94 replies to this topic

[FiveDigits]

Ever since their bug-ridden introduction many in the community have criticised PGI's implementation of DHS for various reasons. We recently talked about it here.
Over the course of many of those discussions a lot of possible fixes and alternative designs have been suggested.
I tried to summarize them as best as I could in the poll above. Ideally we could find a consensus of what we, the community, find to be a better DHS implementation.

Vote away and elaborate on your choice if you care. If we can find a solution which most of us can agree on then maybe PGI will listen.

Edited by FiveDigits, 15 March 2013 - 04:39 AM.

[Tombstoner]

Without clan tech any DHS discussion is limited to only the current build. That kinda makes it moot. I'm sure 1.4 is what the devs consider the sweet spot for game balance during internal fights. We only get IS tech. I'm sure that all the weapons from BT are in the game in some form of another. its easy to alter the atlas specs into a diash or an awsom into a timber wolf and go full on clan in head to head matches vs IS mechs. The art department vs. marketing and IT support.

Thus any consensus the BT community comes to for fixing DHS is valid for only the current build.
Reworking other game mechanics however can be discussed without clan tech breaking any arguments or consensus

[Zyllos]

Adjusting to 0.17 dissipation and 1.0 capacity would bring DHS greatly inline with the rest of the game.

It fixes one of the unfair penalties for running a smaller than 250 engine rating (the other is torso/arm twist speed should be independent of the engine rating) giving a reduced heatsink dissipation/capacity value.

Changing this will also fix issues with the high number of heatsinks and the balance of heat per second for cost of tonnage, mainly effecting how long smaller mechs can continously fire weapons without any heat issues and the minor penalty for running many heatsinks.

Edited by Zyllos, 15 March 2013 - 05:10 AM.

[EvangelionUnit]

True Double 2.0 heat dissipation only, per mech chassis/tonnage/weight class threshold

why ? because it makes perfect sense ! so they can give mechs like the awesome a little bit more room with the heat, (at least the all energie variants, that don't have ammo hehe) or gave weak variants of the mech a little buff..


there was an other idea somewhere here in the board:
give DHS 2.0 dissipation but only 1.0 to the threshold
while SHS get 1.0 dissipation and 1.0 to the threshold, so that mechs who go out with 20 SHS or more can fire for a longer time befor overheating and mechs with DHS cool down quicker, causing a better damage burst, or are forced to some kind of hit and run styled attacks

[FiveDigits]

Tombstoner, on 15 March 2013 - 04:59 AM, said:

Without clan tech any DHS discussion is limited to only the current build. That kinda makes it moot. [...]

Balancing Clan tech is not possible in the same way IS is currently balanced anyways. If we want Clan tech to be Clan tech it has to be "OP". That should not stop us from balancing IS tech internally.

EvangelionUnit, on 15 March 2013 - 05:16 AM, said:

[...]
there was an other idea somewhere here in the board:
give DHS 2.0 dissipation but only 1.0 to the threshold
while SHS get 1.0 dissipation and 1.0 to the threshold, so that mechs who go out with 20 SHS or more can fire for a longer time befor overheating and mechs with DHS cool down quicker, causing a better damage burst, or are forced to some kind of hit and run styled attacks

That is literally option 5. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I tried to keep the options somewhat short.

[Zyllos]

EvangelionUnit, on 15 March 2013 - 05:16 AM, said:

True Double 2.0 heat dissipation only, per mech chassis/tonnage/weight class threshold

why ? because it makes perfect sense ! so they can give mechs like the awesome a little bit more room with the heat, (at least the all energie variants, that don't have ammo hehe) or gave weak variants of the mech a little buff..


there was an other idea somewhere here in the board:
give DHS 2.0 dissipation but only 1.0 to the threshold
while SHS get 1.0 dissipation and 1.0 to the threshold, so that mechs who go out with 20 SHS or more can fire for a longer time befor overheating and mechs with DHS cool down quicker, causing a better damage burst, or are forced to some kind of hit and run styled attacks

I originally thought this would have been true. But I have spreadsheets with calculations that I can modify the weight of heatsinks, number of critical slots needed, and dissipation/capacity values, and after doing those calculations, places them into graphs.

What I found is that even with 0.17 DHS with 1.0 capacity, SHS will still not be viable unless your equipping like 40+ SHS. The tonnage needed at that point is 30+ tons needed. That is no where near balanced. And that is with 0.17 dissipation.

[FiveDigits]

I think the basic concept of separating dissipation and heat capacity is the golden road to a sensible DHS implementation. I am also convinced that DHS should have double dissipation of SHS. It's a simple mechanic that's balanced by the crit slot increase.

How to handle threshold is entirely open in my opinion and should be the main point of the discussion at this point. We want to prevent too much heat capacity - in the light of 6 PPC Stalkers et al. We would like SHS to fill some viability niche. What else is a factor in this decision?

The possible heat threshold models i see right now are:

• equal (e.g. 1.0) heat threshold increase for SHS and DHS
  
• a heat threshold independant of installed heat sinks but based on either
  
  • mech weight class (light, medium, heavy, assault)
    
  • mech tonnage
    
  • mech chassis
• a single fixed heat threshold

Edited by FiveDigits, 15 March 2013 - 05:44 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

What would a 1.4 threshold for the SHS do in the Maths?

[ICEFANG13]

I would like engines to be stuck at 1, and doubles to be 2, and singles to be 1. With engines giving 10 free ones almost all the time, and the limited placement of doubles, we would see a lot more mechs run smaller engines and a lot more running singles because there is no room for enough doubles. It would also reduce the amount of (like Splatapults, nothing against them in this post), who pack a ton of weapons, and very little heatsinks, right now, engines are so good, that most mechs carry only a couple more, this would give a bigger edge to people who make more balanced builds and punish high alpha high heat mechs. It would also make all mechs hotter (because almost all of them run DHS anyway), and slow down combat.

[FiveDigits]

MaddMaxx, on 15 March 2013 - 07:26 AM, said:

What would a 1.4 threshold for the SHS do in the Maths?

It would increase the heat threshold of a 30 SHS mech from 60 to 72, which let's you shoot on more ER PPC (or three MLAS) before shut down.

[hashinshin]

How about 1.0 in engine and 2.0 outside?

Never understood these people wanting to buff DHS when already there's 0 reason to ever not take them.

[StalaggtIKE]

2.0 in-engine and added external heatsinks to engine. 1.4 external heat dissipation and threshold for heatsinks placed anywhere else.

hashinshin, on 15 March 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Never understood these people wanting to buff DHS when already there's 0 reason to ever not take them.

Well I didn't just pay for them because I thought they looked pretty. I bought them for double the ability of a single heatsink at the cost of less crit space.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 15 March 2013 - 07:52 AM.

[xxx WreckinBallRaj xxx]

Something needs to be done, because currently, there is no reason to "not" have doubleHS on your Mechs. I won't even drop in a new Mech without the DHS upgrade. Regulars are just worthless. You'll never get a good cooling without doubles, thus you'll always have doubles on every variant, thus the regular version may as well not exist. I swear this is all just a gimmick to make us drop another 1.5M per purchase.

[Zweistein]

I think current DHS are great (for inner sphere mechs) and do well even though they're only a 40% improvement over standard HS, but the problem is that HS are so weak that there really is no reason to take HS over DHS. IMO they should make single HS a bit more powerful but keep the ratio because currently 10 HS have trouble sinking heat from 2 medium lasers (maybe add an option that an engine can fin 2x more HS than DHS). While DHS can easily support 4-6 of them.

Where that 40% increase really bothers me is Clan Tech as they usually produce so much more heat I don't think 40% will cut it, specially on mech like Dire Wolf (Daishi), Warhawk (Masakari), Mad Dog (Vulture) and Hellbringer (Loki).

[jay35]

Bluten, on 15 March 2013 - 08:23 AM, said:

Something needs to be done, because currently, there is no reason to "not" have doubleHS on your Mechs. I won't even drop in a new Mech without the DHS upgrade. Regulars are just worthless. You'll never get a good cooling without doubles, thus you'll always have doubles on every variant, thus the regular version may as well not exist. I swear this is all just a gimmick to make us drop another 1.5M per purchase.

This is true. And the answer is not to gimp doubles, but to improve singles. Because doubles just about cut it to support decent Energy-based firepower as-is.

[Tice Daurus]

Ok this is my thoughts going into this and I would love to have Paul come here and explain it to see if I'm correct on this theory.

Ok it's 3050 right? IS has DHS. The Clans have DHS. My thoughts on this, and again this is theory and conjecture on this, is that PGI wants it to be set at 1.4...FOR NOW. When the Clans come out and make their immergence into the MW:O game, they will have TRUE 2.0 DHS sink technology. Once the Clans have been here for a while, and the IS can reverse engineer DHS, the IS can also get TRUE 2.0 DHS tech via field kits, which also will cost even more c-bills to obtain. After a couple of years when both Clans and IS have the same level of tech, the level of DHS disparity will disappear, along with the level of 3 crit slots to 2 crit slots via the Clans, and everyone will be at the same level of technology in around 3052-3053, 2-3 years from now game time.

I think PGI wants a disparity between Clans and IS forces at first and then the level of tech will slowly be effected by the black market economy and then it will normal and level out once the tech is the same in a couple of years.

Paul, am I correct on this or not?

Edited by Tice Daurus, 15 March 2013 - 08:45 AM.

[Khobai]

The problem isnt that DHS are too good. Its that SHS arnt good enough to be a viable alternative.

Instead of nerfing DHS we need to buff SHS. Or just remove SHS from the game entirely.

Edited by Khobai, 15 March 2013 - 10:49 AM.

[keith]

now don't forgot efficiencies. so the 2.0 get a 15% modifier so do the 1.4. your are looking at 2.3(2.*1.15) for the engine sinks and 1.61(1.4*1.15) for all outer sinks. sounds a bit more balanced:D all true double sinks would break this game with the efficiencies.

edit for brain fart:P

Edited by keith, 15 March 2013 - 10:53 AM.

[PapaKilo]

Tice Daurus, on 15 March 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

Ok this is my thoughts going into this and I would love to have Paul come here and explain it to see if I'm correct on this theory.

Ok it's 3050 right? IS has DHS. The Clans have DHS. My thoughts on this, and again this is theory and conjecture on this, is that PGI wants it to be set at 1.4...FOR NOW. When the Clans come out and make their immergence into the MW:O game, they will have TRUE 2.0 DHS sink technology. Once the Clans have been here for a while, and the IS can reverse engineer DHS, the IS can also get TRUE 2.0 DHS tech via field kits, which also will cost even more c-bills to obtain. After a couple of years when both Clans and IS have the same level of tech, the level of DHS disparity will disappear, along with the level of 3 crit slots to 2 crit slots via the Clans, and everyone will be at the same level of technology in around 3052-3053, 2-3 years from now game time.

I think PGI wants a disparity between Clans and IS forces at first and then the level of tech will slowly be effected by the black market economy and then it will normal and level out once the tech is the same in a couple of years.

Paul, am I correct on this or not?

I like this, except for the critical slots thing. Even if the IS can reverse-engineer Clan stuff to make them, they are nowhere near as advanced. Clan DHS should always be smaller than IS DHS, just like Clan ERPPC is smaller and lighter than IS ERPPC (and ERLL, and LRM launchers, and Streak launchers, and so on).

The idea is that DHS should be double the heat dissipation of SHS. SHS shouldn't be balanced against DHS in this game, because they certainly weren't in the TT game. They are a straight-up upgrade, no doubt about it. Right now, even without high-heat Clan weaponry, we are crippled with much higher heat generation. We should at least have real DHS to offset that. I wouldn't mind if DHS didn't increase the overheat threshold, because in "reality" they really shouldn't -- they should just increase the rate at which 'Mech cools down, not mess with the point at which the 'Mech overheats.

[Roland]

For the most part, in the vast majority of builds, most of your heatsinks are going to be full double efficiency sinks.

Folks complain about this without really realizing how insignificant the change would actually be, in practice, on virtually every mech. Even with a heavy energy boat config, like my PPC stalker, I'm only running 17 DHS. 10 are in the engine... that means if you upped the other 7 to full doubles, you'd have overall number of effective heat sinks change from 31 to 34.

The difference between 31 and 34 heat sinks is not a huge game changer... And this is basically the biggest change you're ever gonna see. You simply can't really put that many double heat sinks outside the engine anyway.

And all that aside, if you can't manage your heat under the current system, I dunno what to tell you.. Cause I currently run absurdly hot configs, and they are extremely effective.