Duke Falcon, on 09 March 2024 - 12:31 AM, said:
Initially an equal fight were 3:1 ratio, three IS mechs were equal with a clan omni. IS finally brought this down to 2:1 ratio. Clan-tech however expensive, harder to maintain and manufacture (that is why even the clans had an insufficient amount of omnimechs in their toumans). And the IS tactic to gang against single targets also helped to "even out the chances" as you said.
Clan Omnis were superior being able to switching out their pods, being module. On an average each omni had 4-6 different possible specific payloads that could be changed out in a few hours, whereas IS mechs were stuck with their mixed components. Lets not forget that "tabletop' balance was primarily based on Stock mechs and loadout. A majority of stock IS mechs really do suck, more so in MWO than the boardgame due to its pinpoint accuracy. And in the boardgame, the average Clan mechwarriors had much better gunnery/piloting rating, and with weapons of the similar category, Clan weapons Short/Medium/Long/Extreme (optional rules) range brackets were larger. And if one played by the Solaris rules (2.5sec/turn) vs standard BT (10secs), Weapon Delays (cooldowns) were usually shorter, not longer as with MWO.
As for the quirks, most Clan weapons had longer ranges, more damage and when introduced the lost of the 1st ST had no penalties. And said mechs could change out their omnipods then pack more weapons, heatsinks/other components took up less slots.
As for Battletech, having an insufficient supply of omni showed itself once their operation plan did not go accordingly to expectations. With a few exceptions in their history, the Clans did not have all out wars but relatively contained encounters for resources where the warriors generally did not fight to the last one standing, nor did the captured population/personnel made attempts to rebel fight back after it was over with. And that Clan Wolf batchall removed essentially removed Clan Warships from the equation.
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As OP mentioned the dumb quirk-system... That most probably meant to "balance" the dumb implementation of omni-pod system, considering both seems chassis-based.
PGI could have, or eventually, set Clan Omni to allow 2 slotted Omni of the same mech w/different payloads, in both QP and FP. This would have built up on that feature. There is not anything PGI could really do about the pilot gunnery/piloting "rating" though . And the IS "durability" could be changed up by removing the instant death, even at zero heat, when the 1st ST is lost on an XL, while also giving the LFE, cXL and XL different and progressively higher, but non-lethal penalties, making each one unique. Then armor/structure quirks could be changed up some. But then some Clan mechs are also getting quirks that do not relate on the package/8.
/shrugs.. Okay, I will stop daydreaming, since MWO is now in maintenance mode and we will not see any major updates until MWO sunsets. And once that happens, where will people get their mech fix that does not primarily rotate around NPC?