The following has come to my mind:
Lets take a Tier1 Large-Laser-Module which increases the base range of a LL by 10 meters. On the other hand we have a Large Laser, which occupies 2 Slots in our current mech. This Laser itself has its own 2 slots which can be filled with different modules. Lets assume, the Tier1 LL-Module takes up 1 slot. This way you could place 2 of these Tier1-Modules in a Large Laser and increase the overall base range by 20 meters. This way, you can personalize your weapons the way you want. You could even configure one Large Laser to have a shorter range but more firepower and another to have more range but lower firepower or whatever you want.
To balance the different modules, especially for larger weapons like the AC/20 with 7 slots, some modules may take more then one slot. A Module to increase the AC/20 damage may need 3 slots, so only 2 of them can be put into an AC/20.
The whole concept is not limited to weapons. It can be extended to all Items. Think of Gyros, Engines, Actuators and so on. All could be modified to get an individual mech with individual quirks.
Here a is picture how this could look like in mechlab. (bad paint skills (used the picture of the adv. smurfy/UI2.0-sketch)). The upper AC/5 has 2 modules attached, the lower AC/5 has none modules attached:
Benefits:
- Weapon-Costumization on the same layer
- no new mech slots needed
- not limited to weapons (engine, sensors, gyro, etc. possible)
Drawbacks:
- different costumized weapons of the same type may be difficult to handle for the server
What do you thinkof this idee? Worth a try or does it need polish?
Edited by Dunkelfalke, 16 May 2014 - 04:55 AM.