15 replies to this topic

[CrashieJ]

I run low heat builds, that is the fact of life for me... I run mechs that run close to 1.98 Heat efficiency pretty much all the time.

do I need 10 heatsinks? not on some of my builds, why is PGI forcing us to have it?

We should be able to have risk if it would help with the rewards, even with "Alpha heavy" builds people should be able to risk shutting down or even blowing up with their builds because they CHOSE TO. Risk and reward or something like that.

I have builds that It would be more tactically sound to drop 2 heatsinks for 2 tons of ammo, or armor or even engine.


So I'll throw a poll here and ask you, the community, this "Do we really NEED a 10 heatsink minimum?"

[One Medic Army]

If they ever implement engine crits, you'll be glad for that base 10.
Base 10 means your leaky engine (which generates 10 heat/cycle) will not cause your mech to permanently shutdown and then explode.

[Sacrosanct]

[Daggett]

As far as i know it's a canon thingy.

They wanted to stay as true to the tabletop as possible for an FPS and that includes the 10 HS minimum.

So gameplay-wise the minimum is not needed that much, though in the current balancing you can't simply remove it because some mechs would get very strong with a few extra-tons.

So don't expect that this will be changed.

Edited by Daggett, 26 February 2013 - 06:03 PM.

[Roland]

Chances are, if your configs are really running at such a high heat efficiency, they would be improved by putting some energy weapons onto them.

[Redshift2k5]

Keep in mind MWO is handling engine weights differently than the tabletop, REALLY the engines have been discounted a ton to account for the weight of the heatsinks up to the 10 minimum. (easier than a fancy system to discount the extranumerary heatsinks)

Unless they change the engine weights, running with 9 heatsinks would be cheating since your engine has been discounted 1 ton.

[Josef Nader]

The 10 heatsinks have nothing to do with weapon dissipation and everything to do with disappointing the heat from your engine. Without those 10, your engine would build up heat, and you'd shut down until it could dissipate to the surrounding environment. In TT, you have to have 10 heat sinks no matter what engine you put in. If they wouldn't fit in the engine, you'd have to place them outside the engine to take up crit slots. They wouldn't eat up weight.

In MWO, they just discount the weight from the engine to make the heat sinks weightless.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

10 heat sinks is the minimum safe cooling for a fusion engine. Don't blame the engineers, its the politician's fault, getting all up in your cockpit with their safety features and emissions controls. Not a damn thing you can do about it unless you happen to be a certified journeyman fusion HVAC technician, and you better bring your union card, cause if the teamster loading your ammo bins catches you, its going to be an LRM15+1.

[FupDup]

Josef Nader, on 26 February 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

The 10 heatsinks have nothing to do with weapon dissipation and everything to do with disappointing the heat from your engine. Without those 10, your engine would build up heat, and you'd shut down until it could dissipate to the surrounding environment. In TT, you have to have 10 heat sinks no matter what engine you put in. If they wouldn't fit in the engine, you'd have to place them outside the engine to take up crit slots. They wouldn't eat up weight.

In MWO, they just discount the weight from the engine to make the heat sinks weightless.

Here's a loophole: since engine DHS count as 2 SHS, and you need 10 SHS to safely run your mech, wouldn't the minimum requirement for DHS mechs be 5 instead of 10 because 5 DHS are just as heat-efficient as 10 SHS?

Edited by FupDup, 26 February 2013 - 07:30 PM.

[Stingz]

FupDup, on 26 February 2013 - 07:26 PM, said:

Here's a loophole: since engine DHS count as 2 SHS, and you need 10 SHS to safely run your mech, wouldn't the minimum requirement for DHS mechs be 5 instead of 10 because 5 DHS are just as heat-efficient as 10 SHS?

I agree with that last sentence, though.

It would make DHS even more of an upgrade compared to now, and an even bigger weight saver than Endo in some cases.

[Redbull102]

BattleTech Tabletop:

You get a engine with 10 Basic Heatsinks, if the engine is smaller than 250 some Heatsinks must be placed outside.
Engine / 25 = Heatsinks inside the engine.
The engine weight always included the 10 Heatsinks, no need to buy some to get 10 like in MWO.

Engine can be damaged by critical hits.
1 Part destroyed = +5 Heat
2 Parts destroyed = +10 Heat
3 Parts destroyed = Engine destroyed.

So that is the reason why 10 Heatsinks are needed and why your mech is destroyed when you lose right torso or left torso when using a XL Engine ( 3 Parts destroyed ).

The 10 Heatsink rule was written before such things like XL Engines or double Heatsinks came into the tabletop game.
And because you always got 10 with your engine, there was later with XL and double HS no need to change a thing.

Now about the Mechwarrior Universe.
After a long period of war, the science level was very low. First the research center were strategic targets when the war began, later Comstar ( Comstar -> "Blakes word" believed that they would bring the light of a new time to mankind.... ) tried to destroy all data they could not get into their hands only.
They could not replace jumpships ( that was why they were never attacked with shiptoship weapons ), the techs could replace parts, but they were happy when they could get ancient parts into their hands, because they were better than what the factories produced. The fall back into the stone age was stopped by Grayson Carlyle who got access to an old depot before Comstar was able to get it into their hands, and when he was able to copy the library-data before Comstar could destroy it.
Grayson created copies of the data and tried to spread them, so that Comstar could not destroy the knowledge.
In the books Hanse Davion was the first who funded some new research centers where the data was further researched.
House Kurita needed more than 10 years to get a copy into their hands ( Ricol holded his copy back ).

And now you move in and say.... hey lets remove 5 Heatsinks from my Fusion Reactor, I only need 5 Double Heatsinks and not 10 ... ^^

Best wishes
Redbull102

Edited by Redbull102, 26 February 2013 - 08:25 PM.

[Owlfeathers]

I want nine heatsinks. Literally. One single darn heatsink is preventing me from putting 4 ERPPCs in my Jenner. That is not acceptable.

[Mazzyplz]

lol assaults don't need to put any but the 10 inside the big engines;
to be honest, 10 is what you want otherwise ravens would get more space to put stuff in and you guys would 'cry me a river'

be sensible, don't you realize all the threads going on? and how your idea is pretty bad when considering all of that?
you don't have to be a genius.

besides tabletop, canon and blablablabla

[Vermaxx]

You don't lose anything by having ten heatsinks. You don't gain anything by having less.

Engine weights were adjusted to account for the fact that "external/mandatory" don't weigh anything in tabletop. Yes, they take crit slots, but they do not weigh anything. As such, what you are suggesting is an exploit to allow mech engines to weigh LESS THAN THEY SHOULD.

If you don't need ten sinks, great. Run mechs with single sinks and stick the leftovers in the feet. Aside from ammo, nothing else can go there anyway.

[Zerstorer Stallin]

Your poll needs some work, but I get what your saying. Still, just no.

[Egomane]

No!

As others already said, those heatsinks are weight free per the Battletech Mech construction rules. To reflect that your engine is of lower weight then it should be.

So currently, if you only want to run on 8 heatsinks, your reactor would need to be two tons heavier, as you would just cheat the system otherwise.