I LOVE The Awesome 9Q (By Canon not around until 3057 boooo......) It has 4 PPCs and double heat sinks, I like firing one at a time in a timely fashion always waiting for the perfect alpha strike.. It hard too keep your cool.. But a GOOD Pilot can..
That said, its not unbeatable by any stretch..
For now will have to live with a 9M (I hope)
AWS-9M - The 9M is an upgrade of the Awesome that uses Star League technologies, and was introduced in 3049. The 'Mech is built around a 320 Hermes XL Fusion engine, giving the 'Mech a top speed of 64.8 km/h. The heat sinks were upgraded to double heat sinks to allow this variant to be rearmed with three Fusigon Longtooth ER PPCs. The ER PPCs are backed up by two Hovertec Streak SRM-2s, a Magna 400P Medium Pulse Laser, and a Diverse Optics Type 10 Small Pulse Laser
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The PPC...is it too good
Started by XGhostbearX, Feb 13 2012 06:55 AM
111 replies to this topic
#101
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Posted 22 February 2012 - 03:56 PM
#102
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Posted 22 February 2012 - 04:16 PM
KaiserSoze, on 14 February 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:
In honor to the true death machine "Awesome" with 4 PPCs " Suck It " 
+1,000,000 C-Bills
#103
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Posted 22 February 2012 - 05:16 PM
Well, I just asked the guy who should know about the cooling system question. You'll know as soon as I know...
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Posted 22 February 2012 - 07:35 PM
Pht, on 22 February 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:
Huh... check this out...
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Fusion engine explosions
This is an urban legend that will not die ... fusion engines going critical and exploding as mini-nukes.
The magnetic fields which contain the plasma also protect the plasma from the frigid (relative to the temperature of the plasma) reactor chamber walls. The fusion reactions in a BattleMech fusion reactor only occur in a very narrow band of temperature and pressure conditions. The hotter and the higher the pressure, the faster the reactions occur.
When heat is added to a gas, it expands. If it can't expand, its pressure goes up. Thus when the reactions spike a bit the plasma gets hotter and in turn it tries to expand. However, the magnetic fields aren't rigid so they will expand a little a bit, allowing the plasma ball to expand, which, in turn, lowers the pressure in the plasma - which cools the plasma and allows it to collapse to its normal size. There is a little bit of extra room in the reactor chamber for just this reason.
There are, however, other ways the reaction can cool down. If the magnetic fields don't do their job, the plasma ball can actually touch the frigid walls of the core which results in the plasma ball "blinking out." This barely even scuffs the walls of the reactor. When the plasma ball contacts with the frigid walls of the fusion reactor the fusion reactions in the plasma stop almost instantly because there is no stored thermal mass in the plasma ball. All of the heat in the plasma comes from active reactions. The multi-ton reactor walls (comparative to the plasma ball) have so much thermal mass that they can soak up the heat of the reaction and barely heat up. The plasma ball does not normally have enough thermal energy to do more than add a little heat to the walls of the engine around it.
Fusion reactors do on very rare occasions die in a spectacular manner, but the majority of those times isn't due to an exploding reactor.
What normally happens is that the reactor core is breached allowing a large quantity of relatively cold air into the vacuum of the reactor chamber which puts out the fusion reaction instantly... but in so doing, the intruding air in the reactor chamber soaks up all the heat and comes blasting back out in a white-hot blinding gout of flame. Considering that it takes massive damage to breach a reactor core so quickly that the safety fields can't drop down before something intrudes into the chamber... the visual end effect is that the 'Mech has very nearly been blasted in half, followed very quickly by a blinding fireball. This is a spectacular way to decommission a fusion reactor - a rampaging super-hot oxygen flash fire - but it is not a nuclear blast.
In the last instance it will happen that a MechWarrior will figure out that they can overcharge the engine, causing the plasma ball to heat up to an amazingly high temperature - far beyond their normal operating range - and than kill the magnetic field quickly, causing the extremely overheated plasma to hit the reactor walls which causes the reactor lining to explosively evaporate. The result of this is that the reactor is over pressurized, which causes a respectable explosion - but again, not a nuclear explosion.
This is an urban legend that will not die ... fusion engines going critical and exploding as mini-nukes.
The magnetic fields which contain the plasma also protect the plasma from the frigid (relative to the temperature of the plasma) reactor chamber walls. The fusion reactions in a BattleMech fusion reactor only occur in a very narrow band of temperature and pressure conditions. The hotter and the higher the pressure, the faster the reactions occur.
When heat is added to a gas, it expands. If it can't expand, its pressure goes up. Thus when the reactions spike a bit the plasma gets hotter and in turn it tries to expand. However, the magnetic fields aren't rigid so they will expand a little a bit, allowing the plasma ball to expand, which, in turn, lowers the pressure in the plasma - which cools the plasma and allows it to collapse to its normal size. There is a little bit of extra room in the reactor chamber for just this reason.
There are, however, other ways the reaction can cool down. If the magnetic fields don't do their job, the plasma ball can actually touch the frigid walls of the core which results in the plasma ball "blinking out." This barely even scuffs the walls of the reactor. When the plasma ball contacts with the frigid walls of the fusion reactor the fusion reactions in the plasma stop almost instantly because there is no stored thermal mass in the plasma ball. All of the heat in the plasma comes from active reactions. The multi-ton reactor walls (comparative to the plasma ball) have so much thermal mass that they can soak up the heat of the reaction and barely heat up. The plasma ball does not normally have enough thermal energy to do more than add a little heat to the walls of the engine around it.
Fusion reactors do on very rare occasions die in a spectacular manner, but the majority of those times isn't due to an exploding reactor.
What normally happens is that the reactor core is breached allowing a large quantity of relatively cold air into the vacuum of the reactor chamber which puts out the fusion reaction instantly... but in so doing, the intruding air in the reactor chamber soaks up all the heat and comes blasting back out in a white-hot blinding gout of flame. Considering that it takes massive damage to breach a reactor core so quickly that the safety fields can't drop down before something intrudes into the chamber... the visual end effect is that the 'Mech has very nearly been blasted in half, followed very quickly by a blinding fireball. This is a spectacular way to decommission a fusion reactor - a rampaging super-hot oxygen flash fire - but it is not a nuclear blast.
In the last instance it will happen that a MechWarrior will figure out that they can overcharge the engine, causing the plasma ball to heat up to an amazingly high temperature - far beyond their normal operating range - and than kill the magnetic field quickly, causing the extremely overheated plasma to hit the reactor walls which causes the reactor lining to explosively evaporate. The result of this is that the reactor is over pressurized, which causes a respectable explosion - but again, not a nuclear explosion.
Well, so much for wiping out multiple city blocks! I like this version better.
#105
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Posted 22 February 2012 - 07:50 PM
MW4 is an imbalanced game. as much as i like it, it has flaws. i doubt the PPCs' in MW:O will be the same.
Edited by Mims, 22 February 2012 - 07:57 PM.
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Posted 23 February 2012 - 08:12 AM
Pht, on 22 February 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:
Good question. I'll go ask the people who's job it is to know.
Sarna says
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"Their drawback is that they are three times as bulky as a standard heat sink (unless integrated into a fusion engine)."
Perhaps that is the cause?
#107
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Posted 26 February 2012 - 04:30 PM
Well, the answer is in; and it was sitting right in front of me.
Swap to DHS, the regenerative fusion engine cooling system swaps up to the more capable materials that DHS use.
TechManual said:
"In fact, the generative cooling machinery is quite different from real heat sinks, even though it can benefit from the same advances in materials that make the recovered double strength heat sinks possible.
Swap to DHS, the regenerative fusion engine cooling system swaps up to the more capable materials that DHS use.
Edited by Pht, 26 February 2012 - 04:31 PM.
#108
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Posted 26 February 2012 - 09:39 PM
Pht, on 26 February 2012 - 04:30 PM, said:
Well, the answer is in; and it was sitting right in front of me.
Swap to DHS, the regenerative fusion engine cooling system swaps up to the more capable materials that DHS use.
Swap to DHS, the regenerative fusion engine cooling system swaps up to the more capable materials that DHS use.
But somehow engines are able to avoid the increase in bulk that Double heat sinks suffer.
Hmmm.... does not compute. Please try again.
As a side note. I know the tech manual has a bunch of hand waving to justify the game mechanic. I just think the mechanic is wrong and make DHS to powerful, because one you get above a certain engine size there is 0 reason to not choose DHS because you go from 10 to 20 points of heat dissapatoin just by checking a box. I don't have a problem with DHS as long as the engine stays at 10. This was a house rule back when i did TT and it made some of the advanced designs actually have to watch their heat guages.
I imagine it really doesn't matter PGI will be heavily modifying the heat model to work in a real time environment. And i hope that however they choose to work in DHS its not as bad as how FASA did it in TT.
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Posted 26 February 2012 - 10:06 PM
I, personally find a SINGLE PPC just fine. Using two or more... that is just asking for to have your butt chewed on by a Timberwolf or worse. Once you fire those things off, ALL the heads turn. Suddenly, you are out of options, and everyone wants to kill you out of sheer spite. Not only that... but if you miss... well, what now? Now you either override the reactor shutdown and risk an ammo explosion or worse, or you get pounded on by the angry sonofagun that you missed.
I see it as a viable loadout option, but only on certain mechs and occasions. If that is all you use, it is most likely because you are either a newbie, or are really good at using them. People who do use them and are good at it usually snipe with them or only have one and use it at mid-range. People who are new usually use them at close range, so they do not miss, then get pounded on when they are unlucky enough that the other guy survives the assault.
Not to say that using a PPC at close range is not a skill of its own, of course. Being an infighter with a PPC is usually rather detrimental to the health of the pilot, because it has a long reload time, and if you miss you end up ticking up the heat to between 1000K and 2500K, and that is catastrophic for anyone at close range.
I see it as a viable loadout option, but only on certain mechs and occasions. If that is all you use, it is most likely because you are either a newbie, or are really good at using them. People who do use them and are good at it usually snipe with them or only have one and use it at mid-range. People who are new usually use them at close range, so they do not miss, then get pounded on when they are unlucky enough that the other guy survives the assault.
Not to say that using a PPC at close range is not a skill of its own, of course. Being an infighter with a PPC is usually rather detrimental to the health of the pilot, because it has a long reload time, and if you miss you end up ticking up the heat to between 1000K and 2500K, and that is catastrophic for anyone at close range.
Edited by Prower, 26 February 2012 - 10:07 PM.
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Posted 27 February 2012 - 12:10 AM
SilentObserver, on 26 February 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:
But somehow engines are able to avoid the increase in bulk that Double heat sinks suffer.
Hmmm.... does not compute. Please try again.
As a side note. I know the tech manual has a bunch of hand waving to justify the game mechanic. I just think the mechanic is wrong and make DHS to powerful, because one you get above a certain engine size there is 0 reason to not choose DHS because you go from 10 to 20 points of heat dissapatoin just by checking a box. I don't have a problem with DHS as long as the engine stays at 10. This was a house rule back when i did TT and it made some of the advanced designs actually have to watch their heat guages.
I imagine it really doesn't matter PGI will be heavily modifying the heat model to work in a real time environment. And i hope that however they choose to work in DHS its not as bad as how FASA did it in TT.
Personally, I always used a rule I borrowed from the Omega Rules that each engine came with the number of heatsinks that the official rules would consider "crit free" (whether that be four for a 100-rated engine, or 16 for a 400-rated engine) and have half of them destroyed per engine hit in lieu of the normal +5/+10 heat per turn. That meant that an old Locust (160 engine) would only have 8 single HS, but the first engine hit would generate only 4/8 heat/turn after suffereing engine hits. Meanwhile, the Charger (400 engine) would have 16 heat sinks, but would generate +8/+16 heat per turn when the engine got hit. But there is a bit of hand-waving when it comes to heat sinks anyways, and even moreso on Gyros, which (for unknown reasons) cannot be purshased in 1/4-ton increments.
As for the PPC, sure, a lot of damage in one hit, but the heat spike makes it useless in anthing other than a longe-range sniping role where the ability to do massive damage at long range without ammo is a good thing. In close, multiple lasers do better for ROF reasons, big autocannons do better for heat... overall, PPCs are npt that great, and I rarely use them.
#111
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Posted 27 February 2012 - 06:41 AM
PPC's are an essential part of the BT universe. Our reaction to them is our perspective of them. We're used to rocking them with little consequence since most games before this point handled them with a lazy approach. Firing big massive weapons is fun and games are supposed to be fun, so it's easy to skew the rules a little bit so we can rock them.
If implemented correctly with heat emphasis PPC's will not be overpowered.
If implemented correctly with heat emphasis PPC's will not be overpowered.
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Posted 29 February 2012 - 05:00 PM
SilentObserver, on 26 February 2012 - 09:39 PM, said:
But somehow engines are able to avoid the increase in bulk that Double heat sinks suffer.
Hmmm.... does not compute. Please try again.
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The second way of generating power is purely secondary and is called regenerative cooling. Regenerative cooling uses waste heat to generate power. Usually this is done with a closed-cycle gas or steam turbine. In a small way this is a part of the 'Mechs cooling system, even though this is not a part of the heat sink system proper - these are the "free" heatsinks in the engine. While the regenerative cooling machinery is very different from purpose built heat sinks, it still benefits from the materials and technology advances that have made "double strength" heat sinks possible. The regenerative cooling system adds negligible volume to the engine, due to its using the existing plumbing of the engines cooling system.
Emphasis mine.
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As a side note. I know the tech manual has a bunch of hand waving to justify the game mechanic.
*All* science is hand waving. No, seriously. It is. Nobody really knows the "why" of things; not by any human means.
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I just think the mechanic is wrong and make DHS to powerful, because one you get above a certain engine size there is 0 reason to not choose DHS because you go from 10 to 20 points of heat dissapatoin just by checking a box.
Zero reason? How about you don't have enough room to mount DHS? Or enough c-bills? Or you simply cannot find them? Or if you can find them and get them mounted, you can't find replacements to fix ones destroyed in battle? ... for that matter, if you have a 'Mech that came from the factory with single HS in the engine, you can't "swap up" to DHS unless you swap out the regenerative cooling system, which is a pain in the backside.
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I imagine it really doesn't matter PGI will be heavily modifying the heat model to work in a real time environment.
You have an inside line to talk with the developers?
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And i hope that however they choose to work in DHS its not as bad as how FASA did it in TT.
why?
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