Tierloc, on 16 November 2011 - 06:19 AM, said:
And unless the only weapons the chassis is carrying are 4 IS medium lasers (that's weak for even a Light chassis), it wouldn't be an alpha.
Actually, until the Operation: Revival (a.k.a. the Clan Invasion), four IS Medium Lasers was significantly more than the most common Light chassis mounted, and more than most of the slightly less common chassis as well.
Looking through the lists, only the FLE-15 Flea (1 Medium Laser, 2 Small Lasers, 1 Flamer, 2 Machine Guns), JVN-10F Fire Javelin (4 Medium Lasers), COM-1D/2D/3A Commando (assorted lasers supplemented by a lot of SRMs) HSR-350-D Hussar (1 Large Laser, 2 Medium Lasers), UM-R60L Urbanmech (1 Small Laser, 1 AC/20 have comparable firepower), FRE-2B Firebee (1 Large Laser, 4 SRM2), FS9-H Firestarter (2 Medium Lasers, 4 Flamers, 2 Machine Guns), both brands of Jenner, both varieties of Raven, and the WLF-1 Wolfhound (4 Medium Lasers, 1 Large Laser) approach or surpass the power of 4 Medium Lasers. That's... fourteen. Out of 51 variants of Light 'Mechs found before 3039 or so. Less than a third. Much less. Also note how, of those variants that do match the power or so, seven of them, fully half, are 35 tons, the very top of the Light 'Mech bracket. The rest make horrific sacrifices either in armor or speed to acheive that kind of power. The Flea is an empty tissue box that is only average speed for a Light, all of the Commando variants are criminally underarmored for their armament and still average speed, the Urbanmech might as well be a bunker for how fast it can go, and the Hussar is somewhat
less armored than a tissue box.
A Light 'Mech pre-Clan Invasion is lucky to mount the power offered by four Medium Lasers. Even more lucky if it mounts four Medium Lasers and doesn't immediately make itself the most juicy target on the field by being either too slow to escape or thin enough to kill with machine guns.
EDIT: Also worth noting, none of the variants up there are exactly numerically common among Light 'Mechs, the great majority of which are Wasps, Stingers, and Locusts, [i]none[i] of which even begin to match four Medium Lasers in power.
Edited by Glare, 16 November 2011 - 01:48 PM.