48 replies to this topic

[Bront]

The problem is that dissipation needs to be better, rather than capacity being the key thing HS give you. With better dissipation, SHS would be more viable.

Seriously, I couldn't run a commando with an SMR6 and a ML without overheating, which is nuts, as that should be just fine with SHS.

But apparently neutral heat builds are OP.

[Joseph Mallan]

I would be happy with Heat manageable. Your Commando example is a perfect one. 7 heat-10 Sinks... -3 heat!!! per turn! The length of a turn stayed TT while the fire rate was changed to a failed spin off rule set!

[focuspark]

Cimarb, on 26 September 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

You totally miss my point, so I will elaborate. Technology advances and replaces itself endlessly. Double heat sinks would not have been made if they did not improve on the original single heat sinks. ER PPCs would not have been made if PPCs had a long enough range to begin with. A car would not have been made if a horse could run fast enough. Fuel injection would not have been created if carborateurs were "better".

That being said, single heat sinks DO have a purpose, or at least should, because they are cheaper to manufacture/buy and take up less space per sink, albeit with significantly worse performance. It should be a trade off, yes, but DHS are "better" at heat dissipation, which was my meaning in the context of my post.

Honestly, I don't understand why we can't use both in the same mech. If I only have space to jam a couple singles in my legs, but have the room for bigger ones in my torso, why can't I? Having the DHS cost significantly more on a sink-to-sink basis would be a great fix for the cost issue, but the heat scale itself is really what needs fixed. Everything else is just a band-aid...

This is a game, not real life. Technological evolution needs to be handled through that lens. I understand where you're coming from, but with the lens of competitive online gaming applied: you are incorrect sir.

[SchwarzerPeter]

If SHS serves no prupose you can simply remove them. Just make all the mechs 1,5mio CB more expensive. Anybody upgrades it anyway, so why bother? It may saves some newcomers some trouble.

All other items are pretty balanced right now. But the SHS are just inverior to DHS in any way.
Maybe they are desinged that way in TT, but they need not in a computergame.
You don't need low tier items in a multyplayer shooter, if the higher tier is in all ways better with no drawback.
It just makes the game harder to balance, gives new players a hard time getting into the game and cost manpower to create.
So ultimately it just costs you a lot of money, just for an item nobody wants.

[Baba Yogi]

Problem is heat sinks' efficiency is less than half of what it was in TT. If every weapon fired every 5 seconds with same values then dhs' would be as effective as TT single heat sinks. Since cds are even lower they are even worse than that. Which makes shs utter {Scrap}. This high cap low dissipation heat system needs to change first to give shs' a chance. THey are quite viable in TT.

[Anti ARMD]

They said they balance everything around DHS... there isn't going to be anything that will make them revisit SHS in the longrun because their balancing for the game as it is...

[Cimarb]

focuspark, on 26 September 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

This is a game, not real life. Technological evolution needs to be handled through that lens. I understand where you're coming from, but with the lens of competitive online gaming applied: you are incorrect sir.

Just because it is a game does not mean we have to make things up for the heck of it, though. You should apply at PGI with that thought process, because it is exactly where ghost heat and all of these other silly mechanics came from.

Let me use in game examples since you don't like my real-life ones: Why would you ever use a "normal" PPC over the ER PPC? The ER PPC shoots farther, meaning it is better for longer ranges, does not have a minimum range, meaning it is better for closer ranges, weighs the same and takes up the same amount of space. So, therefore, it is by far the better weapon, right? It is a technological advancement over the "normal" version. The PPC is still useful, though, because it generates roughly half of the heat. So, for those concerned more with heat management than range, the "normal" PPC is vastly better. They both have their uses, depending on your goals.

This is not the case with the DHS/SHS relationship, though. There is no situation where SHS are more useful than DHS, and this should be changed. If not, at least let us purchase them individually and use both within the same chassis or remove SHS completely.

[focuspark]

Cimarb, on 27 September 2013 - 11:59 AM, said:

Just because it is a game does not mean we have to make things up for the heck of it, though. You should apply at PGI with that thought process, because it is exactly where ghost heat and all of these other silly mechanics came from.

Let me use in game examples since you don't like my real-life ones: Why would you ever use a "normal" PPC over the ER PPC? The ER PPC shoots farther, meaning it is better for longer ranges, does not have a minimum range, meaning it is better for closer ranges, weighs the same and takes up the same amount of space. So, therefore, it is by far the better weapon, right? It is a technological advancement over the "normal" version. The PPC is still useful, though, because it generates roughly half of the heat. So, for those concerned more with heat management than range, the "normal" PPC is vastly better. They both have their uses, depending on your goals.

This is not the case with the DHS/SHS relationship, though. There is no situation where SHS are more useful than DHS, and this should be changed. If not, at least let us purchase them individually and use both within the same chassis or remove SHS completely.

Ahh, see you just did what I'm advocating: you balanced the two components via some useful game mechanic. One is not a clear advancement over the other. ERPPC does have better range (min & max) but it runs hot. Therefore there is a trade off.

With SHS vs DHS there's no trade off. Upgrade to DHS it doubles your heat dissipation. There's no need to actually add heat sinks to your 'mech so no extra space it taken up. The 10 "free" heat sinks in the engine suddenly are twice as good at no cost.

... and no, C-Bill costs do not count. Therefore there are no downsides to DHS and the 1.5 million is just a mandatory tax on any newly acquired chassis. Which is probably a game design decision because the devs want to encourage more people to grind and provided targets for each other. Even so, it doesn't make it a good game design choice.

[Cimarb]

focuspark, on 27 September 2013 - 03:17 PM, said:

Ahh, see you just did what I'm advocating: you balanced the two components via some useful game mechanic. One is not a clear advancement over the other. ERPPC does have better range (min & max) but it runs hot. Therefore there is a trade off.

With SHS vs DHS there's no trade off. Upgrade to DHS it doubles your heat dissipation. There's no need to actually add heat sinks to your 'mech so no extra space it taken up. The 10 "free" heat sinks in the engine suddenly are twice as good at no cost.

... and no, C-Bill costs do not count. Therefore there are no downsides to DHS and the 1.5 million is just a mandatory tax on any newly acquired chassis. Which is probably a game design decision because the devs want to encourage more people to grind and provided targets for each other. Even so, it doesn't make it a good game design choice.

I agree with you for the most part, but you are ignoring the disadvantage of external DHS, which is space. They provide significantly better heat capacity and better heat dissipation, but take up three times the space. Now, the ones in the engine obviously ignore this disadvantage and throw everything out of wack, and I totally agree with you on those ones. Lazy design is what is causing that issue.

I'm not sure how we got so distracted with that subtle disagreement... Here was what I was getting at before we derailed:

Cimarb, on 26 September 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

The entire issue with the heat system is that it is DESIGNED to allow a high rate of alpha spamming. I have read PGIs reasoning behind it, and totally disagree. It is their game, so whatever, but it is still the wrong way to do it.

Heat capacity should be capped at 30, or whatever number they come up with, to allow ONE alpha strike when you are in an emergency. Heat dissipation should then be good enough to allow you to continue cycling weapons (slowly) while your heat dissipates (relatively quickly) so you can alpha again in a minute or so. At no time should firing ANY single weapon make you overheat, even if you are firing it every cooldown. Chain firing multiple weapons within that cooldown, of course, should make you overheat eventually if you have more heat generating than your dissipation can handle.

Having the heat capacity fixed, or increased minutely per heat sink, and focusing more on heat DISSIPATION instead, will make heat management more important and extend fights greatly. When clan mechs come out, that balance may need tweaking, but the basic concept is much more scalable and manageable than the current joke of a system. Then, they can start focusing on the real issue with alphas: accuracy.

Edited by Cimarb, 27 September 2013 - 03:46 PM.