: Give them a faction (Iirc, there's a general one of some sort if you don't want them used by particular groups) and a... role? Something like that, shows up as GROUND, SPACE, etc. Then stick the file in the mecha folder with the rest of 'em and they'll start showing up in shops and combat. Simple as that, iirc.

2: Not really, though it depends on how out of line compared to stock mecha the machine is. Many (most?) winner machines end up buggered with by mecha engineering so much they might as well be homebrew

3: Unfortunately, no. They can be mucked with, but it takes an annoying amount of effort and, iirc, uses a custom scripting language of some sort or another.  It's been done and (again, when the wiki/forum/etc. come back in full) there's some (user created, mostly) documentation for it, but it's a notably more daunting task than stuffing the game full of new items and mecha.

S'the major reason Mr. H and a few others are working on converting GH2 to python (Now... I think it started attempting to convert to LUA scripting, but things change, I guess.), so the rest of the content is more accessible to folks.

E: As for modding weaponry, that's somewhat more involved. It looks like the forum's back up, so go give a gander at the game mechanics subforum, where a lot of the modding guides end up. This in particular might help, to toot my own horn a bit. I think it was still accurate up until development on the current/old GH2 stopped and the conversion process started. Do note that I probably can't clarify anything in that or later posts anymore, because I don't remember any of it

Well if I could  play Blazblue or Disgaea on my PC I'd never buy a one but unfortunately it does not work that way.

You can play Disgaea on your PC, though. Some of 'em, anyway. If your PC can handle a DS (likely) or PS2 (less likely, but still possible) emulator. Only legal way (for now, anyway) of doing so involves owning the console in question and then technical shenanigans far beyond my personal capability (mostly relating to bios extraction or whatever), but it's possible.

Not so sure about blazblue, but, well. Matter of time and all that.

And now I'm wondering why the console folks don't just make a PC compatible OS. Have a disc or small hard drive whatever that lets a full blown desktop dual-boot the console OS, provide USB controllers, go the whole nine yards. I can't help but wonder what the profit margin increase of doing that would be, assuming any occurred once you factor out the console itself (and you could counter that partially by selling the OS disc or whatev' for a fair penny, not that I can see the consoles making up much of the profit anyway, given how freakishly expensive console games are... ). And more importantly, which of the big boys are going to realize the (what seems to me, to be) obvious first and do just that.

If any of them do any time soon, anyway. The vaguely neurotic controlling tendencies (to the world view of someone that's been thoroughly inundated by the internet's general ethos, anyway) of those guys might not be willing to let go of their proprietary silliness in a reasonable time frame...

... which then makes you wonder when the outside party's going to come in, because given the situation it seems like things might be (or soon be) ripe for one.

This is basically them killing the resale market because they like money.

Y'know, this line kinda' made me think. Why don't these guys just go, "Fuck it." and jump into the resale market themselves? You'd think if they actually liked money they'd be going, "Well damn. A whole 'nother market to corner. Let's got some value-added up in this joint and rock the house."

But no. Instead they want to alienate customers and prevent a fairly gratuitous amount of people from being able to participate in the markets they are in.

Seems silly to me.

And they're kinda' banking on that (literally), Korb. The other side of the coin is that, yeah, 90% may come back, but that 10%'s gone. And next bugger-up they lose 10% of what's left. And then they do it again, slowly chasing people out of the markets they participate in. It's... not good business, I'd say.

Okay, so caveat here that it's been a while since I've played much and my memory is kinda' spotty. Still, I'll see what I can dredge up.

1:Is this an acceptable setup at this point in the game?

The general answer to that is... maybe. How much you can skimp on mech quality is highly dependent on how capable of a mech pilot you are (in terms of skills) and how effective the mechs you have are (i.e. what sort of fancy gubbins you've stuck on them). Generally, you'll get the message that you're sticking your head too far out when said head gets blown off repeatedly. Renown generally adjusts itself somewhat organically and you're expected to eat some losses to keep things balanced out. If you're worried, though, lose a few unimportant missions (just turn around and leave immediately) and drop your renown back down to something you feel comfortable with. The chapter related battles are renown independent, but (almost) everything scales with renown, so you can control general difficulty by controlling renown.

2: I am unaware what the cap limit on my teammates is. I have two individuals with me, and have met two mercenaries which I would sorely like to employ. How can I tell what the size cap of my team is.

I've... actually forgotten, myself. I think the base cap is two, modified by some other stuff. I know there's a talent (or whatever those are) or two that can increase the cap, and I think it may increase a bit if you pump the appropriate stat (charm? Izzat it?) up enough.

3: Cybernetics.. I likewise lack knowledge of how many pieces of cyberware I can install before they melt my brain. How can I tell on that?

Short of code diving, I can't remember. There's a formula of some sort (involving your ego stat, iirc.) but... s'been too long. I can't remember

4: What is concidered the optimal movement system for a battleroid style mech? I know hover jets get used alot, but would it be preferable to strip those for flight/space flight jets? And along that note, what are Arc Thrusters?

Arc Thrusters are kind of an omni-movement system, iirc. They boost hover and flight, but (and I maybe be very wrong here) I think they're better used in conjunction with other movement systems.

As for optimal movement system, it depends on the mech, your character, and the terrain. Generally by the end game most mechs will be flying (really fast) or hovering, but there's several advantages to walking (faster turning, harder to knock down, can't get your flight jets blown up -- though you can lose your legs, of course) and there's a few talents (or whatever those things are, argh) that can specialize your character toward a particular movement system (and naturally, if you pick one of those, you want to focus on what it boosts).

However, it's notable that in GH2 in particular, you have a very strong leaning toward hover and flight (especially the latter), due to the extent of the fighting you do in space. So that's something to consider. Though mind that increasing hover makes you go faster in space, too, so... yeah.

5: The game makes mention of Spideroid style mechs.. 4 legged walkers with turret weaponry. While I know (or at least feel) that the game is still early, when can I expect to encounter one of those. I'd like one.

Arachnoids, yeah, they're around. They're quite rare in GH2, though, because they can't fly (only jump and hover) and are primarily ground mechs. So they don't get used much in space. I'm not sure which breakpoint in particular you can expect to maybe find one, but you'd see them more often in GH1 if you're really gunning to play 'em.

Can also mod a few in, if you're feeling frisky. It's really easy to make a mech or fifty.

6: Are there any colonies or worlds where there is extentive combat in the cities, or even in a wilderness locale?

Ehn... GH1

You do get missions inside occasionally, and a couple of the asteroids have ground combat come up fairly often. There's no area specifically emphasizing that, that I can recall, though. E: Actually, I think one or two of the mech arenas has a wilderness setup. Might try trawling through the arena fights and seeing what shows up.

7: Are there any places one can go to do extensive out of mech combat?

There's a couple of arenas, I think, and some inside quest-dingi. Abandoned spaceships or whatever tend to have a dungeon crawl aspect.

Generally your best bet for some cash granting scale: 0 (personal scale. Scale: 1 isn't used much in GH2, and scale: 2 is mecha-sized) combat, though, is to watch the news and hunt down fungi infestations. They're probably the most prolific and easily found scale: 0 fight in GH2.

8: What is the general math behind weapon damage? I've noticed many guns have an alphanumeric code at the front (Heavy Gauss Rifle runs 14x10), and of all the number combos I haven't figured out, that's the one.

I... don't remember the specifics. I know the xXX aspect has to do with scale (so everything scale zero is x1, scale one x5, scale 2 x10) and, insofar as I'm aware, is just a multiplier. The first number is the base damage, so as far as I know a heavy gauss would have a base 140 DC (with DC being the primary "important number" used in damage calculations). More than that will have to wait until they fix the wiki and the old information comes back, which is... on its way. I think.

Anyway, that's about all I can recall. Hopefully the wiki/forum maintenance stuff will clear up fairly soon and it'll be easier to just point you at that.

Yeah, looking at the wiki page it's... pretty complicated. Kinda' amusing that the states stole the copyright to th'book as spoils of war at one point.

Five Governors, One Head: The medical geniuses back home got a little frisky with your case. You are given a set of five random other personality traits, but which one you are today is anyone's guess. While this makes the locals have a bit of difficulty dealing with you, you're surprisingly good at multitasking for someone generally having an argument with themselves.

E: Ah, wait, general character traits for, like... people. Right. No clue, but would they be able to be changed in-game? Monument to productivity having X chance to change a personality trait for a few days, stuff like that.

E2: Wouldn't the really thematic method of figuring a list out be to go back and read some victorian age psychology or something, and steal one of their list of personality types?

S'a few other new ones, too, and those not simply aesthetic.

I don't think there's a difference between one black p (or is it h? It's hard to tell in ASCII) and another, though.

I do vaguely remember the sole Aliens book (there's... non-movie Aliens books like there are Star Wars books, apparently. Though I don't know how many.) I've read suggesting that pheromones are involved in some way with th'xenomorphs. It's been long enough I don't remember the details, but I sorta' recall some dude that was being kept unimpregnated to keep facehugged other people from kicking the dust using that... somehow.

It's been a really long damn time since I read that book. It was also the only Aliens book I ever bothered to read, so... yeah.