Contracts with Tonnage limits

[avaririot]

I din't play a ton of TT Battletech, but I played a few times. Maybe the most interesting part of the strategy was deciding which mechs to bring. Terrain conditions was a factor like it is in this game but TONNAGE was the big one. Matches were played at X tonnage and you had decide if you were taking an Assault and a light, or a heavy and a medium, or two low end heavies, etc.

Obviously this method put the medium and lights in play and gave them value.

As I start to blow past the mid game just because I have a pair of assaults and a wide selection of heavies I am really missing this part of the strategy in the game. I miss my Jenner, collecting dust, because in late game an fully armored assault mech does his job better. I finally got a Wolverine, but he's just a novelty mech for use in low end missions.

This is not like leevling into better gear in an RPG, light mechs and medium mechs have aplaystyle so different with roles that are different from the pure max tonnage lances. It's more like making Rogues and Fighters not viable past level 7.

So am I the only one who wishes for tonnage maxes on contracts? IMHO the default contract should have 250-300 ton limit, with some going limitless and other scouting type missions as low as 200 tons. The RP reasons for it are easy enough to come up with.

What say the masses?

[DarkFenix]

No.

[avaririot]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

No.

Don't be a D. say why.

[Senlin]

Yes, of course.

[GM Pax]

Hell, no.

It costs money to maintain any drop-ready 'mech. Keeping a mix of 'mechs available, so you can adapt to varying tonnage limits, would mean paying a LOT in maintenance for 'mechs that, most of the time, just stayed in "the barn".

Alternately, it takes time and money to ready a 'mech from cold storage, and refit it with weapons and armor sot hat it becomes drop-worthy.

Either way, UGH.

[Cap'n Darwin]

The type of mission should make you decide what mechs to take, not an artificial tonnage limit. Why would I ever want to drop into a fight leaving better hardware behind. If you drop 4 Atlases on a convoy or intercept mission where time is a factor, you should lose more times than win based on the low speed of the big mechs. Mission terrain should be more of an impact as well. Tonnage limits in an areana fight would be fine. Maybe tie some reputation bonus/penalty for being under/over an estimated limit. Most missions have you outgunned and tonned so a limit on my side makes getting the job done that much harder.

[arthromitor]

Whole Heartedly Yes, so long as the Opfor is operation under a similar limitation. I would love to still be able to use my Griffins and Shadow Hawks, but alas I no longer encounter medium mechs in random missions I cannot bring anything less that the good stuff. I'm at the point now where I am even looking to finish phasing out my heavies in favor of nearly a whole lance of Highlanders (mostly because thats the only assault that keeps coming up in missions).

Variety is the spice of life, and I would love to have a reason to keep more than five mechs in my hangers, tonnage limitaitons on missions, and later random missions that use light and medium mechs in the Opfor, would give me a reason to maintain a lance of each weight class.

[avaririot]

Originally posted by GM Pax:

Hell, no.

It costs money to maintain any drop-ready 'mech. Keeping a mix of 'mechs available, so you can adapt to varying tonnage limits, would mean paying a LOT in maintenance for 'mechs that, most of the time, just stayed in "the barn".

Alternately, it takes time and money to ready a 'mech from cold storage, and refit it with weapons and armor sot hat it becomes drop-worthy.

Either way, UGH.

You can have 18 mechs and how many MW's? 24? Just have more missions available at different tonnages and you will always have something to do while patching up.

It's another layer of mercenary resource strategy, it won't make the game harder, just more complex.

[avaririot]

Originally posted by Cap'n Darwin:

The type of mission should make you decide what mechs to take, not an artificial tonnage limit. Why would I ever want to drop into a fight leaving better hardware behind. If you drop 4 Atlases on a convoy or intercept mission where time is a factor, you should lose more times than win based on the low speed of the big mechs. Mission terrain should be more of an impact as well. Tonnage limits in an areana fight would be fine. Maybe tie some reputation bonus/penalty for being under/over an estimated limit. Most missions have you outgunned and tonned so a limit on my side makes getting the job done that much harder.

Ideally yes, but that's not how it works on the grid. Higher tonnage mechs are just better than strategy. The Jenner gets there faster but a good player will knock out same damn target with an assault LRM boat.

Sure you can put all the onus on the game designers to ake encounters for lights only to have these MB's laugh at them when we break every encounter with assaults and heavies.

Or, you can just put tonnage limits.

[avaririot]

Originally posted by arthromitor:

Whole Heartedly Yes, so long as the Opfor is operation under a similar limitation. I would love to still be able to use my Griffins and Shadow Hawks, but alas I no longer encounter medium mechs in random missions I cannot bring anything less that the good stuff. I'm at the point now where I am even looking to finish phasing out my heavies in favor of nearly a whole lance of Highlanders (mostly because thats the only assault that keeps coming up in missions).

Variety is the spice of life, and I would love to have a reason to keep more than five mechs in my hangers, tonnage limitaitons on missions, and later random missions that use light and medium mechs in the Opfor, would give me a reason to maintain a lance of each weight class.

bal;ancing encounters by Tonnage is much much much easier than trying to create mission setups for lights that assaults can't break.

[Asmosis]

Tonnage limits in MWO helped players use a diverse range of mechs.

You could field a 100 ton Atlas if you really wanted, but you had to make sacrifices in your lance in order to balance out say a 280 tonnage limit (idk what the limit is these days).

heavier is always better for straight combat, where killing your opponent is what matters. There's a couple of later story missions that strongly lean on having a light mech to complete optional objectives, but you can still do them with assault mechs (or just ignore the optional bits).

[Teao]

Let us choose to bring as many mechs as we can carry. There is a tonnage limit already. The issue is it doesn't matter cause I can't choose to between bring 8 lights or 4 heavies to fill that limit. (And obviously if this became a real aspect, they'd have to rebalance the number of mech bays and the upkeep costs, maybe the mechbays are by tonnage not simple number too)

[avaririot]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Tonnage limits in MWO helped players use a diverse range of mechs.

You could field a 100 ton Atlas if you really wanted, but you had to make sacrifices in your lance in order to balance out say a 280 tonnage limit (idk what the limit is these days).

heavier is always better for straight combat, where killing your opponent is what matters. There's a couple of later story missions that strongly lean on having a light mech to complete optional objectives, but you can still do them with assault mechs (or just ignore the optional bits).

280 sounds like a good default. At least we would encouraged to use a medium. Personally I would love a default around 250 since that would encourage using one mech of each class.

[avaririot]

Originally posted by Teao:

Let us choose to bring as many mechs as we can carry. There is a tonnage limit already. The issue is it doesn't matter cause I can't choose to between bring 8 lights or 4 heavies to fill that limit. (And obviously if this became a real aspect, they'd have to rebalance the number of mech bays and the upkeep costs, maybe the mechbays are by tonnage not simple number too)

What is the limit? 300+?

[Gygax]

Yes , absolutely.

At this point we just load up on assaults and look back at all the light/medium mechs as a missed opportunity. Lighter tonage missions are still lots of fun and have far different tactics. They might have to alter how many mechs we can have available etc but it would be fun.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by avaririot:

Originally posted by Teao:

Let us choose to bring as many mechs as we can carry. There is a tonnage limit already. The issue is it doesn't matter cause I can't choose to between bring 8 lights or 4 heavies to fill that limit. (And obviously if this became a real aspect, they'd have to rebalance the number of mech bays and the upkeep costs, maybe the mechbays are by tonnage not simple number too)

What is the limit? 300+?

400