As a long-time advocate for new players, and for the lightweight and middleweight Mecha they use, I know this is an unusual opinion for me to hold. I do not even feel comfortable holding it myself. But consider the following points.
1. Before 2016, most equipment items had a range of 20 or 25 tons between their minimum Mecha weight, and their maximum Mecha weight. Since 2016, almost all the newly-introduced items are limited to a range of 5 or 10 tons: that is, to either 90-to-100, or 95-to-100. This raises the question of whether these items are versatile enough to offset their cost...a question that could be avoided altogether, simply by keeping their weight ranges in line with all the other equipment in the game.
2. There is no in-game reason why Mecha should be restricted to 100 tons. One cannot seriously claim that 105- or 110-ton armored vehicles are somehow less realistic than 100-ton vehicles...especially since Gateway travel is specifically limited by volume, not by mass. Neither is there any meta-game reason: although "BattleTech" arbitrarily set its own limit at 100 tons back in 1984, "Mecha Galaxy" claims to be -- and certainly *should* be -- something besides a BattleTech knock-off.
3. As unpleasant as it is to admit, the game is stuck in a rut. Game Craftsmen, for all its many fine points, has shown reluctance to address the increasingly-intractable problems in the game's design itself. This being the case, the easiest way to revive the game's popularity is for the company to introduce new content...and in terms of weapons and equipment, almost everything that can be done has already been done. Likewise, while there are many opportunities to fill the tactical gaps among lightweight and middleweight Mecha, the Level-150s who dominate the game here in Year Five will never bother to buy these classes. To attract their interest (and income), any new Mecha must be 100 tons or more. While this will only be a stop-gap measure, Game Craftsmen would hardly be the first gaming company to get stuck in a death-spiral of short-term solutions.
Of course, the introduction of 105-, 110-, or 115-ton Mecha means that the gap between the "whales" and the rest of us will only get larger, while strategy takes an even more distant back seat to sheer, overwhelming tonnage. New and/or low-level players will be even more alienated, with everything that implies for the long-term future of both "Mecha Galaxy" and Game Craftsmen. But I think the introduction of such Mecha is inevitable, and it's up to the player Clans to figure out how they will respond.
Submitted by Damien Valentine # 885659