135 replies to this topic

[Korbyn McColl]

Heat Sinks offset your heat build up. But once your mech shuts down due to overheating, you should be pretty much dead in the water. Think of it like your car overheating. You don't shut it off for 30 seconds and then restart it.

I realize, however, that this is a game. Hence, you can't really be that realistic with it. I'd like to see shutdowns last a minimum of 30 seconds as the mech cools off. Perhaps a pilot skill could decrease shutdown times, but even then, once you overheat you better pray your lancemates are around to keep you alive. Because, in my book, if you're alone and you shut down from overheating, you lose.

[Kaemon]

I'm like to see the following on overheat:

yellow (warning) - close to overheating, weapons slight accuracy loss, mech controls start getting sloppy, cockpit effects (sparks, flashing lights, voice warning).

red (shutdown imminent) - weaps wildy inaccurate, mech almost unresponsive (can't run or turn effectively), time based on Pilot Skill and mech loadout (e.g. Quick Boot, Enhanced Coolant Flush) but not < 10 sec.

You can try to avoid red by coolant flush, water immersion (coolant flush should light you up on enemy map however, if they have scouts with ability to detect Radioactive material).

Shutdown - you're fried, cockpit effects (goes dark, sparks, reboot sequence starts), I like a roll % chance of starting up, so it's not always the same (base it on mech damage, tonnage, model, pilot skill, etc...) a damaged mech should take longer to reboot than one that is undamaged.

Post reboot damage? Unsure on this, maybe each overheat causes damage to the mech in some random form (weap dmg, movement dmg, etc...)

[Alizabeth Aijou]

CaveMan, on 22 November 2011 - 10:25 PM, said:

Load up on inferno missiles and grief people until they ragequit? Try NOT overheating with succession wars tech. Shutdowns are part of the game.

Which half of the succession wars? xD
The early half still had DHS until 2855 or so.

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why was it nonsense? original rules of the game was that 1 round was approximately 1 minute. You only got 1 roll to restart / per round. Which counted down ie 12+ to 9+ to 6+ by round 3 irrc.

Which version? BattleDroids? Or BattleSpace?

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Surely after In house, Alpha then Beta testing it was decided that if you force LONG shut-downs on Playas, they will go PLAYA some where else.

Then can use Autocannons if they don't like overheating...

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Heat Sinks offset your heat build up. But once your mech shuts down due to overheating, you should be pretty much dead in the water. Think of it like your car overheating. You don't shut it off for 30 seconds and then restart it.

Cars overheat due to other reasons.
'Mech combat has heat spikes whenever a weapon is fired.

Edited by Alizabeth Aijou, 23 November 2011 - 10:12 AM.

[Jervinator]

The way I design my mechs, a heat-induced shutdown would not be long enough for the mech to come to a complete halt before the heatsinks have dissipated at least half of that heat; I tend to have a light Alpha and the heat sinks to use it as fast as the weapons cycle for at least a full minute.

However, something like a Nova Prime should give you enough time to make a grilled cheese sandwich.

Accordingly, my answer is that it depends. A mild overheat should only be a momentary hiccup while some overheating calls for a hard shutdown which takes longer to recover from.

[MGAvellar]

It would be really cool if they made it so different mechs (or engines even) had different restart times...that would give us another tradeoff in mech design. It might also be cool if they added some equipment to help speed up the mech restarts. I'd love to see overheating shutdowns become an integral part of the game....and weapon cooldowns too. Maybe different cooldowns/reload times on LRM's from different manufacturers and different product lines. Lets get nuts with this stuff. The more differentiators in the equipment the better! It will all make it more interesting and more challenging to build that perfect mech. I mean, I think games like WoW (spell and ability cooldowns) have proven that even a fraction of a second difference in weapons cooldowns can be important.

[Ran Ito]

Restarts due to overheating should be shortened by the number of heat sinks you have. But they should also get progressively longer and increase the chances of stuff breaking or going boom on each subsequent shutdown (heat sink failures, engine crit, ammo cook, mechwarrior blackout or fatigue, etc.).

I got so tired of the ridiculous jump shot alpha strikers.

[Armageddon]

10 seconds can be an eternity if you're being shot at.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Which is exactly the reason why you have to monitor your heat rather than pull the trigger everytime a weapon becomes ready.
Another big part of playing the Nova is learning when to overheat and by how much.

[Tweaks]

None of the above... It shouldn't be FIXED delays. The size of the 'Mech, the environment it's in (climate, pressure, temperature, wind, etc...), the amount of heat sinks, and the amount of overheat it had to begin with, should all be deciding factors.

The heat should slowly dissipate based on those factors, and the 'Mech should only reboot itself once the heat has reached a proper level.

That means that someone who is slapping the heat override button too often in a row will crank the heat up so much in the red that it will take longer for his 'Mech to reboot than a 'Mech who just barely overheated.

That sounds sensible to me anyway.

Edited by Tweaks, 23 November 2011 - 04:16 PM.

[Hallstatt]

I think:
1. Number of heatsinks
2. Passive leveled-up avatar skill
3. See below

I would like some way to make the player able to reduce the cooldown. Obviously not much, maybe 5 seconds top. Make the player have to type some sort of code showing in the screen to accelerate not the refreshing (no way to type your heat out), but the restarting (trying to find shortcuts in the programming to make it start faster).

[Karyudo ds]

I voted for the "go make a sandwich" option as I like sandwiches and being rewarded with them. Think this calls for a Jimmy john's trip...

Well anyway I think it should be long enough that players don't want to let it happen. The board-game using 10 second turns let you try each turn so in theory it should take 10 seconds more or less. Though I think trying to restart at various heat levels affected the difficulty of restarting. So somewhere in the area of 10-20 feels about right though I would be happier if restarting was more than "wait, or press Q rapidly". Granted that's great for the casual players I guess but I wouldn't mind having to make cockpit adjustments to get the machine working faster.

[topgun505]

It depends. In the TT it was entirely possible to shutdown only halfway up the heat scale. If a mech were mounting single heat sinks and only had the basic 10 that came with the engine then it would take around 15 seconds to cool to restart. If the pilot managed to override however until it reached the top of the scale then it would take a full 30 seconds. So I would say 20-30 seconds is reasonable.

[SMDMadCow]

I thnk the TT can give some great guidance on this type of thing. I voted for 10 -20 secs, because if you throw yourself over the auto shut down, no override point then you should be cooling off for at least 10 secs, lest your goal is to bake your pilot.

[I R O N Patriot]

let us go over the heat limit and catch on fire lol!

[Black Sunder]

Irontygr, on 27 November 2011 - 07:08 PM, said:

let us go over the heat limit and catch on fire lol!

Stop Drop and roll.

[Dragorath]

I agree on the point that you can't overheat several times. Ammuniation explosion and damage to the pilot should come into play. After several overheatings you could fade out for 30s, but the recovery of the Mech should be based on the overheating (how much) and the amount of heatsinks. 1 heat point to much should have a different effect than 4 ER-PPCs...
At the 1st overheating should be a warning and everytime you do it again the possibility for explosions or fading should grow. This is fair to noobs and old fashioned BT followers.