66 replies to this topic

[Team Leader]

Tombstoner, on 29 July 2013 - 12:26 PM, said:

PGI is doesn't want heat neutral mechs...."it trivializes heat as a game mechanic..... 'except that its accounted for in the mech design. Heat neutrality is paid for by tonnage placed into heat sinks. as it is we have true neutral mechs already.

Can SHS be made viable, of cource.

The addition of heat capacity is because the devs dont understand the difference between instantaneous heat and accumulated heat. the heat cap is for accumulated heat only and if all it takes is pausing for 4 seconds to get rid of all your heat then you must extend out the time period for heat dissipation such that it is a serous concern.

PGI's miss handling of the heat/damage values lead to a 250% increase in damage output countered by a 200% increase in armor. Then add in capacity to a dissipation time of 10 seconds and you can fire off 2 alphas and fall back to cool off.

To make SHS work weapon get rid of heat cap. set dissipation times to 30-60 seconds. scale back damage and heat proportional for a 7.5x - 15x fire rate that is equivalent of one TT turn but over 30-60 seconds double heat sinks are already balanced by the fact that they take up 3 crit spaces and not one. This limits the number you can carry. as per TT rules.... The same rules used in the mech lab.

Stop combining instantaneous heat with accumulated heat.... It's two completely different things.
Weapon damage is currently 50% higher then TT. its part of the reason we die so fast.

I think I was following you up until those last couple paragraphs.. It sounds like.. you want each "round" of weapons fire to be a lot slower and..
I dont even know. Could you rephrase that please?

[Sephlock]

@ the topic title: If you really wanted to do this, it would be as simple as greatly boosting the HP of most components. SHS would become worth it simply by virtue of the fact that it would take more hits to cripple you heat-wise.

[Roland]

There is really only one way to make single heat sinks even remotely useful, and that is to increase their value as crit-fodder.

If the internal structure of mechs (not armor, ONLY internal structure) were increased, and things such as engine crits were put into the game, then being able to pack single heat sinks into your CT in order to absorb critical hits could, potentially, be useful.

Ultimately though, I think DHS are always gonna be the no-brainer upgrade they are currently. The fact that DHS means you have 20 heat sinks for free means that it's a dramatic improvement for ANY build. It basically lets you have enough heat capacity to run a PPC for free, as much as you want. There's really no build that doesn't benefit from 20 heat sinks.

[Team Leader]

@Roland
yes, there are parts of that riddled within the OP. Slotting SHS into weapons would give them additional HP. Integrated together with stronger internals and higher TTK this would lead to a game where attacking certain components would actually be beneficial as opposed to simply coring a mech straight out in 20 seconds.

@Sephlock
true that is part of it and I suppose the above answer and OP both support your statement in one way or another but I would really appreciate if you read and gave input on more than just the title thanks

Edited by Team Leader, 29 July 2013 - 08:24 PM.

[Davers]

Roland, on 29 July 2013 - 08:13 PM, said:

There is really only one way to make single heat sinks even remotely useful, and that is to increase their value as crit-fodder.

If the internal structure of mechs (not armor, ONLY internal structure) were increased, and things such as engine crits were put into the game, then being able to pack single heat sinks into your CT in order to absorb critical hits could, potentially, be useful.

If they had tripled structure instead of doubled armor then crit seeking weapons would be far more useful.

As of right now SHS and standard structure (and to a much lesser effect armor) are all just grinds that hurt new players.

[Team Leader]

Davers, on 29 July 2013 - 08:29 PM, said:

If they had tripled structure instead of doubled armor then crit seeking weapons would be far more useful.

As of right now SHS and standard structure (and to a much lesser effect armor) are all just grinds that hurt new players.

Why not do that now and double or triple ammo from TT values?

[Roland]

Team Leader, on 29 July 2013 - 08:31 PM, said:

Why not do that now and double or triple ammo from TT values?

They totally could do that, but... reasons?

[Sporklift]

Heatsinks shouldn't affect heat capacity, all mechs should get a cap of about 30 or 35 (overheat at 31 or 36). Massively ramp up heatsink dissipation. Then you balance out heat dissipation vs. weapon cycle times.
Example: to cool a PPC at the optimal rate you'll need 10 hs or 5 dhs so that each time the weapon is ready to fire the mech has already shed the heat from the previous shot.
At a cap of 30 heat, in optimal conditions a wet mech standing still in some icy hellhole can only alpha 3 PPCs (cold only contributes to overall dissipation, not heatcap). Though if it has the heatsinks (30) to run the weapons the heat will dissipate very quickly and should allow it to chainfire those PPCs continuously.
I understand there are stock mechs that carry well over 30 heat in weapons. Most of these designs have mixed loadouts, meaning they aren't firing everything all the time at all ranges. Very different from what people with custom machines do.

[I am]

No.. and they shouldn't.

[MustrumRidcully]

I think the "in-engine" advantage needs to be removed and the heat cap bonus..

With a few tweaks on the heat system, I think you could make SHS and DHS viable and competitive with each other.

Step 1)
Heat Cap set to a fixed value of 30. If your weapons produce more than 30 heat on an alpha, you need to learn the virtues of chain-fire.

Step 2)
Dissipation single heat sink: 0.2 heat per second
Dissipation double heat sink: 0.4 heat per second

Step 3)
Engine heat sinks (at least the first 10 that are "for free") are always acting like single heat sinks.

Step 4)
Accept the fact that DHS based mechs will be hotter than they were in canon, which also will include all Clan mechs. But on the plus side, at least SHS based mechs will be better able to deal with their canonical weapon loadout's heat output in MW:O.


That means that DHS no longer give you a giant boost to your heat capacity and heat dissipation. Many mechs won't need to upgrade to DHS, since they don't equip enough heat sinks to make the difference. But you still get decent weight savings at the cost of crit slots if you make the move to DHS, and it will be an interesting option on heat-intensive builds.

---

And for why DHS vs SHS should even be a decision - SHS are useless. You basically only find them in newbie mechs who don't know that a mech only becomes useful if you upgrade to DHS, or couldn't afford the upgrade yet. So it's basically a trap. It's not like we have a 1st level tech tier mech league for noobs and a 2nd level tech tier mech league for everyone else. All items need to be balanced against each other.

[Red Line Pilot]

I think i found a build that benefits from single heat sinks. When you have tonnage to spare but no space and no ballistic hardpoints to spend that weight on, you can stack your mech with SHS.

This is a bit of an artificial example though :/

SHS 56% heat efficiency

DHS 53% Heat efficiency

If you don't use the cost of a mech into the balance equation i don't see a reason to use SHS too.

I kinda like the idea of lowering heat capacity and do more with the dissipation vs capacity balance though.

Edited by Red Line Pilot, 30 July 2013 - 01:24 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Red Line Pilot, on 30 July 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

I think i found a build that benefits from single heat sinks. When you have tonnage to spare but no space and no ballistic hardpoints to spend that weight on, you can stack your mech with SHS.

This is a bit of an artificial example though :/

SHS 56% heat efficiency

DHS 53% Heat efficiency

Pretty much - if there wasn't an engine limit, you could install a better engine.
Basically, the build is gimped inherently, but inside its gimpitude, you can get a bit better results by installing single heat sinks. Except there is no reason to stock with MLs here - you could install 2-3 LLs instead of some of the MLs in the DHS versio,, that's worse heat efficiency on paper, but not firing all the guns you have beats having 12 tons sitting around unused, and this option gives you some weapons with a better range (and damage per heat wise, the LL is similar to the ML, so you're not even losing heat efficiency in the 270m range bracket if you fire only a subset of your guns - and you have the option to fire them all.)

I believe there is also an SRM based Commando Build with a low-rated engine that requires too many external sinks to work.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 30 July 2013 - 01:32 AM.

[Elizander]

My actual solution to this is to make engine SHS dissipate 1.2~1.4 heat. It's nothing glamorous but it makes having a stock mess a little less of a headache to pilot.

If I have a variant that I have no interest in, I just leave it as is and plug it up with cheap short range weapons that SHS can handle and say sorry to my team.

[Tombstoner]

Team Leader, on 29 July 2013 - 08:09 PM, said:

I think I was following you up until those last couple paragraphs.. It sounds like.. you want each "round" of weapons fire to be a lot slower and..
I dont even know. Could you rephrase that please?

The game started with TT values but firing once every 10 seconds didn't feel right so fire rates where increased to 4 seconds but damage and heat where left the same. heat dissipation rates where left at 10 second intervals. so mechs got a 250% increase in damage and heat generation. once every 10 seconds to 2.5 times every 10 seconds.(10/4=2.5). later on armor was doubled but its still missing 50% vs TT. part of the reason we are dieing fast. armor is weaker in MWO then in TT with pin point group fire making it worse.

Using TT heat mechanic with full dissipation set for 4 seconds means that if you have 20 single heat sink you get rid of 20 heat in 4 seconds. this trivialities heat as something to worry about because all you have to do is wait 4 seconds to start firing again. however the longer you make the dissipation period the harsher any accumulated heat becomes. with movement modifiers you become vulnerable.

If however you set full dissipation rate to say 30-60 seconds. you need to scale back weapon heat and damage so your out put is proportional to one TT turn. this allows you to adjust the fire rate without altering the inter weapon balance. this is done later. for right now all you want to do is adjust the game so the fire rate feels good. and once every 4 seconds i think is fine. it makes you go come on, come on recycle. it adds a bit of stress/ fun. weapon damage and heat generated go down on paper per cycle time but when fired continuously for your selected dissipation time period it becomes the full 10/10 heat/damage for a PPC just done in multiple shots. TT stats are preserved for later changing. PGI didn't do that. hence the 250% buff and 200% armor buff.

Once every 10 seconds for 10 damage/heat and you increase fire rate to 2.5 times TT every 10 seconds you do 25 heat and 25 damage. PGI didnt correct for the increase. it should have been fire rate 4, 2.5 damage, 2.5 heat. that way you keep TT stats/ performance without being distorted and having to adjust armor later. this is the correct way to do things in my world. I have done some formula optimization in product development.

PGI makes too many interconnected changes.

The next goal is to make heat something to be concerned about means it needs something other then a simple shut down mechanic if your accumulated heat is going up then engine output should be going down to compensate with over rides to prevent auto shutdown. this is shown in movement speed modifiers and how heat affects myomers. movement modifiers are not present in the game and are really needed to off set heat. the use of a heat cap and instantaneous heat makes movement modifiers a bit too spiky and would need another mechanic to make it happen. PGI making there job harder.

Change to an accumulated heat system. and display what your heat would be in 30 seconds. in the back ground you record the instantaneous heat and that goes down every second. if you fire again you add the new heat to whats left over and calculate a new accumulated heat for a new 30 second window. so if you want to dissipate all your heat then you have to wait 30 seconds. i dont think that is a trivial mount of time. if heat accumulation is insufficient to affect the game just increase heat per shot. with movment modifiers making you slower and less able to trun it makes heat deadly. you cant just pop in and out of cover for sniping. if you heat is high you move back under cover at a snales pace.

single heat sinks will almost always be out classed by double heat sinks. the only limit is with internal space. you could out do double if you have excess tonnage. but the game is not designed for this.

DHS simply out classes SHS.
SHS = x damage, DHS= ~2x damage

SHS builds can be viable if you adpot a hit and run stratagy to leverag time for heat disapation and build a high dmage alpha.
SHS alpha = DHS alpha but you have to run away for twice the time it take for the DHS build to disapate the heat. this works only for the TT heat system not for MWO instantanous heat, heat cap with shutdown mechnic...

Not sure why PGI fears heat neutral builds, we have them all ready. heat neutrality can be fixed by increasing heat proportional for all weapons.

[Team Leader]

Elizander, on 30 July 2013 - 04:29 AM, said:

My actual solution to this is to make engine SHS dissipate 1.2~1.4 heat. It's nothing glamorous but it makes having a stock mess a little less of a headache to pilot.

If I have a variant that I have no interest in, I just leave it as is and plug it up with cheap short range weapons that SHS can handle and say sorry to my team.

I guess that would be better but that's such a superficial solution. At least PGI would be hard pressed to screw that up. I would want changes made that offer better player choice though.

[New Day]

MaxKarnage, on 29 July 2013 - 03:25 PM, said:

DHS are just a 1.5 million credit money sink.

The only bonus standards have going for them atm is that you can put them in your legs and cool off faster in water. No clue what those numbers are but it sounds pretty limited and I doubt they come close to making up for twice as much cooling/cap in the engine heat sinks alone.

It actually seems pretty good
"The deeper in water a component containing heatsinks is, the more bonus cooling those heatsinks will do. Having two heatsinks in your right leg and your right leg being 75% submerged in cooling water will give those two heatsinks a 75% cooling boost".
If there was deep enough water. But still even if they do get a 75% boost, that's like having 5 (1.4) DHS.

[Team Leader]

Ok Tombstoner, I think I understand now. That seems like it would really slow down the game though just by making everything take much longer and do less damage. Is that the intent?

[Ph30nix]

there is no way to make SHS anything but the crap they are with the current heat mechanics in this game.

[Lootee]

Team Leader, on 30 July 2013 - 06:24 AM, said:

Ok Tombstoner, I think I understand now. That seems like it would really slow down the game though just by making everything take much longer and do less damage. Is that the intent?

What he described could work. Yes it would slow things down a little. But if they slowed weapon cooldowns to something like 6s for medium lasers and 8s for PPCs and gauss while speeding up heat dissipation to 9s or 8s SHS wouldn't be so useless.

The discrepancy between the heat dissipation and rate of fire is what makes SHS so inadequate. If you take away or lessen the incentive to go overboard with DHS people would run SHS on builds with just a few weapons or very low heat weapons.

Right now DHS are required for every mech because either: you run high heat weapons and you must have them, you run low heat weapons but the fire rate is so fast DHS lets you double or even triple your dmg output.

Remember my example with the CN9-D with gauss and 2 medium lasers? If the fire rates were slower it wouldn't benefit much from upgrading to DHS. The stock JR7-D wouldn't run so hot with just 10 SHS if recycle times were slower. This only works if fire rates are slowed down across the board, otherwise everyone else would just continue to run DHS and pump out double/triple the dmg forcing you to do the same.

[Tombstoner]

Team Leader, on 30 July 2013 - 06:24 AM, said:

Ok Tombstoner, I think I understand now. That seems like it would really slow down the game though just by making everything take much longer and do less damage. Is that the intent?

The thing is damage levels can be increased to speed up combat or armor lowered as the devs see fit to make it so mechs are taking damage and life expectancy remains 15-30 seconds if the devs want.

If they lowered armor it wouldn't change heat behavior at all. you'd be taking lots of small amounts of damage but you'd have a lot less armor. so you could blaze away for 15 seconds and destroy lots stuff and accumulate 29 heat but your gona be standing still for 30 seconds as someone walks behind you and guts you from behind. what i want to see slows down the heat portion of the game but lowering armor speeds up time to death/ lethality of the weapons. just my two cents.

This game is supposed to be HEAT BAD..... not from firing more than x weapons of the same type. With a heat cap. i can hold heat before it means anything. to me this means 2 alphas and hide to cool off even with heat penalties. so heat is not so bad if i can hold it without consequence: bad implementation of source material for little additional fun. so not working as intended.

yea its gets messy with all the numbers being converted but as long as the relationships are linked the game can be tuned. one factor at a time. the all the values can be scaled back to something more manageable/ visually appealing with out changing function.

Edited by Tombstoner, 30 July 2013 - 07:57 AM.