54 replies to this topic

[Alizabeth Aijou]

ice trey, on 13 December 2011 - 07:21 AM, said:

I play DCMS, so I think I should mention that the Dracs are one of the last factions to get the DHS production up and running. Most of their "Upgrades" in 3050 were horribly handicapped, forcing players to wait until 3055 to really get any designs that could effectively use the new ERPPCs they were churning out.

True, but how effective do you think the Clan Invasion would've been if the DCMS had DHS gu leòr from the start (well, 3039-ish)?

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It makes low heat weapons like autocannons a much worse choice when every mech can easily dissipate the heat from multiple large energy weapons without thinking about it.

Imo, Autocannons were always a bad choice, even back in 3025 (assuming that they used ACs other than the class-5).

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DHS
FF armor
ES structure

Pick 2

Is that a question or an answer?
Unless you're doing it purely for fluff, no-one will take FF when ES is available.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 15 December 2011 - 03:05 AM, said:

True, but how effective do you think the Clan Invasion would've been if the DCMS had DHS gu leòr from the start (well, 3039-ish)?

Imo, Autocannons were always a bad choice, even back in 3025 (assuming that they used ACs other than the class-5).

Is that a question or an answer?
Unless you're doing it purely for fluff, no-one will take FF when ES is available.

I don't think he's saying that IS gets DHS any sooner than they should, I think the idea is that a fusion engine (light, xl otherwise)
only has space for SHS and that DHS choice is added later. It answers a very big problem of mass-shifting and bad volume
calculations for physical mech size.

Autocannons need a fix too; maybe a drop in tons or something cause although I love them to death they are a waste
why take A\C 10 when the PPC does the same job? you know?

also, I like the idea of taking 2 bulky systems; don't think people would take FF over ES? I beg to differ.
ES is only really handy for designs under 70-75 tons; where weight is more of a premium
FF is a waster under 50 tons because of armor thresholds for each weight class.
DHS are only really needed on energy heavy designs

see where we're going? it actually does make sense

[TheRulesLawyer]

Alizabeth Aijou, on 15 December 2011 - 03:05 AM, said:

True, but how effective do you think the Clan Invasion would've been if the DCMS had DHS gu leòr from the start (well, 3039-ish)?

Imo, Autocannons were always a bad choice, even back in 3025 (assuming that they used ACs other than the class-5).

Is that a question or an answer?
Unless you're doing it purely for fluff, no-one will take FF when ES is available.

That's not really the point. The point is that you can't really effectively have all three in the same mech. You might manage ES and FF to enable carrying the heavier autocannon loads, but if you want the DHS to handle an energy loadout you can't take all the weight saving techs as well.

[Dihm]

Any way to set this up in Megamek and we can all play and see what happens?

[Terick]

I don't think it can handle taking only single heatsinks in the engine and then double for the normal. So instead say each engine automaticaly dissipates 10 heat free. No heat sinks, not double or single. Just has built in cooling.

Yes, that means your light mechs will get more out of this since they need a smaller engine and can move faster. I think it balances out the lights a little better.

As for usign Ferror Armor... never. With all fo the mechs I have built and upgraded never was it better to use Ferro armor on a mech. Ferro on a vee or a fighter is different, but on a mech, I would always get more from using endo then using Ferro.

Most autocannons are fine. In my opinion the AC/5 is wrthless, a PPC has same range, same min range, double damage for less weight, you can mount a PPC and have two mroe heatsinks then mounting a AC/5. Heat is to b managed with bracketed firing.

AC/10 doesn't have the min range of the PPC, yes it has shorter range, but the Orion can kick the Marauder to the curb if it gets in those three hexes, and considering the heat problems of the Marauder, not an issue.

AC/2, just ahve to love having a short range of 8 and being able to out range even an LRM. A few platoons of AC/2 gunners will get enough head hits to hurt you. Just a matter of volume of fire.

Then add in the special ammo from the FS, and you have some real nasty things happening.

Back on topic, just add 10 free cooling to the engine. Engien rating has no effect on how many heatsinks can go in to it. Taht would make battlemech desgin much mroe nteresting. What do you mean I can't get 12 heatsinks in to the 300 engine on my 100 ton mech? But I NEED those heatsinks in there....

[Terick]

Just had another thought on it. Light mechs get extra crit padding with getting more heatsinks for free tonnage. The Stinger and Wasp each use a 120 rating engine so only 4 heatsinks go in to the engine, that means they have 6 free crit padding slots because they get to place those heatsinks somewhere.

[Xhaleon]

Eh, you know, why not a compromise? The main goal is to reduce the effectiveness of DHS at improving the base engine cooling, yes?

Go with Terick's inital suggestion, and make all mechs have a flat heat dissipation. Maybe throw away the rule that lets heat sinks be allocated to the engine, or maybe not, because that would ***** with some designs. Maybe just throw those designs away, I dunno. Sure would remove the Hellstar from official play, and a lot of people would be happy for just that.

However, in this compromise, give it 15 points of cooling instead. Yes, 15 points is a large improvement, especially for older Succession Wars machines, but it is really still much lower than 20 points. It will make some modern mechs that are oh-so-carefully heat balanced now suddenly quite dangerously overheating (especially slow-moving boats), while older mechs like the Rifleman suddenly aren't so crappy anymore.

Bah, go tell Herb to repurpose the Dark Age as a Battletech sequel and we can have all the delicious rebalancing we want without Clickytech. Only so many TROs they can churn out before they run out of reasonable mech designs. It would be silly if the Houses and Clans started making brand new mechs in 3130-3150+ that were too flawed & utterly unplayable, just so they are distinguished from older designs. But that is a whole other topic.

[Terick]

I have to say not being able to add heatsinks would basically result in a few viable designs for each weight class, most energy mechs would evaporate.

We aren't trying to get rid of them entirely, just make it more of a challenge to use a pure laser boat.

For example, the AWS-8Q with triple PPCs would be completely unusable with only 15 heat dissipation.

[GreyGriffin]

I don't think he's proposing the idea that heat sinks be abolished. I think the idea is more that engine cooling is seperate from heat sinks. The flat value would prevent confusion and heat sink capability issues based on engine size. This does neatly solve the fringe case of lighter weight engines that are more heat efficient by virtue of having their "weightless" heat sinks shunted into the 'Mech's crits, thus having mixed sink types on one crit chart or having more double heat sinks (ergo, more heat dissipation) than larger engines.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Aaron DeChavilier, on 15 December 2011 - 07:32 AM, said:

also, I like the idea of taking 2 bulky systems; don't think people would take FF over ES? I beg to differ.
ES is only really handy for designs under 70-75 tons; where weight is more of a premium
FF is a waster under 50 tons because of armor thresholds for each weight class.
DHS are only really needed on energy heavy designs

Wrong again.
Endo-Steel always gives a return of ½ to 5 tons, depending on the total weight of the 'Mech (10-100 tons).
Ferro-Fibrous gives, at the most, a return of roughly 2 tons.
They both take up the same number of critical spaces.
So in case of space-shortage: neither has a definite advantage.
In case of weight-savings, endo-steel comes out on top every instance.

Now, lets look at the FASAnomics side of things.
Standard internal structure costs 400 C-Bills per ton of the 'Mech (giving us a range of 4.000 to 40.000).
Endo-Steel manages to quadruple that cost (giving a range of 16.000 to 160.000).
Standard Armour costs 10.000 C-Bills per ton, giving a range of 25.000 to 190.000 C-Bills, assuming maximum efficient coverage.
Ferro-Fibrous costs twice as much as standard armour, so we're looking at 50.000 to 340.000 C-Bills, using maximum efficient coverage.

Game-technically, armour is almost always destroyed before the internal structure. Which means that the costs of repairing armour quickly outweighs the cost of repairing the internal structure. As seen with the 10-ton ultralight 'mech above, the ES internal structure costs less than 2½ tons of standard armour, while FF costs three times as much and is lost far quicker and more frequently.

So the only advantage that Ferro-Fibrous has over Endo-Steel is the slightly better availability score (D-F-E for ES and D-F-D for FF).

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why take A\C 10 when the PPC does the same job? you know?

Vehicles are the primary reason.
On your typical combat vehicle, you'll be seeing the use of an ICE, which means that if you want to mount a PPC, you'll need to give that thing power amplifiers, as well as ten heat sink capacity. Which means that 7-ton weapon will have an additional required weight of roughly 6 to 11 tons, depending on SHS or DHS. In case with the DHS, the difference is almost nil (12+1t for the AC/10, or 13t for the PPC+extras), with SHS, on the other hand, the vehicle can mount six tons of ammo (60 shots).

[Aaron DeChavilier]

I understand what you're saying Alizabeth, but we're on the topic
of SHS and DHS which I tool to only really mean mech design
hence my statement about A\C10-PPC was based on mech design
with no consideration for vehicles.

so if FF is such a waste, why not do away with it altogether?
why did FASA even make it?

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Easier to refit on existing models.
Switching to Endo requires a Class F factory-grade refit, whilst Ferro only requires a Class C maintenance-grade refit.
Anyway, I won't contemplate FASA's reasons, especially not since I know that FASAnomics and FASAfysics exist.

[Terick]

The difference is also Clan Ferro vs IS ferro, IS gives 12% improvement, clan ferro improves by 20 % and uses half the space for the IS version.

Basically how thay tried to justify that the clans had better amor, rather then sayg clans armor gives x amount fo protection and IS armro gives 16.

Last I knew you couldn't mount DHS on a veee.... if youc a nto I'm goign to ahve a lot of fun.

PPC means 18 tons for a Vee with an ICE engien and on a fusion vee means only 7 tons IF that is your only energy weapon.

Regardless I think setting engines to being a base heat dissipation is best for over all, allows you to not worry about chanign the rules for mixing heatsinks, and removes the crit padding that lights get for free.

[VYCanis]

I like the idea of making the DHS actualy have to fit inside the engine crits.

Also, i think DHS should make a mech be more vulnerable to incendiaries like infernos and flamers. I'f you've got 2x the heat conduction rate, stands to reason that heat would transfer into your mech at roughly 2x the rate too.

that way DHS equipped mechs can't just laugh off incendiaries.

[Terick]

VYCanis, on 17 December 2011 - 08:00 PM, said:

Also, i think DHS should make a mech be more vulnerable to incendiaries like infernos and flamers. I'f you've got 2x the heat conduction rate, stands to reason that heat would transfer into your mech at roughly 2x the rate too.

that way DHS equipped mechs can't just laugh off incendiaries.

Now that is an interesting thought..... would keep infernos and such very useful.

[Alizabeth Aijou]

Terick, on 17 December 2011 - 01:30 PM, said:

Last I knew you couldn't mount DHS on a veee.... if youc a nto I'm goign to ahve a lot of fun.

Yeah, mistake on my part, you still can't.
ASF, DropShips and WarShips can, but conventional vehs cannot. >_>

[CaveMan]

For no other reason than "we don't like tanks", at that.

Not that it matters though, since you can pack a vee full of SRM launchers and LB-X autocannon with no heat penalties, and kill every 'Mech in sight with repeat head hits, before your fusion engine takes a critical hit to its oh-so-flammable helium fuel and your vehicle explodes.

[Pht]

GreyGriffin, on 11 December 2011 - 11:47 PM, said:

So, a section of Sword and Dragon has a great little bit of technology called the "Prototype Double Heat Sink." This dandy piece of equipment acts as a double heat sink, but can't be mounted inside the engine of the 'mech. I was pondering if it was possible to sneak in that kind of equipment into SSW or Heavy Metal, when I wondered, "Why don't all double heat sinks work like that?"

"heat sinks" in the engine aren't actually heat sinks proper, as are used in the rest of the mech. They're only tracked as such for ease.

They're actually an integral part of the secondary heat reclamation system of the fusion engine.

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The second way of generating power is purely secondary and is called regenerative cooling. Regenerative cooling uses waste heat to generate power. Usually this is done with a closed-cycle gas or steam turbine. In a small way this is a part of the 'Mechs cooling system, even though this is not a part of the heat sink system proper. Regenerative cooling machinery is very different from purpose built heat sinks. The regenerative cooling system adds negligible volume to the engine, due to its using the existing plumbing of the engines cooling system. It would be quite useful if all the waste heat from an engine could be soaked up by these so-called "integral heat sinks," but practical limitations mean only so much energy can be extracted from this lower-quality source. Bigger engines make more waste heat and can have larger regenerative cooling systems, but most 'Mechs will use some conventional heat sinks placed elsewhere to handle the excess.

http://www.sarna.net...ower_Generation

[Durant Carlyle]

Where are you guys getting "10 free heat sinks" from? The Total Warfare book?

I always thought it was "Engine rating divided by 25" heat sinks mounted within the engine, and then the rest had to be placed in available critical slots. The minimum number of heat sinks is always 10. In-engine heat sinks can be single or double.

Then again, I didn't have all of the books. Never did get Total Warfare...

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 17 January 2012 - 08:58 PM.

[GreyGriffin]

The 10 free heat sinks are the heat sinks that come with a fusion engine at no cost in tonnage. If your 'mech uses double heat sinks, these heat sinks are upgraded to double heat sinks, oftentimes at very little cost in space.