68 replies to this topic

[Strum Wealh]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 26 July 2016 - 10:41 AM, said:

Or you know... make SHS a useful alternative to DHS...

There is a relatively straightforward way to do this...

• all SHS: -0.10 heat/second per HS, +1.00 to heat threshold per HS
  
• all DHS: -0.20 heat/second per HS, +0.00 to heat threshold per HS

In other words: all DHS become "true-dubs", but add nothing to the 'Mech's heat cap/threshold, while all SHS have half the heat dissipation of the DHS, but add to the 'Mech's heat cap/threshold.

SHS then become useful for allowing a 'Mech to deal with sudden heat spikes (such as with alpha strikes) due to the increased heat cap/threshold, but with the downside of relatively-slow heat dissipation; DHS then become useful for dissipating a lot of heat relatively quickly (such as rapidly or continuously chain-firing individual weapons or small groups of weapons), with the downside of being less-able to cope with sudden heat spikes (so that an alpha strike that might push a SHS-equipped 'Mech to, say, 70-80% on the heat scale has a high probability of instantly shutting-down a DHS-equipped 'Mech).

So, 'Mechs that boat SHS like the stock AWS-8Q Awesome (28 SHS) would have a very high heat cap/threshold (base chassis cap/threshold + 28) but low-to-reasonable cooling (-2.8 heat per second) while 'Mechs that boat DHS like the stock Supernova Prime (26 DHS) or the stock Hellstar Prime (30 DHS) would have very high heat dissipation (-5.2 heat per second for the Supernova, -6.0 heat per second for the Hellstar) but low heat caps/thresholds (base chassis cap/threshold only).

The "TLDR version": gear SHS to "high-cap/low-dissipation" operation & gear DHS to "high-dissipation/low-cap" operation.

Edited by Strum Wealh, 27 July 2016 - 07:57 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

I would rather all heat-sinks provide the same dissipation, with each additional slot requirement adding more capacity, i.e.

SHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.00 cap
cDHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.15 cap
DHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.30 cap

Fluff-wise, we can consider every heat-sink as having the same surface area for the radiator portion while the extra volume of the upgrades is more for the sink portion.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 27 July 2016 - 11:13 AM.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 11:11 AM, said:

I would rather all heat-sinks provide the same dissipation, with each additional slot requirement adding more capacity, i.e.

SHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.00 cap
cDHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.15 cap
DHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.30 cap

Fluff-wise, we can consider every heat-sink as having the same surface area for the radiator portion while the extra volume of the upgrades is more for the sink portion.

Because that somehow makes sense?

Fact DHS dissipate heat better in lore but weigh the same.

As such they must have a higher surface area or be made from a substantially more thermally conductive material. If it were the latter case they'd just make SHS out of the material. If it were simply the former it would have been simple to maintain and recover the DHS technology.

Thus we can conclude that DHS have additional surface area and that ability is enabled due to a superior (difficult to manufacture) material choice that lets DHS maintain their durability despite the lower density of the material.

As such it is reasonable to conclude that this material may not have as good of thermal capacity (how much heat it takes to raise the material's temperature). Thus it is reasonable to give SHS improved heat capacity and DHS improved heat dissipation.

Your proposal thus makes absolutely no sense.

[Metus regem]

Viktor Drake, on 27 July 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

I tend to agree here. Clan mechs were overly punished and in alot of ways are substantially inferior to their IS counterparts which ironically tend to be more customizable than Omnimechs which by their very definition should be the more customizable mech. In addition to drastically reducing the customization options, the also made it so that clan weapons were less heat efficient with poorer operation qualities (such as extremely extended beam duration, less efficient Auto Cannons, etc) than IS weapons. Then there is the fact that even though Omni's can switch around pods, all too commonly the lack of hard points available in the pods means that other than cosmetically, an Onmi can find itself just as restrictive if not more so than most IS mechs.

The point is, it is kind of ridiculous that the ONLY limitation on IS mechs is that they can't switch their hard point locations around while Clan mechs have locked structure, locked armor type, locked engines, locked critical locations and in some cases, locked weapons and/or equipment plus, in some cases, they mount engines with free slots available for heatsinks but can't because those a locked as well. Then of course IS mechs gets some massively intensive quirks to make them even better.

Now this might make sense if Clan weapons had retained being clearly better versions of IS weapons but lets face it, when everything is said and done, I think anyone would be hard pressed to not agree that vast majority of Clan weapons are either not better than their IS counterparts or outright worse.

So yeah I think it is time to loosen some of the restrictions on clan mechs and start allowing them customization closer to the level of enjoyed by IS mechs. Lets unlock structure and armor type. Lets allow players to use free the heatsink slots in the engine. Lets get away from locking weapons, JJs or equipment to the chassis. That still leaves quite a few restrictions but at least offers customization on par with IS mechs.

I've been saying it for a long time...

Battlemechs:

• locked structure type
  
• sized hard points
  
• fixed hard points
  
• fixed hard point types
  
• fixed engine sizes
  
• locked engine type

Omni-mechs:

• Fixed structure type
  
• fixed armour type
  
• fixed hard point locations
  
• fixed engine size
  
• fixed heat-sink type
  
• some locked equipment

Note I said hard point locations, not size or type of hard point, this would let Omni's have more freedom when it comes to how they spend their pod space, based on free crit locations. For Battle-mechs, fixed type, location and sized hard points make a lot of sense, you can't cram a 120mm cannon where you can fit a 20mm MG....

[Y E O N N E]

Narcissistic Martyr, on 27 July 2016 - 12:01 PM, said:

Because that somehow makes sense?

Fact DHS dissipate heat better in lore but weigh the same.

As such they must have a higher surface area or be made from a substantially more thermally conductive material. If it were the latter case they'd just make SHS out of the material. If it were simply the former it would have been simple to maintain and recover the DHS technology.

Thus we can conclude that DHS have additional surface area and that ability is enabled due to a superior (difficult to manufacture) material choice that lets DHS maintain their durability despite the lower density of the material.

As such it is reasonable to conclude that this material may not have as good of thermal capacity (how much heat it takes to raise the material's temperature). Thus it is reasonable to give SHS improved heat capacity and DHS improved heat dissipation.

Your proposal thus makes absolutely no sense.

It is actually the lore that makes no sense. The radiator by its very nature is exposed; it shouldn't need to take up any internal volume since we can dangle it outside the 'Mech.

Also, I'm altering the lore, because it is terrible. Strum's proposal ignores the reality where cap and dissipation are interchangeable currencies. Look at the Locust; swapped heat gen quirk (which alters effective cap) for dissipation quirk, no net change in performance. Still get three full alphas with six MedLas before shut-down, still have to wait about eight seconds to fire the full set again. The better plan is to have SHS enable new builds on slot-limited 'Mechs.

[Hit the Deck]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 12:28 PM, said:

It is actually the lore that makes no sense. The radiator by its very nature is exposed; it shouldn't need to take up any internal volume since we can dangle it outside the 'Mech.
...

I think there are some explanations to why the heatsinks are internal. Of course they were made up so that the game makes sense (like the ridiculously short the weapon optimal ranges). IIRC, one explanation states that they are more like coolant pumps for the liquid cooling system inside the 'Mechs and not simple passive "fins".

Edited by Hit the Deck, 27 July 2016 - 02:47 PM.

[Pjwned]

Strum Wealh, on 27 July 2016 - 08:58 AM, said:

There is a relatively straightforward way to do this...

• all SHS: -0.10 heat/second per HS, +1.00 to heat threshold per HS
  
• all DHS: -0.20 heat/second per HS, +0.00 to heat threshold per HS

In other words: all DHS become "true-dubs", but add nothing to the 'Mech's heat cap/threshold, while all SHS have half the head dissipation of the DHS, but add to the 'Mech's heat cap/threshold.


SHS then become useful for allowing a 'Mech to deal with sudden heat spikes (such as with alpha strikes) due to the increased heat cap/threshold, but with the downside of relatively-slow heat dissipation; DHS then become useful for dissipating a lot of heat relatively quickly (such as rapidly or continuously chain-firing individual weapons or small groups of weapons), with the downside of being less-able to cope with sudden heat spikes (so that an alpha strike that might push a SHS-equipped 'Mech to, say, 70-80% on the heat scale has a high probability of instantly shutting-down a DHS-equipped 'Mech).

So, 'Mechs that boat SHS like the stock AWS-8Q Awesome (28 SHS) would have a very high heat cap/threshold (base chassis cap/threshold + 28) but low-to-reasonable cooling (-2.8 heat per second) while 'Mechs that boat DHS like the stock Supernova Prime (26 DHS) or the stock Hellstar Prime (30 DHS) would have very high heat dissipation (-5.2 heat per second for the Supernova, -6.0 heat per second for the Hellstar) but low heat caps/thresholds (base chassis cap/threshold only).

The "TLDR version": gear SHS to "high-cap/low-dissipation" operation & gear DHS to "high-dissipation/low-cap" operation.

I would rather see internal engine SHS give 0.2 dissipation just like DHS. That way you're not essentially missing 10 tons of engine heatsinks compared to DHS and not being a trash heap because mechs are obviously all balanced around having that base 2.0 dissipation from the 10 engine heatsinks.

No drastic changes, it just makes SHS not complete garbage and that's all we need.

[Y E O N N E]

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

I think there are some explanations to why the heatsinks are internal. Of course they were made up so that the game makes sense (like the ridiculously short the weapon optimal ranges). IIRC, one explanation states that they are more like coolant pumps for the liquid cooling system inside the 'Mechs and not simple passive "fins".

Heat-sinks in the game are indeed complete cooling units. They have the sink itself, plumbing to get the heat into the sink, and an exchanger to get the heat out of the sinks and into the environment. That last part, the one that gets the heat out of your 'Mech, has to be facing the outside. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. In my mind, I simplified the geometry of a heat-sink into a rectangular prism where one face is facing outside and the rest is occupying internal space. Everything behind the outward-face just gets bigger as you go from SHS to DHS. The implicit assumption is that the heat exhaust outlets on any given 'Mech are of a standard size, and when you upgrade to DHS it's basically all internal.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Hit the Deck, on 27 July 2016 - 02:46 PM, said:

I think there are some explanations to why the heatsinks are internal. Of course they were made up so that the game makes sense (like the ridiculously short the weapon optimal ranges). IIRC, one explanation states that they are more like coolant pumps for the liquid cooling system inside the 'Mechs and not simple passive "fins".

https://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Heat_pump

Basically heat sinks are in fact a combination of a heat reservoir and heat pumps that actually push the heat out instead of a radiator. This allows mechs to function even in areas where the external heat is higher than the internal temperature of the mech.

I mean that's the basic explanation anyways. But this is absolutely not a passively cooled system like a car radiator.

[Strum Wealh]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 11:11 AM, said:

I would rather all heat-sinks provide the same dissipation, with each additional slot requirement adding more capacity, i.e.

SHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.00 cap
cDHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.15 cap
DHS: +0.20 dissipation, +1.30 cap

Fluff-wise, we can consider every heat-sink as having the same surface area for the radiator portion while the extra volume of the upgrades is more for the sink portion.

Pjwned, on 27 July 2016 - 03:59 PM, said:

I would rather see internal engine SHS give 0.2 dissipation just like DHS. That way you're not essentially missing 10 tons of engine heatsinks compared to DHS and not being a trash heap because mechs are obviously all balanced around having that base 2.0 dissipation from the 10 engine heatsinks.

No drastic changes, it just makes SHS not complete garbage and that's all we need.

So... both of your "solutions" are to turn SHS into faux-DHS?
That's really not much of a solution.

[Strum Wealh]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 04:10 PM, said:

Heat-sinks in the game are indeed complete cooling units. They have the sink itself, plumbing to get the heat into the sink, and an exchanger to get the heat out of the sinks and into the environment. That last part, the one that gets the heat out of your 'Mech, has to be facing the outside. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. In my mind, I simplified the geometry of a heat-sink into a rectangular prism where one face is facing outside and the rest is occupying internal space. Everything behind the outward-face just gets bigger as you go from SHS to DHS. The implicit assumption is that the heat exhaust outlets on any given 'Mech are of a standard size, and when you upgrade to DHS it's basically all internal.

The lore (specifically, TechManual) does actually describe DHS as having bigger fin assemblies (which are typically composed of graphite, but may use copper or other material) than SHS, with that being the prominent source of their increased cooling abilities.

"Standard heat sink radiators have been using graphite tubing and fins since the dawn of the BattleMech. The graphite’s structure is carefully arranged for best heat flow, and oriented graphite can have a thermal conductivity about fi ve times that of the reigning metallic champions, silver and copper. Some Periphery nations have resorted to using copper for heat sink radiators. But while these do lose some percentage of performance, such radiators work better than one might expect, because they make up for their lower conductivity with thinner construction, as the metals are tougher than the graphite.

The wonder plastics of the Star League also revolutionized BattleMech heat sinks. These semi-crystalline polymers, which are also found in XL engine shielding, don’t quite have graphite’s thermal conductivity, but they are dramatically lighter. They allow larger radiators to be constructed for the same mass as standard heat sinks and give us the famous 'double strength freezers'."

But, yes, BattleTech "heat sinks" of all types are actually heat pump systems that transfer the heat generated by the BattleMech's systems to the external environment - a point that is also included in TechManual..

• "... hot-running equipment like the engine and weapons have networks of cooling tubes built into their frames, like the water jacket in your ground-car’s engine. Myomers have a distributed network of coolant lines that look like a computer’s concept of a vascular system. These coolant lines in turn connect the collection systems to the heat pumps and radiators..."
  
• "...the heat pump basically collects and condenses heat until it can be easily dumped overboard, even into environments hotter than the ’Mech....A multitude of different heat pumps are used today, based on the manufacturers - including vapor-compression systems like your home refrigerator, sonic cooling systems, magneto-caloric systems and others..."

Edited by Strum Wealh, 27 July 2016 - 08:27 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

You can have bigger fin assemblies without having to increase the size of the exhaust outlet. It is, after all, a three-dimensional object.

Strum Wealh, on 27 July 2016 - 08:07 PM, said:

So... both of your "solutions" are to turn SHS into faux-DHS?
That's really not much of a solution.

There is no place for "low dissipation, high cap vs. high dissipation and low cap" the two things are equally exchanged currencies in this game. A laser doesn't dump its heat instantaneously, and it logically makes zero sense for the addition of a heat-sink (which DHS are also sinks, not just exchangers) to not expand your machine's ability to absorb waste energy.

You are trying to shoe-horn a poorly designed concept born of ignorance into a game that it was never meant to sustain. I've seen it said that BattleTech is popular in part because of how grounded it is. Well...it's thirty years out of date. It is about as grounded as Wile E. Coyote physics by today's standards. To add, the mechanics were broken on Day One and it has been limping on ever since. From what I've read, even the creators acknowledge this. Let the old fluff go. It is crap.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 27 July 2016 - 09:41 PM.

[kapusta11]

Pjwned, on 27 July 2016 - 03:53 AM, said:

So...you either open the floodgates and watch the biblical flood of tears about Clan omnimechs (e.g unlocked Timber Wolf) now being ridiculously OP; as if the Kodiak wasn't enough.

Or...

You pick and choose certain mechs to bend the rules for, which is just as stupid if not more stupid.

So you think Timberwolf with unlocked equipment is a problem?

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Black_Python_(Viper)

Edited by kapusta11, 28 July 2016 - 12:47 AM.

[Vervuel]

El Bandito, on 26 July 2016 - 11:21 AM, said:

They lack imagination then. Reduced heat generation quirks, huge missile CD quirks, hardpoint inflation, agility quirks, durability quirks...the possibilities are there.

You mean like the old Huginn quirks? that then got rolled back, and now are just....mediocre? Yeah, we've been down that path already. Although, they could inflate the quirks to sell the mech, then just bounce them back later

[Lykaon]

Pariah Devalis, on 26 July 2016 - 05:51 AM, said:

I'm not so sure I'd loosen up on armor type, honestly. Not only is it the least impactful upgrade, but I think it gives just a smidge too much freedom to omnis. If anything, though, I'd unlock non-hardwired equipment, such as MASC.

Being able to pop off non-hardwired equipment and being able to swap internal types would do wonders. Mechs like the Executioner could be salvaged into a more firepower oriented omni vs a speed oriented one. The Mad Dog and the Summoner could get the tonnage savings they need to be truly worthwhile mechs of their weight class. The Nova would always be better for laser boating than the Huntsman, but at least it would have more room available for mixed or ballistic builds, should it be able to swap internal type.

I would definitely not touch engine rating and fixed hardwired equipment. Heat Sink unlocking is necessary to futureproof for IS omnimechs, but there would be no real advantage for Clan mechs in the current period. However, having armor and internals and equipment and heatsinks and hardpoints as flexible choices would be a bit much. We just need to ease up a smidge on the forced mediocrity that fixed internals causes specific omnimechs to suffer.

For flexability of use in the game I agree.

Lore wise though...

Swapping armor seems more viable than stripping a mech down literally to it's bones and rebuilding it on an endo steel frame.

[El Bandito]

Vervuel, on 28 July 2016 - 01:11 AM, said:

You mean like the old Huginn quirks? that then got rolled back, and now are just....mediocre? Yeah, we've been down that path already. Although, they could inflate the quirks to sell the mech, then just bounce them back later

Exactly. As long as the mech sells, then PGI can make even the dead walk, if they got imagination.

[Pjwned]

Strum Wealh, on 27 July 2016 - 08:07 PM, said:

So... both of your "solutions" are to turn SHS into faux-DHS?
That's really not much of a solution.

I think you misunderstood my solution a bit, because I'm only talking about the minimum 10 engine heatsinks being normalized. External SHS would remain at 0.1 dissipation, which would be fine because they also only take up 1 slot and thus would have some use in certain builds. The point of doing this is that there would be a reason to consider using SHS ever because you wouldn't be effectively missing 10 tons of heatsinks for using SHS, which is by far the biggest problem with SHS and the biggest reason nobody uses SHS except in literally the most niche builds possible.

The thing is that mechs with sub-250 rated engines would still get the shaft without more adjustments, but that's also another issue that would hopefully also be addressed.

[Pjwned]

Wintersdark, on 26 July 2016 - 05:29 AM, said:

As I've expanded on elsewhere, locked upgrades don't provide balance, they only arbitrarily nerf mechs with poor upgrades. ES, FF, and heat sink type needs to be unlocked (but ES/FF slot location needs to be locked and not dynamic, so internal space in a given pod remains consistent when upgrades are used). Of course, engines and jump jets need to remain locked, because those add to gameplay by mandating constants over a chassis in factors that matter on the battlefield, not in the mechlab.

Locked ES/FF was a dumb idea from the start.

There shouldn't be inferior upgrades in the first place though, that's what needs to change more.

[Lucian Nostra]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 09:34 PM, said:

There is no place for "low dissipation, high cap vs. high dissipation and low cap" the two things are equally exchanged currencies in this game. A laser doesn't dump its heat instantaneously, and it logically makes zero sense for the addition of a heat-sink (which DHS are also sinks, not just exchangers) to not expand your machine's ability to absorb waste energy.

You are trying to shoe-horn a poorly designed concept born of ignorance into a game that it was never meant to sustain.

Uhm huh? I dont particularly like his suggestion but from a game balance level its not bad.

Your assertion that it doesn't make sense for DHS to not expand your ability to absorb waste heat is very wrong. Slapping a bigger heatsink on your computers processor doesn't let your processor go over the manufacturers limit, when it hits 105 (if thats the limit) it'll shut down either way.

The extra endurance gained is because that heatsink is more capable of pulling and dumping that extra heat than the smaller heatsinks.


Just like a mech firing PPCs should still shut down when it hits 30 heat regardless of how many SHS or DHS it has. You can fire more PPCs because of the speed at which the heat is dissipated but once you break your cooling rate you shouldn't have a magical higher threshold for internal heat. Critical temp is critical temp no matter how good the cooling system is.

edit: forgot the part where you say shoe horn a concept into a game it was never meant to sustain. The whole heat cap increase was never meant for battletech. Hell some of the most fearsome mechs are scary because of the amount of cooling they produce. the 90 ton clan Hellstar with 4 ERPPCs (60 heat) and 30 DHS (60 cooling) runs cold and is a beast. If Battletech had an increased heat scale per DHS the mech would never have been necessary because the Warhawks 4 ERPPCS wouldn't overheat it (60 heat vs 40 cooling putting you at 20 outta 30. 2 chances to shut down, ammo explosion chance, shooting terribly and not moving next turn unless it runs)

Edited by Lucian Nostra, 28 July 2016 - 08:08 AM.

[Mole]

I hope they don't lock IS omnimechs with SHS because if they do... the day when my beloved Strider arrives is going to be a sad one indeed, because I'll never be able to make it heat efficient enough... You guys think you know a thing or two about DOA 'mechs? Well...