Posted 28 February 2019 - 11:34 PM
To be honest, as a long time missile user here, I've always felt like I was being penalized when taking LRMs and having magic larger hit boxes appear for my LRM tubes.
My personal opinion, any mech that has a missile shoulder/box should always retain said geometry. HOWEVER, this should make it easier overall to balance it's quirks to offset the larger hit box, rather than it feeling like I'm penalizing myself because I chose to take missiles on my mech.
The Battlemaster is another offender of this. You can't effectively run a couple of launchers (Unless it's the variant with lots of missile hardpoints) while running anything on the same side of your mech. When it first came out (a long while ago, I know), I actually tried to run my Battlemaster 1G with an LRM on the shoulder just for some support. Constantly lost that side until I removed the missile launcher, and then everything seemed fine.
However, if said example Battlemaster always had that shoulder boom box, then it could be granted quirks to assist it, rather than being a soft spot when you chose to take missiles there. (AKA: Right now, it's not a good idea to take missiles on the Battlemaster, even if it's taken as a support system.)
Basically, where you are complaining that there is always a box there, I'm actually rather happy it remains there. I wish that PGI would do that for more mechs overall, and then balance those mechs with the geometry at it's "largest", as suddenly that is it's more or less consent state.
(Worst offenders for penalized missile use; Mauler and it's tall shoulder hunches, Battlemaster single shoulder, and Timberwolf(s). Of course there are more, but those ones come to mind specifically, as taking missiles on them really inflates those hit box sizes.