Sniper09121986, on 09 May 2015 - 06:09 AM, said:
Now I got myself thinking on next possible Clan mech choices. The criteria so far are it has to be omnimech and not too far away in the timeline. Much more importantly, new mechs have to actually fulfil their unique roles to avoid unnecessary duplication, and here the criteria tend to get much more vague. Mine are that there is a fast/mobile mech and a well armed mech in a 5 ton bracket that is not identical to what we have at the moment (I was considering TRO 3050, 3055 and 3058). Here is how it looks.
- 20-25 tons - Mist Lynx? Seriously? And the only alternatives are Fire Moth (against which the devs spoke out recently) and Fire Falcon (which does not seem to have JJ or ECM).
- 30-35 tons - actually OK. We have Kit Fox and Adder for firepower and Arctic Cheetah for run and gun. Hardly anything new there.
- 40-45 tons - we have Ice Ferret that can run and Shadow Cat that can do everything else Thing is, they are both 45 tons, so something is in order for 40 ton weight, but what? Viper is an absolute joke with 1 ton pod space over Mist Lynx (being almost twice as heavy and without ECM), but Phantom has even two tons less and no JJ. Battle Cobra has been discussed already and, considering all of the above, does not seem all that bad, as does Pouncer (15.5 tons pod space, hardwired JJ, same old 97 kph but no ECM).
- 50-55 tons - either JJ (Nova) or pod space (Stormcrow) but not together and with no real speed option. For speed we have Black Lanner (120-150 kph of it with or w/o MASC, ECM but no JJ and even less pod space than Nova), and for all other things Huntsman (essentially Stormcrow with JJ... and a mohawk).
- 60-65 tons - all bases covered already. Might squeeze in Linebacker (only mech in this group with JJ), but personally I am not convinced with 17.5 tons pod space.
- 70-75 tons - pretty much only Night Gyr as discussed above, since Nova Cat appears only in TRO 3060 with all of its heavy lasers, HAGs and ATM (not featured in early configs so who knows?).
- 80-85 tons - no Arrow IV to the leg actuator? Forget Naga then. Only Blood Asp... but that is even less likely than Nova Cat.
- 90-100 tons - Kingfisher (even less pod space than Executioner with none of its compensation) or Turkina (10 tons of pod space over Warhawk with hardwired JJ). Hardly even a contest, but we already have D-Wolf-S, so I am not sure.
I actually find Mist Lynx a decent mech. It is certainly fun to pilot (the only issues are the big arms and lack of torso hardpoints).
Viper is better in almost every aspect over the Ice Ferret. Besides, it
will fly! (8 hardwired jump jets). And it is a 40 tonner.
Battle Cobra and Stooping Hawk sucks.
Black Lanner is a terrific mech that can look
amazing or
horrible, depending on the artist.
The Linebacker has jumpjets only in the H configuation that is far away in the timeline (3062), so it don't add much.
Night Gyr is a beast and a no-brainer for the next Clan pack.
And between the
Turkina and the Kingfisher, there is no real choice.
If PGI doesn't release the Firemoth (without MASC), chances are we will get a full "Jade Falcon mech pack". (and oh boy, those mechs will be sweet)