57 replies to this topic

[Joseph Mallan]

3rdworld, on 25 April 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

4 ERs create the same heat as 6 stds, in TT. His inquiry was that no mech could shoot 6 ppcs. That is not true.

Is that so? I have to look...

PPC=8 Heat
ERPPC=11 heat.

(Per latest Ohm spreadsheet.)

So 6 ERPPC would be 66 heat v 48 Heat for 6 PPC.

So Until we actually have a Warhawk we will not know if we can fire 6 (C)ERPPCs.

[Roadbuster]

Levi Porphyrogenitus, on 25 April 2013 - 07:25 AM, said:

Poll is terribly biased. No option to say the idea is a really bad one but something else should be done to fix the underlying problem. We need a graduated heat scale with tiered effects, not an artificially low heat cap.

Fixed.

EDIT: Fixed fix?

Edited by Roadbuster, 25 April 2013 - 08:06 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Wow... only thing you are missing is the smile after giving em what they asked for!

[Roadbuster]

Ph30nix, on 25 April 2013 - 07:31 AM, said:

i have no problem with PGI testing a situation like this but first THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ALPHA BUILDS! secondly, a system like this would mean smaller mechs had a lower heat threshold then larger mechs, or it would have to be based off the engine size (which turns into almost the same thing) so you wouldnt see much differnce in the boats im sure are upsetting you 6 ppc..... and if they can get off ONE shot without over heating that would be all they needed in fact your "fix" would make it easier for them since they would have less time to wait before firing their second shot since cooldown speeds would be increased. also i dont know about you but anytime im dumb enough to let myself overheat when an enemy is firing at me that seems like a much larger draw back then ammo/weight limits....

Well, let's get this out of the way. I'm not complaining about 6PPC Stalkers. It's just a good example because everyone knows them and this setup is very heat intensive.

The point about alpha striking and cooling down faster is true.
But my point is to prevent such big alphas as we see them now.
If we go further into cooling we could also say if the heat level is high the cooling rate is higher too and gets lower as the temperature goes down. *thermodynamic stuff*

Ammo and weight are good balancing factors for the ballistic weapons and, missiles aside, they seem to be well balanced for the most part (yes I'm talking about you AC5).
There are few mechs which can equip 2 AC20 or 2 Gauss Rifles. And if they do they have to sacrifice either speed, armor or free slots. Many of these builds require you to use an XL engine to be viable, making said mech more vulnerable.
That being said, yes, dual AC20/Gauss Jagers and Catapults are annoying but they are very specialized and once their are out of ammo, they are useless.
But that's off topic now and if these things require more ballancing that's another issue.


EDIT: Thx for the responses and your opinions btw. (this time with smiley!)

Edited by Roadbuster, 25 April 2013 - 08:08 AM.

[Mister Blastman]

Lowering the heat threshhold would have huge benefits. The large weapons have just too many advantages right now--plus being able to alpha 3+ PPCs just well, shouldn't happen per traditional BT rules.

I still think convergence needs to be addressed also, though.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 25 April 2013 - 08:09 AM.

[3rdworld]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 April 2013 - 07:35 AM, said:

Is that so? I have to look...

PPC=8 Heat
ERPPC=11 heat.

(Per latest Ohm spreadsheet.)

So 6 ERPPC would be 66 heat v 48 Heat for 6 PPC.

So Until we actually have a Warhawk we will not know if we can fire 6 ©ERPPCs.

That is why I included the caveat (in TT). They don't create the same heat in MWO but in TT, 4 ERs create the same heat as 6 STDs.

[topgun505]

Yes but I'm assuming that you are talking about making heat neutral ... Which nobody does. By that logic you would need 34 doubles in MWO to make s 6-PPC Stalker heat neutral. Doesn't happen. And it doesn't need to since evidently 16 doubles is all that is needed to get off 2 alphas in rapid succession. Again, the shutdown threshold is just too high. Anything firing 4 or more PPC or ERPPC or the equivalent heat should be an IMMEDIATE shutdown

Joseph Mallan, on 25 April 2013 - 07:16 AM, said:

In this game that Warhark would need 90 sinks to handle just a single salvo! Warhawks don't carry PPCs its ERPPC or nothing.

[tenderloving]

MustrumRidcully, on 25 April 2013 - 05:10 AM, said:

I vote for this. Of course, they definitely need to increase t he heat dissipation, too, otherwise the system will probably lead to weird mechs that differ from their stock config by replacing standard with double heat sinks and making all weapons the next smallest category so they aren't crippled by heat.


You still can fire each weapon in an alpha only once, so no, you don't need a higher heat capacity. You need a higher heat dissipation, so that a build that was designed heat neutral in the table top is also heat neutral if it operates at the current rate of fires.

This seems like such a simple fix; they should at least test it.

[Joseph Mallan]

3rdworld, on 25 April 2013 - 08:13 AM, said:

That is why I included the caveat (in TT). They don't create the same heat in MWO but in TT, 4 ERs create the same heat as 6 STDs.

Somewhere... I missed this!

[Joseph Mallan]

topgun505, on 25 April 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

Yes but I'm assuming that you are talking about making heat neutral ... Which nobody does. By that logic you would need 34 doubles in MWO to make s 6-PPC Stalker heat neutral. Doesn't happen. And it doesn't need to since evidently 16 doubles is all that is needed to get off 2 alphas in rapid succession. Again, the shutdown threshold is just too high. Anything firing 4 or more PPC or ERPPC or the equivalent heat should be an IMMEDIATE shutdown

Well My twin AC20 Jager is pretty much heat neutral unless I'm on Caustic/Tourmanine. Then I have to be careful after the 5-6th consecutive shot. With just 10 doubles.

6 PPCs should not be heat neutral, but there are many weapon combos that should, without insane numbers of sinks.

[Bishop Steiner]

Roadbuster, on 25 April 2013 - 12:24 AM, said:

As everyone knows, there are many complaints about poptarts, PPC and Laser boats and high alpha builds in general.
ACs and Gauss Rifles deal alot of damage too but they have 2 balancing factors which are weight/ammunition (basically weight too) and slots.
Energy weapons on the other hand are not heavy, don't require any ammunition, don't take up many slots and most mechs have a nice ammount of energy hardpoints. The balancing factor for energy weapons is heat.

The problem with the high alpha energy weapons builds is that they can fire many energy weapons at the same time without overheating. And that's where the actual heat system is not working as it should.
Every mech should have a fixed heat threshold which can not be changed by anything except the already existing pilot efficiencies boni.
If the informations about heat sink values are correct, every heat sink does not only accelerate heat dissipation but also increase heat threshold, which is wrong.

That's why, in order to reduce the ammount of alpha builds in favor of mixed loadouts, there should be a fixed heat threshold for all mechs and heat sinks should only speed up heat dissipation.

That way players couldn't fire many boated weapons at once, reducing pinpoint damage spikes.
Instead it would be possible to fire again faster the more heat sinks are installed in a mech. Deal the same ammount of damage over time, but with less spikes.
This could even enable PGI to set the value for DHS to the real 2.0 value.

I think this would make matches more interesting because players would have the chance to react to attacks instead of getting taken appart by 1-2 salvos.

did I mention I love your using my Maruader design in your Siggy?

As for the idea...I'm mostly behind it. I don't really know if I have an issue with extra threshold, as there are ways to increase endurance, not just dissipation, but I do think overall heat capacity DOES need to looked deeper into, and addressed. Mechs like the Awesome and K2 using 2-3 PPCs should not be nerfed though because of mechs like the Hex Stalker that totally take advantage of the current system.

[Morashtak]

Roadbuster, on 25 April 2013 - 06:42 AM, said:

That's the problem we have at the moment. Heat sinks also increase heat threshold. Something they were never meant to do as far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong).
It shouldn't be able to fire said 6PPCs at once without overheating. No matter how many heatsinks there are.
I don't know any mech, neither IS nor Clan which would be able to handle 6PPCs fired at once.

Take your GFX card as example. It might run without problems at 75°C under full load. Now take the heat energy the card builds up over a short period of time and imagine the chip core releases this built up heat at once. What will happen?
No matter how big your cooler might be, your chip will get too hot and maybe get destroyed because the surface of the core is too small to transport the energy to the cooler in the short ammount of time.
And this surface, the contact area between heat generating element and cooler is your heat threshold.

Hmmm... Diminishing returns on alpha strikes?

How about a chance that a HS fails after absorbing X amount of alpha heat spikes? This could be based off of the total heat produced divided by the potential heat dissipation or a similar calculation of heat versus HS.

Granted that players could still game this but it should lower the number of "full" alphas in a match as players lose a HS then still alpha and not cool down quite as fast since they have a HS or two damaged/inop.

[General Taskeen]

I invoke the math gods of MW:LL for heat thresholds!

*MW:LL! Go!

*MW:LL uses heat thresholds on MWO! Its Super Effective!

*MWO Feints.

[Lightfoot]

Yep. MWO does not punish players for hitting that override button and firing immediately. It allows players to build what should be mostly inoperable mechs and just keep hitting the override button.

However, since MWO has no DHS and a growing number of energy-mostly Mechs. Alot of thought is going to have to go into this. I mean I can take a perfectly TT Battletech AWS-8Q and it overheats in a few salvos and the Stock AWS-9M won't even run in it's stock configuration due to overheating (I don't call shutting down for 20 seconds every 3rd or 4th salvo, then every salvo, an operable config).

Edited by Lightfoot, 25 April 2013 - 09:22 AM.

[topgun505]

I'm not arguing that ANY design has to be heat neutral. Just that the drawback for ENERGY weapons is their heat generation and that currently the heat shutdown threshold is set too high to really be the drawback it was meant to be in order to effectively prevent energy boats.

Joseph Mallan, on 25 April 2013 - 09:03 AM, said:

Well My twin AC20 Jager is pretty much heat neutral unless
I'm on Caustic/Tourmanine. Then I have to be careful after the 5-6th consecutive shot. With just 10 doubles.

6 PPCs should not be heat neutral, but there are many weapon combos that should, without insane numbers of sinks.

[Relic1701]

Some highlight from the above table could be...

• 30 (100%) - Auto-shutdown (no chance to override)
  
• 28 (93%) - Ammo Explosion (50% chance)
  
• 26 (87%) - Auto-shutdown (2 sec warning)
  
• 25 (83%) - Movement/Twist speed reduced by 50%
  
• 23 (76%) - Ammo Explosion (25% chance)
  
• 22 (73%) - Auto-shutdown (4 sec warning)
  
• 20 (67%) - Movement/Twist speed reduced by 40%
  
• Etc, Etc.

Anyway...you get the idea. Different effects as the heat rises will make people think more about heat management, and will again become a skill. The upshot of this is that I suspect that true DHS would be more viable (or could at least have a bit of a boost).

Edited by Relic1701, 25 April 2013 - 09:26 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

Lightfoot, on 25 April 2013 - 09:20 AM, said:

Yep. MWO does not punish players for hitting that override button and firing immediately. It allows players to build what should be mostly inoperable mechs and just keep hitting the override button.

Actually MWO does punish the "Overrider". It is the Jumper-Alpha-Shutdowner that is not punished.

Perhaps the damage done to the Mech should be extended to the straight up Shut-Down. If you Alpha and shutdown, damage is done to the Mech, maybe not at the same level as the over-ride, but close.

The game could easily calculate a Heat Spike to Shut-Down damage profile same as the Over-ride on does. Thus, Alpha and Shutdown to your hearts content, you may have your cover but you will still have to pay the piper, so to speak.

Edited by MaddMaxx, 25 April 2013 - 09:39 AM.

[Hellcat420]

what they need to do is add the heatscale effects from tt.

[3rdworld]

Hellcat420, on 25 April 2013 - 10:08 AM, said:

what they need to do is add the heatscale effects from tt.

That would do more to nerf brawlers than snipers.

[Hellcat420]

3rdworld, on 25 April 2013 - 10:10 AM, said:

That would do more to nerf brawlers than snipers.

heat is not the problem with snipers, the hardpoints are. hardpoint restrictions where how battletech was balanced. you cant throw that out the window and expect to magically balance everything by tweaking heat/damage etc. if you change the game like that its not really battletech anymore, just a cheesy knock-off.

Edited by Hellcat420, 25 April 2013 - 10:15 AM.