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I'm able to entertain myself with a variety of weapons. from streaks to LLs, there's a nice choice out there. but there are a few BT weapons that i'd love to see introduced. these weapons would change the strategies of the game a little bit. Not a lot, mind you, but it would give some extra options.
first, The mortar.
The mortar is an outdated weapon replaced by the LRMs. They lacked in damage potential, ammo capacity, number of tubes, etc. But then they had a great revival when the AMS was rediscovered. LRM effectivness was reduced and so mortars were taken out of the attic because they were suddenly viable again.
I would love to see mortars introduced to MWO. I'm not sure how they would work, or if they would be semi-guided shells or not. But I would love to see them.
some advantages they give are;
They don't alert the enemy.
They are a good weapon to bridge the MG~AC/2 weight gap.
They give another option for indirect fire other than LRMs.
They give the ability for indirect fire to mechs with no missile hardpoints
They can potentially have specialty rounds such as flare for dark maps or smoke for cover. (these could be offered in half ton values.)
they give light and meduim mechs a low weight ballistics substitute that is more affective than the MG.
And they are not detrimented by AMS.
Another weapon that I would like to see in Mechwarrior is Meduim Range Missiles.
MRMs are notoriously known as the least affective missiles of the three main types. they have no guidance and low accuracy. but they are bulk weapons. a single ton of MRM ammo would be approximately two hundred rounds because of their incredibly compact design. the launchers also have huge launcher bandwidth with the maximum size launcher firing 40 inaccurate but terrifying missiles. and with TAG or NARC, they become extremely deadly weapons as they become guided. And if accuracy is so bad that the weapon isn't really worth having, just add a heat-seeking mechanic; The missiles would lazily gravitate towards mechs. The hotter the mech, the stronger the pull. that would make PPC boats think twice about overheating when fighting a MRM bearing mech. Since the reason that you can fit so many MRMs per ton is that the guidance system has been removed, maybe the Heat-seeker version would just be a specialty round that has significantly less per ton.
MRMs would be a nice addition because their design isn't as linear as LRMs, but not as range restricted as SRMs. also, MRMs have a natural 100m minimum range, which will limit the number of brawlers that carry it over SRMs.
My third weapon that I would like to see is a bit unusual. The NARC targeting system is probably the least used 'weapon' in the entire game. In all my time playing MWO, i've seen maybe five people using it. Not to say it is bad or anything, I just never see anyone carry them.
In canon, the NARC system also had a delayed detonation explosive round that was an alternate ammunition. This little devil would be fired like the regular NARC, but it would land on the target and wait. then you would trigger the weapon and the missile would explode, doing a substantial ammount of damage. and you could stick multiple narcs on before detonation.
But wait! there's more! The explosive NARC was described as half the weight and size as the regular round because it didn't have all the targeting equipment. So it would be 12rds/ton. If I could NARC an enemy and then switch ammo to a usable weapon, I would definately take NARC with me in some of my Missile based builds. Plus, since the NARC is such a minor device, this would be a great way to test the specialty ammo function to see if it is working. It obviously wouldn't do much damage, but a healthy 2~5 damage with splash damage be nice.
this is my Logical order from top to bottem most important weapons I would like to see in MWO in the next six months or so. The only issue I see is that the devs said they would add weapons when it was a staple weapon to a new mech were adding, and none of these are staples of any mech. Except there was a catapult that fielded MRMs, but we have enough of those already.
Maybe i'm overstepping my bounds, but these weapons, specifically NARC and Mortars, would change a few tactics of the game. More NARCs would mean more use from SRMs because they miss less often. MRMs with Heat-seeking would mean more people minding their heat when facing MRMs. etc. Mortars would vary up the long range situation a lot.
I've given this topic and post a lot of thought. It's been sitting on my mind for longer than two weeks and I think these are the best three weapons to add, though there are others.
Tell me what you guys think.
EDIT: I missed an important detail. The MRMs that I am speaking of are not available till 3058, making my ploy entirely mute.
Edited by PenitentTangent, 03 June 2013 - 02:26 PM.
