I'm going to start by saying that MechWarrior 2 was my first Battletech game. As a result I'm now a filthy Clanner with heavy nostalgia value placed on the 'mechs in MW2. When I first started playing MWO I could not wait for some of my old favorites to come out, the Kit Fox, the Timberwolf, the Direwolf and finally the Nova. When the clan invasion was announced I immediately updated my game and went through some of my old favorites and was hurt to find that the Nova could torso twist. For those of you who don't know, the Nova originally looked like this. This had a few advantages and disadvantages. You could no longer torso twist, but you were so low to the ground that you could stand in front of a Direwolf and have all it's hard points clear your 'mech. If you look at the MWO model, you can see that they might have originally decided to make it like the orignal, but at some point in the design stage decided against it. Why do you think this is? Is it balance issues? Maybe it proved too time consuming to program? Has PGI said anything about it? Do you think we could put pressure on PGI to change it back? Do we even want to? Let me know what you think.
PGI made the nova the way it is in MWO so that it could be at least somewhat competitive. The lack of a torso twist would mean that even the shitfox and badder could strafe you with ease and you would be unable to shoot back. They didn't want a whole bunch of butt hurt fans not wanting to drive a shitty mech that could not twist to shoot those annoying back scratchers that are lights. And frankly, I agree with them. I would not have bothered using my nova at all if it had no torso twist, I would have just sold my extra variants. Any mech at all that is designed with a lack of torso twist is strictly inferior in nearly every situation, as the turning time is just too great for the mech to be considered battle worthy in competitive play. And to be frankly honest, it's a shitty idea too. Pinpoint damage would wreck this mech so much to the point of being as useless as non-LRM boating highlanders now. TL;DR- No
So why not increase the arm movement range and have it set so the player is always holding left-ctrl. This will allow the Nova to shoot sideways. Allowing the Nova to shoot whilst only exposing side torsos. Maybe even increase turning speed?
Seriously, limiting torso twist on the nova would gimp it even more than it is now. With the CERMlas/CERSlas having a single ghost heat bucket and increased heat this mech is barely playable. I agree that it could have a lower profile though.
Nova is not a good mech either according to the lore. I think their comment is that there is a huge heat problem with the weaponary. But I do like the changes PGI do with it for gamplay. Would be nice if they give it some energy weapon heat reduction though. As for someone mentioning kitfox, it is actually ok if you consider that it is an ECM holder. Other than DDC it is by far the best armed ECM... the other one would be a so-called medium Cicada. So if you want a non-scout type ECM supporter it is actually ok, esp with all those AMS.
I guess I'm just biased then. Honestly, I don't understand all the hate it gets. I can understand the whole low-tonnage-for-it's-weight-class thing and the low speed when compared to the Storm Crow. But I regularly do 400~600 games and it's a real laser surgeon. I'm not saying that it's the perfect medium mech, but it seems like the amount of vitriol it gets is a bit disproportionate. Maybe it just has the Summoner's sickness in that it will always be compared to it's older brother?
My post has nothing to do with how the mech performs in game (I personally think it is quite a tank and can perform well with someone who know what they are doing, as well as with the right builds) rather, it was about your idea if integrating the REAL concept of the nova with no torso twist into the game, which, in my opinion, is a wholy terrible idea. I don't say this to shit on you, but let's face it, if the mech can't torso twist, it will NEVER ever be used competitively, because no matter how small the hitboxes are, the "pros" are going to learn how to hit them. And that's just the cold hard truth.
I also think is better than what most people think. That the 12 laser variant is barely playable atm doesn't make the mech bad. But let's face it, is not a -good- mech either. It has limits and are pretty significant: Very low arm weapon mounts, which are also far from each other. In most of it's builds it isn't hard at all to totally render a Nova weaponless, or almost, just by cutting it's arms off (and they aren't that resiliant either). Quite restricted tonnage for weaponry limiting the option of ballistics to mount. No option to mount energy weapons in the torso. And the laser heat nerf has turned most of the Nova builds into very heat problematic ones (if not downright unplayable, as the 12 laser builds are atm). It's a pretty long drawback list. Said that, it is decently agile, has a reasonable top speed, ability to jump really high and still can pack a mean punch for a 50 ton mech. A good player who knows how to avoid the drawbacks and take advantage of it's strenghts will do great in it. I don't do specially bad on the Nova, but I know I could do much better: I've seen really good players with excellent heat management skills doing absolute massacres with this thing. It can be a powerhouse. And an unexpected one, too, as most people underrate it. Problem is, this is a FTP game. FTP games usually have a very low average player skill. For a novice, or a weak player the Nova is just too demanding and difficult to really master. And it instantly gets the reputation of a "crap mech". Well, no it's not crap, but is much more demanding than the average one for the average MWO player. It's also very unforgiving: commit one single mistake and 50% of your weapons will be instantly gone. If not 100%... And yeah, that the stormcrow shines the way it does, doesn't help either
Don't agree at all that its a hard mech to use but other than that its a nice summation of the chassis. The new map really helped Nova's as they can jump onto some great temporary sniper spots to make use of cERPPC's etc. There are even some really nicely shielded sniper spots that work brilliantly if you can just fire with one arm. Its main problem is that its in the same weight bracket as the Stormcrow.
