27 replies to this topic

[Ripnfly]

Can Engines under 250 NEED TO BE boosted back up to 10 double heat sinks for light pilots. I just feel like you cant even play a 25/20 ton mech competitivly right now because of this. This change does not touch top performing IS mechs, this change slightly buffs 30 and 35 ton clan lights for about 8-16% bonus heat disapation which is quite minimal. THIS IS A LARGE BUFF TO 20 and 25 TON MECHS THEY NEED IT.

Can we please get a hard cap on tonnage for a game even if it means 9v9's if too many people are playing heavier mechs. Serioulsy most of this weekend were 8% 12% 40% 40% that is stupid PGI and really not enjoyable for the lighter pilots. I got alpha and died instantly at least 5 times this weekend and im a solid pilot but I cant even play information warfare with the amount of weight out on the map currently. Why do my UAV assists not give me like 10,000 cbills I am providing my team with such a massive advantage over their opponent in this game its basically wall hacking. Please patch the fall speed for lights this week form jumpjets.




Finally when I am in a good posistion and an assault is camping why cant my Arty kill him if he stands still? His arty kills me if im not paying attention or does 50% of my total armor. Mine does 10% max on him. You need to give me something atleast let lights jump snipe again or something.

[Mcgral18]

They really should fix that. All 10 first DHS should be 2.0s.


You can one shot an assault with an Arty, you just need the RNG gods to be in your favour. They can also spark ammo explosions.

Edited by Mcgral18, 06 October 2014 - 06:46 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

I agree with Mcgral. The 1st 10 sinks should have full power in or out of the engine. If this isn't the case it should be fixed quickly. Even though it has zero impact on my Mechs.

[FupDup]

Mcgral18, on 06 October 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

They really should fix that. All 10 first DHS should be 2.0s.

To take it a step further, all 10 first DHS (or SHS for that matter) should be located inside of the engine, rather than needing to be allocated externally on engines rated under 250. All it does is poop on the low-end lights (which are already suboptimal as it is...) and a few low-end mediums with a low engine cap (BJ and Vindi, but they don't get it nearly as bad as the Commie and Lolcust do). Engine tonnages would be increased accordingly to represent the Dubs being inside of them, so in the end you'd just gain critical slots while having the same net tonnage cost.

I already know that this idea is completely possible, having taken a look at the Engines.XML document in the game files. For example, here is an XL245 engine:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="11" heatsinks="9" health="15" />
  </Module>

And I would change it to this:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="12" heatsinks="10" health="15" />
  </Module>

(Tonnage and internal sinks both increased by 1).

This could be done for every engine in the game in mere minutes, as each engine just needs 2 values changed. Maybe Clan XL might cause issues due to fixed slots, though, so they might have to be an exception to the rule (Clan tiny lights never run out of slots anyways, so they are only hurt by the heat efficiency reduction).

Edited by FupDup, 06 October 2014 - 07:52 AM.

[kapusta11]

ALL double heatsinks should provide 0.5 heat dissipation in the first place.

[stjobe]

Yeah. My 10 DHS XL195 Commando having 18.2 heat capacity and 1.82 dissipation instead of 20.0/2.0 just makes zero sense.

[Mawai]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 October 2014 - 06:51 AM, said:

I agree with Mcgral. The 1st 10 sinks should have full power in or out of the engine. If this isn't the case it should be fixed quickly. Even though it has zero impact on my Mechs.

In engine heat sinks in IS mechs are 2.0. Not sure about clans. I did some testing and clans seemed to have a lower cap with higher dissipation for comparable number of heat sinks to IS mechs.

This issue only affects small engines.

150 - 6 internal 2.0 and 4 external 1.4 is probably the worst case. Instead of 20 cooling the engine ends up with 17.6. Which is roughly a 12.5% decrease compared to a 250 engine. The effect on heat capacity is less since the formula has a constant base amount which is increased by heat sinks. I am not sure what that formula is ... something like 30 + heat capacity ... this gives 50 vs 47.6 or about a 5% difference.

In addition, with the exception of the 5ML locust, the very light mechs have a fairly limited weapon capacity and heat generation.

So ... honestly, I don't think this change would make much of a difference if any in practice.

----

Also, I play light mechs a lot ... I have mastered Jenner, Firestarter, Raven, Spider, Kitfox. In the past 40 or 50 matches I have been alphaed once. A Direwhale with 3xERPPC and 2xGauss got lucky and hit my Firestarter early in the match when I popped into view briefly dropping a UAV. I was moving across their field of view at ~140. I have found that as long as I don't stand still, I don't typically die to a single shot. I have had one or the other of the arms alphaed off my Kitfox though.

Light mechs have to be fast, always moving, and fire on the move to survive ... I like the challenge which is why I play them ... but if I see the front of a DW or other assault ... I know I have made a mistake and usually hope they don't notice me while I race for the nearest cover.

[Mechteric]

If they really wanted to help the Locust and Commando they'd get rid of the 10 heat sink minimum requirement. That would go a long way!

[stjobe]

Mawai, on 06 October 2014 - 08:06 AM, said:

So ... honestly, I don't think this change would make much of a difference if any in practice.

That's kind of the point... It's an unneeded, unwanted, unnecessary restriction that really has no reason to be there.

My Commando wouldn't all of a sudden become a tier 1 'mech if it had 20.0/2.0 instead of 18.2/1.82 heat capacity/dissipation, but it would become ever so slightly better.

Since the 10 sink minimum is a hard TT rule, and you cannot mix heat sink types, I wonder why ever PGI decided to create three types of heat sinks:
* SHS
* In-engine DHS
* External DHS

Oh, I know. The 3-second Jenner.

Which is as much a bovine manure excuse today as it was back then.

CapperDeluxe, on 06 October 2014 - 08:08 AM, said:

If they really wanted to help the Locust and Commando they'd get rid of the 10 heat sink minimum requirement. That would go a long way!

Not really. I played in CB when the 10 HS minimum wasn't enforced, and let me tell you that it's not really fun to try to cool three SRM launchers and a ML on seven SHS...

[Mawai]

stjobe, on 06 October 2014 - 08:03 AM, said:

Yeah. My 10 DHS XL195 Commando having 18.2 heat capacity and 1.82 dissipation instead of 20.0/2.0 just makes zero sense.

This actually goes back to the age old question of WHY did PGI decide to use 1.4 double heat sinks instead of true doubles? I'd actually like to hear the real reason ... "It lets a Jenner core an Atlas from behind in 4 seconds" ... was a reason expressed at the time ... but since it is COMPLETELY bogus ... it would be nice to get the real reasons. (Since engine heat sinks are true doubles and a Jenner typically has a 300XL ... it comes with 10 doubles from the start ... it doesn't have the tonnage to add many more and they don't change the effectiveness of the mech by that much).

Some history: Whoever first implemented double heat sinks in MWO did not understand them. The first implementation created "double" heat sinks that you could buy and add to your mech ... 2 cooling, 3 crits, 1 ton ... but the engine heat sinks STAYED ALL singles. PGI announced the implementation of double heat sinks but it was community testing that showed that the engine heat sinks hadn't changed. This was when they went back to design ... changed engine to true doubles and apparently found in internal testing that all true double heat sinks were not balanced ... though the public reasons stated behind this made no sense. Engine doubles and external 1.4s were released and are what we still have today. It is true that doubles are strictly better than single heat sinks ... single heat sinks are not used except for stock matches pretty much ... I am pretty sure that this is as true in TT as it is in MWO. Certain technologies supercede previous ones ... that is just the way the game works.

[stjobe]

Mawai, on 06 October 2014 - 08:15 AM, said:

I'd actually like to hear the real reason [...] Whoever first implemented double heat sinks in MWO did not understand them.

That is the real reason.

Edited by stjobe, 06 October 2014 - 08:27 AM.

[Mcgral18]

stjobe, on 06 October 2014 - 08:20 AM, said:

That is the real reason.

It's funny how little thought was put into that comment.

It takes a full 5 seconds for a jenner to fire 12 MLs, or rather to deal the 60 damage. Dem burn times. I guess you could get technical and call it a 4.49 second jenner, if you want to factor in the FastFire and the Lvl5 Cooldown modules.

Doesn't quite sound as convincing, though.

[Joseph Mallan]

FupDup, on 06 October 2014 - 07:52 AM, said:

To take it a step further, all 10 first DHS (or SHS for that matter) should be located inside of the engine, rather than needing to be allocated externally on engines rated under 250. All it does is poop on the low-end lights (which are already suboptimal as it is...) and a few low-end mediums with a low engine cap (BJ and Vindi, but they don't get it nearly as bad as the Commie and Lolcust do). Engine tonnages would be increased accordingly to represent the Dubs being inside of them, so in the end you'd just gain critical slots while having the same net tonnage cost.

I already know that this idea is completely possible, having taken a look at the Engines.XML document in the game files. For example, here is an XL245 engine:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="11" heatsinks="9" health="15" />
  </Module>

And I would change it to this:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="12" heatsinks="10" health="15" />
  </Module>

(Tonnage and internal sinks both increased by 1).

This could be done for every engine in the game in mere minutes, as each engine just needs 2 values changed. Maybe Clan XL might cause issues due to fixed slots, though, so they might have to be an exception to the rule (Clan tiny lights never run out of slots anyways, so they are only hurt by the heat efficiency reduction).

I can't agree with this. That is Literally for TT beginners only. You are saying that the Players here are as skilled as the newest of the new on TT? I cannot agree with that Fup.

kapusta11, on 06 October 2014 - 07:57 AM, said:

ALL double heatsinks should provide 0.5 heat dissipation in the first place.

[redacted]

Edited by Egomane, 07 October 2014 - 02:28 AM.
picture removed as unconstructive

[stjobe]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 October 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

I can't agree with this. That is Literally for TT beginners only. You are saying that the Players here are as skilled as the newest of the new on TT? I cannot agree with that Fup.

Yeah, you should still need to allocate crit space (and tonnage, although Fup did increase engine weight to compensate) for the external sinks, but they should have the same capacity and dissipation as the internal ones.

The easiest (and therefore least likely) solution is of course to make external DHS 2.0 as well.

Edited by stjobe, 06 October 2014 - 09:02 AM.

[Zyllos]

Actually, they just need to fire the entire engine system in the first place.

Don't include all the weight of Gyros, Life Support, Cockpit, and Internal Heatsinks into the engine itself. Instead, have those pieces change based on the engine equipped (which just means the only one that changes is the Gyro weight, Sensors & Life Support stays the same).

Then implement "Engine Heatsink & Engine Double Heatsink" that has 0.0 weight and 0.2 dissipation and 2.0 cap. You just include up to 10 minus Internal Engine Heatsinks up to 250 rating engine.

This will also fix the issue with the 100 XL engine being 1.0t too heavy while also allowing for expansion into different Cockpit and Gyro types.

[Xarian]

Mcgral18, on 06 October 2014 - 06:45 AM, said:

They really should fix that. All 10 first DHS should be 2.0s.

Agree. No reason to penalize small engines at all - not only do they have less heat efficiency and eat more crit slots, they are also disproportionately heavier!

I'll use the 30t Spider as an example (without speed tweak) because it can use up to and over 250 engines, while the lighter mechs cannot.

XL 100 + 6 DHS: 54.0 kph : 6.5 tons, 30 crit slots (4 DHS at 2.0x, 6 DHS at 1.4x, overall 16.4x)
XL 125 + 5 DHS: 67.5 kph : 7.0 tons, 27 crit slots (5 DHS at 2.0x, 5 DHS at 1.4x, overall 17.0x)
XL 150 + 4 DHS: 81.0 kph : 8.0 tons, 24 crit slots (6 DHS at 2.0x, 4 DHS at 1.4x, overall 17.6x)
XL 175 + 3 DHS: 94.5 kph : 8.5 tons, 21 crit slots (7 DHS at 2.0x, 3 DHS at 1.4x, overall 18.2x)
XL 200 + 2 DHS: 108.0 kph : 9.5 tons, 18 crit slots (8 DHS at 2.0x, 2 DHS at 1.4x, overall 18.8x)
XL 225 + 1 DHS: 121.5 kph : 11.0 tons, 15 crit slots (9 DHS at 2.0x, 1 DHS at 1.4x, overall 19.4x)
XL 250 + 0 DHS: 135.0 kph : 12.5 tons, 12 crit slots (10 DHS at 2.0x, 0 DHS at 1.4x, overall 20.0x)
XL 275 + 0 DHS: 148.5 kph : 14.0 tons, 12 crit slots + free DHS if desired (10 DHS at 2.0x, 0 DHS at 1.4x, overall 20.0x)

So let's compare the XL 100 to the XL 250. For 6 more tons (92% increase), you get 81 kph more running speed (150% increase), 18 more crit slots (60% reduction), and 22% more heat efficiency.

More better numbers coming soon.

Edited by Xarian, 06 October 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[keith]

FupDup, on 06 October 2014 - 07:52 AM, said:

To take it a step further, all 10 first DHS (or SHS for that matter) should be located inside of the engine, rather than needing to be allocated externally on engines rated under 250. All it does is poop on the low-end lights (which are already suboptimal as it is...) and a few low-end mediums with a low engine cap (BJ and Vindi, but they don't get it nearly as bad as the Commie and Lolcust do). Engine tonnages would be increased accordingly to represent the Dubs being inside of them, so in the end you'd just gain critical slots while having the same net tonnage cost.

I already know that this idea is completely possible, having taken a look at the Engines.XML document in the game files. For example, here is an XL245 engine:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="11" heatsinks="9" health="15" />
  </Module>

And I would change it to this:

<Module id="3347" name="Engine_XL_245" CType="CEngineStats" faction="InnerSphere">
	<Loc nameTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245" descTag="@Engine_XL_Fusion_245_desc" iconTag="StoreIcons\XLEngine.dds" />
	<EngineStats slots="6" sideSlots="3" sidesToDie="1" rating="245" weight="12" heatsinks="10" health="15" />
  </Module>

(Tonnage and internal sinks both increased by 1).

This could be done for every engine in the game in mere minutes, as each engine just needs 2 values changed. Maybe Clan XL might cause issues due to fixed slots, though, so they might have to be an exception to the rule (Clan tiny lights never run out of slots anyways, so they are only hurt by the heat efficiency reduction).

i thought LONG ago back in CBT all engines weighed what they did in TT and had 10 HS in them+ gyros. which is y u see that coding. i forgot the reason y they changed it to the current way we have it. going to go out on a limb here and say some sort of a bug, there was alot back then.

[FupDup]

Joseph Mallan, on 06 October 2014 - 08:55 AM, said:

I can't agree with this. That is Literally for TT beginners only. You are saying that the Players here are as skilled as the newest of the new on TT? I cannot agree with that Fup.

What does that have to do with this? There's a TT rule about it?

I made the suggestion in order to reduce the sub-optimalness of mechs with engines rated under 250, so that they aren't as inferior as they are presently (still have less tonnage for armor and weapons, but at least it helps a bit). Having all the skill in the world won't reclaim any of those (arguably unfairly) taxed critical slots that sub-250 engines eat up.

[3rdworld]

FupDup, on 06 October 2014 - 09:49 AM, said:

What does that have to do with this? There's a TT rule about it?

I made the suggestion in order to reduce the sub-optimalness of mechs with engines rated under 250, so that they aren't as inferior as they are presently (still have less tonnage for armor and weapons, but at least it helps a bit). Having all the skill in the world won't reclaim any of those (arguably unfairly) taxed critical slots that sub-250 engines eat up.

It is also a bit inconsistent. If 10 HS were required, than the mech would die if it ever fell below that threshold due to crits.


But just add it to the stack of inconstant/bad TT construction rules.

Edited by 3rdworld, 06 October 2014 - 10:06 AM.

[Xarian]

So let's start with a few goals:

• All engines should have the same heat efficiency (that is, the same number of internal heat sinks)
  
• All engines should have the same crit efficiency (that is, all same-type engines take the same number of crit slots: Std takes 6, XL takes 12)
  
• The lighter engines should be adjusted so that they are balanced with the Std/XL 255 (the most efficient light engine)

Based on this, you end up with a new chart showing some adjustments to the lighter engines - every light engine now has 10 heat sinks. Red values show the old tonnage and heat sinks for the light engines - this includes the tonnage that you must spend to reach the minimum 10 heat sinks. Green values show the new tonnage and heat sinks. Orange values show the difference between the new and old values.

You'll notice that some of the Std of the engines get heavier, and a few (especially the really light ones) get lighter. Remember that they all have 10 heat sinks now, so even if your engine is 1.0 ton heavier, you've got a lot more crit slots. The only XL engine that gets heavier is the XL 195 - the lightest ones get a fair bit lighter.

The real takeaway from this:

• Engines rated 160 and below need to be a fair bit lighter (in other words, buffed)
  
• Engines rated above 160 can have their 10 heat sinks installed without any change in weight, or very minor decrease
  
• These balance changes make small engines viable without making them the best available
  
• These balance changes also go a long way toward making very light mechs (25t and under) more viable with smaller engines
  
• Read: Urbanmech!

Edited by Xarian, 06 October 2014 - 10:37 AM.