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How about if you could opt to leave your titan's arms off completely to save some tonnage? Especially long-range titans have little use for their hands as it stands, and sometimes I've found cases where their slots weren't needed for anything important.

You could treat all arm hits as hits to side torsos (or optionally, misses), but since you don't have to protect those unneeded arms, you could have a better armor there.

I know at least Greywolf would appreciate this possibility. <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

An armless titan would never be able to stand up if knocked down, though.

We have also discussed multi-armed titans as well.
Or different types of legs 'Tractor vs legs'. I've always thought that a CC weapon for kicking would be useful.

There was a mech-programming game for the PS called "Carnage heart" sometime back. It had a rather effective implimentation of different types of locomotion for mechs. Track mechs were hopelessly unmaneuverable because they couldnt sidestep (sidestepping missiles and other attacks was a very important routine to have in your programming) but they were able to carry much more weight. 2-legged mechs were the most maneuverable, able to jump, prone, crouch and sidestep, enabling them to pull off some amazing feats of dodging but they carried the least weight. 4 legged mechs were slow, but were otherwise the best because they carried a decent weight and still were quite maneuverable.

Of course it'd be very difficult to implement these properties into WS because you'd have to rework the to-hit tables. But it would add alot to the distinctiveness of each chassis type (right now, chassis type 1-5 doesnt really seem all that special, despite the subtle differences)

Another feature that i was talking to tarend about was a more dynamic close combat system. Right now, about all that can happen in HTH is charging, DfAing, and getting knocked down by the attack (with the same chance as normal weapons fire, i think). The problem is, HTH is alot more dynamic than that, perhaps titans could be knocked off balance and not prone, unable to use hth attacks or move, but otherwise fully functional (ranged weapons). Maybe they could be locked in a grapple where only hth attacks can be used until the hold is broken. More importantly, there has to be some kind of defensive HTH move, on default settings, the terrain generated is always rather rugged, favouring HTH (unless you load up on LRMs and hover around, but the latest update changes that), so it would be logical to add as many close combat options as ranged combat has. Oh yea, it would make smaller mechs less effective in close combat too (imagine a tiny wolfpack grappling with a 200tonner)

[ October 31, 2001: Message edited by: th15 ]

[ October 31, 2001: Message edited by: th15 ]</p>