🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <40qorp$3...@mapperley.innotts.co.uk>,
Leeze <ex...@innotts.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I have never played the FASA game, but couldn't Activision get around this
>>and still remain somewhat true to FASA rules by 'inventing' weapon varriants
>>that take up less space but weigh more?  Sort of like Ferro-Fibrous armor,
>>Endo Steel and XL Engines in reverse.  Of course, using standard armor,
>>internals and engines will give you more room and use up some of that pesky
>>extra weight, but not enough.
>
>Yeah, Fill you Mech with weapons, fire all of them at the same time,
>reduce you mech to a pile of molten SLAGG.
>
>Heats the Name of the Game!

Well, this is precisely my problem.  My favored configuration is to load up
on short-range, low-heat weapons, supplemented by an LRM 15 or 20.  I always
end up fighting and close range, anyway, so I have little use for
long-range, heat-inefficient weapons.  A Mech bristling with small lasers or
machine guns would be absolutely devastating against computer AI that can't
figure out that I'm a purely short-range mech. 

Unfortunately, these weapons are so light (and, by the current critical hit
system) so *LARGE* that I can't fit nearly enough of them on heavier mechs
to make exceptional use of them.  

It's actually a problem with smaller mechs, too.  A small laser takes 1
crit, just like a medium.  I should be able to fit 2 Smalls in one critical
space.  (i.e., smalls should be 1/2 crit.)  Bundling weapons would be easy.  
Just round up the critical spaces (one half critical for a single small
laser would be rounded up to one full critical), and require that designers
only bundle like weapons within individual critical spaces.

Along the same lines, you could increase the capacity of individual critical
spaces on larger mechs.  

So something like this appears: 

Medium laser (our standard)     Takes one critical unit. 
Small laser			Takes 1/2 critical unit. 

20-ton mech 			Has one critical unit per critical space
40-ton mech			Has two critical units per critical space
100-ton mech			Has *five* critical units per critical space.

You can leave the number of spaces the same, and only put one type of item
in each space.  Endo steel and ferro-fibrous would naturally take up a
constant number of *spaces*, not *units*. 

This way, my 100-ton mech can carry five times the ammo or weapons volume as 
my 20-ton mech.  Makes sense, doesn't it? 

Oh, my.  This was *much* longer than I had originally intended it to be.
But it makes a *lot* of sense, I think.  And all this can be done with
minimal manipulation of the FASA weapons specs.   You just need to define 
a "critical unit".  =)  

BP 

	
-- 
bpl...@mri.jhu.edu