MischiefSC, on 21 October 2017 - 09:00 AM, said:
Otherwise even if you balance weapon stats Clans can bring more in the same tonnage of mech.
The fact that tweaking weapon stats alone won't really achieve balance is very true.
There are other aspects one can address.
For example Clan weapons are meant to be impeded by the fact that mechs have a very limited thermal threshold. 30 units is very restricting to
alpha strikes. Clan DHS help them with DPS. IS low heat helps them with DPS though their heatsinks can't be stacked as thoroughly as Clan DHS.
But it goes a bit farther. Overriding in lore has nothing to do with shutdowns. At 80% heat, weapons tend to lock out in order to prevent you from hitting the point of shutting down. The IS override the weapons lockout all the time. Very common tactic. The Clans do not. While the Clans do generally have better stuff and it is often made out of better, lighter materials and engineered in superior ways, the fact is the Clans have very finite resources, after all they have significantly less than 100 planets, while the Inner Sphere has over 800,000 planets many of which are constantly being hit for resources. Thus risking damage to the weapon systems or the mech is generally not done just to get in an extra shot.
When they do shut down, mechs aren't out for a fraction of a second for a tiny slap on the wrist, it is a very disgraceful display of complete helplessness. Mechs don't stand in place and slouch, their muscular structures actually seize and lock in place, in whatever position they happen to be in (even mid stride) and the shutdown is sudden and with little warning beyond the heat warning at 80% and weapon lockout. At that point it isn't a slap on the wrist but a sledgehammer to the face as the mech can then be completely at the mercy of kinetic fire or its own posture and fall over for additional damage. It is also a situation that lasts until the heat is brought down to
46.667% heat. For some alpha strikes that often happen in MWO, that would mean
shutting down and waiting several minutes. For example the Dire Star might be waiting 8 minutes unable to boot. 3 PPCs at once... 3 LPL + 6 ER ML? Yeah laser vomit would be gone, in favor of spamming lasers in volleys of two or three at a time.
Or another factor... Engines themselves. We know that MWO has engine health from the repair and rearm days. This is currently ticked to work but being at 0 health does nothing beyond removing the engine from the crit roll pool. What if it did? What if each slot consumed had its own health (or say the side torso had X health, the CT had X, and any combination of damage that hits a certain amount causes engine death. Xl engine slot size is intended to show fragility. Lets play with that a bit ignoring a certain obvious issue in that the XL engine for the IS happens to be at the bottom of the barrel. What if the Clan XL engine had a health of X The IS xl engine had a health of X+20% but that health could be destroyed in a single side torso. The IS Light Engine has X+10%. The Clan and IS STD engine has a health of X+50%.
There are other things that could be addressed.
The Clans do not believe in cowardly acts such as indirect fire. LRM difference? The old lore is they never fire indirectly and so missiles are always fired straight at the target. The IS LRMs are fired up and over (almost always) and thus the 180m
accurate range penalty.
The trade off: Clan LRMs fire directly at target, do not arc, cannot fire on targets out of line of sight. No minimum range and no damage reducing ********. IS LRMs fire up and over (no matter what) and due to poor turning are unable to effectively fire at targets sub 180 meters. It is possible to run underneath IS LRMs if you are fast enough and either close enough or have enough time.
The more recent lore is the IS has a safety system, but could hotload their missiles by arming them in the tubes. Making hits at less than 180 meters without hotloading requires them to set the detonation range before firing which is NOT an easy process and can be off.
Clans are always hotloaded.
The issue with hotloaded LRMs is if the launcher is damaged in any way (more significant with through armor crits), the entire salvo of missiles will detonate inside the launcher.
Thus: IS has a minimum damage range of 180 meters. The setting system won't happen, but a toggle for hotloading can happen. Hotloading leaves the weapon system vulnerable similar to a Gauss Rifle. Any damage to the launcher instantly destroys it and detonates a single volley of ammo. The Clans are always hotloaded.
Honestly the Clan/IS balance as far as laser vomit seemed best when the IS had untouched double heatsinks, and Clans had significant threshold (heat cap) reductions with only slight cooling buffs to compensate. So tinkering with that may yield some interesting results.
Edited by Koniving, 21 October 2017 - 12:21 PM.
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