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[Erebus Alpha]

Battlemechs seem to be outperforming omnimechs because they are far more customizable - and frankly, a lot of the omnimech designers made some very unwise design choices. Mechs such as the Summoner, Warhawk, and Executioner have locked ferro-fibrous armor & standard internals. That is nothing but a waste of tonnage & crit space.

As much as I would love fully unlocked & maximally customizable omnimechs, they would merely begin outperforming battlemechs again. There are (marginally) decent reasons for having omnimech customization and battlemech customization follow different mechanics.

How much tonnage are FF + Non-Endo omnimechs missing? To answer this question, we need to do math. Or more precisely, I need to do math, but you can double-check my calculations if you feel the urge:

Standard internals weigh 10% of a mech's total weight limit (55 ton mech = 5.5 tons of internals)

Endo-steel internals weigh half of that, or 5% of a mech's total weight limit (55 ton mech = 3 tons of internals)

That's a difference of five percentage points.

Testing on the MWO client mechlab reveals that on a maxed-armor battlemech build (of any weight), the weight savings between standard and ferro-fibrous armor is almost precisely half that of standard internals vs. endo-steel internals. So instead of five percentage points, it reduces tonnage by 2.5 percentage points, at the same cost of critical space.

So we come to our inevitable conclusion:

Omnimechs that run Ferro-Fibrous armor without Endo-Steel internals are missing precisely 2.5% of their base tonnage, by not running Endo-Steel instead of FF.

That may not sound like a lot, but that means that the 95-ton Executioner is missing a whopping 2.375 tons. Who runs an assault mech two tons underweight because it's a more competitive build?

Nobody, that's who.

So how do we fix this problem?

The logical solution is to buff these mechs. Give them a 2.5% buff to weapon cooldown, ammo capacity, heat generation, armor, and critical hit chance. This compensates them for the missing tonnage, no matter what weapon loadout they use, and mitigates the increased fragility imposed upon them by running fewer weapons & components.

Omnimechs that run endo + standard armor would remain unchanged.

Omnimechs that run endo + FF armor would remain unchanged.

Omnimechs that run standard internals + standard armor would remain unchanged.

After this is done, it becomes theoretically possible for the devs to quirk-balance omnipods on a per-omnipod basis. Because seriously, when was the last time anyone ran a competitive Hellbringer without the HBR-Prime LT omnipod? (That's the one with ECM & more hardpoints than any other HBR LT omnipod.)

Edited by Falconer Sword, 26 June 2017 - 09:08 AM.

[Nesutizale]

I think your buff is a bit high, as its for all weapons. I don't know how many nodes that would equal to but I think its quite a number.
So no that isn't a real solution.

Main problem I see is that originaly Battlemechs where hard to costumize without drawbacks and Omnimechs where the **** because they could be changed in a very short amount of time.

Representing this in MWO without completly redesigning how Battlemechs and Omnimechs work is hard I think.
Also its a problem of balance. The current system put Omnimechs to the limits they have as Clantech is lighter and smaller. Adding to it that you can change the hardpoints to your likeing makes them very flexible compared to a Battlemech.

Just giveing Omnimechs a buff or some more tonnage dosn't quite cut it. I also thought at first that we could just lift the limit of fixed FF/Endo slots but that would make Omnis quite powerfull. I had quite a lot of configs that I wasn't able to put to use because of the fixed slots and that is also some kind of balanceing PGI created with the current system.


Since its late I will just put this out without thinkit it through

Battlemechs get sized hardpoints. These hardpoints don't limit you in what you can build into your mech but preduce negative effects if you put something bigger in then there was before.
For example you place an AC20 in a 1slot balistic mount. That would result in...lets say a increased cooldown time as the weaponfeed wasn't made for the calibre size you want to use?
Some goes for upgrading to XL, Endo, Ferro etc. in a Battlemech that didn't had this before.

Haveing a drawback in random customization was part of the reason why so many Mechs of the same chassie existed and later with the emergance of new tech where rebuild from the ground up.
I know that would make some mechs non-competetive but there are allways non-competetive mechs out there so who cares.
With that you can have your favorit loadout but at a prize.

As for Omnimechs.
I am tempted to say that Clans don't change weapon loadouts, they switch Pods that come with a fixed loadout but that would basicly reduce Clans to have near stockloadouts. While that would definitly put Clan at a disadvantage to IS it would balance it a lot. Kinda like you decide between beeing able to fully customize your mech or you get the better toys....

Not quite happy with that idea but the sized hardpoints with drawbacks when you overdo it sound interesting...