New player spend 12.8 million CBills or Cash$ on the Awesome AWS-9M. They take it out in it's stock loadout and fire 3xERPPCs. On the fourth shot it shutsdown and restarts with center torso heat damage. They grumble and play on, but now every second or third shot the mech shutsdown and takes center torso heat damage. Pretty soon the mech has killed itself without taking a single hit, even though it is using the Dev and Battletech designed stock loadout. This will not make this player happy and they will leave or stay, but certainly they will come to the conclusion that MWO is poorly designed, and of course it's not.
So, now that a heat damage cap is being added players need better working external DHS so they can moderate the over-heating in combat.
Like in the above example, the player should be able to fire 4 salvos without overheating and then have the mech cool to near zero heat within 10 seconds or so. 3xERPPC's are supposed to be reasonably functional with DHS. What DHS 1.4 produces is 3xERPPC capping heat in 3 salvos and requiring 15-20 seconds to zero the heat (21 DHS 1.4). That is a broken mech and it's stock, not player designed.
When DHS 1.4 was added it was always with the idea that it could be looked at again as MWO's heat mechanics were fleshed out. Now that they are, that time to re-look at DHS 1.4 has come.
EDIT:
Some folks have questioned whether a mech with 3xERPPCs and 21 DHS shuts down on the third salvo. It does, even on River City, a moderate heat map. Here is what happens, moving in water (2% heat).
Salvo 2 puts you at 80-85% heat, you cool to 78% heat waiting for the recharge, firing the third time puts you in shutdown for 5 seconds, you restart at 90% heat roughly and firing again puts you in shutdown for 7-8 seconds. Cooling to zero heat from restart takes about 20-22 seconds, about 27 seconds from max heat in shutdown to zero heat. So this Battletech stock mech doesn't work. That's not a combat functional mech.
Edited by Lightfoot, 13 June 2013 - 01:29 PM.