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[Foster Bondroff]

Suggestion on DHS, change all to 1.9

Since introduction of the DHS there has been much debate about the exact value they should have.

In my understanding the design goal of PGI for DHS could be summarized like this:
“DHS should really improve heat dissipation, but not allow heat to become a non-issue.”
Adding to this, we have the famous “3s to core” argument from PGI which somehow indicates, that design goal here is also to avoid an unbalance toward light mechs.

The situation as we find it currently is as follows, Engine integrated DHS up to a maximum number of 10 work with an efficiency of 2.0/0.2, additional DHS outside the engine or beyond the maximum of 10 work at 1.4/0.14.
This results in the following

• Light mechs with large engines benefit the most from DHS.
  
• Assault mechs with small engines and large number of DHS benefit far less from DHS

This alone would not be an issue, but becomes one because currently ingame

• Light weapons produce relative less heat compared to damage
  
• Heavy weapons produce relative more heat compared to their damage (exception being the large laser)

Overall this means, light mechs with large engines and light weapons heat are much less effected by heat than assault mechs with small engines and heavy weapons.

I find this somehow contradicts the design goal as I understand it.
But I also do not want to change the entire weapon balance heat complex. I would like to stick as close to the current balance and only do slight modifications. After some simple calculations I would like to suggest setting the heat efficiency for all DHS to 1.9/0.19.

Here is a short table (sorry total noob to BBCode based tables) based on 10 DHS attached the engine.

Total Number DHS Current Build all 1.8 all 1.9 all 2.0
10 20 18 19 20
11 21.4 19.8 20.9 22
12 22.8 21.6 22.8 24
13 24.2 23.4 24.7 26
14 25.6 25.2 26.6 28
15 27 27 28.5 30
16 28.4 28.8 30.4 32
17 29.8 30.6 32.3 34
18 31.2 32.4 34.2 36
19 32.6 34.2 36.1 38
20 34 36 38 40

After looking at his table, I think the design goal could be better suited with all DHS set to 1.9/0.19 instead of the current mixture of 2.0/0.2 and 1.4/0.14

In my opinion the following points speak for 1.9/0.19 and against the two other possibilies:

• Negative effects are limited to a 5% and only for mechs with 10 or 11 DHS.
  
• A broad range of builds benefits.
  
• Benefits are moderate. Only from 19 DHS on benefits exceed 10%.
  
• As benefits are moderate, even for builds with a real high number of DHS, the possible freed tonnage is also limited. Thus it prevents a 4xPPC Atlas transforming into an 5xPPC.

Overall I think 1.9/0.19 would be a good value to try out. Afterwards it might be necessary to rebalance some weapons heat values (PPC and ER PPC possibly) but overall it should fit very well the design goals of PGI and current game balance.

[Kobura]

This is well thought out. I hope it gets read and actually considered.

As it stands, a Jenner with an XL255 and six medium lasers has almost as much killing and thermal staying capability as a Hunchback-P of near-similar design. Oh, it also jumps. And goes faster.

That's not right.

I know in my Jenner I tried an ER Large Laser. I actually ended up with two of them due to how cool it was just sitting back with BAP+Sensor Module shooting with one at anything I even thought was moving. I was cold the whole time with my XL255 at idle.

The Hunchback in combat with a standard 200 and AC20 was sweating balls off.

A friend has a poptart Jenner with an ERPPC as primary on it and runs cool as ice on all maps. Making two PPCs into effective primary weapons on another friends' Atlas-K was an intense exercise in numbers and critical placement, and he STILL isn't heat-neutral, and has noticeable buildup.

A 100-ton mech with non-gauss primary weapons that can't sink 2xPPCs...? So it's "ballistics/gauss or glhf"? That's not right... encourage PPC/lasers.