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[Osric Lancaster]

I'm combining a few ideas from other posts as well as my own ideas on increasing time to kill and playability. If anyone else has suggestions on how to increase the Time To Kill in MWO (that don't involve hiding behind turrets), this is the thread for them. If anyone has a good link to another good thread on the subject, post it.

Spoiler

( I had a great big old post going and then MWO forum decided I wasn't logged in anymore. So if forgot to explain something I'll just have to field questions / modify the OP. )

Problem 1 - Movement profiles; aka - when assault 'Mechs stub their toes on every little pebble.
Solution 1 - For each 'Mech have a "knee height", or a check height for obstacles. If a 'Mech runs into something under it's knee height check, it simply steps over the obstacle. That way, light 'Mechs will be more easily stopped by short vertical 'steps' or walls, and assaults will be slowed down more by higher grade inclines.

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Problem 2 - Mech hit box scale effects chance to hit, a 'Mech as well as damage concentration per section. Armor in TT was balanced around equal chance to hit.

Spoiler

To visualize this, consider a spider and a centurion walking at the same rate through a stream of fire from a laser or an ac/2.

spider
[RT] [CT] [LT]
*bang* *bang* *swish* *swish* *swish* *swish*

centurion
[RT][RT][RT] [CT][CT] [LT][LT][LT]
*bang* *bang* *bang* *bang* *bang* *swish*

This is why you see 'Mechs like the Centurion relegated to door prizes, and why people don't like to put launchers on Battle masters. It makes you a bigger target.

Solution 2 - Have armor per section be defined as an array of 'zones', with the number of these zones equal to (hit box surface area) / (base area), with a starting minimum of one 'zone'. Each section has an amount of armor equal to the canon armor per ton you would have for a section. Ergo, a fully armored spider's arm would have at least one zone with 10 points of armor, and if the arm's hit box surface area / base area is 1.3 your armor zones for that arm would look like this -
zone area
base area - - [To-Hit]
(1.0) - - - - - [43.5%]
1.0 - - - - - - [43.5%]
0.3 - - - - - - [13%]

Shots to a section of a 'Mech distributed between the sections based on the amount of the total hit box area they represent. So in this case it's either 1/2.3 or .3/2.3 though this is just a quick example.

The base armor can therefore be thought of as both ablative hit-points and as a sort of barrier armor rating. An AC/20 shell would punch through one location and destroy 10 points of structure. Focused damage weapons would be better at striping all the armor from one zone, and multiple impact weapons would have a better chance of hitting structure through stripped zones.

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Problem 3 - Light 'Mechs don't really work as scouts when you have a great big red triangle painting everything from across the map.

Solution 3 - Have the detectable sensor radius of a 'Mech depend on their tonnage and engine rating, and then modified by things like TAG, ECM, BAP etc.
In order of effect -
Base Detection Range (or DR hereafter) = Tonnage * 5m/T + (engine rating)
BAP: +200m DR.
ECM: DR = (Detection Range / 2)
NARC/TAG: TAGed targets are radar visible, period. 750m TAG range.

Example :
A Locust has a base detectable radius of 100 meters (20 tons * 5m/t). With a 180XL that extends to 280 meters (100m + 180). By the same token, an Atlas with a 300 std engine would show up on sensors within 800m normally. Say BAP extends the detectible range of all enemy 'Mechs by 200m. So with BAP you can detect and lock the Atlas at 1000m, and the Locust at 480m. ECM halves detectible range of 'Mechs under it's effect. ( If that's a D-DC your detection range is 500m with BAP, and the locust sticking to it is sensor invisible outside 240m. )
NARC/TAG and you can lock it.


Afterword -
Suggestions Two and Three are largely complimentary. Two increases the time to kill of larger 'Mechs while making them more valuable as damage sponges, while Three increases the time to kill of smaller 'Mechs while making them more valuable as scouts.