Their main competitor is wot, most people who I know from wot who came to mwos chief complaint is that the game is too complex with too many systems in place, compared to how linear wot is. I understand that hardcore battletech fans want depth but thats not what pays the bills. If this system was implemented it would be another nail in the coffin forcing this game to die in obscurity.
Think about it from a business perspective, why is league of legends more popular than dota? Because the interface and rules are simplified to both make it more accessible to new players, the game is easy to learn yet hard to master.
This change would be in the complete wrong direction, stuff like this is what makes the community its own worst enemy.
Excellent ! Let the players that want a simple minded game go play WoT.
Us geniuses will stick with MWO, where we can find challenge for our advanced knowledge of quantum physics and molecular biology.
Sarcasm aside, have you ever considered that there is a whole crowd of players that doesn't play WoT or any other FPS for that matter, exactly because they are... simple/simplistic ?
The main argument I keep hearing is that this system is too complex. I disagree. While the underlying values determining how the system works might be complex, these are invisible or at least transparent to the player.
All the info the player needs is: Don't shoot when my crosshair gets bigger. This is the case with every other FPS and is a skill that almost every gamer has already.
I believe that this a very simple system from a player perspective and gets the information required across very simply. It is an elegant solution that solves current problems and prevents occurrence of similar issues in the future.
The main argument I keep hearing is that this system is too complex. I disagree. While the underlying values determining how the system works might be complex, these are invisible or at least transparent to the player.
All the info the player needs is: Don't shoot when my crosshair gets bigger. This is the case with every other FPS and is a skill that almost every gamer has already.
I believe that this a very simple system from a player perspective and gets the information required across very simply. It is an elegant solution that solves current problems and prevents occurrence of similar issues in the future.
This is very true. Much of the "complexity" is transparant or, for you computer theory minded, encapsulated, from the user. The only thing the user has to be accustomed to is not firing every single weapon they have all the time but instead put weapons into groups and fire them over time.
The entire system is built on the fact that every weapon group should utilize 100 TCS in 1.0s. Then that would mean that every weapon group can be fired once every 1.0s, introducing no CoF or deconvergence.
My only problem I have with Homeless Bill's suggestion is the fact that I still think introducing a CoF before losing convergence is the way to go. While I know this effects snipers more than brawlers, that is in only by the fact that longer distances with the same CoF will produce more misses/spread than at closer range.
But my thinking is that at further range, you are in less retaliatory position than shorter range. That means that while at shorter ranges, you will still land your shots, some of them might hit different locations, thus increasing the survivability of your target even though you are still connecting with shots. And at short ranges, almost all weapons in the game work, thus your going to be taking lots of shots.
There's lots beneath the surface to this proposed system, but topically, it's not waaay to complex to comprehend. Also, if people want to keep running high alpha builds and keep running their CPU into the red, i can see folks trying to nail you point blank...but with cof splitting up, it'd be say 60 damage spread all out on the target.
Also, with a few slight gui related updates, mostly overlaying the existing set up, i don't see new players getting all that "dazzled" by the chaos. Shoot, a real new player is going to have trouble controlling separate legs/ upper torso while running while aiming while shooting...will the targeting computer system be the needle breaks the camel's back?
I say give this or something like this a shot. Take it from concept and start with an initial build and testing. If the initial outcomes are terribad, lesson learned.
I really enjoy this game. I enjoy it in it's current and past states. Looking forward the future of MWO!
While I have not read everything in this thread, I want to take a moment to say that I totally support the ideas being discussed here. I feel that there is indeed a need to control insanely high damage alphastrikes, and I would definitely get behind a system that does that.
Why It’s Worth It: A new system is needed to bridge the gap between tabletop balancing and the precision aim of a shooter. I believe my solution adds a believable layer of tactical depth to the game while solving a host of current and future balance issues.
I agree this helps. But a huge part of the problem -- that your system partially addresses -- is the fact that the mechs can do incredible amounts of alpha striking with super high heat weapons.
I believe a larger part of this issue comes in two forms.
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The first is convergence as you mentioned; we have single shot ACs when 90% or more of them are multi-shot ACs that total x amount of damage.
The autocannons are sorted by damage ratings. 2 damage, 5 damage, 10, 20. This doesn't mean damage per bullet, but damage per firing.
For example there's a version of the AC/10 that pumps out 2 shots at 5 damage each to make 10 damage.
There's multiple versions of the AC/20, one the Super Crusher Heavy Cannon (AC/20) shoots 2-damage rounds at a 10-shot burst lasting no more than 2 seconds tops. Another called the Chemjet Gun pumps out 3 to 5 rounds at a slower pace totalling 20 damage.
Ultra-Autocannons (UACs) are defined by the technical manuals as smaller caliber autocannons that have unique loading mechanisms that can fire from an additional breach even as the cannons are still reloading. Smaller caliber means smaller bullet, which means less damage per bullet but ultimately totalling the correct damage. A simple example of the UAC/5 is a dual-breach weapon which would shoot a burst of two shots at 2.5 damage each (totalling 5) and have a chance to 'double tap' for another two shots at 2.5 each. These would be rapid, true, but like AC/2s it'd be spread out more than concentrated.
PPCs have a splash effect.
Why not capitalize on that by first fixing the splash damage to divide from a pool rather than add to the core damage? That way it'll take 10 damage and divide it among the body parts hit in the splash, such as 6 at the point of impact, 2 and 2 at the two neighboring components totalling 10 damage.
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The second and more pressing core issue is we have a raising heat threshold.
Consider this to fire 6 ER PPCs it requires 66 heat in MWO, and that often brings you up to about 60 to 70% heat with 18 double heatsinks.
In tabletop with 20 true double heatsinks and true ER PPC heat you generate 90 heat and sink 62 over the time of 10 seconds (one turn) in a system that assumes you spaced out your shots (hence why table top's weapons fire is so scattered; that and with a heat threshold of 30 if that mech fired all 6 ER PPCs at once it'd instantly explode). Even then, the mech has a high chance of premature shutdown, is at about 86.666% heat, and has a high chance of falling over with the pilot losing consciousness.
Why do I mention this? With 22 double heatsinks, you have between 92 and 110 threshold. If you put that into tabletop you could alpha strike over and over for several turns without any issue at all. We have the same issue here.
So why is our threshold so high when 10 standard heatsinks keeps us at 30?
Every standard heatsink raises that by 3. Every "double" 1.4 heatsink raises that by 4.2 in addition to 1.4 cooling. Doesn't sound bad, does it?
So think about this. Not only do we have a higher threshold, but we also have that much more cooling! So we have this big deep bathtub to fill with water, and a drain 4 times the size of your typical bathtub drain with no way to plug it. No wonder we can alpha strike so often!
My proposal on this? Remove the raising heat threshold and predefine a standard, then buff DHS back to 2.0. Having performed with 15 of MWO's double heatsinks I found that level of heat to be ideal; a good balance between heat management (which at the moment doesn't exist if you have enough double heatsinks) and being able to shoot.
That's a heat threshold of 60 to 63 to establish a predefine it for testing.
Here's how it performs in 3 different environments.
Frozen City
Caustic Valley
Alpine
The alpha strike is described as a rare and ultra dangerous maneuver that comes with a high risk of shutdown to self destructing. But we do it every time we fire without consequence on MWO due to these high heat thresholds. We couldn't do that in closed beta; why? Standard heatsinks usually maxed at no more than 50 threshold before you couldn't even carry weapons due to not having the weight available.
Doing this would buff lights and mediums into being able to fire more often than they could before. It would nerf assaults in how often they can alpha; but they would still be superior in cooling so long as they carried more heatsinks.
Regardless of what kind of mech you have, with my idea the most any mech can alpha strike is a total of 60 heat, regardless of heatsinks in your possession. The difference would be that heatsinks would cool your mech only. Sink heat. That's it. No magical raise in how much heat you can tolerate.
On a computer adding a bigger heatsink had nothing to do with how much maximum heat your processor can handle. It ~exclusively~ reduces how hot your processor is. That's what a heatsink does. Sink heat. So why does it raise our threshold and create these problems for us?
This is a medium-short-hand version of my ideas. For the full thing, please click the second link of my signature. In a sequential post or two after it I express that we can combine both my idea and Homeless Bill's to truly redefine MWO as an actual battletech game.
This thread is EXCELLENT!! I would really like to hear some feedback from PGI about all of this, to be honest. Its been floating about long enough that they would have a chance to think about it and the implications.
Lets face it PGI, your "boating solution" pretty much is residing in the recycle bin, as most of the community thinks, and knows, thats where it belongs. Its time to ENGAGE people who have pretty damn good ideas about fixing this stuff. Its time to swallow your pride and either EXPLAIN to us why you do not want to engage in fixes like this or just tell us to **** off, that you are going to develop your game the way you want. Either way, we would like some discussion here.
Great post Homeless! I would love to see this implemented.
Remove the raising heat threshold and predefine a standard, then buff DHS back to 2.0.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of how heatsinks are setup right now, and I'd love to see the heat threshold unaffected by heat sinks (or at least affected the same by both singles and doubles).
The only question I have is how you'd make single heatsinks viable (or would you not bother, considering they're honestly not viable in any other 'mechwarrior game either compared to doubles)?
Give single heatsinks the same in engine value as doubles. Bada-bang-bada-boom, done.
Single heatsinks are useful for Assaults with more tonnage than slots, double heatsinks are still the preferred option for most mediums and heavies. Lights can go either way depending.
Puts doubles on the same playing field as all the other upgrades. Endo-Steel, FF and Artemis all have costs to their benefits. For nearly all mechs current 'dubs are a straight upgrade.
I definitely agree with the heat threshold ideas, at least at first glance.
I don't really remember the thresholds back in CB, but back then I wasn't nearly as well versed in the under the hood mechanics of this game.
I think some combination of TCL and Heat Sink adjustment would get MWO to "feel" like a Mechwarrior game should. But that's just like, my opinion, man.
Oh I hate that we don't have an actual Knowledge Base. But where did you get those numbers from?
There's some old info from Bryan suggesting that DHS raise the heat threshold by ... 1.4 (if they're in the engine, by 2.0) times the basic/elite skill factor. 20 double heat sinks (if 10 of those internal) would lead to a heat threshold of 76.8 (well not that big a difference..)
On a computer adding a bigger heatsink had nothing to do with how much maximum heat your processor can handle. It ~exclusively~ reduces how hot your processor is. That's what a heatsink does. Sink heat. So why does it raise our threshold and create these problems for us?
Because the heat is conducted away from the internal parts into a circuit where it'll eventually be dissipated? If I just put a huge block of aluminium or copper on my CPU, it'll probably overheat, but much later than w/o the block. Though it probably isn't such a big effect until you fill your whole case with oil or some other non-conductive coolant.
PGI said AFAIK that they reduced DHS to 1.4 H/S because otherwise there would have been builds with a too high DPS. Well that'd certainly be a relief from the high-alpha meta, but it'd probably create new problems (laserboats, pulseboats, AC/2 boats, ..). Much better IMHO, but not the best one could imagine.
For nearly all mechs current 'dubs are a straight upgrade.
And, AFAIK, that's what they're supposed to be (from TT/canon). Same goes for the LB 10-X AC, which is really ironic considering MWO's LBX.
@Homeless Bill and others
Maybe I'm a bit slow, but recently it came to my mind that you cannot really upgrade Clan 'Mechs. E.g. the "clan cheese" HBK IIC - it already has DHS, Endo & XL, same goes for many other Clan 'Mechs. Their stock variants are pretty powerful, but our custom variants of them cannot be much more powerful (compared to what we do to IS 'Mechs). Yeah we can ditch those MGs and specialize a bit more, but that's about it.
Oh I hate that we don't have an actual Knowledge Base. But where did you get those numbers from?
There's some old info from Bryan suggesting that DHS raise the heat threshold by ... 1.4 (if they're in the engine, by 2.0) times the basic/elite skill factor. 20 double heat sinks (if 10 of those internal) would lead to a heat threshold of 76.8 (well not that big a difference..)
Well if you assume that 10 standard heatsinks (had plenty of time to test this one and it seems to be accurate within a two heat point margin of error) gives you 30 threshold, then you can reason that 30 divided by 10 is 3, and thus each standard heatsink increases your heat by 3.
Therefore, a "1.4" heatsink would increase you by 3*1.4 which is 4.2. After that it's arithmetic: 10 1.4 heatsinks is 10*4.2 = 42.
And yes, supposedly the first ten engine heatsinks increase your threshold by 2.0 as well as your dissipation. That's the important thing. The two are not the same. One's maximum heat, the other is how fast you cool.
So if we had true double heatsinks, then if 10 standard gives us 30 threshold, double heatsinks would give us 60 in MWO.
Combine 2 times threshold with 2 times cooling and you have 4 times efficiency!
To get identical results if you predefined all thresholds to 30, those double heatsinks would be "quad-heatsinks." Hence why they said it'd eliminate heat.
Even at 1.4, we actually have a cooling efficiency of "2.8" heatsinks in tabletop.
meaning our heatsinks with the raising threshold are superior to tabletop's double heatsinks by a factor of 0.8.
So if you alpha striked in MWO, you'd cool off faster than in tabletop.
The fact that heat thresholds raise so much truly nerfs standard heatsinks into the ground. With a climbing heat threshold but only 1x cooling, you can safely fire more than can be done in tabletop's cooling efficiency and faster (since your threshold is higher). But at the same time even if you only did one alpha strike you must wait longer than the mechs in tabletop to get back to zero.
My equations only went with the "lowest" threshold possible with them. If, in fact, the engine heatsinks of a 250 sized engine brings you true double heatsinks this only complicates things and the 22 DHS becomes 10 true DHS (60) and 12 1.4hs (50.04) which you then have 110.4 as your maximum threshold, and it's virtually impossible to judge the cooling rate but it'd be even faster. It's important to note that with that 110.4 threshold if you reach 165.6 heat (150% threshold) to start getting damage to the CT using Paul Inouye's heat penalty ideas. At 200% you should die instantly (220.8 heat) after Paul's fix.
But MWO currently requires 300% heat or more for rapid heat damage, so if 110.4 threshold is the case for 22 MWO DHS so 331.2 heat is required for a guaranteed self-destruct. That's a fraction more than 30 MWO ER PPCs fired instantly to generate that much heat.
Because the heat is conducted away from the internal parts into a circuit where it'll eventually be dissipated? If I just put a huge block of aluminium or copper on my CPU, it'll probably overheat, but much later than w/o the block. Though it probably isn't such a big effect until you fill your whole case with oil or some other non-conductive coolant.
PGI said AFAIK that they reduced DHS to 1.4 H/S because otherwise there would have been builds with a too high DPS. Well that'd certainly be a relief from the high-alpha meta, but it'd probably create new problems (laserboats, pulseboats, AC/2 boats, ..). Much better IMHO, but not the best one could imagine.
We now come to the other issue. With the current system if we had 2.0 raising thresholds.. We'd have a guaranteed threshold of 132 for 22 DHS. With no cooling at all you could alpha strike a 6 ER PPC stalker exactly twice and shut down. With the accelerated cooling you could do it at least 3 times before even shutting down, and then because you have to have 200% heat before you start taking any real (not slight, real) damage that's 6 alpha strikes. Since you have to reach 300% for an instant death you could possibly squeeze off 9 6 ER PPC shots.
That's 54 ER PPCs, which is 540 damage.
As they said it eliminated heat as a factor.
In an environment that is over 200 degrees, I believe tabletop would have most mechs 20% heat while just standing still. In MWO you are usually at 3% and that's without the compressed 10 seconds of heat dissipation. You rise to 7% when you move, but that isn't much.
The only places we even need to bother with heat management with 22 DHS is caustic (barely) and Tourmaline. Still my builds spit in MWO's face by rarely if ever overheating even with alpha strike potentials beyond 50 points of damage.
Even clan tech doesn't have a heat threshold of more than 30 points. Superior heatsinks, superior space, superior heat control from all weapon systems and yet even they overheated from 2 back to back alpha strikes spread over 20 seconds. If they did 3 alpha strikes over 30 seconds they would instantly self destruct with 6 clan ER PPCs. Better heatsinks, lower heat, better weapons than inner sphere.
So how come we can squeeze in 3 6 ER PPC alpha in a 12 second time frame with inferior heatsinks, inferior heat control? Inner Sphere tech is inferior, it should therefore not be superior.
The raising threshold will only make the clan tech do the same thing. Except they'll be able to alpha strike even more than us!
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The main principle of a low heat threshold like 30 in tabletop or my idea of 60 to 63 is that you could alpha strike:
most boating weapons twice in a row.
Gauss + 2 ER PPCs you could fire twice safely and the third time you'd shut down.
Gauss + 2 PPCs you could fire 4 times safely, 5 times and shut down for a split second.
6 ER PPCs would result in an instant shutdown and you'd have to wait until your heat was zero to safely fire again. If you fired at 50% you'd start taking rapid CT damage. If you fired a second time at 75% you'd self-destruct.
If we raise the heat on PPCs back to normal values, and allow PPCs to fire as fast as they could before, it'd be even easier to have them overheat.
The total number of shots would not change regardless of mech, number of heatsinks or type of heatsinks.
Number and type of heatsinks would only accelerate your cooldown speed.
If we combine these with the dissipation rates then battles can once again be like closed beta.
I kid you not, if you start around 8:40 you will see autocannons being fired one at a time and very carefully because if you fired two UAC/5s at the same time you'd jump 16% heat on top of what was a jam that had to be relieved manually.
Of course, every mech went slower (since we only had standard heatsinks and standard engines) and yet we lasted longer. It was safe to be slow in a medium! Safe, even with headshot boxes the size of the Awesome's entire HEAD! That's as big as his fist!
It's because almost nothing could do more than two alpha strikes of several weapons. The only thing with that could was the Hunchback 4P boating 9 small lasers. Even then it shut down with 3 alpha strikes. It self-destructed with 4.
This link (Post #1184) is where I first saw Bill's thread and said you could tack the two together for a truly balanced game. I saw it from speaking with Tolkien and his ideas which weren't bad but I could instantly see how to abuse them. The allocating armor however we want (imagine a commando who has allocated all of his armor to the front CT), and the odd dispersion concept of shooting someone in the torso with multiple shots and having all but the first one shot's damage placed on his foot, arm, head, etc. Uh.. yeah. Oh the rage that would spread on the forums with that one as it eliminates skill as a mechanic. Anyway.
The original idea intact is in the second link in my signature.
If the idea was too long to read, you can find a medium-hand here. #1189.
If you need a short-hand due to time, it's here. #1191
These cover convergence in a system PGI is already planning (weapon variants) along with my own idea on how to disperse PPC damage based on the image of my Pretty Baby being hit by PPCs (a correct form of splash damage instead of CryEngine's version).
Homeless Bill, on 25 June 2013 - 10:53 PM, said:
Honestly, I'm not a fan of how heatsinks are setup right now, and I'd love to see the heat threshold unaffected by heat sinks (or at least affected the same by both singles and doubles).
The only question I have is how you'd make single heatsinks viable (or would you not bother, considering they're honestly not viable in any other 'mechwarrior game either compared to doubles)?
Good question. First off just by doing that alone we've already made them as viable as they would be in tabletop and thus lore (which honestly I was freaking amazed at how good they were compared to how useless they seem now in the shadow of MWO's DHS).
If you have 10 standard heatsinks (MWO's default is approximately 30 threshold) you can alpha 3 ER PPCs once with how everything currently is. It's true. Try it in MWO. You'd shut down for two to four seconds.
If we had 10 true double heatsinks but NO raise in threshold (and assume we preset the threshold to 30) we'd have the exact same result, except when you start back up you'd be cooler due to faster heat dissipation.
So if we predefine 60 as our heat dissipation, you could use 6 ER PPCs exactly once and shutdown. Standard or true doubles, it wouldn't matter. The only difference is how cool you would be by the time you started back up. With lower heat builds then you could literally get away with x number of standard heatsinks. Take the cataphract 4x for example. I can use the trial build and take out a 6 ER PPC stalker with no problem provided said stalker is attacking someone else, I can run it without ever overheating.
Trial 4x with 16 standard heatsinks -- that's a threshold of 48. I come out with several kills despite the other team having 2 PPC-boating stalkers and our team not having them.
The only difference then in how you play with standard and double heatsinks is how fast you can pull the trigger after the last time you did. Those with standard heatsinks might actually play better, because they are aiming their shots carefully and pacing their weapons.
Stock builds, custom builds, even min-max builds could then compete with each other on even footing in terms of alpha strikes.
Furthermore, with enough free weight standard heatsinks could cool faster than the maximum possible with double heatsinks. 22 is nearly the maximum number of DHS without counting more than 2 engine spaces. Takes 44 SHS to equal that. But in some mechs you can fit more than 60. With 60 SHS that's the power of 16 SHS or 8 DHS superior to what is possible with using DHS.
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But, if for some reason that wasn't enough to balance them, another thought I had was to:
give SHS the threshold of 60, and DHS the threshold of 30.
Strangely enough DHS would then be 4x more efficient than SHS just like now,
but you'd have to use SHS for alpha weapons like 6 ER PPCs.
Because if you try to fire 6 ER PPCs with 30 threshold, you'd self-destruct instantly or at the very least die before you can start back up.
This could be justified in fluff by stating that standard heatsinks use their half of its ton to absorb heat but is slow to disperse it, but DHS channels all of its weight into rapidly dispersing the heat at the cost of not being able to absorb as much of it.
Well, the fluff can be a technical thing entirely but essentially with this older idea of mine you need SHS to fire high alphas and survive. Once the threshold can be predefined, it's possible to do all kinds of tweaks.
I like the idea of giving SHS some sort of situational advantage over DHS. How everything would play out is that DHS is better for low HPS but high ROF weapons, like the AC/2, and SHS are better for things like PPCs. This would also be a huge plus to things like AC/2 which generate tons of heat.
Overall, some sort of Heat Sink overhaul would go a long way to added viability of DPS builds and, combined with a TCL system like HomelessBIll described, could create a balance situation with multiple viable choices. And furthermore these design choices would be engaging, strategic and would let people play the game they want rather a revolving door of FOTM.
Because let's face it, even if the flavor is different every month, the pattern itself gets stale and wears down the players. These proposed systems could ACTUALLY make real, lasting solutions to the overall balance issues. And then PGI can make meaningful minor adjustments to tweak weapons numbers instead of breaking a weapon system every few patches just to make them usable.
Thank you, Shatterspike. Sooner or later I'm hoping a few specific links could be given to PGI for Paul to look at. Bill's TCL and my fix to PGI's heatsinks could really use bring MWO back to the chainfire-frequent, skill-based heat management, etc. of closed beta.
Paul said that a similar idea would nerf all mechs, however what he read was a "threshold cap" to how many weapons can fired at once. It...wasn't exactly what I had in mind.
Really, if all mechs have the same maximum threshold (say 63 which is the threshold of 15 1.4 heatsinks and double tabletop values but a little less half the average assault mech's max) it'd buff light and medium mechs significantly as they can never carry more than 16 1.4 heatsinks and still carry adequate weapons.
Assault and heavy mechs would have superior heat dissipation (they can carry more heatsinks) but all mechs would have exactly the same alpha capability. The assault's better heat dissipation is offset by the light and medium's speed (where they'll run instead of shoot and come back).
At some point adjustments may be required to predefine a heat threshold per weight class or weight. But that's a lot easier to manage than the charts required with the penalty system we're about to get.
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For fun, give these a try! It's possible in MWO.
To give my 60 threshold idea a try, equip 15 DHS to whatever build you have and alpha strike a few times. (That's what everyone would experience when it comes to alpha strikes if my idea goes through. The only difference having more or less heatsinks would have then is how fast or slow you cool off to zero.)
For the 30 threshold for DHS and 60 threshold for SHS, imagine the above but slower to cool off for SHS, and then try the next bullet.
To try the 30 threshold for DHS, equip 10 standard heatsinks. Fire. Imagine cooling off twice that fast.
After you (whoever reads this) try these two bullet points, please come back and give me your feedback? I'd like to hear how it affects your builds, and if this affected everyone how would you feel about it? Especially try this with the ER PPC and PPC+Gauss builds.
Any solution that involves tweaking the heat scale or adding heat penalties will not solve the whole "high alpha - pinpoint damage" problem that the OP is addressing because "Gauss Rifles."
Back in the days of SHS, GR K2s were king and were completely unaffected by heat. There is no way you can twist CBT's heat scale to make 2xGR any sort of heat burden.
Additionally, as long as you can fire 1 PPC with reasonable frequency, then you have the 2xGR/PPC build to contend with. Currently, only the CTF can carry this, but if the Devs move the Victor's MGuns to the torsos (side point: the fact that mguns can be turned into GRs is ridiculous in itself), then we'll have a jumping 80 ton mech that can carry 2xGR/PPC.
Furthermore, there are plenty of mechs that, using their minimal hardpoints for stock configs, could carry 2xGR/PPC, 3+xGR or 2xGR/2xPPC. The OP reviews many of them but for the lazy, this includes mechs like the Annihilator, King Crab, Mauler, Devestator (2xPPC/2xGR IN STOCK!), and Thunderhawk (Hello, 3xGR/PPC on a 100 tonner!).
Any solution that involves tweaking the heat scale or adding heat penalties will not solve the whole "high alpha - pinpoint damage" problem that the OP is addressing because "Gauss Rifles."
Back in the days of SHS, GR K2s were king and were completely unaffected by heat. There is no way you can twist CBT's heat scale to make 2xGR any sort of heat burden.
Additionally, as long as you can fire 1 PPC with reasonable frequency, then you have the 2xGR/PPC build to contend with. Currently, only the CTF can carry this, but if the Devs move the Victor's MGuns to the torsos (side point: the fact that mguns can be turned into GRs is ridiculous in itself), then we'll have a jumping 80 ton mech that can carry 2xGR/PPC.
Furthermore, there are plenty of mechs that, using their minimal hardpoints for stock configs, could carry 2xGR/PPC, 3+xGR or 2xGR/2xPPC. The OP reviews many of them but for the lazy, this includes mechs like the Annihilator, King Crab, Mauler, Devestator (2xPPC/2xGR IN STOCK!), and Thunderhawk (Hello, 3xGR/PPC on a 100 tonner!).
Which is where HomelessBill's idea of TCL comes in. Koniving's heat proposal is really more of a balance for Heat Sinks and Alpha Striking in general, rather than the Pinpoint Alpha. If you put both systems together it does account for things like 3-4 Gauss Direwolf as well as a 12 Medium Laser Nova.
It means that no matter the loadout you simply will not be able to put 4 PPCs into someone's cockpit from 500 meters away. If I wanted headshot sniping there are literally dozens of other shooters out there that offer that experience. Mechwarrior Online is billed as a thinking-man's shooter, I would like it to play like one.
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Duck Butter, on 24 June 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:
