NetMech IV Concepts

This page describes the concepts behind the NetMech IV proejct.
Battletech

The idea behind NetMech IV is to recreate Battletech within the limits imposed by MechWarrior4 Mercenaries game engine. The original game, while fun and playable, has little resemblance with the Classic Battletech.
Timelines

Battletech itself is not something static, it evolved over time, there is an history behind. Probably the most noticeable NetMech IV feature is that it represents not just Battletech but the Battletech rules and equipment present in various Battletech timelines. The user is able to play Battletech in a specific timeline and using the tech available at that time. Five modes are planned:

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3025, the most classic timeline of Classic Battletech, in this timeline the technology is almost lost and only a very basic equipment is available. In this timeline is implemented the CBT Level 1 tech.
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3050, this is the timeline of the Clans invasion of the Inner Sphere. The Clan invaders, thanks to their vastly superior technology, are seemingly unstoppable. In this timeline is present the same Level 1 tech already present in 3025 and some Level 2 tech for both the Clans and the Inner Sphere.
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3067, the Inner Sphere is recovering in this timeline, the tech difference is still huge but new weapons and mechs help the Inner Sphere mechwarriors to fight back. The full Level 2 tech is present in this timeline for both the Clans and the Inner Sphere.
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3070, this is the final Classic Battletech timeline, both factions have access to full Level 3 technology.
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Solaris VII, not a timeline but much like a tournament mod designed for arena fights. This concept is pending.

Balance

The NetMech IV choice about balance is to not create an artificial balance between mechs, weapons and techs. If in CBT the Clan Tech is three times better than the IS Tech it will stay that way, if the UAC’s is always better than regular AC’s it will stay that way, the AC’s will be the ballistic weapon of choice in 3025 while the UAC’s will be a better choice in the more advanced timelines. We are not trying to change the way CBT is, we are trying to bring the CBT kind of balance in NetMech IV instead.
Weapons and Mechs statistics

Our design choices will be strongly rules driven. We aim to directly translate the CBT stats in game stats by using a well defined set of rules for both mechs and weapons. For those kind of parameters that cannot be translated from CBT (concepts like projectile speed, acceleration etc are not present in CBT) specific rules are created and applyed to the whole set.
NetMech IV differences with MW4

While NetMech IV still uses the MW4 game engine many parts of it were rewritten. The game now has many new features not present in MW4 or any other mod.
Sensors

In NetMech IV the sensors work in a very different way compared to MW4. Now there are 3 kinds of sensors:

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Radar, it is the equivalent of the MW4 radar but the detection distance is now affected by many parameters, not just distance:
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Distance, of course the distance is still an important factor. Closer mechs are easier to detect.
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Mass, heavier mechs are easier to spot than light mechs. Light mechs are stealthier because the smaller profile. Battle Armors are VERY hard to detect.
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Position, the mechs on the ground are harder to detect than mechs floating in the air, the use of jump jets makes you more visible.
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ECM presence, the ECM package makes your mech less detectable.
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BAP presence, the BAP enhance your radar sensitivity and increases the overall detection range.
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Thermal Sensor, this sensor has no equivalent in MW4. This kind of sensor is sensible to the IR emission. The Thermal Sensor works in both active and passive mode. It works on the following parameters:
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Heat, hot targets are easily detected, perfectly cool targets are not detectable at all.
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Distance and Mass, both are important for this kind of sensor. A close hot ‘mech is easier to detect than a cool light one.
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Jump Jets heat, if you jump you are like another sun in the sky in the IR band, note that this is true in the ascent phase, when the jets are turned off you are no more detected.
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Passive EM sensor, this is the equivalent of the MW4 passive sensors but is now affected by the Distance, Mass and target status. Note that a ‘mech with BAP is a bit more detectable when active because it has a stronger EM emission.

Jump Jets

In general in NetMech IV the Jump Jets are much stronger than in MW4 and you can jump much higher but there are some balance factors:

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Heat, activate the Jump Jets generates heat at the start and during the whole burn.
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Thermal Signature, the Jump Jets makes you much more detectable to Thermal Sensors, be careful.
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Leg Damage, crash your mech on the ground now does damage it, use the Jump Jets to brake your ‘mech before the touch down, the landing phase is important now. Your mech takes no damage for vertical speeds up to 15 meters per second, the damage is proportional to the speed after that limit.

Sounds

NetMech IV has much more sources for sounds as example, the engine, the LAMS, the subsystems destruction now all have new sounds associated.
Voice Taunts

This feature is partially implemented in NetMech IV 1.0.1, there are only 4 taunts defined and a single voice. It will be greatly enhanced in upcoming updates. You can activate a taunt by typing its code in chat. The available taunts are:

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vgy, “yes”
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vgn, “no”
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vgx, “you idiot!!”
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vta, “attack!!”

Heat Management

NetMech IV is not just “hotter” than MW4, the heat is handled in a much different, more realistic, way. In MW4, the heat removed from the mech is constant per unit of time, as example, a ‘mech with 10HS always removes 10 points of heat in 10 seconds. In NetMech IV, the heat dissipation is no more a constant but a linear function, the heat is dissipated much faster when the mech is very hot and the dissipation rate decreases as the heat approaches the zero. The CBT heat dissipation rate is obtained when the ‘mech heat is at 2/3 of the heat scale, just before the red zone on the HUD.
Mixtech Failures

Even if a Puretech mode is supported, in NetMech IV the normal working mode is Mixtech. Mixtech however has drawbacks, mixtech variants are less reliable than puretech ones and some weapons may fail if stressed too much. The problem is partially solved in the 3070 timeline where the failure rate is much smaller. There are reports about the heat being the main factor for mixtech weapon failures. It is up to the pilots to decide if have the maximum reliability of a puretech mech or optimize the performance by mixing IS and Clan technology at the cost of possible failures.
Coolant

In NetMech IV the coolant is a technology available in 3070 only but it works much like in MW4 with one single exception: by standing shut down in the water you can replenish your tanks, the complete process takes about one minute.
Special Armors

The special armors are present in all the timelines but before 3070 those works exactly like the Ferro Fobrous. In 3070 the armors are functional but behaves VERY differently compared to MW4. The difference is that in MW4 each armor type is effective vs a weapon class, as example the Reflective Armor is effective vs all the energy weapons in the same way. In NetMech IV each weapon type has a different effect on each armor type, as example the lasers are more affected by the Reflective Armor than the PPCs, the Plasma Rifle is very effective vs both special armors but is not very effective vs the Ferro Fibrous and so on. The following multipliers are used:

// Default constants, weapons not belonging to special classes will use
// the following values.
EnergyOnReflective: Single = 0.60;
EnergyOnReactive: Single = 1;
MissileOnReflective: Single = 1.05;
MissileOnReactive: Single = 0.85;
BallisticOnReflective: Single = 1;
BallisticOnReactive: Single = 0.65;

// Special damage classes, override the previous values.
LasersOnReflective: Single = 0.5;
LasersOnReactive: Single = 0.95;
FlamersOnReflective: Single = 1.4;
FlamersOnReactive: Single = 1.4;
PlasmaOnReflective: Single = 0.9;
PlasmaOnReactive: Single = 1.1;
PlasmaOnFerro: Single = 0.8;
LBXOnReflective: Single = 1.05;
LBXOnReactive: Single = 0.6;
LBXOnFerro: Single = 1.05;
TLRMOnReflective: Single = 1;
TLRMOnReactive: Single = 1;
TLRMOnFerro: Single = 1.2;

The special armors are, generally, better in NetMech IV than in MW4 even if allocate the weight for them is harder because generally there are less engine downgrades.
Mech Slots

NetMech IV uses a new slots system called “microslots”, instead of having weapons ranging from 1 to 4 slots in NetMech IV weapons range from 2 to 12 microslots. This allows to further differentiate the weapons in a way much closer to the CBT criticals. Another important differences is that the omni microslots do not accept missile weapons, this is done to not turn automatically all omnimechs in missile platforms. All the ‘mechs meant to be missile platforms are equipped with the proper number of missile slots.
Net Lobby Improvements

The Net Lobby is greatly improved compared to the MW4 Net Lobby:

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Increased chat area, more than doubled in size, you can read the chat much more easily.
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‘Mechs configs tab, it is possible to verify the loadout of your currently selected ‘mech, including the stock ‘mechs, without have to go in the mechlab.

Other Improvements

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Flares and Narcs visible up to 1000mt, in MW4 the limit was 600mt. Now the flares are very useful in night of fog missions.
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Replaceable HUDs, the HUD files are now external to the archives, you can replace your HUD without have to patch the game. Many new HUDs are already available on the updater.
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Fixed a lot of old MW4 bugs:
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The HUD effect now works for all the PPCs not just the original ones, a problem common to all the previous mods.
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Correct recycle sound for all weapons.
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HUD static effect for the Heavy Laser fire too as described in CBT.
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Support in the engine for mechs from 1 to 100tons, MW4 does not allow mechs under 15tons.

Prerequisites

In order to install NetMech IV on your system you need to perform the following preliminary steps:

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Install MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries English or German version.
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Update the game with the Microsoft PR1 patch.

3rd part mods

NetMech IV is compatible with the following 3rd part mods, you can install NetMech IV over the following mods:

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Plain MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries PR1, no issues.
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MekPak MP2.1a, no issues.
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MekPak MP3.02a, no issues.
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MekPak MP3.02b, no issues.
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NBT-HC, no issues.

The installation may fail if:

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You installed extensions that modify the original Mercs-PR1 or MekPak files (HUDs, HDP patch), you have to uninstall the extensions before installing NetMech IV, the extensions can be installed again after installing the mod.
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Not enough disk space, you need at least 1GB of free space on your disk and on C:. The space on C: is not actually used but it is required by the system swap file.
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You have viruses or other malware.
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Your PC has some major hardware failure. As example: defective RAM/Motherboard, disks with damaged clusters, instabilities caused by a defective power supply.
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Outdated video codecs, video drivers, sound drivers or some other Windows malfunction.

Installation Procedure

If your system is compliant with the above prerequisites then you are ready to install NetMech IV, proceed as follow:

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Download the NetMech IV Updater here.
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Unzip the updater into your MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries main directory, as example C:\Games\Mercs, the exact path can change from system to system.
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Double click on the NM4Updater.exe file and the installation will begin.

After starting the installation the following things will happen:

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The NetMech IV Updater will check you game installation in order to determine if NetMech IV can be installed.
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The NetMech IV Updater will prompt you wil a dialog form asking the permission to install NetMech IV. In order to proceed you have to accept it.
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After granting permission the NetMech IV Updater will start to automatically download and install the required modules. You can both authorize the installation of each single module (button Yes) or authorize the installation of all modules (button Yes All).
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If the procedure will complete without errors you will read “Updated” in the installation log and the four launch buttons will appear on the main window, the buttons allows you to launch the game in its 4 possible modes.

Running NetMech IV

After installing NetMech IV you should see on your desktop a launch icon. By double clicking on the icon the NetMech IV Updater will start and you will be able to launch NetMech IV in one of its four modes. The NetMech IV Updater also allows you to run the MekPak or NBT-HardCore mods if present.
Updating NetMech IV

You dont need to worry about updating NetMech IV, each time you launch the game our server is checked for updates, if an update is available you will be prompted for the install.
Inside NetMech IV

This section is for advanced users only.
Running a Dedicated Server

In order to run a NetMech IV dedicated server you have the following options:

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From the Updater (preferred method), select the “DedicatedServer” check box and run the timeline you prefer, the game will start as dedicated server.
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Directly using a shortcut, create a shortcut to MW4Mercs.exe and add the following command line options: -win32dedicated -mod:NM4 -mode:XXXX. XXXX can be one of 3025, 3050, 3067 and 3070, it selects the timeline the server runs.

Extended server options

In NetMech IV it is possible to set some server options not normally present in MW4. The options can be specified by enclosing them between [ and ] after the server name or after a mission name. The settings after map names have precedence over the settings in the server name. You can set server-wide defaults in the server name and be able to override them in the mission name. The settings are specified by a single letter, the following settings are available:

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P - Activates the puretech enforcer.
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H - Activates the hide selections options, selected mechs are no more visible in lobby.
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N - Forbids the use of stock mechs.
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0 - Enforces the use of variants signed with the Key 0.
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1..9 - Enforces the use of variants signed with the Keys 1..9.

As example, a server with name “BigBadServer[PH]” would run by default with the Puretech and Hidetech options enabled but if in the cycle there is a mission with name “Lunacy - Lunacy[N0]” the P and H options would not be active for that mission only, the mission would have the N and 0 options instead. Using this mechanism it is possible to make servers where Puretech and Mixtech missions are present.
Signed variants

NetMech IV has the option to allow on the server only the use of ‘mech variants signed by a “signature authority”, as example a league. The leagues interested to this feature should contact the Dev Team for a private key assignment and the release of the variants signature utility.
Running a NetMech IV server under MW4 Monitor

NetMech IV runs perfectly under the MW4 Monitor, the monitor setup is equal to the PR1 or MP3 setup, just add the following options to the “ExtraParameters” key into Server.ini: -mod:NM4 -mode:XXXX. XXXX can be one of 3025, 3050, 3067 and 3070, it selects the timeline the server runs.
Permanent Ban

NetMech IV includes a permanent ban feature, once banned the players cannot unban themselves by editing the registry like it was possible in MW4. The server now bans the PC so it will not be possible for the player rejoin the game unless he/she changes the PC or some major components inside like the CPU. Note that the check is totally on the server side so it would be very hard to find ways around it. The server admins should ban the players carefully and remember to unban the players after a while.
The MWHosts.txt file

In this file you can write the IP of your preferred servers, you will always see those servers in your servers list even if the server tracker services are down. Examples of server IPs are inside the file.
The NM4Options.ini file

In this file you can enable/disable some NM4 enhancements, as an example extra sounds. You can also choose a voice for the voice taunts between the available ones.