Lightfoot, on 30 November 2013 - 10:48 AM, said:
You must mean what MWO turned the Awesome into with DHS 1.4 and Ghost Heat which are balancing crutches MWO uses to keep from imploding. Those are not Battletech supporting elements though, they defy Battletech norms.
You're leaving out three things.
The first, raising thresholds is also not a Battletech/Mechwarrior norm. In MW3, tabletop, the first Battletech computer games, etc., the threshold is 30. MW2 in its initial release was 30, in the PSX and subsequent releases it raised to "40" (MWO's trial mech threhsold for the 'crappy' stock trial mechs) for an "arcade-like" feel. MW4 raised that threshold to 60 (the rate we get with a 250 engine and 10 built-in true DHS on MWO + Elite skills to raise the 50 threshold to 60). All mechs are able to fire more and spam more because of this raising threshold. On MWO, we have this awful feature.
The second aspect is despite the huge fear of the Awesome, no one could actually spam alpha strikes and ballistic weapons were multi-shot rather than single shot. (Example, the Hunchback's AC/20 is a 5 shot weapon in lore, each shot doing 4 damage. Tabletop doesn't account for weapon variants however and summarizes the events in 10 seconds, giving people the false dellusion of constant alpha strikes). And thus, with chain fire the Awesome was incredibly powerful for a stock rig.
Finally, we have 2.0 heatsinks. To get 10 of them, run a 250 or larger engine. If you run a 225 engine you get 9 true doubles. The 1.4 DHS are those that you manually add by dragging and dropping. Doesn't matter where.
When we combine these the rising threshold, ghost heat, and the fact that everyone spams alpha strikes (due to the rising threshold) and then we have the real reason the Awesome is awful. It's forced to fire in volleys of 20 damage, when all other mechs can do alpha strikes of 55 damage or more. It adds up and it adds up quick.
Were raising thresholds removed and it hardset to 30 we would not need ghost heat. Consider this. If you hit 30 points of heat, you shut down. AC/20 generates 6 heat. Medium laser generates 4. LPL generates 8.5. Start mixing and matching. Make something that could hit 30 in a single shot. How about 2 ER PPCs? 15 + 15 = 30. Now, what happens when you add more heatsinks? ....Nothing. Nothing at all. You still shutdown at 30. But if you have a bunch of heatsinks, you can fire one... wait a few seconds, fire the other, wait a few seconds, fire the first, etc. 3 regular PPCs = 30 heat.
"Wait a second, what about the tabletop spam and heat neutrality?"
It's heat neutrality in 10 seconds. If you fire and shutdown, you'll be at 0 in 10 seconds. If you chain fire them each once within 10 seconds, you will be heat neutral and 0 heat in 10 seconds. The problem in this regard isn't the mech, but the core heat system. Ghost heat and the 1.4 thing don't really affect it due to rising thresholds. But enemies getting to alpha strike relentlessly... that does.
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