If you can fire an alpha that large without tripping ghost heat and shutting down, then it makes sense to do it. It means you only have to peek half as often, which translates directly into taking less damage and thus living longer to fire more alphas. It's not such a massive disadvantage at close range, because you can always split off smaller weapon groups to stay cool.
Bigbacon, on 29 July 2017 - 05:43 PM, said:
and....if they had a real heat setup in this game, you'd pop after the first one...
that is why laser vomit rules in this game.
In TT heat penalties only applied
after heat dissipation, at the very end of the round. 21xDHS (for the HBK version of the laser lolpha build) means you can dissipate 42 heat
before checking the penalty table after firing an alpha with that HBK-IIC-A build... which would leave 24 heat at the end of the round (6x5 heat at TT ERML values + 2x18 for HLL = 66; 66 - 42 = 24- the same value as a stock NVA-Prime after an alpha, in fact). That MAD-IIC in the OP would end up with 6 heat left over after an alpha strike, which only triggers the lowest possible penalty (-1 to movement) with no risk of shutdown.
The HBK would risk a shutdown on alpha, with a high save roll, but would not
force shutdown (that only happens at 30 heat, with no chance to make a save roll). It would not explode.
The MAD-IIC in the OP would actually run
cooler in TT. Much,
much cooler. You'd be able to alpha every other round, and fire
most of your weapons (minus three of your ERML to sink the leftover heat and avoid generating more) every single round, and all it would cost you is 1 MP every other round. You could alpha twice in a row without even risking the lowest save roll for a shutdown check. If you could find a body of water to sit in while firing, you could be very nearly heat neutral thanks to your leg-mounted skins gaining double effectiveness... and then fire no fewer than
six successive alpha strikes before rolling a shutdown check (two before incurring any kind of penalty at all).
The reason laservomit is strong in MWO isn't because of differences in the heat mechanics- if anything, MWO's effective heat threshold is
lower than in TT. Laservomit is strong because lasers are hitscan weapons with perfect convergence, so using them is only a matter of keeping your crosshair over whatever you want to die for the duration of the burn.
Yes, there should be more heat penalties for riding the high side of the heat curve-
movement, accuracy, ammo explosions... but the heat
threshold is fine where it is.