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What it is right now: The total damage of all weapons on the mech, fired once. This is also known as an "alpha strike". Accuracy, range, refire rate, heat, etc are not included at all.
What I would recommend: The total damage of all weapons fired continuously over an interval of time.
Why? Because so many weapons have different fire rates - as short as every half-second for the AC2, and up to 4 second or so for a Gauss Rifle. Yet a mech with just one Gauss would be rated at 15 Firepower, while one with two AC2s (about the same tonnage) would be rated a only 4... though it could actually put out more damage per second.
Based on this, the "Firepower" rating could easily just be a measure of the total DPS of all the weapons... or if you want a higher number, closer to what we see now, maybe the total damage output over 5 seconds or something like that. Almost anything that takes time into account would be a more accurate depiction than the current setup, though.
Other Considerations: It may also be worth thinking about accuracy here. I am specifically referring to missiles, as any mech with LRMs right now ends up with crazy-high "Firepower" numbers. Since it is rare for all LRMs in a volley to hit, and many volleys miss completely (if targeting is lost) it may be worth halving the LRM (and SRM?) damage included in this rating... or something similar.
Edited by WardenWolf, 08 November 2012 - 08:11 AM.
