68 replies to this topic

[Xarian]

There are multiple problems with your idea.

1. It doesn't actually address the reasons that ghost heat was added - to prevent alpha usage of massed amounts of specific weaponry (e.g. 5 PPCs).
2. It penalizes players who run hot but don't run afoul of ghost heat (e.g. light mechs with 4 ML or MPL).
3. It makes life even harder for SHS users, and makes Terra Therma even more of a nightmare.

A simple change to heat isn't going to fix the problems that ghost heat is supposed to fix. The problem is over-damaging alpha strikes, pure and simple.

I suggest multiple smaller changes:
- Each weapon now has two stats associated with it: recoil and power draw. I'll discuss recoil first.
- Firing weapons applies a force on the firing position of the weapon equal to the recoil value.
- Each position on the mech has an associated moment of inertia which determines how that force is applied.
- This also applies to incoming hits from ACs and such - they have recoil, too.
-To keep things simple, each weapon is treated separately when firing weapons, and being hit in a limb/location counts as coming from a specific location.
- Each limb has the ability to "correct" itself over time as it is affected by various forces.

Thus, a Yen-Lo-Wang firing an AC/20 would lead to its arm swinging around and its torso pivoting in that direction (force vector applied to position vector, etc).
A Jagermech firing dual AC/20 would lead to it attempting to tip backwards - AC/20 positions are very close to its center of mass in the horizontal axis (and there are 2 of them which negate each other) and very far from its center of mass in the vertical axis, leading to a rotation ("tipping over").
A Jagermech firing dual AC/5 would also start tipping backwards, but the force is significantly less so it would be easier for the mech's legs/etc to compensate - think of the mech's center rotating forward to make up for the force tipping it backward.

- Power draw would be a limiting mechanic like heat, except that it replenishes extremely quickly and would not be affected by heat sinks, engine, etc. You couldn't alpha strike with 5 PPCs because you wouldn't have enough power - but if you fired 3, you might have enough power to fire 2 more after 0.5 seconds.

[no one]

Jaeger Gonzo, on 16 March 2014 - 11:38 PM, said:

We need battletech heat scale then.

I agree, and while some things don't translate well, I have made this heat system as reasonably direct an approximation of that source material as is feasible in a real time system. I smoothed the probability scaling on the overheat failures from a 10 second turn 2d6 system into per second % chance. The heat buffer is cut down, but I'm honestly not all that happy with the way I'm calculating it. I'll keep thinking on it, but I'm open to suggestions.

Reitrix, on 15 March 2014 - 04:10 AM, said:

Low heat ballistics would reign supreme. Just like we get now. Heat isn't the issue we have, its the ability to bring 4 large weapons to bear on a single pixel instantaneously.

As you point out, there's nothing you can really do about that with a heat system change. Ballistics are low heat, high weight and ammo dependence, that should be a fair trade off. Pinpoint damage being an issue doesn't mean the heat system isn't also an issue, however. All you can do with a heat system is raise dissipation rates so energy weapons get a fair shake vs ballistics for sustained dps, and lower the heat cap to discourage high alphas.

If you want to balance pinpoint damage I'd suggest having multiple ballistics weapons fired at once "kick" your convergence point a hundred meters or so behind your target.

Xarian, on 17 March 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

There are multiple problems with your idea.

1. - Yes, it does! I already answered this! Firing five PPCs at once would kill your pilot! Firing Four at once would severely injure him and give you a host of other problems. Three at once might shut you down, requires you override and slows your total refire rate. . . but it's doable.

2. - No, it doesn't! Increased dissipation rates help lasers! Worst case scenario, you have lasers dissipate heat during their recycle rather than their firing cycle so that they won't spike your heat as badly, but medium and small lasers being too hot is it's own issue.

3. - Again, no. SHS get better dissipation just like dhs, and I've also given them a slight buff to heat capacity so they have a useful niche.

etc. -
Yes, I too would like to see some sort of convergence recoil Mechanic on projectile weapons. That's probably the best way to balance ballistics. Hell, you should start a suggestion thread on it, if there isn't one already.

Edited by no one, 17 March 2014 - 11:18 AM.

[Prezimonto]

I would love to see the data visualized.
Plot of time to zero heat vs. heat load... I'd expect a linear increase under overheat shifting to an exponential while in overheat.
differentiate that plot with internal HS only/several different options for SHS and DHS amounts
Layer colors or demarcations where effects get added on the heat scale.

That being said I love the idea. I've wanted something like this implemented for a long time.

[Spleenslitta]

Your post #37 explained things in a way that really made me like your heat system No One.
Mech getting sluggish at high heat levels and it's harder to get rid of heat. i love it.

I normaly use some decently hot builds and i would love it if MWO used this type of heatsystem.
I wouldn't feel like i got nerfed because i prefer lasers. Instead i would think of it as a challenge to overcome.
Many people say that MWO is a thinking mans game. This would most definitivly make us think harder than the ways things are right now.

Right now i rarelly feel tension when i play MWO. This is not the kind of game you should play if you want to relax.
It should make you sit on the edge of your chair trying to think of a way to outsmart your enemy.

But right now most players just sling on a couple of AC20's along with enough ammo to last through a match.
No creativity. Boring.

[Prezimonto]

Reitrix, on 15 March 2014 - 02:16 AM, said:

if you disallow me to alpha my quad ppc stalker, then ill chain them like i do right now. Except under your system, i'd effectively have cooldown free AC10s with infinite ammo, as my build carries 19 DHS. Congrats, you turned me into a turret able to kill just about any 'Mech face to face in a couple of seconds.

I'm totally okay chain firing 2 and 2 or 4 shots. It gives the player a change to actively defend between shots by rotating, or finding cover.

[no one]

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 11:09 AM, said:

I would love to see the data visualized.
Plot of time to zero heat vs. heat load... I'd expect a linear increase under overheat shifting to an exponential while in overheat.

Sounds good, people like pictures. I like pictures! It'll take me a tic, but I'll see what I can do about adding graphs to the OP and spreadsheet. You sound like you know what to expect though.

[Prezimonto]

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Sounds good, people like pictures. I like pictures! It'll take me a tic, but I'll see what I can do about adding graphs to the OP and spreadsheet. You sound like you know what to expect though.

I do, because I teach college science, and I'm used to students who like to put data into tables without visualizing it. Our physiology is generally a LOT better at understanding visual representations of data, and for all those posters who don't like or or downright loath math, your ideas will get lost without it.

Just trying to help, because it's one of the most comprehensive, well thought out ideas on the topic I've seen in a long time.

[Xarian]

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 10:53 AM, said:

1. - Yes, it does! I already answered this! Firing five PPCs at once would kill your pilot! Firing Four at once would severely injure him and give you a host of other problems. Three at once might shut you down, requires you override and slows your total refire rate. . . but it's doable.

So would sustained fire with 2-3 medium lasers - and if you make dissipation rates too high, then you end up with people chain-firing their 5 PPCs with low time intervals, which is only slightly better than an alpha.

Quote

2. - No, it doesn't! Increased dissipation rates help lasers! Worst case scenario, you have lasers dissipate heat during their recycle rather than their firing cycle so that they won't spike your heat as badly, but medium and small lasers being too hot is it's own issue.

3. - Again, no. SHS get better dissipation just like dhs, and I've also given them a slight buff to heat capacity so they have a useful niche.

Both balance issues in the end, and yeah doesn't really affect your idea much. I was referring specifically to the penalties for being at high heat. A mech with SHS, or low DHS on Terra Therma is going to be in the "high heat" regime a lot. Energy mechs are already penalized on hot maps, and penalties for being at high heat only makes this moreso.

I like the general idea of what you're getting at and it might be an interesting idea to run a heat system.

It doesn't actually offer any difference from ghost heat, however. Currently there's a fixed decrease of heat over time - twice as much heat, twice as much time to dissipate. If you fire too many weapons, you get extra heat which increases the total dissipation time. Say you fire each weapon individually (no alpha) and it takes you a total of 8 seconds to return to 0% heat. If you alpha, it takes you 10 seconds because you get bonus heat - heat decreases at the same rate, but now you've got more.

In your system, if you fire each weapon individually it'd take 8 seconds to return to 0% heat, and 10 seconds to return to 0% heat - you generate the same amount of heat, but you're dissipating more slowly.

There are two effects to changing switching the current system (nonlinear heat generation scaling) to your system (nonlinear heat dissipation scaling):
- You're giving people penalties for being at high heat - this is not related to the scaling issues
- You force people to stay at high heat for longer because dissipation rates are lower - this is only relevant when you have the aforementioned penalties.

So, really, whether you scale heat generation or dissipation only matters if there are secondary effects to having that heat. There are two types of secondary effects:
- Lingering effects - you move slower, rotate slower, jump jets shut off, etc
- One-time effects - pilot takes damage, engines take damage, etc

Now, in your system, lingering effects last longer but one-time effects don't come into play as much because your heat isn't "spiking" as much - in contrast, it gets high more slowly, but lasts longer.
With ghost heat, one-time effects are stronger - you don't stay at high heat as long, but you're more likely to take damage from alpha strikes because your heat "spikes" when you alpha.

If you want to inject an element of realism, you need to be aware that heat dissipation increases as temperature increases - this would make heat sinks more effective at higher heat levels. This also means that weapons tend to "heat up" without breaching the "high heat" threshold - because they cool faster as they get hotter.

For this to work in MWO, you'd have to increase heat dissipation at high heat levels, decrease maximum heat thresholds, and increase the penalties for heat spiking. Pilot damage and engine damage are a good idea.

Movement/rotation/jumpjet penalties are also a good idea, but you would have to give the penalties when people exceeded a threshold and then force them to keep the penalties for a fixed time rather than just have them depend on heat. So someone might spike to 105% max heat, take a bunch of damage, and then move really slow for a while even if they drop to 10% heat.

Random example: if you reach 80% heat, you take a 10% penalty to your movement speed that lasts for 5 seconds. This penalty worsens by 2% speed and 1 second duration for each 1% that your heat exceeds 80%.
80% heat: 10% for 5 seconds
85% heat: 20% for 10 seconds
95% heat: 40% for 20 seconds

Player alphas, goes up to 85% heat, and is slow for 10 seconds. In 5 seconds his heat has now dropped to 40% heat, but he's still slow. If you wanted to be more realistic, you'd make the penalties less serious but permanent - inflict component damage on the engines/actuators/etc and lower their abilities by their relative remaining health.

[trollocaustic]

How many nos can i give this solution?
The abilty to overdrive is the only way a energy mech can even pretend to be equal to a ballistic one.
And letting a jenner overheat itself the same ammount as an atlas is incredibly biased towards the jenner

Instead
Add ghost heat multiplier, lowered for mechs that have to boat energy to survive AT ALL
Make ghost heat a number instead of a percentage, to punish LRM boating and autocannon spam.

[Prezimonto]

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 11:37 AM, said:

Sounds good, people like pictures. I like pictures! It'll take me a tic, but I'll see what I can do about adding graphs to the OP and spreadsheet. You sound like you know what to expect though.

Okay, I love the first graph, but that makes me think of a few more things to check out:

buffer capacity, and the crossing over points between numbers of heatsinks for DHS and SHS.
....................
Also, if I followed your math, you're using internal heat sinks as a fixed, and separate value from DHS and SHS.. which I think is REALLY smart. So, a lot of mechs run with only internal heat sinks these days and I'd like to see how they stack up vs. DHS and SHS. I understand it's going to be flat worse, but that's a good thing as most builds will want to find the room for more heat sinks rather than not.

[no one]

trollocaustic, on 17 March 2014 - 01:08 PM, said:

The abilty to overdrive is the only way a energy mech can even pretend to be equal to a ballistic one.

And letting a jenner overheat itself the same ammount as an atlas is incredibly biased towards the jenner

You can still override, I didn't remove that. You still get a higher heat buffer before overheat by adding heat sinks, only overheat is a fixed range. Any 'Mech is equal to any other 'Mech with the same number of heatsinks. (As is the case now) Except with this system your energy weapons have a greater dissipation rate so they can compete BETTER as long as you don't constantly alpha them.

Xarian, on 17 March 2014 - 12:03 PM, said:

- You're giving people penalties for being at high heat - this is not related to the scaling issues
- You force people to stay at high heat for longer because dissipation rates are lower - this is only relevant when you have the aforementioned penalties.

So, really, whether you scale heat generation or dissipation only matters if there are secondary effects to having that heat.

Actually it matters without secondary effects because it increases your time to dissipate heat from weapons fire at higher levels of overheat. Letting yourself cool off to below your overheat threshold increases your effective heat-neutral DPS.

Xarian, on 17 March 2014 - 12:03 PM, said:

If you want to inject an element of realism, you need to be aware that heat dissipation increases as temperature increases - this would make heat sinks more effective at higher heat levels.

Problem being that would encourage alpha striking and maintaining a high heat threshold and achieves the polar opposite of what needs to happen. Also, "heat dissipation increases as temperature increases" applies mostly to passive cooling. You can overtax a heat pump or radiator.

Xarian, on 17 March 2014 - 12:03 PM, said:

A 'Mech with SHS, or low DHS on Terra Therma is going to be in the "high heat" regime a lot. Energy 'Mechs are already penalized on hot maps, and penalties for being at high heat only makes this more so.

The difference being in this system you have to fire only two medium lasers every two or three seconds to keep from spiking your heat, vs. now where you can fire five medium lasers at once! . . . but then you have to run away and hide to cool down. Also I gave an answer to how multiple PPCs would shake out. It's in the thread.

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 01:33 PM, said:

Buffer capacity, and the crossing over points between numbers of heatsinks for DHS and SHS.
. . . Also, if I followed your math, you're using internal heat sinks as a fixed, and separate value from DHS and SHS.. which I think is REALLY smart.

As much as I hate do disabuse anyone of the notion that I'm a genius, that's not quite how it's set up. Integral heatsinks are ones that are built in to the engine, that's part of the basic game mechanics. For engines above 250 rating that's 10 heatsinks, losing one per 25 rating below that. Originally, integral engine and externally mounted heatsinks functioned the same, but PGI changed it so that external DHS give .14 h/s dissipation and 1.4 heat capacity per, as opposed to .2 h/s 2 heat capacity per.

• Heat per second dissipation per sink.

Now :
Integral DHS - .2 h/s
Mounted DHS - .14 h/s
SHS - .1 h/s

Adjusted :
Integral DHS - .3 h/s
Mounted DHS - .25 h/s
SHS - .15 h/s

• Heat capacity per. sink

Now :
Integral DHS - 2 h
Mounted DHS - 1.4 h
SHS - 1 h
+ 30 heat (40 with skills)

Adjusted :
Integral DHS - .8 h
Mounted DHS - .56 h
SHS - .52 h
^^^ skills only effect above.
+ 30 flat Overheat Range

So that's why you see 30 SHS being slightly better than 15 DHS in capacity and dissipation. I've raised the relative heat dissipation of mounted DHS, but they still aren't as good as integral DHS. 15 DHS would be 4.25 h/s, or 28.333 SHS worth of cooling. (not bad for saving 13.3 tons, right?) But then 15 DHS gives us a heat cap of 10.8, equivalent to only 20.77 SHS. 28 SHS would give you a cap of 14.56.

It's a compromise that lets you run an absolutely massive number of SHS to get a bit more buffer before overheat penalties kick in. You might be willing to drop the tonnage if you're running a PPC awesome or something, but you still need to find that weight.

Again, I'm not in love with these values. If someone has a logical reason for using different numbers, then shoot.

Edited by no one, 17 March 2014 - 04:03 PM.

[Sandpit]

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 11:46 AM, said:

I do, because I teach college science, and I'm used to students who like to put data into tables without visualizing it. Our physiology is generally a LOT better at understanding visual representations of data, and for all those posters who don't like or or downright loath math, your ideas will get lost without it.

Just trying to help, because it's one of the most comprehensive, well thought out ideas on the topic I've seen in a long time.

^ This

I try but when a post contains 8 paragraphs of math, I just cant' do it. Graphs and such will also help people put your ideas into context for the game. (x weapon = x heat) stuff like that. I'm not knocking your post or your ideas but just based on personal experience, you'll get a lot more response in general if you add in some visual ****

[Prezimonto]

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 03:11 PM, said:

You can still override, I didn't remove that. You still get a higher heat buffer before overheat by adding heat sinks, only overheat is a fixed range. Any 'Mech is equal to any other 'Mech with the same number of heatsinks. (As is the case now) Except with this system your energy weapons have a greater dissipation rate so they can compete BETTER as long as you don't constantly alpha them.



Actually it matters without secondary effects because it increases your time to dissipate heat from weapons fire at higher levels of overheat. Letting yourself cool off to below your overheat threshold increases your effective heat-neutral DPS.



Problem being that would encourage alpha striking and maintaining a high heat threshold and achieves the polar opposite of what needs to happen. Also, "heat dissipation increases as temperature increases" applies mostly to passive cooling. You can overtax a heat pump or radiator.



The difference being in this system you have to fire only two medium lasers every two or three seconds to keep from spiking your heat, vs. now where you can fire five medium lasers at once! . . . but then you have to run away and hide to cool down. Also I gave an answer to how multiple PPCs would shake out. It's in the thread.



As much as I hate do disabuse anyone of the notion that I'm a genius, that's not quite how it's set up. Integral heatsinks are ones that are built in to the engine, that's part of the basic game mechanics. For engines above 250 rating that's 10 heatsinks, losing one per 25 rating below that. Originally, integral engine and externally mounted heatsinks functioned the same, but PGI changed it so that external DHS give .14 h/s dissipation and 1.4 heat capacity per, as opposed to .2 h/s 2 heat capacity per.

• Heat per second dissipation per sink.

Now :

Integral DHS - .2 h/s
Mounted DHS - .14 h/s
SHS - .1 h/s

Adjusted :
Integral DHS - .3 h/s
Mounted DHS - .25 h/s
SHS - .15 h/s

• Heat capacity per. sink

Now :

Integral DHS - 2 h
Mounted DHS - 1.4 h
SHS - 1 h
+ 30 heat (40 with skills)

Adjusted :
Integral DHS - .8 h
Mounted DHS - .56 h
SHS - .52 h
^^^ skills only effect above.
+ 30 flat Overheat Range

So that's why you see 30 SHS being slightly better than 15 DHS in capacity and dissipation. I've raised the relative heat dissipation of mounted DHS, but they still aren't as good as integral DHS. 15 DHS would be 4.25 h/s, or 28.333 SHS worth of cooling. (not bad for saving 13.3 tons, right?) But then 15 DHS gives us a heat cap of 10.8, equivalent to only 20.77 SHS. 28 SHS would give you a cap of 14.56.

It's a compromise that lets you run an absolutely massive number of SHS to get a bit more buffer before overheat penalties kick in. You might be willing to drop the tonnage if you're running a PPC awesome or something, but you still need to find that weight.

Again, I'm not in love with these values. If someone has a logical reason for using different numbers, then shoot.

There's been some very nice math to demonstrate why integral heat sinks should be a fixed value with only the external heat sinks getting the different values.

Essentially, it's too easy to upgrade to DHS and never put more heat sinks on your mech, which translates into free tonnage for weapons that the stock mechs can't handle... which is in effect a double nerf to stock mechs (one for heat and another for tonnage).

If all engine heat sinks became .12 to .15(different people have given them different values) then the stock mechs would run closer to viable as they'd have better cooling and upgraded mechs would have either worse cooling or less space for weapons.

The argument here is that while these aren't readily available for upgrade due to space considerations, they're proximity and placement allows them to be more efficient than regular SHS. And really, I wouldn't mind if you could upgrade to DHS for internals, if you had to eat the extra 20 slots on top of everything else.. then most mechs wouldn't be able to run the other upgrades.

The idea usually then compounds on the difference between SHS and DHS, giving SHS double capacity and while the DHS get better cooling at pure .2 the SHS would increase heat capacity while the DHS don't touch heat capacity.

What happens is you get curves where DHS are generally still better, but anyone looking for higher alpha's generally wants to deal with SHS.

In other words, the upgrade becomes more about play style mech to mech than a truly needed upgrade.

Your ideas on top of that push DHS a little further into the spot light (appropriately) without removing the utility of SHS for players looking for high alpha play... in fact moving to a model like this would help differentiate SHS from DHS, by more easily increasing the buffer, but also providing stiffer cool down period.

Sandpit, on 17 March 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

^ This

I try but when a post contains 8 paragraphs of math, I just cant' do it. Graphs and such will also help people put your ideas into context for the game. (x weapon = x heat) stuff like that. I'm not knocking your post or your ideas but just based on personal experience, you'll get a lot more response in general if you add in some visual ****

Maybe a little harsh, but that's why graphs are better than tables.

[no one]

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

There's been some very nice math to demonstrate why integral heat sinks should be a fixed value with only the external heat sinks getting the different values.

Aaah, that argument. The problem with that is that you end up making sub-250 engines effectively more heat efficient than their higher rated counterparts for the tonnage. So a 5 ml XL 170 Locust would get 1.64 h/s to someone's 9 ml XL 275 hunch back 4p with 1.4 h/s base dissipation. Plus there's supposed to be environmental cooling on external heatsinks, which is an advantage I don't think integral heatsinks share.

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

Your ideas on top of that push DHS a little further into the spot light (appropriately) without removing the utility of SHS for players looking for high alpha play... in fact moving to a model like this would help differentiate SHS from DHS, by more easily increasing the buffer, but also providing stiffer cool down period.

That's a good, succinct way of putting it. You can change the numbers around to modify exactly how many SHS are required to overtake DHS in initial capacity. It's worth noting though, that if you exaggerated the heat buffer for SHS by as much as 2 per, you'd end up with massed SHS dissipating better than DHS at higher heat levels due to the overheat dissipation penalty, which is. . . probably best avoided.

Prezimonto, on 17 March 2014 - 06:06 PM, said:

Maybe a little harsh, but that's why graphs are better than tables.

I can do more graphs! Who wants more graphs? What would you like graphs of?
Need more coffee. Starting to hallucinate graphs.

Edited by no one, 17 March 2014 - 08:09 PM.

[trollocaustic]

you forgot that before DHS, energy mechs were literally jokes.

Even with it, they're inferior to ballistics mechs, and barely comparable to missile ones, simply due to the sheer heat output.

[Prezimonto]

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 08:06 PM, said:

Aaah, that argument. The problem with that is that you end up making sub-250 engines effectively more heat efficient than their higher rated counterparts for the tonnage. So a 5 ml XL 170 Locust would get 1.64 h/s to someone's 9 ml XL 275 hunch back 4p with 1.4 h/s base dissipation. Plus there's supposed to be environmental cooling on external heatsinks, which is an advantage I don't think integral heatsinks share.

I'm actually entirely okay with this. Those mechs are already generally really bad compared to the bigger variety, and this only happens for a small subset of crossover, and in relatively small amounts of difference.

no one, on 17 March 2014 - 08:06 PM, said:

That's a good, succinct way of putting it. You can change the numbers around to modify exactly how many SHS are required to overtake DHS in initial capacity. It's worth noting though, that if you exaggerated the heat buffer for SHS by as much as 2 per, you'd end up with massed SHS dissipating better than DHS at higher heat levels due to the overheat dissipation penalty, which is. . . probably best avoided.

Here's the other things that can be done to overcome SHS beating out DHS at large amounts:
1) acknowledge that very few mechs can run those builds and live with it... if a mech is dedicating 25tons to cooling, I actually don't mind if it runs cool. In addition SHS should never overtake DHS while in the "buffer zone" under your regime, and I don't really care if SHS are a little better at cutting high over heat values in your system, because your pilot can only do it maybe 2 or 3 times before he dies. And the over heat values you have keep those 2 or 3 to likely, emergency situations, not likely just to destroy the first mech you see.

2) you could make SHS have a non-linear heat dissipation rate in the overheat area, or even at only the high end of the overheat areas... make it a "feature" that SHS cool more disproportionately in the table, and the graph it so everyone see it's effectively got 3 regimes... linear, slight curve (like DHS) and the high end steeper curve is they're significantly less able to cool at top end. This preserves SHS as a high buffer, but then limits the size on the upper end.

*************

remember the benefits you get as well:
stock mechs that are more viable out the gate (good for new players) and limits on the high end for large tonnage in weapons, as people need to dedicate more tonnage to cooling. This affects ballistics boats more than energy boats, significantly, when coupled to your system, as energy boats typically make space for HS and DHS should end up about equally effective on those builds (perhaps a slight drop), but ballistic boats will not be able to stack 2x large weapons as easily, with enough ammo and cooling, as they'll have problems on both slots and tonnage if they also pack DHS into the mech. This suggestes they should go SHS (save on slot space) and live with burst fire engagements, OR stick to one ballistic weapons backed with energy and go to DHS.

[990Dreams]

I think a different system would be good. But I think there should still be a stacking penalty mechanic. The hotter a weapon runs the steeper a heat curve goes over a period of time.

Add an "other" option?

[trollocaustic]

in other words, punish energy mechs for using their weapons even more.
You gauss-addicts don't listen to reason do you?

[Spleenslitta]

trollocaustic, on 18 March 2014 - 06:03 AM, said:

in other words, punish energy mechs for using their weapons even more.
You gauss-addicts don't listen to reason do you?

There are many threads were they make some decently good alternative hardpoint systems.
This heatsystem should probably be used in combination with that.

In any case i've played with OP enough times to know that he most certainly ain't a "gauss-addict".
I use mostly lasers and SRM's myself so i would have it harsher with this heatsystem for certain but i really like it.
Try making a constructive comment please.

[trollocaustic]

Consider the amount of mechs that rely almost entirely on energy to fight, such as the stalker or awesome, who can't disengage to cool off, do we demand they use coolant shots to be viable?

Furthermore, light mechs already have it easier in the energy system given how the entire game is tilted heavily towards them (pinpoint alpha is less effective on a fast moving target, ECM, lag armor, projectile speeds and laser burn time, much much much less affected by boating penalty) why let them ALSO have the same overheat effectiveness as assaults like the awesome and stalker, who rely ENTIRELY on multiple lasers and PPCs as their bread and butter?