6 replies to this topic

[LMP]

I read the below here http://steamcommunit...s/?id=686548357 but I'm not sure I understand it.


“Most pilots categorize (at least mentally) mechs as cold, neutral, or hot. A cold mech generates so little heat that it is not even worth worrying about, and they always fine. Hot mechs conversely are loaded to the brim with necessary heat sinks and generally rely on burts of combat with punishing alpha strikes, followed by brief cooling periods. Neutral mechs sit somewhere in between with weapons that do not always push them to the limit except in particularly hairy firefights, and accordingly carry only a few heat sinks.”

Is this something related to the properties of mech itself? For example, if the weapons are equal for both a hot mech and a cool mech do you need less heat sinks for a cool mech then a hot one to have identical cooling performance?

[BodakOfSseth]

It has to do with how much heat the weapon selection on your mech generates vs how quickly it cools it off.

Cold: You could go with a dual gauss jaegermech, and not put a single heat sink onto it. It will never overheat.
Hot: You could go with an 11x ER Small Laser Nova, and likely overheat in a single alphastrike, because you didn't put enough heat sinks in.
Neutral: somewhere in between, where you successfully balance your weapon heats and your heat sinks so that you can get some decent shooting in before it threatens to overheat.

It doesn't have anything to do with specific chassis.
You could make an ultra-hot Jaegermech, or an ultra-cool Nova or a neutral version of both. It's all about what weapons you select, and how many heat sinks you're able to fit in.
(along with what seems like a good idea, what you want to play, how much you choose to defy general wisdom, etc)

What you're looking for on those links is on the left hand side of the window- the Cooling Efficiency bar.
Also, you can click the Weaponlab link at the top of the page and get some additional information.

Edited by ScottAleric, 16 November 2016 - 11:56 AM.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

It relates to a lot of factors.

Mainly:

1) how hot are the weapons you are firing
2) how quickly do the weapons shoot
3) how many heatsinks the mech has

You can also consider quirks, such as those that increase your rate of fire, or quirks that help reduce heat.
The other big X factor - obviously - is which map you are on, unless you are in a Night Gyr

[LMP]

Thanks guys.

[TercieI]

Oh, also, when building mechs, keep in mind: RUN HOT OR DIE.

[jss78]

It's just a minor peeve, but I dislike the terminology in that quoted paragraph.

To me "heat neutral" is a 'mech that's incapable of building up heat. You always had these in tabletop, but also in MWO, like a dual-gauss dual-SL Jagermech with 10 DHS, which cannot build up heat even if you fire weapons at maximum rate on the hottest map.

So "neutral" would be the coolest 'mech possible to me. I might then say that a 'mech runs "cool" if it only builds up a bit of heat at most, or "hot" if builds up heat fast under certain conditions.

(I guess in tabletop terms we also had 'mechs which are beyond "neutral", i.e. oversinked. Like the classic Shadow Hawk 2H, which could at most build up 11 points of heat (full jump, fire all weapons), but had 12 heat sinks, removing as many points of heat. So it would never build up heat, and wouldn't ever even use the full heat sink capacity -- unless heat sinks got destroyed, or you got extra heat due to fusion engine damage.)

[Kaio Pryde]

Hmm in my opinion
I would say
Hot mechs = 2-3 alphas then you cool off for a decent length of time. Good thing about this build is the higher burst damage meaning you can face trade with someone and you both take full damage but you out damage on the trade

Neutral mechs fall under 4-5 alphas with a short cool off period, meant for continously poking at your target from range.

And cold mechs that can alpha 6+times very little to almost no cool off period (mostly brawlers are built this way. Worse thing that can happen is you shutdown or overheat too much in a brawler