30 replies to this topic

[Sassori]

LordDeathStrike, on 02 June 2012 - 03:42 AM, said:

clan double heat sinks are 1 ton 2 crits. so no they have no disadvantage, since you can fit one in each leg, 1 in torso and for 3 tons, and 6 crits you now have a mech with 26 effective heat sinks, for 3 tons and 6 crits. keep your engine standard and put one double hs in each side torso for 30 heat sinks for 5 tons and 10 crits. spend the rest of your tons and crits on er ppcs/lasers and you get the idea, cheap piece of **** mech.

Nobody really cares about Clan tech in comparison with IS tech. The comparison here is between Inner Sphere 3025 Era tech and Lostech.

Inner Sphere double heat sinks are still very good with only a minor downside (No legs, no center torso) in space efficiency but they're still very strong just due to the fact that for 4 additional tons (If you have a big enough engine) and 3 crits in L/R Torso you have 28 heat sinks effectively. That's nasty. It's also brutally effective for mixed platforms. Put 12 double heat sinks into the engine, put a PPC and 2 medium lasers in each arm, then put Auto-Cannons or Missiles in the torso's (Significantly less heat per damage).

Even still, 3025 vs Lostech isn't /that/ bad off, is it an advantage? Sure, but it's not overwhelmingly so. Clan tech is however, overwhelmingly so.

[black oak]

Frisk, on 31 May 2012 - 06:42 PM, said:

I expect the "clan invasion" to happen at the expected date and time.

Maybe we can bribe the clans into putting off the invasion for a couple years? Those of us who were playing TT back then always thought FASA was just making a money grab when they put them in the game (new technical readouts, new miniatures, new source books, etc., etc., etc...)

Probably get flamed all to hell for that by the people who "grew up" with clans, but cest la vié!

[Hayden]

Aethon, on 02 June 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Inner Sphere DHS actually do have a disadvantage: 3-slot critical size. You can't mount them in the legs or CT, and quite often cannot even mount them in the L/R torso, due to their sheer size. Sometimes, as with an energy-heavy design, you actually end up with the tonnage, but not the space, and end up needing those old-school heatsinks. It's most common with slower engines (even more with slower XL engines); It's admittedly rare, though.

Yeah, but that size difference has no bearing on the "free" 10 heat sinks that all 'mechs start with. It was the biggest loop-hole ever. Like basically adding 10 free heat sinks to any design. Sure, the BV/cost went up, but the disruption to the balance is already done. It makes energy weapons way more viable than they should be, and there is less impetus to consider the use of ballistic weapons, whose biggest advantage was arguably their lower heat generation.

Eh, anyway, this discussion is purely academic, I'm not trying to win converts, just expressing my line of thought.

[domokun]

Hayden, on 02 June 2012 - 02:58 AM, said:

Double heat sinks were ALWAYS my biggest pet peeve in TT. They just unbalanced so much. XL engines atleast had the disadvantage of being more fragile, but double heat sinks never had any kind of disadvantage... I don't know if they'll do anything to address that in this game, but I wouldn't be opposed to them poking around with it.

Quite frankly lots of things were pretty illogical in BattleTech mech design rules. Double heat sinks were bulkier and some times due to that there might be situations where single ones could provide better performance due to smaller size, especially with IS double heat sinks. The thing I really never figured out with heat sinks is following. If engines internal heat sinks are also bigger why engine isn't bigger due to that. Another thing with heat sinks that really didn't make any sense to me is why different types of heat sinks cannot be mixed with others.

[Hayden]

domokun, on 02 June 2012 - 12:26 PM, said:

Quite frankly lots of things were pretty illogical in BattleTech mech design rules. Double heat sinks were bulkier and some times due to that there might be situations where single ones could provide better performance due to smaller size, especially with IS double heat sinks. The thing I really never figured out with heat sinks is following. If engines internal heat sinks are also bigger why engine isn't bigger due to that. Another thing with heat sinks that really didn't make any sense to me is why different types of heat sinks cannot be mixed with others.

Agreed. There were no penalties for the first 10 double heat sinks, but everyone added after that is massive for some reason. And the rules against mixing never made sense either. Eh, oh well.

[Gremlich Johns]

LordDeathStrike, on 02 June 2012 - 03:11 AM, said:

my atlas will bristle with clan weapons, ill pry them from your cold dead hands if i have too, but i will have clan weapons!

No Clan tech for you. Why?

You do not find out about Clan weapons after the Clans come in and invade and take you as Bondsman, that wiould be August 3050. Ergo, you will never EVAR be able to use Clan tech.

Edited by Gremlich Johns, 02 June 2012 - 12:42 PM.

[Der Basilisk]

I have no problem to start with tech level 1, but then i need to now how the upgrades to my mech will work. For example the Centurion and the Hunchback. Both look quite similar with standard tech, both weighing 50 tons and having the same speed. But with lostech, they go very different ways, turning the Centurion into a fast moving hunter, while the hunchback becomes even more of a close range brawler.

Staying with the Centurion as an example, how will upgrades work? Will one payment turn my CN9-A directly into a CN9-D or can upgrades be made one by one, so that i can decide if i want to install Endo Steel or an XL-Engine. And remembering the DHS, not every upgrade like the Centurion has some.

So how true will the devs stay to the TROs? Was there already something said about it, that i missed?

[Sassori]

Der Basilisk, on 02 June 2012 - 12:46 PM, said:

I have no problem to start with tech level 1, but then i need to now how the upgrades to my mech will work. For example the Centurion and the Hunchback. Both look quite similar with standard tech, both weighing 50 tons and having the same speed. But with lostech, they go very different ways, turning the Centurion into a fast moving hunter, while the hunchback becomes even more of a close range brawler.

Staying with the Centurion as an example, how will upgrades work? Will one payment turn my CN9-A directly into a CN9-D or can upgrades be made one by one, so that i can decide if i want to install Endo Steel or an XL-Engine. And remembering the DHS, not every upgrade like the Centurion has some.

So how true will the devs stay to the TROs? Was there already something said about it, that i missed?

We know there are separate chassis with different hard points, we know there might be some other differences like XL engine and Endo Steel perhaps being specific to a chassis as well, but we don't /know/ anything of the sort just yet since the people in Closed Beta can't say and the Devs haven't really given us clarification to everything yet.

[wanderer]

Hayden, on 02 June 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

Agreed. There were no penalties for the first 10 double heat sinks, but everyone added after that is massive for some reason. And the rules against mixing never made sense either. Eh, oh well.

Not quite true. No-crit sinks (ie, part of the engine cooling system) are 1 per 25 engine rating, up to the 10 freebies that come with an engine. So if an engine is less than 250 rated, 1 or more heat sinks take up crits. And yes, it was in part to speed things up- post DHS Battletech is a lot more brutal than pre-DHS.

Clan DHS also have the nice perk of fitting more in more spots, although IS ones are actually better for what we call "crit sinking"- the three crits each takes up means they're better per-ton for taking hits internally that might destroy a weapon or hit an ammo bay instead.

[Der Basilisk]

Thanks for the quick response. So i didn´t miss anything imported. I wished, i had, because by now, it would be nice to know these things for certain.

[a rabid chihuahua]

black oak, on 02 June 2012 - 11:29 AM, said:

Maybe we can bribe the clans into putting off the invasion for a couple years? Those of us who were playing TT back then always thought FASA was just making a money grab when they put them in the game (new technical readouts, new miniatures, new source books, etc., etc., etc...)

Probably get flamed all to hell for that by the people who "grew up" with clans, but cest la vié!

I agree. I grew up wiht the original game and stuck with it as it grew. when the clan stuff came out , it nealry lost me with some of the equipment and added junk. Now I've gotten used to it over time ,but sometimes it' s just fun to go back to the base and play the original style game with what was available at that time...doesn't mean I won't upgrade down the road though..