Why Run, on 04 August 2014 - 12:00 PM, said:
PGI said no hardpoint restrictions because they wanted creativity. I bet if they put hardpoint restrictions in, you and many others would return. It would eliminate many laughable builds, they could do away with bandaid ghost heat and other nonsense changes. Forget JJs, thats just another symptom of the ability to stuff stupid weapons on certain mechs. If they make either of the proposed changes to Gauss/PPC happen, I'll be following him out the door. And I've spent plenty myself...
Hardpoint sizes could help.
But even easier than hardpoint sizes... Restrict engines. Lets say an Atlas can only equip a 100, 200, 300 or 400 engine.
A Victor can only slap in a 160, 240, 320 or 400 engine.
A Jenner can only slap in a 105, 140, 175, 210, 245, 280, 315, 350, or 385 engine.
Shadowhawk with 55, 110, 165, 220, 275, 330, 385 engines.
Take your tonnage, now add it to itself until you find an engine size you can work with. Now see what happens when you build around that engine. For example, can you build around an Awesome with a 320 engine? Wait, we can't... we can't even TOUCH a canon engine size for the Awesome unless we're using a 9M or Pretty Baby.
Etc. You'd wind up using weapons you'd never thought you would use in order to fit within those engine limits; even with XLs.
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Though... you know what mechs truly sacrifice to get good hardpoints in the first place? It's really quite simple.. Armor. But then they trade up stuff for things that would bankrupt them in R&R and bam, instant meta mech.
Meanwhile if the mech traded engine power instead of armor, we get the Cataphract 4X; a mech forever doomed to go very slow speeds just because it sacrificed engine to get firepower.
But that Cataphract 3D? Sacrificed only armor and slapped in an XL engine; getting super hardpoints.
So an armor based on the variant's stock armor would bring loads of difference.
Take the difference between a Victor and an Awesome.
Victor got a big engine, Awesome did not. The Awesome got armor instead. The Victor did not...but for some reason gets identical max armor special thanks to a Battletech "Create your own mech" rule.
The weakest armored Awesome has 80 points (2.5 tons) more armor than the MOST armored Victor (not counting PGI's money grab non-canon Dragon Slayer).
Now take this idea real quick and look at the Dragons. Almost every single Dragon outclasses one or more Victors in armor. Wouldn't you bring a Dragon if when both mechs maxed their armor, you could compete with a Victor in tanking ability.
Want a reason to take a Hunchback over the Shadowhawk? Look at the armor values at stock. Add 96 to any of them, and tell me... aside from the 5M (which has awful hardpoints), which one would you take over a Hunchback in regards to armor? Isn't it a bit more of a choice now?
Now compare Griffin and Kintaro stock armors. Now... two similar mechs, one jumps. The other has far better armor values in all cases. Which do you pick? Depends on what is more valuable to you; more armor or jumping ability.
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Certain Atlases (the K for example; but in general all of them) are useless because others got hardpoint fluffing (an Atlas D-DC is an Atlas D with FEWER weapons to fit the command center; so why does it have more missile hardpoints?) + ECM.
But yes.. just some intelligent design philosophies would be nice.
Vassago Rain, on 04 August 2014 - 12:24 PM, said:
The old, good damage textures were part of the old, good textures. Said textures had to be remade entirely when they changed the camo system in feb. 2013.
So that's why we have the bullet holes.
They still exist, though, can still be found in the game files, and still work on the 3D models (to a point). It'd take very little time to make it work again. The same amount of time it takes to make a custom skin.