Tweaks to Combat Hit Recording: why do mechs have armor?
It is true that the game is designed to not take long and thus, the hit location operation will have mechs being hit in Armor, Movement and Combat hits in order of probability regardless of their armor status or weight class status. One might say this essentially means mechs have NO armor and that the Armor hit location is just another way of spreading the damage (each armor hit reduces mech weight class by one e.g. medium to light), because a move hit can be sustained at the same time armor still exists in the target; shouldn't it be that nothing else can be affected until armor is completely gone?
Short answer is yes, correct. One way of dealing with this is to say NOTHING else can be affected on the mech until ALL armor is gone. Once gone, only then can movement and combat be affected. During the die rolls to see which item is damaged, until armor is gone all other hits are misses; that is, misses for causing any damage: energy weapons will still do SM damage regardless of armor, or, if armor is still intact, roll for special hit (Code or Red) to see if an SM hit actually does anything.
Another method is this: leave everything as is, but ONLY cause an effect when two of each item are sustained e.g. only when 2 hits to movement are caused does movement suffer one hex; only when 2 combat hits are sustained is one weapon out; only when 2 armor hits are sustained is weight class of the entire mech reduced by one e.g. medium to light and so on.
Or try this: Don't reduce mech weight class when all armor is gone; just leave it the weight it started with and whenever a Defense hit when all armor is gone, roll a CnC die: Blue, move hit; Red, Combat hit; CnC SM hit.
Note that we still have not concluded that "shields" can exist. If the do, these will simply be saving rolls done by the target owner. This gives the target owner something to do while the opponent is conducting their activation.