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The turn in Battletech occurs this way; a weapon is fired, heat is dissipated and excess heat is marked on the 30-heat tab.
At that point the excess heat, the mech is already overheating.
But they weren't too far off on the Heat Sink + 30 for the threshold idea, but screwed up royally on the heat dissipation and cost for weapon recharges.
In truth, your mech's heat capacity is the volume of Heat Sinks, and their Dissipation rate is over one turn, then a form of excess tracking for 30 extra points that is where you are overheating already. Its what we have, but it needs clarification.
This can be done mainly by identifying the Heat Scale having two levels, the Heat Sink Capacity, then the 30 Overheat Threshold.
Fixing the heat sink system and dissipation helps a ton too.
One Heat Sink gives 1 capacity and 1 dissipation over the established turn time.
Double Heat Sinks give 2 capacity and 2 dissipation over that established time.
EDITED: Alternatively in order not to overpower DHS, but keep its dissipation rate the amount it affects the threshold could be reduced. In a weird way, keeping that 1.4 threshold on DHS, or lowering it to remain even with SHS evens out the playing field by having builds still suffer similar penalties even though DHS can handle it better. Or even go the extreme and say the DHS has only 0.5 threshold but double dissipation as a part of its cost.
If you go over your capacity, you begin to overheat with increasing penalties.
More later on this fun part.
It can be tracked on the current heat bar simply by marking that the lower part is the Capacity and that the upper is the Overheat level.
That is as it should be.actually, two tracked systems the (Heat Sinks) and the (Threshold)
So PGI had the right idea, implemented something wrong, and I'm pointing at a skewered heat dissipation rate compared to weapon heat costs and recharge times.
But part of it in this game is the generation of heat against the Heat Sinks for what needs dissipating, which is why we have that (Heat Sink + Threshold) number. As PGI tweaked the game they made several critical flaws that aggravated the issue and never got around to fixing them.
We have higher heat threshold because of this - and crappy dissipation - with not much of a penalty system.
Weapons and Dissipation I think were originally built around a 10 second turn - but we have weapons recharging in less time but still the same heat. That flaw is causing a fundamental error in the heat management in the system where we all suffer increasing penalties to how it works because it can't dissipate heat correctly. That needs balancing out.
To balance before you all come QQing about how you don't like me being right - its simply scale the heat numbers. For all intents and purposes we can have a PPC deal 10 damage with a recharge at 4 seconds with 8 heat, but the system must dissipate 10 heat in 5 seconds with the equivalent of 10 heat sinks. Double Heat Sinks needs to work at 2, inside or outside the engine But we don't have that, as the heat dissipation is around 10 seconds still.
That is painfully evident as my 2x ERPPC K2 can't maintain its heat levels with 20 tons of Double Heat Sinks. Part of it is that my threshold and dissipation is skewered when they somehow decided external double heat sinks worked only at 1.4 instead of 2 over that 10 seconds. Where did that come from?
I have 12 internal DHS in that massive engine I sport for 24 capacity, 8 external adding 11.2 capacity + 30 threshold. A massive 65.2 for the 2x ERPPC that generates only 22 heat with 4 second recharge. However It doesn't dissipate enough as its 35.2 over 10 seconds. I only dissipate 14.08 over the ERPPC 4 second recharge before I fire again. That is wrong as I should clearly be able to fire in excess without restriction with that build.
Should it take much to fix it? No, as its simple in-game numbers. Does it change much? Not really, however the core of the heat issue is the dissipation rate not matching what it should be. Will it become a problem by fixing it? Not likely, as it benefits all who uses it - unfortunately that means boaters as well as everyone else, but everyone else won't have some issues that plague them as it happens now.
Really, I only see boaters suffering trying to abuse the system, and this helps open up flaws that can be exploited by more efficient builds. As it is now and efficient build can't compete with boaters due to the dissipation telling them they can't deal enough damage.
Although there may be a way to have the system operate with better inherit penalties to punish some cheese builds and reward good designs.
In Battletech, overheating gave you 3 distinct penalties with several chances for shutdown before a critical level.
First was Movement at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 heat
Second is an aim penalty that increases from 8, 13, 17, 24
Third is ammo explosion risk at 19, 23 or 28
The shutdown was in stages from 14,18,22, 26 and unavoidable at 30.
There are better ways to do this. Although Ammo explosions may be out, we can still do internal damage.
Just to clarify, these penalties are the base Heat Sink Capacity + that into the Overheat
First penalty of Movement
At 5 overheat or 16% of overheat threshold you begin to slow down. I'd say something like 1% of heat is 1% of max throttle.
Second is accuracy
We can use the JJ shake starting at 8 or 26% of overheat threshold and have it increase as we get hotter. I might say how the JJ shake looks now might be at 50% heat and have it worse later.
Third is that damage incurred
Since the heat system ought o be with higher dissipation, the incurred damage should be sooner. At 19 or 63% of overheat threshold you begin to suffer internal damage. I would say have it so if by chance you heat up to around 150% (45) excess heat you would kill your own engine from it, to discourage and keep pilots from doing or repeating it.
The Override mechanism
I would rework it, a fun idea late at night came to me and I'll lay it out here: you will have shutdown warnings as your heat rises, and have a set amount of time to override it or your mech shuts down. It will automatically restart if the heat drops to a certain level, or you could force a powerup sequence by the time its at another..
The first is at 14 or 46% of overheat threshold you have a brief 3 second chance to override
The second is at 18 or 60% of overheat threshold gives just 1.5 seconds to override.
The third is at 22 or 73% of overheat threshold grants only 1 second to override to keep working
The fourth is at 26 or 86% of overheat threshold with a fleeting 0.5 second response time.
The final is at 30 or 100% of overheat threshold where shutdown is unavoidable, and the mech turns off.
You can generate heat higher than that but be wary of the internal damage that could kill you.
If you generate enough excess heat to push to another tier it will use the highest tier response for the override time.
If the heat dissipated below the warning, it shuts off the warning - but may use the longer time of the next one down if that's where it is at depending on the build. If it cools off fast enough under the 14 or 46% overheat threshold it doesn't shut down, just is warning you as you get hotter.
You can force a powerup sequence below 22 or 73% of overheat threshold if you are shut down, otherwise once you drop down below 14 or 46% of overheat threshold the engine will restart itself.
With dissipation corrected properly, the shutdown system and other penalties pan out easier. Good builds work just fine while certain boaters suffer.
The only really key exception so far is the 4x PPC Stalker, with even 17 DHS. Its capacity of 32 easily handles the 32 generated heat. However with the dissipation at 5 seconds now, it will gradually build heat - the 20-21 DHS build would then easily handle it.
The 6x PPC stalker is another story. The build I see with the 4N, XL265 and 16 DHS is bad as its generated 48 heat becomes an issue with capacity of only 32. placing around 16 heat on the overheat threshold and its at its first shutdown warning, reticle is shaking and its even slower. The second alphastrike should kill it, as it only was able to dissipate 25.6 heat in 4 seconds, the additional 48 heat shoved it up to 57 total. Well beyond 150% heat and in theory the internal damage fries the engine before it cools off below the damage received point of 19 or 63% overheat threshold.
Its weird as it should be viable for one-time shot, but it can't sustain it, making the use a possibility in a weird way.
This revelation I guess doesn't help the current meta, but it would alleviate a ton of stress for the majority of players.
EDIT:
If the Double Heat Sink is adjusted differently, say 1 Capacity but has that 2 Dissipation rate it would start to affect the PPC game and serve to discourage it.
A 4x PPC build with 21 DHS has only 21 Capacity - one alphastrike generates 19 on the Overheat, leading to a shutdown warning, significant reduction in speed (~47%) and slight internal damage - if fired still. If Moving the damage and speed is worse off.
It also means ERPPC is inadvisable to use more than two at a time as 3 generates 45 and potentially puts you worse than the 4x PPC. 4x ERPPC is near death on one shot by the internal damage, shuts down with no control over it and needs to wait a few seconds to do anything about powering back up. The second volley of 4x ERPPC (or 6x PPC) kills the mech through internal damage frying the engine.
All assuming PPC heat back up to 10 and ERPPC heat to 15 along with those penalties suggested.
Edited by Unbound Inferno, 25 July 2013 - 08:33 AM.
