Judge_Omega's superb post (
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1968303) (from 2008 December 1) contains excellent suggestions for improving the current revival ability of dead Jocks:
Radical surgery option to bring back dead jocks as a cyborg with some loss of exp. (expensive and not always successful)
Cloning of dead jocks. Expensive, restarts jock as a rookie with high chances for bonuses in the fields the original was an expert in.(not available for androids, replicants at reduced cost with a chance of a bonus rank)
Data recovery of dead androids/cyborgs. Expensive, restarts jock with 1/2 rank of the original.
8. Reduced BMT for various chassis, only 2 BMT values for each class.
Choose a B.M.T. for each weight class of Titan. This would be the "base B.M.T." of that weight class. A Titan's B.M.T. should be determined by the following formula:
B.M.T. = (base B.M.T. of weight class) - [(chassis handling modifier)/5]
Assault Titans currently have the same J.M.T. as recon Titans when they both have the same Jump Port. This is incredibly unrealistic. The J.M.T. of a Titan should be determined by its mass to Jump Port number ratio. An assault Titan should have a J.M.T. that is 5 times slower than a recon Titan (when they both have the same Jump Port) because an assault Titan is 5 times the mass of a recon Titan.
The background ambient sound effect (that is played in a continuous loop when you are battling on 'Savannah' maps (i.e. the bird calls)) is EXTREMELY annoying! This sound effect should be removed from the game because I can't STAND it after I've been playing a battle on a Savannah map for a while!
The sound effect and animation of launching a flare is EXACTLY the same as ejecting. The sound effect and animation of launching a flare needs to be changed because it is misleading and it causes inexperienced players to falsely believe that a Jock has ejected.
I wish that Titans and Jocks that a player does not take into a mission did not contribute maintenance at the end of the mission. This way, players would be able to select part of their Squad to partake in missions that are designed for a lower Titan tonnage than the player's Squad currently has (without being unfairly penalized with a larger maintenance cost for Titans and Jocks than the player actually took into and used in the mission).
Titans should only be able to make Close Combat attacks (including punches and kicks) against a stationary enemy Titan. If an enemy Titan is running out of a hex, then a Titan (that is also in that hex) should not be able to make Close Combat attacks against it. It is just silly that a stationary Titan is able to make Close Combat attacks against an enemy Titan that is running (as is currently the case)!
Every time that I have counter-charged an enemy Titan, I have taken the same amount of damage that the enemy Titan (that I counter-charged) took (even when my Titan was more massive and running at a higher speed than the counter-charged enemy Titan!). This is unrealistic and unfair. The game should use momentum (i.e. mass X velocity) to calculate the damage that each Titan takes when a successful counter-charge occurs.
It would be great if players could choose what grade of actuators to put in the Titan, so that the Titan's top speed would be dependent on its mass to (engine PUs) ratio and modified by its grade of actuators. For example, grade 6 actuators would provide the highest multiplier to the Titan's resultant top speed, but those particular actuators would also possess the most mass and occupy the most internal slots and use up the most PUs from the engine. Grade 6 actuators would cause a Titan to do the most damage with successful punches and kicks, whilst grade 1 actuators would cause a Titan to do the least damage with successful punches and kicks. Then players could design Titans based on what they either deem important or just tailor them to their favourite playing style, such as an ultra-fast Recon Titan that has Close Combat weapons and powerful jump jets, or a lumbering Assault Titan that sacrifices speed for more weapons and more free PUs for its energy weapons and Gauss Cannons.
The current descriptions in the F3 window (of either "CALL" or "DONE" in the "ATTACK" and "MOVE" columns) do not convey anywhere near enough information to describe what each Titan is currently doing. This window should be enlarged substantially and specific descriptions should be displayed for what each Titan is doing for both its "ATTACK" and "MOVE" actions, such as "Locking on to Light Titan in hex 12/14 in 4 seconds" or "Locking on to Guillotine in hex 12/14 in 4 seconds" or "Scanning Guillotine in hex 12/14 in 15 seconds" or "Turning left (4 seconds)" or "Running (14 seconds)" or "Walking Forwards (32 seconds)" or "Crouching (4 seconds)" or "Standing up (7 seconds)" or "Dodging (20 seconds)" or "Jumping Up (7 seconds)" or "Jumping Forwards (20 seconds)" or "Swivelling right (2 seconds)" or "Linking scanner to Duellist in hex 09/15 in 20 seconds)" or "Repairing system in 52 seconds" or "toggling shield in 6 seconds" or "ejecting in 6 seconds" (this is what Thorgrim suggested above) or "waiting on call" or "waiting on time (60 seconds)" or "waiting on heat (50 C)" or "waiting on units" or "waiting on recycle", etc. I often change my Titans' orders during a battle and it is very frustratating not knowing which of my Titans are currently locking on to which enemy Titans!
The message that is displayed in the lower right area of the screen (that informs the player what the currently active Titan is doing) does not convey enough information. The same messages should be displayed here as the messages in the paragraph above. For example, the message "Locking on to Guillotine in hex 12/14 in 4 seconds" should be displayed in the lower right area of the screen instead of the simplistic and inadequate message "LOCK TARGET 04 SECS" (as is currently the case).
Sometimes, when I am attacking an enemy Titan, it becomes disabled (i.e. its name is coloured red in the pop-up window when you click on the hex that contains the disabled Titan) (without the head being ripped off or the torso containing the engine being disabled) without the game informing me that it has become disabled, so I am unaware that the Titan is disabled (yet I am continuing to attack the disabled Titan because I am unaware that it is already disabled, when my attacks should be directed towards the remaining enemy Titans that are still functional on the battlefield). The game should inform players (who currently have Line-Of Sight with the disabled Titan, or a scanner link to an allied Titan that does have Line-Of-Sight with the disabled Titan) as soon as an enemy Titan becomes disabled (exactly the same way that the game informs the player when the head is ripped off or when the torso containing the engine is disabled).
Whenever a Titan becomes disabled, the game should automatically "BREAK ATTACK" for every Titan that currently has a lock on (or is locking on to) that disabled Titan. This would speed up gameplay and make the game more user-friendly for players.
In the HQ, when examining the Jock roster, the screen that displays all of the attributes and skills of a Jock should have the primary attribute and secondary attribute displayed in parentheses (brackets) alongside each skill. This would make the game much more user-friendly! Examples would be:
Recon/Light (Dex/Rea) 60 60
Close Combat (Ins/Rea) 55 55
Scanner (Int/Neu) 60 60
Leadership (Cha/Int) 71 71
It would be so handy if the player could see the percentage chance of standing up before the player attempts to stand up (so that you can decide not to attempt to stand up with your severely damaged Titan because the chance of successfully standing up is something as hopeless as 2%, and the damage received from falling down might be enough to disable one of your Titan's locations.
Whenever one of your Titans is ready for you to give an order, if your Titan is overheating (i.e. its temperature is over 50 degrees C), then the game should play an audio file in which a woman says "Heat blue" (if the temperature is between 50 and 75 degrees C) or "Heat yellow" (if the temperature is between 75 and 100 degrees C) so that you automatically know that the Titan is going to have a penalty to hit if you attack, and so that you are adequately warned before you decide to fire your Tesla Bolt which raises your heat to over 100 degrees C! Maybe there could be an option to turn this feature off if players found it annoying.
Androids should be immune to being "dizzy" or "stunned" because they don't have brains.
Humans and replicants are currently significantly inferior to cyborgs and androids. Humans and replicants should get new beneficial abilities (such as receiving more Development Points when they increase their rank, and having a higher percentage of XP converted into Development Points at the end of a battle (because humans learn better and faster than computers)) that make them as good as cyborgs and androids currently are.
E.C.M. should have no effect on G.M.H. (to hit) because (in reality) infra-red missiles (or heat-seeking missiles) are unaffected by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by E.C.M. devices. In reality, heat-seeking missiles are only affected by heat sources (such as burning woods hexes, flares, the Sun, over-heating Titans, and recent explosions (either exploding Titans or exploding ammunition (either inside a Titan or shots that miss their target and explode on the ground)).
Heat is a form of energy. Therefore heat-seeking missiles are a specific type of energy-seeking missile. Therefore G.M.H. missiles are a specific type of G.M.E. missile. The G.M.E. Rack should be renamed the G.M.R. Rack (i.e. radar-seeking missile, or radar-homing missile). The G.M.R. would not have a better chance to hit when the enemy target has an active shield. The G.M.R. would be considered an unguided missile if it was fired at an enemy Titan that was not performing an active scan and that did not have an E.C.M. turned on (either due to being destroyed or deliberately turned off or not being equipped with an E.C.M.), and the G.M.R. would then have a good chance of targeting any other Titan in the path of the missile.
The Meson Guns and all of the weapons in the "Energy Weapons" category should be unable to cause instability to Titans that are hit by them because (in reality) the beams/flames/arcs from these weapons possess negligible mass, so they would be unable to exert anywhere near enough force to displace a 40 ton Titan.
There is no such thing as a "black ray". The Black Ray Gun should be renamed the Dark Energy Gun and its +65% instability modifier and increased Jock damage upon head hits should be kept, but its improved chance of burning woods hexes should be removed (because there is currently no scientific evidence that suggests that dark energy has a better chance of igniting combustible matter than light does).