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But there's a problem. And that problem is called the Battlemaster.
According to One Medic Army's engine optimization chart, the 65-ton Thunderbolt thrives in the 295-310 range (excluding the 305). There, it will go between 81 and 85 km/h after speed tweak, with between 37 and 34 tons with endo-steel. I won't go into XL engines since it looks like a very broad 'Mech, and if you want a non-jump-jet light heavy you have the Dragon.
Then we can look at the Battlemaster. As an 85-tonner, 325-340 are its most efficient engines, with a speed range of 68 km/h to 71 km/h. That leaves between 52 and 46.5 tons with endo-steel. To reach the Thunderbolt's speeds, you'd need to go up to a 385 standard, for 81 km/h with the tweak. That means 30 free tons, 7 fewer than you'd have with the same speed on the Thunderbolt. So that's good; there's a niche for the Thunderbolt.
The thing is that you can't just look at the engine chart. There's the hitboxes to take into account, and the all-important hardpoints. That's good; it gives different chassis and variants ways of differentiating themselves. But that's really the crux of the problem. The Thunderbolt's hardpoints are nearly identical to the Battlemaster, but it gains one missile hardpoint at the cost of 3 (high mounted) energy hardpoints.
What does this mean overall? Well, not that there's no point to the Thunderbolt compared to the Battlemaster. If you want to cruise at low to mid 80s km/h, that's what it's there for. The problem is that that's about it. That's pretty much the whole niche: going 81-85 km/h. You can't really push it any faster since the engine maxes out, and at any lower speed, the Battlemaster just looks better in about every way. If you're not running a 300 engine, you're pretty much doing it wrong. That clamps down on creativity, and diversity. And are those 12-14 km/h really going to be worth losing 100+ armor, 15 tons of space, and almost half your energy hardpoints?
I know it's too early to judge, since we don't know quirks, pitch/yaw range/speed, missile tube size, etc. And if SRMs become good again, the extra hardpoint and likely larger tube size would go a long ways toward giving the Thunderbolt a definite role. Or maybe they'll change 'Mech scaling, and there will be a bigger size difference between weight classes. But barring major balance changes, or a really spectacular quirk, it seems like the Battlemaster confines the Thunderbolt to such a small piece of real estate as to make it usually a sub-par pick. Which I find sad, because I tend to like the mid-sized 'Mechs and this looks like a fun chassis.
I also know this is in part because of the current meta's inherent bias toward heavier 'Mechs over lighter ones, and that if they introduced some sort of weight balancing this would be less of a concern. But it would still have the problem of being a slightly faster but much weaker Battlemaster. Does anyone else get this impression? Anyone feel like they could convince me otherwise? I'd really appreciate that, actually.
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