>>Virtual MechWar is set in the 3070s (when it launched, it was
>>set in 3050, and its background story has progressed in something like
>>real time), so Stark's Warhammer is far from stock, though he
>>has at least preserved the distribution of weapon types. It has a
>>pair of ER PPCs, four ER medium pulse lasers, a couple of machinegun
>>arrays and a Streak SRM6 rack - a pretty respectable load for a heavy,
>>even in the Clan era.
>
>It certainly is. Whether the increas in close-range firepower is worth
>the two or three tons of armor you're sacrificing for the machineguns,
>OTOH... I can see that it might be considered so in the original board
>game, but in one of the MW4 computer games (which are my dominant
>experience outside of the novels), I'd say 'definitely not.'

That's not really an issue. Machine guns are light. A pair of machine guns and the ammo to run them weighs a single ton if you're using Clan tech, a ton and a half if you're using Inner Sphere. I'll bet Ben's got his Warhammer tricked out with captured Clan weapons (battefield scavenging is a proud BattleTech tradition).
If he's got an XL engine and Clan weapons, he can have that weapon load and max armor with 18 (double) heat sinks and a 4/6 movement. If he's using IS weapons it's still doable, but you start having to make design comprimises.

>
>I'd provide an example of the sort of philosophy I'd favor, but
>without knowing how Virtual MechWar's construction system
>works, I could barely even guess. ^_^

I would imagine it works something like this.

Polychrome

Old school BattleTech player.