Honestly, the reason behind why the "big guns" are the only ones commonly used (PPC, Guass, UAC 20) is that the negatives of them have not been introduced yet. Firing a ppc causes immense heat and static, shorting your radar, as well as alerts others to your location, ecm or not. Gauss knocks you stupid, you fire it, and your mech has to recoil a bit, especially if it is running. The Autocannons can effing explode if your heat gets to high, or the weapon is fired too quickly. With these in the game, you will see the more reliable weapons being used much more. Until then, you will keep seeing these types of threads complaining about superweapons not being up to snuff.
Hmm, if big guns would be more dangerous and less reliable, we'll see smaller weapons as much more appealing than they are now. But then again, weapon explosions and jamming are disadvantages of all ACs, not only the biggest ones. In CBT, even MG ammo explosion could do you a lot of damage.
The real downside of most hard hitting weapons in CBT is range or heat limitation. PPC and Gauss both had long range, but they are unusable in close combat due to minimum range penalty. But, while easily implemented for LRMs, making PPC and Gauss harder to use at close range in MWLL is almost impossible without some kind of handwaved artificial difficulty.
As for the heat, it's accumulation/dissipation balance is totally ruined by free coolant every asset has in MWLL. After some analysis of energy boats in CBT vs MWLL, I came to a conclusion that "normal" heat dissipation ration are almost exactly the same. The only real differences are "panic button coolant usage" and overheat consequences. Let me elaborate this a little.
Having coolant pod for free(that is no space of weight is occupied by it) means that energy boat can fire 3-4 barrages as fast as it's weapons can recycle without heat building high enough to cause shutdown. For mechs with multiple heat sinks, like NCat, it's even better as, with fast natural heat dissipation, only small amount of coolant is needed to keep heat at bay after every shot.
Another problem is all-forgiving overheat: sure, you risk having your mech shut itself down, if overheated, but what does it actually do to you? If the enemy is nearby, he can have a couple of shot at you, while you powering your mech up, but that's all. If there are no enemies around, you're safe. The worst heat-related issue you can have is an "overheat damage", dealt to your mech if the heat reaches the top of heat gauge. Sure, it's nasty but is it
that bad? Especially if you can actually
still can use coolant when in shutdown.
Now CBT, it has some aces in it's sleeve when it comes to the high heat situations. First of all, making a piloting roll is not very easy for an average CBT mechwarrior, and overheating requires one roll to override the shutdown, one more to see if you could prevent ammo meltdown(and thus a nasty explosion that could instantly turn your mech into a burning wreck). Moreover, if mechs shuts down you'll risk falling down(which is dangerous by itself as mech could be damaged by falling), making your mech much easier to hit for every enemy around. And you'll have to make some more piloting rolls(quite hard, I assure you) to stand up after that. Keep in mind that every piloting roll becomes harder with heat raising up. And with real high heat comes unoverrideable shutdown. Then again, almost everything I mentioned here(high heat, falling, etc.) could cause pilot to loose his consciousness and/or suffer damage, which could eventually kill him, even with mech still intact.
Now I understand that most of that(falling and getting up, for example) wouldn't be implemented in MWLL for technical reasons, I just want you to compare the severity of excessive heat in CBT and in MWLL. If every time you cross the red line you'll risk not only shutting your mech down but also falling, getting unconscious and frying your ammo, you'll think twice before firing once more PPC.
So, here's my suggestion. Firstly, coolant pods should be optional and should count against space and weight limits when installed, while coolant efficiency could stay the same, or be toned down a little more. Secondly, MWLL needs much more severe consequences for overheating. As an example, introducing unoverrideable shutdown at high heat(heat bar touches the top), ammo explosions, blurred vision for a pilot(like we have for "walking in lava" moments) and inability to use coolant when mech is in shutdown could do the trick IMO.
