Mechwarrior Online Binary Laser Cannon ("Blazer") beam color Mod

by SaltyPuglord

Action Shot

Personally, I found the default "pure white" Binary Laser Cannon beam color in Mechwarrior Online to be rather boring.

So, I taught myself how to edit CryEngine .mtl (material) files, and experimented with lots of different colors for BLazer beams. After trying cyans, clan ERML yellows, and even blood red... I eventually found that a particular Hot Pink: #FF69B4 = (255, 105, 180) = "1.0, 0.411765, 0.70588" was my personal favorite. I found it was distinctive without being annoying, and unobtrusive without being boring.

To install:

  1. Download the .pak file below.
  2. Copy that .pak file to your Mechwarrior Online\Game\ directory. (Some version of Windows may require administrator permission for this.)
  3. OPTIONAL: delete your Mechwarrior Online shader cache.
  4. Start up Mechwarrior Online and play.

(If you don't delete your MWO shader cache, you might have to load each level in the game twice in order to be absolutely certain that the mod has fully taken effect. This loading of each level will happen as you play the game normally, so you don't have to delete your shader cache. The mod is just guaranteed to take full effect immediately, if you delete your shader cache before starting up MWO.)

To un-install:

  1. Delete the z_BlazerColors .pak file from your Mechwarrior Online\Game\ directory.

That's it. The mod is only one file. To uninstall the mod, you just delete the file. Everything goes back to the way it was before.

Download link:

z_BlazerColors_HotPink_20231026.pak

Legality / CoC:

This mod does not modify your Weapons.xml file. So by the current CoC for Mechwarrior Online (October, 2023), it is allowed. Also, I do not believe that this mod gives anyone any kind of an unfair advantage. Binary Laser Cannons already have a different beam color than every other kind of laser. Making the beams slightly pink doesn't make Blazer beams any easier/harder to visually identify than they already were.

Copying / Using / Etc:

Go nuts, I don't care. This is hardly the first laser color mod for MWO. In fact, I was inspired to make this by Arjoe's "clan heavy laser color" mod. If PGI wants to include this mod in a larger set of modifications to make laser colors in MWO less boring, have at it. I'm happy to sign whatever paperwork to give up any right(s) I may have to it. (I would only ask that I be given credit, so nobody could come along later and claim it was their idea. Or if they want to pay a digital artist to make a work-for-hire color mod identical to this, that's fine too.)