How does the jump to 3250 work from a tech / mechanics perspective, especially if they want to want to simplify things rather than make even more powerful weapons platforms?
My thought would be an evolution in the armor and weapons. Consider if every point of new armor is worth 5 points of the old, but weighs the same. The new weapon designs are modeled off the "basics" available in 3025, and that the new fusion engines and power routing are also increased to avoid retrofitting. You could do the same weight class mechs, but a new 20 ton mech has more equivalent armor than the old Atlas and the new medium laser still does 5 points of new damage, effectively 25 points of old. On the flip side, the old ML only does 1 point of new damage and even the feared Gauss Rifle only does 3. Because of the changes in technologies, advancements such as pulse or ER might not be possible yet. When new MGs do as much damage as AC/10s there's far less reason to keep around the old stuff. With the increased heat, the new heat sinks dissipate an appropriate amount of heat, but no doubles, etc.
Probably not the way it's going to work, but it would certainly be a way to simplify the design and explain the phase out of the old technology.
Beyond the technology angle, I'm curious how they will handle all the various factions they've included in the game (5 original major houses, plus all of the individual clans, the periphery powers and the clan homeworlds).
Thoughts?
With a sweep of his...
Hat