loc978 said:
Eh, depends on what iteration of what game you're playing. Look at the torso and legs of the two mechs in question. The Thor has a huge engine bay, and can easily fit a larger engine than the 350X that comes stock. The Madcat isn't half so moddable. Lighten the Thor's autocannon arm by replacing it with a few medium or large lasers and suddenly you have all that room its ammo took in the torso freed up.
...When I pilot a Thor, it's so that I can have a heavy mech that surpasses the speed and mobility of most medium mechs. Not much good in a stand-up fight with other heavy mechs, but an excellent recon mech. I'm all about fast strikes and recon.
The Thor
does have certain strengths, of course, and mobility is key among them. But when you consider it's speed (5/8) and it's jump capability (5), that certainly is
incredibly mobile for a heavy mech. The trouble is, in exchange it has relatively light armor (nearly five tons less than the Mad Cat, which seems reasonable given the Mad Cat's 5 ton weight advantage) and a limited weapons complement (5 1.5 ton jump jets required a sacrifice somewhere).
I suppose the problem is that, for the BV (or just tonnage) the mech represents, what you
actually get is a supremely capable skirmishing mech but a poor front line slugger that both the tonnage and BV suggest is the intended role. It is really only in the medium weight class that the Thor's armaments really shine because suddenly the ability to punch through a full half ton of armor per shot with any of it's weapons means something in a weight class where only the most heavily protected segments are likely to have much more protection than that.
I guess my real problem with the Thor then is that I tend to view the Heavy and Assault Classes as my "go out there and hurt people" options while my light and medium are scouts and skirmishers respectively. I'd rather opt for a lighter skirmisher (A Stormcrow for example) and a pure scout (Kit Fox or Viper) and gain more mobility and firepower for
less BV or equal tonnage. Sure, a Thor is easily a match for either of those but paired they can handily bring down a thor. By contrast, the similar BV/Tonnage comparision of the Mad Cat again shows that the Mad Cat is perhaps the greatest pure combat mech on the field in terms of efficiency of tonnage. Indeed the
only flaw of the Mad Cat is inherent to all clan 'Mechs: the XL Engine. Any ammunition explosion, even when contained by CASE, is likely to disable the mech thanks to the extra engine slots taken in the left and right torso respectively. In fact, it is for this very reason that the significantly strengthened armor of the Mad Cat is so critical: any breach of a torso segment in a clan mech has the capacity to utterly destroy the mech!
Granted, the other option is to have much slower mechs (4/6) with standard engines (it is roughly equivalent), but the difference in survivability between the two is actually shocking even if you do give up the incredible mobility of the clan heavy mechs in the process.
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