68 replies to this topic

[Angel of Annihilation]

I posted this same comment in another thread but I really think it is time for PGI to re-think the restrictions on Omni-mechs. I understand why the restrictions were put in originally but that was when Clan Weapons were outright superior to IS weapons in every conceivable way. Now however, that is not the case. PGI has since "balanced" Clan Weapons to the point that in many ways they are outright inferior to IS weapons. Take the AC. It is pretty commonly known that in 90% of the cases, a single projectile doing damage to a single section of the enemy mech is going to be superior to a stream of shells each hitting for smaller damage. Alternatively we can look at the C-ER LL which is not only hotter than IS weapons but also has a crippling beam duration length that removes virtually any advantage it has over a IS ER LL.

Point is, Clan weapons are not superior to IS weapons, especially not with all the quirks IS mechs get to improve the performance of IS weapon.

However, IS mechs still get virtually unlimited customization options with their ONLY restriction being they can't re-configure their hard points. Also lets face it, the ability to change omnipods around is mostly cosmetic. Sure it is nice to be able to relocation an energy hardpoint from a shoulder to an arm but it is not like Clan mechs get more hard points than IS mechs and it also isn't like Clan mechs can put their hardpoints anywhere they want, nope, the pods themselves are just about as restrictive as any IS mech.

Yet despite this, Omnimechs have to deal with locked structure type, locked armor type, locked JJs, locked equipment and weapons in some cases, locked criticals, locked engines, engines that should be able to accommodate more internal heat sinks but are locked to prevent you from adding them, basically locked everything.

Now I am not saying the Clan Omnis don't have some advantages but at this point the "balancing" PGI has done has dialed most of those advantages down to the status of being very minor so I just don't feel it is justified that the Omnimechs themselves should be crippled by an almost total lack of customization outside of switching out a few omnipods that commonly have pretty poor hardpoint configurations that are just as restrictive as anything an IS mech has to deal with.

[Wintersdark]

Pjwned, on 28 July 2016 - 07:22 AM, said:

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

I agree completely.

However, ES and FF aren't, really. It's just the, for a given chassis, WHICH upgrades you want are different. You'd always prefer ES to FF, and that's dumb, but you can look at FF as "ES Rank 2" basically; you either want none, endosteel, or endosteel AND ferrofibrous. The only bad option is just FF, which is objectively worse than ES for the same cost, and that's a problem... But even if they "fixed" FF to have comparable value to ES, you'd STILL want ES and FF unlocked on Omnimechs because there is nowhere close to a balance cost/benefit for those upgrades like there is for engines.

Simply the way they work means whether a mech needs none/one/both is largely a factor of its tonnage and hardpoints and rarely changes. Thus, if they are locked, some mechs will be arbitrarily and needlessly nerfed just because "reasons" and gain nothing for that.

Changing them so completely as to make it worthwhile to have a, for example, 100t assault with both is highly unlikely.

[Strum Wealh]

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.

Pjwned, on 28 July 2016 - 06:46 AM, said:

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.

Your proposal is to "see internal engine SHS give 0.2 dissipation just like DHS", and to "see the minimum 10 engine heatsinks being normalized" while "external SHS would remain at 0.1 dissipation".

The values for heat sinks as of the Dec. 01, 2015 patch are:

• IS Single Heat Sinks is having its cooling rate increased from 0.10 to 0.12.
  
• IS Single Heat Sinks that are inside the engine will have their cooling increased from 0.1 to 0.11.
  
• IS Single Heat Sinks will have their heat capacity will be increased from -1.0 to -1.2. This is increasing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.
  
• IS Double Heat Sink has its heat capacity increased from -1.4 to -1.5. This is increasing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.
  
• Clan Double Heat Sink cooling rate increased from 0.14 to 0.15.
  
• Clan Double Heat Sink capacity will be reduced from -1.4 to -1.1. This is reducing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.

As it is:

• SHS outside the Engine cool at -0.12 h/s while SHS within the Engine cool at -0.11 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.2 per heat sink.
  
• IS DHS outside the Engine cool at -0.14 h/s while IS-DHS within the Engine cool at -0.20 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.5 per heat sink.
  
• Clan DHS outside the Engine cool at -0.15 h/s while C-DHS within the Engine cool at -0.20 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.1 per heat sink.

What you're proposing mirrors the "truedub/poordub" and "truesingle/supersingle" system that PGI has in place as the current implementation for HS - PGI has their system as "internal DHS at -0.20 h/s, external DHS as -0.14 h/s" & "internal SHS at -0.11 h/s, external SHS as -0.12 h/s" while what you're proposing is "internal SHS at -0.20 h/s, external SHS as -0.10 h/s".
This is the same system that PGI has been lambasted for since that system's inception, with the only significant difference being a slightly lesser cooling ability for your proposed "poordub-analogue" SHS and a far greater cooling ability for your "truedub-analogue" SHS.

My proposal (all SHS to -0.10 heat/second per HS & +1.00 to heat threshold per HS, all DHS to -0.20 heat/second per HS & +0.00 to heat threshold per HS) does away with the convoluted system entirely, while creating a consistent, intuitive, tangible-at-all-levels, minimally-gameable system that gives each HS type a significant advantage in some areas (via a heat capacity/threshold increase for SHS & a greater heat dissipation rate for DHS) and a significant disadvantage in other areas (via a lesser heat dissipation rate for SHS & no heat capacity/threshold increase for DHS).

[Pjwned]

Strum Wealh, on 28 July 2016 - 08:59 AM, said:

Your proposal is to "see internal engine SHS give 0.2 dissipation just like DHS", and to "see the minimum 10 engine heatsinks being normalized" while "external SHS would remain at 0.1 dissipation".

The values for heat sinks as of the Dec. 01, 2015 patch are:

• IS Single Heat Sinks is having its cooling rate increased from 0.10 to 0.12.
  
• IS Single Heat Sinks that are inside the engine will have their cooling increased from 0.1 to 0.11.
  
• IS Single Heat Sinks will have their heat capacity will be increased from -1.0 to -1.2. This is increasing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.
  
• IS Double Heat Sink has its heat capacity increased from -1.4 to -1.5. This is increasing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.
  
• Clan Double Heat Sink cooling rate increased from 0.14 to 0.15.
  
• Clan Double Heat Sink capacity will be reduced from -1.4 to -1.1. This is reducing the maximum heat value for a 'Mech before it shuts down, not the speed at which it cools off.

As it is:

• SHS outside the Engine cool at -0.12 h/s while SHS within the Engine cool at -0.11 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.2 per heat sink.
  
• IS DHS outside the Engine cool at -0.14 h/s while IS-DHS within the Engine cool at -0.20 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.5 per heat sink.
  
• Clan DHS outside the Engine cool at -0.15 h/s while C-DHS within the Engine cool at -0.20 h/s, and increase the 'Mech's heat capacity by 1.1 per heat sink.

What you're proposing mirrors the "truedub/poordub" and "truesingle/supersingle" system that PGI has in place as the current implementation for HS - PGI has their system as "internal DHS at -0.20 h/s, external DHS as -0.14 h/s" & "internal SHS at -0.11 h/s, external SHS as -0.12 h/s" while what you're proposing is "internal SHS at -0.20 h/s, external SHS as -0.10 h/s".





This is the same system that PGI has been lambasted for since that system's inception, with the only significant difference being a slightly lesser cooling ability for your proposed "poordub-analogue" SHS and a far greater cooling ability for your "truedub-analogue" SHS.

The problem with the truedub/poordub system has always been that DHS dissipate less heat than they should (in a vain attempt to make DHS not superior in every way, which it obviously didn't even come close to accomplishing) and not so much that the idea of a "truedub/poordub" split is bad.

It's kind of a given that SHS would normally only dissipate 0.1 heat since that's kind of their whole deal due to taking up only 1 slot, but because the 2.0 heat dissipation from 10 internal engine DHS is so important in this game and your mech is basically a death trap without it, my proposal is to give the same treatment to SHS; that's all I'm aiming for and if SHS were not complete garbage without such a buff then I wouldn't even suggest it.

Would it help if I instead proposed that 250+ rated engines have 20 single heatsinks installed by default? Seems like a far less elegant solution to me (especially when considering sub-250 rated engines) but it accomplishes the same goal pretty much and that would be an acceptable solution.

Quote

My proposal (all SHS to -0.10 heat/second per HS & +1.00 to heat threshold per HS, all DHS to -0.20 heat/second per HS & +0.00 to heat threshold per HS) does away with the convoluted system entirely, while creating a consistent, intuitive, tangible-at-all-levels, minimally-gameable system that gives each HS type a significant advantage in some areas (via a heat capacity/threshold increase for SHS & a greater heat dissipation rate for DHS) and a significant disadvantage in other areas (via a lesser heat dissipation rate for SHS & no heat capacity/threshold increase for DHS).

My problem with that is a) it's a drastic change and b) it's questionable whether that's even a good change for the game; it seems like you focus too much on differentiating the heatsinks while ignoring (or not considering enough) the rather large impact of changing heatsinks like that.

Meanwhile, again, my solution simply aims to address SHS being garbage, and that's it.

Edited by Pjwned, 28 July 2016 - 11:43 AM.

[Pjwned]

Wintersdark, on 28 July 2016 - 08:53 AM, said:

I agree completely.

However, ES and FF aren't, really. It's just the, for a given chassis, WHICH upgrades you want are different. You'd always prefer ES to FF, and that's dumb, but you can look at FF as "ES Rank 2" basically; you either want none, endosteel, or endosteel AND ferrofibrous. The only bad option is just FF, which is objectively worse than ES for the same cost, and that's a problem... But even if they "fixed" FF to have comparable value to ES, you'd STILL want ES and FF unlocked on Omnimechs because there is nowhere close to a balance cost/benefit for those upgrades like there is for engines.

Simply the way they work means whether a mech needs none/one/both is largely a factor of its tonnage and hardpoints and rarely changes. Thus, if they are locked, some mechs will be arbitrarily and needlessly nerfed just because "reasons" and gain nothing for that.

Changing them so completely as to make it worthwhile to have a, for example, 100t assault with both is highly unlikely.

The answer to that is honestly...

Too bad. They are omnimechs and as such they have the benefits of omnipods, so to balance it out they also have tradeoffs for those benefits.

That said, to make it abundantly clear, I don't like that mechs like the Summoner are stuck with only Ferro Fibrous and have absolutely nothing to show for it because that's really stupid. However, just like I said, the answer to that is to address upgrades directly so that we don't have people thinking "I wish my hunk of junk Summoner had Endo Steel structure" and instead maybe think "well given a choice I would probably want Endo Steel on my Summoner but I guess Ferro Fibrous is also pretty good" or maybe even "wow this increased durability from Ferro Fibrous armor works really well for me xD."

My personal suggestion is to allow Ferro Fibrous armor to increase the armor cap proportionate to how much weight it saves, so that way you can choose to have it save just as much weight as it does now by not increasing armor, or not save any weight in exchange for more armor, or even something in between. That still probably makes FF inferior to ES given a choice with a lot of builds, but at the very least you could have FF installed (whether by choice on a battlemech or on a FF-locked omnimech) and something to actually show for it.

I do realize that buffing FF armor in such a way has rather far reaching consequences, including even top tier mechs like the Stormcrow and Timber Wolf having the option of more armor, but I think that's better than how it is now; flame on.

Edited by Pjwned, 28 July 2016 - 12:04 PM.

[Strum Wealh]

Pjwned, on 28 July 2016 - 11:42 AM, said:

My problem with that is a) it's a drastic change and it's questionable whether that's even a good change for the game; it seems like you focus too much on differentiating the heatsinks while ignoring (or not considering enough) the rather large impact of changing heatsinks like that.

The "rather large impact of changing heatsinks like that" is part of the point, and as such is a point that has received great consideration (at least, on my part).

The change I've proposed would have a significant impact on gameplay (it's supposed to have a significant impact on gameplay), yet be relatively simple for PGI to implement.
We already know that each HS type (SHS, IS-DHS, and C-DHS) has variables to represent internal-to-Engine dissipation (currently: -0.11 h/s for SHS & -0.20 h/s for both IS-DHS and C-DHS), outside-of-Engine dissipation (currently: -0.12 h/s for SHS, -0.14 h/s for IS-DHS, and -0.15 h/s for C-DHS), and addition-to-capacity/threshold (currently: 1.2 per SHS, 1.5 per IS-DHS, and 1.1 per C-DHS); implementation would require merely changing the values assigned to each of those variables.

• SHS
  
  • cooling_internal: -0.11 h/s to -0.10 h/s
    
  • cooling_external: -0.12 h/s to -0.10 h/s
    
  • capacity: 1.2 to 1.0
• IS-DHS
  
  • cooling_internal: -0.20 h/s, no change
    
  • cooling_external: -0.1.4 h/s to -0.20 h/s
    
  • capacity: 1.5 to 0.0
• C-DHS
  
  • cooling_internal: -0.20 h/s, no change
    
  • cooling_external: -0.15 h/s to -0.20 h/s
    
  • capacity: 1.1 to 0.0

Let us consider a basic 'Mech (default capacity set to 30, no heat-related quirks/skills/modules/etc) with 6 Medium Lasers (4.0 heat per firing per laser, 3.0 second recycle) - inspired by the Locust that Yeonne Greene described in a previous post - under my proposal.
Each alpha strike would produce 24 units of heat (6 lasers * 4 heat/laser).
The 'Mech is at rest (e.g. 0 heat from movement) in a relatively heat-neutral environment (e.g. no significant heating or cooling effects from the environment).

• With 10 SHS, the 'Mech would cool at -1.0 h/s (-0.10 h/s per HS * 10 HS) & have a capacity of 40 (30 for the chassis + 1 per HS * 10 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike.
  
• With 15 SHS, the 'Mech would cool at -1.5 h/s (-0.10 h/s per HS * 15 HS) & have a capacity of 45 (30 for the chassis + 1 per HS * 15 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage two (2) alpha strikes without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the third alpha strike.
  
• With 20 SHS, the 'Mech would cool at -2.0 h/s (-0.10 h/s per HS * 20 HS) & have a capacity of 50 (30 for the chassis + 1 per HS * 20 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage two (2) alpha strikes without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the third alpha strike.
  
• With 25 SHS, the 'Mech would cool at -2.5 h/s (-0.10 h/s per HS * 20 HS) & have a capacity of 55 (30 for the chassis + 1 per HS * 25 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage two (2) alpha strikes without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the third alpha strike.
  
• With 30 SHS, the 'Mech would cool at -3.0 h/s (-0.10 h/s per HS * 20 HS) & have a capacity of 60 (30 for the chassis + 1 per HS * 30 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage three (3) alpha strikes without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the fourth alpha strike.
  
• With 10 DHS, the 'Mech would cool at -2.0 h/s (-0.20 h/s per HS * 10 HS) & have a capacity of 30 (30 for the chassis + 0 per HS * 10 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike.
  
• With 15 DHS, the 'Mech would cool at -3.0 h/s (-0.20 h/s per HS * 15 HS) & have a capacity of 30 (30 for the chassis + 0 per HS * 15 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike.
  
• With 20 DHS, the 'Mech would cool at -4.0 h/s (-0.20 h/s per HS * 20 HS) & have a capacity of 30 (30 for the chassis + 0 per HS * 20 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike.
  
• With 25 DHS, the 'Mech would cool at -5.0 h/s (-0.20 h/s per HS * 25 HS) & have a capacity of 30 (30 for the chassis + 0 per HS * 25 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike.
  
• With 30 DHS, the 'Mech would cool at -6.0 h/s (-0.20 h/s per HS * 30 HS) & have a capacity of 30 (30 for the chassis + 0 per HS * 30 HS). At maximum cycling (24 heat every 3 seconds), the 'Mech would manage one (1) alpha strike without passing its heat threshold, shutting down on the second alpha strike (which would put the 'Mech at 100% of its capacity; it might survive the second alpha strike, if the pilot holds off for a fraction of a second).

Obviously, general dissipation or capacity quirks on the chassis, weapon-related heat generation quirks, modules, consumables (e.g. Cool Shot), heating/cooling effects from the map, heat-related abilities on the pilot skill tree, and so on will affect any 'Mech's ability to deal with heat.

In general, SHS under my proposal would allow SHS-equipped 'Mechs to capitalize on the additional heat capacity be better-able to withstand sudden large heat spikes (such as those caused by firing alpha strikes), allowing SHS-equipped 'Mechs to "double-tap" alpha strikes at the cost of being less able to dissipate heat over time (due to the lower cooling capability, versus DHS).
By contrast, the lower capacity of DHS-equipped 'Mechs (as DHS under my proposal do not add anything to capacity) means that the DHS-equipped 'Mechs would be less-able to withstand sudden large heat spikes (such as those caused by firing alpha strikes). Their advantage would come from being substantially quicker in dissipating the heat produced by smaller heat spikes (e.g. firing groups of three lasers apiece, rather than all six at once), and quicker restart times after overheating (vs SHS-equipped 'Mechs).

Additionally, different pilot behaviors (not necessarily firing at the maximum cyclic rate & not necessarily firing all weapons at once all-the-time (both of which would generally tend to increase time-to-kill - which generally corresponds to more active game time for players), among others) and 'Mech design (with a focus on greater mixing of light-and-powerful-but-hot energy weapons with cool(er)-and-powerful-but-heavy ballistic and missile weapons) will be affected/encouraged, which has the added benefit of mostly - if not wholly - negating the need for outside systems/mechanics like Heat Scaling ("Ghost Heat") and Power Draw, since actual heat generation-and-dissipation & heat capacity become the dominant limiters of firepower output.

[SirNotlag]

Well I can think of a couple ways to make IS omnis fairly viable. These arent all things i want done they are just organized in my prefered order.
1) Have heat sinks unlocked
2) Make Single heat sinks viable
3) Buff FF in some way so it is equal but different from endo (ex allow for a larger armour point value when FF is equipped, so FF mechs can spend the weight it would normally save to make the machine more durable)
4) Unlock endo and FF on omnis ( I really dont want this as I feel its one of the things that stops omnis form being superior and makes them feel different.)
5) Give powerful quirks to make up for inferiority this could also be used to make Clan omins with Standard engines more viable or other issues more viable.(don't want this either as i like quirks being a nice touch not a heavy crutch, but it works and is probably the easiest to do as it only buffs one chassis so can be rolled back if the thing reaches god tier)
6) give IS omnis some clan bonuses so their XL engines can survive a side torso loss but lose 20% speed and agility, when LFE engines come out they can survive a side torso loss and not lose any agility or speed and take up less slots still making them viable.

[Tarl Cabot]

Quote

6) give IS omnis some clan bonuses so their XL engines can survive a side torso loss but lose 20% speed and agility, when LFE engines come out they can survive a side torso loss and not lose any agility or speed and take up less slots still making them viable.

cXL already have 20% penalty. isXL w/cXL durability should have a 25-30% penalties, to make it similar but not identical. If LFE timeline ever arrives then its penalty should closer to cXL.

That keep would keep it in line with other components. Right now though that is the biggest differences between two XL technologies.

Clan Weapons - same HP, longer ranges, higher damage (lasers), lighter+ less crit slots / higher heat, duration and cooldowns
IS Weapons - same HP, Lower heat, lower durations and cooldowns / shorter ranges, lower damage(lasers), heavier+ more crit slots.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 31 July 2016 - 01:06 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Lucian Nostra, on 28 July 2016 - 07:35 AM, said:

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.

No, it's very right.

You are correct, a heat-sink (proper, not BT) does not magically increase the failure temperature of a component. What it does do, however, is increase the amount of time it takes the component to heat up at a given rate of energy expenditure by increasing the amount of matter there is to heat. Basically, it's a buffer for thermal energy. The aim is to reduce the rate at which we need to remove heat from the system entirely. It's a lot easier to dissipate something heating up at a rate of two degrees per thirty seconds than it is something heating up at fifty degrees per thirty seconds.

If I stick a bigger heat-sink onto my CPU, it will take longer for it to burn out than if I had a smaller sink or no sink at all because there is more mass to heat up. I can then place a smaller/slower fan on it to extract heat out of the system, or perhaps even no fan at all.

If we link the slots to cap, then DHS have larger sinks, ergo, it takes more output to saturate them.

Quote

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

That's what a heat-pump does. In both MWO and TT, you have perfect and instantaneous transfer of heat from your heat-generating source to the heat-sinks. There is no difference between SHS and DHS in this regard, everything happens during dissipation. Dissipation only deals with heat exchange from the heat-sink to the outside environment.

Quote

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.

You have a higher threshold because you have bigger sinks. It's not magical, it's physics. See above section on what a heat-sink does.

Quote

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)

TT does have heat cap, because dissipation is counted at the end of the round. You have 20 DHS, right? Your cap is effectively 30+40 since you will dissipate 40 heat at the end of every round and you have a base cap of 30. It's appropriate that it gets translated in MWO to an actual increase in thermal load-bearing capabilities You can alpha those four cERPPC on the WHK precisely because of this. Without increased sink cap in MWO, this becomes impossible

That being said, BattleTech itself was never meant for video games. Its tech fluff and TT rules are bad for this particular genre of the medium. I'm also not strictly against the idea Strum put forth, and was actually toying around with some numbers earlier that implemented a hybrid of both his and mine, I just find his extremes untenable because, unless you are trying to fire four ER PPC at once (and personally, I think that's a terrible idea regardless of ghost heat), heat dissipation and heat capacity are interchangeable currencies in this game.