3 lrm boats to ensure a knockdown followed by a high gunnery twin ppc/ll to ensure the core, is probably the most broken ive encountered.
The sounds like a job for a light mech packed with flamers to deal with. Reserving the light and getting double movements with full pilot skills should give enough evasion to allow most missiles to miss. Along with using trees to further help in mitigating damage. Jump jets also would be good. Could put JJ and flamers on a locust and see how that goes
These were modified designs, and yes they have counters but if you don't anticipate them before hand its bad news bears.
+1 vote for a stock mech tourney. If nothing else (and the potential for broken custom builds is a pretty big "something"), it will be more interesting to have to work around the limitations of stock builds.
stock mechs and a predetermined weight limit both maximum and minimum, and maybe some rule about no more than two of any specific weight class just to be extra sure people don't find the most ludicrously cheesy stock build and go balls deep.
The problem with any game that has building of some sort, is that Cheddar con Carne is almost inevitable. Likely wont participate in this due to time constraints but for those that would I also think the stock load out and weight limits are a good idea to keep it fun and sporting.
I really don't think stock designs and weight limits are really going to matter in stopping the meta-gaming from happening. It's just changing the colors, but the picture remains the same. For example, if someone wants to exploit Sensor Lock + LRM hell, they can still do that with stock builds as easily as not. Also, the "value" of a mech is much more important than its tonnage. I recommend we use the game's built-in limits for skirmish. But I'm down for whatever. I think the bigger factor will be locking mech loadouts at the start of the tournament so you can't change to counter what your opponent has. That will force people to think about more balanced builds. Maybe have a lineup of 6 mechs with 2 held in reserve if you want limited flexibility.
Potential Rules Set (based mostly on previous posts & my brief look into the Skirmishes): Stock mechs only Lances have to fall within in-game cost constraints* Some sort of cap on mechs with LRMs (at least 10s or 15s) and/or pilots with Sensor Lock *I feel like Battle or War price points would work best in my opinion, since Clash really only allows for light mechs with maybe 1-2 mediums per lance. Battle generally looks like mediums with room for heavies, while War allows room for assaults. Consult the pre-built lances in-game for a better look. EDIT: Actually, given the price restrictions on the game mode, could there be enough checks to allow for custom builds? I ask because I wonder whether people will simply end up using one of the pre-build lances (I have not taken a really close look, so I dont know how good/bad they actually are).
Oh right. Just so everyone knows. You will probably all have to have the same files/values to do multiplayer. Otherwise you'll run into not being able to connect. Think Stellaris.