13 replies to this topic

[Jonathan8883]

Which is normally better? Cool run seems like it's a better choice (higher % numbers), but I've been seeing Baradul/MoltenMetal get Heat Gen instead.

[Damnedtroll]

A combination of both can be good but Heat gen are in the path of firepower other goodies and not some crappy skills. To take Heat gen nodes, you grab other good skill nodes. To grab Cool run, well... you lose points doing so on bad things.

Edited by Damnedtroll, 26 November 2017 - 07:27 AM.

[Exard3k]

You can get both, they even synergize with each other. Other than that Heat gen is a more obvious choice because you dig into firepower anyway where cool run nodes are usually locked by other nodes you maybe don't want.

heat gen is kinda heat containment + cool run combined but weaker and limited to weapons.

To get the maximum cooling, just get both. On a single node basis regarding cooling, cool run is better. But reality (skill tree) is different. Although Operations hasn't "useless" nodes at all...improved gyros really helps lots of players and even quick ignition saves life as most players don't go for override the whole match and we all shut down at times.

All the skills are situational and it's up to your playstyle and mech whether you want specific nodes. E.g. when getting bullied by some rapid fire autocannons or missiles constantly at lower ranges, +range nodes are pretty useless, while improved gyros won't make you freak out (most do) or messing up your aim (all do) so you can actually effectively return fire and win your trades.

Edited by Exard3k, 26 November 2017 - 08:13 AM.

[Koniving]

Edited for improved Engrish.

Jonathan8883, on 26 November 2017 - 07:14 AM, said:

Which is normally better? Cool run seems like it's a better choice (higher % numbers), but I've been seeing Baradul/MoltenMetal get Heat Gen instead.

Heat gen applies just to weapons and is easier to obtain due to being in the firepower tree.

Cool run is in the operations tree and therefore is a bit more obscure. However, cool run applies to the heatsinks directly, cooling everything faster and not just the weapons. (Jumpjets, engine heat penalty, environmental heat from hot maps, etc.

Cool run has the side effect of requiring that you -- in some nodes -- also acquire Heat Containment that increases the maximum heat you can have before you have shutdown and other overheating penalties.

If you're planning on a build that abuses ghost heat, the best thing to do is get both cool run and heat gen (and heat containment).

Pure energy builds and exceedingly hot builds would also really benefit from going for cool run (as in addition to heat containment, here's also nodes for faster power cycling [rebooting] for your mech so when you do shut down, you can get back up much quicker, as well as a number of other obscure little gems).

Personally if only getting one, I get heat gen because its in the firepower tree. I kinda have to get it anyway. If I want to run colder though, you bet your behind I'm making a stop in Mech Operations.

Edited by Koniving, 26 November 2017 - 08:45 AM.

[MischiefSC]

Do both.

If you're running laservomit than your mech is converting heat into damage. Heat cap and dissipation *is* your cooldown.

Run ops, all but the 5 you can skip.

Run the full left side of Survival.

Run Aux down to get 2 coolshots.

Get all heat management in Firepower and burn duration.

Ballistic/missile builds are the same but pick up Velocity instead of duration.

Always all the relevant heat mods. Testing identical builds last night with someone they generated 10%more heat on the bar for the same alpha with only 1/2 all the heat nodes.

Faster dissipation and cap means more shots and shooting faster. Cooldown only matters on AC5/10 builds and Gauss only stuff. Otherwise it's heat that determines who shoots the most.

[Blindbeard the Pirate]

The actual answer isn't really always as cut and dry as people make it out to be, but the heat gen nodes in the firepower tree are almost always going to be the larger source of reduction for your build. The only exceptions to this are when your build is already exceptionally cool as it is, where the heat gen multipliers will be effected considerably less than a boost to dissipation rate and the ability to fire one extra time.

For laser vomit builds, you can safely take both and it will help tremendously provided your build actually has enough double heatsinks to make it practical, but heat generation is better since you're locked to an alpha strike timer and it's going to scale more heavily.

For cool builds like gauss abuse, UAC builds and LBX builds, coolrun+heat containment counter intuitively is much more valuable, because getting out the extra few shots is going to matter, a lot, and you're not locked to a long alpha strike timer. If you're using stealth armour, the extra cooling rate is proportionately more valuable.

Say, for math's sake, you have 20 double heatsinks. 10 are internal (just what the engine comes with), and 10 are external (every other heatsink including those slotted in the engine). That would give you 35 additional heat capacity, with 3.5 cooling per second, if the patch notes are to be believed. Your total heat capacity would be 65 if the base hasn't been changed.

Now, say we've got a standard laser vomit loadout. Two HLLs and five ERMLs, which would be 63.5. This runs holy hell levels of hot, but with a 5.75 cooldown on the HLLs and a 1.55 second burn time you've got a lot of time to cool, right? We're going to assume you'll only be firing when you can alpha. Your alpha, overall, would be 71 damage, to 7.3 seconds. 9.72 theoretical DPS if heat were ignored, but since it isn't, with 8.69 HPS.

So, 65 heat capacity, 63.5 on an alpha, 3.5 CPS, 8.69 HPS. 18.14 seconds to cool entirely after an alpha. We've got our base numbers, no quirks, no cooldown, no laser duration, no heatgen, and no coolrun or heat containment. Draw your own conclusions, but I'd say this build is pretty ******. You're not going to alpha twice, you'll cook yourself like a turkey because you need to nearly fully cool, but it's a baseline. 39.5 heat remaining after your weapons have cycled plus 63.5 is 103. Nope. You'd need to dissipate 38 heat, which would take 10.8 seconds or so. Baaad.

All heatgen nodes are -10.5% but they work like both coolrun and heat containment combined.
All coolrun nodes are 10%
All heat containment nodes is 15%

It requires a minimum of 32 points sanely, or 28 points with waste nodes to get all heatgen nodes, and 17 points to get all of the coolrun and heat containment nodes. Not all of the operations nodes are technically wastes, you'll actually be thankful for improved gyros a lot of the time. There's a reason why so many people start torso twisting and reversing like mad when they're getting blasted into the ground by a dakka loadout.

So, if you apply all heatgen nodes by themselves, that drops you from 63.5 to 56.8, or 7.78 HPS. Subtract cooling from 7.78 and you've got 4.28 generation versus dissipation, and a 16.22 time to cool. 31.25 heat after your weapons cycle + 56.8 is 88. Doesn't seem like much, but that's a marked improvement of 15 heat toward being able to alpha twice. You would need to dissipate 23 heat to not cook yourself, which would take around 6.6 seconds.

If you apply all coolrun nodes, you'll get 3.85 instead of 3.5. Subtract cooling and that gives you 5.19 generation versus dissipation, and a 16.49 time to cool. 35.39 heat after your weapons cycle, plus 63.5 is 98.89. A difference of 4.11 heat, and you'd need to cool 33.89 heat before you could alpha again. That would take 8.8 seconds.

If you consider coolrun AND heat containment, you have 74.75 capacity. You would need to dissipate 24.14 heat to alpha twice, which would take a total of 6.27 seconds.

So, in this example, we're getting .35 CPS versus 0.91 HPS. It's a no brainer that heat gen nodes are much stronger by default since you'll probably be investing in the firepower tree for something like laser duration or ammo anyway. You have a lower generation total, cool similarly fast, and have less to dissipate when you're hiding behind a hill. If you don't have the extra points, you would invest in heat generation to get the most out of your mech.

If you consider coolrun, heat containment, and heat gen, because we're getting serious here, you've got 74.45 capacity 56.8 and 3.85 dissipation. 7.78 HPS means 3.93 heat versus dissipation. 28.69 heat after your weapons cycle. 85.5 heat if you alpha twice, which means you need to wait for 11 heat to dissipate or you'll overheat. Around 4 seconds between alphas, before needing to let yourself cool properly. Which is so much better. If your mech is hot take all of these.

The moral of the story is that running a build just like this wouldn't necessarily be optimal but you'll be all maximum cooling and have 8 points to toss around wherever you want them. Y'know, for more cooldown, survivability, or mobility. Or you could get some seismic sensor utility, for all those times you're on rubellite or HPG.

Edited by Ulriya Sykora, 03 December 2017 - 03:51 AM.

[Brizna]

1) Heat gen bonus varies on weight class and faction, IS and lighter being better than clan and heavier.

2) Heat gen acts on your weapon's heat generation while cool run on your heat dissipation.

3) Heat gen tends to require a heavier skill point investment but takes very useful non heat related nodes on the way (CD and range mostly) while cool run require a low skill investment but other than cool run most nodes on the way suck.

TLDR: the better your heat management is you are better of with cool run, and the worst it is you are better of reducing heat generated fromweapons. Also heavier clan mechs usually profit more from cool run than lighter IS mechs. If you are skill node hungry COOL RUN is a better investment, if you have points to spare weapons tree is always a solid inestment.

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, most of the time TAKE BOTH.

[Daggett]

If you can only take one of the two, it depends on what role you are going to play with your mech.

Personally i go for heat gen if:

• My mech requires many other nodes in that tree anyway (like cooldown, range, laser duration, ammo, ect.)
  
• I have rapid-fire weapons like pulse-lasers or smaller ACs where the heat gen bonus will be applied many times, especially if i want to brawl with the mech.
  
  Maybe that's a reason why Baradul often goes for heat gen, because he loves to brawl.

Therefore i go for cool run if:

• I don't need enough from the weapons-tree to grab much heat gen nodes on the way
  
• I run lots of heatsinks to make grabbing heat containment nodes on the way a good choice
  
• I run high-alpha - high heat builds like laser-vomit where i can hide after each shot so the heat-gen nodes are less efficient than cool-run because i don't fire my guns that often

But generally if your mech runs very hot you will probably not use it for brawling anyway and can therefore skip the survival tree and/or much of the mobility tree to have enough nodes availabe to do maximum cooling using both cool run and heat gen.

Edited by Daggett, 03 December 2017 - 10:50 AM.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Its funny seeing people say "do both". You people do know that you only get 91 pts? You cannot just get everything.

[Leone]

Right, max out survival, grab all the heat gen cool run and containment nodes. 91 points. What else is there to get?

~Leone.

[justcallme A S H]

If you are in a brawler with low amount of DHS - Get mainly Heat Gen, and ensure you move/use cover to cool off.
This will give you more instant punch when you appear to drop your payload.

If you are in a midrange laser with decent DHS amounts - Get Both, many as you can.
This will give you more sustainable damage over time which is the aim of the build.

[jss78]

I tend to take both.

The heat-gen nodes usually just come on their own, as you tend to go deep in the Firepower tree anyway.

The Operations tree is sometimes disparaged, but I like it because there's a very low "hidden cost" of improving your heat efficiency there. If you take the optimal route, you only need to take a handful of Hill Climb and Improved Gyros (which are universally useful though not essential) to unlock lots of Cool Run and Heat Containment.

I almost always take the "first level" in the tree, unless it's something completely heat neutral like a Gauss Jager. Very often I'll also take the "second level".

[Horseman]

Cool Run makes sense only if you're a) either not spending points in Firepower at all, are double-dipping with all Heat Gen nodes from Firepower already purchased or c) want to improve heat management on Stealth Armor builds.

[justcallme A S H]

jss78, on 27 February 2018 - 03:57 AM, said:

I tend to take both.

The heat-gen nodes usually just come on their own, as you tend to go deep in the Firepower tree anyway.

The Operations tree is sometimes disparaged, but I like it because there's a very low "hidden cost" of improving your heat efficiency there. If you take the optimal route, you only need to take a handful of Hill Climb and Improved Gyros (which are universally useful though not essential) to unlock lots of Cool Run and Heat Containment.

I almost always take the "first level" in the tree, unless it's something completely heat neutral like a Gauss Jager. Very often I'll also take the "second level".

Those 2 extra heat containment nodes are honestly not worth getting for 4SP. Better off taking the 3rd Coolrun and stopping there.

OR

Ignore them and go straight for the bottom 2 coolruns. For a total investment of 6SP extra (after the 3rd coolrun).

Heat containment is only really beneficial with more headsinks as it raises your total cap, where coolrun dissipation is much more worthwhile over the course of a game. For 2SP extra you are improving effectiveness much more and that is where the priority should be.

Edited by justcallme A S H, 27 February 2018 - 03:21 PM.