105 replies to this topic

[Ransack]

Quote

To answer the question, I would say yes. The problem is that none of us know what they are talking about and their explanations make it worse.

[focuspark]

The answer to the title is "No."

[Prezimonto]

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 September 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

How about something like this:

-All engine heatsinks (SHS and DHS) add 1.5 capacity and cooling.
-Each additional SHS adds +1 cap and cooling.
-Each DHS get 2.0 cap and cooling.

These changes give both systems an equivalent baseline, so the weight and space tradeoffs actually matter. If you lots of space but are already running heavy, you use DHS. If you've got spare tonnage but are running out of space, you use singles.

I could get behind this. Give every mech stock engine heat sinks... make them whatever number you need to keep things sort of balanced... then single vs. double are ONLY for the external. If you get a bigger engine that can mount extra engine heat sinks you get extra engine heat sinks... not singles or doubles.

Essentially you make a non-table top category of heat sink.... but it would work okay in the name of balance.

Also this is essentially what Mustrum proposed up top, just less heat penalty severe.

Also of a note... I don't support increased threshold(certainly not the 1.5/2.0 numbers), certainly not the double increased threshold on double heat sinks vs. single.

[Kaldor]

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 September 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

How about something like this:

-All engine heatsinks (SHS and DHS) add 1.5 capacity and cooling.
-Each additional SHS adds +1 cap and cooling.
-Each DHS get 2.0 cap and cooling.

These changes give both systems an equivalent baseline, so the weight and space tradeoffs actually matter. If you lots of space but are already running heavy, you use DHS. If you've got spare tonnage but are running out of space, you use singles.

No

Why? Heat cap is bad. This is the problem and allows players to alpha fire very large weapons repeatedly. There simply is not enough dissipation in this game.

If SHS had 2-2.5 times the dissipation they had now, but with a 30 (33/36 with skills) point heat cap, there would be no issues. You could run SHS in almost every build with no issues. Suddenly stock mech designs would viable. There would need to be some balancing done, as very heavy energy builds need to have some downside.

Look at a typical Jenner F with 6 MLs, it functions pretty well even with the current DHS system, creating 24 heat per firing. Now look past that, and pretend that DHS truly were double dissipation (2.0). It would be even better. Now lets say SHS had the same cooling rate (2.0). The build wouldnt be quite heat neutral as there would be some residual heat after each alpha, but would play better than it does now.

Next let examine a Hunchy P. This is a canon laser boat, and firing all 9 MLs would create 36 heat, which is a bit hot. However, the 4P can load up somewhere between 16 and 18 total DHSs, with 6-8 of them outside the engine. Suddenly the mech actually works. Obviously this would require some testing, as this mech should probably not be allowed to alpha 9 MLs over and over again, with no penalty. This means DHS cooling rate for 18 DHS would need to be slightly less that the highest heat this mech could create.

How knows, the devs might be about right, and the number for DHS may need to be 1.5 times the value of SHS. SHS value is just not high enough and there is the start of the problems.

This would require testing, but these basic numbers have been laid out a hundred f_cking times on these forums by lots of gents smarter than me. The devs prefer to keep their heads in the sand....

[focuspark]

Ransack, on 23 September 2013 - 12:37 PM, said:

To answer the question, I would say yes. The problem is that none of us know what they are talking about and their explanations make it worse.

Ye of too much faith. At what point did PGI ever show they had a clue about balance. The only "good idea" they've ever had was making pin-point weapons (aka lasers) have a burn time to make them balanced against flight time weapons (ballistics, PPC, SRM) was taken from MechWarrior Living Legends. PGI has no idea how to design for balance. See UAC5 vs AC5, ECM, SSRM2 vs SRM2, and the list goes on and on and on.

Kaldor, on 23 September 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

No

Why? Heat cap is bad. This is the problem and allows players to alpha fire very large weapons repeatedly. There simply is not enough dissipation in this game.

If SHS had 2-2.5 times the dissipation they had now, but with a 30 (33/36 with skills) point heat cap, there would be no issues. You could run SHS in almost every build with no issues. Suddenly stock mech designs would viable. There would need to be some balancing done, as very heavy energy builds need to have some downside.

Look at a typical Jenner F with 6 MLs, it functions pretty well even with the current DHS system, creating 24 heat per firing. Now look past that, and pretend that DHS truly were double dissipation (2.0). It would be even better. Now lets say SHS had the same cooling rate (2.0). The build wouldnt be quite heat neutral as there would be some residual heat after each alpha, but would play better than it does now.

Next let examine a Hunchy P. This is a canon laser boat, and firing all 9 MLs would create 36 heat, which is a bit hot. However, the 4P can load up somewhere between 16 and 18 total DHSs, with 6-8 of them outside the engine. Suddenly the mech actually works. Obviously this would require some testing, as this mech should probably not be allowed to alpha 9 MLs over and over again, with no penalty. This means DHS cooling rate for 18 DHS would need to be slightly less that the highest heat this mech could create.

How knows, the devs might be about right, and the number for DHS may need to be 1.5 times the value of SHS. SHS value is just not high enough and there is the start of the problems.

This would require testing, but these basic numbers have been laid out a hundred f_cking times on these forums by lots of gents smarter than me. The devs prefer to keep their heads in the sand....

Heat cap isn't bad. It models TT closer and that's what they're going for.

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 September 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

How about something like this:

-All engine heatsinks (SHS and DHS) add 1.5 capacity and cooling.
-Each additional SHS adds +1 cap and cooling.
-Each DHS get 2.0 cap and cooling.

These changes give both systems an equivalent baseline, so the weight and space tradeoffs actually matter. If you lots of space but are already running heavy, you use DHS. If you've got spare tonnage but are running out of space, you use singles.

This is identical to the idea I've been posting for several months now. So, yeah: I like it.

I've also advocated for allowing mixing of SHS and DHS if this model is accepted.

[Xanquil]

The sad thing is that the 1.4 from DHSs make the game seem closer to what the game should be at with just SHSs. The heat cap needs to be divided between cap (1 per SHS, 2per DHS) and overheat (15 fixed) the cap can be modified by perks but not the overheat. that way they can make singles 1.4+ and doubles 2x that. Unfortunately that still wouldn't get rid of ghost heat, but it is a start.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Kaldor, on 23 September 2013 - 12:56 PM, said:

No

Why? Heat cap is bad. This is the problem and allows players to alpha fire very large weapons repeatedly. There simply is not enough dissipation in this game.

If SHS had 2-2.5 times the dissipation they had now, but with a 30 (33/36 with skills) point heat cap, there would be no issues. You could run SHS in almost every build with no issues. Suddenly stock mech designs would viable. There would need to be some balancing done, as very heavy energy builds need to have some downside.

Look at a typical Jenner F with 6 MLs, it functions pretty well even with the current DHS system, creating 24 heat per firing. Now look past that, and pretend that DHS truly were double dissipation (2.0). It would be even better. Now lets say SHS had the same cooling rate (2.0). The build wouldnt be quite heat neutral as there would be some residual heat after each alpha, but would play better than it does now.

Next let examine a Hunchy P. This is a canon laser boat, and firing all 9 MLs would create 36 heat, which is a bit hot. However, the 4P can load up somewhere between 16 and 18 total DHSs, with 6-8 of them outside the engine. Suddenly the mech actually works. Obviously this would require some testing, as this mech should probably not be allowed to alpha 9 MLs over and over again, with no penalty. This means DHS cooling rate for 18 DHS would need to be slightly less that the highest heat this mech could create.

How knows, the devs might be about right, and the number for DHS may need to be 1.5 times the value of SHS. SHS value is just not high enough and there is the start of the problems.

This would require testing, but these basic numbers have been laid out a hundred f_cking times on these forums by lots of gents smarter than me. The devs prefer to keep their heads in the sand....

I'm not sure you understand what I was suggesting.

Let's take your example with the Hunchback 4P. My current build runs 9 ML with 18 DHS, for a total of 31.2 cooling, with 20 from the engine (10 x 2.0) and (11.2) from the external heatsinks at 8 x 1.4. With my suggested system, it would get 15 cooling from the engine sinks (10 x 1.5) and 16 from the externals (8 x 2.0), for a total of 31. This would actually be a nerf to any builds that carry less than 19 DHS outside the engine.

[Ransack]

focuspark, on 23 September 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Ye of too much faith. At what point did PGI ever show they had a clue about balance.

woah now. I didn't say that. they had a clue. I said that they know what they are talking about. It's in a secret code that makes sense only to them. I base that on this quote

daemur, on 04 September 2013 - 01:18 PM, said:

FupDup - I totally know what I'm doing .

daemur

which comes from the AC2 alpha heat penalty thread. The same thread that says Alpha penalty, but the penalty is not on alpha striking.


Secret code man, secret code....

Edited by Ransack, 23 September 2013 - 02:36 PM.

[focuspark]

Ransack, on 23 September 2013 - 02:32 PM, said:

Secret code man, secret code....

The code known as "BS". It's a fake it 'till you make it mentality. It's rampant in the games industry.

That said, MWO is still one of the best FPS available - too bad PGI is so content to let it "just be" because it could be so much more.

[OneEyed Jack]

Lightfoot, on 23 September 2013 - 12:29 PM, said:

MWo doesn't support Energy based mechs already. The stock AWS-9M blows itself up in about 10-15 seconds of firing it's main weapons. In Battletech it could fire 9 salvos of 3xERPPC's before missing a turn to cool down. Before anything else is done with Heat and heatsinks PGI needs to make the stock AWS-9M work close to it's Battletech stats.

MWO just uses heat as a balancing crutch. It makes no sense to so severely limit energy loadouts while letting AC's fire at 2x normal recharges. They need to just get rid of 2x Recharge and create a more balanced game. Certainly they need to dial down the heat nerfs.

Seriously?

OK, first of all, the stock 9M cannot fire for 9 straight turns without stopping/slowing to cool. Just firing it's ERPPCs, and not moving, it gains 5 heat per turn. That means that on the 6th consecutive turn it will auto-shutdown (6 x 5 = 30). And that's assuming it didn't already shut down from one of the previous shutdown tests or blow itself up with a 100-damage ammo explosion. Even if it can manage to avoid all that, it's targeting gets more and more screwed the longer it goes, making it actually less efficient to keep firing like that than it would be to cool a bit. The reasonable way to keep up steady fire is to alternate firing 3 ERPPCS with firing only 2, completely cooling the mech every other turn and preventing heat modifiers from becoming an issue.

Secondly, that mech is only firing each of those guns once every 10 seconds. If one were to fire like that, the MWO mech could operate just as steadily as the TT version, There's a tiny loss in cooling, but I think it's more than made up for by the fact that (due to heat) the ammo will never explode, the mech will never slow down, and targeting will never be compromised. If one chooses to fire faster, one lives with the consequences, the same as every other build in the game.

Awesomes are far from the only mechs whose efficiency would be very different on a 10-second scale.

Thirdly, all weapons fire faster, not just ACs. When energy weapons weigh twice as much and require additional tonnage in explosive ammo, then we can talk about how heat limits your ability to maintain fire rates.

Mawai, on 23 September 2013 - 07:47 AM, said:

Before they make any such changes I would suggest that they do extensive and comprehensive testing of a wide range of mechs and builds.

This part made me chuckle.

You must be new here.

Edited by OneEyed Jack, 23 September 2013 - 04:23 PM.

[MustrumRidcully]

Quote

Thirdly, all weapons fire faster, not just ACs. When energy weapons weigh twice as much and require additional tonnage in explosive ammo, then we can talk about how heat limits your ability to maintain fire rates.

Imagine what would happen if in Battletech, you had the option to fire each weapon twice per turn.

Would you pick an AC/10, that gives you 10 more damage for 3 more heat?
Or would you pick a PPC, that gives you 10 more damage for 10 heat?

The choice becomes pretty clear.

But this isn't table top. There aren't heat penalties. And yo udon't have random hit locations.

So the question is more: How much damage can I press into my heat threshold and bring on the enemies CT before I shut down?

And that was essentialy why Quad PPCs Stalkers were so attractive - you could fire about 3-4 alphas (depending on mech efficiencs) before you overheated, you did it with fast projectiles that deliver all damage at once, so no spread from failing to maintain a "laser lock", and the projectiles converged on target. That's 90 to 120 damage before you shut down (enough to destroy mediums, and cripple heavies and assaults). That's 40 damage for which you probably only need a 1-2 second window to aim and deliver it to a target before you run to cover.

PGI is scared of heat neutral builds, but they don't realize that the best builds have never been about heat neutrality, but delivering enough damage to damage or cripple an enemy before you shutdown or are back to safety. Burst damage is good.

I didn't understand this myself either. When I started in Closed Beta, I thought "Great, a game without healing! That means burst damage isn't king!" But I was wrong, burst damage can still be great, as long as its enough damage to cripple and destroy mechs. And if you can't do it alone, you still have to mind the team - if the burst of one mech isn't enough to finish off one mech, the burst of two might - and an early kill against an enemy that doesn't deliver burst damage but focuses on sustained damage is great. The sustained damage advantage only comes into play if you have time, which a destroyed mech doesn't have, so now the survivor must deal a sustained DPS that can overcome the burst damage of 2 mechs...

In the table top, relying on burst can be a bit more risky. Heat penalties come into play, and with random hit locations you can't be sure you actually spread your damage effectively. That in essence means that burst damage is effectively lower than it looks at first - 20 damage to one hit location is better than 30 damage spread evenly across 3, and it comes with penalties.

But still - many Clan Mechs are "bursty" in their design - low armor, lots of firepower, but not necessarily heat neutral. That might be no coincidence. It helps that they have ridicilously good pilots and targeting computers which can negate a lot of the uncertainities otherwise inherent in the game system. But hey, no one claimed that the Clans were balanced...

[Kaldor]

Kaeb Odellas, on 23 September 2013 - 02:17 PM, said:

I'm not sure you understand what I was suggesting.

Let's take your example with the Hunchback 4P. My current build runs 9 ML with 18 DHS, for a total of 31.2 cooling, with 20 from the engine (10 x 2.0) and (11.2) from the external heatsinks at 8 x 1.4. With my suggested system, it would get 15 cooling from the engine sinks (10 x 1.5) and 16 from the externals (8 x 2.0), for a total of 31. This would actually be a nerf to any builds that carry less than 19 DHS outside the engine.

No I understood. The issue is that we are dealing with a system that roughly uses TT values or less in the case of DHS, but have fire rates 2-5 times greater. Then we have this gigantic heat cap that allows repeated alpha firing which creates some very real balance issues.

Heat cap that it based on how many heatsinks you have needs to be removed and then a much lower heat cap that is a static number only effected by piloting skills needs to be put in place. SHS should be adequate to cool a stock build mech, but they are not even close. DHS at the current value of 1.4 should be the baseline SHS value. Then DHS should be around 2.5-2.8 give or take.

The balancing also has to be done in a way that prevent very hot builds from attaining heat neutrality. The Hunch 4P would be one of those examples.

[Kaldor]

focuspark, on 23 September 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

Heat cap isn't bad. It models TT closer and that's what they're going for.

We are at such a large departure from TT on a multitude of values at this point do you think it really matters?

You say this:

focuspark, on 23 September 2013 - 01:00 PM, said:

At what point did PGI ever show they had a clue about balance.

And that is exactly my concern. PGI clearly has no clue on how to balance the game. We have seen it from all the broken cr_p that keeps getting pushed out. The huge heat caps that are attainable in this game are one of the things that is breaking the game. It allows repeated alpha firing, combined with pin point accuracy, that creates some real problems. Do you ever think we would have seen the problems with the PPC meta, and needed changes such as Ghost Heat if you could just not physically fire more than 2-3 PPCs at a time without chainfire. It would also quell any ridiculous conversations about CoF mechanics.

Read this closely:

Set the heat at 30 (33/36 effective with skills)
Double current dissipation rate
Tweak heat values to balance

[B1zmark]

This thread is titled as a flame towards PGI but 90% of the posts are from people who don't understand the current Meta (or even what a 'metagame' entails outside of random Pug's. In fact most of them don't even understand what the word actually means.). Or they don't understand competitive game balance in an online game and, most importantly, TT is in no way transferable to a 3D game in any way other than structure + IP fundamentals.

The irony of the title I hope is not lost on the OP.

Basiaclly dice rolls are replaced by manual piloting (e.g. skill) - and a random chance for things to go wrong leads to a bad game when dice rolls are done automatically by a game-engine. So please, stop arguing tabletop. The Mech models and the names of things are all that can be the same if you want a successful game, i've seen numerous TT games i love go to full 3D games and the closer they try to be to TT, the worse the live-action gameplay is.

That being said, DHS are entirely un-necesary. Hot running, high alpha weapons are still far to prevalent as it stands. There is a reason when you queue 12 man's that most successful teams run 50%-80% PPC builds. Coordinated burst damage is, without a doubt, the easiest and most reliable way to drop an opposing team.

Machine guns would be much more attractive in a world where you couldn't fire you lasers on cooldown for up to 30 seconds, DHS and heat dissapation is the sole reason that games are so fast. People argue they want a more tactical, slow paced game? Well you're going to have to say good-bye to your constant stream of fire or, if you would rather keep spamming, face a massive drop the damage of ALL weapons or increase ALL mech armor.

heat is the most skilful way of achieving what most people want. DHS are mandatory at the moment in any mech build - even those with nothing but internal engine HS's. That's not a choice, it's not skill, it's a boring cash grind for new players and an aggravation for veterans who want to play a strategy that doesn't involve fire support and scouts making up 100% of their team.

[Joseph Mallan]

stjobe, on 23 September 2013 - 11:33 AM, said:

As long as us lights get the same benefit as the heavier 'mechs (currently we get short-changed on DHS since we often mount sub-250 engines, and don't get the full complement of 2.0 in-engine DHS) I'm all for it.

As an example of the above, my Commandos regularly run with XL195 engines; these come with 7 heat sinks. Now one cannot drop with 7 heat sinks, so I have to put an additional 3 in - but those are 1.4 DHS.

So instead of 20 SHS equivalents, I get 18.2 (7*2 + 3*1.4). Perhaps not the biggest of differences, but still a very unnecessary difference.

Agreed. the first 10 sinks should all be the same. They are NOT after market installs they are the basic Sinks that MUST come with the engine. Its why Its stupid to have 2 types of double sinks. Actual doubles and craptastic 1.4 sinks.

Double which the DEVs laughingly tried to change to dual, in a post I once read, are by every definition twice somhing... and to my joy dual is the first alternative to double!!!

Edited by Joseph Mallan, 24 September 2013 - 05:32 AM.

[HammerSwarm]

I've always believed you should take any system design from an honest approach. I don't work in industry because after 2 years as a CS major and getting through all of the weeder classes designed to thin the heard I decided that I couldn't think of a worse fate than being a computer programmer for the rest of my life.

single heat sinks are what mechs start with
double heat sinks are an upgrade that is twice as good

Now you have to design a system where both heat sinks are viable.

Many on the forums have designed better systems than the current one, but sitting down and reworking them with a focus on making both heat sinks viable would be a good start for PGI.

If you are looking to make DHS a clear upgrade, why have single heatsinks?
If you're not looking to make SHS obsolete are DHS necessary?
If they are to coexist does each have a role? if so what is that role?
Is the current system the best system to achieve parity among heat sinks?

Edited by HammerSwarm, 24 September 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[Der_Goetz]

i don´t understand what the problem is with the difference between heat dissipation and heat capacity. SHS are suited for heat capacity and DHS are bette for dissipation. With that there are no problems.

The engine HS are single and the external DHS are upgrades. So the Stockmechs are still useful but not overpowered. The mechs can to use SHS or DHS can categorisized by their weapon load out and their role. Scouts don´t need a good heat dissipation cause they can run away and brawlers need a good because the stand in a fight and muss fire a lot weapons. But then not all at once but chain fired or single used.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Kaldor, on 24 September 2013 - 04:24 AM, said:

No I understood. The issue is that we are dealing with a system that roughly uses TT values or less in the case of DHS, but have fire rates 2-5 times greater. Then we have this gigantic heat cap that allows repeated alpha firing which creates some very real balance issues.

Heat cap that it based on how many heatsinks you have needs to be removed and then a much lower heat cap that is a static number only effected by piloting skills needs to be put in place. SHS should be adequate to cool a stock build mech, but they are not even close. DHS at the current value of 1.4 should be the baseline SHS value. Then DHS should be around 2.5-2.8 give or take.

The balancing also has to be done in a way that prevent very hot builds from attaining heat neutrality. The Hunch 4P would be one of those examples.

I wasn't even talking about heat cap. I just wanted to reverse the engine heatsink situation so that SHS are better and actually have some positives and DHS is no longer an overwhelmingly superior upgrade.

If you dislike heat cap, you could keep do this (tweak numbers as needed):

Each Mech starts at 30 base heat cap
Each SHS adds +.1 cooling rate and +1 heat capacity
Each DHS adds +.2 cooling rate but does not increase heat capacity
Each Engine heatsink is 1.5x as effective as external heatsinks (.15 cooling + cap for singles, +.30 cooling for DHS)


With these numbers, double heatsinks are now far more effective at cooling down your mech. At 14 DHS (3.8 heat cooled per second) an ERPPC would be completely heat neutral. However, you are now strictly capped at 30 heat, so you if you fire 2 of them at once without efficiencies on a you're cooked. DHS would be great for low-alpha, sustained-fire builds.

Single heatsinks, on the other hand, would allow you a bigger alpha, but would half as effective at cooling you down. With 14 SHS, you only remove 1.9 heat per second, which is still better than they are now, so it now takes you almost 8 seconds to cool a single ERPPC, but with a heat cap of 49, you could fire three of them without shutting down, though it will take you almost 24 seconds to dump all of that heat. This would be ideal for fire support or quick high-alpha strikers.

These numbers are just a placeholder of course. You can tweak them to balance the two systems, but the concept behind it is sound.

After making a change like this, of course, you should also remove the requirement to pay to switch between systems every time, as that's just annoying and stifles creativity. Same with Endo and FF.

[Kaldor]

Kaeb Odellas, on 24 September 2013 - 06:40 AM, said:

I wasn't even talking about heat cap. I just wanted to reverse the engine heatsink situation so that SHS are better and actually have some positives and DHS is no longer an overwhelmingly superior upgrade.

If you dislike heat cap, you could keep do this (tweak numbers as needed):

Each Mech starts at 30 base heat cap
Each SHS adds +.1 cooling rate and +1 heat capacity
Each DHS adds +.2 cooling rate but does not increase heat capacity
Each Engine heatsink is 1.5x as effective as external heatsinks (.15 cooling + cap for singles, +.30 cooling for DHS)


With these numbers, double heatsinks are now far more effective at cooling down your mech. At 14 DHS (3.8 heat cooled per second) an ERPPC would be completely heat neutral. However, you are now strictly capped at 30 heat, so you if you fire 2 of them at once without efficiencies on a you're cooked. DHS would be great for low-alpha, sustained-fire builds.

Single heatsinks, on the other hand, would allow you a bigger alpha, but would half as effective at cooling you down. With 14 SHS, you only remove 1.9 heat per second, which is still better than they are now, so it now takes you almost 8 seconds to cool a single ERPPC, but with a heat cap of 49, you could fire three of them without shutting down, though it will take you almost 24 seconds to dump all of that heat. This would be ideal for fire support or quick high-alpha strikers.

These numbers are just a placeholder of course. You can tweak them to balance the two systems, but the concept behind it is sound.

After making a change like this, of course, you should also remove the requirement to pay to switch between systems every time, as that's just annoying and stifles creativity. Same with Endo and FF.

Excellent post. All in all, I just think that having a very high heat cap is a bad thing.

Perhaps a change to .5 cap per SHS would be better, but increase the dissipation of the SHS so stock mechs are not a heat coffin. No heat cap gains for DHS, but vastly improved dissipation.

Also what could be examined is true heat reductions when a group of weapons is in chain fire mode. Maybe as much as 20%? Right now there is no real bonus to using chainfire. This way you could run 3 ERPPCs at 15 heat, but when chain fired they only create 12 heat per weapon with a 20% reduction. This would stave off some of the big alpha firing issues we have, plus spread damage around some so they would not have to look into solutions such as CoF systems.

[focuspark]

The "engines = 15 EHS, SHS = 1 EHS, and DHS = 2 EHS" conversations are pretty much spot on. Minor number tweaking aside, I think we all agree it's better than the unbalanced cr_ap we have now.

As for the heat containment discussions, the concept of heat sinks adding heat containment goes as follows: under TT rules (yeah I know, this isn't TT) a mech with 10 SHS would fire a PPC and at the end of his/her turn have 0 heat with no penalties applied. To make this work in MWO, the 10 SHS need to "nullify" the heat immediately then dissipate it over time.

So think of heat sinks as a two fold operation:

1. Heat sinks, um..., sink the heat away immediately until they're "full"
2. Heat sinks dissipate the heat over 10 seconds.

This mean heat sinks should soak their EHS value in heat immediately. This is done with current game mechanics by raising the heat threshold before shutdown of the mech.

All that said, we need intermediate heat penalties. My suggestions would be at 25% heat cap mechs start suffering AC/2 level screen shake, at 50% AC/5 level screen shake, and at 75%+ AC/20 level screen shake. This should get people to stop over heating and pay attention.

* EHS = effective heat sinks, or the value of the heat sink as measure against standard/single heat sinks.