Kitten:
Participation in the tourney is not mandatory.
Map is kept 'small' as in one battle board, because as noted, ten turns is really not a lot of time to play out and kill someone, at times, if they're being evasive, it's really really not east.
The map is large enough that if you start on the edge, you buy yourself easily a turn or so of range combat to snipe at someone with. So that someone like Teri who has an ER PPC isnt totally gipped on having one if they start as far away as possible from their opponent, maybe on a hill so they can skip some terrain when sniping.
These are actually very similiar to the 'basic' maps that came with the game. I thought that it had a good mix of terrain. Since there are only two mechs i also presumed that it was spacious enough for a match. They have company on company battles using two of these maps, so really, i think the notion that there isnt enough room on the map to play is unfounded. End to end the map is only 17 hexs long, maybe a little more corner to corner, but given the length of time to actually sit and play out the match, and the notion of fustration Ana has mentioned for playing to a draw, a larger map is not attractive, since it will only make it easier to evade your opponent.
The map could be simplified, but i like the terrain. It gives cover to make tactical decisions, it has hills to help jumpers, and even water for those using salamander heat sinks. You're going to be hard pressed to find a better 'general' map.
Like I said in response to Ana, I've had pretty much opposite of the experience that she did, and I wont lie, I'm more than a little tired of minimum range penalties... but hearing Helia had some of the same problems as me, I think that means the map is actually pretty balanced. If the long range players are griping about not being able to stay out of close range and the close range players are griping about not being able to get in range then it seems pretty balanced to me.
Perhaps the real frustrating part was not the lack of variety in the map, but the lack of variety in the Op force... There is no real reason to take the X3... the X3-A is superior in every way and the 4/6/4 range profile is a real liability on a 25 ton mech (in my opinion at least) enough of a liability that I never even considered taking an X3. Add to that the fact that MPL's seem to have ben the only weapon that stood a chance of hitting (every cadet I faced loaded out 2 or 3 of them) Which might have lead to the missions feeling repetitive...
Some suggestions for future versions:
- Use a few different maps, maybe just 2 or 3, but force each player to use each map at least once... Megamek has some interesting stock maps including all forest ones that may favor knife fighters, or city ones, there are also a few maps that feature several large islands separated by depth 2 water and only connected by single bridges, these may be a lot of fun as well, and will probably favor long range fighters and those with jumpjets.
- Give us some more options with mechs for the OpForce - even if they are just conventional ones, more variety of mechs will equal more variety in the missions, not just 'charge with MPL's'
- Give cadets more options for character customization. - I would have liked to seen an option to buy a rank of ballistics or missile spec for 5 points (possibly along with some pilot skills like tactics) it only costs half as much as a full stat bump because it is only half effective, but I'd be willing to bet we would have seen some more varied loadouts if cadet's had been able to take a rank in weapons specialization...
- I like the idea of 2v2 as well, but agree that it adds a lot more work, the whole point of these seems to have been to avoid constant labor intensive updates, right? 2v2 almost becomes 8 mini missions, right? I don't think that is the route you were looking to go with these...
- Perhaps a king of the hill tournament for bragging rights? - not sure how we'd balance it for characters of differing experience level, but if we were all playing our own characters in these simulated battles it might be more even ground and players would be less likely to play for a draw. Actually, in a tournament a draw is useless, players would have to play for the win to advance, in the case of a match that goes the full 10 rounds without a 'KO' you could declare a winner based who took less damage overall, or we could do it boxing style where 3 BM's would vote for a winner based on who they think controlled the fight (one BM would sit out of the vote, in the case of a player the CO of their unit, in the case of a BM's player they don't get to vote for obvious reasons...) if the fight is between 2 BM's Kitten becomes the third Judge. It's not perfect, If you loose in the first round you're on the sidelines, but with 16 players competing it would be done in four sets of battles. you could give out rewards based on tiers, making it to the quarter finals (8 players left) nets you some money and XP, making it to the semi finals (4 players left) nets you some sort of better reward in addition to some more XP/money... Maybe -2 to the Tn of all availability rolls you make the next go around, or the option to buy a single piece of conjecture at 'normal' price, or a free double heatsink, etc... Making it to the finals (2 players left) would be the biggest reward obviously, maybe the overall winner of the tourney gets the option to buy enough Endo or FF for their ride, second place gets the option to buy whatever the first place winner does not take (second place gets whats left after the winner picks) It's just an idea but I think it would be cool to do a bragging rights tourney... :)