91 replies to this topic

[GeneralGrievous]

I read a post somewhere or another that applying the double heat sink bonus to the engine makes the single heat sink completely useless. After toying around in mechlab today I find this to be 100% true. I think that the double heat sink should only affect external heat sinks, not internal ones in the engine. Unless it is for the additional slots (10+whatever) heat sinks.

There are time I'd love to use single heat sinks to make use of space, especially in the legs, CT, and head but it makes absolutely no sense to run singles when you get a x2 bonus for engine heat sinks becoming doubles.

I think a fix for this would make singles a useful and strategic item rather than a throw away like Narc, Command Module, Small Pulse, etc which this game seems to have too much of.

I would bet this would also reduce the need for ghost heat as I read in another post.

I am not a mech warrior nerd, just someone who likes the concept of this game ... don't have much experience in other titles of this or the board game but it's a huge turn off to read about things like ghost heat or linked weapon penalties or multipliers. I don't want to have to read 900 opinions about how these systems work when the game itself says X weapon causes Y heat.

Keep It Simple Stupid!

[3endless8oogie]

So you want to nerf light and medium mechs that run energyweapons?
Or all energyweapons ?

Edited by 3endless8oogie, 30 December 2013 - 03:59 AM.

[kapusta11]

Yes make energy weapons even more useless.

[NovaWasp]

Traditionally, doubles were doubles everywhere. Right now the first 10 are doubles. The rest are 1.4. It sounds like what you want to do is make the engine sinks 1 and the rest 2.0. Many light mech loadouts would be unusable while heavy mech loadouts really wouldn't even notice.

Before the gauss change to charge, I would have recommended that for a single heat sink build. As it stands, if you are new to the game and need to save c-bills, I would recommend doing it by swapping your engines around. A lot of mechs use the the same engines. XL 300 is a great buy.

[GeneralGrievous]

Right, externals 2.0 .. not 1.4.

Why even have singles in the game if they have no use? That is my main gripe. And why make me drop an additional 1.5mil per mech ... just start everything with doubles .. there's never a reason to say 'hey, maybe these singles are a better idea' ... makes no sense.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

I wouldn't mind exploring this along with adjustments to heat values, heat retention and heat scale penalties on weapons. We do have a test environment that could be used for such things that I'd love to use.

And something like this would affect more than lights, such as this build on a Jager (I kept off the Medium lasers to quickly check how doubles improve the heat dissipation and capacity from singles in the Weaponlab).

[Varent]

GeneralGrievous, on 30 December 2013 - 03:48 AM, said:

I read a post somewhere or another that applying the double heat sink bonus to the engine makes the single heat sink completely useless. After toying around in mechlab today I find this to be 100% true. I think that the double heat sink should only affect external heat sinks, not internal ones in the engine. Unless it is for the additional slots (10+whatever) heat sinks.

There are time I'd love to use single heat sinks to make use of space, especially in the legs, CT, and head but it makes absolutely no sense to run singles when you get a x2 bonus for engine heat sinks becoming doubles.

I think a fix for this would make singles a useful and strategic item rather than a throw away like Narc, Command Module, Small Pulse, etc which this game seems to have too much of.

I would bet this would also reduce the need for ghost heat as I read in another post.

I am not a mech warrior nerd, just someone who likes the concept of this game ... don't have much experience in other titles of this or the board game but it's a huge turn off to read about things like ghost heat or linked weapon penalties or multipliers. I don't want to have to read 900 opinions about how these systems work when the game itself says X weapon causes Y heat.

Keep It Simple Stupid!

please accept the fact that double heat sinks are 90% of the time considered to be a simple progression of leveling up and advancing a mech. K thanks.

[Lostdragon]

You would have to change everything about heat mechanics to make SHS viable. Making all engine heatsinks singles and only applying the double value to externals would completely break the game. Most mechs would instantly lose 25-50% of their dissipation. As mentioned above, this would really hurt lights and mediums. I run a JR7-F with 15 DHS. The change you propose would give me a net change of -7 heat dissipation, which would pretty much put it in the scrap heap.

To me, the better solution is to lower heat capacity and increase dissipation across the board. Make it so only SHS increase capacity. If you want to be able to do big alphas you would use SHS but have slower dissipation. If you want to fire continuously you use DHS and have to give up the ability to do big alphas. Through tuning the capacity, dissipation, and weapon heat you could balance it such that with SHS you could fire 3 ERPPCs in an alpha but you would have to cool for a while before you could do it again or with DHS you could chainfire the ERPPCs but firing an alpha would be an instant shutdown.

This gives SHS a role as the burst damage choice and DHS a role as the sustained damage choice with significant tradeoffs for picking one over the other. Doing some quick math, if the heat cap is 30 and you have SHS cooling .3 HPS and DHS cooling .5 (I know that is not double, but the math works out nicely with these values) with 15 SHS you would have a cap of 45 with 4.5 cooling per second and DHS would retain the 30 heat cap but cool 7.5 heat per second.

If you had a mech equipped with 3 ERPPCs and SHS under this system it could fire all three then after 10s cooling down it could fire all three again for a total of 60 damage delivered in two volleys. Using DHS the same mech could fire 7 volleys in 10s for 70 damage. Granted this is just looking at a very specific scenario and would likely require tuning to account for other weapons, but I think a scheme like this could work better than what we have now.

Edited by Lostdragon, 30 December 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[Mcgral18]

This is also amplified by the fact PGI made weapons fire 2-20 times their TT firing rates, but keep dissipation at the same levels. This makes lasers very hot compared to TT.

[Coralld]

Mcgral18, on 30 December 2013 - 08:06 AM, said:

This is also amplified by the fact PGI made weapons fire 2-20 times their TT firing rates, but keep dissipation at the same levels. This makes lasers very hot compared to TT.

The problem with this is that to be fair, we really do not know what the fire rate is for each weapon if you try to take that into real life terms, unless you think 10 sec is the fire rate, which would mean that all weapons fire once per 10 sec. This is the problem from taking rules and such that were meant for a TT game and move them over to a shooter type game.

Lostdragon, on 30 December 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

You would have to change everything about heat mechanics to make SHS viable. Making all engine heatsings singles and only applying the double value to externals would completely break the game. Most mechs would instantly lose 25-50% of their dissipation. As mentioned above, this would really hurt lights and mediums. I run a JR7-F with 15 DHS. The change you propose would give me a net change of -7 heat dissipation, which would pretty much put it in the scrap heap.

To me, the better solution is to lower heat capacity and increase dissipation across the board. Make it so only SHS increase capacity. If you want to be able to do big alphas you would use SHS but have slower dissipation. If you want to fire continuously you use DHS and have to give up the ability to do big alphas. Through tuning the capacity, dissipation, and weapon heat you could balance it such that with SHS you could fire 3 ERPPCs in an alpha but you would have to cool for a while before you could do it again or with DHS you could chainfire the ERPPCs but firing an alpha would be an instant shutdown.

This gives SHS a role as the burst damage choice and DHS a role as the sustained damage choice with significant tradeoffs for picking one over the other. Doing some quick math, if the heat cap is 30 and you have SHS cooling .3 HPS and DHS cooling .5 (I know that is not double, but the math works out nicely with these values) with 15 SHS you would have a cap of 45 with 4.5 cooling per second and DHS would retain the 30 heat cap but cool 7.5 heat per second.

If you had a mech equipped with 3 ERPPCs and SHS under this system it could fire all three then after 10s cooling down it could fire all three again for a total of 60 damage delivered in two vopleys. Using DHS the same mech could fire 7 volleys in 10s for 70 damage. Granted this is just looking at a very specific scenario and would likely require tuning to account for other weapons, but I think a scheme like this could work better than what we have now.

I actually really like this idea.

[Mcgral18]

Coralld, on 30 December 2013 - 08:47 AM, said:

The problem with this is that to be fair, we really do not know what the fire rate is for each weapon if you try to take that into real life terms, unless you think 10 sec is the fire rate, which would mean that all weapons fire once per 10 sec. This is the problem from taking rules and such that were meant for a TT game and move them over to a shooter type game.

Well, TT turns are 10 seconds long, the AC20 does 20 damage in that period. 5 damage shots, every 2.5 seconds replicates that. Of course, some weapons would then be rendered useless, for example the AC2 which current does 10X TT damage(not 20, since doubled armor) its still mediocre.

But, since the devs decided to push for maximum damage, it lead to doubled armor and massive pinpoint damage, and a very short TTK.


Although for the current state of the game, I think a lower heat capacity (static, not rising) and increased dissipation could change how the meta works, increasing the viability of DPS laser builds and help combat the current high alpha until hot, then peek down to cool down.

Edited by Mcgral18, 31 December 2013 - 12:40 PM.

[Khobai]

All DHS should be 1.7 (no more nonsense where some are 2.0 and some are 1.4)

All SHS should be 1.3 (30% buff)

[Xenon Codex]

Lostdragon, on 30 December 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

To me, the better solution is to lower heat capacity and increase dissipation across the board. Make it so only SHS increase capacity. If you want to be able to do big alphas you would use SHS but have slower dissipation. If you want to fire continuously you use DHS and have to give up the ability to do big alphas. Through tuning the capacity, dissipation, and weapon heat you could balance it such that with SHS you could fire 3 ERPPCs in an alpha but you would have to cool for a while before you could do it again or with DHS you could chainfire the ERPPCs but firing an alpha would be an instant shutdown.

This is a good idea, it opens up another mechanic for tuning a specialized weapon loadout without being overly complicated.

Another thought I had a while back is to just make engine heatsinks 2.0 by default, so the DHS upgrade would only apply to external sinks. It wouldn't break the light builds but yet still give the heavier mechs a valid option to use SHS. It also makes more sense from a "realistic" viewpoint, because the DHS upgrade doesn't change engine weight or size so there's no practical reason they all shouldn't come with internal DHS from the factory.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 30 December 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

All DHS should be 1.7 (no more nonsense where some are 2.0 and some are 1.4)

All SHS should be 1.3 (30% buff)

The former suggestion actually nerfs a lot of builds out there. For instance, my Shaq Hawks all use only 10 DHS, and they already run somewhat hot (especially the 5M, equipped with 4 Streaks, 2 ML, and a UAC/5--hardly overpowering). Doing the maths, this also nerfs my Griffin 3M, which uses 2 LL and 4 SSRMs--another loadout that doesn't really need nerfing. It currently has 14 Dubs, which give it (10 x 0.2) + (4 x 0.14) = 2.56 dissipation per second. At 1.7 DHS everywhere, it would be down to 2.38 cooling per second (it basically loses a sink).

Doing more maths, it takes a mech 20 DHS to keep its current heat efficiency under your system. Mechs with more than 20 DHS will get a slight buff. Literally everything with less than 20 DHS gets nerfed.

[Khobai]

Quote

The former suggestion actually nerfs a lot of builds out there.

I see no problem with that. Its stupid that a Battlemaster with 18 DHS barely cools faster than a Jenner with 12 DHS. If you put extra weight into HS you should get the full amount of dissipation.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 30 December 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

I see no problem with that. Its stupid that a Battlemaster with 18 DHS barely cools faster than a Jenner with 12 DHS. If you put extra weight into HS you should get the full amount of dissipation.

It's also stupid that a Battlemaster with 18 DHS is going to run even hotter after adjusting DHS to be 1.7 everywhere. It already runs too hot.

Current: (10 x 0.2) + (8 x 0.14) = 3.12 dissipation per second
1.7 DHS: (18 x 0.17) = 3.06 dissipation per second

It might be a small reduction, but it's still an unnecessary one. Almost everything runs too hot as it is.


EDIT: Here are the numbers for the Jenner versus Battlemaster example:
Jenner: (10 x 0.2) + (2 x 0.14) = 2.28 cooling
Battlemaster: (10 x 0.2) + (8 x 0.14) = 3.12 cooling

Edited by FupDup, 30 December 2013 - 02:25 PM.

[Varent]

Khobai, on 30 December 2013 - 09:24 AM, said:

I see no problem with that. Its stupid that a Battlemaster with 18 DHS barely cools faster than a Jenner with 12 DHS. If you put extra weight into HS you should get the full amount of dissipation.

I would love to see them do custom heat dissipation for different mechs myself. Would make mechs like the awesome become more viable, That said I will hold my tongue until I see CW. I think many issues will not be as big anymore once that comes out.

[DeadlyFred]

Varent, on 30 December 2013 - 07:11 AM, said:

please accept the fact that double heat sinks are 90% of the time considered to be a simple progression of leveling up and advancing a mech. K thanks.

But they're not. They're a lot harder to work into builds than single heat sinks and due to that, they don't actually end up giving you much better efficiency a lot of the time. And then you have no room left to make use of the saved tonnage.

Heat sinks and heat dissipation in this game are effing broken and there is no way I'm just going to "accept the fact." Why would you, do you WANT this game to suck?

[Varent]

DeadlyFred, on 30 December 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

But they're not. They're a lot harder to work into builds than single heat sinks and due to that, they don't actually end up giving you much better efficiency a lot of the time. And then you have no room left to make use of the saved tonnage.

Heat sinks and heat dissipation in this game are effing broken and there is no way I'm just going to "accept the fact." Why would you, do you WANT this game to suck?

and yet I own close to 70 mechs, have played each chasis and have owned at one point or another every mech type. I have not had any issues making a build for any of them.

I dont find them broken at all and use them all quite effectively. If you are having trouble finding a build for a certain mech, why not list it and allow the community to help you find an effective build for it?

[Mcgral18]

Varent, on 30 December 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

and yet I own close to 70 mechs, have played each chasis and have owned at one point or another every mech type. I have not had any issues making a build for any of them.

I dont find them broken at all and use them all quite effectively. If you are having trouble finding a build for a certain mech, why not list it and allow the community to help you find an effective build for it?

The thing is, MWO has one of the worst heat systems, where heatsinks ADD to the heat capacity, instead of only dissipating heat. Since the weapons generate more heat, but the heatsinks dissipate at stock levels (and gimped DHS) what we get is a borked heat system.

Sure it works for high alphas and peak and shoot, but it lead to this meta of ours. It seems they want to avoid heat neutral builds.

Edited by Mcgral18, 30 December 2013 - 10:49 AM.