Overview:

           Mechcommander:Mercenaries (MCM) mod converts the gameplay experience of Mechwarrior 5 into a real-time strategy game.  Select and issue orders to your lance and other friendly units throughout Mechwarrior 5’s campaign mode.  Phase 1 of the project is a limited RTS experience that works with most of the base game’s story missions and procedurally generated levels. Additional RTS features, features from previous Mechcommander titles, and compatibility with Instant Action and Co-op will be added later.

This is currently being marked as a beta release.  There will be bugs and a few remnants of ongoing development for future phases that don't work in this version.  See the known issues section for a list of known bugs.  It isn't a comprehensive list, but covers some of the most common potential errors.


Installation:              
 
Unpack the zip file into MW5’s mod folder and activate it via the in-game mod menu. If using a Campaign start mod (for example: https://www.nexusmods.com/mechwarrior5mercenaries/mods/153 Extended Campaign Start), this must be used before activating Mechcommander.  Starting a new campaign (as of version 1.1) skips the tutorial through the mission where Freeman is acquired by default.  Loading an existing campaign save from that point or later should work for most story missions/quests, and all procedural missions.

Features:
New in 1.4

• Updated to support DLC 4: Rise of Rasalhauge game update
  

Known issues (lots):
See reddit post

New in 1.3.3

• Support for game version 1.1.303, Legends of the Kestrel Lancers DLC
• Stunt double is dead, game update fixed player mech AI for us
• Added additional bits to keybinds for WASD to avoid conflict with controller support in the base game
  

Known issues:

• CRITICAL: pressing mech switch button while in RTS mode will bork the mech switched to
• Minimap/battlegrid lacks icons and doesn't pan with player movement (updated map is WIP)
• First person mode doesn't work for the players mech (can swap to other mech while in FPS mode and use them)
• Mech swapping from first person may not cycle between all lancemates correctly.
  

New in 1.3: 

• Supports game version 1.1.300+
• See full changelog 
  

New in 1.2.2:

• Alt-clicking a friendly unit tile will deselect other units
• Unit status bars (doritos) now fade out when units are deselected but remain visible
• Left-clicking an enemy unit now displays their loadout in the top-right of the screen
  

New in 1.2.1:

• Friendly fire removed for allied mechs.  Enemies and allied non-mech units will still take damage from their friends. (Thanks to MagnumGB's suggestion)
• Added an attempted fix for a reported bug with the camera spawning in a mech but not being able to move 
• (related to fix) If mason's stunt double fails to spawn, another mech is chosen as "your mech" for the purposes of F6
• Reinforcements should now be facing outwards when dropped by the leopard.
• Added a red "move to" icon when targeting a non-friendly building 
• attacking raid targets still not 100% working, non targets still being picked up as hostile.
• Reinforcement menu closes automatically when deployment button is hit.
• Reinforcement dropship turrets now engage nearby targets.
  

New in 1.2:

• Commander Mason now has a stunt double that knows how to pilot a mech.
• Reinforcements menu now allows the player to drop their spare mechs into missions
• See our reddit page for more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechcommanderMercs/comments/i9rxmc/version_12_change_log/
  

New in 1.1:

• New campaigns automatically skip Tutorial through the mission where Freeman is acquired while the mod is installed to avoid missions that don't work with MCM
• Added a force move command to alt + right click.  This is a beta implementation to help with Demolition missions, will be refined later
• Additional bug fixes
  

      
Basic camera controls:

• WASD pans the camera around the level
• Mouse scrolling to the edge of the screen will pan the camera in that direction
• Holding the middle mouse button will rotate/tilt the camera with mouse movement
• Mouse scroll wheel zooms the camera in/out.
• Double clicking any unit tile will pan the camera to the unit and follow it until panned again.
• Holding shift increases pan speed
  

Above: a friendly unit tile


Unit Selection:

• Left clicking a friendly unit will select it
• Left clicking an enemy unit will display it's unit tile
• Left click and drag will select friendly units in a selection box (highlighted units will be selected)
• Holding shift while selecting a unit will add them to the current selection
• Holding control while left clicking a friendly unit tile will remove them from the selection
• Holding alt while left clicking a friendly unit tile will remove all other units from the selection
• Clicking on empty terrain or selecting no units with the selection box will clear the current selection
• When selected units have combat targets previously assigned by the player, all of the targets will have their unit tiles displayed.
  

Control Groups:

• Ctrl+[1,2, …, 0] will add the current selection to a control group
• Shift+[1,2, …, 0] will add the control group to the current selection
• [1, 2, …, 0] changes the current selection to the designated control group
• Double clicking a control group tile will pan the camera and follow a random unit in the group
  

Unit Commands:

• Right clicking a location will order the selected group to move to location
• Alt + right clicking a location will order selected group to force move to a location (ie, smash through building)
• Right clicking an enemy unit will order the selected group to attack
• Right clicking a friendly unit will order friendly units to guard the selected unit
• Pressing J activates jump jet mode. 
• While jump jet mode is active, right clicking a location orders all selected units with jump jets to attempt to jump to location**.
  

Miscellaneous Commands:

• H activates thermal/heat vision (if implemented by another mod***)
• N activates night vision
• R opens the reinforcement menu
• F6 toggles between RTS and FPS mode****
• F7/Space Bar toggles slow-mo time (may only be bound to space in current build)
• Alt-K hides HUD (bound to the base game keybinding)
• Mousing over a friendly unit tile reveals a small command bar with a range control tool and eject button.
• The range control tool sets a unit’s preferred fighting range between Short, Medium, and Long range.  When in combat, they will gradually try to move into the selected range bracket.
• The eject button takes 2 clicks, one to open the cover, one to trigger the pilot to eject.
  

**: Jump jet mode has each unit attempt to find a point to start their jump based on how many jump jets they have equipped. Takeoff points will be marked on the HUD shortly after the order is issued.  There are several bugs and edge cases that just don’t work well.

***: The base game doesn’t have a finished heat vision mode but had links in that allow it to be implemented by mods. Mechcommander has the keybinding for it in case other mods in use have it (Reloaded, for example).  The unfinished base version is not useful, but will display if no other mod has implemented a better version.

****: This was a development tool but is useful for circumventing certain bugs.  It also has its own quirks when coming in and out of the cockpit view.  Don’t expect it to work flawlessly every time.


Mod Compatibility:

Mechcommander should work with most mods, and is set to override conflicting assets by
loading last.  While we can’t say exactly which mods will or won’t work with it, the following may help:

• Any mod that relies on modifying the player controller will most likely not work, or experience some additional bugs
• AI mods may have issues, especially with friendly AI mods.  Mechcommander expects that certain inputs to the AI will result in certain behaviors running.  This may not be true with other AI modifications installed.
• Mods which change the main menu won’t show up while Mechcommander is active.  Mods like the Campaign Start mod can be used to get a save file set up before activating Mechcommander.
• Some UI mods may have anomalies if they change target paper dolls or the minimap/battlegrid.
  

Known Issues:

• There is no option to change keybindings.  Options menu will be added at a later time.
• Some story missions may have objectives that currently can not be done in RTS mode.
• Minimap icons are missing or all black. Waiting for DLC 1's patch to see if it is easier to fix with sensor improvements.  This is currently due to a workaround of the minimap being centered on the camera's view instead of being linked to the player's mech.
• Commander Mason’s stunt double gets stuck inside of the dropship on deployment, then falls through when the dropship leaves
• Commander Mason’s stunt double comms chatter is a random pilot each mission.
• Commander Mason's stunt double can not trigger objectives.  
• Commander Mason's mech doesn't show up in end of mission screen
• All friendly mechs being destroyed does not trigger mission failure
• Jump jet mode sometimes causes mechs to get stuck toggling jump jets after completing a move
• Jump jet mode sometimes fails to work after first jump
• Pathing for jumping up/down cliffs may result in poor choices of liftoff point
• Camera’s ground collision pawn for panning may occasionally cause it to go underground when colliding with odd geometry.  Double clicking a unit tile or control group or using F6 will fix this issue.
• The camera itself doesn’t have collision and can float into objects/terrain.
• Defend orders are ignored when enemies are present
• Sometimes a target unit tile stops displaying the target paper doll.
• Units set to long range may end up falling back an extreme distance over the course of a fight.
• When issuing a move order after an attack order, units may not stay locked to the original target.
• Mech run animations sometimes show an odd leg position while zoomed out.  This is a bug in the LoD animations in the base game.
• Unit paper dolls may be missing information in the mechbay and market.
• Hiding the HUD does not hide unit status bars or objective markers.
• When entering the esc menu, the player is put into the cockpit (intentional behavior to avoid bugs), but stays there when the menu is closed.  Press F6 to return to RTS mode as a work around.
• Potential issue with alt-tabbing and returning to game causing a missing mouse (unclear, one report of issue)
• Mousing over enemy tanks turrets/weapons doesn't display correct (red) mouse icon.