15 replies to this topic

[Sp3ctre18]

So, I'm looking at my STK-3f build that is based of Mack's "Gankenstein" build, same weapons, but I have a much lighter engine (STD 200!), and single heat sinks.

Most people say than DHS are always worth it, but I wonder if this is one build where that's not true.

STK-5S

2 LL - RA LA
2 MPLAS - RA LA
4 SSRM2 - RA RT LT LA
1 ML - RT
1 TAG - LT

2 AMS
2 CASE - LT RT

SRM ammo - 2 tons
AMS ammo - 2 tons

STD 200 (required 2 external HS)
31 HS (total; I counted 23 that I put in myself).

Heat Efficiency: 1.17

So again, I PUT IN 23 heat sinks. If I worked out the impact correctly, changing to DHS would result in my being able to put in only 8 DHS. If 1 DHS = 1.4 SHS, that's only worth 11 SHS - far from my current 23. Of course, this is not surprising, becaue I lose the ability to place heat sinks in the legs, CT, and head - all places I currently have SHS in. And related, there's the other drawback that currently, I only have a total of 4 SHS in arms, so losing them isn't as bad as losing 4 DHD in those arms.

Are my thoughts correct here? Should I keep the SHS?

Edited by Sp3ctre18, 05 June 2013 - 07:48 PM.

[Fiona Marshe]

200 Std Engine
31 SHS = 31 dissipation and heat cap of 61
18 DHS = (8*2.0)+(10*1.4) = 28 dissipation and heat cap of 58.

So yes, in your case, SHS *are* a better choice if you don't need the tonnage elsewhere.
You are spending an extra 12 tons to do this, but can also mount 4 SHS in your legs. Find some water to stand in for an extra 4 dissipation (making SHS even more useful for you).

[Splinters]

So let's try out both builds and see what you think.

Here's your build as I understand it (armor values are just generic starting points).

It does have a cooling efficiency of 32% so you can fire a few alpha's, but the slower engine speed and torso twist are big handicaps.

Let's try out a 20 DHS build instead with the same weapon loadout. I upped the engine up to a 300 engine and took off 0.5 tons of armor.

What you'll notice is that your are 2% more cooling efficient with a higher heat cap (61 in SHS vs 64 in DHS) and the biggest difference will be your speed. With a 300 engine you will have 57.2kph standard and with speed tweak you'll be up at 62.9kph. vs 38.1kph and 41.9kph. The main reason why this is important is so you can torso twist faster as the speed is dependent on engine size. The cooling will be about the same but the larger available engine will really make this mech shine. That's a huge difference in speeds let's you get closer in to brawl which is what this mech is designed to do. The slower speed may work if you were longer range, but with this loadout you want to close as quickly as possible.

Hope this helps!

-Splints
PS this is my favorite build for the 3F, in case you want to go for a popular build. Either PPCs or SSRMs and ML's, they generate about the same heat, and try not to fire PPCs and anything else if you can help it.

Edited by Splinters, 05 June 2013 - 09:49 PM.

[Koniving]

There's a bit more to note. With the faster dissipation, you are gaining a multiplied heat cap.

Furthermore, however many are in the engine become true double heatsinks with a 2*Set Points multiplier to both your heat-cap and to your heat dissipation.

[Sp3ctre18]

Oh ok, so I did mess up a good bit. For one, not sure how I miscounted the criticals; probably forgot to move the ammo to legs after ruling out legs for DHS. >.< So, with this setup of light / low-crit weapons, I definitely have space for DHS.

In fact, Splinters, there are even more spots I could fit DHS into if I really wanted to go for heat efficiency. With a little tweaking I can fit one more or even 2 more DHS for a total of 22 DHS. I'm paying a lot of tonnage for them, but those 2 extra in the engine are nice; tonnage wise, it's all working out much like the original, only with a much better engine. (I actually said I'm running a 5S, btw; so I'm packing those two AMSs in. )

I'm definitely enjoying my 5 SRMs on my 5FM. The energy weps are 3 LL, but I'll deifnitely be experimenting with using PPC or MLs.

Thanks for the help, everyone.

Where was I getting confused with this 1.4 number? Is that for the DHS in the engine?

Edited by Sp3ctre18, 06 June 2013 - 07:47 AM.

[ManDaisy]

2.0 for heat sinks in the engine, 1.4 for heat sinks you have to add.

[Darwins Dog]

Your engine comes with up to 10 heatsinks for "free". With the upgrade to DHS those become 2.0 heatsinks. All others (even the ones in engine slots) are 1.4. So a 300 engine will have 10 at 2.0 and can hold two more at 1.4.

I have yet to see a build that is not better with DHS. I've seen a few that don't need it (dual gauss JM6 for instance), but none that are better with SHS.

[Buckminster]

1.4 is for DHS out of the engine.

Which is actually another good reason to go with a bigger engine in some cases. The 200 engine only has 8 in-engine heat sinks, where anything 250 and above has 10.

[ICEFANG13]

Only 2 mechs can make SHS work. The first is the trololmando, with 3 SSRMs. If you use doubles, then you may not have enough room for FF armor, which the mech needs. Either it has DHS and is a little light on armor/ammo/backup weapons, or you have SHS and usually have what you need. It can make do.

The other is an Atlas. Most of the time, if you used a STD200 engine and SHS, your Atlas can be cooler (the only mech, most weight to slots), but for a slight decrease in cooling, you can go twice as fast, and engine speed affects turn speed etc. So generally its not worth it.

Then there are mechs that don't need it (like said), but they are still improved by it.

[Splinters]

Ooops, you did say Stalker 5S. That's what I get for doing builds when I'm tired.

Ok Let's re-do this again. I took a bit more leg armor off for the extra AMS. I would not recommend going below 40 for leg armor on any heavy or assault mech.

Personally for this build, I would take the MPL's and make the ML's and throw 2 more DHS' on board. That will let you fire LL's as often as you want and then when your in medium/short, just go to Streak and ML's with similar range.

-S

[Sp3ctre18]

ManDaisy, on 06 June 2013 - 07:59 AM, said:

2.0 for heat sinks in the engine, 1.4 for heat sinks you have to add.

Buckminster, on 06 June 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

1.4 is for DHS out of the engine.

Which is actually another good reason to go with a bigger engine in some cases. The 200 engine only has 8 in-engine heat sinks, where anything 250 and above has 10.

Right ok, got it. So I did kind of have the right idea at first. O.o

Darwins Dog, on 06 June 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

Your engine comes with up to 10 heatsinks for "free". With the upgrade to DHS those become 2.0 heatsinks. All others (even the ones in engine slots) are 1.4. So a 300 engine will have 10 at 2.0 and can hold two more at 1.4.

I have yet to see a build that is not better with DHS. I've seen a few that don't need it (dual gauss JM6 for instance), but none that are better with SHS.

Yeah, other than my confusion of the 1.4 v 2.0 values, I get that.

I just feel like there's a logical clash that DHS can always be better when (1), they don't dissipate double the heat; only 1.4 (that's not canon, is it? I thought they WERE double), & (2), the take up 3 times the space! It seems like the only real benefit of DHS is the weight. Therefore, I feel like, intuitively, there will be times when you have enough free tonnage to use regular HS, and you'd prefer them so 3 critical slots of HS will give you 3x HS rather than a mere 1.4. I would think is is especially the case if you use other weight-saving options such as XL engines or FF armor.

ICEFANG13, on 06 June 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

Only 2 mechs can make SHS work. The first is the trololmando, with 3 SSRMs. If you use doubles, then you may not have enough room for FF armor, which the mech needs. Either it has DHS and is a little light on armor/ammo/backup weapons, or you have SHS and usually have what you need. It can make do.

Right, I see. And it's that kind of situation where a mech mounts FF armor or even an XL as well, that I feel like intuitively, SHS will be better if you've got the tonnage to spare but need the crits. Does this really not happen?

Splinters, on 06 June 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

Ooops, you did say Stalker 5S. That's what I get for doing builds when I'm tired.

Ok Let's re-do this again. I took a bit more leg armor off for the extra AMS. I would not recommend going below 40 for leg armor on any heavy or assault mech.

Personally for this build, I would take the MPL's and make the ML's and throw 2 more DHS' on board. That will let you fire LL's as often as you want and then when your in medium/short, just go to Streak and ML's with similar range.
-S

I may try that to see what's it like, but I ended up tweaking my config a little differently. I found out I had a STD 255 I could take off a different mech, so I mounted that one on. With the remaining free tonnage & keeping 20 total DHS, I upgraded the 2 LL to pulse versions and added a 3rd MPLAS. I also swapped my SSRM2s for SRM4s. My SRMs are sometimes part of a desperation shot, and the lock-on needed for SSRM 2s was too problematic in such scenarios. So far I'm liking this.

[ICEFANG13]

Sp3ctre18, on 09 June 2013 - 08:48 AM, said:

Right ok, got it. So I did kind of have the right idea at first. O.o



Yeah, other than my confusion of the 1.4 v 2.0 values, I get that.

I just feel like there's a logical clash that DHS can always be better when (1), they don't dissipate double the heat; only 1.4 (that's not canon, is it? I thought they WERE double), & (2), the take up 3 times the space! It seems like the only real benefit of DHS is the weight. Therefore, I feel like, intuitively, there will be times when you have enough free tonnage to use regular HS, and you'd prefer them so 3 critical slots of HS will give you 3x HS rather than a mere 1.4. I would think is is especially the case if you use other weight-saving options such as XL engines or FF armor.



Right, I see. And it's that kind of situation where a mech mounts FF armor or even an XL as well, that I feel like intuitively, SHS will be better if you've got the tonnage to spare but need the crits. Does this really not happen?




I may try that to see what's it like, but I ended up tweaking my config a little differently. I found out I had a STD 255 I could take off a different mech, so I mounted that one on. With the remaining free tonnage & keeping 20 total DHS, I upgraded the 2 LL to pulse versions and added a 3rd MPLAS. I also swapped my SSRM2s for SRM4s. My SRMs are sometimes part of a desperation shot, and the lock-on needed for SSRM 2s was too problematic in such scenarios. So far I'm liking this.

No I like to see it, but generally, when I make an Atlas packed full of SHS, changing the engine to be twice as high (1.75X to be fair), grabbing ENDO and DHS is just better. Here is an example I was working on.

SHS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2e1a2a3f82974d1

Similar with DHS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...24fe3fe8346b68e

You can see that for a loss of 10% cooling you gain about 2X speed, and with that, your mech will be significantly more maneuverable as well. This also happens to be a best case here. To make SHS even slightly viable, you have to pack a very small payload for your size. Even without ENDO, and with that small payload, SHS barely win out in cooling. Now if we compare the once common Atlas D-DC brawler.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...535e8ceb3e188b4

This is a fairly common weapon loadout, NOTE, variations exist, but this is generally a common weapon rack. Using this, its impossible to make SHS worth it.

Best cooling off of SHS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c7a145535e9eaa6

DHS (I just shoved it together):
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...196451a74244014

Also this, which I consider even better than ^
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...34a0105e3a64d4d

You see, its just not possible. Even in ideal conditions, its barely cooler and much slower. The super efficient 2.0 DHS in engine negate any chance of SHS being viable.

[Darwins Dog]

Pretty much what Icefang13 said. If you are dropping enough weight to take enough SHS to out do the DHS then you are sacrificing too much.

ES on an atlas gives you 5 tons at the cost of 14 crits. FF even less than that. Putting DHS on a stock atlas gives you 10 tons and actually frees up 8 crit slots. With a 350 engine you need to run 25 total SHS to make up for the 10+4 DHS in the engine. You've lost 11 tons and 11 crit slots by keeping SHS.

[Koreanese]

Dhs is always superior in my opinion. Builds usually revolves around it. Think of it this way. You are using superior parts on your car then stock patts that are less efficient

[Shalune]

Are we just not talking about how this build goes under 40 without tweak?

Also, to OP, if you'd like a quick and accurate way to experiment with builds I'd recommend this great website. http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab The only real downside to it is that the heat efficiency displays differently than in game. I think 50% equates to roughly 1.5.

[Koniving]

On the single versus double heatsink issue, I've talked about it recently in relation to the PPC stalker rig and comparing it to tabletop. Check it out if you like; it even has a way to make single heatsinks superior under certain circumstances/builds.