Modding Mechs

The following information will be heavily based on the New Mech Creation Guide created by Zombeh.

Basics of Mechwarrior 5 Mech Composition
Mech assets and files can be found in the contents folder of the editor. Under Content/objects/mechs. In general, mechs are comprised of 3 main components: Materials and Textures, The Skeletal Mesh and Animations, and the Data Files. These can all be found in various sections of the specific mech subfolders.

Materials and Textures refer to all of the visuals that are applied to the base mesh of the mech. These can vary from the, paint scheme, to the material of the weapons, or to look of the cockpit glass.

The skeletal mesh is the base model of the mech complete with rigging, hard point locations, and many other things. The animations can also be handled through the skeletal mech in UE4.

Data files refer to any other file that could easily be represented by a spreadsheet. This can include the things like the HPS which defines what kind of hard points the specific mech has. There are many other files as well that all need to either be edited or created in order to add a new mech.

All of these elements are needed to create a new mech. However, they are not all needed if the goal is to just modify certain characteristics of existing mechs.

Guides to the Different Mech Elements

 * Materials, Textures, and Paint Schemes
 * The Skeletal Mesh
 * Hardpoints, Mech Data, and Loadouts