From: willday@rom.oit.gatech.edu (Will Day)
Newsgroups: alt.games.mechwarrior2,rec.games.mecha
Subject: Re: my MercNet complaints...
Date: 26 Sep 1996 15:51:47 -0400
Message-ID: <52emsj$5rs@rom.oit.gatech.edu>

A short time ago, at a computer terminal far, far, away, J. J. Franzen wrote: 

>> 2.  The new Mech Lab, is simply TERRIBLE.  It's very non-intuitive,
>> and well, just damn confusing...
>
>Well...

Well, here are the problems _I_ have with the mech lab, but these are only my observations after a short evening with the game, so I may not have figured everything out yet.

  1. It no longer seems to keep a list of the mech's installed weapons. It looks like I now have to click on each body section to see what's installed there, and try to keep a running list in my head. Rather unsatisfactory.

  2. I couldn't find a way anymore to delete arm actuators, but that's not a very big problem.

  3. The concept of "upgrading" heat sinks isn't clear to me, and doesn't appear to be explained at all in the manual. I had problems where I would try to add double heat sinks, and it would say I needed to upgrade my heat sinks first, but when I selected Upgrade heat sinks, it told me it couldn't upgrade them, or there were none to upgrade. Very unclear.

  4. When I added endo-steel, or ferro-fibrous, the list of criticals to add to the mech overwrote the text of the longer lists of equipment (ie ammo). Rather messy.

  5. Also when I added endo-steel, I couldn't find a way to _undo_ that change, short of adding all the criticals, and then deleting them. I couldn't seem to do very much else in the lab until I had allocated those criticals. I couldn't, for instance, change my armor or engine rating. Very unusable.

  6. It couldn't find a way to change the type of mech I was editing in the lab, as I could in Mech2. It looks like I have to exit the lab entirely in order to edit a different mech. Rather annoying.

  7. It didn't seem to have the heat and other data on the weapons available while editing, which makes it much more difficult to design mechs that don't overheat.

  8. I didn't see a way to save the modified mech, either. I was in the mech lab from the instant action, though, so maybe this is different from the campaign.

Overall, it seemed like the Mech Lab was re-designed just for the sake of re-designing, and not in fact trying to improve it or fix flaws with the old lab. In the end, I think it made it substantially worse. I can't help but wonder if the new Lab was submitted to any sort of usability study.

This applies, as well, to the Custom Configuration screen for input control settings. The two columns

are entirely missing from the screen, which make it virtually impossible to set some configs that were present before.

Actually, as I found later, it's worse than that: the columns _do_, in fact, exist, only they don't show up on the screen - you can't see changes that are made if you happen to click there. I was clicking around the screen, and then wondered later why my throttle was backwards and why my joystick no longer worked (it now had a CTRL modifier on it).

I find it extremely difficult to believe that this was missed entirely by beta testers.

Another missing option from the custom config screen was the "Abort" selection at the bottom of the screen. It now appears that if I make an unwanted change to the config, my only choices are to accept it and go on, or to load an old config. If I didn't save it, though, I'm screwed. I'm not sure why this "abort" option was removed, but I think it was ill-advised. 

>> 4.  I can't copy my NetMech custom mechs over to MercNet.  Let's face 
>> it, I spent hours making all these variants...and I certainly don't 
>> want to remake them...is there a way to copy them over, Dan? 
>  
>Not currently, but if enough people ask for one, perhaps a converter will 
>be made...  Any programmers out there feeling lucky?  I'll provide any  
>help I can...

Well, put me on that list of people asking. :) I don't think I can lend much effort to a programming effort, though, as much as I wish I could. 

>> Ok, now that I've ranted...I'd just like to say that this game is, on 
>> the whole, AMAZING.  JJ and Dan, give yourselves (and the rest of the 
>> Merc team) a pat on the back!!  The graphics are unbelievable; the 
>> gameplay blows away Mech2 (brings back great memories of Mech1!!).  It 
>> is definitely the game of the year!!  Now, if you could just address 
>> my complaints.... 
> 
>We're on it...  Type at y'all later,

I'd heard there were some rough edges, and I see them rather clearly in the shell. I hope you guys can release a patch sometime soon to correct them.

The sim, though, seems pretty clean; at least, I haven't noticed any problems. It's quite gorgeous - I love the LRM missile effects and the weapon lighting. I'm going to be upgrading my CPU, though; I can't stand turning off even one of the effects.

===
Will Day