19 replies to this topic

[Zentil]

Hi,

Yesterday I went to training grounds (forest map I forgot which one) I shot my two C-LPL and noticed that heat was going up by 27, not by 20, as weapon tables would suggest. C-ER-Small lasers were heating 3 each so it was not something map-related.

Did they change weapon stats?

Z

[Appogee]

Which Mech and which omnipods were you using?

[Spike Brave]

The amount of heat produced by a weapon is not equal to the amount your heat gauge rises. The gauge shows how much of your mech's ability to deal with the waste heat created by it operation as a percentage. So in the case of your C-LPL, they create 20 POINTS of heat while consuming 27 PERCENT of your mechs ability to dissipate waste heat.

Edit to address the question you asked: No they have not changed any weapon stats on the live server. They may have made changes on the current PTS, but I haven't look at the current PTS so I'm not sure.

Edited by Spike Brave, 21 November 2015 - 01:47 PM.

[Rogue Jedi]

Spike Brave is correct, your Mechs heat gauge is the % of your Mechs total heat capacity, so lets say for example your Mech has a heat capacity of 50 and dissipates 2 heat per second

The Clan Large Pulse Laser generates 10 heat over its duration of 1.12 seconds, in those 1.12 seconds your Mech dissipates 2.24 heat so at the end of the discharge of 2 Large Pulse Lasers assuming you were at 0 heat to start you would be at 17.76 heat or 35.52% heat,which is what the gauge shows.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 22 November 2015 - 03:32 AM.

[Vlad Striker]

When you shoot volley of lasers you multiply heat incoming rate but heat dissipation rate stay the same. So you heats you mech harder then in case of shooting lasers one by one. When you shooting instant-action weapon such as autocannons or PPC's, volley shooting have no much difference.

[Tarogato]

Vlad Striker, on 22 November 2015 - 01:33 AM, said:

When you shoot volley of lasers you multiply heat incoming rate but heat dissipation rate stay the same. So you heats you mech harder then in case of shooting lasers one by one. When you shooting instant-action weapon such as autocannons or PPC's, volley shooting have no much difference.

Ummm... what? You're trying to talk about ghost heat, which doesn't even apply here, and you're doing a rather bad job at it, honestly. =P

[Zentil]

Thank you all guys. You explanations make sense, but something is not adding up yet.
So I was using a TBR, which pods doesn't matter since none of them has penalty to heat generation (unless higher laser duration means also more heating, is it so?) but in any case, I am comparing LPL with ER-SL so all are energy weapons and TBR has some penalties on energy so it should apply to both types of weapons.
This is what does not add up: ER-SL work as the table suggests, but LPL do not. Specifically, LPL should heat 10 each and when I shoot two of them (total heat 20) the bar goes up by 27. ER-SL should heat 3 each, and when I shoot 3 of them (total heat 9) the bar goes up by 9. Everything points to LPL's heating more, or ER-SL heating less, than what reported in the tables.

Z

ps: on a side note, just yesterday noted that shooting 6 C-MPL all at once raises the bar substantially more than shooting 3, waiting 1 second, and shooting 3 more. Cannot remember the exact numbers but it was like 40 in the first case and 30 in the second, so this can hardly be explained simply by the fact that in the latter case I have a little more dissipation going on due to the 1 second pause... my dissipation is not that good.

[Boulangerie]

Zentil, on 22 November 2015 - 06:27 AM, said:

Thank you all guys. You explanations make sense, but something is not adding up yet.
So I was using a TBR, which pods doesn't matter since none of them has penalty to heat generation (unless higher laser duration means also more heating, is it so?) but in any case, I am comparing LPL with ER-SL so all are energy weapons and TBR has some penalties on energy so it should apply to both types of weapons.
This is what does not add up: ER-SL work as the table suggests, but LPL do not. Specifically, LPL should heat 10 each and when I shoot two of them (total heat 20) the bar goes up by 27. ER-SL should heat 3 each, and when I shoot 3 of them (total heat 9) the bar goes up by 9. Everything points to LPL's heating more, or ER-SL heating less, than what reported in the tables.

Z

ps: on a side note, just yesterday noted that shooting 6 C-MPL all at once raises the bar substantially more than shooting 3, waiting 1 second, and shooting 3 more. Cannot remember the exact numbers but it was like 40 in the first case and 30 in the second, so this can hardly be explained simply by the fact that in the latter case I have a little more dissipation going on due to the 1 second pause... my dissipation is not that good.

2 things.

1. The gauge you are reading when firing your weapons is a % of your Heat. The number you see for a weapons heat in the Mechlab is a finite number. This means that they don't have the same scale. The more heat sinks you use in a mech, the greater your capacity, and that means that the % of your Heat will be lower when firing the same weapon(s). Try taking a few heat sinks out, and you'll see that 27 jump up.

2. There is something called Ghost heat. This is warned in your mechlab by a red symbol at that top. If you click on it, you will see more info, but basically you get an extra heat penalty for firing multiples of the same weapon. One example is firing 4 Inner sphere Large Lasers. The total heat is more than if you fired them in groups of 2. You need to wait 0.5 seconds in between firing the same type of weapon to avoid ghost heat. Sometimes it's worth it to get in that extra damage, but usually the extra heat really hurts your DPS.

[Void Angel]

The heat penalty system actually called the Heat Scale - "ghost heat" was a moniker hung on it by detractors trying to pretend that it was "unrealistic." As is normally the case for the professionally dissatisfied, demonstrating the ease with which a pseudotechnical explanation could be generated made no impact on their opinion, and the name stuck.

This can be confusing, because "heat scale" may also be used to refer to how much heat your Battlemech can build up before shutting down - however, this is an uncommon usage, and it is normally easy to distinguish between the two by context. =)

[Koniving]

Zentil, on 22 November 2015 - 06:27 AM, said:

Thank you all guys. You explanations make sense, but something is not adding up yet.
So I was using a TBR, which pods doesn't matter since none of them has penalty to heat generation (unless higher laser duration means also more heating, is it so?) but in any case, I am comparing LPL with ER-SL so all are energy weapons and TBR has some penalties on energy so it should apply to both types of weapons.

See here:
http://keikun17.gith...heat_simulator/

Note for example, if you have 10 DHS and nothing more (250 engine or higher)... NO skill tree...
A 7 heat LL is... 14% heat. 14% of a threshold of 50 units and a cooling rate of 2 units per second.
But if you throw elites with NO other changes...
You'll generate 9% heat with that SAME weapon on that SAME build. And that would be 12% heat out of 60 units threshold (not 50 anymore), with a cooling rate of 2.3 units per second instead of 2.

Now with NO skill tree... 10 DHS and a 150 engine for comparison...
15% of 47.6 units threshold and 1.2 cooling rate. That's for the large laser's 7 heat.
With full elites, 10 DHs and a 150 engine: Cooling rate of 2.02 units per second and threshold of 57.12 units generates 10% heat.

Now 15 DHS, no tree. 250 engine or greater. Stock cooling rate 2.7 units per second and threshold of 57 units of heat. The large laser hits 10%.
Elited: It hits between 7% and 8% heat with 68.399999 units threshold and cooling of 3.1 units per second.

The bar you see is the percentage of your total threshold.

Also keep in mind that this bar is affected by the state of your engine. Being powered on generates heat even by idling. Cruise speeds generates more heat, and a full sprint generates a great deal of heat. This amount of heat is a locked percentage of your total heat (probably to avoid overwhelming your heatsinks) which will prevent you from being able to use this heat for weapons. Some maps like Caustic valley, it isn't unusual to see yourself permanently stuck between 3 and 9% heat depending on the build just for being powered on.

With the information above... on maps like Caustic Valley and Terra Therma, it's good to note that powering down will remove your heat generation, thus allowing you to cool faster by removing that heat resistance.

In testing the Clan ER SL and the Clan LPL with 15 DHS...
The ER SL could barely even reach 2% and was instantly cooled (since 3 heat compared to 3.1 / sec cooling, it's gone before it can heat up).
The Clan LPL reached 15% heat.
Two Clan LPL together reached 26% heat.
Two Clan ER SL reached 6% heat.

Keep in mind, there's also hidden mechanics, such as weapon use "Heat Retention" which is a not-well documented penalty on specific weapon types (medium lasers, flamers, SRMs, PPCs are the currently believed but Flamers are the only 100% proven; take a single flamer and 27 DHS and flame on...it may take a few minutes but you will overheat to the point of shutting down despite it being otherwise mathematically impossible; the same is true of 10 SHS no skill tree and a medium laser without quirks...despite again it being mathematically impossible, thus proving the existence of the heat retention mechanic on medium lasers).

(Why does engine size matter? The amount of "Engine-entitled heatsinks" versus the amount of "manually added heatsinks."
An engine rated 250 or greater has 10 internal or "Engine-entitled" (hereafter referred to as EE) heatsinks. An engine of 225 has 9 EE heatsinks. 200 has 8 EE heatsinks. 150 has 6 EE heatsinks.)

Edited by Koniving, 22 November 2015 - 04:12 PM.

[Zentil]

Guys, this cannot be a scale problem, i.e., % vs absolute heating, because two types of weapon (LLP and ER-SL) in the same map, same mech, same heat sinks, engine, skills, etc... have different behaviors: one heats up a percentage equal to the heat in the tables (3 ER-SL heat 9% of my mech and according to the table heat total 9) the other heats more in % than the heat in the tables (2 LPLs heat 27% of the same mech while tables say it heats total 20). What is different between the two? The only explanation seems some form of extra heat on the LPLs, which is clearly not ghost heat as this triggers at 3+ LPLs.

Z

[takkom]

i just did some tests myself on PTS forest colony with a kgc 0000:

1x LPL: 11%
2x LPL: 25%
3x LPL: 39%
4x LPL: 70%

1x med las: 4%
2x med las: 12%
3x med las: 20%
4x med las: 28%

1x ac10: 5%
2x ac10: 11%

2x ac10 + 1x med las: 16%
2x ac10 + 2x med las: 24%

i tried a bunch more...bottom line - the numbers added up fine, except pulse lasers looked a bit different than other lasers due do their different build-up and dissipation over time mechanics.

next, i hopped on a warhawk to compare clan weapons
1x LPL: 8%
2x LPL: 23%
1x MPL: 3%
2xMPL: 12%
1x ERL: 7%
1x ERM: 3%
1x ERS: 0%
1x ERPPC 23%

1x ERM+ ERPPC: 27%
1x ERM + LPL:19%

1x ERS+ ERM+LPL+ERPPC: 49%
1x ERS+ ERM+ERL+ERPPC: 47%

i guess that build-up mechanic is responsible for some of these odd looking numbers too. definitely confusing at first glance.

and ghost heat for all?

p.s. it also takes 7x cERLg shots and 6x cLPL shots to break the arm armor of a CPLT-A1 --- testing grounds fail?

[Satan n stuff]

Tarogato, on 22 November 2015 - 02:07 AM, said:

Ummm... what? You're trying to talk about ghost heat, which doesn't even apply here, and you're doing a rather bad job at it, honestly. =P

No he's not, he's talking about the fact that you only lose a certain amount of heat over your laser duration, so if you fire multiple lasers at the same time it will look like they generate more heat.
Say you're losing 3hps and you fire a large laser, you'll end up with 7-3*1=4 heat remaining at the end of the duration. Fire two large lasers at the same time and you'll have 7*2-3*1=11 heat remaining at the end of the duration. If you don't know any better it will seem like the large lasers generated more heat as you're now at +5.5 per laser instead of +4. This effect gets more noticeable with low heat weapons and large numbers of weapons.
Since all IS ballistics, all PPCs, most SRM configs, most IS LRM and SSRM configs, all Clan LBX and all Clan AC/2s output all their heat at once, you don't sink a significant amount of heat while firing so you don't notice any difference there.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 23 November 2015 - 03:27 AM.

[Zentil]

takkom, on 22 November 2015 - 08:28 PM, said:

i just did some tests myself on PTS forest colony with a kgc 0000:

1x LPL: 11%
2x LPL: 25%
3x LPL: 39%
4x LPL: 70%

1x med las: 4%
2x med las: 12%
3x med las: 20%
4x med las: 28%

1x ac10: 5%
2x ac10: 11%

2x ac10 + 1x med las: 16%
2x ac10 + 2x med las: 24%

i tried a bunch more...bottom line - the numbers added up fine, except pulse lasers looked a bit different than other lasers due do their different build-up and dissipation over time mechanics.

next, i hopped on a warhawk to compare clan weapons
1x LPL: 8%
2x LPL: 23%
1x MPL: 3%
2xMPL: 12%
1x ERL: 7%
1x ERM: 3%
1x ERS: 0%
1x ERPPC 23%

1x ERM+ ERPPC: 27%
1x ERM + LPL:19%

1x ERS+ ERM+LPL+ERPPC: 49%
1x ERS+ ERM+ERL+ERPPC: 47%

i guess that build-up mechanic is responsible for some of these odd looking numbers too. definitely confusing at first glance.

and ghost heat for all?

p.s. it also takes 7x cERLg shots and 6x cLPL shots to break the arm armor of a CPLT-A1 --- testing grounds fail?

Nice testing. It appears that there is something odd going on, at least for the Clan. Maybe some hidden mechanic to balance the better "on paper" weapon stats?

IS stats look odd too to a certain extent.
1x LPL: 11%
2x LPL: 25%
3x LPL: 39%

Comparing 1xLPL with 2xLPL we know that LPL heats up 14%, since heat dissipation is active in both 1x and 2x cases. The third LPL also heats up 14% ... but shouldn't ghost heat trigger? It appears that for IS LPL ghost heat triggers only at 4th LPL. But maybe I am ignorant about IS ghost heat mechanics...

Edited by Zentil, 23 November 2015 - 07:48 AM.

[Zentil]

Satan n stuff, on 23 November 2015 - 03:25 AM, said:

No he's not, he's talking about the fact that you only lose a certain amount of heat over your laser duration, so if you fire multiple lasers at the same time it will look like they generate more heat.
Say you're losing 3hps and you fire a large laser, you'll end up with 7-3*1=4 heat remaining at the end of the duration. Fire two large lasers at the same time and you'll have 7*2-3*1=11 heat remaining at the end of the duration. If you don't know any better it will seem like the large lasers generated more heat as you're now at +5.5 per laser instead of +4. This effect gets more noticeable with low heat weapons and large numbers of weapons.
Since all IS ballistics, all PPCs, most SRM configs, most IS LRM and SSRM configs, all Clan LBX and all Clan AC/2s output all their heat at once, you don't sink a significant amount of heat while firing so you don't notice any difference there.

Nice observation!

Just a simple remark: the effect should grow smaller with a large number of weapons, e.g. if I shoot 10 weapons of the same type, look at the heat generated on the heat bar, and divide by 10, I get a more precise estimate of the heat generated by one of those weapons compared to the case where I fire only 2 or 3 weapons, the reason being that dissipation has a much lower impact in the former case than in the latter.

[KursedVixen]

IN all actuality the heat output for lasers is ridiculously for the most part in favor of IS.


https://docs.google....gPZg/edit#gid=0

[Rogue Jedi]

KursedVixen, on 23 November 2015 - 08:11 AM, said:

IN all actuality the heat output for lasers is ridiculously for the most part in favor of IS.


https://docs.google....gPZg/edit#gid=0

yes IS lasers run cooler than Clan Lasers, that is a fact but Clan Lasers have a longer range and more damage in the majority of cases, so I think it is fair,

I did the maths and ^{(assuming smurfy has the correct numbers)} IS laser weapons on average deal 1.461 damage per point of heat while Clan Laser weapons deal an average of 1.427 damage per point of heat, that is less than a 2.4% difference, and Clan Lasers have an average of 27% extra range

Clan Mechs also usualy have the option of packing in more Heat Sinks that the IS can due to smaller Double Heatsinks which can fit into legs or the CT

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 23 November 2015 - 09:21 AM.

[Koniving]

Zentil, on 22 November 2015 - 06:55 PM, said:

Guys, this cannot be a scale problem, i.e., % vs absolute heating, because two types of weapon (LLP and ER-SL) in the same map, same mech, same heat sinks, engine, skills, etc... have different behaviors: one heats up a percentage equal to the heat in the tables (3 ER-SL heat 9% of my mech and according to the table heat total 9) the other heats more in % than the heat in the tables (2 LPLs heat 27% of the same mech while tables say it heats total 20). What is different between the two? The only explanation seems some form of extra heat on the LPLs, which is clearly not ghost heat as this triggers at 3+ LPLs.

Z

It is a heat scale versus value of heat.

The bare minimum that ANY mech under any circumstance can have as a heat threshold is 40. 10 SHS, no skill tree.

That is Tabletop threshold 30 + 10 heatsinks = 40 threshold and 10 SHS * 1 / 10 seconds = 1 cooling per second.

Above, I mentioned 10 DHS on a 250 engine.
30 tabletop threshold + 10(*2) Internal DHS = 50. 10(*2 internal DHS) / 10 seconds = 2 cooling per second.

3 units of heat against 40 units as 100% = should come out to 7.5% if instant. However the beam time of an IS SL is 0.75 seconds. That is 1 heat per 0.25 seconds or 0.04 heat per 0.01 second. Cooled at 1 unit per second, you'll see 2 heat in 1 second, which comes out to 5% heat.

3 units of heat against 50 units as 100% comes out to 6% heat. But that's 1 heat per 0.25 seconds or 0.04 heat per 0.01 second. Cooled at 2 units per second, you'll see 1 heat in 1 second which is 2% heat.

What you have is a scenario where your lasers generate heat over time... and you're taking information based on a misconception that there is an absolute value of heat. The container does NOT have the absolute value you are thinking.

Give me your build.

You are getting 9% heat... but 9% is a meaningless number without the number of heatsinks, and build to see quirks. This is because that 9% as you are stating as (9 absolute value or units of heat) would mean that you have a threshold of 100 units of heat.

To achieve this you require 34 DHS at 10 internal (2x) and 24 manually added (1.4x)... giving you a threshold of:
30 TT base + 10(2 internal) + 24(1.4 added) = 83.6 threshold + 20% Heat Containment skill = 100.32
And a cooling rate of
10(2 internal) + 24(1.4 added) = 53.6 / 10 seconds = 5.36 + 15% Cool Run skill = 6.164

That was manually calculated. Heat sim ripped from the game states:
Heat Threshold : 100.32
Cooling Rate : 6.16 heat/sec

That said: You can't possibly have this. Quirks are in effect.

Also test your ER small lasers 1 at a time.
2 at a time.
3 at a time.

Notice the huge difference in numbers? Percentage is NOT absolute value. You are suffering a misconception of stated value versus percentage against a changeable value that you have not yet defined.

Edited by Koniving, 23 November 2015 - 11:57 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Zentil, on 23 November 2015 - 07:47 AM, said:

Nice observation!

Just a simple remark: the effect should grow smaller with a large number of weapons, e.g. if I shoot 10 weapons of the same type, look at the heat generated on the heat bar, and divide by 10, I get a more precise estimate of the heat generated by one of those weapons compared to the case where I fire only 2 or 3 weapons, the reason being that dissipation has a much lower impact in the former case than in the latter.

I was thinking about the effective heat generated per laser in relation to the effective heat generated by a single laser, but the way you're defining it also works.

[Zentil]

Koniving, on 23 November 2015 - 11:47 AM, said:

It is a heat scale versus value of heat.

The bare minimum that ANY mech under any circumstance can have as a heat threshold is 40. 10 SHS, no skill tree.

That is Tabletop threshold 30 + 10 heatsinks = 40 threshold and 10 SHS * 1 / 10 seconds = 1 cooling per second.

Above, I mentioned 10 DHS on a 250 engine.
30 tabletop threshold + 10(*2) Internal DHS = 50. 10(*2 internal DHS) / 10 seconds = 2 cooling per second.

3 units of heat against 40 units as 100% = should come out to 7.5% if instant. However the beam time of an IS SL is 0.75 seconds. That is 1 heat per 0.25 seconds or 0.04 heat per 0.01 second. Cooled at 1 unit per second, you'll see 2 heat in 1 second, which comes out to 5% heat.

3 units of heat against 50 units as 100% comes out to 6% heat. But that's 1 heat per 0.25 seconds or 0.04 heat per 0.01 second. Cooled at 2 units per second, you'll see 1 heat in 1 second which is 2% heat.

What you have is a scenario where your lasers generate heat over time... and you're taking information based on a misconception that there is an absolute value of heat. The container does NOT have the absolute value you are thinking.

Give me your build.

You are getting 9% heat... but 9% is a meaningless number without the number of heatsinks, and build to see quirks. This is because that 9% as you are stating as (9 absolute value or units of heat) would mean that you have a threshold of 100 units of heat.

To achieve this you require 34 DHS at 10 internal (2x) and 24 manually added (1.4x)... giving you a threshold of:
30 TT base + 10(2 internal) + 24(1.4 added) = 83.6 threshold + 20% Heat Containment skill = 100.32
And a cooling rate of
10(2 internal) + 24(1.4 added) = 53.6 / 10 seconds = 5.36 + 15% Cool Run skill = 6.164

That was manually calculated. Heat sim ripped from the game states:
Heat Threshold : 100.32
Cooling Rate : 6.16 heat/sec

That said: You can't possibly have this. Quirks are in effect.

Also test your ER small lasers 1 at a time.
2 at a time.
3 at a time.

Notice the huge difference in numbers? Percentage is NOT absolute value. You are suffering a misconception of stated value versus percentage against a changeable value that you have not yet defined.

Hey,

Thanks for taking the time to write all this. My initial experiment was kind of sloppy, you are right, but I was still able to sniff some abnormal behavior in heating. Have a look at Takkom testing above, this was done much better. There is indeed something that does not add up in Clan mechs' heating, some more or less hidden mechanic that is used to compensate the fact that, on paper, Clan is better. I think we should base the discussion on those numbers, not mine.

Z