TheFlyingScotsman, on 09 June 2013 - 10:16 AM, said:
Whatever its origins, bloat boating means stacking the same weapon repeatedly in order to reduce ammo issues and have all the weapons fire at the same rate, generally strike the same section and deal all their damage at once. These builds have an excessive advantage over balanced builds because they are able to one or two-shot enemies because all their weapons will strike the same point at the same time.
I mostly agree, with the caveat that the underlined only applies to direct fire weapons. There is no more extreme example of a one sided, good for exactly one thing mech than a Catapult stripped of everything to boat 90 LRMs, but if LRMs were workiing 100% as they should (ie hitting CT less often), the underlined would mean it is not a boat.
However, one or 2 shotting is also not necessarily true. A 9ml hunchback CAN theoretically one shot something, but it is very rare to see it happen. A 9 flamer hunch or 6mg spider are not one shotting anything with more armor than a grizzly bear
To me, boating generally starts at 3-4, depending on what other weapons are mounted and also what the mech was designed for.
Side note: Interestingly enough, even things like 2 LRM 15s is flamed as boating in matches rofllolably often, specifically with respect to LRMs. It appears to have somehow crept in that almost anything with LRMs is a "boat" for some reason...
Edited by Zerberus, 09 June 2013 - 03:01 PM.