1107 replies to this topic

[Protection]

After watching another poor PUG die in the heat-death-traps (often called Trial mechs) while playing today, it occurred to me -- why are single heatsinks even in the game at all?


There is no reason for them to even exist. Double heatsinks are an absolute upgrade. They are basically a mandatory part of any functional design in the game.

The only mechs that benefit, at all, from the existence of single heatsinks are Urbanmech-esque joke light mechs that use up all their critical slots and try to run a 150XL Engine, or Atlas/Stalker builds that decide to run 40+ heatsinks, wasting twenty plus tons that would otherwise be spent on weapons in a good build. We can live without these joke builds.

And this is what kills stock mechs - more than anything else. The weapon loadouts are often terrible, and they are poorly optimized, but it's the lack of effective heat dissipation that makes most trial mechs so utterly terrible.

So why not simply remove single heatsinks from the game? If double heatsinks are going to be an absolute upgrade, then why not simply spare players the frustration and make it so that double heatsinks are the only type of heatsink (which would solve the whole "not really double" thing as well).

All stock mechs now come with double heatsinks instead of single heatsinks - making them much more viable for PUGs to learn the game in, and standardizes an extraneous game element that has no place or purpose any longer (except to mimic tabletop designs).

So let's just make Double Heatsinks the only type of heatsink, and throw away Single Heatsinks forever.




(Alternatively, I did. long ago, make a suggestion about how to make single heatsinks a viable option and the decision between singles and doubles interesting, but it went largely ignored:
http://mwomercs.com/...ps-trial-mechs/ )

[Fenix0742]

Hopefully they transition to community designed trial mechs for all trial mechs at some point, as I don't think anyone is pretending that trial mechs are viable like they were months ago.

Edited by Fenix0742, 22 March 2013 - 01:42 PM.

[NinetyProof]

The purpose of single heat sink:

Money Sink

What's the first thing you upgrade on a mech? Endo Steel, DHS, Engine ...

Why don't stock mechs come this way?

Money Sink

The entire purpose of not giving people all the bells and whistles is to suck more time from you so you decide to open your wallet and exchange time for money.

In traditional MMO style games, you don't have the option to exchange time for money ... and that levels the playing field. Out here? All things are built with the Pay-For-Power mentality. Because Pay-For-Power pays PGI's bills.

[Mercules]

Hmmmmmm... or we could just go back to stock mechs and everyone would learn how to manage heat.

There are still builds making use of Single heatsinks.

NinetyProof, on 22 March 2013 - 01:44 PM, said:

Why don't stock mechs come this way?

No, they don't come this way because they are "STOCK" and that variant doesn't have it. Notice some stock mechs do have double heat sinks, endo steel, artemis, and other upgrades.

[Chris Morris]

Was there a purpose for them in tabletop Battletech?

[Protection]

Mercules, on 22 March 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

There are still builds making use of Single heatsinks.

Please, do share one of these builds...

[Commander Kobold]

I feel even worse for newbies running trials now, most of them are running missiles which can't really do much since you only get 1-2 small launchers AND they run hotter than caustic at high noon

[Bubba Wilkins]

While DHS are superior in pretty much every build, the SHS builds of the same mechs can still be nearly as effective.

Optimized builds with either perform well enough to where DHS is only slightly better.

[Mercules]

Chris Morris, on 22 March 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

Was there a purpose for them in tabletop Battletech?

In TT Battletech you don't just get to rip equipment out of mechs willy-nilly. Even so there were mechs that had more tonnage than crit slots that could get more efficient heat cooling with singles than doubles. Since we can upgrade armor, weapons, and even incrementally upgrade engine size gaining a few kph instead of needing to upgrade to a size that would give another hex of movement... the extra 3 tons you could use for singles is often better spent to increase the engine to then next 25 and hide a double in the engine.

Protection, on 22 March 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

Please, do share one of these builds...

Feel free to look. I just saw one the other day.

[Tickdoff Tank]

Chris Morris, on 22 March 2013 - 01:47 PM, said:

Was there a purpose for them in tabletop Battletech?

Yes.

In TT it was much easier to manage your heat and you did not always need DHS to do it. Especially if you were mounting a diverse array of weapons for use at different ranges.

The Awesome (for example) makes perfectly good use of the SHS. That does not mean that it would not be improved with DHS, but the SHS worked just fine. And a Gaussapult K2 in TT would not need doubles at all.

[Merky Merc]

DHS are basically required equipment for 99.9% of mech builds. I have to agree with the OP.

And the move to custom trial mechs is one that is sorely needed imo.

[MiG77]

Tickdoff Tank, on 22 March 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

.And a Gaussapult K2 in TT would not need doubles at all.

Gausspapult (or Gaussphract) dont need DHS even in MWO...


And to answer why they dont remove them is simple -> Those are low level equipment and thus money sink (to upgrade from there). DHS is true upgarde not alternative.

Edited by MiG77, 22 March 2013 - 02:03 PM.

[Mercules]

Oh, the other point to them was that they cost a lot less to repair... but then PGI dumbed down the game....

[Rakkar]

Merky Merc, on 22 March 2013 - 01:56 PM, said:

DHS are basically required equipment for 99.9% of mech builds. I have to agree with the OP.

And the move to custom trial mechs is one that is sorely needed imo.

They're not required. They're an efficient upgrade (IF you have the critical location space). You can operate mechs w/o DHS.

As someone said above, learn to manage heat efficiently.

Edited by Rakkar, 22 March 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[Adridos]

I'd rather see them buffed and made a plausible side-grade (for instance, with the upped heat treshold many people have suggested already).

Removing them would be counter-productive and so would be nerfing the DHS even more.

[GRIMM11]

OP are you kidding? For example the Awesome with internal and external armors upgraded, then you have a bunch of laser weapons. You have NO crit space to give up for 1.4 heat dissipation per 3 crit slots of a double heat sink. some builds have issues with weight, some with critical space. That is why single heat sinks exist. What I want to see is the ability to mix the two in a single build, that would be true customization and there is no valid reason for it to not be possible in a simulator type game.

Edited by GRIMM11, 22 March 2013 - 02:04 PM.

[Tank]

Wait.. wait.. wait.. All of my mech use only SHS and now you tell me that they are obsolete?

[Mercules]

GRIMM11, on 22 March 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

OP are you kidding? For example the Awesome with internal and external armors upgraded, then you have a bunch of laser weapons. You have NO crit space to give up for 1.4 heat dissipation per 3 crit slots of a double heat sink. some builds have issues with weight, some with critical space. That is why single heat sinks exist. What I want to see is the ability to mix the two in a single build, that would be true customization and there is no valid reason for it to not be possible in a simulator type game.

Canon. Your mech can use one system or the other. Double or Single it is optimized for that. Typically a field swap from single to double was not a fun thing to attempt for mechanics.

[Protection]

GRIMM11, on 22 March 2013 - 02:02 PM, said:

OP are you kidding? For example the Awesome with internal and external armors upgraded, then you have a bunch of laser weapons. You have NO crit space to give up for 1.4 heat dissipation per 3 crit slots of a double heat sink. some builds have issues with weight, some with critical space. That is why single heat sinks exist. What I want to see is the ability to mix the two in a single build, that would be true customization and there is no valid reason for it to not be possible in a simulator type game.

If you put ferro fibrous on an Awesome over double heatsinks, then you've made a terrible under-optimized build.

Please, show me one of your single heatsink builds.

[Carrioncrows]

SHS just need to be buffed.

Up them to 1.2 HSE and keep doubles at 1.4

That will help them, but the real killer is the 2.0 HS in the engines. That's what makes DHS so damn good and SHS so damn useless.

Out of the 39 mechs I only 1 that carries SHS.

And that is the Spider-K because it's damn near impossible to overheat it.