98 replies to this topic

[Golden Vulf]

Inner Sphere Light Fusion Engines only take up 2 critical spaces in each side torso, like clan XL engines. They offer the same durability of clan XL engines, but instead of 50% weight savings, it is 25%. It is a fair halfway compromise between IS std and IS XL engines.

I keep referring to Omnimech construction because when you customize and Omnimech, you use the rules for Omnimech construction!
pg 189 of Strategic Ops.

When you customize an Omnimech you are changing its base configuration.

Edited by Golden Vulf, 29 December 2014 - 11:31 PM.

[Sudden]

i am not a clan player. clan mechs are not op. only thing that should be done to rectify the so called 'imbalance' is to make i.s. engines the same as clan engines. i.e not explode. when hit

[Dexter Herbivore]

Wendigo Vendetta, on 28 December 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

In CW I thought that Clan Mechs were overpowered. I thought that there was a balance issue which needed to be addressed. I saw the steamrolling both on the field and on the strategic map and thought, "this would not be happening if there was a power balance between the opposing sides... it just makes no sense".

In fact, I agreed with those calling for a reconsideration of the balance between Clan and Inner Sphere. I read the posts and found many of them well reasoned and well thought out.

But, then I read the posts by Clan players and I must admit... I was totally wrong all along. So are the majority of the player base... you are all just plain wrong. It was the plethora of vociferous Clan player denials that won me over, along with this gleaming nugget of pure, unbiased wisdom from a Ghost Bear player:

"In short:
IS has better laser vomit, better LRM's, better PPC's, better SRM's, better autocannons.
Amusingly enough, I.S. tech far outstrips clan tech, as much as people hate to admit it now."

Now, I know what you must be saying, "Aren't those are denials an attempt to preserve their poorly balanced advantages?" and "How can so many rational I.S. player simultaneously be wrong about the balance issues?"

"Bah", I say! You MUST stop distracting from the issue with these spurious assertions of empirically verifiable facts. The Clan players KNOW that the I.S. has better tech in every mechanical way. How can you deny that? Why would any Clan player ever assert such a blatant falsehood?

Furthermore, we must face the sad reality that the I.S. technological superiority and imbalance in favor of the I.S. implies: All the I.S. players are, by an unfathomable coincidence, the worst players in the game and the Clan players are (by an equally amazing coincidence) true, sterling examples of mech playing paragons in every conceivable way.

Never mind how this bizarre division of players came to be or the astronomical odds against such a natural misdistribution; that is a question best not pursued by the weaker I.S. player minds not fit to bear the weight of intellectual heavy lifting.

What is REALLY important to know is this: Saddled with this enormous and unjust disadvantage, the Clan players have risen above their shoddy equipment and steamrolled their way across the I.S. with aplomb, humility, grace, and an inspiring dedication to fair play that inspires us all to rise above whatever similarly crippling circumstances we may face in our own lives (such as cancer or homelessness).

There is lesson be learned here; a deep moral lesson. And, in units across the Inner Sphere it is being learned against all odds. I.S. players are turning from the unjust and reprehensibly imbalanced advantages of I.S. tech, and going over to the Clan side of CW.

Now, you may find it amazing that such horrible players and blatant liars like that I.S. lot could be convinced to turn from their horrible and unfair mechanical advantages, but its happening.

You will be all the more amazed to learn that the Clan players have not been selfish in their obviously superior skills and amazing dedication to overcoming the Clan tech disadvantage. The improved victory ratios of those converts to the Clan side are a true testament to unselfish sharing. The old guard Clan players have unselfishly shared their inherently superior secrets to victory,allowing these new Clan converts to excel in these new (inferior) mechs as well! In this holiday season, the generosity is truly inspiring!

But, let us not dwell simply on this new learning and the radically, astronomically increased play skills of those unselfish, advantage denying new Clan players... the true miracle here is he speed involved in he teaching of these new superior play skills. The continued march of the Clans, unabated by the disadvantage of absorbing a massive influx of all those substandard players, clearly indicates that the old guard Clan players have learned long lost secrets of martial instruction once reserved to Viet Nam era drill instructors and the legendary senseis of the mythic age.

That is why this CW turn of events goes far beyond the implications inside of a simple video game. This is truly a turning point for he world; pedagogy as we know it will be changed forever by these selfless, divinely inspired souls.

I, for one, would like to be the first to welcome of Clan player overlords.

Sarcasm, you have mastered it.

[Alek Ituin]

Sudden, on 29 December 2014 - 11:30 PM, said:

i am not a clan player. clan mechs are not op. only thing that should be done to rectify the so called 'imbalance' is to make i.s. engines the same as clan engines. i.e not explode. when hit

No. No no no no no no.

IS XL engines are a risk-reward system by design. You give up the ability to lose a torso, for 50% less weight than a STD engine. Clanners managed to compress their XL engine designs to 2 CS per ST, meaning you have to destroy the other one to destroy their engines. Advanced weapons and equipment are the fruits of not bombing yourself back in to the Stone Age *cough*liketheISdid*cough*, and building your entire culture around making advanced weapons and equipment instead.

Mind you, Clan engines wouldn't be all that OP if we had through-armor crits in place. You could cause damage to the engine or internals without penetrating the armor, meaning you could theoretically destroy a Clan Mech without taking off any armor. It would be RNG bulls**t that would remove any semblance of skill in the game, but hey... It would make those big bad Clan XL engines less "OP".

[Golden Vulf]

Through armor criticals huh? I'd just aim for inner sphere legs trying to hit ammo. There would be a new LBX Renaissance.

Assuming floating crits optional rule, otherwise no one would buy this, "I got shot in the leg, so of course my torso explodes" bullcrap.

[Fate 6]

All Inner Sphere weapons are mechanically better, but at the cost of range/damage/crit slots. Quirks on some mechs even solve the range issue, or make heat/CDs so low that the damage/crit difference is negligible.

[Tesunie]

Alek Ituin, on 29 December 2014 - 10:59 PM, said:

I'm fairly certain that split-crit rules state that if, for instance, a weapon takes up slots in both the arm and torso, it acts as if mounted in the torso.

So essentially, whichever location between the two has the worst maximum rotation angles is the one that's used.

I'm not certain here. What I do know is that a King Crab, with split critical AC20s in it's arm, can not fire it's A20s from it's arms and still punch (you may not fire weapons in the arm(s) you are using to punch with, but you can with torso mounted weapons or with an arm weapon you are not punching with). This leads me to believe that it's probably classified as being mounted wherever the most criticals are assigned.

Golden Vulf, on 29 December 2014 - 11:16 PM, said:

Inner Sphere Light Fusion Engines only take up 2 critical spaces in each side torso, like clan XL engines. They offer the same durability of clan XL engines, but instead of 50% weight savings, it is 25%. It is a fair halfway compromise between IS std and IS XL engines.

I keep referring to Omnimech construction because when you customize and Omnimech, you use the rules for Omnimech construction!
pg 189 of Strategic Ops.

When you customize an Omnimech you are changing its base configuration.

I see where you are coming from, and appreciate the page reference.

I believe you are referring to two separate sections for this, but are only really reading one section without relating a previous section. Let me quote the two relevant portions:

Quote

Omni Units
Omni units possess a fixed amount of pod space that can be
configured with a wide variety of weapons and equipment—
the only limitations being available tonnage, space and access
to the desired equipment.

And

Quote

CUSTOMIZING
Customizing is the practice of installing non-factory (non-omnipod equipment*) replacement
parts in a unit to improve or modify its performance.
Omni units are designed to use interchangeable modular pods,
so they are rarely customized. However, even Omni chassis
contain certain integral components, such as engines, armor
and fixed weapons. These items are not installed in modular
pods, so they must be replaced with customizing procedures.

*Was added in for clarity. Is not part of original text.

If you read only the second section, I could see your confusion here. However, the first section stats that pod space may be configured (customized) without restrictions, as long as it's an omni pod being placed in and it has the required space/tonnage.

The second part refers to customizing a non-omni part of an omnimech, which can only be replaced by following the "construction" rules:

Quote

Customizing and Construction Rules
Generally, players must follow Classic BattleTech construction rules when customizing a unit.

However, it's been stated that Omnimechs are rarely customized, as it will turn the Omnimech into a standard battlemech. This removes the advantages of being an Omnimech. By "rarely customized", they are referring to altered by other means other than a changing out of omnipods, which can freely be done.


In lore, customization of standard battlemechs were rarely done due to costs and time needed to preform these customs. A mech was typically designed for a specific role, and remained in that role. This is where the advantages of Omni came in for lore, as they could take an Omni Chassis, and alter it's configuration (pod space) to anything as long as it didn't exceed the pod space allotted for the omni pods, within a few hours and be used in a completely different role. This made it so a single mech could preform several roles in a given campaign, compared to a standard mech being locked in a role for a campaign, typically requiring more mechs to be carried around to fill in any given needed role.

Edited by Tesunie, 30 December 2014 - 10:53 AM.

[Golden Vulf]

Well, where does it say that customizing an omnimech turns it into a standard batltemech outside of field customization? I've even read through the erratas and couldn't find it.

What has been shown is that replacing integral components usually entails a redesign of the mech, which is what we do in the game when we decide to give our AS7-D-DC a larger engine, double heatsinks, endo steel structure, and a completely different weapons loadout. What we end up with is not an AS7-D-DC, it is a redesigned non standard Atlas that used to be one.

Likewise when you customize a Nova, most easily in a factory that mass produces them, or does similar construction or production, the finished product will be a Nova Omnimech that has a non standard structure.

You'd have to be a pretty exceptional warrior or of high rank in the clans to have this done, or maybe your unit has been selected for special service in some capacity and your superiors deem non standard equipment to be necessary.

Players in MWO are pretty exceptional in that they might have half a billion c-bills worth of Omnimechs at their disposal, even getting to pilot 4 in a row in a single battle.

Now trying to customize a Nova in the field without all the fancy equipment absolutely royally ***** it up. This is clearly stated on Sarna, though I haven't read it in the rule books, it stands to reason. Though switching out an internal structure of a mech in the field would be pure insanity, there are cases where you have to cobble parts together to get a whole mech, say the torso of a Nova on top of the legs of a Mad dog if the remaining halves of those mechs had been destoyed and you are trying to make one whole mech. There are rules for figuring out the tonnage of separate pieces to find the new tonnage, and the engine ability is based on the center torso, stuff like that.

Phranken mechs also lose their omni pod ability, that part is clear in Strategic ops.

Anyway, an Omnimech at least would absolutely never have dynamic structure or armor slots like we see in the IS mechs we customize (shouldn't actually be able to do this on IS mechs either outside of total redesigns, but whatever!). Because you have to lock those components before you add any weapons, unless you were going to have a weapon be part of the base chassis like the Adder and its flamer. Locked weapons are just awful, since if you have a locked missile system, you can never upgrade it to Artemis IV on any of its configurations.

Edited by Golden Vulf, 30 December 2014 - 04:08 PM.

[Tesunie]

Golden Vulf, on 30 December 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

Well, where does it say that customizing an omnimech turns it into a standard batltemech outside of field customization?

(Just to be fun) That is one HECK of an edit!

I do understand what you are saying. And, contrary to what people may say, I don't know everything. I can't find the rule I'm looking for (most of my digital format books are formatted as images instead of as text, so I can't just do a simple word search for "Omni" like I could in the book you referenced). I will say that I've heard from several sources/people whom have proven themselves to be rather accurate about this information (one of which is Sarna) that have told me that clan mechs can't change fixed gear without locking out their Omni abilities and being converted into a standard Battlemech. I do wish that I could find the exact rule for reference, but I am unable to as of this moment.

So, for now, I shall agree to disagree with portions (not your whole statement) of what you are saying. What I can say is:
- Omnimechs may change out any omnipod for another omnipod without penalty and freely, costing only a few hours worth of labor by lore standards. Here, it is as free as it is with Battlemechs.
- Changing any fixed gear of an omnimech is not often done, though they seem to have a lack of a current reason as to why it isn't commonly done in the rules that we can find. This is a point that I believe favors my argument, but without farther proof, I can not confirm so it shall remain a mystery.
- It may be possible that having a factory redesign of an omnimech to remove fixed gear may still have the mech retain it's omni abilities, but by all acounts it would be a long process, expensive, and you would essentially be creating a new Omnimech at that point. As stated before, I've been told otherwise, but I am uncertain as of this moment.
- The reason standard Battlemechs get customized vie the construction rules is because of how hard they are to reconfigure, and require more time and resources compared to an Omnimech that switches out it's omnipods. Often times, a Battlemech would need to be shipped back to the factory for any extensive refit/customizations.
- I do agree with you as well about every MW:O pilot being classified as a "unique" pilot by the rate that we are able to customize our mechs. However, I also feel that if clan Omnimechs were allowed the same degree of customization as IS Battlemechs, balance within this game would probably be lost. Thus, Battlemechs have set hardpoints, but can customize their other components; Clan Omnimechs have set components, but can customize their hardpoints (about as much as IS can customize their components). (Components referring to upgrades such as Endo, FF, engine, armor, etc.)

Are we at least in agreeance with this much? Cause if we agree about these points, that's almost the entire discussion solved right there, and the only point that remains unresolved/debatable is if customizing an Omnimech's fixed features will have a negative affect on the mech or not (vie factory refit I should express specifically).

[Golden Vulf]

Yes, I wouldn't want full customization if it meant there would be large balance change between IS and Clan mechs. Some small customization for certain under performing Clan mechs could help them be competitive.

I do not think clans should be able to change their engines at all, and would go as far to say they can't change the number of internal engine heat sinks they have either. What I do think is certain omnis without endo steel, such as summoner, nova, gargoyle should be able to upgrade to endo steel, but would not get dynamic structure slots (like another poster already suggested), so that would still restrict them from taking certain large slot requirement equipment. The devs would specify what slots were taken up by the endo steel, and could do it in a certain way that mounting certain multi slot gear would be difficult. We can see this already in the Timberwolf S side torsos, so much is taken up by the armor, XL, structure, and jump jets, that you really can't fit too many big weapons on those excellent hard points (2 missile in each torso, then 1 ballistic in one and an energy in the other), even with all the free tonnage you have.

Spoiler

In this example, the Gargoyle would have 24 tons to play with instead of only having 20 tons after having near max armor. It would not be able to drop the 6 tons of heat sinks in the engine, so Dual Gauss gargoyles would not be viable. But single Gauss + 4 er medium lasers which is a build it currently runs, would be able to take 4 extra heat sinks. This does not make it as game changing as the Direwolf, it is still not as powerful as the 5 tons lighter Timberwolf that can still take more weaponry. It can not take a smaller engine to take dual ER PPC + Gauss with plenty of heat sinks to keep it going. It retains its status as a fast Assault that isn't as robust as the Timber, but doesn't become such a drag for the team or Drop deck.

The Summoner also, it already has FF armor, and has 5 jump jets in all configurations. It is at the point where adding 7 Endo slots will free up 3.5 tons, but will also seriously clog up your available crit space. If more than 2 structure crit slots get put in each side torso, it can not equip a Gauss rifle there. Dual LBX ac 5 is currently possible, but you have to only take er small lasers in the arms or else you overheat and don't have enough ammo. Endo would let you add more ammo and some heat sinks to make the build a little better. It's a build the Hellbringer can already do pretty well and have ECM.

Now the Hellbringer, it is already a good mech, mostly because it is a lighter heavy, and doesn't have 5 tons of hard locked jump jets. It also has great hard points, the one flaw being a weird hit box issue on the left torso front and back that still counts as front center torso (it was still in game after the first hit box fix, not sure if it was later addressed). If it all of a sudden could take FF and Endo and have 4.5 more tons of pod space, it would be pretty spectacular. Would it be better than the Timber? Ecm would probably make it tier 1 at least.

I see some Hellbringers that don't bring ECM, quite often in CW. It always baffles me.

As it is right now, the lower tier Clan mechs are piloted by players that just happen to like them, not because they are great mechs. We can either change the way clan mechs can be cutomized and see more of those mechs, or we can just continue to see the Timberwolf and Stormcrow dominate the battlefield all the while IS players continue to constantly call for a nerf to the only competitive clan mechs we have.

There are not 3 broken clan mechs, there are 10 broken clan mechs. The 3 you see most often are the ones that are not broken!

If IS teams are relying on half of the clan side to be in bad mechs, and so they don't want to see any improvement, in truly competitive prebuilt games they are stlll going to be facing the same 3 mechs. It won't effect them in that regard.

Edited by Golden Vulf, 31 December 2014 - 01:55 AM.

[Tesunie]

Golden Vulf, on 31 December 2014 - 01:25 AM, said:

What I do think is certain omnis without endo steel, such as summoner, nova, gargoyle should be able to upgrade to endo steel, but would not get dynamic structure slots (like another poster already suggested), so that would still restrict them from taking certain large slot requirement equipment.


There are not 3 broken clan mechs, there are 10 broken clan mechs. The 3 you see most often are the ones that are not broken!

I see your point about Endo, but there is a bit of a problem with how the upgrade might get handled. Here's the scenario:
- I build my (lets just say) Gargoyle. I've already got all of my weapons I want in the mech, but want Endo to max my armor.
- I select the Endo upgrade to purchase.
- One of two things happens, either an "error not enough slots" crops up leaving me baffled as I counted my open slots and wonder what happened (one component as too many slots already taken by my weapons, blocking the upgrade), or I get a "mech is invalid" warning and not even notice it (as there are too many crits assigned to a component).

This would need to be heavily announced and informed about, and with the current system in place, I don't see enough people know about it. We also have "lore" that gets in the way of this one as well. A lot of people would go up in arms about Omnimechs being able to take those upgrades.

I'd also like to remind that clan Quirks are coming. Instead of making it so the "bad" clan mechs can "it more tonnage" in, the quirks can do similar things for the clan mechs that are under preforming, take those "bad" omnipods and give them quirks so having one of said weapon shoots like it's got two. (Example: Dragon with an AC5 with the quirks shoots like it's two AC5s on chain fire.) I feel, with the current system of balance already in place, that this may be the more opportune and logical system to implement. It causes less complaints from those who are "lore fanatics", maintains the current evolution of the game, and works off what is already being discussed.


As for your statement about broken clan mechs, I can understand your viewpoint. I wouldn't necessarily say that the Timberwolf, Stormcrown and Direwolf(?) are broken, but other mechs (just like with IS tier 1 mechs, etc) should be quirked to bring them up to those mechs level. (And to be honest, I do much better with the Summoner than I ever do with the Timberwolf. Of course, I should mention it's only with the stock primes...)


On a lot of this clan balancing, I feel we just need to give PGI a bit more time. They just recently released IS quirks. It may be a short while before Clans get theirs, but I'm certain they are coming. (Summoner, Nova and Mist Lynx already got a couple.)

[Aresye]

Wesxander, on 28 December 2014 - 07:07 PM, said:

Let's ignore clan weapons like more ammo per tonnage, not mentioned above clan ultras get 45 to 50 more percent ammo per ton than IS. Let's ignore superior heatsinks. Let's ignore superior XL engine design. Let's ignore clan targeting computer. Let's ignore LRM's that fire like SRM's. In fact let's ignore the weapon the IS used to turn back the clans called gauss rifle has intentionally been nerfed to charge and fire type weapon (its supposed to fire slower than ac 20 but instead we get this got hold the charge crap and time the shot) which is to hard to do when your screen is shaking from constant hits. Let's ignore clans are playing in Team speak and ending up getting CW games against mostly IS pugs. Their weapons superior across the board and then getting defense missions with turrets and dropships when they are on the offense.
Then you got some their players talking about how bad ass they are. Some these guys would be freaking hard pressed to play in PERSON tournaments where no 3 rd party programs of any kind would be allowed.

Also whoever talking about LTE's that is not 3055 tech. Your talking 3060 or 3065 there not sure why it was even brought up but get the time line right.

Let's ignore your post.

[Burktross]

Golden Vulf, on 30 December 2014 - 01:00 AM, said:

Through armor criticals huh? I'd just aim for inner sphere legs trying to hit ammo. There would be a new LBX Renaissance.

Assuming floating crits optional rule, otherwise no one would buy this, "I got shot in the leg, so of course my torso explodes" bullcrap.

IT WOULD BE GLORIOUS! A NEW AGE OF CASE!

[Golden Vulf]

Well for the problems with upgrades, they could set it so whenever you apply structure or armor upgrades to an omnimech, it would unequip all gear on the mech, with a message informing the player it has done so.

This wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience, missile systems already get unequipped when you switch over to Artemis, and whenver you switch the omni pod on a mech, all the equipment in that pod gets unequipped.

Part of the reason some clan mechs need quirks so badly is because they are handicapped by lack of tonnage and being forced to take some rather large engines.

The Nova got some quirks, -5% energy heat generation in both arms, for a total of -10%. and some improved torso turn rate. These are the quirks a tier 5 clan mech gets.

Keep in mind that ER medium lasers were already nerfed to generate 20% more heat than they are supposed to. The Nova can't take endo steel which would allow it to fit 2 more heat sinks. It has 5 hard locked jump jets that actually only give it the thrust of a single jump jet. It is a medium that can't take a faster or slower engine, it is the slowest clan mech under 60 tons. It has a body that has been compared to the Awesome assault mech in ease of hitting it. It has no missile hard points to make use of lighter Clan srms. It has 12 energy hard points, firing more than 6 clan lasers of any combination of er smalls, small pulse, er mediums, or medium pulses will generate ghost heat.

Meanwhile the Thunderbolt 9s has -50% energy heat for ER-PPCs. Velocity and cooldown and structure quirks.

These clan quirks seem seriously underwhelming on a mech that sorely needed them. We have not seen an influx of Novas on the field, but try to find a game without 12 Thunderbolts in the hangars of IS dropships.

Edited by Golden Vulf, 31 December 2014 - 06:05 PM.

[Peter2k]

Wendigo Vendetta, on 28 December 2014 - 04:46 PM, said:

the Clan players have risen above their shoddy equipment and steamrolled their way across the I.S. with aplomb, humility, grace, and an inspiring dedication to fair play

hehe made me smile

nice work all together; made my sarcasm detector explode

made me also smile to see how many didn't get it, or so it seems , and how much it gets derailed fast
while it would be better not to reply at all if you don't want the thread to live on
ahh, the internet

Mcgral18, on 28 December 2014 - 07:16 PM, said:

I laugh every time I see this....

Why can't people get educated about game mechanics?

It's on the trial mechs, you can try it for yourself. Clan ACs have the same ammo ratios as IS ACs, but they need to fire multiple rounds to deal the same damage.

Thus, cAC5 is 3 rounds per 5 damage, isAC is 1 round to 5 damage. 90-30 ratio is the same.

that's because thinking is hard
IS UAC5: one shell = 5 damage
Clan UAC5: one shell = 1.66 damage

need more shells for same 5 points of damage
nahh

I'd rather get the raw number of Weapon hardpoints on some IS mech

Edited by Peter2k, 31 December 2014 - 06:27 PM.

[Tesunie]

Golden Vulf, on 31 December 2014 - 04:35 PM, said:

The Nova got some quirks, -5% energy heat generation in both arms, for a total of -10%. and some improved torso turn rate. These are the quirks a tier 5 clan mech gets.

These clan quirks seem seriously underwhelming on a mech that sorely needed them. We have not seen an influx of Novas on the field, but try to find a game without 12 Thunderbolts in the hangars of IS dropships.

Reminder, Clans have not gone through a quirk pass. Those are only preliminary quirks to place hold and try to help the mechs till they can do a full quirk pass. I'm fairly confident in saying that I suspect the Nova (in particular) will see some rather big quirks once it goes through an official pass. Probably in particular for CERMLs I would suspect. (And probably attached to specific omnipods.)

[Kassatsu]

You know what annoys me about omnimechs in this game? A point indirectly brought on on the same page (or page 5 if this post makes it 6)... Omnimechs are supposed to be able to mount anything that will fit in their omnipods. Not swap out an entire side torso in some hideous Frankenstein-esque experiment gone wrong.

The issue there would be trying to figure out how big a pod is supposed to even be (if there would even be a limit outside of the engine, gyros, actuators and fixed armor/internals). I'm not sure if Battletech ever decided a Timberwolf should have X crit slots (or number AND type of weapons, which is what we use...for some reason) dedicated to its side torso omnipods, though it's quite possible they did - Never really looked. We've already got the gimmicks counters in place to balance such a loadout system, namely heat scaling, commonly referred to as ghost heat.

Suddenly, the "bad" clan mechs are 100% less bad. Granted, that's not saying much considering other mechs with even more tonnage available are THAT much better now, which is the point. IS mechs can have their quirks, how about clans get MUCH smaller quirks (or none, though that would remove the need for the money sink in swapping out omni pods) and have relatively unlimited loadout potential? As I said before, ghost heat balances out whatever already. I'd be fine with that if it means proper omnimechs.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

The factions are balanced. As noted by many people in many places, they dont do the same things equally well, but neither Clan nor IS has a significant enough advantage in any one area to affect game balance. It is all down to the quality of the team you are drawn with and against.

Spoiler

These are not exhaustive lists

CLAN PROS

Slight range buff
Lighter weapons
Can lose an XL torso and keep going
Omni pods
Come with double heat sinks as standard
No minimum range

CLAN CONS

Weapons run hotter than IS counterparts
Locked engines, armour & structure
More expensive
Lasers have a longer burn time
No fast lights
ACs specialised for damage over time

IS PROS

Generous quirks
fully customisable engines, structure & weapons
Energy weapons run cooler
ACs specialised for burst damage
Short burn duration on lasers
Generally cheaper than clan mechs of same weight
Fast lights

IS CONS

Generally, slightly shorter range weapons
Some weapons have minimum range
XL engines die from losing one side torso
Have to pay for double heat sinks
Weapons slightly heavier
energy weapons in mechs not quirked for them do slightly less damage
Freebirth scum with inferior genes

TL;DR Both factions have their advantages and disadvantages, and these generally cancel each other out. No one side has a game breaking advantage. Clans and IS are fairly well balanced right now.

[Tesunie]

Kassatsu, on 01 January 2015 - 04:48 PM, said:

You know what annoys me about omnimechs in this game? A point indirectly brought on on the same page (or page 5 if this post makes it 6)... Omnimechs are supposed to be able to mount anything that will fit in their omnipods. Not swap out an entire side torso in some hideous Frankenstein-esque experiment gone wrong.

The issue there would be trying to figure out how big a pod is supposed to even be (if there would even be a limit outside of the engine, gyros, actuators and fixed armor/internals). I'm not sure if Battletech ever decided a Timberwolf should have X crit slots (or number AND type of weapons, which is what we use...for some reason) dedicated to its side torso omnipods, though it's quite possible they did - Never really looked. We've already got the gimmicks counters in place to balance such a loadout system, namely heat scaling, commonly referred to as ghost heat.

Suddenly, the "bad" clan mechs are 100% less bad. Granted, that's not saying much considering other mechs with even more tonnage available are THAT much better now, which is the point. IS mechs can have their quirks, how about clans get MUCH smaller quirks (or none, though that would remove the need for the money sink in swapping out omni pods) and have relatively unlimited loadout potential? As I said before, ghost heat balances out whatever already. I'd be fine with that if it means proper omnimechs.

To be honest then, if we want to go upon this concept of mech customization, by all rights even IS mechs should have complete hard point free customizations, which would render every variant as just a different skin option.

In TT, any mech (Omnimech or Battlemch) could freely customize with some limited restrictions.
Battlemechs could customize anything about their mechs, but would have to pay large fees for such service as well as long waits for their refits to finish.
Omnimechs could customize their pod space freely, but had locked components. However, an Omnimech could switch out their omnipod equiped gear freely, with minimal costs to do so, and have it done in hours.

In a real world sense, an Omnimech would be worth their restrictions due to the ease of maintenance, repair and large flexibility of design when compared to Battlemchs. However, in a game sense (if we went with true TT type rules) however, the lock gear feels "restricting", and the "swap out an entire side torso in some hideous Frankenstein-esque experiment gone wrong" create the Omnimechs as something different from a standard Battlemech. Otherwise, we'd have IS mechs that are (if we used your free of hardpoint restrictions) completely customizable and Omnimechs that make no sense as to what makes them different (as well as have pointless locked hardpoints and upgrades).

The way Omnimechs are done currently in this game, with it's up till current hard point system, makes a lot of sense. It maintains some Omnimech benefits that can't be reflected easily in the game (we switch customs in moments with no fees anyway), while retaining some semblance of balance between the two different types of mechs.