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1. A Shutdown was inherently illogical engineering. It didn't do squat to manage heat on a mech- it just gets you killed. It prevented you from making MORE heat by shooting, is all. Which the safety mechanism should do by preventing you from shooting alone, not stopping movement.
2. The mechanism doesn't give you very effective warning. That is, you will get the "CRITICAL" alarm when firing the next weapon actually isn't enough to be a problem at all. Conversely, with high-heat weapons, you can potentially go into Overheat with no warning. It is hard to read numbers and calculate the meaning before firing, that's what a system alarm is FOR. The alarm is meaningless as it doesn't mean you're "good" if it's not ringing and doesn't always actually mean critical when it says "critical".
3. The Override cannot effectively be commanded by the user with consistency. It turns off after a short while without user input. If you want it, you have to keep pressing it... CONSTANTLY, and this is usually most relevant in heavy firefights where it's hard to keep mashing it on a fixed schedule. Otherwise Shutdown suddenly hits when you thought you had it Overridden, and get stomped. Story of my life here. It's too tedious to use consistently.
Now it makes far LESS sense, with 2 additional developments:
1. Your mech will be damaged the same by heat alone, regardless of whether or not you've done a Shutdown. The Shutdown protects you from nothing so you might as well Override.
2. The upshot in heat surges from Heat Scaling and "enhanced" heat on some weapons make the warnings or lack thereof MORE irrelevant.
I'm saying the sensible mechanism that would work within the mechanics are:
1. The mech should not let you shoot IF the next shot will put you into the Heat Damage range.
2. Override will allow you to shoot and accept Heat Damage, and has nothing to do with Shutdown.
3. There's just no point to an automated Shutdown. Seems like it has to go away.
I know #3 is a problem because it conflicts with established MW mechanics. But that's the direction the other rules current in-place require. You'd have to make a place for it in the mechanics. e.g.:
Thermal damage will not occur if Shutdown is used. Only incapacity.
OR
Shutdown cools at an elevated rate, minimizing Heat Damage, at the expense of incapacity.
But then the user interface has THREE options, not two:
1. Don't let me take Heat Damage or incapacity of Shutdown.
2. I will accept incapacity of Shutdown, maybe instead of Heat Damage, maybe at just reduced Heat Damage.
3. I will accept Heat Damage but do not accept the incapacity of Shutdown.
I don't know how to manage these options in the user interface, but the current mechanic is just broken into a nuisance that gives unnecessary warnings and yet doesn't prevent Heat Damage in any logical way. The system has a computer and could easily calculate whether the Alpha Strike is gonna cause Heat Damage or not and lockout that fire button unless Override is used. That's consistent with the engineering.
I don't see the place for a Heat Level Critical alarm... because it doesn't know what you WANT to fire next, so it can't actually know if you're critical "for real" or not. Very little point in giving an alarm.
Edited by Oznog, 09 August 2013 - 10:41 AM.
