'Needle' Concept

[Patriclus]

Heya guys. I was chatting to my mate at school about this mod, and he got fired up enough to create a new weapon. It is a melee weapon, designed to be useful to the lighter, faster mechs.

It takes up one arm slot, and looks similar to a very large hypodermic needle. The idea is that the light mech runs up to a heavier, slower mech, and jabs it with the needle, releasing an EMP charge which disables the heavier mech for (x) amount of time.

I think a similar concept has been dismissed before, but I promised him I'd post it, so here you go!

He drew a concept picture:

[thezeus18]

I'd need an explanation for why it uses a needle.

[ZaethDekar]

I think it would work better as a stun baton instead of a needle. Almost like a club. Instead of having the whole mech disabled though I think it should depend on where you hit.

Such as if you hit a leg the mech could fall over however if you hit the right arm he can't use his right arm weapons for x amount of seconds.

That way you can't just have two fast scout guys going around bashing people until the backup arrives.. it would take more skill.

[thezeus18]

Yeah, but if you can do that, why not incorporate it into a projectile? I mean, if you're going to have a melee weapon, you have to have some reason why the concept would only work as a melee weapon.

[Dark Riot]

Yeah, but if you can do that, why not incorporate it into a projectile? I mean, if you're going to have a melee weapon, you have to have some reason why the concept would only work as a melee weapon.

Perhaps the energy requirement for such a weapon is too high for a projectile to work. Meaning that a shell fired at a mech couldn't hold a large enough charge to stun the area, while having a direct connection to the mech could allow you to transfer energy mech to mech, thus sending enough energy to stun the targeted area.

[thezeus18]

Ah. That makes sense.

[Ritifo]

Seems a little more Evangelion-ish than Battletech... ish. In any case, I doubt the devs will be going overboard on their freedom with this game and introducing entirely new weapons and such, like MechAssault did. (*spits*) We already have many close range weapons available for BattleMechs such as Flamers and the like, and let's not forget that 'Mechs do have their melee attack, which would probably do more damage than a needle. (Although they would tear up both the victim and the attacker!)

[Dark Riot]

Heh.. I forgot about the axe that an Axeman carries. I've never seen the point in that unless you sneak up on the guy. Why bother getting that close where it's hard to miss any shots. Just seems suicidal.

[Landros Radick]

Axeman is awesome for urban combat

[Kzinistzerg]

Well if you undershoot a DFA by a couple of meters that'll take care of the problem nicely

[PanzerBoxb]

Also, if you are running hot in an close quarters engagement, the axe-man cometh. 

[Dark Riot]

True.. I forgot about urban combat.. Close range and perhaps the metal structures would obscure your sensors. On that note, any plans for big city maps? If so, having sensor interference when surrounded by lots of buildings would be interesting. Could actually ambush then.

The axe from an Axeman can cleave off the arm of a mech right? It's been a while since I've read any books (Into other Sci-fi, Warhammer40k and other crap)

[PanzerBoxb]

Based on the fluff stories, the Axeman could easily take out even an assault classed Mech with a single hit.  As I remember the tabletop, it could nail a medium and some heavies depending upon where it hit and what the target was.

[Moni]

It certainly isn't a foolish or over-the-top idea, but someone else said it best: seeing as it's a fan-made mod, and you're dealing with a VERY classic and VERY fixed universe, it is probably best to leave things as they are.  Lord knows there are a million other things that these guys are attempting to do.

That would really change the entire balance and approach.  I say they leave everything pretty standard until they get a beta going, and address balance problems from there.  Who knows, maybe something like this will end up in an update, but it would be pretty huge, especially in urban situations.