Updated thought - the Trail Stalker and Hunchback have an issue that is not overly well documented.
Fan name - Ghost Heat. (GH in the forums)
The more of certain weapons you fire at once, the more heat each one generates.
At it only gets worse the more you fire at once.
Example - for no penalties you are limited at 6 medium lasers - the Hunchback (C) carries 9(!) Medium Lasers.
Similar issues with the Trial Stalker - you are limited to 2 LRM15 - the (C) carries 4.
Chain Firing or getting clever with your weapon groups - can help with that.
To edit weapon groups you use (by default) the arrow keys and the right Ctrl button. (if I remember right)
To change a weapon group to chain-fire highlight it and hit Backspace.
Edit:
It gets more frustrating (for most) since it combos into other weapons as well.
IE: LRM10 15 and 20 share the penalty - and firing 2 LRM10 and 1 LRM20 gets treated like firing 3 LRM20 for the penalty.
However - LRM5 are not penalized at all - letting you fire 2LRM5 1 LRM20 at no penalty at all.
Smurfy - that amazingly helpful site (seriously)
has a chart
Note: Medium Lasers are penalized, but Medium
Pulse Lasers are not -as well as several other interesting combos.
Noted: the "Linked Penalties" groups count as the same weapon for the penalty (see the LRM10/20 combo above)
"Stand Alone Penalties" are just that - they are penalized for firing many of that weapon - but not for mixing with others.
The cooldown for GH is 0.5 seconds - wait a half second (the time between chainfiring shots interestingly enough) and there is no penalty.
So with that hunchback you could fire 6 of the lasers, then half a second later the other 3.
With the Stalker you have to be careful though - as that half second starts after the weapon gets done firing, and the Stalker's missiles have another issue preventing them from all firing at once - so you need to wait till one wave is done before firing again.
(sorry if this is confusing - not something I found hard, so it gets harder to explain it well
)
Edited by Shar Wolf, 09 June 2014 - 04:17 PM.