Mechwarrior 4: Boats.
To clarify, in the common parlance of the multiplayer of the time, a boat referred to a mech that used a series of identical weapons. For the entire time I played the game, the boat was the preferred configuration. It allowed a player to to ensure all of their shots hit the same area on the target (thus making target acquisition easier), required fewer buttons to manage (most people played with a 2 button mouse), and had a clearly defined purpose on the battlefield. Notably, there were:
Laser Boat: A mech that used an exceptionally large battery of laser weapons, very generally the ER Large Laser. The hit-scan nature of the weapon (the round arrives the same frame that you pull the trigger) made it one of the easiest weapon systems to use. This was, very generally, the bread and butter mech and most other mechs (my own included) tended to counter this exact sort of thing.
Missle Boat: a mech that used an exceptionally large batter of missile weapons. In the original game, the most fearsome mechs could launch a full 100 missiles in a volley. Unfortunately, since the damage would be spread across the entirety of the other mech it was less effective at getting kills by itself and better suited to a support/distraction roll. Jump Jets often helped in this regard making the Mad Cat MK II the most common form. Later expansions added a chassis that could wedge 120 tubes in at once but even then the jump jets of the previous model made it a favorite still. Longer range and lower heat output meant this mech could actually be a fairly high intensity fighter but the use of such a machine generally resulted in accusations of a lack of skill (Which generally had merit).
Gauss Boat: A mech that used primarly gauss rifles. As the longest ranged weapon in the game, Gauss boats became the snipers. Unlike laser boats, you actually have to lead making it significantly more difficult to use. Worse still, gauss rifles were incredibly difficult to wedge into most mechs and thus a Gauss Boat generally had less firepower available in a single shot, often taking an additional volley to fell an opponent over the laser boat.
Autocannon Boat: A mech armed with a battery of anti-mech shotguns. These were exclusive to city fights where the incredibly short range (>250m to hit, >125m for full damage) was less a concern. These mechs generally had the largest alpha strike and often had the capacity to deliver 100 points of damage (or, to put it another way, more damage than any single segment of any mech had in hitpoints) in a shot. This came in two basic variations. You had mechs that carried a small number of them (A loki for example could carry 2) that carried very light armor but were quite fast that were used as flag defenders in Capture the Flag (someone has to chase down those damn light mechs running off with a flag), and lumbering monstrosities that carried 5 or more. Generally, even when well played, these mechs had the disadvantage that, if you won any particular contest, you would generally lose the next as your armor was almost certainly breached.
I never did care for the boat as a concept and tended to have quite a bit of variety on weapon systems. People often complained that my ideas seemed stupid for any number of reasons but, in the right hands, they tended to be more effective than the boat of choice for a given map.
