I too find myself concerned about the lack of players for the various pts tests, and while I agree that some incentives would be an ideal way to try to alleviate this, I feel that the degree of incentives will be a rather long discussion at the pgi office... I love the idea of a weekly report, keeping us updated with progress made, but the last few tests I have checked out seemed to have fallen short of what the stated goals of said tests. Case in point, the missile pts that was recent done, and implemented with this last patch; since this patch, I have been finding that trying to get a lock even with the full sensor tree active, it is taking upwards of 30 seconds to a minute to get a lock. And while getting a lock with los, the range for it is falling shorter than what I know several of us have hoped. I Know that alot of the laser puke and ballistic bunnies out there want us missile boats to literally stand side by side with them, but speaking as a Clanner, when our weapons systems don't respect the lore, we can't when you are fighting mostly by facehugging your opponent, and our missiles have little to no dmg output when that close. I know that there are those who want missiles to be gone from the game, not caring that if that happens, the game will end up folding as missiles are just as integral to this game as any other weapons system in it.
There are those who try to lambaste us as always hanging back and not getting into the fight, well, when all of the ballistic and laser systems a) don't need locks,
![B)](https://static.mwomercs.com/forums//public/style_emoticons/default/cool.png)
don't require much skill to keep on/near target when you don't have to worry about getting/keeping a lock to be able to hit said target, and your weapons will still do damage well past your max range when missiles will explode at max range... I don't know how to program, so I don't understand how that can limit how our weapons can't follow the lore better than it does; stealth armor is a prime example; it was never meant to block locks at short range. I know it could be considered that I am beating a dead horse here ( pardon the euphanism(sp?) ) but when I look at the state of the game, and I look at the tabletop that I have been playing since the mid 80's; I see the hopes and dreams of everyone who has ever played this game since it came out coming to fruitition, but fractured... not quite coming to the pinnacle that it can become. There are those that scream that we should all be playing the same builds as they are, that we should play real mechs, not missile boats; to that I say that this is not cookie cutter online, it is Mech Warrior Online. In the lore, the novels, the Clan pilots were able to customize their mechs to suit the terrain there were to be fighting on, while the IS had more numbers of people and mechs to fight with. I do understand that is difficult to code in from what has been explained to me by those I have discussed that with. But with the current setting of the timeline, the IS should have what the Clans do currently for dmg reduction for missiles under optimal range, and the Clans should have no min range/dmg reduction at all. That too several folks have said is too difficult to program; it has been too long since I played the previous MW games to remember if that was a factor in them at the time, although I am sure that there are those who will remember if it was there or not. Also remember that not everyone who plays is in perfect health; some of us have limitations that can affect which weapon systems we can get to work to the best effect. Screaming at someone because the view they are using isn't one that works for you isn't productive to winning the match.