Lefty Lucy, on 09 October 2014 - 08:26 AM, said:
People who repeat the "clans have fixed equipment so they need better stuff" are not really using a valid argument.
Fixed equipment does not make Clan mechs worse, it just severely restricts the viability of inter-clan chassis balance. It's why the Timberwolf will always be better than other heavy Omnis, because its chassis is pretty damned near perfect, whereas the other heavy mechs have huge flaws, such as ferro over endo or fixed JJ.
It's also why the Timberwolf will always be better to IS mechs without Clan/IS weapon balance parity: because it's already as good as you can make it.
Well, let's pretend that we made every 1 ton of Clan guns 100% equal in every way to 1 ton of IS guns.
So, a Clan SRM6 would have the same damage as an IS SSRM2, a Clan ERLL would be strictly inferior to an IS ERLL, the Clan Ultra 20 would have the same DPS as an IS AC/10, a Clan ERML would have the same effectiveness as an IS Small Pulse Laser (both are 1 ton), and so on. Inner Sphere FF would need to be superior to Clan FF. Inner Sphere Endo would need to be superior to Clan Endo. IS XL would need to be superior to Clan XL. IS DHS would need to be superior to Clan DHS.
Let's look at, say, the Summoner, after those changes above were made. It gets 21 tons of pod space after adding more armor. For reference, my Shadow Hawks and Griffins can have up to 26-27 tons of "pod space." If Clan guns didn't have higher weight-efficiency than IS guns, that would make the 70 ton Summoner have less firepower than a 55 ton Shadow Hawk. Should heavy mechs carry less firepower than mediums? Let's not even get started on the Man O' War. In fact, the currently overpowered 75 ton Mad Cat would now be reduced to the same firepower as an Inner Sphere medium, with 28 tons of pod space available. Lol.
How would the mechs with gimped base chassis ever have any semblance of viability without the extra tonnage efficiency? Would they have to get quirked to armageddon and back 10 times over? Do we make the equipment no longer fixed? Or just leave them as unusable as "legacy features" like Flamers? Yes, Mad Cats and Doomcrows rule their weight classes right now, but they're not the only Clan mechs out there. Most of them don't get so lucky.
Edited by FupDup, 09 October 2014 - 08:41 AM.