Posted 03 December 2013 - 07:24 AM
In regards to Clan Tech:
You can't balance it, not with Inner Sphere technology anyway. Doing that makes Clan weaponry redundant because it's designed to have an advantage. Now that said, looking at potentially only adding certain Clan weapons would be an ideal way to go, and requiring grinding in order to unlock them would be a better idea then having them be so easily accessible that anyone sitting on 100 million C-Bills like I know some players are, won't be able to just instantly load out any Inner Sphere Mech they already have with the new and best technology. Clan tech runs cooler and has longer range, how do you balance that with the current meta? Well for one, you can actually fix Ferro Fibrous Armor so that it is stronger then standard armor, give people a reason to use it over standard and Endo Steel chassis because I'd rather have more survivability then an extra couple of tons in weight. Also, if you want to **** off laser beam boats, put in Reflective Armor and have that reduce energy weapon damage by 50%. Really all you can do to balance Clan tech is balance it with itself, ER Medium Lasers and Clan Medium Pulse are going to be the weapons of choice for all light pilots even running Inner Sphere Mech's.
As for OmniMech's well, they aren't fully module, which gives you some ability to have restrictions, however certain pods can fit any type. I think if you view the MechWarrior 4 design of Omni hardpoints as being an example, you can balance it fairly well. I know there were a few Clan chassis that had a lot of Omni slots, I believe the Nova Cat had primarily Energy and Omni hardpoints in MW4 which made it lethal, 4 ER Large Lasers and a couple of Light Gauss Rifles made it insanely powerful.