12 replies to this topic

[MoonUnitBeta]

Just wondering.
I haven't encountered this situation yet. But I was wondering...

There's no methodology to how the max number was chosen except to balance it for the games liberal hardpoint system. So aside from listing off all the weapons, the amounts, and the heat penalties for each, what's the easiest way to describe phantom heat and help them understand what to do to avoid it, and what not to do?

There's just so much to the phantom heat to keep within the limits, and the limits (outside of the patch notes) aren't posted in the game. Nothing is done to help new players out with what not to do, and educate them that they aren't penalized if you shoot under the maximum amount every 0.5 seconds or longer.

[edited]: Grammar.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 17 July 2013 - 05:19 PM.

[Mr Friday]

To be honest I find that while it looks complicated, it can be quite simple to expain as a rule of thumb. Take this table:

Weapon System	Max Number	Multiplier	Large Weapon in Group?	Many HardPoints Required?
PPC	2	7.0	Yes
ERPPC	2	4.5	Yes
MLas	6	1.0		Yes
LLas	2	2.8	Yes
AC/20	1	24.0	Yes
SRM/2	4	1.0		Yes
SRM/4	4	1.0		Yes
SRM/6	3	1.0	Yes	Yes
LRM/15	2	2.8	Yes
SSRM/2	4	1.0		Yes

You'll see that each weapon currently with a heat penalty is either:

• 'Large' for its catergory: Lasers + PPCs, AC's, SRMs or LRMs.
  
• Require a large number of hardpoints, in particular the smaller weapons.

In the case of MLas only 4 mechs (BLJ-1X, HBK-4P, AWS-8Q and the BLR-1G (which isn't actually out yet)) can carry more then 6.

In the base of SRMs, 9 mechs (CPLT-A1, CPLT-C4, JM6-A, AWS-8R, STK-3F, STK-3H, STK-5M, STK-5S and the HGN-733), 4 of which are Stalkers, can carry enough (4+ for SRM/6) to occur penalty.

Notice how most of the mechs that fall under these categories are energy or missile boats, which are known for carrying multiple of the same weapon.

As they all currently follow the rule of 'large' or 'lots' I'd just tell people that:

"Firing multiple large weapons or lots of small weapons in a half second period will cause extra, harsh heat penalties."

Then add a warning about boats having heat problems, amd if they require more information direct them to this thread, or the original Dev-post, or the patch notes or write up a simple tutorial that states the above table in an easier to understand format and include the nice rule of thumb as a TL;DR.

Edited by Mr Friday, 17 July 2013 - 06:32 PM.

[Corvus Antaka]

would have been a ton easier to say "over 20 damage take a scaling heat penalty"

but it is what it is.

hopefully PGI will come up with a good way to explain it to new players

[East Indy]

"Be careful about firing a bunch of weapons at once, especially if they're among the most powerful."

Pretty commonsense.

[Koniving]

East Indy, on 18 July 2013 - 08:52 AM, said:

"Be careful about firing a bunch of weapons at once, especially if they're among the most powerful."

Pretty commonsense.

I agree with that as a simplified way.

Back on topic here.. More lore friendly?

"Your engine (power plant) cannot handle the strain of firing multiple high-drain weapons at the same time and this adds excessive heat-load to your heatsinks. Firing more than 2 PPCs or 2 large lasers at the same time, firing more than 6 medium lasers at once, (etc.) can cause undue strain on your engine."

Edited by Koniving, 18 July 2013 - 08:58 AM.

[Felicitatem Parco]

The majority of posts in this thread have been removed, as they are Off-Topic.

This thread exists solely to help discuss ways to explain the Heat Scaling system to new players, and not to discuss the merits of the Heat Scaling System or PGI's competence.

Please try to keep on-topic, and if you'd like to debate the merits of the heat Scaling system then you may wish to visit the Gameplay Balance or the respective Feedback Threads regarding the issue. Thanks for understanding.


If given an opportunity, I would encourage new players to visit the Command Chair section of the forums where they can find the thread on Heat Scaling. Mentioning this in-game over All-Chat may be an effective way to get newer players who aren't forumites to spend more time reading the Developer notes for now.

Edited by Prosperity Park, 18 July 2013 - 09:33 AM.

[Reno Blade]

I wanted to open a Topic myself, but lets see if it works if I just reply here and the infos might help new players.


Greetings Mechwarrior!

Always wonder, why your Alphastrike got you shut down with your mighty 20DHS?
Here is why.

The internals of your energy-transfer-relays, from the engine to your weapons, are drawing more power from the engine than save for work.
Thus the load of the engine and the relays produce excessive heat like shown below.
The researchlab can't understand the lostech completely, even with the Helms Memory Core, to reduce this flaw.
So meanwhile I suggest you to handle your weapons with care and rely more on chainfire.

You don't need math to understand that your weapons will show increased heat as you can see here:

PPC.
You can see here how the curve would change if PPC baseheat would be 9 or 10 heat.


ERPPC.
You can see here how the curve would change if ERPPC baseheat would be 12 or 13 heat (sorry, forgot to rename the curve from 9 to 12 and from 10 to 13).


ML (Note, the scale starts at 6MLaser here)


LL


SRM6


LRM15


AC20



For the interested: here are some values and example calculations.
Values


Formular examples

Edited by Reno Blade, 26 July 2013 - 01:09 AM.

[Cybermech]

I'm really lost on whats so hard to explain if we are talking about simple terms.

1. More of the same type = extra heat.
2. If you setup chain fire on your weapon groups, your weapons will then fire .5 second cycle which bypasses the extra heat.

List of weapons (insert awesome reno ubber graph)

[Felicitatem Parco]

I am hoping that the "Max Alpha"value will be included in the MechLab's info/description fields for each weapon affected when they release UI 2.0, as all you really need to know is the Max Alpha... and if you know that Max Alpha and the fact that penalties exist, then you can pretty much just expect something hot to happen when you exceed it. The exact multiplier values will probably be tweaked with time, and if they tune the basecode then the multiplier values will be meaningless unless you mine the game data for the new basecode... so really, if UI 2.0 displayed the Max Alpha + a brief description of the Heat Scale phenomenon somewhere, then it should be sufficient IMHO.

[Felicitatem Parco]

More nonconstructive and off topic posts have been removed from this thread recently. This thread exists purely to discuss how the heat scaling system can be described to new players, and hijacking this thread to debate the merits of the Heat Scaling system demonstrates a lack of regard for helping New Players.

If you would like to discuss the merits of the Heat Scaling system along with the rest of the Community, then you may wish to visit the Heat Scale Maths feedback thread in the ComStar Focus Group section of the forums.

[Typatty]

I would expect communicating heat penalties due to boating would be easy with UI 2.0. It could even be as simple as notifying the user with a warning message when they equip enough weapons of the same type on a single mech while in mech lab. There could be no warning, for example, after equipping 3 srm6 on a stalker but a tooltip for beginners could show up upon equipping the 4th srm6. Something that explains the mechanics, such as "Warning: Firing 4 SRM6 at once will create extra heat." There could be a button on the tooltip to show a video explaining the heat penalty and how to stagger fire to avoid it or change weapons. There could also be a checkbox that veteran players can click so that the warning does not show up again.

Easy fix?

Edited by Typatty, 22 July 2013 - 02:09 PM.

[Chronojam]

Prosperity Park, on 22 July 2013 - 01:46 PM, said:

More nonconstructive and off topic posts have been removed from this thread recently. This thread exists purely to discuss how the heat scaling system can be described to new players, and hijacking this thread to debate the merits of the Heat Scaling system demonstrates a lack of regard for helping New Players.

If you would like to discuss the merits of the Heat Scaling system along with the rest of the Community, then you may wish to visit the Heat Scale Maths feedback thread in the ComStar Focus Group section of the forums.

Is it okay if I crosspost this additional helpful image from your friend Reno Blade into this thread? It's taken right from the thread you linked, but he forgot to include it in the rest of his post in this thread.

Quote

DELETED CONTENT

Edited by Destined, 23 July 2013 - 06:37 PM.
Quote clean up

[Reno Blade]

I updated the original post with new graphs for PPC and ERPPC for the announcement of base-heat bump with this:

PPC.
You can see here how the curve would change if PPC baseheat would be 9 or 10 heat.


ERPPC.
You can see here how the curve would change if ERPPC baseheat would be 12 or 13 heat (sorry, forgot to rename the curve from 9 to 12 and from 10 to 13).