So with so many begging for Clans to be in Battletech I started thinking about the Clans and what I felt went wrong with them when introduced into the universe. The tech was basically the same tech as the IS but upped a notch. What if instead the tech had been similar but different?
The Clans are very frugal with the use of resources. This comes from limited availability for a long time. With this in mind it makes sense that the Clan war direction would go differently for weapon development. There would have been little to no development in the direction of ballistic and missile weapons. These consume and ammo and resources that need to be replaced. Energy based weapons would make more sense. This means more efficient lasers and PPCs, as well as variants...
So lets start with Lasers. The standard lasers would of course evolve to be more efficient and have better range and accuracy. (BTW we have seen this in the game) New varients would have appeared as well. Pulse lasers are actually from SLDF so they would be more advanced as well. But how how about new variants? Like a shotgun laser. A small or medium laser that is the size of a large laser or PPC. This fires multiple independent beams that all each hit the target with a separate roll. Lets say 4, so a mech with the smaller variant would hit the target up to 4 times with each such weapon. (You just replaced SRMs)
Clan mechs by the books also tend to be faster than IS mechs, how about if we did the same thing. They have better speed but to get that better speed they had to give up some armor. The Armor they have would have evolved to stopping energy weapons mostly so it could be lighter and rely on refraction.
The result of this approach would be in an IS vs Clan fight the clanners would have an advantage in range (somewhat, remember the IS still developed missiles and projectiles.) and speed. However against missiles and projectiles the Clan armor would be weaker. This means there would be a level of parity in game play without direct copies.
I think if this approach had been done at the start Clanners would be a great introduction as they would have an early advantage due to the shock of a new tactics but a parity would be reached quicker. The Clan invasion will have still gone as planned due to the number of warriors the clans brought, relying heavily on mechs and thus outmatching IS troops. For game play however the change would have been easier balance.
As it stands in lore the clanners are basically just better IS. Mech for mech the clanners are essentially the same with better weapons, armor, heat and speed. This is why so many feel the clans broke the game
The Clans are very frugal with the use of resources. This comes from limited availability for a long time. With this in mind it makes sense that the Clan war direction would go differently for weapon development. There would have been little to no development in the direction of ballistic and missile weapons. These consume and ammo and resources that need to be replaced. Energy based weapons would make more sense. This means more efficient lasers and PPCs, as well as variants...
So lets start with Lasers. The standard lasers would of course evolve to be more efficient and have better range and accuracy. (BTW we have seen this in the game) New varients would have appeared as well. Pulse lasers are actually from SLDF so they would be more advanced as well. But how how about new variants? Like a shotgun laser. A small or medium laser that is the size of a large laser or PPC. This fires multiple independent beams that all each hit the target with a separate roll. Lets say 4, so a mech with the smaller variant would hit the target up to 4 times with each such weapon. (You just replaced SRMs)
Clan mechs by the books also tend to be faster than IS mechs, how about if we did the same thing. They have better speed but to get that better speed they had to give up some armor. The Armor they have would have evolved to stopping energy weapons mostly so it could be lighter and rely on refraction.
The result of this approach would be in an IS vs Clan fight the clanners would have an advantage in range (somewhat, remember the IS still developed missiles and projectiles.) and speed. However against missiles and projectiles the Clan armor would be weaker. This means there would be a level of parity in game play without direct copies.
I think if this approach had been done at the start Clanners would be a great introduction as they would have an early advantage due to the shock of a new tactics but a parity would be reached quicker. The Clan invasion will have still gone as planned due to the number of warriors the clans brought, relying heavily on mechs and thus outmatching IS troops. For game play however the change would have been easier balance.
As it stands in lore the clanners are basically just better IS. Mech for mech the clanners are essentially the same with better weapons, armor, heat and speed. This is why so many feel the clans broke the game
