The Faceless, on 03 January 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:
Exactly, the main problem is convergence. All weapons hitting the same spot is anathema to the BattleTech Universe - or TT would have had just one to-hit roll per turn for all weapons fired instead of one for each weapon (or missile/missile group in the case of SRMs/LRMs).
But convergence isn't easy to fix in a satisfying manner; either you have to introduce randomness in the form of a cone of fire, or you have to institute some complex (one reticule for each weapon/limb), crippling (global cooldown/forced chain-fire) or otherwise unintuitive system (ghost aim? just think of what Paul could dream up...) that limits aim - and that's an issue for a lot of players. Most seem to want to hit what they aim at - and I'm wholly in that camp myself. Aiming should be skill-based, not random.
So if you don't want to limit players' ability to aim, you have to attack the problem from another angle - and I think I've made it clear what angle I see as the most efficient: Take away instant damage by making ACs burst-fire and PPCs beam-duration.
Two out of three weapon types already work this way, and it's not a coincidence that the third group is currently dominating the game; it's for all intents and purposes superior to put all your damage in one spot than to spread it out.
By making ACs burst-fire and PPCs beam-duration you lessen the synergy these weapons currently have with the convergence system, making them work under the same conditions as the other weapon types; to put all your damage into one spot you need a steady hand and a bit of skill.
And I believe that doing this would also if not outright solve then at least alleviate the problem we currently have with convergence; if a dual AC/20 put 4 or 8 damage in one spot instead of 40, and the rest of the damage was spread out in a short time-frame, that would be enough to not have to bother with convergence.