Athom83, on 27 March 2017 - 04:43 AM, said:
Adding the shield should probably increase the HB of the arm its mounted on. However, they should increase the armor value of that arm (like armor quirks) based on the size of the shield (larger and heavier shields give more armor and coverage, smaller ones giving less but can fit easier). Useful for mechs with full armor values on their arms and want more, less useful for mechs without full armor on the arms.
Yeah I was having a bit more of a think on this and it could actually work out better with that difference in mind.
At first I had been picturing basically a mech riot shield, or LRM umbrella that had its own health rates etc but..
Actually focusing more on changing a mechs arm (increasing its size, shape, weight, crit slots etc), with different potential install-ables would be much easier to do and be just as effective in some cases.
With the example of the awesome again, it seems like one of the most prominent "shield arm" type mechs, being that often one of its arms has no weapons at all, combined with it having one of the best arm shape/size in the game for arm shielding. If the shielding idea was a simple as being able to cycle through a choice of arm sizes or arm/shoulder add-ons, at the cost of crit slots and weight for the more defensively shaped arms it would still function well, while not being as comprehensive, still functional.
And IMO the idea overall would help to mitigate the extreme damage rates (huge damage over very small periods of time) that teams are capable of with concentrated fire and new tech etc. That assault mech might be a lot happier to be the first one out if he had a kind of guarantee that he could absorb some damage without that risk of it instantly ruining him for the rest of the game.