Guess it shows how little I even play the Cicada. They'll add more variants in later, and it'll get the one with jump jets most likely. It still leaves both the Trebuchet and Blackjack able to jump, bringing the amount of jump capable 'mechs even except for Assaults. Centurion can't jump, nor can the Hunchback and those are you big hitters. Blackjack and Trebuchet for fast moving mediums. Diversity is the name of the game, every medium with jump jets, while nice, isn't required.
Besides, most of the good mediums that can jump are unseen/reseen, and no matter how much I love the Wolverine as my medium of choice, it's just probably not going to happen. I don't see them tackling the Reseen for a long time, if ever. I also don't expect to see many more Inner Sphere 'mechs before the Clans hit, still have to get the ones announced now in game.
'Mechs not in game: Highlander, Orion, Blackjack, Flea, Trebuchet, Jagermech, Spider, Unamed Assault number 5 (HATAMOTOOOOOOO!!). That's eight months of Battlemech releases if they stick to one 'mech a month (Spider in Jan, woop!) which means that'll take us directly into the Clans invading in earnest.They might/probably will bump their timetable up so that we've got a few months of actual live game before the Clans, but I expect that this is probably going to be it for IS 'mechs so they can focus on the Clans and their implementation. They have Sixteen Omnimechs to pump out when that happens (which I'm willing to bet they're already working on, in one stage or another right now,) assuming they're going to have all the base 3050 Omnis in game. Don't see them padding that with second line units.
That's a LOT of work, which is part of why I don't really expect to see any more IS releases, and if we do I bet it'll be slowed down DRASTICALLY. Which would be fine, we've got a good core amount of machines as is I feel.
Edited by Jack Gallows, 25 December 2012 - 02:10 PM.