How do we eliminate this scourge? I have a suggestion. Simply make the targeting reticle jitter or wiggle about the center of the screen when a mech is jump-jetting or otherwise moving at a high velocity- say 90+% of their max velocity.The jitter should be small enough that a skilled pilot aiming at a mech at a medium range while jumping or running at full velocity can still hit the mech, but large enough that a skilled pilot would have great difficulty hitting a specific section.
This feature would reduce the viability of long-range poptart sniping while still leaving jumpjets and poptarting as a viable usage of coverage in a medium or short range battle. It would also mean that fast moving sniper mechs would have to slow down momentarily while lining up a shot, increasing their vulnerability to counter-fire.
This approach makes a great deal of in-universe sense- after all a giant walking robot is going to have massive amounts of inertia in its 20-30 ton limbs- countering that inertia to maintain a steady bead would take more and more energy the faster the mech is going. At high speeds, the servos could simply become overloaded.
One potential unintended side effect of this feature would be that Light mechs running at high speeds would no longer be able to fire accurately. This could easily be addressed by having the jitter effect increase with chassis weight- a 30 ton mech, after all, would require significantly less stabilization than a 90 ton mech.
Edited by DTrick, 23 April 2013 - 09:56 AM.