Odanan, on 15 May 2013 - 04:11 AM, said:
You didn't need to add all those mechs to the list, but OK. Let me clean it up for you:
- Black Knight wouldn't work for MWO (sorry MW4 players) and you know it.
- Timber Wolf/Mad Cat will be in the game with the first Clan "wave", there is no doubt about that.
- Night Gyr will probably be in the second Clan wave (3052 is relatively close).
- Marauder would certainly be in the game if it wasn't the Unseen/Reseen issue. We don't know if the devs will ever cross this troubled territory, but if they do, Marauder will be one of the first mechs to be chosen.
- Woodsman: unless they add the Arrow IV, the mech does not have a chance. Even them, it is too similar to the Timber Wolf and practically extinct .
Fair points on the others, but I believe that the
Black Knight's chances should be re-evaluated in light of the release of the
Highlander.
One issue is that, like the
Highlander, the "primary" variant (the BL-6-KNT) technically/officially doesn't go back into mass production until later in the timeline (circa 3065, according to
some sources).
However, the other variants (the
BK-7-KNT and BK-7-KNT-L) are currently in production, and all of the needed LosTech for the BL-6-KNT (Endo Steel, BAP) has long since been recovered.
Additionally, that the "primary"
Black Knight variant (which doesn't take much LosTech to create from one of the other variants) technically/officially isn't in mass production while the downgraded variants are is the same situation in which the
Highlander (currently in-game) is found, so the latter does set a precedent.
Another issue is that the variants are fairly homogeneous - a trait shared with both the
Dervish (see previous proposals on how to address that) and
Highlander (currently in-game; see: HGN-732, HGN-733, HGN-733C), and resolved by an extra hardpoint or two here-and-there (though, the 'Mech starts with a minimum of 8 hardpoints needed, so not too many can be added - and, as with the
Spider (currently in-game), not every variant may get additional hardpoints).
Finally, the existence of
Ian McKinnon's personal
Black Knight variant, the
BL-6-KNT (Ian) seems to indicate that the design had still existed in some capacity when the recovery of LosTech began.
"
BL-6-KNT Black Knight Ian - Downgraded during the technological decline of the Succession Wars era, the personal 'Mech of the McKinnon family was selected to receive among the first experimental weapons developed from the Helm Memory Core by the New Avalon Institute of Science, thanks to the exploits of Fox's Teeth commander Ian McKinnon. When piloted by Ian during the War of 3039, the 'Mech was clad in prototype Ferro-Fibrous armor and the standard heat sinks outside the engine were replaced with corrosive 3039 era double heat sinks. These weight savings, along with the removal of the head-mounted small laser, allowed the 'Mech to carry a Hatchet whose damage was boosted by the addition of Triple Strength Myomers."
(Hark, a canonical Hero 'Mech!
)
And from a "metagame" perspective, a MWO
Black Knight would be based on the canonical design -
not an OmniMech (as in MW4) and
not a jump-capable, Gauss/PPC-toting monstrosity (as in MW4), but as a flexible heavy-class energy boat.
So, why exactly wouldn't the
Black Knight work in MWO?
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