Thoroughly confused.

[jiduthie]

There's obviously something here, so i'm trying, and i understand this isn't finished, but I'm having a terrible time getting into the game.

First, I can't seem to find any sort of manual or even a listing of the controls. I'm certain there must be more hot keys than "shift c" and "i" but i'm not aware of them. This is despite the fact that the game uses a number of acronyms that could use explaining. A lot of stuff I can find on the wiki but its always unclear to me how relevant it is to GH2 as opposed to 1. Especially frustrating is that it seems that the "doc" folder is full of explanations of things other than how to actually play and make sense of the game.

Second, why do the characters speak so cryptically? Often I'll talk to an npc and she'll make a completely nonsensical comment, or some non-sequitur that seems it belongs in a conversation of which I haven't been made aware. They appear to be random comments created from a list of phrases and objects. I assume these are for flavor. They taste confusing.

Third, after muddling through and piecing together bits and pieces from the forums and wiki that seemed relevant I manage to end up with what I figure is a decent starting character with a basic buru buru and a bunch of recently bought odds and ends from the tech outlet in my home town of Galconde. So, I attempt to bolt some stuff onto my big guy and I notice that my MV and TR ratings have dropped. After finding out from the wiki that these things are important, I remove and destroy a bunch of stuff trying to get it to go back up. Fiddling and reloading a few times, I find that installing even one ton of new equipment onto the thing reduces my mv and tr by one. This is disheartening because it seems a shame that my stock model can't been improved at all without incurring penalties, and inexplicable because the wiki explains that mv/tr drop as a result of weight but also lists variants of the buru buru which weigh 59 tons without dropping down to -5 mv/tr while mine only weighs 56.5.

I really like the idea of this game, and I really want to play it. Any help anyone could give me on how to figure out how to do that would be much appreciated.


Edit: Also,  a bunch of my stats are red and reduced, and theres what appears to be an angry face underneath this. I guess its a status ailment? My health page is totally clear and I haven't even entered combat yet so I have no idea why I would be losing stats.

[JohnnyDmonic]

Hmm.  'h' brings up a short, somewhat out of date help file, if I recall correctly.  If you open up your  gearhead.cfg file in notepad it gives you a mostly complete list of keyboard commands.

NPCs non-mission related dialog is all random fluff, yes.

There's a difference between equipped weight and installed weight, both count against MV/TR seperately.  I don't recall the formula despite extensive time spent designing mecha files.  If any of the modders are still around I keep hoping for something on the mecha screen that shows how much installed/equipped until the next MV penalty.

My recommendation for starting mecha for a newer player, depending on which faction you choose, in descending order:

Warcry
Galah
Haiho or Starwarrior Buru Buru (alternatively the Pirate themed Buru Buru if you can get it, or if nothing else maybe the Devil Buru Buru, or whatever the arena variant is called)

I don't remember if the Puma is in the base mecha set.  If it is, and if it comes up as available as a starter mecha, that might be a good choice as well.  The Las-10 it carries would make for a darn good starting weapon. (although it has a slightly lower recharge rate than later versions of the same weapon)

Also Heavy Actuators increase the amounted of Equipped weight your mech can carry, and a few of the Buru Buru variants do have them, which may explain some of the differences. (although I believe they count against installed weight)  Again...I am woefully inadequate at keeping track of the formulas.  Also there is a wide variety of minor variations amongst the different Buru Buru makes and models.  I recommend the Starwarrior if going with a Buru Buru because it has slightly better mass modification than most of the older models.  However, it comes pretty lightly armed and I recommend dropping some of what it has (and probably any armor) (and maybe ripping out the Power Supplies in the arms), keeping the PAR-2, and picking up a Shaka Cannon and/or a Mecha Blunderbuss as soon as possible.

For a newer player I recommend starting with mecha piloting (and probably gunnery) as high as you can, Reflex 15, and trying to keep your mech at -3 MV or better.  In the case of a Buru Buru that may not be possible, but a Buru Buru is a tiny bit beefier than some of the other starting mechs, so maybe that's not too bad.  Changing installed equipment without mecha engineering is a painful and mostly futile endeavor.

Until the combat modifications in the next patch, I recommend ditching all starting armor if doing so will help you shave a point of MV off.  Getting hit 1/3rd as often is superior in my opinion than soaking a hit or two.

Most of the things that were true of GH1 are still true for GH2.  Off the top of my head:
Gyros and Target Comps have been replaced by more generalized computers with targetting/maneuvering programs.
Some differences in formula.
Energy weapons drain power, Power Supplies increase the base amount of power a mech stores, regen is based on engine.
a few different special weapon effects
Robots and animal domination work somewhat differently
Heavy Actuators were added
Menu-control is not currently supported
SpaceFlight movement system added
Long Range Scanner was recently added, a 'U'sable system
Transformation system on some mecha, a 'U'sable system was added

Anything else just feel free to ask.  We love talking about the game. =)

[Frumple]

Edit: Also,  a bunch of my stats are red and reduced, and theres what appears to be an angry face underneath this. I guess its a status ailment? My health page is totally clear and I haven't even entered combat yet so I have no idea why I would be losing stats.

Moral penalties, which isn't entirely clear, so let's say more. Basically, your character has a mood; it's affected in ways I'm not entirely clear about by your personality traits (Press @ in game, if you haven't before) and what you do/happens to you. I know winning fights, certain foods (Deluxe rations/noodles, chocolate, $150+ cash restaurants), and having good conversation all increase your morale. Conversely, losing, most of th'lower quality food, and having poor conversations (Mostly when people have serious clashes with you; i.e. they tell you to buzz off or whatever. Their relation with you is multiple red '-'s, basically) will reduce your morale.

Th'little 'angry face' is your morale indicator; in ASCII, at least, it comes in four varieties: Red, Yellow, Blank, and Green. The first two there are increasing stat penalties; iirc, you can only get -1 to a stat via morale, but that's potentially -1 to all of them. Red's worse than yellow. If there's no lil''-', then your morale is neutral, and any stat changes are coming from somewhere else (Cyberware, injury, certain items, i.e. Xozu.). If it's green, then you get bonuses; again, up to +1 to all.

About th'easiest way to keep your morale up is to buy $40-50k worth of deluxe rations th'momet you see them in a shop (and have th'cash) and stuff most of them either in your mech or a spare one. Takes a lot of button presses, but both feeds you and keeps you more or less happy for a loooong time.

Hmm.  'h' brings up a short, somewhat out of date help file, if I recall correctly.  If you open up your  gearhead.cfg file in notepad it gives you a mostly complete list of keyboard commands.

Th'major missing one, that I remember, is ctrl+p (um, or shift. I... forget, right now. Argh.), which switches from clock to tactics mode. Most of th'rest of it's in there, I think.

NPCs non-mission related dialog is all random fluff, yes.

Well, mostly random. Their little blips actually tell you stuff about their personality and th'personalities of th'folks they talk about, most of th'time, but the in-game impact is... pretty slim, at the moment. Mostly they're just yammering.

There's a difference between equipped weight and installed weight, both count against MV/TR seperately.  I don't recall the formula despite extensive time spent designing mecha files.  If any of the modders are still around I keep hoping for something on the mecha screen that shows how much installed/equipped until the next MV penalty.

This seems to be th'GH1 formula. Other than th'actuators and gryoscope being shoved into software, I dunnae think it's terribly much different.

Anything else just feel free to ask.  We love talking about the game. =)

Yup. ^^

[jiduthie]

awesome guys thanks. I found the key list, and I started over with a joust that seems more amenable to modification. I've managed to install a bunch of armor and other random stuff like a targetting/maneuver computer thats increased my mv/tr to -1. Couple more things though.

I'd already been doing the "store stuff in a spare mecha" thing but for some reason the buru buru I'd captured and the mebsy i found in the mine have mysteriously disappeared from my field HQ. I'm positive I didn't sell them, it seems like they disappeared perhaps after i visited deep space the first time. Anyone have an idea how I might have lost them?

And speaking of deep space, it seems the main quest has me going to yatate spinner but finding anything on the tiny map outside the immediate exterior of galconde spinner seems rather haphazard. Again, frustrating especially when I seem to want to eat every two steps. Is there a better way around then simply moving in a random direction and hoping to get lucky?

Given that I lost those two mecha and am now pretty broke (I had a ton of stuff on them that i wasn't sure if i wanted to get rid of just yet) and given your advice about starting mecha I might start over again a fourth time. I've also ready elsewhere that the buru buru can take a beating better than some of the other mecha but I don't know how to compare that kind of thing. Is it simply weight that determines how resilient a mecha is?

[demnpercy]

Mechs that aren't at the same spinner/rock as you are don't show in your field HQ. You can move them to your current location for a nominal fee by talking to a travel agent, who can be found in every spaceport. You can also buy passage to other spinners/rocks from the travel agent pretty cheaply, so you don't have to wander around in deep space with no idea where you're going.

As for your other question, weight does tend to be positively correlated with durability, but does not determine it. If you want to know how much abuse a mecha body part can take, look at the numbers by it using the examine components command in your field HQ. One of the numbers is integral armor and one is internal structure, I don't remember which is which off the top of my head, but in any case, higher is better for both of them. This can be further modified by the anti beam and hardened attributes, which you aren't going to see until you're piloting something that costs about an order of magnitude more than a Buru Buru. Anti beam means that part takes less damage from beam weapons and I think hardened means that the integral armor takes half damage from attacks, but the bottom line is that these attributes will significantly increase the effective durability of a part that has them.

[JohnnyDmonic]

ANTIBEAM modules also take less damage from HYPER weapons, I think.  But there really aren't too many of them in the base mecha.

And yeah, like was said before my first guess for the missing mecha would be that you went to a different spinner.  Talk to the travel agent to get back to your first spinner, or move them to your current locations.

[wipmeeniebom]

I'd already been doing the "store stuff in a spare mecha" thing but for some reason the buru buru I'd captured and the mebsy i found in the mine have mysteriously disappeared from my field HQ. I'm positive I didn't sell them, it seems like they disappeared perhaps after i visited deep space the first time. Anyone have an idea how I might have lost them?

Spare mecha are parked in spinners. If you move to another spinner, the mecha is left behind.

In the spaceport, there's a guy that will move the mecha for you at a small fee.

And speaking of deep space, it seems the main quest has me going to yatate spinner but finding anything on the tiny map outside the immediate exterior of galconde spinner seems rather haphazard. Again, frustrating especially when I seem to want to eat every two steps. Is there a better way around then simply moving in a random direction and hoping to get lucky?

At the spaceport, there's guy selling tickets to other spinners. alking around in space is genrally not a good idea. Finding other spinners is annoyingly difficult, and walking in space takes a hug amount of time -- food can become a problem. The only reaon to go walking in space to various spinners is if you absolutely cannot afford the tickets.

Given that I lost those two mecha and am now pretty broke (I had a ton of stuff on them that i wasn't sure if i wanted to get rid of just yet) and given your advice about starting mecha I might start over again a fourth time.

If you're broke in the early  game, there's several places where you can get a free mecha. The earliest on would be the first dungeon (the dungeon immediately outside your home spinner).

I've also ready elsewhere that the buru buru can take a beating better than some of the other mecha but I don't know how to compare that kind of thing. Is it simply weight that determines how resilient a mecha is?

Not weight, directly. The MV and maximum speed are the most important factors (for example, hitting a flying pixie, with an MV of -1 and which goes to about 300 max flying speed, is very, very, difficult).  Anything with MV worse than -3 is as good as wearing tissue paper. It is possible to build a very fast mech that's also very heavy.

On that note, flying is almost always better than walking, if only because flying lets you reach maximum speed without hitting obstacles and therefore stopping your movement. Once you have a mecha of acceptable MV (-2 or -1), try to get it flying and increase the speed as much as possible without sacrificing MV. You can also work the other way around -- get a flying mech, then improve its MV.

[Ephafn]

Energy weapons drain power, Power Supplies increase the base amount of power a mech stores, regen is based on engine.

(emphasis mine)

As far as I could infer from the source code, this isn't true. The energy regeneration rate is pretty much equal to 1 * (number of non-full power sources), without any sort of scaling between SF:0 and SF:2. (I forgot how often it increases.)
That mean that, while the regeneration is actually significant in SF:0 battles, it is totally ineffective in SF:2 battles. You may get a little regeneration when moving from one battle to the next, but you shouldn't rely on power regeneration during a single battle.

[RadonPlasma]

I assume these are for flavor. They taste confusing.

Not only do you assume correctly, sir, but you phrased it quite pithily.  I'm rather tempted to sig that particular morsel.

As for MV/TR penalties on customized mechs, I'm pretty sure most of us have horror stories on that front.  While some models respond well enough, most just force you to accept an additional -1 or -2 and move on.  Or find better actuators and software.  Or lighter parts.  You might find a good solution, but don't be surprised if just choosing another mech turns out to work best.  Some custom/prize mechs (the ones with the crazy 'Adjective Adjective Model' titles) come with bonus weight reductions to either the chassis modules, equipment, or both.

Best of luck!