Odanan, on 03 August 2017 - 04:01 AM, said:
The two notable pilots of TRO:3055U are Bernard Mallins and Georgio Eicher. Mallins was with the ELH when they crushed the Jaguars on their own home world and disabled two enemy Omnis with lucky shots saving his lance. Eicher was with the 1st Chisholm’s Raiders during the FCCW and repeated walked on mines in the battle of New Valencia devastating his Mech, a Hollander II.
Eicher would probably be the better choice, since a Mech that suffered heavy damage may be rebuild to custom specs. Also, being an FCCW-era pilot he technically had access to the latest tech we have in game.
(Not that PGI cares about the lore when it comes to hero pilots and their Mechs. We got so many heroes
badly violating the canon that another one hardly matters. But I would prefer a canon-friendly solution).
Ovion, on 03 August 2017 - 02:27 AM, said:
(On the other hand it could be a baby hunchie, and I'm not good in Hunchbacks or mediums in general.... but it'd look cool at least~)
Well, the Hollander is a humanoid 35 ton Mech and those are not small by any means in MWO thanks to volumetric scaling. Mounting a gauss rifle furthermore requires a rather small engine, resulting in a speed range typically found on medium and even some heavy Mechs (80-90 kph).
So yes, with a gauss it does play out like a medium, just without the firepower or the armor. Even a Locust outguns you at 270m. (Or, now that ERML are available, at 360m), and a Linebacker will not only outgun you, it is also faster. Your DPS is small, and your impact as a sniper negligible. Not to mention everybody loves that long range light Mech sniper in his team, right?
I am not talking about theory, I have done that with the Firestarter. And as the leaderboard results of the last seaons will show you, I am not uncomfortable or totally incompetent with light or medium Mechs at all.
Now the Hollander could get Annihilator-level quirks, especially buffing the gauss cooldown and armour, but even then it is just a bad idea. Again, there is a reason we don't mount a gauss rifle on a light Mech for more than a few joke matches: the joke gets old very, very fast. It's not the placement of the hardpoint or the quirks or the looks...
...it's the concept that does not work.