Posted 09 September 2016 - 08:08 PM
Reposting this from another topic, as I feel it illustrates that there are a LOT of misconceptions as to how the TT system operates. This demonstrates how it ACTUALLY operates and how the results are different from MWO, while using MWO's weapon stats.
This post was in response to a comment about how it was possible to build heat neutral mechs in TT, and that it didn't require heat management, implying that it's not possible to build heat neutral mechs in MWO and heat managament is hard.
Repost is below
If you could only fire your weapons in MWO as frequently as in TT, the results would be exactly the same. Remember that every weapon cooldown in TT is 10 seconds. In MWO, it's anywhere between 2 seconds and 6 seconds.
Once you factor in skills, the complete heat cap in MWO is the same as in TT - 2x number of DHS. And the dissipation rate is the same as well - 1/10th heat capacity per second.
In TT, if you have 20 DHS, you've got a 40 heat cap + 30 penalty cap for 70 total heat.
In MWO, with skills, you'll end up with a 76.8 heat cap.
In TT, you'll have a 4pts/sec dissipation rate.
In MWO, with skills, you'll end up with a 3.91pts/sec dissipation rate.
Those numbers are within a few percent of each other, so let's pretend they're exactly the same.
The base reality of the heat system is that the time you spend cooling is the same for a given amount of damage no matter at what rate you do it. This is true in MWO and in TT. In TT, though, you're regulated to firing once every 10 seconds no matter what. So what happens when you can fire more quickly, as in MWO.
I fire 40pts of damage... let's use the PPC cooldown rate of 4 seconds.
I fire 4xPPCs for 40pts of heat. In TT, that is 100% of my heat cap, 0% of my penalty cap. In MWO, that's 57% of my heat cap.
I dissipate 4pts of heat per second over 4 seconds for 16 points of heat dissipated over the cycle of the PPCs. In TT, my heat cap is now at 24 of 40pts, or 60% heat, penalty cap at 0%. In MWO, my cap is at 34%
I fire immediately again, adding 40 heat to 24 heat for 64 heat. In TT this exceeds my heat cap, so I add 24 of 30 pts to my penalty meter too, 80%. I am penalized SEVERLY for carrying this level of heat. In MWO, I simply move up to 91% heat (64 of 70).
I dissipate 4pts of heat per second over 4 seconds for 16 points of heat dissipated over the cycle of the PPCs. In TT, my heat cap is now at 24 of 40pts, or 60% heat. In MWO, my cap is at 68% 48 of 70). However, the penalty bar in TT dissipates at a different rate than the heat cap bar. It dissipates at a rate of 1/10th of the UNUSED heat cap per second. We produced 16 unused cap over cooldown, averaged to 8 over the duration, which is a rate of 0.8 per second, or 3.2 points dissipated from the heat penalty bar. Thus, my penalty bar is only reduced to 20.8pts - 70%. I'm still receiving SEVERE penalties.
I fire immediately again, adding 40 heat to 24 heat for 64 heat (TT), or to 48 heat for 88 heat (MWO). In TT this exceeds my heat cap, so I add 24 of 30 pts to my penalty meter, which is at 20.8pts, for 44.8pts. Automatic shutdown exceeded by 14.8 pts.
In MWO, automatic shutdown exceeded by 18pts, which takes 4.5 seconds to dissipate back down to the max heat cap. It takes about 8.5 seconds for for the TT penalty bar to dissipate down to the max heat cap.
So as we can see... You actually get the SAME number of alphas in either system. That's because the only consideration to damage output over time is the heat of your weapons, the heat cap of your mech, and the rate of dissipation, which are basically the same in both TT and MWO.
As you can see, the practical difference between TT and MWO is penalties. In the above scenario, I was experiencing severe penalties after the second alpha, and continued to experience those penalties all the way through the return of shutdown (12.5 seconds) and well beyond. It would have taken another 12.5 seconds of not moving or firing at all to dissipate enough heat to no longer receive any penalties. If you were to have stopped firing immediately when you shut down, and did not fire again until all penalties were cleared, you will have experienced some level of heat penalty for a full 25 seconds.
The worst that happened under the MWO system is that you shut down for a few seconds. A few seconds later, you'd be firing again penalty-free. Under the TT system though, you'd be suffering to try to keep your damage up.
The heat system in TT hurts you a LOT more than the one in MWO. Simply put. In both systems, the total amount of damage you can put out compared to the total amount of time you spend cooling is EXACTLY the same, regardless of what MWO's cooldowns are set to.
End Repost
A further note here about how penalties will effect gameplay. As demonstrated above, even a fairly cool-running mech (here a 4xPPC mech that can alpha nearly 3 times at full rate) will potentially spend a LOT of time being effected by penalties if that player is pushing his mech as hard as MWO currently allows.
The demonstration above shows that within the 30-second timeframe described, the player spends a full 25 seconds receiving penalties. He's only fired his weapons 3 times over a roughly 9-second period at the beginning of the timeframe.
He reaches 80% on his penalty bar on the second shot (5 seconds in), and doesn't dip below 70% again until will after he's already shut down and has stopped firing for awhile.
The severity of the penalties he's receiving will be more debilitating by far than the amount of time that he's actually shut down (twice as long as in MWO currently). In fact, I would be willing to wager that fear of these penalties continuing will be much more incentive not to continue firing than the impending possibility of shutting down. Moreover, rather than merely letting enough heat dissipate to allow the player to fire again, this will actually incentivize the player actually backing off until his penalties are gone entirely.
These concepts will do more to significantly dial back player damage output than any system PGI has yet put up. And it accomplishes this without having heavy-handed limitations like ED does. Effectively, the system looks at damage (more specifically heat accumulation) over a longer period of time as well. Rather than taking a look at 1.5-second periods and trying to limit damage that way, it's taking the LONG view of combat - as the heat system was intended to do.
Moreover, we have an opportunity to introduce MECHANICS as a means to place limitations on certain types of damage output that do not interfere, in any way, with the normal function and stats of those weapons.
For instance... movement penalties will severely impact the viability of quick strike playstyles. Many people express a distaste for peek-and-poke play. Placing penalties on movement speed, acceleration, deceleration, and turning will make the process of moving back into safety after running up a high heat level much more difficult. It's much harder to run away. This impacts vomit and splat.
And loss of HUD functionality, sensor data, target lock, etc will almost certainly make long range "sniping" playstyles, like the dreaded PPFLD. Not having a reliable reticle makes it hard to make the quick, twitch adjustments necessary to make any pin-point truly lethal, especially over longer ranges. Loss of target lock makes use of LRMs and SSRMs strictly impossible.
This may well push players into mid-to-close range combat, and away from snipey, pokey playstyles. That means more straight-up fights... more brawling. And since the playstyles for which meta build optimization is heavily favored will take a bit of a hit, it may likely push players into builds which are more versatile and flexible over multiple ranges - IE mixed builds.
So as I've demonstrated, the TT system puts the sorts of limits on damage output that most players say they favor... not direct limits on alphas, but limits on total damage output over time. And moreover, the penalty system will encourage players to self-limit beyond merely what their heat status alone allows them to do. AND it encourages build diversity and places limitations on less desirable meta playstyles. And it does this without any heavy-handed mechanics and limitations.
THIS is the system we need.
4
ScarecrowES, on 26 August 2016 - 03:04 PM, said:
