One way to circumvent people being afraid of losing their mechs are.....
1) Starter mechs are permanent. And you should have a stable of up to 160 to 200 tons.
They can be destroyed, wrecked for salvage by the enemy and modified to a very limited degree (like 5 tons on an Atlas and 2.5 tons on a centurion ??).
Houses will help with free repairs. But if you need to get a mech out of the hangar quicker, you can opt to pay for your own techs instead.
Houses will replace the mechs if you lose them, but don't expect shipments to come in fast unless you are willing to put in some c-bills to "encourage" the supplier to get your shipment on the next earliest drop.
2) Rental mechs that you pay for ingame with C-bills, don't come as a single mech. So maybe you rented the Commando for a week, you might be given 3 Commandos in case a few get damaged and need repairs.
Of course if you modded one and it got shot out, there goes your parts.
Again Houses will keep their bargain for ammo and repairs. But custom parts, you need to get it yourself.
3) Permanent or semi-permanent mechs via cash shop. Instead of just buying 1 mech for permanent, make it like a contract instead.
For example, "Defiance has awarded *callsign* of Hanson Rough Riders a full year of supplies and insurance for his ZEU-9S Zeus "
So while you will lose the Zeus in real time combat, NPC jumpships will jump over to your location and drop you off a new chassis of the Zeus. depending on what variant you had chosen of course.
Of course there SHOULD be some down time for each shipment (not as long as starter mechs being shipped over of course), so as to encourage people to take care of their mechs. Custom equipped parts will be poofed as well or use as salvage if your mech is gone and the enemy lay claim to the field.
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I believe others would have better ideas though. *shrug*
But if mechs aren't too scarce more people will be willing to embrace full on salvage.
Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 30 November 2011 - 08:23 AM.
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