MercTech: Campaign Start Options

The Campaign Start Options Menu

#### Preset

At first, many options are going to be greyed out and locked. At the top of the menu is a drop down labeled "Preset". This menu contains several option setting templates based on level of desired difficulty. If you find yourself overwhelmed with the options and just want to start a game this is a good place to go.

If, however, you want to customize the campaign settings to taste select the custom option at the bottom of the drop down. This will unlock all available options.

#### Start Year

This setting determines the starting year of the campaign. This will effect the tech level available in markets, tech level of enemy and friendly forces encountered on missions, and the tech level available for the random starting lance. The starting lance will still have a chance to pull from lower tech levels as well. This just expands the pool from which the starting mechs are drawn.

#### Starting Faction

This modifies the percentages given to each mech and variant for the random starting lance. For example, if you chose Kurita as a starting faction you are more likely to get mechs that were more commonly found in Kurita space. As of Merctech 2.0 this does not change actual start location.

#### Ironman

3 engine hits will destroy the engine. Torso twists are limited to 60 degrees (quirks can alter this). Engines and Gyros must be replaced if they are destroyed. Cold Storage is per planet and includes a storage cost.

#### Damage Models

##### MW5

This damage mode tries to stay close to the range and damage values of the vanilla game.

##### TableTop

These damage and range values are based on the table top rule books where 1 hex is 30 meters. However as armor values are consistent at double the TableTop, weapons deal their TableTop damage closer to 5 seconds rather than 10 seconds. All further damage modes use TableTop as a base.

##### MercTech

This Damage setting doubles the TableTop damage of Autocannons, Machine Guns, and Gauss Rifles. Autocannons now have a 5 meter spread at their optimal range. Gauss Rifles are generally considered too powerful in this damage model.

##### MercTechV2

This Damage setting adds 50% damage to the Table top damage of AC and maintains the spread from MercTech, but reduces Machine Guns and Gauss Rifles back to TableTop values.

##### Extreme Munitions

Adds a 300% bonus to TableTop Autocannon damage along with the 5 meter spread at optimal. In addition it also adds a 50% bonus to PPC and LRM/SRM damage. This damage mode is the one intended to be used when using ammo management in order to keep ACs competitive with energy weapons.

#### Ammo Management

Enabling this setting will cause ammo to be persistent between missions and require the player to make sure they keep stocked up on ammo.

#### Global Damage Modifier

Adds a modifier to weapon damage in order to adjust the duration on engagements. A lower value will increase time to kill and a higher value will shorten it.

#### Enemy Damage Modifier

Adds a modifier to to the damage output of enemies allowing the player to customize difficulty to their comfort level.

#### Enforce Weight balance

MerchTech allows you to freely customize your mech with the only limitation being the type of hard points (Energy, Ballistic, Ect). There is no restriction based on weapon size like in vanilla. Additionally in MercTech each component of a mech variant is calibrated to the weight of its stock loadout. If this option is enabled your mech will receive a scaling mobility penalty to any area that is over or under the weight of the stock loadout. You can see the current weight balance of a component displayed under the armor values in the Mechlab screen. Currently only critical slot items are counted towards this value and the weight of armor is not taken into account.

#### Weapon Degradation

Weapons will degrade over time based off their Mean Activations Between Failures. If a weapons quality reaches 0 it will drop down a tier level. If a tier 0 weapon reaches 0 quality it will break. This option will also disable torso mounted weapons from automatically adjusting their convergence based on where the crosshair is pointing. Instead calibration is set to the weapons optimal range by default and can be altered by the player in the Mechlab under weapon groups. Weapons mounted on arms will continue to auto calibrate their convergence like in the vanilla game.

#### Ammo Multiplier

This setting will increase or decrease the amount of ammo per ton. The default is 2.0 and can be adjusted between 1.0 and 4.0 in increments of 0.5.

#### Enable Shielding Skill

This will toggle the vanilla shielding skill on or off. If this is turned off a pilots shield skill will have no effect on the mech.

#### Legged Salvage Chance/Cored Salvage Chance

These two options set the chance of a mech being salvageable if it was killed by being legged or if it was cored respectively. Both settings go from 0%-100%.

#### Enable Physical Combat

This setting will allow meaningful damage when colliding with or dropping onto enemies.

#### Enable Friendly Fire

This setting will add Friendly fire to weapons as well as physical combat (if physical combat is also enabled).

#### Enable Drop Limits

This setting will toggle if the vanilla tonnage limits are enabled for missions. If this setting is disabled players will still be able to see the "Recommended tonnage" based on the mission difficulty.

#### Legging Kills

If this is disabled a mech can still survive even if both legs are destroyed, requiring either the CT or head to be destroyed in order to kill a mech.

#### Limp Speed

This is the speed a mech that has lost one (or both if Legging Kills is disabled) will move at. The value is set to a % of max speed as well as a speed cap and mechs will move at whatever value is lower.

#### Arm Bonuses

This setting will add a set of bonuses to weapons mounted in the arms. The bonuses are reduced heat for energy weapons, reduced spread for ballistic weapons, and increased optimal/max range for missiles.

#### AC Cooldown Modifier

This will adjust the rate of fire for ACs. ACs will also have their damage modified tp match the rate of fire. The modifier can be set from 1.0 to 4.0 where 4.0 will cause ACs to act similar to vanilla. Note that a setting of 4.0 will make burst fire ACs extremely powerful and the AI has access to these weapons as well.

#### Enable heat/Gyro Effects

Enables heat effects like slowing down at high heat and other effects that can be toggled on and off individually. As well as enabling gyro effects where taking to much damage or walking into mechs/walls will cause your torso twist rate to be reduced and require you to slow down in order to recover.

#### Heat Effects Percentage

This setting sets when heat effects (if enabled) begin to take place and can be set from 0% to 100%.

#### Enable shutdown checks

By default in MercTech you will be able to run your mech up to 150% heat before it will be forced to shut down with no option to override and you will never take structure damage. With this option enabled high heat will cause random rolls to take place that if failed will prompt a warning to be displayed at the top of your screen. The player will then have a limited window to press the override key or the mech will shut down.

#### Enable Ammo Explosions

While you will not take structure damage in MercTech because of heat, with this option at high heat levels you will run the risk of any ammo remaining in your mech detonating.

#### Enable AI Pilot rolls

This option will see the AI subject to any of the above heat checks.

#### Enable Damage Quirks

This option will enable the damage boost given to higher tier weapons. If disabled higher tier weapons will still maintain their heat and cooldown quirks.

#### Extreme Mode

This mode will disable hit feedback to the players crosshairs, disable enemy health updates and critical hit messages and direct fire weapons will fire straight ahead from where the mount is pointing. In addition only one autosave file + manual save file will be available.