65 replies to this topic

[Rashhaverak]

The downside to not managing your heat is shutting down. The downside to not shutting down is that you take damage.

The proposed change would not only cause you to shut down, but to take damage as well?

I agree with the previous caller that such a change would inappropriately impair new players who are limited to trial mechs. I want those new players to have a more positive experience than they might otherwise get by constantly exploding while overheated and shut down. The learning curve is steep, and it takes time to climb it.

Sitting in a down-powered mech and watching out the window while you get torn up by lasers seems to me to be a sufficient deterrent to cranking your heat to 128%. I've watched people do it, and it frequently ends in destruction for the overheater.

[TehSBGX]

Okay if damage is done for going nuts with heat, lets have real double heatsinks.

[topgun505]

Except that one of the most popular meta right now completely gets around that.

Pop snipe: jump, fire and shut down, fall back behind cover where you cant be retaliated against. Don't even suffer damage from the uncontrolled fall while shut down. Where is the downside there?

Rashhaverak, on 17 April 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

The downside to not managing your heat is shutting down. The downside to not shutting down is that you take damage.

The proposed change would not only cause you to shut down, but to take damage as well?

I agree with the previous caller that such a change would inappropriately impair new players who are limited to trial mechs. I want those new players to have a more positive experience than they might otherwise get by constantly exploding while overheated and shut down. The learning curve is steep, and it takes time to climb it.

Sitting in a down-powered mech and watching out the window while you get torn up by lasers seems to me to be a sufficient deterrent to cranking your heat to 128%. I've watched people do it, and it frequently ends in destruction for the overheater.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Friend of mine tried this yesterday...this is what happened to high-alpha-ppc-laser-boats when they fired an alpha strike in MW3:



Hilarious!

[Gideon Grey]

I agree with the OP. Look, the heat mechanic in Battletech has always been a bit silly from a realism point of view. I mean who builds a multimillion dollar weapon system that can't handle heat to the point that it damages itself or its operator if used to its maximum... But realistic or not, it's always been a core mechanic. Enough has already been dumbed down in MWO.

At a bare minimum I'd like to see the shutdown/override changed a bit more... Since the auto shutdown is meant to be the computer trying to protect the mech and if only going over 100% heat can hurt it should work like this:

You are at 95% heat and fire an alpha that would put you over the top, the computer does not fire. If you want to fire that last alpha you must override first. Then when you overheat you face the damage. It's a small change that could make a difference

All told however we really need multiple heat effects at different levels. Could help change game dynamics positively in many ways.

[Jman5]

I would be for exploring some options with overheat/damage, however it would need to be done carefully. What I do not want is a system that just starts damaging you the moment you hit 101%. That would punish regular players too much.

However, what about if there was a timer of say 3-4 seconds. If you're still over 100% after 3 seconds of shut-down cooling, you start taking minor internal damage. (1-2)

This would punish the guys who are alpha striking at 99% heat and not the random guy who accidentally tipped toed into overheating. The damage would also not be too over the top like it is when you override.

Edited by Jman5, 18 April 2013 - 10:10 AM.

[Fut]

Rashhaverak, on 17 April 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

The downside to not managing your heat is shutting down. The downside to not shutting down is that you take damage.
The proposed change would not only cause you to shut down, but to take damage as well?

Not necessarily take damage all the time due to high heat.
In the TT, there's a graduated system for over heating. Your Mech just cannot perform at 100% efficiency while it's temperature is red hot.

People keep talking about how advanced the computer systems in these Mechs would have to be - how well does your home computer work while it's overheating?

The answer to that is "not well at all".

Rashhaverak, on 17 April 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

I agree with the previous caller that such a change would inappropriately impair new players who are limited to trial mechs. I want those new players to have a more positive experience than they might otherwise get by constantly exploding while overheated and shut down. The learning curve is steep, and it takes time to climb it..

The problem with this thought is that new players won't come into the game expecting to have the ability to cruise on through to 200% Heat. They're starting fresh. They'll see how their heat rises as they shoot and run, they'll see that their Mech slows down when heat starts to get above 75%, they'll see that they're HUD is starting to malfunction at 80%, they'll see that their ammo exploded when they were at 99% heat.... etc. etc.

All it takes is a paragraph to be written as a "Tip" on load-up, explaining that Heat Management is a big part of combat in Battlemechs.

Will something like this in place, MW:O will be a huge jump closer to BattleTech, and the villagers will rejoice.

[Sartorial Glint]

I think reducing speed by say 10% and causing system glitches/scrambling (HUD to flicker on and off, dropping locks, etc) at high heat would be pretty good.

[raygun]

Alistair Winter, on 17 April 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

I would love to see reaction of new players in trial mechs with single heatsinks, constantly overheating and just exploding outright from their own inability to manage heat. It would be a source of great amusement.

It would most certainly help the game draw new players.

You forgot the /s ... Or did you?

[Alistair Winter]

raygun, on 18 April 2013 - 12:44 PM, said:

You forgot the /s ... Or did you?

I much prefer sarcasm delivered without any kind of clue or emotion displayed, in the spirit of the British who perfected the art.

[GODzillaGSPB]

New video, showing how in MW3 the HUD started to act up when heat reached the higher levels:



Daishi with 6 ERPPC and 23x HS.

Edited by GODzillaGSPB, 18 April 2013 - 01:31 PM.

[Panzerman03]

Mech shutdown is there to prevent damage when the mech overheats. If it doesn't prevent damage from overheat, then we don't need mech shutdowns.

[Victor Morson]

I don't know about damage, but I would be cool with pilot-effects like blurring vision and steam in the cockpit.

[GODzillaGSPB]

Panzerman03, on 18 April 2013 - 01:33 PM, said:

Mech shutdown is there to prevent damage when the mech overheats. If it doesn't prevent damage from overheat, then we don't need mech shutdowns.

Logic. Is always right, right? Cool, let's go:

If a mechs shutdown with no harm even when they normally should've reached 125% heat because all weapons are fired, why do we have a heat scale at all? If it doesn't mean anything, then we don't need mech heatscale.

But since it is there and meant to shutdown at 100%, why are still all weapons fired? Surely the game should be able to calculate how big the heat on the full alpha will be like and should either shut the mech down without firing the alpha-strike at all, to prevent the overheat, or simply deny the firing of the alpha strike.

That'd be logical, too.

[Vapor Trail]

Fut, on 17 April 2013 - 06:48 AM, said:

Oh man. The drumbeat audio in your gif was driving me nuts!
Couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from!

Thanks for fricking quoting the .gif. You've managed to cause the same problem to at least one other person.

[Vapor Trail]

topgun505, on 17 April 2013 - 07:24 AM, said:

I agree that there is really no downside to completely disregarding heat buildup and thus is a reason you see such boatage currently in the form of 6-ppc stalkers and the like.

In TT if you fired off 6 PPCs that would be 60 heat. If you were lucky you had maybe 18 or so double heat sinks and so you could vent off about 36 (in this example) or so heat which means you would not be shut down but you would be only a few heat points shy of an auto-shutdown.

Here's the rub. In TT, the hotter you get the worse your machine performs. You massively slow down and get huge penalties to hit targets when you are that high up on the heat scale.

There is ZERO such penalty in MWO. If you are at 99% heat your mech as far as I can tell performs the same as if it were at 2% heat.

Not really sure how to mimic these effects. Blur the screen (heat blur) when at high heat? You definitely can mimic the slowdown effects. Your max speed and turn speed and torso twist speed should be jumpy and/or VERY slow when that hot. It wouldn't be hard to implement this.

Definitely would like to see some heat effects added though.

Best mechanic for achieving (and enforcing) this, I believe, is reticle bloom representing probable shot placement responding to high heat (as well as movement, actuator damage, etc). But there are those that believe that this mechanic would detract from "skill."

Edited by Vapor Trail, 18 April 2013 - 01:48 PM.

[Writer]

1) Heat should always cause damage once you push past the 105% threshhold.

2) A canon accurate solution would be to implement a heat scale to penalize mechs that run perpetually hot. This scale would slightly degrade mech performance once you reach 80% and increase in severity up to 100%, and lingering until your mech cools down back to nominal levels. Running hot would cause your mech to accelerate slightly slower, have a lower maximum top speed by a few Kph, and reduce the effectiveness of your mech's heat sinks and their ability to diffuse heat. (They're saturated with heat and it make sense they wouldn't function as efficiently at peak thermal capacity).

[Levi Porphyrogenitus]

Heat should have a scale. As your heat climbs you start to lose speed/responsiveness (lower max speed, slower turn times, torso and arms move sluggishly, etc.). Ammo should have a chance to cook off at, say 90%+, and if you are at 110%+ you should have a chance (that goes up the higher you go) of having your reactor blow (or go into emergency shutdown, which would be different from a normal shutdown in that it cripples the engine until it gets a maintenance turn in the mech bay and which would effectively be a mission kill).

I like the tradeoff between overriding and not overriding with damage to your internals when your override is engaged and you go over 100%, as it gives some measure of cost to popping your override. I'd like to see the damage be scaled by how far over 100% you are.

[Yiazmat]

I'm on my phone, so i can't quote:

Gideon Grey said,
"At a bare minimum I'd like to see the shutdown/override changed a bit more... Since the auto shutdown is meant to be the computer trying to protect the mech and if only going over 100% heat can hurt it should work like this:

You are at 95% heat and fire an alpha that would put you over the top, the computer does not fire. If you want to fire that last alpha you must override first. Then when you overheat you face the damage. It's a small change that could make a difference."

Genius. this would be an absolute perfect implementation of the heat to damage issue (or lack there of) if you don't mind, I'm going to re submit that in suggestions to separate the muck. kuddos to you of course.

[ManDaisy]

This would be appropriate .