70 replies to this topic

[Satan n stuff]

Tesunie, on 03 November 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

As far as I understand the heat mechanic, the % your heat goes up from shooting does not change from map to map. Just the rate it drops (how fast it bleeds or cools off) and the starting % your heat scale will read at (like 6% on Caustic, 15% in the Crater of Caustic, and I think 10% for Terra Therma). Everything else remains the same and is a constant of the weapon itself.

Actually it does change between maps, this has been confirmed through testing. Your heat capacity is lowered on hot maps. Also since the heat buildup for lasers takes some time the difference for them tends to be greater as less heat will be lost during the shot on hot maps.

This is not an excuse for hitting a teammate. If you want to test your weapons, wait to see where everyone is going, turn away from any friendlies and shoot into the ground.

Also no matter what some people say do not test your weapons by shooting at the sky, the enemy will know exactly where you are if you do.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 07 November 2013 - 08:00 AM.

[Mechteric]

Step 1. point at ground
Step 2. ???
Step 3. ground erupts and lava destroys your mech

[Satan n stuff]

CapperDeluxe, on 07 November 2013 - 08:22 AM, said:

Step 1. point at ground
Step 2. ???
Step 3. ground erupts and lava destroys your mech

I've often wished for a volcanic eruption on certain maps. Not that I don't like those maps, I just think it would be awesome.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 07 November 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Tesunie]

Quote

Fut, on 07 November 2013 - 08:43 AM, said:




Your "Balanced Build" is all about the Alphas?
Your Alpha-Machine can handle anything?

This game makes me so sad sometimes.

I don't have Alpha-machine mechs. Did I say that? I run a lot of different styles. But, as a few examples...
I have a Thunderbolt set up with 2 PPCs and 3 Med Lasers. I will go to Therma to test the build. I at first fire my PPCs in Alpha mode till I overheat. If it can last for a while, it's good. Then I cool off, seeing how fast my mech cools standing still. Then, I chain fire those PPCs for a bit, seeing how that plays out. Then, I will Alpha with the 3 Med Lasers for a bit, see how hot that makes me and how fast my mech can cool those. Then, I get my mech hot (probably Alpha everything to simulate a "desperation" attack) and stay on the move to see what my dissipation is then. This testing lets me decide that I want to chain fire my PPCs for a longer and better cooling, but keep the med lasers bunched into an alpha, for those pests that get too close too fast. Need to cause damage quickly to them... All this is gleaned off playing just one map for a very short time. (I originally tested the mech with ERPPCs, but that was too hot and I couldn't get it to cool fast enough, so I changed to PPCs with some close range backup weapons.)

Then, I have a...
Quickdraw with 2 large and 4 med lasers. I found that this mech, following a very similar testing system as for the Thunderbolt, works best with the Large Lasers on one alpha, and the med lasers on a second alpha. I can cool down by spacing the shots between the systems (of course, shooting each weapon in it's ranges, so longer ranges means I run cooler). This means that I shoot my 2 large together, then I wait a bit and then shoot my med lasers if they are close enough. This keeps my damage steady on a target, and prevents me from shutting down. All tested on Caustic/Tormaline (hottest maps at the time).

Then I have a...
Quickdraw with 30 LRMs total, and 4 med lasers. Same testing, same idea. I can shoot everything I have with low risk of overheating, but I tend to shoot only one system or the other, due to how they work. I also chain fire my LRMs, as they can run me a little hot over a long run (and it's nice to shoot just one LRM system at a time, and not waste as much ammo of the lock goes sour). The mech can handle all med lasers running together for a while, so I leave them along as a single Alpha of their own.

I have a large variety of mechs and loadouts. I have played every weapon system in the game. They are all tested on Therma (or have been tested there as of recent) to see how they work on the most pressing of heat situations. They all run their heat scale in a similar, balanced manner. I don't tend to boat one weapon system (LRMs always come with some lasers or something for backup close combat weapons, etc). I try to run cool mechs. It is why I test them. This is why I test them on Terra Therma. After my testing rounds, I can go into battle with no fear. (I also tend to quickly get a feel for the mechs

Quote

Kekkone, on 07 November 2013 - 08:09 AM, said:



The answer is there in the first of my posts you quoted but you seemed to have missed it. It's not a mech, or the mech, it's 9 mechs. What changed from yesterday? Nothing. That question is irrelevant.

Have you actually memorized the percentage of heat generated, you know the stat i'm actually interested in, for your entire mech-stall? If so, congratulations! I've absolutely no need to memorize them all when i can test it at the start of the round.

Edited by Tesunie, 07 November 2013 - 06:28 PM.

[Tesunie]

Okay... after being "Logged out" again in the middle of my post, and it saving my post into the aether...

I don't memorize my exact heat percentage, but I quickly figure out how my heat scale feels on a mech in a match, with no test firing at the start needed.

Also, did any of those 9 mechs builds change in the last... however long it was? The question is kinda relevant, but I do understand what you mean. However, it shouldn't be hard to figure out how most of your builds will feel when they play and adjust yourself in mid match. (I've jumped into matches thinking I was in one mech, only to find I was in a different variant of that mech, with different weapons when it came to combat. I quickly compensated in the match. It all worked out well.)

(I had a better worded and more elaborate explanation, but...)

[Kekkone]

Tesunie, on 07 November 2013 - 06:37 PM, said:

Okay... after being "Logged out" again in the middle of my post, and it saving my post into the aether...

I don't memorize my exact heat percentage, but I quickly figure out how my heat scale feels on a mech in a match, with no test firing at the start needed.

Also, did any of those 9 mechs builds change in the last... however long it was? The question is kinda relevant, but I do understand what you mean. However, it shouldn't be hard to figure out how most of your builds will feel when they play and adjust yourself in mid match. (I've jumped into matches thinking I was in one mech, only to find I was in a different variant of that mech, with different weapons when it came to combat. I quickly compensated in the match. It all worked out well.)

(I had a better worded and more elaborate explanation, but...)

I get your point, and to be honest that's the way i roll most of the time. My former comments are a mix of my playstyle, and playing devils advocate. Played some games yesterday after a 2 month break, didn't test fire once. I was playing in "casual" mode, getting the feel for the game again. In that mental state it was enough for me to get the general feel of the mechs.

However i'd still like to point out why i took an interest in this thread:

1) The actual exact heat percentage. No one had pointed it out, and that is a factor i want to know when i'm in a full "win / give it (the match) 110%" mentality. It's my choice, my playstyle. Training grounds are too bothersome before every match, when switching to another mech. I could actually do it, but it's pointless when i can just fire my weapons at the start of the match without hitting anyone, or giving away any relevant positional information (hey guys the enemy team spawned at their base!).

2) The 1-dimensional view that everyone and anyone who test fires weapons at the start of the round, regardless of whether it hits or doesn't hit a friendly is, as one intellectual and academic individual before me put it, "nubcaque". This line of thinking is way more detrimental to the overall team effort than any test firing can ever be (friendly headshots aside).

What's this? Someone is shooting at MY spawn ground?! Well might as well surrender now, my team is full of noobs. Guess i'll Leeroy myself into the enemy team. Game over man! It's game over!


I understand the rage against friendly fire. In my personal experience though, it's very rare. I haven't been shot at spawn so many times that i'd actually call it a problem. I don't see many teamfights breaking out at spawn due to friendly fire. I just don't see it as an issue that is worth raising ones blood pressure for. I would wager that there are at least 20 times more disconnects putting your team at a disadvantage, than there are instances where friendly fire does it.

And even at that rate, test firing does not equal friendly fire, untill it hits

[Levon K]

Can't believe this is still an argument, but whatever.

You learn your heat management from combat experience. Whatever you believe you're learning by firing weapons at the start of the match is not effective for real combat situations. That's what I meant on page 1 of this thread by you think you're learning something about your mech, but you aren't.

If you're a new player, by all means, play with the weapons, everyone did it at some point in time.

Reason this is an issue, is because players that just callously fire weapons at the start of every match eventually end up hitting people by accident. Don't think this is true? 99.5% of matches I'm in, I hear people weapons checking at start. About 25% of those matches? Someone gets hit. And when someone gets hit, there's always an incident, whether it's words in chat, or retaliatory fire. You know what that means? You put an entire 12 person team at a disadvantage.

Do whatever you want. Some of us choose to be disciplined, and sometimes I forget how difficult that can be for the majority.

[Rushin Roulette]

OK. just to clarify to all the people saying "dont weapons test at the start of the match, no matter what".

What is wrong with waiting to see where your team is going, moving of to a side away from them and shooting energy weapons only at the ground or a cliff next to you where no one is possibly going to be in the next 4 or 5 minutes or so?

• No one on your team is being hit
  
• no opponents will now where you are (although it baffles me that some opponents are apparrently thought to be so unintelligent that they do not know that you are at the spawn point at the start of a match)
  
• no ammunition is wasted because you are only shooting energy weapons
  
• by the time combat starts any energy from the test firing will have long been completely discipated by even the minimum of 10 single heat sinks (the more Heatsinks or DHS, the longer the discipation will have passed).

[Randalf Yorgen]

WhenReaperComes, on 03 November 2013 - 01:42 AM, said:

You expect everyone to memorize heat dissipation for every mech/weapon/heat sink combo for every map? You must have a photographic memory... I do not. Sorry, but I will continue to test heat dissipation after spawn. Better now than in battle.

Then again, if PGI would let us know what map we will drop on we could test it ahead of time. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon though.

wow, if you build your Mech right this is never a problem. Also you can disable or reconfigure weapons on the fly to change the heat signature. Group fire/Chain fire, swapping weapons into different groups, taking weapons off-line if they are too hot for the map. Also having the game sound turned on so Wailing Betty can warn you when your heat levels are dangerously high. Opening the basic pilot skill tree level for the mech is also a good way to counter this.

You don't need to memorise Heat Dissipation for every map, it tells you onthe launch page (before the ready page whenit's a snapshot of the map, what the Temp is. If you are American, the temp scale they are using has water boiling at 100deg C and freezing at 0deg C.

The only time you might have the slightest need to be insanely OCD about heat and weapons and such is if you start to do competative drops but by then your depth of knowledge about game mechanics will be great indeed.

IF you are going to test heat at spawn, make sure no one is infront of you or passing you (turn around and fire behind you to be safe) and always fire into the ground so your shots don't tip the enemy off as to what way your team is going, what direction they are going.

Howeve the OP is right, training grounds are the place to do a shake out run or two. you can get your weapons grouped and you can drop on a hot map, a normal map and a cold map a couple of times to get the basic feel for how the load out is going to work. Of course when you build your mech you could also look at the heat scale on the left in mechlab. Heat of 1.2 is ok, 1.4 is great. I admit most of my mechs run around 1.16, gets a little hot sometimes but I'm not usually a brawler so I shouldn't be firing like crazy anyways.

[Randalf Yorgen]

Rushin Roulette, on 08 November 2013 - 03:29 AM, said:

OK. just to clarify to all the people saying "dont weapons test at the start of the match, no matter what".

What is wrong with waiting to see where your team is going, moving of to a side away from them and shooting energy weapons only at the ground or a cliff next to you where no one is possibly going to be in the next 4 or 5 minutes or so?

• No one on your team is being hit
  
• no opponents will now where you are (although it baffles me that some opponents are apparrently thought to be so unintelligent that they do not know that you are at the spawn point at the start of a match)
  
• no ammunition is wasted because you are only shooting energy weapons
  
• by the time combat starts any energy from the test firing will have long been completely discipated by even the minimum of 10 single heat sinks (the more Heatsinks or DHS, the longer the discipation will have passed).

good points and I don't see a problem with it, just don't shoot up into the air as it could tell the enemy what direction you are going. However looking at the heat scale in mechlab and using the testing grounds will let you get a basic feel for how heat will work anyways (see my above post) so you should only have to do this for one or two matchs then you should know.

Sometimes I like to make little happy faces in the snow when we leave the start point but I am usually off to the side and my minimap says I'm clear.

[Levon K]

kuangmk11, on 02 November 2013 - 09:35 PM, said:

They will never stop.

5 days later. Now I truly understand this statement.