24 replies to this topic

[vocifer]

I'm sure you all are busy testing ED but I want to know what's you opinion on the subj...

There were some threads like http://mwomercs.com/...e-over-doubles/ but those discussions went into some BS on the first page already.

So how do you feel if engine HS were equal no matter of them being SHS or DHS?
And let's not talk about their effectiveness yet, leave it for another topic. They could easily be 1x, 1.4x, 2x or whatever, I don't care.

IMO it would kinda fall into a general mechlab tonnage/space paradigm: SHS - space effective, DHS - tonnage effective. And this paradigm currently doesn't work as we have 10+/- magic HS that consume 0 space and completely nullify the only SHS advantage.

Edited by vocifer, 04 September 2016 - 06:21 AM.

[Pariah Devalis]

I love how things feel with the normalized DHS. Everyone at 1.5 efficiency with dubs. No convoluted tech vs tech rules. Simple "if it's a double, it does this" sort of thing.

[Spleenslitta]

Well i think it would be a step forward. I'd prefer to have SHS and DHS that were both equally viable but with much more defined pros and cons.

Another of my concerns is why mechs like the Locust and Commando needs a minimum of 10 HS.
Many Commando and Locust builds could make do with only 6-7 HS.
The way things are now they barelly have enough tonnage available to have enough ammo to last through the entire match and still have a large enough engine to stay faster than 35 - 45 ton mechs.

I know another way to make DHS versus SHS balanced and i'm not talking about lowering the heat cap for mechs equipped with SHS either.
But i won't talk about that because that's something you'd like to be in another topic...

[process]

I wouldn't mind if double heatsinks were a straight upgrade over single heatsinks, but it would be nice if singles weren't completely useless. At this point the upgrade is just a 1.5 million cbill new mech tax.

Ideally all mechs' internal engine heatsinks, up to 10, would count as doubles with 0.2 dissipation. My personal preference would be to make external doubles the full 0.2 dissipation, but I can accept that number being tweaked for balancing. I'm also amenable waiving the 10 heatsink minimum for sub-250 engines, even though most will want at least 10 to be efficient.

The short of it is, I'd like to see single heatsinks serve a purpoes in certain builds. IS mechs have a lot to gain, since they'd be able to fit them in their legs, CT and head. I almost think of it as an endo/ferro like toggle to balance between weight and crit space.

And of course, heatsinks shouldn't increase the heat cap, that's just double dipping into an already good thing.

It's too bad PGI can't figure out how to do weapon balance with just heat, weapon mechanics and existing weapon stats. I'd love to see a heat scale system where you get 30 points of heat for free, and penalties between 30 and 60 heat, e.g. reduced speed, agility, targeting. A map's thermal characteristics could be visually understood by, for example, expanding or reducing the amount of free heat, or an indication that your heat dissipation is more of less efficient than usual.

Edited by process, 04 September 2016 - 08:17 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

The 10 HS in the engine (250+ rating) is the default amount to allow the engine to work effectively. Without that many mechs would not be able to equip enough external heatsinks to run a proper payload.

The issue is that people want SHS to be a meaningful, viable option when there is a definite upgrade available. And that is cause many do not want to step out of their 3025 shell.

It is funny we still have the now GH 1.0 and likely soon ED 1.0 (once it goes live).

Heat Scale CAP - 30 base + SHS/DHS capacity. ONLY 1 penalty when at/exceeding 100% = Shutdown.

SHS originally was a 1-1 ratio, so 30+10(engine SHS)+ 1*external SHS

DHS - when introduced DHS was finalized at 2.0 engine DHS + 1.4 external DHS. 30+20+1.4*external DHS.

Finally GH 1.0 AND exceeding heat cap damage (shutdown/CT Internal Structural dmg) or override/random Internal Structure damage.

So, a Heat Scale which the capacity could simply be increased by 66% if just using the engine's DHS, and a heatscale that still has NO OTHER negative threshold except for what happens at 100%+ mark.

PGI has shown they have the ability to set movement/agility penalties that were eventually given to a Clan mech after losing one ST of an cXL engine, then they have now also broken up the Heatsink components with the ability to give them separate values.

The question is why has PGI not moved in that direction? Likely due to how we do not like change, they are also comfortable where they are at, and may be they do not have the right people to make it happen.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 04 September 2016 - 05:36 PM.

[Rock Roller]

I think it makes sense to give heat sinks separate but clear benifits. It table top components and mechs didn't require balance as their combat values provided a different type of balance. Not all of the rules make perfect sense but as a package they provided a workable framework for a fantastic future fantasy battle system.

I very much agree with Spleen on the required 10 heat sink rule. There is no logical reason that this shouldn't be revisited. The only argument for keeping this rule is based on maintaining the rules as they were printed. With all of the other changes that have been made to make the game work in a modern computer system this is a minor change in my opinion.

Even if they moved the minimum to 8 you would have more viable and varied light builds. It also wouldnt change the current powerful light builds. I often play Arctic Cheetahs the current best light. Any build that currently is good is already hot to very hot and wouldnt drop a heat sink. This would mostky help odd builds that lights cant pull off now due to excessive heat sink requirements. It would also make 15-20 ton mechs more viable.

Edited by Rock Roller, 04 September 2016 - 10:14 AM.

[Spleenslitta]

Well since Rock Roller wants seperate but clear benifits for SHS and DHS i'll bring my idea for balancing SHS over.
Single Heatsinks Rebalance.

It works like this.
Make SHS equipped outside the engine capable of linking up with a weapon to provide superior cooling for that weapon alone.
SHS mounted inside the engine and extra heatsinks put inside engines larger than 270 has no such ability.

Linking a SHS to a weapon does not make the SHS able to avoid taking up a crit slot or weighing 1 ton.
A linked SHS provides no cooling or just normal cooling to other non linked weapons = I'm not certain this part.

Ballistic and missile weapons can link a single SHS but energy weapons would be able to link as many SHS as the energy weapon is large in crit slots.
An ER PPC which is 3 crit slots large would be able to link at most 3 SHS at the same time.
ML which is only 1 crit slot large can only link 1 SHS.

Ideally the linked SHS should be better to cool down mechs with only only 2 ER PPC's.
While the DHS are superior at cooling down a mech with 10 ML's.

So how much better cooling should a linked SHS provide in comparison to an DHS mounted outside the engine?
I do not know. Need someone better at math to find that out.

[vocifer]

Tarl Cabot, on 04 September 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

The issue is that people want SHS to be a meaningful, viable option when there is a definite upgrade available. And that is cause many do not want to step out of their 3025 shell.

You made a lot of obvious statements which I agree with except this^^ one.
Why is it an issue for you? We have an item in the game that is completely useless. So why can't we find a place where it can be meaningful? It feels like an old "Clans should be better" talk...

[Spleenslitta]

vocifer, on 04 September 2016 - 11:05 AM, said:

You made a lot of obvious statements which I agree with except this^^ one.
Why is it an issue for you? We have an item in the game that is completely useless. So why can't we find a place where it can be meaningful? It feels like an old "Clans should be better" talk...

Yup. I remember back in the day when a lot of players said MG's and Flamers should be completly useless against mechs because they were meant to kill infantry.
This is essentially the same thing. People think SHS should stay useless for some reason that i cannot figure out.

Why do they feel threatened by balancing SHS and DHS?

[Chuck Jager]

If this was developed only as a video game the single to double heat sinks would probably be the most bad element the devs could ever have done.

The worst is seeing newer folks in brand new lights running around slowly with single heatsinks and standard engines. I know folks really do want to have LORE like mechanics that work for their TT builds, but MM is hard enough to balance. I have seen 2-3 decent single HS builds that can usually result in a 5-10% heat efficiency (not perfect numbers). The poor SH builds drop in overall efficiency by way more.

If we remove some of the tertiary TT mechanics the online play improve while the whining that does not affect the actual game may get worse.

[Kyrie]

There are a few pretty high-troll laser assault builds that do better with singles, but pretty much not the norm. For 3/4 mech classes doubles are mandatory, and IMHO, this is not good.

Obsolete things should be removed.

[Spleenslitta]

Kyrie, on 04 September 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

There are a few pretty high-troll laser assault builds that do better with singles, but pretty much not the norm. For 3/4 mech classes doubles are mandatory, and IMHO, this is not good.

Obsolete things should be removed.

Why remove SHS when you can alter them to get more variety in the game?

[FupDup]

Step 1: Make all engine sinks act like TruDubs regardless of whether you have SHS or DHS installed.

Step 2: Revert external SHS to just 1.0 instead of 1.2, because the buff from Step 1 is pretty massive.

[Kyrie]

Spleenslitta, on 04 September 2016 - 12:26 PM, said:

Why remove SHS when you can alter them to get more variety in the game?

IF they are altered they would no longer be obsolete. No problems there. Its getting them altered that is the problem. ;-)

[vocifer]

Kyrie, on 04 September 2016 - 12:40 PM, said:

IF they are altered they would no longer be obsolete. No problems there. Its getting them altered that is the problem. ;-)

Just the ones in engine. The external SHS should stay inferior.

[Spleenslitta]

Kyrie, on 04 September 2016 - 12:40 PM, said:

IF they are altered they would no longer be obsolete. No problems there. Its getting them altered that is the problem. ;-)

Well. I suggested something in post #7 that might work. It's not the usual higher heat cap when SHS are equipped either.

[Tarl Cabot]

vocifer, on 04 September 2016 - 11:05 AM, said:

You made a lot of obvious statements which I agree with except this^^ one.
Why is it an issue for you? We have an item in the game that is completely useless. So why can't we find a place where it can be meaningful? It feels like an old "Clans should be better" talk...

Nothing to do with Clans should be better since IS technology is about Star League base technology vs Clan base technology.

Now, with that said, since PGI has shown it now has the ability to provide different values for the heat scale value. This thread though is basically about changing SHS component in an engine, likely the STD engine, and again, why the change? So you can use Endo/Ferro and still pack in SHS due to lack of space?

And the bad part is no one shows how it would be beneficial to jack up the SHS values by show specific mechs that would use SHS instead of isDHS? IS 3025 Stock mechs, so when that feature which allow a player to run stock goes live they are more effective? Right now DHS are not their values (except engine DHS) and PGI has already increased SHS values beyond their 1.0 setting.

It would affect a mech's capacity and cooling before adding any additional SHS. Then the effectiveness of using Endo/Ferro to free up weight, change engine rating and be able to put 3 SHS were one DHS would fit, as well as putting them in the legs/ct/cockpit. So a mech using SHS but benefiting from 2x rate on engine HS would be closer to being as efficient, or even more so vs a mech using isDHS, which gave up crit slots with any additional external DHS. Do not forget the savings made from critical hits. Currently SHS/DHS have the same HP but one isDHS occupies 3 crit slots vs SHS using only one crit slot.

So, a stock mech or almost stock mech that is about as effective as a Star League era equipped mech at a much lower cost for setup.

Show us the mechs and your reasoning for wanting the benefits of DHS while simply using SHS.

[Kaptain]

Spleenslitta, on 04 September 2016 - 06:33 AM, said:

Another of my concerns is why mechs like the Locust and Commando needs a minimum of 10 HS.
Many Commando and Locust builds could make do with only 6-7 HS.
The way things are now they barelly have enough tonnage available to have enough ammo to last through the entire match and still have a large enough engine to stay faster than 35 - 45 ton mechs.

I've been saying this since 12v12 became a thing, I said it again when the locust dropped and I agree with you today.

Simple removing or lowering the heat sink requirement for certain weight mechs would do much to improve their viability.

[Spheroid]

I'd rather not. I was promised a deep logistics system for faction warfare. I want inferior tech in the game so that my mechs can be repaired faster and returned to the front.

Likewise it would show the downside of endo the upside of omnis, etc.

Edited by Spheroid, 04 September 2016 - 07:05 PM.

[Kyrie]

Spheroid, on 04 September 2016 - 07:04 PM, said:

I'd rather not. I was promised a deep logistics system for faction warfare. I want inferior tech in the game so that my mechs can be repaired faster and returned to the front.

Likewise it would show the downside of endo the upside of omnis, etc.

That kind of depth would be awesome. Now we only have to win the powerball to buy PGI, and the IP off MS to make it happen. ;-)