Today I added a new Mecha Engineering interface. The technical info panel lists the following things:
- Mecha mass, form, and form bonuses
- Intrinsic mass and equipment mass, along with associated MV/TR penalties
- Walk and roll capacity; at 100% the mecha will move at maximum speed
- Skim and flight thrust values, for mecha capable of skimming or flying/jumping
- Full speed bonus gained from overchargers
Hopefully this extra information will help to de-mystify the mecha design process. Do you think there’s anything else I should add?
Edit- One potential problem is that the form MV/TR bonuses could be mistaken for the mecha’s current MV/TR. I should make that more clear on the display.
4 Comments
Skip to comment form
Can’t compile from master, fatal errors in backpack.pp. So I can only speak from the screenshot.
One thing that I think is necessary to add is, you probably already know, the current MV/TR/SE, unless it is already displayed somewhere else on the screen.
One thing I hope for, especially when playing with tech vulture with all those arms and legs lying around, is an easier way to differentiate the armor and weight and scale of all those Right Arms, without having to check each of them by opening their respective menu, so to speak, if you understand what I mean; also if the part has tags like Groundhugger only.
Another thing, not really necessary, but might be nice to add is, projected changes if you add or remove this part or equipment. Also information about different Classes of engine, gyroscope, wheel, track, and jets.
Author
I’ve found the problem with the source- it needs to be compiled with both -dSDLMODE and -dWIZARD, since I haven’t cleaned up the WIZARD/ULTIMATE bits yet.
Personally I’d like to see a display that amounts to “tons that can be added before hitting the next MV increment” for both intrinsic and equipped mass. I tend to pick an MV rating I find acceptable and design to that, and currently I often find myself installing junk just to see when the MV goes up.
I would like to see what DudeGuyMan and Tung suggests too. An indicator of when intristic weight will give the next MV/TR penalty and something to show the Mass +/- of a piece of equipment (limb/weapon/armour etc – maybe even for characters?).
I wonder if that -dWIZARD will help with the compiling problems I am having…