Riffleman, on 09 July 2012 - 06:58 PM, said:
It will probably only be clear which is superior when actual playtesting can go on. And if you drop the sinks on the original to 16, double then, and make the internals endo steel, you can reach the same speed as my variant, but still need additional tonnage for the armor missing (3 tons less armor, not huge but its something) But your right, its pretty decent as a stock mech, just never been a fan of large lasers effeciency wise.
I dont think there going to get rid of the random aspect of the srm missles hits, otherwise you could boat up say 5 or 6 srm 6s and annihilate anything pretty dang quick. Godo recycle time and low heat, you would have to snipe that mech before it got to you or it would be all over.
The random nature of many weapons goes out the window in a mechwarrior game, only LRM's are really "random". And hardpoints dictate if you can boat, as of now, unless they intentionally give a mech the ability to boat missiles, the most missle hardpoints that are forced by a chasis of the announced mechs are 4 missile hardpoints, on the stalker no less =)
That being said, as to a slightly better build, if you just hate large lasers, check this out. Take the base Stalker, give it double heat sinks, downgrade to 15. Replace your large lasers with medium lasers. Keep the SRM 6's and the 2T of ammo. Upgrade your LRM racks to 1 LRM 15 and 1 LRM 20 (ammo isn't an issue, if you watch the mechlab you'll see there's only 1 category for LRM ammo, and SRM ammo has been homogonized too, hence the 100 rounds per ton on SRM 6's we see in video's), give it 4T of LRM ammo. Max the armor, and just for added survivability, go ahead and stick CASE in both side torso's to protect from ammo booms.
The provided heatsinks will cool the mech when using the 6 ML's and 2 SRM 6's, or the LRM racks, it will also allow you to target a mech in the background and lob 1 of the LRM racks at it while using your full close range firepower up close and personal. This build doesn't use Endo, the only advanced tech on it is DBL sinks. It beats out both the stock and your build at close range, beats your build at long range, gives the stock a run for it's money at range, and has better survivability then both with max armor and the case protected sides.
Edit: Should also note, it only assumes it will have 1:1 hardpoints on the mech, so you're guaranteed to be able to build it even if they only give it 1 hardpoint per weapons system on the stock mech.
Edited by Squigles, 09 July 2012 - 07:14 PM.