Matrix Games Forums

1.) When adding armor, which do you look at, Armor points or mm of armor?

2.) Are there some general rules of thumb for the amount of armor that each class should have?

3.) Larkin can you add some info to the Factory. Could you make it so it would display the average PUs needed to have weapons fireing and other main components active on the Titans created? I know you can add it up mentally, but it would be much better to have that info available in the Factory UI.

If I had a Titan with 3 PG, 2SL, a lvl2 shield, etc, it would be great for the factory to tell you have many total PU that your Titan is requiring.

There is a lot of info in the factory you just need to look at the right spot.

let the mouse highlight the item you wish to learn about. Don't click the mouse. press F1. An info box will come up telling you everything you need to know about the item.

Armor: 1 mm Armor does occupy 1 slot making it unavailable for anything else. It does not necessarily provide 1 more armor point. There are really 3 main reasons to tweak armor.

1- Armor is low and you need more Slots [S] in the armor.
2- Armor is low and you cannot support the weight. [W] in the armor.
3- Adding 1 mm does not increase armor points. add only the mm armor that provides the armor points you want in your design. More armor is just wasted and costs $$. You can sometimes back off these mm armor and gain some extra weight capacity or extra slots. So its important for those reasons.

Thanks for telling me about the F1. That provided some info i was curious about, but it doesn't address what I am talking about. When you design a Titan, it will require a set amount of PU to fully function without problems. I am proposing that in the area in the bottom right of the screen, it display the current optimal required PU output needed to run the Titan with the items that have been placed on it. You can figure it in your head, because it is determined via an arithmatical calculation, why not make that calculation easily available to the player. Just another feature that would make WS even better.

As for the answer on armor, I'm still confused. If I have 20mm of one type of armor in the Left Torso and it is worth 8 points, and I have a Right Torso 20mm thick but with only 6 points of a type of armor, the left torso is better armed because it has more points? Or are both sections equally protected because they both have 20mm of armor?

As far as actually stopping damage goes, it's the points that matter, unlike on "Who's Line Is It, Anyway?"

Check Power Management in the pinboard. It should give you a hint on how efficient the engine is, when everything is sucking up power.

Yea I have been doing that. I just thought that it is an enhancment that would be appreciated by Titan designers. Instead of pluggin in different engines to see if they meet the power requirements, one could see how many PU their Titan need, and thus pick the exact engine they would need. I am just trying to think of enhancements that would make the game just that much better.

Yep, has been thought of already. But there's only so much time to do things, and changing the interface to accomodate the changes was not too tempting. There were a few other interesting ideas that needed interface changes that were discarded. Maybe they'll be implemented in the future, now that the dev team has had time to breath

Originally posted by Intruder
Thanks for telling me about the F1. That provided some info i was curious about, but it doesn't address what I am talking about. When you design a Titan, it will require a set amount of PU to fully function without problems. I am proposing that in the area in the bottom right of the screen, it display the current optimal required PU output needed to run the Titan with the items that have been placed on it. You can figure it in your head, because it is determined via an arithmatical calculation, why not make that calculation easily available to the player. Just another feature that would make WS even better.

We will look into it. The number won't be telling much though and can easily confuse new players. Energy weapons combos like 2xPLG + 2xTesla would show a BIG amount of PU needed but in combat the player won't fire them all. He will use either the long range plasmas or the teslas. So the 'real' number of PUs needed is different.

Yep. When I mentioned interface changes I was refering to a thought that consisted in making a full listing of power consuming devices and their requirements in the pinboard, in the right side of the screen.

The more the better is not always the best, IMO. That place is not the best to display the PU usage. Pinboard would be better, maybe below Power Management. Still, it may lead to confusion. This, like everything else in ToS, will become 2nd nature in no time.

A good rule of thumb for the PU calculations, an engine 1 will cover a titan's basic needs (5PU = 3 for move, 1 for scanner and 1 for heat reg - not counting swivel). Anything else you want to add (ECM and/or shield and/or energy weapons except Flamer) you'll have to increase the engine accordingly.

Yea, I had thought about that. I was thinking it could be of an estimate. Taking into account all of the normal power requirements, and the firing of the primary weapons. Add in a shield or ECM and you would have an idea of what size engine one would need. Just a thought.

I like your idea as well Thorgrim. The pinboard would be a great place for a power listing. One could check the pinboard see that they will ned 7 PU and begin designing their Titan.

Originally posted by Intruder
Yea, I had thought about that. I was thinking it could be of an estimate. Taking into account all of the normal power requirements, and the firing of the primary weapons. Add in a shield or ECM and you would have an idea of what size engine one would need. Just a thought.

I don't see how an estimate is any good. Either display the correct value, or don't bother. With an estimate, you'll have to test the design in the battlefield and be constantly checking the 1st info page to see if you're using the engine efficiently. Might as well just add some numbers together