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a ) Close the loophole that allows achieving an unreasonably high alpha strike by firing different weapons of the same class (such as LPL+ERML) simultaneously.
b ) Keep the current game balance essentially unchanged.
c ) Eliminate the need for the Energy Draw or similar systems.
The existing GH system punishes you for firing too many weapons of the same type within a 0.5 second interval. What I propose is to keep that 0.5 sec interval, but instead of simply having a fixed limit for each weapon type, assign a value to each weapon of the same class, and impose a heat penalty if the total limit for that weapon class is exceeded. For example, using the current game balance, let us assign the following values to Clan lasers:
Total limit = 10
Small and medium lasers, small and medium pulse lasers = 1.6
ER large laser and large pulse laser = 5
This way, you can fire 6xERML, or 2xERLL, or 2xLPL at the same time - just like under the existing system - but you can no longer "cheese" the system by mixing different laser types, because if you fire, for example, 2xLPL + 4xERML at the same time, that will bring your total value to 16.4, which is 6.4 higher than the allowed limit, and you'll incur a heat penalty proportional to the value by which the limit was exceeded. The same can be applied to autocannons, LRMs, SRMs etc.
Obviously, this does not address alpha-striking with different classes of weapons, but that is less of a problem, because it is usually very difficult to perform a successful alpha strike with, say, lasers + autocannons or PPCs + Gauss because of different weapon mechanics, timings, travel speeds etc. The biggest advantage of this system is that it will keep the current game balance essentially intact, while finally closing the existing loopholes and punishing those smarta$$es who thought that they were smarter than the game
Just a suggestion, let me know what you think.
