Sensor Lock
the worst thing was having an atlas for example and no mech of sensor lock-> you never get into fire range to target something, so you need at least 1 sensor mech,
and then...
all players skip all their initiative while YOU have NO working tactic to USE your initiative advantage, because getting nearer fast was suicide, so the initiative->anti-gambling, so trying to go last and then twice was a CHEATING tactic in my opinion, and is both annoying to DO and annoying to defend. I think it shall be possible, but for beginners, its very unfair. make it easier to play this strategy, not a 'hidden must have' one-wayer that controls ALL the following gameplay.
my suggestion: sensor lock shall even remove 3 evasion because you sacrifice one mech turn to give another of your only 4 mechs a chance to hit, which can still miss. its a very deciding, but very hard to figure out ability, that I find good, but is badly introduced.
MY suggestion:
1.Add a 3. level of abilities to pilots who have 3 abilities now, and move sensor lock AND evasion movement AND juggernaut to those 3. priority abilities, so many pilots have it and its not that much of an Either/or, but not all pilots have it and you must share your pool of abilities.
2. if Evasion is removed, INCREASE the accuracy of hitting that target even more, incalculate the over-'sensoring' so if one mech has 1 evasion and you lock it, you increase the hit chances by another 2 (imaginal) evasion-steps of Accuracy, that a non-locked mach would not have, because you SACRIFICE ONE WHOLE MECH NOT TO SHOOT one turn, so it shall increase the accuracy the amount of 3 evasion steps SURPLUS to the 'normal' accuracy, in the case when enemy mechs have no evasion anymore. this can be stacked and gives maximum accuracy up to the maximum.
BUT: you must balance this with indirect fire. if you sacrifice 3 mechs for sensor lock to make 1 mech fire 4 LRM20 for example, its good balance, because you just sacrificed 3 mechs!('s turn without shooting).
but if LRMS are too strong, the mech that does sensor lock must be vulnerable to catch (at least locking him with light mechs himself), which is usually the case, as he has no entrenched only evasion because you need to move him back to maximum range of sensor lock. I think with counter-locking the sensor-locking mechs themselves, you can lrm the locking mech, that has only evasion, which balances well I think.
The Way you changed Sensor lock: if PPC fire can ruin shot accuracy for one turn, you have a genious 'counter' to sensor lock, because a mech that gets ppced cannot aim anymore, so you ppc the mech that does NOT sensor lock, but which is supposed to shoot. Your Idea to impair to reduce target accuracy is similar to my suggestion. Just reverse. I still think 2 steps are not enough for SACRIFICING A WHOLE MECHS TURN. for a light mech, that sensor lock is not powerful enough, because lights ARE you scouts with good sensors! For a heavy mech, you sacrifice ALL HIS WEAPONS! that should not happen! you shall lock 1 stripe AND fire! everything else makes no fun! at least you have this ABILITY! so mechs who dont have sensor lock, CANNOT lock and shoot! but instead something else powerful.
-> make it 3 stripes, it seems more justified, and makes a more active game; but take care, that 1 turn doesnt insta-kill any mech if I just miss-managed 1 turn with 1 mech. -> raise general mech total HP globally AND increase damage potencial by focused hits would do the game something good (so a mech can just neutralize the hp change with high damage, but only if the mech team did a good focus, why the hp increase? because a mech, not even a light should be destroyed instantly, just because you did a slight miss-turn before (maybe forgot to entrench or something).
Bulwark
It was TOO dominant in play, and at the same time, a fire-jump-lance (many flamers + all jumping mechs) did make your whole lance unable to defend itself, because you HAD to move your mechs to not get backstepped by all of the jumpers.
Jumping was (even more) overpowered (because you get evasion full + attack...) than bulkwark which was also dominant, making me raging often. Its a dominant feature that is not very good introduced to players in the DECIDING must-play manner that it happened to be played out.
I find bulkwark a bit non-realistic, because a mech CANNOT hide or save from receiving fire, how can he 'tank' the impact? it can only reduce knock down by crouching (in Mechwarriors you mech could crouch that made it immobile but lower profile)
fast mechs can dodge, or make aiming more difficult. heavy mechs ARE easy to hit, but their heavy armor makes it hard to pierce them. and the pilot cannot change the receiving of fire, only the commander can change their position angle.
Mechs are MOVING while in battle, and not static, also heavy mechs are moving and this makes them harder to hit actually. (experience from mechwarrior online), because they could go in/out of cover and shoot and hide again. or go in circles around an enemy
I would give heavy mechs WAY more default armor, +50% or + 100% or + 200% to make them survive sustained fire a lot longer, so they can shoot back a few turns before they get wiped off their feet like a TITAN.
INSTEAD I would lower the damage of weapons (lasers) on increasing range, like in mechwarrior, and the heavy skirmish is carried out by intelligent positioning, using ground, heat management and POSSIBILITIES to move your lance a few turns WHILE in battle, WITHOUT getting insta-killed if one mech gets focused by 4 full-hitting other mechs. Those titans tend to be more sturdy by default, compared to weapons. Mechs are no glass tanks!
This is my judgement to the current AND the old implementation of 'bulkwark'. only considering gameplay, its way better, but its more toy-game, not professional mechwarrior, which has way more deault armor, and abilities go to other directions, much more into dodging if the pilot is good or worse aiming with electronic warfare(e.g. sensor locking impairing).
Suggestion: A good pilot can shatter a target mech by targeting critical weak points, shaking the mech which gets less accuracy a bit when you hit, depending on how many weapons hit, and hit critical. way less than PPC, but more continuous.
FAZIT: I dont like the feature. its for 3 years old 'pokempn' children. not professional (sophisticated) mechwarrior.
Coolant Vent
EVERY MECH should have a coolant flush (better 2 loads of) ready like in mechwarrior 3! as a trade off, the general heat generation of weapons should kick in more! 4 medium lasers did hurt a MW3-mech into yellow, a second shot wide into red, a 3. shot shut down.
on the other hand, heat dissipators did DECREASE the heat much faster, with more influence, so a high tonnage on heat components did justify AND encapable a heavy mech to sustainly use 3 or 4 large lasers every turn OR also PPCs, or even 6 when going down with armor to 50%. This would work with general default armor increased., and those mechs have still armor to fight, not one shotted, but thin, and PPC assaults get viable. (not un-accessable and not-counterable, instead strong but counterable easily with lrms or counter ppc, or even long-tom, because they must cool down some turns(making them static), you can arty them.
Judging your new proposal:
cooling a mech, how shall that influence health of the pilot? what a destroyed idea! The ability should INCREASE the already-available feature to do this and increase the amount of cooling AND the charges, but this cannot be done by a pilot, because a pilot cannot influence that, its a technical configuration of the MECH. you should get coolant tank components that you can add, eventually, and a pilot can do more chain-fire to shedule the weapon usage with the heat dissipation better, so a PILOT can decrease the heat amount that a weapon generates per turn by using them in a better control order. I know you have this already as pilot skill in a number. but that doesnt seem to have too much effect if you are not using APEX so you can increase it with an ability; that should fit if correctly done.
Maybe I give a more exact advice if you ask again.
Sure Footing
THIS is what BULKWARK does as a pilot skill, and DOES NOT remove evasion movement. And EVASION MOVEMENT shall be more effective, give them 5-6 or even 8 stripes, and the 8 stripes decrease the accuracy by 60%, and not above.
Weapons shall not get a hard hit or miss, but lasers, fired with less accuracy, hit for some instances of seconds on a target, while their 1 second, in mechwarrior online, with beginning pilots, and autocannons, too and LRMS, too.
but they dont miss totally. PPCs are more sensitive to that.
so EVASION movement does decrease the HIT DAMAGE by % which is what bulkwark does in your game, but evasion move is the factor that actually bases the feature. or high range.
And Sure FOOTING makes a more agile movement (like pilot skill) of your mech, also heavy mech, making it more difficult to hit on low ranges, because its movement is tricky. AND also harder to knock down. It removes 20% accuracy on low range, less than evasion movement, but therefore on low range, and for heavy mechs. the influence of the ability is more accuracy remover on light mechs and more knock down counter for heavy mechs, so the ability, does change the ratio, depending on whether its applied to a light or heavy mech, because a light mech MUST be more easy to knock down, this is OBVIOUS!
But a light mech is fiddely ANNOYING to hit even on low distance. Now what if we have 2 abilities that lower the hit chances?
Evasion movement has high impact on light mechs, (and raise the maximum, + more granular, to distinguish it from normal pilots), while a heavy mech gets a bit, like 3 stripes instead of 1 or 2, and sure footing increases the knock down resistance heavily on heavy mechs, AND reduces receiving accuracy by 20% while in the most important full-skirmish phase, while a light mech can move on high speed and low range through the enemy lance with not so much knock down (low, but finally high, because a melee almost cannot hit that mech, on high speed and Sure footing), so that light mechs FINALLY can fire and survive the close up with other (heavier) mechs.
Light mechs then get trackable with sensor locks (1 for medium accuracy and 2 sensor locks for pretty sure hits, and 3 sensor locks for 100% hits).
I LOVE MY PROPOSAL AND WANT IT TO BE DONE ALIKE (similar).
Judging your new proposal:
its a VERY UNIMPORTANT influence, on a very kindergarden approach, that does not affect the play value, even though it influences thet stats and the knock downs severely. it SEEMS to be an influence, and it CHANGES its part of the game into a GOOD direction, but it only has a MINOR + influence on the global gameplay, even if it fully cuts the resistance through the lines. (impacts the game a very large amount).
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