the bonus is "if hitdispersion/explosion radius  < 50% of hitsize, then 10% damage bonus"

it was once bugged when explosion damage-calculation was not capped at 100% damage,
and alexander started to nitpick about that little damage boost, when TURRET weapons had the explosion damage calculation applied.

I have limited experience in playing a mech, as I mostly go out in lights and EW bots, so take that bias into consideration with this post.

A major problem, I believe, is that lights (both regular and EW) are far too effective against mechs. Yesterday I ran to Norhoop in a standard fit Yagel and took down a Tyrannos. This is not the first time I have done so in a Yagel using standard equipment. This is not to boast, but to illustrate my point regarding the effectiveness of light bots versus mechs.

In my personal vision of this game, I do not believe that a light bot should ever be able to do that. Even if I was in T4 gear and he was wearing nothing but a LWF, and even taking into account the weak resistances he had versus my damage type, I should not have been able to kill him before he ran to an outpost or had backup arrive.

I do not believe, however, that mechs should see any increased efficiency in killing light bots, in regards to hit dispersion. The following ideas would (in my opinion) greatly increase the viability and survivability of mechs in engagements against light bots:

-Light bots should do reduced damage against mechs and heavy mechs. It should take at least 3 well-fit lights or 5 well-fit EW lights to take down a Mech.

-Mech hit dispersions should remain as they are. I believe the damage they do against lights is proper.

-Assaults, Mechs, and Heavy Mechs should all have an innate Demobilizer resistance. 5%/15%/25%. Or perhaps other numbers.

-Assaults, Mechs, and Heavy Mechs should have their locking range slightly increased, perhaps 10%-15% more than it currently is. Light EW bots should have their locking range decreased slightly. This will help to mitigate (but not completely eliminate) the dodging in and out of locking range that lights are able to do due to their speed advantage. If a Light bot wants to break the Mechs lock, they should have to move far enough away that it breaks their own lock as well. This does not take into account Sensor Amps, but maybe it should.

-The EW strength of bots seems a little strange to me. Bigger, more advanced bots (And those focusing in electronic superiority, i.e. EW bots) should have stronger electronics systems. Heavy mechs are especially disadvantaged. For example:
-Light Bot: 80Hw
-Light EW: 120Hw
-Assault: 100Hw
-Mech: 120Hw
-Mech EW: 160Hw
-Heavy Mech: 140Hw

I think that radar detection should be similar. Light bots should have weaker radar ranges but be harder to find. Mechs should have stronger radar but are easily seen. I like that you're trying to make regular light bots more viable, but I do not believe they should have the farthest radar viewing range.

-Bonuses on Heavy mechs should be better than those on regular mechs. Currently they are equal or slightly worse.

I may be way off base here, but all I can do is offer my opinions based upon my observations. Comments and criticisms are welcome.

Light bots are already at a disadvantage to mechs with 2-3 times smaller range. In DPS output, mechs outdo everything lightbots/ewars can throw out. Speed wise, only ewars are faster.

So how much more disadvantage should they be at? I fail to see the logic. Smaller spotting range? Yup. As it is, Lights perform a very good role atm; they're perfect cheap anti-ewar platforms with decent speed & double DPS.

Scenarios where 1 H.Mech gets taken out by 10 lights are absurd to discuss, because if you're stupid enough to take out a H.Mech solo you bloody well deserve to get podded.

Combined arms. Mechs eat mechs/assaults, assaults/lights eat lights/ewars, ewars provide utility for mechs to eat each other better. Buffing H.Mechs/Mechs will result in nothing but Mechs being piloted, which is an awesome idea if you actually WANT to play a FPS/RTS.

I'll give you one thing... you're dedicated...

It's not a trap but a feature in itself.

Sure, if you want you can equip your entire force in Light bots and roam around/protect your island. Or you can equip them in Mechs and roam around/protect your island. At the end of the day, the group that is using the various roles in the combined arms setup will win.

The reward is already there in the range, firepower, and utility for the EP invested. Buffing the "end tier" of current bots will do nothing but insure that future corporations who are yet to come will never be able to catch up to the established, industrially strong and organized corporations.

An expensive bot should never be more important factor then player skill. Otherwise we might just as well be playing WoW and grinding for Tier XY.

Not sure you are getting the point.
The problem is that mech/heavy mech users, which is 50% of the bot types in the game are useless for roaming, which is a lively, casual-friendly and fun part of the game.
Making mech/heavy mech useful and light bots less useful in some other common activity does not solve the problem, which is that mech/heavy mech users are useless for roaming.
In fact that creates a new problem!  Now the light bot users cannot participate.

Bot type X not useful in activity A.
Solution: make it useful in activity A.
Not the solution: make it useful in activity B.  So what?  Good for those who like activity B.  But the problem remains, when activity A comes around, Bot type remains useless.
Get it?

Mechs/Heavy mechs should be better at some activities and worse at other activities, but it should be VIABLE at all activities.
Making it viable for some and not others makes people who only have Mech skills or Mechs have to sit out fun activities, which is a poor recompense for the EP and NIC they spent getting there.

See what i did there? I bet you those miners feel your pain when you get to roam around and PvP and they don't have that choice because they spent all that EP in mining.

PETITION TO REBALANCE INDUSTRY CHARACTER TO BE EFFECTIVE IN ROAMING PVP AND INTRUSIONS WITHOUT THE USE OF REPAIR BOTS BECAUSE REPAIRING ISNT COOL AND WASNT IN THE TRAILER VIDEO

Slow.  By the time you get anywhere, the light bots in your roam gang have fallen asleep.

Players are continually answering Container's issue with the game directly, he just doesn't care.

Let me boil it down so we can move on.

Roaming is a player initiated activity, there's no game mechanic that requires or directly rewards roaming; looting players is part of killing a bot not particular to roaming.

Up until this last patch, there was nothing that required any one to 'answer' the roam. The most effective answer to roaming is to watch the gates and retire to an outpost until the roamers left the Island. Even with the patch, and the new plants, your better off NOT guarding the plants to keep the location secret.

So, to counter the 'dockup' issue, players use fast bots to get onto the Island and catch group before they can get back home safe.

Fast Bot roaming becomes the defacto PVP activity in Perpetuum because its the only way to get any PVP action unless there is an Intrusion; I'll add that civil wars generate more and better PVP than either intrusions or roaming, but they are unpredictable

So, Container, I fully understand WHY you want mechs to be viable in roaming, its the ONLY consistent PVP action there is in the game.

The reason you are getting so much Anti-mech change pushback is because the state of roaming developed natuarally from the current game mechanics, but you want the devs to change game mechanics simply because you WANT to use a mech to roam.

Roaming with mechs isn't going to generate MORE PVP.

What you should be asking for is the devs to generate more opportunity where mechs do generate MORE PVP.

I fully expect container to ignore this post and continue his campaign. You see this type of thing in WoW all the time, where someone comes up with a totally crappy Rogue spec than generates any and alll arguements on the forums for why the devs need to buff the spec because its not viable. Not every bot is, or needs to be, useable for every activity.

My mech goes 75 kph, 80 with standard nexus. The light bots in my roam gang are struggling to catch up.

Roaming is the only consistent PVP there is.
Whatever new types of PVP is added, roaming will still be significant.
Leaving 50% of the game population who trained for mech/heavy mech to be bored when roams are going on is a sure recipe to lose subscribers.

So some can pimp a Kain out.  However, 75 kph is still slow compared to a 90kph light bot gang.  The standard speed is 69kph for Tyrannos and Artemis with everything maxed and T4 lightweight frame and minimal fitting.  And what about heavy mechs?
Mechs/heavy mechs need to be around the 80 kph speed for roaming.

Learn2play style of thinking has one big problem.
It is thinking any problems players have with the game is with the players.
It is putting the blame of poor game design on the players excusing any problems with the game balancing and stopping improvement.
Completely ignoring any need to improve anything with an excuse.

Thinking "hey players are playing the wrong way, they must be educated! so they follow the game vision!" is totally putting the cart before the horse.
While a game needs to have some direction it must adapt to the psychology of its customers or it will not survive.
If you see customers leaving, time to modify your vision to one that works.
What has always worked in all MMOs is progression to more powerful bots/gear/powers.
WOW, EVE, WOT, Rift, AOC, whatever.
Making EP progression and bot progression too insignificant is directly going against the tide of human nature.
In so doing you lose sight of the entire driver of MMO participation for the majority of people.

Players who want to play or DEVs who want to design a game with perfect balance and where cost, and EP progression don't factor in, go play or make an RTS like Starcraft2.
However, once you are in MMO territory, player progression has to be heavily considered as that is the very essence of MMOs as compared to other game types.
Bot balancing thought in Perpetuum has been too neglectful of the MMO player's need to see progress and this weakens the entire game at its very core.