26 replies to this topic

[Suko]

When you overheat, the mech automatically shuts down. In some circumstances, overheating and shutting down still causes damage to the mech. For instance, alpha-striking in a Nova Prime. What is the threshold that determines if a mech takes internal damage from heat or not?

If shutting down actually accellerated the cooling rate of your mech when it's powered off, then shutting down makes a bit of sense. However, in MWO it feels like it just makes you stop for 5+ seconds while you power back up, making you a sitting duck.

I'm curious if there's any really negative side affect to just mapping "O" to my fire keys whenever I shoot. This would allow me to avoid overheating and becoming an imobile/stationary target. Yes, the mech may take damage when it overheats, but this happens if you overheat badly enough anyways.

Can anyone shed some light on how this works and why this mapping "O" to weapons idea might be a terribly bad idea. Please, no responses like "Overheating is bad for your mech". Please tell me WHY it's bad. Do you take even MORE heat damage when active vs shut down? Why would shutting down and standing their be better than running my mech at 100+ heat for a few seconds (but still being mobile and able to spread damage or retreat)?

Thanks.

Edited by Suko, 13 October 2014 - 09:31 AM.

[Outlaw]

Well there is that whole death thing that is more inconvenient than being a sitting duck. As you sit over 100% your 'mech starts taking damage internally, and it usually doesn't take long to incur catastrophic damage.

Edited by Outlaw, 13 October 2014 - 09:39 AM.

[Wintersdark]

You take damage internally while shut down anytime your heat is over 100%... That is, all the time while shut down.

If you overheat and shut down in *anything* then, you're going to take some damage, but it'll often be minor. The reason it'll often be minor is twofold:

1) When firing lasers and overheating, your lasers stop firing as soon as you top 100%, so your heat will only be a little above it. Thus, you're not racking up a lot of heat to dissipate while shut down.
2) The damage you take while shut down is fairly limited. It exists, but is only significant in cases like a 12 ERML Nova, or multi-PPC builds where you're generating significant ghost heat.

When you're over 100% and Overriding shutdown - thus remaining active - you take substantially more damage due to heat and cool slower, so you'll continue taking more damage longer.

[Suko]

Do we know HOW much more damage you incur being active vs shutdown while heat is over 100%?

[LordMelvin]

Suko, on 13 October 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

Do we know HOW much more damage you incur being active vs shutdown while heat is over 100%?

I was able to find this:
If you go over 100% heat, regardless of shutdown or over ride, you'll take damage to your CT equal to 0.75 + .001 damage per ton + .001 damage per point of engine rating every 1.5 seconds until you're heat falls below 100%

I'm not sure if they've modified the damage but this is the most recent information I could find.

[Suko]

LordMelvin, on 13 October 2014 - 10:40 AM, said:

I was able to find this:
If you go over 100% heat, regardless of shutdown or over ride, you'll take damage to your CT equal to 0.75 + .001 damage per ton + .001 damage per point of engine rating every 1.5 seconds until you're heat falls below 100%

I'm not sure if they've modified the damage but this is the most recent information I could find.

If this is true, then there's no difference from shutting down and running with overheat. Is this right?

[Ian Drsaurri]

Most mechs if you alphastrike and override you will die especially the daishi prime

[LordMelvin]

Suko, on 13 October 2014 - 11:31 AM, said:

If this is true, then there's no difference from shutting down and running with overheat. Is this right?

When you shut down your lasers stop firing immediately. You also aren't moving or JJ'ing. All of your heat generation stops which means your cooling is much more effective.

Overriding lets you get into a better position (like out of the line of fire or into water if you have heat sinks in your legs) but increases the amount of time you are potentially generating heat.

If you need one more shot to get the kill or if shutting down would potentially get you killed then overriding is useful. If you have a moment of peace or are in cover the shutting down is useful. They each have their moments, although overriding is more likely to get you killed.

[terrycloth]

In practice, I almost never die (from overheating) when shutting down from overheating. I almost always die if I override and then fire stuff that should have made me shut down.

Most of it is probably the laser thing.

[Lily from animove]

Wintersdark, on 13 October 2014 - 09:42 AM, said:

1) When firing lasers and overheating, your lasers stop firing as soon as you top 100%, so your heat will only be a little above it. Thus, you're not racking up a lot of heat to dissipate while shut down.
2) The damage you take while shut down is fairly limited. It exists, but is only significant in cases like a 12 ERML Nova, or multi-PPC builds where you're generating significant ghost heat.

But when this would be true, a Nova alphaing (without override) all 12 lasers, would not be out of combat for over 30 seconds, because it would also only be slightly above 100%. But in fact its way above 100% so far, that it shuts down over 30 seconds and returns with a high red internal.

But yet, overriding said nova. does instant pop it. So I wonder how much damage the shutdown does "block" 90%? 95%?

[mad kat]

Technically speaking the rate of cooling SHOULD slow down when you overheat and shut down as the mechs primary systems are shut down or suspended to momentarily. I have no idea whether the cooling system would still continue to pump coolant through the myomers, reactors and weapons when the reactor is offline, alternator and battery powered redundancy pump for overheat shutdowns? Either way a stationary mech with its primary systems offline should not really be pumping much coolant and the discharge to atmosphere heat sinks wouldnt do as much.

I've always thought mechs are too heat efficient on HPG manifold in a zero atmosphere environment where the atmospheric heat exchangers wouldn't work that well.
http://bg.battletech...p?topic=20978.0

But overriding the shut down should not just damage you CT but your limbs also as it would degrade the Myomers too. What really should happen is that when the mech becomes excessively hot it should become lethargic also.

Edited by mad kat, 14 October 2014 - 01:09 AM.

[Lily from animove]

mad kat, on 14 October 2014 - 12:59 AM, said:

Technically speaking the rate of cooling SHOULD slow down when you overheat and shut down as the mechs primary systems are shut down or suspended to momentarily stop the engine and myomers from adding heat to the cycle. Movement creates heat. I have no idea whether the cooling system would still continue to pump coolant through the myomers and weapons when the reactor is offline battery powered redundancy pump for overheat shutdowns?

But overriding the shut down should not just damage you CT but your limbs also as it would degrade the Myomers too. What really should happen is that when the mech becomes excessively hot it should become lethargic also.

well since the reactor is overheating, all sections having engine get damage. When overriding said 12 CERML nova sometimes an internal other component was gettign detsroyed, I guess a heatsink, or a sidetorso.

also, not the entire mech shuts down, otherwise you woudl have the complete startup sequence every time. its more like a "standby" mode I guess which suts all non heta managing related components to a non working mode.

[Carl Avery]

Lasers continue to fire for their full beam duration even after shutdown. They continue to follow your reticle, which lowers as your shutting-down 'mechs arms drop a bit, so the end of the beam duration doesn't hit what you were trying to shoot, except for perhaps its legs.

Overriding shutdown has two main effects. Firstly, the damage taken from heat will multiply greatly after overriding. Secondly, the damage taken from heat will go to a random component, instead of solely the CT. So, if you don't override, exceeding the heat threshold will cause you to shut down and take minor damage to the CT internal structure. If you override, exceeding the heat threshold will not shut you down, but you will take massive damage to a random component's internal structure.

The head only has a few hitpoints, so if you get unlucky enough, overriding and then firing that one last alpha can instantly destroy you due to the massive damage spike to the head component.

The only reason, then, that you should ever override shutdown, is if you don't care that you're likely to explode immediately after your override alpha. Out of 8000+ matches, I've had approximately two occurrences were overriding has let me kill a 'mech, and then explode myself immediately afterward, in a situation where I would have died due to enemy fire, without making the kill, if I hadn't overridden. This is the purpose of the override feature, but it's very rare for me to need to use it, and 99% of the time, it's a mistake for anyone to use the override function. (Or they're trying to grief people by intentionally suiciding.)

Edited by Carl Avery, 14 October 2014 - 01:54 AM.

[mad kat]

Technically speaking energy based mechs should have a higher minimum heat sink number that that which uses stored energy in the form of ammuntion. Due to the reactor providing the energy required to inflict damage.

Problem is i wouldn't know if energy weapons actually run cooler for a given damage figure than a missile or shell and its actually the reactor that generates the heat for the given laser etc etc. (Energy weapons would use capacitors of course). Therefore the override function should be far more risky and damaging to the engine in lets say a stalker ppc boat than in a jagermech firing autocannons. The barrels are heat sinks in their own right of course conversely you could argue that once an energy weapon mech shuts down it cools down faster if this is the case.

But then i have no idea and am speculating only.

Edited by mad kat, 14 October 2014 - 02:08 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Lily from animove, on 14 October 2014 - 12:46 AM, said:

But when this would be true, a Nova alphaing (without override) all 12 lasers, would not be out of combat for over 30 seconds, because it would also only be slightly above 100%. But in fact its way above 100% so far, that it shuts down over 30 seconds and returns with a high red internal.

But yet, overriding said nova. does instant pop it. So I wonder how much damage the shutdown does "block" 90%? 95%?

That's because of ghost heat. Ghost heat is applied up front, which is why the Nova shuts down instantly. A 12erml alpha generates a lot of ghost heat. Also, 12 erml's may be generating heat over time (fire just one or two to see this in action) but 12 are generating 12*heatPerTick, so even without ghost heat you'd get a fair bit over 100.

Edited by Wintersdark, 14 October 2014 - 04:05 AM.

[LordMelvin]

Wintersdark, on 14 October 2014 - 04:04 AM, said:

That's because of ghost heat. Ghost heat is applied up front, which is why the Nova shuts down instantly. A 12erml alpha generates a lot of ghost heat. Also, 12 erml's may be generating heat over time (fire just one or two to see this in action) but 12 are generating 12*heatPerTick, so even without ghost heat you'd get a fair bit over 100.

Your mech also generates a small amount of heat just for being active, movement included, on top of heat from the map. Shutting down removes all heat generation by your mech (excluding weapons) and since heat dissipation is a continuous thing your cooling efficiency goes up. You might only have 1 or 2 internal hp left but those 1 or 2 hp were saved by not moving or JJing.

[Takashi Uchida]

It can cause your head to explode. Rare, but it happens lol

-Someone who overrides all the time for the thrill

[Suko]

I never alpha when I'm already at 95%+. I just have ocassional issues where I'm at 75% and fire and just barely go over 100%. Maybe 110% heat. This causes me to shut down and usually get shot up by anything who notices I'm stationary for 5 seconds. Instead, if I had Overide mapped to my weapon fire buttons, I might overheat for 2-3 seconds, but I'm also able to get back into cover or twist and spread damage across my mech.

I think I'll give it a shot and see if this helps or not. I imagine the little extra dmg taken from overheating a bit wins out over taking 3 AC5's to the torso when I shut down.

Edited by Suko, 15 October 2014 - 02:39 PM.

[ImperialKnight]

PSA: When you override, you RUN. Do not stop, do not fight. RUN. And hide until your heat goes down

[Bront]

Suko, on 13 October 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

Do we know HOW much more damage you incur being active vs shutdown while heat is over 100%?

Load 7 PPCs on a Battlemaster. Override, then fire in the Caldera of Terra Therma.

Now try it without override.

I've heard tales of folks overriding a shut down mech and blowing it up.

I suggest doing this in the training grounds.

Edited by Bront, 15 October 2014 - 03:18 PM.