Why are stock mech designs often poor?

[JamaicanDave]

Here's a little something that's always puzzled me and perhaps someone can share thoughts on the matter.

In pretty much every battletch game out there the player has the ability to heavily customise their mechs. Which everyone can agree is great fun. It's also one of the first things most players do. Why? Because alot of the stock mech designs really aren't that good. They might look interesting on paper, but when put into action they perform poorly compared to player customised mechs.

I guess my question is - why are stock mechs so badly design?

I mean before clan omnimechs mech customisation was a long, difficult and expensive process right? So why not produce effective mech designs as stock? Are the (in lore) battletech universe mech designers just not very good at their jobs? You'd think with so much raw data from the constant warfare they'd learn what works well.

[IRMcG]

Stock Mechs aren't made out of cheese :P

[Dorok]

Originally posted by JamaicanDave:

Here's a little something that's always puzzled me and perhaps someone can share thoughts on the matter.

In pretty much every battletch game out there the player has the ability to heavily customise their mechs. Which everyone can agree is great fun. It's also one of the first things most players do. Why? Because alot of the stock mech designs really aren't that good.

Nope because it's fun.

I doubt that for the start mechs of the campaign the original load are that bad. Eventually they are more fitted for polyvalency than high specialization, but that's it.

[JanaSzar]

Probably because stock mechs are designed for longer fights/logistical concerns/larger fights/multiple situations...

I mean, a lance of King Crabs with max armor, Jump Jets, pair of AC/20s and a ton of ammo each works fine in this game, but if you were on a long-term campaign that saw several dozen enemies before reload was possible...

There's also the lack of Infantry which would pretty much require support weapons to deal with effectively.

And there's not much in the way of Recon/ECM/Sensors that we need to do, so those Mechs (Light/Medium/scout-based) end up looking worthless.

[kknd]

It's not that they're poor, it's that most of them are designed to be able to fight at all ranges, or to do a single job only. Some are for job's you don't actually do also.

Let's make a couple of examples:
The default Locust, the V1 is primarily for anti-infantry and light vehicle work. Hence the machineguns and thin armor. The Firestarter's primary job is burning out infantry.

Now let's compare that to a resonably sucessful 'stock' design. The Blackjack.

2 AC/2's give it some long range ability, while four medium lasers give it actual teeth and it carries a reasonable amount of armor and jump jets help make up for it's low mobility. Pulling the jets also lets you fit some heat sinks, more armor or such.

Unfortunately of course, AC/2's are objectively the worst weapon in the game, especially with pilots that don't have enough tactics to cut down on the short range penalties.

Consider the Jenner: It carries a LOT of punch for a light mech and has reasonable speed to close the range and use it. Once the mediums melt open a hole in the armor, the SRM can tear into the target.

Let's look at the two versions of the Commando.
One is a SRM walking shotgun with a medium laser. The other carries a large laser for sniping work. Both do their job well enough for their weight.

The trap the Inner Sphere's designers often fall into is trying to give a mech (especially a light/medium mech) the ability to fight at all ranges and as a result without a pilot that can cut down the minimum range penalty, the mech is weak at all distances. Once you get a pilot with enough gunnary to increase aim and Tactics to cut the minimum range down, some of these designs get MUCH better.

For example: The Wolverine has an SRM, a Medium Laser and an AC/5. Meaning short range, mid range, long range. In any range two out of three weapons suffer. Until you get enough tactics and suddenly the AC/5 can hit reliably in mid range. Then with enough gunnary, the SRM can hit out to mid range reliably.

Suddenly this 'meh' mech is able to actually do some damage.

A lot of Inner Sphere designs were like that, trying to do too many things at once. Look at the Banshee assault mech. It was supposed to move stupidly fast, jump stupidly far, carry tons of armor and have a wicked weapons loadout. It turned out to be bad at all of those. Refit it with medium lasers exclusively and it can have a job to do as a fast brawler.

[McGrits]

Many of these designs are better than they seem. This game has nerfed laser weaponry big time when compared to the original rules and how the game was supposed to be played. The higher than mormal heat, the lack of range (vision), the inability to knock down are the technical aspects. But this game has also given the missiles and autocannons unlimited ammo. The orgiinal game had scenarios amd missions as part of campaigns where you may have 3 or more battles in row so no ammo refill or armor restack were possible. The lack of vision really hurts the lighter mechs too since they have to get into range of the enemy to scout.

The stock mechs have had issues but that was part of the story and many of their advantages do not translate into this version of the game.

[Drain]

Stock builds are crap because they contain a mix of weapons for every range. This can be fine in other genres but has no benefit in this game. It results in always having guns out of range, no matter where you are. When you design your own mech, you stack all of its weapons for 1 range, which makes it much better. Also, stock builds have terrible cooling, which desperately need a good overhaul to be effective. This is a common problem in any battletech game. It's worst with energy based builds, but you can see it on practically any mech. It gets easier once a pilot gets high guts, because they attached the overheat meter to this skill system, but it only delays the problem for 1-2 more rounds.

[pedal_pusher]

Reasons stock mechs suck:

(1) Lack of specialisation.

Back line mechs need to cut lots of armor and focus thier tonnage on having as much long range weapons as they can get away with. Front line mechs need max or nearly max armor and plenty of ML/SRM/Support weapons. Stock mechs tend to have too little armor to be in the front, but too much to be in the back and carry a mixed set of weapons which mean that they cant compete with custom mechs at any range.

(2) Consistently terrible back armor.

All stock mechs have appalling back armor, which is very easy to exploit, due to point 3.

(3) Very often have no jump jets.

In addition to struggling to get around the map, mechs with no jets are easily flanked. Every mech in the game has jet ports, so there's really no excuse for this.

(4) Using the wrong loadouts on mechs.

The panther is a great frontline tank with ML and SRM, but what does the stock mech get? A PPC, a terrible sniping weapon. The trebuchet is an agile mech with the potential to run many light powerful laser weapons, what does the stock mech get? LRMs, which is a terrible choice as the trebuchet has very little free tonnage and only 2 missle ports. The CN9-A is a much better medium LRM carrier.

(5) Using terrible weapons.

The PPC, Large Laser, AC2, AC10 are just plain underpowered and mechs that use them suck. Stock mechs often have these awful weapons equiped. The only good thing about them is the happy feeling you get pulling them off in the mech bay.

[Combat_Jack(TM)]

Part of the appeal of the game for many people is the mech loadout designs. The base loadouts are poor on purpose, to give people something to work on. If everything came stock great or minmaxed, it'd take a lot from the game

[Fly]

True, but in the end you'll notice that the most popular mechs on the table were also the ones with a homogenous setup. There is a reason why Jenners, Marauders, Catapults and Timberwolves are among the better known (and liked) Mechs.

[Mudpony]

A big reason for it is this: the original mechs were created visually before they were created stat-wise. And then they were given weapons around that look.

A second reason is that optimal is a bit boring, would result in homegenous designs, due in large part to a lack of balance between weapons. In TT, people would rip off ACs (non-20, of course) and slap on PPCs. Close range weaponry would be MLs and SRM-6s. Here, thanks to the heat increases, people rip off PPCs/LLs and put on ACs and LRMs. Most mechs would also have max or near max armor on the front (barring some very long range, support types, meant to play against the AI).

Originally posted by Fly:

True, but in the end you'll notice that the most popular mechs on the table were also the ones with a homogenous setup. There is a reason why Jenners, Marauders, Catapults and Timberwolves are among the better known (and liked) Mechs.

Marauder was for its look. Warhammer was the superior mech, though, since it had more heat sinks and didn't waste tonnage on an AC/5. Though you'd definitely want to rip off the MGs and up the armor by a couple of tons ;) But yeah, people do tend to gravitate to the stronger designs, especially if they look cool, while avoiding the likes of the Shadow Hawk, which just scratches paint at all ranges (in TT).