I find it hard to restrain myself from a long period, filled with facepalm, in reaction to this thread.
To all those whom go for the "Cone of Fire" as the One, and ONLY methond of preventing alpha-strikes of instant pwnage... And insist that it won't be that serious- Pick on or the other. It has to be pretty serious to prevent it all together. But having the cone of fire completely random is... Well, perhaps technically 'accurate' to tabletop, but not very intelligent in it's rendering of such.
To all those whom have been insisting that the weapon will remain pinpoint accurate, it'll just sway, so that'll spread it out... Go check out testing of weapons, done by various militairies. You'll find a weapon pointing at the same spot... will not hit the same spot. Look up MoA accuracies. That's right folks, to an extent, Cone of Fire is Real life!
So here's the only LOGICAL idea, as far as it goes- A combination of the two. (It's been mentioned before, more then once in this thread, but still, seems to need to be mentioned again.)
Each weapon has a SMALL cone of fire, equating to a very little spread over it's entire range. What do I mean? Instead of a crosshair of "+", you get a crosshair of "o". Which at close range (even out to about 200-300~M) would hit reliably within a small area on a target mech... But at far range would still produce enough of a spread to... not stop entirely, but severely hamper Alpha-Strikes.
Then add in the effects of movement sway- Go ahead and say battlemech's are stable. Look at every last rendering of them so far, The arms sway, the torso bobs, the head bounces... You can say that those Gyro's stabilize it all you want, but the Quite Cannonical renderings of those battlemechs dissagree with you. Violently so.
Try and take a shot with a PPC, Running at 64~KM/h. About average heavy speed. Your arms are converging on the target, but wait! You're moving, so that convergence distance is constantly changing... Odds are that computer system is just a fraction of a second behind you- Your aim likely isn't perfect enough to stay on target at a closure speed of about 100~KM/h, assuming you're not both running straight at eachother...
You let loose with the PPC... A Flash that would have blinded you is rendered moot by your battlemech's auto-tinting screen... But the shot went wide, you were running. Your lead was fine, but your timing was off. Just as your crosshair got into position to fire, the arm was jostled- Forgot to wait for the midpoint between steps. Oh well, it'll recharge quickly enoudh anyway, right? You're at 600m, and closing.
So your system's getting conflicting data... Urban environment? Occasional lamp-post, or small building inbetween you two... and the occasional Larger building, obstructing your sight (and aim) completely, and throwing off your targeting computer completely. It converges too close... Building's gone... but your aim's still off- It starts going too far... you're now about 400m from the target- your not even in Medium Laser range yet. Your crosshair passes over him, but you haven't been recalibrated to that range yet...
You let loose with MRM's... set to converge too far. Spread is all over his torso, right? Because your timing is so perfect, that at 400m, Closing at 100km/h, you can hit dead center in a target that doesn't want to be hit at
all. Wrong-o! More likely you're gonna slam some into an arm, because we BOTH know he'd twitch the stick, (or keyboard) a little on seeing you fire. Remember- Urban environment... and moving shot... Chances are, your missiles get halfway there in their corkscrew... and some hit a building! A couple hit the arm, and a few more pass by harmlessly.
By the time your MRM's have recycled, and are ready for the next shot, you've closed within 300m. Medium laser time! You were hit by some MRM's from that guy too, so your aim was thrown off for a moment- Not long, but enough to converge your guns even FURTHER out from the target- no wonder, he rocked you towards looking up. You swing him back in the middle of your reticule... It flashes gold, your targeting computer says you'll hit... He pulls off his shot first, and unluckily for you, it was an autocannon. Your shots go wide, once more, and worse, his shot hit your MRM launcher.
The damage isn't critical, you've got a mech with CASE after all... but the rocking from the shot, and the destruction of a good part of your punch? Let's try with that PPC again then, right? Nice and close, should be pretty simple. Remembering the earlier wide shot, you pull DOWN on your crosshair, and aim at the ground, infront of him. Ease off on the throttle, and bring your crosshair to bear on the center of his mech. FINALLY a good hit.
Get my point in that long text-demonstration? By the way, Check the MRM bit, if you missed where the small cone comes into play. If your wondering why I did weapon by weapon... I personally dislike MW4's rendering of heat. It's too... soft, I guess, is the closest I can say. I'm surprised that it renders your mech as running at 0k (Also known as ABSOLUTE ZERO, the temperature at which ALL MOVEMENT CEASES) when Powered on, and Running!
And the 10k heat limit seems excessive too... I'd think 5k would be quite high, considering a fair bit of that temperature,
According to the lore is dumped into the cockpit. Hell, by that bit of the lore, Alpha-striking with a laser boat that could core a medium in one shot would be akin to suicide.
But yeah... You get my points, hopefully.