Rinkata Kimiku, on 29 February 2016 - 05:22 PM, said:
TKG
Rifleman can't be a good ballistic firesupport. It maybe works in Tiers 4 or 5 or maybe 3, but not in my Tier 2.
Rifleman has no weight for ballistic weapons.
Ok, let's see what we have for long range:
4AC2, 2AC5, 2UAC5 (without antijam quirks) and one gauss.
All of them are just a scrap without such mad quirks like those on DRG-1N or HBK-GI.
If PGI invent Battlevalue system instead of this stupid tiers - yes, many mechs, and Rifleman for sure, would be usefull. But now you have poor mech and bunch of Top Dogs and Timbers against.
Rifleman must be buffed and buffed hard.
Does it really? My 'True Grit' variant would say otherwise but then how man y pilots have the guile to hold off a group of assaults successfully in a support rifleman by making them think theres more than one mech holding the position?
JagdFlanker, on 29 February 2016 - 05:24 PM, said:
to be fair, my 3025 tech readout does imply the 'fragile' argument. in the Jag write-up as for the reasons why the Jag was developed:
The Rifleman was prone to overheating, it did not carry enough ammunition, and it was lightly armored in comparison with other 'Mechs of the same tonnage
I know someone got to this already but lightly armored does not equal fragile it is a different and easily fixed problem that relies on the pilot's modifications to their ride. Every Rifleman I have (3) has been up-armored... I've shifted stuff around internally and went endosteel right off the bat if it wasn't already there. What your forgetting though in your TRO example is that Project Phoenix fixed almost all of the problems you highlighted and it's not impossible to partially Project phoenix-upgrade your riflemen. Yes it ain't cheap but then thats the simple fix for the issues. For the record, I do not expect everyone will put the time in to make a hot rod model of their Rifleman like I did to make 'True Grit' my preferred variant.
FLG 01, on 29 February 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:
However, the main problem is simply that players pick fights in their own weight class. It's an overweight medium, and people tried treating it as a true heavy with dreadfully predictable results, giving it a bad name.
That is very true at 60 tons it's only 5 tons heavier than the heaviest medium but it's not really built to do what other 60 tonners do so you actually have to be a bit of a chess player when using a rifleman. Thats why I mock the hero version with the LBX...it's literally a joke with no punchline.