TripleEhBeef, on 25 September 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:
I consider an efficiency of 1.3 (game) to be the minimum you should shoot for. Anything lower, and you'll be constantly overheating on hot maps, especially since Therma and Tourmaline show up with alarming regularity whenever I play (Oddly, Caustic is pretty rare).
there isn't really any fixed value of cooling efficiency you should aim for. a lot depends on the weapons in question: my 9 ML hunchbro with an efficiency of 1.11 overheats much less than a dual PPC, 1.34 efficiency Blackjack, and that's because in the 4P I have much more control over whether I want to spike or stagger the heat while maintaining dps.
so to reply to the OP, if you're using high spike heat weapons such as pulse lasers, PPCs and LRMs, you want a minimum of 1.3; otherwise, you can get away with as low as 1.1 in most cases, but that kind of mechs usually require a better trigger discipline and forethought.