301 replies to this topic

[Tombstoner]

Buehgler, on 31 July 2013 - 05:38 AM, said:

Based on what I have seen in this thread, I am growing more convinced that lowering the heat cap and increasing heat dissipation is a viable strategies to discouraging the super high-alpha builds and the associated peek and shoot play style they require. Although I am also in favor of "fixing" the convergence issue, but that is a different topic.

The one problem that seems to persist with bringing TT heat mechanics to MWO (not that I ever played much TT) seems to be the "heat spike" associated with the MWO mechanics of giving you the heat for firing the weapons instantly. This has apparently encouraged the expanded (and heat sink based) heat cap mechanism and in turn the reduced heat dissipation mechanic and thus made heat neutral builds difficult/impossible. So why not lower the heat cap to a fixed 30 (or maybe provide some small bonus for more heat sinks), consider increasing the dissipation (and maybe make doubles really 2.0) and then most importantly spread the heat production of weapons out in time. Specifically, having the heat production spread over the cycle time of the weapon (or some fraction of it) would reduce the spike and reward builds with more heat sinks with the ability to stay in a fight rather than produce more/larger alpha strikes. A PPC and an AC2 would both require 20 units of heat sink to run heat neutral, but with 2 of either and no additional heat sinks you would reach the heat cap in 15 seconds of full rate fire. and a 4 PPC build with 20 units of heats sink would only be able to produce 2 alpha strikes before overheating significantly.

I like the idea of spreading the heat out over the cycle time of the weapon. makes it less spiky and its possible that you forget how high its going to hit before it matters. heat dissipation just needs to extend out over 30-60 seconds with moment modifiers and people will respect heat. if they build heat neutral mechs players are doing so with tonnage in the mech lab and that leads to less armor, smaller engines and lower damage output. if 4 seconds is too short and trivializes heat then you must increase the time period of dissipation till it is punishing. with movement modifiers on top of lower damage output. not just fire, fire, fire avoid shut down and cool off while hiding.

[zorak ramone]

Roland, on 30 July 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

Exactly. It had nothing to do with heat. It had everything to do with the fact that you could pack as many medium lasers onto a mech as you had tonnage, and they'd all combine into a single uber laser.

Got 15 tons free? Here's a 75 point alpha strike for you!

It's troubling if the PGI guys think that the problem with the gun-bags in MW3 was "heat neutrality".

This.

1000x this. Heat neutrality isn't a scary thing. Its the size of the alpha thats important. Currently, 2xGR CTFs, JM6s and K2s are all heat neutral with a 30 point alpha, but these mechs are hardly dominating compared to the (very) non-heat neutral 2xERPPC/GR configs (only 5 points more of an alpha!) and (at least before yesterday's patch) the (extremely) non-heat neutral 2xPPC/2xERPPC stalkers (only 10 points more of an alpha!).

Heat neutrality is trumped by only 5 points more of an alpha. Thats how much its not a factor.

Why should we be desperately trying to prevent mechs from being built as heat neutral? In fact, I'd say that changing the system to make heat neutrality a reality (at least as much of a reality as it was in CBT) would help shift the meta to make infighters more viable, since DPS is more important when you're in someone's face as opposed to sniping, where you can duck down and cool off.

MustrumRidcully, on 31 July 2013 - 02:46 AM, said:

Oh, I don't know. I guess I am just getting insane, repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

This is why I stopped making mega posts about balance, especially about the heat system.

I don't know what keeps you going.

[Joseph Mallan]

Taxxian, on 30 July 2013 - 02:36 AM, said:

I think Paul is absolutely right here.

Balance is not optimal, but it is not so bad either.

Paul repied to the suggestion, he should drasticaly reduce the maximum of heat our Mechs can store, before they are negatively affected.

Problem is:
UAC5 Ilya... Gauss Jager... every balistic Mech is already nearly heat-neutral, but you would have to cut the weapons, currently installed in Quickdraws/Awesones/Stalkers , by half!

Is a Quickdraw much more powerful than an Ilya? Well after the suggested change, ballistics would be tremendously owerpowered...

The "Heat-Battery" is part of the game, reducing it would nerf all Laser-Mechs... and that is not what we want...or is it?



Absolutely, calling the developers deluded and many other things I read in this forum, will motivate them to make a much better game... really an outstanding idea...

I played TT with all kinds of players and they all seemed to have fun playing Mechs that were very close to heat neutral. Thats 28 years of gaming in builds that were neutral to nearly neutral.

Awesomes can fire 3 PPCs then 2 PPCs and stay (mostly) Neutral the whole game.

Must is right, convergence is what makes boating bad.
Devastator=2 Gauss 2 PPCs Powerful not OP
Thunder Hawk=3Gauss 4 Medium Lasers Powerful but not OP
Hunchback-P=9 Medium Lasers pwerful but not OP

Nerf convergence and these builds become very deadly.

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 31 July 2013 - 06:35 AM.

[Koniving]

Buehgler, on 31 July 2013 - 05:38 AM, said:

Specifically, having the heat production spread over the cycle time of the weapon (or some fraction of it) would reduce the spike and reward builds with more heat sinks with the ability to stay in a fight rather than produce more/larger alpha strikes. A PPC and an AC2 would both require 20 units of heat sink to run heat neutral, but with 2 of either and no additional heat sinks you would reach the heat cap in 15 seconds of full rate fire. and a 4 PPC build with 20 units of heats sink would only be able to produce 2 alpha strikes before overheating significantly.

Lordred suggested this only yesterday. It'd accomplish the same thing the capacity based on heatsink count scheme MWO currently uses accomplishes. But then you have a problem -- it'd take 13 seconds to overheat with one of the examples I gave before, meaning you could in theory put on 6 ER PPCs at 11 heat each, fire them, then run around like la de da and suddenly BOOM 4 seconds later. You wouldn't even know why your heat just wouldn't stop rising. Also the AC/2 AC/5 Jagermech example -- if that 1 heat per weapon was generated gradually, even with a lower capacity I could fire it longer because it'd sink even faster... So instead of the insane amount of damage (340 or something) over 20 seconds, I'd be able to do it for at least 30 seconds even after the change. Over a minute long (rough estimate) in MWO's current system.

Picture it. This AC/2 AC/5 Jager which overheats on paper under 0 degrees celsius in 20 seconds in MWO's current system and deals something like 340 damage (look for the example earlier) in that short time when firing all weapons at the same time, picture how long I could run this thing if "1" heat raised at 0.5 seconds AC/2 and another "1" heat raised at 1.50 for the AC/5... With a mech as large as a Battlemaster and ballistics on each side I could fire non-stop for about 2 minutes in MWO's system, about 1 minute 30 seconds in the proposed one. That's... terrifying!

His idea was only for the standard PPCs as a way of simulating the field inhibitors that regular PPCs are supposed to have. But if you start firing off multiple shots of 11 or 8 or the upcoming 12 or 9 heat in rapid succession as a new player and then see your percentage skyrocketing, it's probably not a pleasant thing.

But this is only a fear. It'd be similar to the way laser heat builds up, except it'd build up until you're ready to fire again. Lasers build so long as they burn. PPCs build so long as they fire. The issue is that without the penalty system, this allows you to boat 6 ER PPCs with a 30 capacity, fire, and then explode 4 seconds later. Someone doing this for the first time (see the build, hear it's OP, try it, Woosh! eeeEEEEEEEE-POW! Koniving has killed Koniving. Overheating. "What? Why? I wasn't even firing anything,") probably won't have any idea what happened. If the heat is instant, it'd easier to see you can't just keep doing it.

The instant spikes of flamers from this early CB vid terrified me and kept me from using it too often, but then I realized the heat disappears instantly and so when I realized that I abused the heck out of them. I eventually used them to kill two Atlases. It got "fixed," and flamers have been useless ever since. Back then the average amount of capacity was between 34 and 46 (since you could run fewer than 10 heatsinks and everyone had standard heatsinks so no one dedicated a lot of weight to it).

If players don't believe it's dangerous to use PPCs, they have no reason not to boat them. But who knows, it may benefit. We can't use that for autocannons though as they would get abused like you wouldn't believe.

Praetor Shepard, on 31 July 2013 - 12:04 AM, said:

Thank you for taking the time to detail a few scenarios and comparing them. Very informative on how the proposed system would work in context of MWO.

I figure that this kind of change seems like it would improve the MWO experience IMHO, and I assume that the devs would not need to make that many changes to implement this for at the very least, testing.

The best part I think is that once meeting the enemy doesn't result in a flash of weapons fire of within two or so minutes, with mechs dropping quickly from so much damage getting dealt, like we currently have.

Thank you. In the short and long run it would improve the experience significantly, although my massive damage 2 AC/2 2 AC/5 Jager might require an escort after the change because I'll have to withdraw from the fight briefly to cool down or prefer to stay at range since fighting up close would be begging to shutdown and die. In general, solo play will become a bit more difficult as almost all gameplay and builds, except significantly weaker heat neutral builds, will require players to work together in proximity to each other.

For example using stock Victors I can't do crap alone because the heat is too much even with the cool run, and that's with a 40 capacity when we're striving for a 30 point capacity/limit. Now, it'd be easier with DHS, oh sure! Especially more than just '10'. But without the two mediums escorting me I wouldn't have a chance. Good news is, the people I'm fighting wouldn't have capacities of 50 minimum (10 DHS and 250 engine) to high 70s (the 88.6 capacity scenario is the most extreme case but not the most practical case -- how many assaults carry 27 DHS?). Them not having extreme heat capacities either, would actually bring a brawl fight more along these lines:

That's a Stock Fang, versus a customized Fang who apparently did not change his heatsinks, so we're both using 11 standard (MWO system: base 30 + 11 = 41 capacity) with 11 cooling per ten seconds which is 1.1 cooling per second.



It was a lot of fun, but it was also very challenging. The difference with 30 capacity and the same cooling would be the percentages on that heat bar would rise higher with each shot, but fall slightly faster because it's 30 points to reach the top and not 41 points of heat.

As Paul once said, lowering the capacity would "nerf" every mech. It would, as they would all be cut down to 30. Subsequently lights and mediums would suddenly find themselves on an even playing field in how much they can fire, so after the "nerf" it'd be a severe buff to those two classes -- which will then be offset by the lariats and jousting that would occur after knockdowns get enabled.

Mediums get no respect in knockdowns. An Atlas clotheslining a hunchback from the Hunchback's perspective.

Lights get no respect in knockdowns either.

So far there are no signs of things being changed for the capacity. I have the feeling they won't until after launch but something like this needs to be done before launch or it'll never happen.

Edited by Koniving, 31 July 2013 - 06:55 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I saw knockdown... It was funny watching Mechs fail and fall trying to knock down my Atlas.

[Koniving]

To what I said earlier I wanted to add this in but every time I click edit it becomes all distorted.

Anyway.. In the long run it'll especially be better. In the short run while it'll help with immediate problems, it will also encounter some resistance. This is because where you could fire 4 medium lasers for an insane amount of time with the current system, you'd suddenly feel you must have grabbed a "trial" mech after the change.

With 30 capacity and 10 DHS after the change 4 medium lasers at the same time would bring you instantly to 16 out of 30 capacity which is 53.33%. The rate to lose it is (2 per second (20 per ten, 0.2 per heatsink per second) At the same time you'll lose that in 8 seconds back at 0.

That will probably hit quite a bit of resistance.

At canonical values it'd be 3 heat per ML, which is 12 out of 30, which is 40%. You'd be back to 0 in 6 seconds.

To get used to it, you could try running your next mech stock? But it'll only be fun if you're fighting other stock and trial mechs, since everyone else has 1.5 to 2 times your capacity. With a full change everyone would be on even terms. Those stock and trial mechs would actually be fun to use, too!
-------
The immediate shift in the meta as a result would be to drop all PPCs, everywhere, and would be changing directly to anything and everything ballistic, as even SRMs would suffer due to high heat values.

This would phase out into something significantly more balanced with the occasional 'flavor of the month' during tweaks, especially when 12 vs 12 hits and ammo is far too limited, and eventually it'd get accepted with the usual amount of forum tears. It'll change a little faster with the variants idea (demonstration with AC/20s, chatter about autocannons, chatter about laser variants), but though PGI has mentioned the willingness to do variants and even referred to them several times, we won't see those until well after launch.

Edited by Koniving, 31 July 2013 - 07:38 AM.

[Kaldor]

Joseph Mallan, on 31 July 2013 - 06:53 AM, said:

I saw knockdown... It was funny watching Mechs fail and fall trying to knock down my Atlas.

Dragon was pretty decent at knocking down the Fatlas. Or was for awhile.

[HammerSwarm]

zorak ramone, on 30 July 2013 - 04:34 AM, said:

Yes, heat neutral 30 point alphas truly are killing the game right now. That's why we see 2xGR CTFs and JM6s dominating the meta, right?

You don't see a predominance of Jagers among the Heavies?

[HammerSwarm]

Namais, on 31 July 2013 - 06:39 AM, said:

The downside as I see it is a similar one to the heat scale nonsense (HSN) in that it will probably have to vary between weapons to balance and is equally as hard to communicate intuitively both to newer users and old. Unless the UI and loadout numbers gain a serious facelift you'll have to wait till you drop to see what a build behaves like - and even then you might not know why.

As long as the stock mechs work, (They should they are stock) I don't care if people then customize their mech and doesn't work out. People will then have to figure out how a game works. You do this for every game, I don't want the sort who can't figure out things like, The hotter weapons heat you up more.

A tutorial could and would help this.

[Taemien]

I don't believe the intent was to eliminate heat neutral builds but to have players make a choice between heat efficiency and damage. Right now in MWO and TT (to a worse degree) it is way too easy to run 4 PPCs and fire them on cooldown. You cannot do that much reliable damage with any other weapon system in the game. Either due to weight, ammo, criticals, or hardpoints. This is why we have the fixes we do.

TT is even worse about this. Which is the reason why I enforce stock configurations when running my games. Otherwise it turns into a PPC fest (or Large Pulse Laser) there as well. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more non-TT ways of balancing. MWO's customization is based off a broken system. Not only is it broken but they have to apply it to a realtime FPS-Sim.

Heat Neutrality = Less damage

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

I don't believe the intent was to eliminate heat neutral builds but to have players make a choice between heat efficiency and damage.

As long as you need to counter heat at all in some manner, and as long as countering heat requires you invest into weight, and getting weapons also costs you weight, and as long as you have a weight limit to operate within, there will always be this trade-off.

FIring 4 PPCs on cooldown forever is neat. But firing 5 PPCs on cooldown for 8 seconds can be even neater, because that 4 PPC guy deals only 120 damage in that time, but your 5 PPC mech deals 150 damage in that time, and that means you might be able to core him before he can core you. You'd win this battle - overheated perhaps, but alive.

That's always the trade-off to consider. At least if you get your heat, damage and armour values lined up correctly.

[Koniving]

Taemien, on 31 July 2013 - 08:18 AM, said:

I don't believe the intent was to eliminate heat neutral builds but to have players make a choice between heat efficiency and damage. Right now in MWO and TT (to a worse degree) it is way too easy to run 4 PPCs and fire them on cooldown. You cannot do that much reliable damage with any other weapon system in the game. Either due to weight, ammo, criticals, or hardpoints. This is why we have the fixes we do.

TT is even worse about this. Which is the reason why I enforce stock configurations when running my games. Otherwise it turns into a PPC fest (or Large Pulse Laser) there as well. With that said, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more non-TT ways of balancing. MWO's customization is based off a broken system. Not only is it broken but they have to apply it to a realtime FPS-Sim.

Heat Neutrality = Less damage

On a correct interpretation of tabletop for use with balancing as far as the heat system versus MWO's current misinterpretation of the same system and whether or not "Tabletop is balanced when brought to real time."

Spoiler

MWO is based off of a misinterpretation of a system that's considerably well balanced, when you consider everyone can only fire once per 10 seconds. Those heat neutral PPC builds? Don't exist when you cut that time down to 4 seconds or real time. Further, the reason mechs explode in the real time games versus the tabletop, is TT did allow abuse of the system so long as you don't have ammo in your mech by going beyond the 30 capacity -- but this came with consequences. In my first post, in response to someone about the invincible infinite alpha-strike Awesome, I demonstrated how it can't alpha, period, and it chainfires. Furthermore, I also demonstrated that in the identical system of TT on MWO, 3 ER PPCs at once is instant death -- since detonation is the only necessary repercussion, that's how it works.

Now, in tabletop what they do instead is the pilot's vision blurs (accuracy penalties), he becomes overheated, exhausted, can barely keep his eyes open. Constantly removing his hand from the controls to wipe his brow. Balance suffers due to removing the helmet to do this. The mech is forced to slow down when the neuro helmet is removed. Some components expand within the mech, further facilitating this slowdown penalty. This is presuming the pilot even maintains consciousness. Most of the time, the pilot loses consciousness. The mech suffers an immediate termination of brain signals within readable levels, and the mech loses balance, falling over. During the fall the pilot could receive injuries -- in one case he fell from his seat and his head slammed into the broken transparent steel of his cockpit, piercing his brain. In most cases it's a concussion, further screwing him. Eventually the pilot and the mech are both ready to stand, but this can result in a series of failures, each time doing as high as 32 damage to a component that you slam on (instantly destroying his mech's arm).

The simplified version is you explode, as many of the past games have done.

MW2 had 40 capacity, and heat generation values in very, very low numbers (2 or so per clan ML). MW3 was very close to tabletop, 30 capacity, 3 ER PPCs killed yourself, but suffered problems with very wide open environments, so even with the PPC limitations the intense range of clanw eapons combined with open fields gives you a sniper's fest. If it had MWO's system, the whole MW franchise would have died instantly right there. MW4 has a capacity of 60, although MekTek changed it to vary depending on the mech according to something I read. We know what's happened there. The franchise died for a bit.

MWO's current system allows a maximum capacity of 88.56 (27 DHS, Victor 385 engine) after elite unlocks.
Someone using 10 SHS has a capacity of 40.
Someone with 10 DHS has double the cooling power of 10 SHS, but also has a capacity of 50 (meaning those 2.0 heatsinks are equal to 2.5 or 2.6 DHS in tabletop.

Read the examples I've given in my past posts, which take MWO's current weapon systems, heat, values, recycle, burn times, firing rates, etc., and puts MWO's system to the test against tabletop in a second by second basis.

In every instance, tabletop comes out more balanced. You shutdown faster, (lower spam times), alpha FAR less, and so far every genuinely heat neutral build (defined as zero heat when you fire again) that doesn't involve autocannons are 2 ML or 3 SPL with 14 DHS, and 2 MWO PPCs with 20 DHS, which after the 12 heat change to PPCs won't be heat neutral anymore. At proper values, PPCs and ER PPCs will never be heat neutral in their firing rate (4 second time span).

If you fire them ONCE in 10 seconds they will be with the TT system, but who actually waits 10 seconds in our current system, where you can fire them in MWO's CURRENT system 6 at a time, wait 4 seconds, 6 more, wait 4 seconds, 6 more, wait 4 seconds, 6 more, non-stop until the recent penalty system?

This is MWO's heat system. Watch it, and genuinely reconsider your argument as to whether TT would be poorly balanced in comparison. That's 240 heat generated in 18 seconds for a total of 30 PPCs fired by 1 Hunchback with 13 DHS and a total of 300 damage before self-destruct.

The same thing in the proposed system I'd be dead on the 6th PPC.

On the argument of Heat neutrality = Less Damage.
True.

Spoiler

Heat neutrality in MWO's real time system = no chance in heck as you get one shotted.
Heat neutrality in MWO's real time system but with the proposed TT based changes = endurance in long engagements.

The difference of high damage versus heat neutrality in a real time system of TT with MWO's firing rules and recycle times, and in any real time engagement is the same as the difference between a Sprinter in a 100 meter dash and an Endurance runner in a 2 mile run.

• The sprinter will finish much sooner, but at the end of it he'll be so exhausted that he can't perform as well the next time, and on the third try he'll probably break something. (Fire once, it's hot. Do it again and you'll be sitting there for a while. Fire a third time without waiting or buying yourself some time to recover and you'll have died.)
  
• The Endurance Runner will have taken the time and preparation to train (load up with lots of heatsinks and few weapons) to be able to run for a long time without wearing himself out. Sure, it'll take him maybe 15 to 20 minutes to win that competition versus the sprinter who does it in about a minute, but when he's done he can go another 2 miles without much change in performance, and only after 6 miles might it start to degrade and require rest. (You can fight a lot longer, keep going, but it takes you forever to kill anything. Picture running a Jenner in MWO with 1 medium laser. 2 at the most. Could you do it if everyone else overheated every 12 seconds or less or fired a lot slower to keep from overheating? Definitely. But if they caught you that's it, you're screwed.)

Right now in MWO's current system, that 100 meter dash guy is able to do 300 meter dashes at least 2.9 times without getting tired. That just isn't right.

Edited by Koniving, 31 July 2013 - 09:15 AM.

[Taemien]

Just an FYI, you don't automatically blow up in TT when reaching 30 heat (under standard rules there's never any damage from overheating as long as you don't have ammo). In fact if you have 15 DHS, firing 4 PPCs reaches 30 heat by the 3rd alpha. Sounds like MWO to me. But then again PPCs have reduced heat to go with those reduced cooldowns.

[Royalewithcheese]

HammerSwarm, on 31 July 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

You don't see a predominance of Jagers among the Heavies?

People run it because it's new. Jagermech has one trick that the Cataphract can't generally do better (AC40) and that's not very relevant in the current meta even before the appointment with the nerfbat.

[Koniving]

Taemien, on 31 July 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

Just an FYI, you don't automatically blow up in TT when reaching 30 heat (under standard rules there's never any damage from overheating as long as you don't have ammo). In fact if you have 15 DHS, firing 4 PPCs reaches 30 heat by the 3rd alpha. Sounds like MWO to me. But then again PPCs have reduced heat to go with those reduced cooldowns.

We're aware, it's been stated, you first begin to slow down, lose the ability to aim, lose consciousness, fall over, and practically destroy yourself spending the next 1 minute and 30 seconds trying to get back up assuming you didn't kill yourself in the cockpit first.

In MW games you blow up instead to prevent abuse, since we can't do the above.

Also TT 15 DHS with 10 heat per PPC... 4 PPCs with MWO's firing system.

You reach 40 heat in 1 shot.

Using MWO's PPC heat, 8, tabletop's system.
Fire 4 PPCS = 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 32.
Shutdown.
You start back up and are at 2 heat in 10 seconds.

15 DHS sinks 30 cooling per 10 seconds.
Alpha 4 PPCs, shutdown, powered up, 2 heat left over in 10 seconds.

Tabletop, 15 DHS for 30 cooling. You can't alpha, period.

How it would actually work in tabletop.

Spoiler

Cools 30 per 10 seconds, broken down to 1 second intervals cools 3 per second.
0 seconds, fires 1 PPC. 10 heat.
1 second 7 heat.
2 seconds 4 heat.
3 seconds 1 heat, fires 2nd PPC +10 = 11 heat.
4 seconds 8 heat.
5 seconds 5 heat. Fire 3rd PPC +10 heat to make 15 heat.
6 seconds 12 heat.
7 seconds 9 heat. Fire 4th PPC + 10 heat = 19 heat.
8 seconds 16 heat.
9 seconds 13 heat.
10 seconds 10 heat.

You fire 4 PPCs in chain-fire, hit 4 different enemy body parts (if you actually alpha-striked it'd be all hit or miss in one spot -- impossible to do on tabletop, thus you can't alpha on TT). Come out with 10 heat. You spent 10 seconds firing 4 PPCs one time. You have dealt 40 damage, none of it is pinpoint because all weapons that have been fired, are done so one at a time.

You will have "30 excess heat built up" in 30 seconds.

That does NOT sound like MWO.

How MWO works without unlocks.

Spoiler

15 DHS 10 engine DHS (2.0) = 20 + 5 chassis DHS (1.4) + 30 base = 57 capacity.
10 engine DHS + 5 chassis DHS = 27 cooling = 2.7 cooling per second.
0 seconds, fire 4 PPCs, generate 32 heat.
1 second, 29.3 heat
2 seconds, 26.6 heat
3 seconds, 23.9 heat
4 seconds 21.2 heat, alpha 4 PPCs + 32 heat = 53.2
5 seconds 50.5 heat
6 seconds 47.8 heat
7 seconds 45.1 heat
8 seconds 42.4 alpha fire 4 PPCs + 32 heat = 74.4. Shutdown.
9 seconds Cooling doubles: 5.4 per second: 69 heat
10 seconds 63.6 heat.

At some point you'd start back up but in 10 seconds you'd be at 63.6 heat on your third alpha strike.
You have fired 12 PPCs and shut down at 8 seconds. (Fire at 0, at 4, at 8). You have done 120 damage. 4 + 4 + 4 have been pinpoint, or 3 alpha strikes of 40 damage each.

How MWO works with master unlocks

Spoiler

15 DHS 10 engine DHS (2.0) = 20 + 5 chassis DHS (1.4) + 30 base = 57 capacity + 20% (heat containment 10% * 2 = 20% = 11.4 = 68.4)
10 engine DHS + 5 chassis DHS = 27 + (Cool Run 7.5% times 2 for elites = 15% = 4.05 ) = 31.05 cooling per 10 seconds = 3.105 cooling per second.
0 seconds, fire 4 PPCs, generate 32 heat.
1 second, 28.895 heat
2 seconds, 25.79 heat
3 seconds, 22.685 heat
4 seconds 19.58 heat, alpha 4 PPCs + 32 heat = 51.58
5 seconds 48.475 heat
6 seconds 45.37 heat
7 seconds 42.265 heat
8 seconds 39.16 alpha fire 4 PPCs + 32 heat = 71.16. Shutdown.
9 seconds Cooling doubles: 6.21 per second: 64.95 heat
10 seconds 58.74 heat. Start up.

At some point you'd start back up but in 10 seconds you'd be at 58.74 heat for that third alpha strike. You spent 8 seconds firing three times (0, 4, and 8) and 2 seconds waiting. You have done 120 damage. 4 + 4 + 4 have been pinpoint, or 3 alpha strikes of 40 damage each.


But sadly the reality of MWO's heat is this. That's 30 PPCs and 13 DHS.

Edit: summary of the PPC thingy didn't count total shots for MWO systems. Fixed.

Edited by Koniving, 06 August 2013 - 12:16 PM.

[YueFei]

Koniving has exactly the right idea for balancing with heat. A single burst of damage should be damaging, not crippling mechs, in a game touted as featuring prolonged combat with time for pauses and tactical and strategic considerations. When someone sprints across ground between two pieces of cover that takes his mech 6 seconds to cross, he should not be thinking "maybe I will *die* running across because someone will two-shot my mech". Instead, he should be thinking "well, I might take damage going across this, but I think the loss of armor is a worthwhile price to pay for gaining a better position".

Look at Soy's videos, with his Cataphract. He can two-shot his own mech. A duel can end in 4 seconds. That's not the Mechwarrior Online that was advertised to us.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 30 July 2013 - 12:38 PM, said:

Heat neutrality is already in game. A single PPC is heat neuatral with 10 base engine DHS (coincidently 2 medium lasers work out to the same HPS).

Double the number of PPCs (2), and you can fire both 6 times before overheating, which is 120 points of damage. Which is enough for an accurate pilot to take down most mechs. (That build, by the way, is what I used to run on my 40 ton Cicadia).

I honestly do not feel that we need lesser heat neutrality threshold in a game balanced by heat mechanics. If you want to be able to fire your weapons longer, take more heat efficient weapons. Missiles and Autocannons are specifically designed to generate greater damage at lower heat.

Raising the heat neutrality bar will do nothing except push smaller mechs towards hotter lighter beam weapons, and there is currently no shortage of those mechs. In fact next to the assault class PPC + Gauss snipers, Light laser boats are currently the second most popular mechs in the game.

It is not. I managed to Overheat a Spider 5K armed with only 1 MPL and 4 MGs on 10 Single Heat Sinks. Took a while but it happened. The MPL only does what 5 heat and the MGs don't produce any? It should be physically impossible to OH a mech armed with a single 5 heat weapon yet it still wasn't heat neutral. Therefore do you honestly think any realistic and usable build in this game can attain heat neutral?

[Angel of Annihilation]

Upon reading further one thing alot of people seem to keep missing is that if you gave each mech a 30 heat cap, that cap only starts once your heat sinks can no longer disappate the heat.

For example 15 DHS would allow up to 30 heat BEFORE you start to generate waste heat. If heat and weapon rate of fire was scaled properly, you could fire two 15 Heat ER PPCs perpetually without ever even touching the heat cap of 30. Howeever your DPS would never exceed 5.00 if you did that because the DPS is governed by the recycle rate of the ER PPC.

Now if you want to up your DPS you mount 2 MLs as well. You fire the ER PPCs and the MLs and your heat spikes to 40 generating 10 waste heat which now goes against your cap. Fire them again and your generate an additonal 40 heat and now you have 20 waste heat generated and have penalties. Fire them again and your at 30 waste heat and in Shutdown with potential dire concequences.

Basically you could only sustain both the ER PPCs and MLs for a very short time but for that short time your damage potential goes up substancially.

In the end it is all about Scaling everything one for one. 1 SHS dissapates the 1 heat generated by any weapon in the game. 1 DHS dissapates 2 heat generated by any weapon in the game. Want to create a heat efficient build, make sure the total heat generated by your weapons doesn't exceed the total amount of heatsinks you have on your mech. If you want more damage, then go ahead and moount weapons that can generate more heat than you can sink, just understand your going to have waste heat to manage with potentially dire concequences if you don't pay attention.

Honestly you can't get more simple and easy for noobs than that.

[Koniving]

Viktor Drake, on 01 August 2013 - 09:40 PM, said:

Upon reading further one thing alot of people seem to keep missing is that if you gave each mech a 30 heat cap, that cap only starts once your heat sinks can no longer disappate the heat.

For example 15 DHS would allow up to 30 heat BEFORE you start to generate waste heat. If heat and weapon rate of fire was scaled properly, you could fire two 15 Heat ER PPCs perpetually without ever even touching the heat cap of 30. Howeever your DPS would never exceed 5.00 if you did that because the DPS is governed by the recycle rate of the ER PPC.

Honestly you can't get more simple and easy for noobs than that.

That's a 10 second window, not a one second window. When you convert breakdown 10 second turns into 1 second real time, that waste heat thing is merely a mathematical convenience, because you don't have 10 seconds of cooling anymore to rely on unless you Sit and Wait. How can you fail to understand that?

Tabletop's "waste heat" works the same as real time, so long as you wait 10 seconds with a 30 capacity hard cap. The system is identical in that regard. It does not work like your fantasy. You do not compress 10 seconds into 1 second, or you get the same crap we have in MWO where you can fire 30 PPCs in 18 seconds before you have any real consequences. That isn't tabletop, nor is it anything remotely like any past game before.

If you read the examples I gave in the post above you, they are identical to the results of a single turn in tabletop. The remaining heat is your 'waste heat' fantasy. But that's still 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 seconds of real time passing by.

1 SHS dissipates 1 heat per 10 seconds, which is 0.1 heat per 1 second.
2 DHS dissipates 2 heat per 10 seconds, which is 0.2 heat per 1 second.
Your cap starts instantly for heat spikes of PPCs, ER PPCs, lasers, etc., because each heatsink can only generate a decimal number per real life second. It's a full number per 'turn' because a turn is 10 seconds compressed into an instant.

Edit: "Convert" is the mistake David and Paul made. Changed the word to "Breakdown."
Edit 2: "TL;DR. Your 30 cap of waste heat starts instantly, and you'll increase in heat if you can't sink it faster than you raise it. In most cases, however, you need an excess of 40 SHS or 20 DHS to do so, and even then you can only carry one or two weapons to stay heat neutral."

Edited by Koniving, 02 August 2013 - 11:27 AM.

[WolvesX]

MustrumRidcully, on 30 July 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

It seems to me that PGI or Paul are deliberately designing the heat system to avoid heat neutral mechs, as if they were some terrible boogey man that cannot be allowed to exist.

I think that is what has lead us to the terrible heat system with a high heat threshold but a low dissipation in the first system, which rewards alpha after alpha and makes it impossible to run heat efficient mechs.

PGI or Paul see heat neutral mech builds as a problematic thing to avoid.

But that is wrong.

Heat neutral mechs exist in the table top, and they are not overpowered there. Most mechs build up some heat, and there are simple reasons for that.

Heat neutrality is achieved by sacrificing firepower for heat sinks. If you build a "hot" mech, you can deliver more damage in a certain time frame then a heat neutral mech - after a certain time frame you overheat, and the heat neutral mech quickly catches up.

Your goal in building a mech is to deal enough damage to kill your enemy before you overheat. If you deal less than that, you die in shut down against a cooler build, but if you can deal enough damage, you would win against any cooler build (provided heat values and weight values were properly balanced), and only a mech that is even hotter has a chance to beat you.
You don't just fight your own mirror build, of course, so sometimes you have to deal with tougher targets than yourself (where you might need to be cooler if you don't want to overheat before the enemy is hurt) and weaker (where you want to be really fast in taking them down so they can't do too much harm and you can afford to overheat sooner.)


That is basically the straight "we brawl each other to death and no one leaves before all enemies are killed" situation.

A sniper can go even hotter - he doesn't have to deal deadly amounts of damage. He needs to deal lots of damage in a short period of time and then runs into cover to cool off. A cooler "counter sniper" that delivers less damage in this window of opportunity will lose a sniper duel and only has a chance if he actively plays against the sniper role (and forces his enemy to do the same, e.g. neither side being able to run into cover).
To counter a sniper, you are often better off with getting a brawler type mech to him so he can't run into cover and overheats constantly while the brawler delivers sustained DPS and beats the sniper.

Skirmishers/STrikers have a similar heat consideration as snipers - they can afford to get very hot quickly, because they won't stick around. They use superior speed to gain distance and move into cover. Being heat neutral would be wasteful.
For Skirmisher vs Skirmisher battles, things look a bit different - you won't easily run into cover if your enemy is similar fast, so in this scenario, a cooler skirmisher may prevail.


The current mechanics works relatively well for the sniper, because they don't need to worry about sustainability. But it's actually "too good" for the sniper, because something like the Quad PPC Stalker can deliver medium or less destroying alpha strikes before overheating, and can cripple heavy or assaults, too - and that is without considering the cooling pauses snipers can get.

This is just one subset of the PPC sniper meta. There are other aspects, like pinpoint precision, or lack of viable short range weapon options (the buff to SRMs helped here, not sure if sufficient or not.)

But the important message regarding the heat system: Don't fear heat neutral builds. The entire heat and weapon system is build around trade-offs. If you want more firepower, you will need to spend more weight on weapons and produce more heat. Weapons that don't produce much heat are heavier, in the end you ever make the decision between trading off between spending your weight on raw firepower, or spending it on sustainable firepower, and if you actually manage to balance the weapons correctly, there will never be a single, easy answer, even if it is possible to build heat neutral mechs.

I just qu. OP because he is right.

Do not consider this as a bump. I just want to express my opinion and I think in my opinion, this thread should be @ page 1.