About Those Poordubs...

Firelizard, on 24 March 2015 - 08:13 AM, said:

As much as I'd love to see a 30 heat cap, it would need to be a soft cap with increasing debilitating effects when going above it.

Otherwise mechs like the Nova Prime and Warhawk Prime are left with weapons they can never use, where in canon they could be used, but you had to roll the dice on the extra heat ruining your day.

I developed a system akin to that already. I'll link you shortly but I'd like you to continue reading first.

Metus regem, on 24 March 2015 - 08:19 AM, said:

It bothers me, as I can see the potential of MWO, and I see them almost squandering it, they made a good move by adding CW, but there needs to be some weight to decisions we make in game, like a reason not to use the biggest engine, a reason to use standard internals and armour, a reason to use single heat sinks...

I'd also like to see different versions of the PPC, like Donnals that may fire a little slower or travel a little slower, but hit harder or Lord's Light, that may do reduced damage, but fire faster, further and travel faster.

Indeed. I gave a few suggestions for PPC types here. Spread across several posts. It however kept 100% identical to source material stats. I'm open to damage variation (as that technically is in the lore).

Quote

Every Warhawk Prime I have every used, that fired all four cERPPC's, always cooked off that LRM ammo....

Indeed. Just tried it with a number of "ghost heat afflicted" builds by using basic TT (ammo went boom on two out of three mechs) as well as using BattleTech's solution -- the Heatsink taxing rule. Specifically with this rule, there's a third factor.

Mech Threshold -- the heat the mech itself can take, uncooled.
Cooling -- the rate at which a mech cools.
Heatsink threshold -- the maximum amount of heat that a mech can safely cool, as well as risks for melting heatsinks if this amount is reached in a 10 second period (ideally 5 second for MWO).

Here's the results.
Warhawk. Weapons fired: 3 ER PPCs in a 10 second period (this is not at the same time).

Spoiler

Vicious. Managed to avoid melting heatsinks due to spacing his firing out (preventing hitting the mech threshold) and keeping the overall heat generated low to minimize the risk of melting heatsinks.

The Awesome 8Q? 3 PPCs fired at once. 28 SHS.

Spoiler

Went 3 heat over his heatsink threshold, but managed to avoid even having to check for a meltdown. Could easily get away with two PPCs at once then fire the third shortly after, but firing 3 would have shut him down immediately with a strict threshold.

What about the Black Hawk (Nova)? 6 ER ML fired at full power.

Spoiler

Absolutely no issues firing 6 ER ML. Can chain fire. Doing it all at once though would shut it down and it would need 10 full seconds to recover from it (6 seconds minimum). (Novas have so many lasers because arms + through armor criticals = destroyed lasers. I've had a single hit take out 5 of my 6 ER MLs in an arm once; damn LBX).

And the Hunchback 4P?

Spoiler

Went over his cooling ability and still came out alright.

So what if we took it up a notch? Not quite a true-by-the-rules alpha strike, but firing most to all the weapons they have?
Warhawk: 4 ER PPCs fired while running with left over heat.

Spoiler

Shutdown at 93 1/3% heat. (28 : 30 = 93.333333333333% : 100%) (Fits with closed beta tendency of shutting down around 95% heat, instant death at 101% heat).
Keeps the mech from falling over.
Ammo explodes!
Sudden explosive impact -- pilot receives injuries from rattling around inside cockpit (possibly smashed her head against the wall).
Stays conscious.
Double injury! That HURT!
Lost consciousness from second impact.
No heatsinks melted this time due to spacing of shots.
Awesome. 3 PPCs + small laser.

Spoiler

Had to check for a coolant failure. Only generated a single heat more than previously walking (backward in both cases due to the Testbot throwing the Nin Keis right on top of me in this simultaineous turn ruleset). Far from risk of hitting it. No heatsinks melted.

Blackhawk (Nova), 8 ER ML at full power. Note: I didn't hit anything because during my turn everything went out of line of sight (when during my queue to move he was in my line of sight by 1 hex, so I shot at the ground instead because why not?).

Spoiler

Absolutely no issues. Minor check for coolant failure that wasn't even close.
Hunchback? 8 ML + 1 small laser + running.

Spoiler

Still no issues. So whether a single alpha strike in 10 seconds (safe to do every 12 seconds actually) or chain firing the weapons, Hunchbacks will be right at home with a lower threshold.

In general mechs will just fire less often -- or as would become the new meta for hot weapons -- less at once. This would require either changes in lasers (to lore appropriate 0.1 to 0.2 second beams) or in autocannons (to lore appropriate mass dakka spammery to get fractions of total damage, with total damage delivered in perhaps 4 second periods). Either would balance things out fairly well. The autocannon thing might have to happen either way. Simply limit Gauss Rifles to firing one at a time (about the same issue you'd have with ER PPCs too). Could even remove the charge mechanic then.
____________________________________________

Now back to Firelizard.

Here, I describe two systems.

One (Solid-Rate Cooling Strength) is a literal TT to real time with the above described Heatsink Taxing rule (aka separate heatsink threshold from Mech Threshold). It runs a Mechwarrior style cooling system with risk of melting heatsinks (keeps firing spam down which will in turn keep hit registration from getting overtaxed and near-instant-kill PP FLD down).

I note currently MWO mixes heatsink threshold with Mech threshold, which why it gets so high.

The second system (Deteriorating Rate Cooling Strength) is ~Also~ a literal TT to real time translation that is still 1:1 (and thus can be made 2:1 fitting of MWO's system) in which it uses some loose but specific ideas from thermal physics. Specifically half the heat you generate goes to your heatsink threshold immediately while half gets applied to your Mech threshold.

Spoiler

This second design can mean that you could fire much more than 30 heat at once if your heatsinks can handle it. It accounts for the potential alpha strikes and minimal-encounter time scenarios of BT where the mech could only possibly appear in front of you for some of the 10 seconds of time in your turn.

So, you could in theory use a Warhawk Prime and alpha strike once without things blowing up in your face (30 heat to a 40 point Heatsink Threshold, and 30 heat to your Mech Threshold). You would still shutdown in that instance, just like in the TT/megamek examples above. You'd still get the ammo explosion -- but you wouldn't get MWO's old instant death for hitting 101% heat (not that it's a problem anymore, but... you know). And if pilots had their own health stuff, you wouldn't die instantly like you probably would with the solid rate cooling strength. This is because your mech only directly experiences 30 heat instead of the full 60 from your alpha.

The Awesome 8Q could fire all 3 PPCs without issue and without quirks. (30 heat / 2 = 15 heat in heatsink threshold and 15 in mech threshold -- at most it'd get a movement/agility penalty for a second while it cooled.)

But wait... How is this any better than before?
The beauty is in that your cooling rate decays. Take the Awesome 8Q example. 15 out of 28 possible cooling is immediately consumed. So instead of cooling at 2.8 units/second, you are now cooling at 1.2 units/second, and as each heatsink absorbs heat, that will decay. Your second second will be 1.1 units/second, 1.0 units/second, 0.9 units/second, 0.8 units/second. Then again, as your 'full' heatsinks begin expelling heat, your cooling capabilities will increase again.

This I find to be complicated as heck to explain, but far simpler to understand from a logical standpoint than "I can't make more than 28 heat in 10 seconds... What was that, 25 heat? Has it been 10 seconds yet?" You would instead have a second heat gauge letting you know how busy your heatsinks are. As your mech heat cools, your heatsink heat will rise (and fall).

TL;DR
On the first system, with a Warhawk Prime stock you must fire 1 ER PPC at a time. Even if you boasted its cooling abilities, you'd still need to fire 1 ER PPC at a time. Firing two would shut you down instantly because Mech Threshold takes 100% of the heat, and Heatsink Threshold is a separate 'spam fire' control to keep things like mass medium (or smaller) laser, AC-crazy and missile boats from being able to alpha or chain fire you into insanity.

With the second system:
If you have a Warhawk prime with 40 units of cooling and 30 threshold, you could do an alpha strike of 60 units of heat instead of just 30, without risk of overloading the heatsinks (since they only take half the heat you generated at once) but in doing so you'd suffer cooling issues. (Specifically for that first second of cooling you'd cool 1 heat, 0.9 heat, 0.8 heat and after 5 seconds, the heatsinks already full will begin expelling heat, picking your cooling back up as it degrades for heatsinks that are still absorbing heat.)
You will also have about 15 seconds of waiting to cool 100%. You'd be able to start up in... 11.5 seconds (time to reach 46.67% heat).

Both systems would give an identical to TT feel. Solid rate would be a strict 30 heat at any one instant = instant shutdown. Deteriorating rate would be far more leniant but you'd be punished in cooling rate for anything else done until a proper amount of time has passed for the heatsink cycle to finish (Instant to gradual absorption, expulsion).

___________

Now back to Metus.

Back to the mechs, Awesome 8Q after sustained, over time fire of 3 PPCs and 1 SL, each fired once every 10 seconds.

Spoiler

Gained 32 heat, sunk 28 and is now at 7 uncooled heat. But a heatsink has melted!

In the Solid Rate cooling system I have up there, for best PP FLD, you'd fire 2 PPCs at once then the small laser and then another PPC (or 2 PPCs then wait then 1 PPC then the SL). Either way, at 7 units of heat above what the mech could sink, a heatsink has melted because the pilot had not waited until he cooled completely before firing again. (Heatsink threshold as an anti-spam method).

In the Deteriorating Rate cooling system, you could fire all 3 PPCs. 15 heat would be 'absorbed' and locked briefly, keeping 15 SHS (or 7.5 DHS) occupied, unable to do anything else. The other 15 would slowly get absorbed by other heatsinks throughout the mech's body. With each passing second that absorption rate would decay until about 5 seconds after firing, where expulsion of absorbed heat would begin. The small laser would mean almost nothing with its single shot at this point. Since the mech had residual heat that was still not checked had exasperated a minor issue, the heatsink threshold once again acts as an anti-spam...and melted a heatsink.

Now, in the DRCS system, if you could fire your PPCs every 4 seconds instead of every 10... your next shot done at 4 seconds instead of 10 will completely remove your ability to absorb heat at all. Unable to cool, you'd melt several heatsinks at once while those left struggled to expel what heat they absorbed. Every second you spend still functional instead of shutdown like you should be (assuming you overrode), you're generating additional heat from the engine (0.1/sec cruise speed, 0.2/sec full speed, 0.3/sec sprint/'speed tweak' speed). At some point your pilot would probably die assuming the mech's engine doesn't eventually lose all functionality and melt down.

A softer, yet strict punishment than 'instant shutdown'.

Nova, 12 ER ML fired within 10 seconds.

Spoiler

Manages -- with ease -- to avoid shutdown.
Avoids ammo explosion.
Avoids heatsink melting -- just barely. The spacing of your shots could be all the meaning behind this. How soon after the first do you fire the second, the third, the seventh, the twelveth?

With a solid rate cooling system and here comes what people hate here, 61 heat = more than Mech Threshold of 30 = automatic shutdown. You couldn't possibly alpha strike this. But then again the whole idea is to stop to reduce alpha strikes. 6 ER ML would shut you down if fired at once (30 heat).

With the deteriorating rate cooling system, you could fire 6 ER ML at once without issue (15 mech heat, 15 sink heat deterioration) though firing all 12 at the same time would still shut you down immediately (30 mech heat, 30 sink heat deterioration) and leave you in quite a pickle. But at least you won't instantly die from it as the pilot would with the solid rate.

Either way, the changes to the heat system would make huge changes to the meta and high alpha strikes in general. The most you could possibly see for long range PP FLD -- with all the changes I mentioned -- would be 3 ER PPCs + Gauss with deteriorating rate (and a long delay before firing again) or 2 STD PPCs + Gauss on the solid rate cooling system (with a short firing delay). All ACs would be akin to Clan ACs to some degree, so no sudden "zomg everyone pack on boatloads of ACs." LBXs would be increased in value (since heat matters, the colder LBXs in contrast to spray or burst fire ACs might get some attention). Missile spam would be cut down significantly. This mech's 14 LRM-15s before overheat would be cut to 6 to 8 LRM-15s fired before overheat even if chainfired. Finally as far as lasers, well you might see this sort of gameplay again.

Edited by Koniving, 24 March 2015 - 09:17 PM.

About Those Poordubs...

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