Posted 31 July 2013 - 04:04 PM
There is a fundamental problem with field repair+rearm that, admittedly, even i made use of. using Mech 4: Vengeance campaign as an example: If there was a mobile field base on a mission map, i designed my mech to include its use. That meant going lighter on armor and ammo resulting in a faster, heavier hitting chassis with more heat sinks.
Its a given that if this resource was available on maps that players are going to build their mechs around it. Without the need to spend all that tonnage on ammo and perhaps even armor (Much less likely) you're going to run into faster catapults/stalkers/illyas/jagermechs, etc carrying more/bigger back-up weapons to go with their dual gauss/ac20, LRM packs, triple UAC5, etc... They may be somewhat balanced right now, you'd be surprised what can be done with 3-4 extra tons.
My Jenner is also a good example - 4 Mlas, 2 SRM4 with 3 tons of ammo. It's not very hot if i pay attention, but if there's an MFB/rearm option, my 3 tons of ammo is going down to 1 and it's getting 2 extra DHS and that means several more shots/min added to an already heavy arsenal for a Light.
It also means people are going to become even more cowardly than they already are - instead of staying to push forward/hold the line they're going to break off, go running back to base to get their scrapes patched. One guy doing it wouldnt be so bad i imagine, but think of 3, 4, 5 or 6 doing it at once in a sad show of self-preservation... A spectacle to behold as the enemy team stomps the guys they left behind, comes over the hill only to find a lance of people standing in line waiting for the repair bay.
Those two reasons alone are enough to make me cringe at the thought of adding repair and rearm to the battlefield... It would take some heavy-handed moderation to change my mind on the subject, like capping repairs at 10% total armor on a mech/rearm equal to 1 or 2 tons of ammo per game or an expensive module allowing access to a repair bay on the map on the map with a similar cap on restoration.