One thing I miss from both Mechcommander and Mechwarrior 4 are the potential ambushes that could be set up with high pressure fuel tanks or fuel trucks that were sprinkled throughout the maps. Much like fences (which are Ewok built anti-mech traps) they would probably be destroyed by knowledgeable players very early on to prevent them from being used against them, but I still see their existence as being something that should be both feasible and potentially fun.
The idea would be to place destructible objects much like one would a turret. The difference is, this object has no weapons or AI, so it should be cheaper than a turret currently is. Health levels are relatively low; a truck would detonate from a burst of machine gun fire while a high pressure fuel tank is built to withstand accidents and so could take considerable weapons fire to rupture.
Upon destruction the object would explode with a force as small as an inferno grenade going off to as big as multiple firebombs hitting or maybe even a mech reactor crit.
The purpose of these objects is to help make the game world feel alive by allowing mechwarriors to exploit the map's terrain and objects to their advantage.
- A row of parked cars might initially provide cover to a BA, but after a salvo of SRMs or a burst of AC/5 shells rake through them, they turn into a grapevine of minor gas tank explosions, flame, and death.
- A gas station at an intersection in Urban Jungle suddenly becomes a series of firebomb sized fireballs as a Large Pulse Laser rips into the pumps and detonates the fuel tanks, sending geysers of flame up for the next 5 minutes. Anyone walking into said flame jets now takes heat and damage like they walked into a flamer.
- A fuel refinery's high pressure tanks make for a dangerous capture point in TC. The enemy rains LRMs down onto one tank, rupturing it creating a mushroom cloud that sweeps through the area. The rest of the tanks survive this explosion as they are designed to, but a missed blast from an LB20X later ruptures another tank and the second mushroom cloud sets off a chain reaction on the rest.
