The value of hardpoint types

One of the balance issues I believe MWO needs to address is the disparity in the value of the various different types of hardpoints. I first started thinking about this when I started playing my Shadow Cats. The biggest complaint I've seen about the Shadow Cat is that it doesn't have very many hardpoints. That's not really true though. You could bring a Shadow Cat that has as many as 9 hardpoints - it's just that those hardpoints aren't worth anything because 2/3 of them are ballistic. There would be a lot less complaining about the Shadow Cat if it had 5 hardpoints, provided they were all energy. That got me thinking about the relative value of hardpoints. Here's what I came up with:

Energy hardpoints are great in any amount. A lone energy hardpoint can be used for a LPL or ERPPC, both of which are worthwhile. Two energy hardpoints can be used effectively as well, as even a pair of ERML/ML are worth bringing and easy to fit due to their low tonnage requirement. Energy hardpoints are great in bulk too, allowing the mech to boat ERML/ML. It doesn't matter how much tonnage a mech has available, there's no number of energy hardpoints other than zero that would be considered bad.

Ballistics, however, are a different story. A single ballistic hardpoint is very valuable if the chassis has enough tonnage to support a Gauss Rifle or AC/20. If there isn't enough tonnage for the premium ballistics, a single ballistic hardpoint is borderline worthless. The value of two ballistic hardpoints is very polarizing as well. If the chassis can support double Gauss, the second ballistic slot is very good. If the chassis can't, the second ballistic slot is mostly useless. I'm speaking generally of course, as there are a few niche mechs that can make use of it due to quirks. The story is the same for 3 ballistic hardpoints and above. There are a few heavies and assaults that can effectively use them, such as the JM6, BNC-3E, DWF, KCG, etc., but most chassis will get no value out of them whatsoever. Unlike energy hardpoints, the value of a ballistic hardpoint suffers from dramatic diminishing returns as you add more of them, and it's not even a guarantee that one of them will even be good.

Missile hardpoints are somewhat of an inverse of ballistic hardpoints in terms of value. One or two missile hardpoints generally aren't worth using, regardless of available tonnage. Three isn't really where you want to be in most cases, but it works. Four is good, and more than that opens up some pretty good boating builds. I would say that missile hardpoints are in a better place than ballistics due to the weight of the weapons that can be put there; you don't need a ridiculous amount of tonnage to make use of a larger number of missile hardpoints.

So all of that being said, I think that one of the biggest things PGI could do to help balance the various chassis against each other is to normalize the value of a hardpoint. The Shadow Cat would look pretty good if those ballistic hardpoints were as juicy as energy hardpoints.

I think the best way to go about that is to add new weapons into the game. Ballistics in particular need an equivalent of the ERML/ML. MGs aren't good because of their extremely short range, zero burst potential, and 100% facetime requirement for maximum DPS. The next step up, the AC/2, isn't good mainly due to the large tonnage commitment for so little damage. Missiles could use something like the MRM system from MW4; a weapon that doesn't force you into a long range or brawler role would make it easier to add a missile weapon as a compliment to whatever the rest of your mech is carrying, which is generally going to have a medium range. Maybe this could be accomplished by advancing the timeline, I don't know enough about Battletech to say. But honestly, I don't care about original Battletech and timelines. I just want a balanced game. We've already got PGI-created mech variants, why not come up with some PGI-created weapons as well? We need ballistic and missile weapons that will be reasonable on any mech, regardless of available tonnage or anything else - a solid tonnage-filler like the ERML/ML is for energy.

I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about this. Maybe I'll incorporate the feedback into this post, pretty it up a bit, and post it on the official forums to make sure it gets noticed. And finally, I'll close by saying that MWO has been and still is one of my favorite games to play. I think that it's doing pretty well overall and this thread isn't meant to imply that the game is busted. I'm just trying to make it even better.