34 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

I have been toying with this idea and have posted it in a couple of other threads. Now I wanted to make it's own thread to see how people feel about this idea. Here it is...

A new overheating system won't cause any internal structure damage whatsoever. In this new system, if you exceed 100% heat with Override on, you start to lose heat sinks. Think of it as the cooling components becoming overwhelmed and destroying themselves. Once your heat sinks are gone (both the ones internal and external to the engine), you lose equipment (ECM, MASC, TCs, etc...) and weapons randomly at the same time. Once those are gone, the destruction is done. Your mech walks around weaponless and equipment less.

It would be nice to also institute some engine damage in the form of reduced speed and maneuverability like torso twist rate somewhere between the heat sink destruction and weapon/equipment destruction. I don't know if that is possible though.

The destruction rate of heatsinks/weapons/equip would be proportional to how far over 100% heat capacity you go. Barely go over 100%, and the chance of destruction is low. This would allow you to ride the line without a big fear of taking damage to heat sinks, but how far you exceed 100% can increase your odds of losing a heat sink, then equip and weapons. Maybe for every 1 degree you go over 100% heat, the game adds a 10% chance of losing a heatsink and then equip/weapons.

Example: Spike heat to 103%, you now have a 30% chance to lose a heatsink at that moment, and then it "re-rolls" for a heatsink destruction every 0.5 second until the heat drops below 100%. Spike heat to 110%+ and you are guaranteed to lose a heat sink (100% chance). If in another 0.5 second later (when the game "re-rolls" again) and you are now at 108% heat, you now have a 80% chance to lose a second heat sink. Another half second later you are at 103%, now you have a 30% chance to lose the third. And this continues till you are under 100% again.

I'm just estimating how it would work value wise. It would need to be fine tuned if something like this were implemented.

This override system eliminates taking direct structure damage due to heat (no more instant head shots). It also still penalizes a player if they abuse override because they first lose their ability to cool, and then to fight. It also prevents override being used as a suicide button while still allowing it to be used as a way to prevent shut down when riding the redline in combat.

I think this might be a decent system to look at. The current penalty is a bit too random and can be abused too much. I think this would maintain the essence of override while taking some of the suicide abuse out of it in the process. I know some want their blaze of glory, but if you still want to keep alpha striking, you could probably get a couple or so in before being destroyed (since you wouldn't care about your heat sinks or equip at that point anyway).

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 19 May 2016 - 03:03 AM.

[Pjwned]

So overheating would deal critical damage rather than structure damage?

I could see that making sense, but the mech should still be destroyed if it ends up losing 3 engine crits, which would require some tweaks to the current system, and it wouldn't hurt to make the critical hit system not suck so much in general beforehand either; implementing penalties for other standard items (the gyro being a prime example) being critically destroyed would be nice too.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Pjwned, on 19 May 2016 - 03:59 AM, said:

So overheating would deal critical damage rather than structure damage?

Sort of... I suppose it would for most things. The engine would lose internal heat sinks, but wouldn't necessarily suffer a critical hit so to speak.

If that isn't possible, and the system needs to be simplified, then I suppose internal heat sinks to the engine could be left alone.

If we had a more detailed crit system, I could see the heat damaging gyros and the engine as well. Things that hurt balance and reduced speed and maneuverability.

The idea really of the override system in a nutshell would be that if you abuse the heat, it cripples your mech. It ruins the ability to shed heat first, and then starts crippling it's systems and weapons (I guess through critical hits would be accurate).

Think of the heat as burning the mech out. It won't really hurt the structure or even the engine per se. It more destroys overloaded heatsinks, then destroys equipment that would be thought of as sensitive to heat (computers/equip like ECM, and weapons).

I kind of want to shy away from it outright destroying a mech, but I suppose if it was going to ultimately destroy the engine, it would have to be a rather lengthy process before the mech suffers that kind of damage.

I feel it creates a system that can allow a pilot to really ride that redline with minimal risk, but if it is abused, can have dire consequences in how a mech fights.

Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 19 May 2016 - 04:20 AM.

[Rekkon]

Internal components have their own health, quiaff? Rather than IF(overheat) THEN (X% chance of something completely exploding) ELSE (100% fine nothing to see here move along), how about a system that generates a certain number of points of overheat damage per tick and randomly distributes them to your internal components? If you want to represent certain things being more susceptible to overheat damage, they get a higher likelihood of being assigned a point of damage.

This would prevent those frakking annoying cases where you put a pinky toe over 100% heat for a third of a second and have a component immediately scream "my organs!" and explode. A small amount of overheat a few times would be highly unlikely to affect your performance at all. Redline things too much or too often, and your mech starts eating itself from the inside out. Now when components start to pop, you have only yourself to blame instead of getting randomly smote by RNGesus.

Now of course if you left the component damage uniformly distributed, statistically you would tend to remain mostly operational until your internals gave out like a string of firecrackers. Perhaps that is desired. If not, there is a straightforward alternative. Just as "sensitive" components could have a higher chance of receiving any particular point of overheat damage, so could already damaged components (regardless of whether they were hurt from overheating over enemy fire). The weakest link in a chain goes first; same with the least healthy heat sink. That would provide a broader distribution to your component failure. You overheat a little and take a little component damage. You overheat a little more and the previously damaged components are more likely to receive the latest bits of damage than healthy internals. Eventually you push your mech to a moderate degree and lose a heat sink or two or your targeting computer.

[Pjwned]

MeiSooHaityu, on 19 May 2016 - 04:18 AM, said:

Sort of... I suppose it would for most things. The engine would lose internal heat sinks, but wouldn't necessarily suffer a critical hit so to speak.

If that isn't possible, and the system needs to be simplified, then I suppose internal heat sinks to the engine could be left alone.

I know that clan XL engines lose some internal heatsinks when a side torso is blown, so it should be possible.

Quote

If we had a more detailed crit system, I could see the heat damaging gyros and the engine as well. Things that hurt balance and reduced speed and maneuverability.

The idea really of the override system in a nutshell would be that if you abuse the heat, it cripples your mech. It ruins the ability to shed heat first, and then starts crippling it's systems and weapons (I guess through critical hits would be accurate).

Think of the heat as burning the mech out. It won't really hurt the structure or even the engine per se. It more destroys overloaded heatsinks, then destroys equipment that would be thought of as sensitive to heat (computers/equip like ECM, and weapons).

I kind of want to shy away from it outright destroying a mech, but I suppose if it was going to ultimately destroy the engine, it would have to be a rather lengthy process before the mech suffers that kind of damage.

I feel it creates a system that can allow a pilot to really ride that redline with minimal risk, but if it is abused, can have dire consequences in how a mech fights.

Yeah I get the idea and I mostly agree, I just think that the engine and thus the whole mech itself should definitely be at risk for being destroyed due to overheating, since ideally you shouldn't be overheating anyways and I think it would be kind of dumb if the mech was a hollow husk inside except for the engine which would somehow still be fine.

Edited by Pjwned, 20 May 2016 - 12:08 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

You overheat - you blow up. Deal with it.

[GreyNovember]

Sounds. Okay.

I'd be all for global component damage though. It'd be hilarious to have a 2Gauss2PPC assault blow out it's Gauss by getting too greedy with PPC heat.

[Alistair Winter]

The best thing would be to do something closer to tabletop. You overheat, you become slow and sluggish to the point of powering down. Maybe some ammo explosions.

I like this idea as a Plan B, although I would prefer that overheating primarily damaged heat sinks and ammo. Not so much jump jets, BAP and targeting computers, for example.

[Spleenslitta]

Sounds really good. I got a few thoughts... Warning. Warning. I want MWO to be a game that is hard to master so my wishes are hardcore.

1)- Energy weapons would become less popular due to the new dangers of overheating and more would switch to ballistic or missiles.
But that is easily fixed by taking several steps to increase the chance of ammo exploding during high heat or when it gets crited.
Right now there is a 10% chance ammo will explode when it's crited if i'm not mistaken. Correct me if i'm wrong.

Increasing the chance that ammo will explode to 100% when crited by a flamer and suddenly flamers got their niche when internal components are exposed after armor is removed.
This would also make IS players use CASE which is largely useless right now.

This will lead to weapon loadouts kinda like in the canon....flexible weapon selection with a bit of this and that.
Not too much energy to avoid overheating and not too much ammo lessen the chance of going KABOOOOOM.
Voila you got a thinking players shooter rather than single click victory built mechs.

2) I'd go with a system like this but make overheating an even more dangerous thing to do. Make it so overheating too far is death just like now.
In addition i like Rekkon and Winter's ideas. Rekkon idea of damaged components being more vurnerable to being damaged by heat is pure genius.

I've always been for mechs getting more sluggish when the heat is high. It doesn't even need to be 100% heat.
Getting slightly sluggish at 30% and then an increasing sluggyness as heat goes up is fine by me.

3) if we had a reactor system that could only provide the mech with so much energy at the time that would be great.
All things would demand energy. The more throttle you give the higher the demand for energy and the less you would have for weapons.
Energy weapons and maybe gauss rifles would demand most energy of course.
But to prevent energy demanding weapons from becoming too unpopular we could have a recoil system too.
Firing 2x AC20 would simultaniously would be an act of desperation.

The more recoil force the mech has to handle the more the gyro has to struggle. A gyro that is put under constant strain from having to deal with the recoil of 2 AC20 should be very high.
Heck....make it so that if the gyro can't handle all the recoil it the mech falls over.



Hey...i warned you my thoughts are kinda hardcore. Thus we would have to worry about 3 major things during combat.
Heat - Recoil - Energy.
This would be close to the ultimate mech game in my eyes. We all love mechwarrior for what it is....it's piloting giant warmachines on legs.
Right now it feels too easy. I kinda wish our mechs were far more difficult to control. Such as the DCS games....all those buttons, toggles, gauges, screens, handles and doohikeys.
In other words a true simulator. But we will never get that...Too bad.

[wanderer]

Honestly, overheat should be melting equipment, not internals- as internal damage is by default going to hurt lights more than assaults, while equipment damage tends to hurt everyone equally.

Of course, it'd help if PGI actually modeled actuator, engine, gyro, sensor damage etc. etc.

[TyphonCh]

PhoenixFire55, on 20 May 2016 - 12:19 AM, said:

You overheat - you blow up. Deal with it.

I wish I could downvote. How constructive.
Having your cockpit grenade itself by RNGesus because you went 3% over the threshold is ****ing stupid beyond belief.
When I first started playing and found there was an Override button, the first time I used it that exact thing happened. I was so mad I almost quit right there. I didn't use it again until I found out how it worked.
It's definitely a gamble to override but some structure damage should still apply if you have weapon systems and heat sinks melting... But not enough to kill you in 1 second. It's one of the worst mechanics in the game

Edited by Team Chevy86, 20 May 2016 - 10:28 PM.

[A slap to head]

I would just take single heat sink builds and overheat all day long while they destroy the 20+ heat sinks in my mech...

[Spleenslitta]

MechPorn, on 20 May 2016 - 10:35 PM, said:

I would just take single heat sink builds and overheat all day long while they destroy the 20+ heat sinks in my mech...

Then the SHS would finally have a quarter decent advantage. Hurra.

[PhoenixFire55]

Team Chevy86, on 20 May 2016 - 10:24 PM, said:

I wish I could downvote. How constructive.
Having your cockpit grenade itself by RNGesus because you went 3% over the threshold is ****ing stupid beyond belief.
When I first started playing and found there was an Override button, the first time I used it that exact thing happened. I was so mad I almost quit right there. I didn't use it again until I found out how it worked.
It's definitely a gamble to override but some structure damage should still apply if you have weapon systems and heat sinks melting... But not enough to kill you in 1 second. It's one of the worst mechanics in the game

Nope. Shutdown is there for a reason. You go over 100% - you blow up. Be it 2 seconds sooner or 2 seconds later. Only thing PGI needs to add is a small chance to blow up your ammo and weapons while going above 90% heat, along with all the speed/agility penalties of running with high heat.

All the posts asking for changes regarding override claim that their suggesting will reduce the "exploiting" of the override, while in reality if implemented they'll skyrocket it. Tell me how can people "exploit" override when they know that there is a chance they'll blow up right away? This isn't exploiting at all, this is pure gambling.

Now what this guy suggested will allow people to exploit it beyond belief. I got a SCR with 30 DHS and 12 SPLs, so I'll just run the override at 150% heat for a couple minutes while my DHS's are slowly blowing themselves up coz I got a crapload of them, then a minute or so more while my SPL's are doing the same. Yep ... limited exploiting for sure.

Fkn get real. Don't want to die, don't press "O". You pressed "O" - get ready to blow yourself up instantly.

[Pjwned]

PhoenixFire55, on 21 May 2016 - 01:47 AM, said:

Now what this guy suggested will allow people to exploit it beyond belief. I got a SCR with 30 DHS and 12 SPLs, so I'll just run the override at 150% heat for a couple minutes while my DHS's are slowly blowing themselves up coz I got a crapload of them, then a minute or so more while my SPL's are doing the same. Yep ... limited exploiting for sure.

I guess if you focus too much on this quoted part and don't consider that it could (and should) be different from what OP suggested:

MeiSooHaityu, on 19 May 2016 - 03:00 AM, said:

The destruction rate of heatsinks/weapons/equip would be proportional to how far over 100% heat capacity you go. Barely go over 100%, and the chance of destruction is low. This would allow you to ride the line without a big fear of taking damage to heat sinks, but how far you exceed 100% can increase your odds of losing a heat sink, then equip and weapons. Maybe for every 1 degree you go over 100% heat, the game adds a 10% chance of losing a heatsink and then equip/weapons.

Example: Spike heat to 103%, you now have a 30% chance to lose a heatsink at that moment, and then it "re-rolls" for a heatsink destruction every 0.5 second until the heat drops below 100%. Spike heat to 110%+ and you are guaranteed to lose a heat sink (100% chance). If in another 0.5 second later (when the game "re-rolls" again) and you are now at 108% heat, you now have a 80% chance to lose a second heat sink. Another half second later you are at 103%, now you have a 30% chance to lose the third. And this continues till you are under 100% again.

Then yeah players might exploit it heavily (and I agree that it's not very good as suggested by OP), but if it instead involved guaranteed critical damage at a high rate then it would be tough to exploit that.

There could also be a compromise where structure damage would still be dealt (randomly I guess) but at a reduced rate while the mech's equipment also took critical damage; this probably makes the most sense to be honest.

Quote

Fkn get real. Don't want to die, don't press "O". You pressed "O" - get ready to blow yourself up instantly.

A system where you can get an extreme luck streak and last for a long time or else die instantly due to bad luck is pretty damn lame. I can accept a system where bad rolls lead to a quick demise but instant death through structure damage because of 1 bad roll is just stupid.

[Sjorpha]

I can understand a wish to make the overheat damage less random (headshots), but I don't see why it should not deal IS damage and kill you.

It's perfectly reasonable that overheating kills you with severe damage to IS, just remove the random instant headshots and it's good.

[Ryllen Kriel]

The most fragile part of a mech is the pilot and the life support system. If anything, overheating should play a clip from Raiders of the Lost Arc when the {Godwin's Law}' face melts with Bill Paxton's quote from Aliens "Game over man! Game over!" as the pilot cooks.

[PhoenixFire55]

Pjwned, on 21 May 2016 - 02:49 AM, said:

Then yeah players might exploit it heavily (and I agree that it's not very good as suggested by OP), but if it instead involved guaranteed critical damage at a high rate then it would be tough to exploit that.

What we have now is already a guaranteed damage to the only essntial part your mech has - structure, as well as a chance of an insta-death. Anything else is far more exploitable, and most importantly players will know exactly how far they can exploit it in any given situation, which'll make them spam that override button way more often.

Pjwned, on 21 May 2016 - 02:49 AM, said:

A system where you can get an extreme luck streak and last for a long time or else die instantly due to bad luck is pretty damn lame. I can accept a system where bad rolls lead to a quick demise but instant death through structure damage because of 1 bad roll is just stupid.

No it is not. If you ask me, any shot you take with any weapon while already above 100% heat in override should result in death.

[Trauglodyte]

MeiSooHaityu, on 19 May 2016 - 03:00 AM, said:

I have been toying with this idea and have posted it in a couple of other threads. Now I wanted to make it's own thread to see how people feel about this idea. Here it is...

A new overheating system won't cause any internal structure damage whatsoever. In this new system, if you exceed 100% heat with Override on, you start to lose heat sinks. Think of it as the cooling components becoming overwhelmed and destroying themselves. Once your heat sinks are gone (both the ones internal and external to the engine), you lose equipment (ECM, MASC, TCs, etc...) and weapons randomly at the same time. Once those are gone, the destruction is done. Your mech walks around weaponless and equipment less.

It would be nice to also institute some engine damage in the form of reduced speed and maneuverability like torso twist rate somewhere between the heat sink destruction and weapon/equipment destruction. I don't know if that is possible though.

The destruction rate of heatsinks/weapons/equip would be proportional to how far over 100% heat capacity you go. Barely go over 100%, and the chance of destruction is low. This would allow you to ride the line without a big fear of taking damage to heat sinks, but how far you exceed 100% can increase your odds of losing a heat sink, then equip and weapons. Maybe for every 1 degree you go over 100% heat, the game adds a 10% chance of losing a heatsink and then equip/weapons.

Example: Spike heat to 103%, you now have a 30% chance to lose a heatsink at that moment, and then it "re-rolls" for a heatsink destruction every 0.5 second until the heat drops below 100%. Spike heat to 110%+ and you are guaranteed to lose a heat sink (100% chance). If in another 0.5 second later (when the game "re-rolls" again) and you are now at 108% heat, you now have a 80% chance to lose a second heat sink. Another half second later you are at 103%, now you have a 30% chance to lose the third. And this continues till you are under 100% again.

I'm just estimating how it would work value wise. It would need to be fine tuned if something like this were implemented.

This override system eliminates taking direct structure damage due to heat (no more instant head shots). It also still penalizes a player if they abuse override because they first lose their ability to cool, and then to fight. It also prevents override being used as a suicide button while still allowing it to be used as a way to prevent shut down when riding the redline in combat.

I think this might be a decent system to look at. The current penalty is a bit too random and can be abused too much. I think this would maintain the essence of override while taking some of the suicide abuse out of it in the process. I know some want their blaze of glory, but if you still want to keep alpha striking, you could probably get a couple or so in before being destroyed (since you wouldn't care about your heat sinks or equip at that point anyway).

The current system is bad for a couple of reasons. First off, it doesn't make any damned sense that you'd take structural damage. The entire mech is made out of an alloy so it isn't going to melt. If it did, then energy based weapons would one shot every mech, tank, etc. on the battlefield.

Secondly, if damage was going to be applied to a mech for overheating, it should go directly to the head location. 1 damage per second beyond 100% is what it should be, if not more damage than that.

Finally, as the OP pointed out, there isn't any real down side to overheating. In fact, the way this game goes, it directly rewards you for running hot and playing with the Override engaged. If you play that way, the damage should be popping heat sinks. That way, it is a drastic choice that you make with severe repercussions. You either lose your head (my option) or you start losing the means by which you stay cool, thus screwing you later on in the game.

[EgoSlayer]

Any override system that doesn't include immediate and severe penalties for overheating is going to be either exploitable or just going to basically extend the heat caps on all mechs. Override needs to be a high risk, low-medium reward action, not something that people just automatically do whenever they get close to max heat.

If it's only the originally posted idea of only killing heat sinks it's exploitable as a few others have mentioned. Turn on override and ignore ghost heat while riding your heat bar to over 9000 - the only real penalty is heat which ends up not being a penalty at all.
It needs to include stiff and harmful affects along with the destruction of the heat sink:
Mech Shuts down for 5 seconds
Mech takes 10 structure damage at the location of the destroyed heat sink (it exploded)
etc.

Taking the structure damage out significantly lowers the risks in override to almost nothing and without those risks it will be just like closed beta when there was no damage from override. And back then you just rode override until you were dead (from the enemies killing you) or until you cooled down - it wasn't a hindrance or risk at all.