65 replies to this topic

[Koniving]

SLUGOTHA, on 09 January 2019 - 10:28 PM, said:

'WTF just happened?', is what i asked after my mech was constantly shot from behind and i couldn't find anybody firing at me, even when i was backed to a wall. when i died the info just said my name , no one got credit for killing me, I didn't kill myself. So WTF PGI, WTF?

What mech specifically?

Some mechs have spots that count as rear torso...on their front / side.

Examples:




Despite this display, a certain meta-head with a chip on his shoulder kept hitting my rear torso from in front to prove that UAC/2s were superior by exploiting the hitboxes. There's spots on the fins that count as rear torso on the front, he said, after.

Note the side of the neck.

The list goes on (there's at least a dozen more examples). So which mech was it?

Edited by Koniving, 11 January 2019 - 10:31 AM.

[Y E O N N E]

Koniving, on 11 January 2019 - 10:25 AM, said:

Some mechs have spots that count as rear torso...on their front / side.

*coughmistlynxcough*

[Koniving]

Y E O N N E, on 11 January 2019 - 10:31 AM, said:

*coughmistlynxcough*

I wouldn't be surprised, most examples are Clan mechs.
Though sadly the hitbox guy failed to make a note of it.

(When you're fast, however, MWO is known to take a shot that should hit the side and apply it to your back, or a shot that should hit your one side and apply it to another. Here's an example before lag compensation "HSR", note I keep aiming a huge distance ahead of the enemy to try and hit the right torso. Every shot lands left torso.

Watch that enemy box. Its just amazing. MWO is still known for doing this when a target hits certain speeds or certain high pings (but when its ping related they can sometimes teleport). My ping at the time ranged typically between 56 and 79ms. Note the jump after collision isn't ping related, its a disagreement with clientside physics and the serverside physics and the server winning the argument.)

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 11 January 2019 - 10:23 AM, said:

Running hotter when side-cored is fine. Being heat-spiked into a shut-down is not.

When you're at 80-90 percent of heat capacity, then you lose 25 percent of that capacity, you're now in over heat situation, it makes perfect sense.

Just because you lost the capacity, it doesn't mean the heat just magically vanishes, it has to go somewhere, and that "somewhere" is into the rest of your 'mech.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 10:47 AM, said:

When you're at 80-90 percent of heat capacity, then you lose 25 percent of that capacity, you're now in over heat situation, it makes perfect sense.

It makes zero sense at all.

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Just because you lost the capacity, it doesn't mean the heat just magically vanishes, it has to go somewhere, and that "somewhere" is into the rest of your 'mech.

That somewhere is in the components that are now on the ground, not the rest of your 'Mech.

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 11 January 2019 - 11:08 AM, said:

It makes zero sense at all.

That somewhere is in the components that are now on the ground, not the rest of your 'Mech.

Who says it's all on the ground? Your side torso is now the glowing mass of metal, all that heat is radiating into the rest of your 'mech, and with those now molten heat sinks, your 'mech is now in an over heat situation, period.

Plus, as mentioned before, it balances the 3 engine types spectacularly now.

SE's are now actually relevant and have a USEFUL advantage over XL's and LFE's! Hooray!

It's the first time ever in the history of this game that the engine types are balanced, we're just not used to it, so it's a new and strange situation. Don't fear it! Embrace it!

EMBRACE IT I SAY!!!

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:13 AM, said:

Who says it's all on the ground? Your side torso is now the glowing mass of metal, all that heat is radiating into the rest of your 'mech, and with those now molten heat sinks, your 'mech is now in an over heat situation, period.

That's not how any of this works.

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Plus, as mentioned before, it balances the 3 engine types spectacularly now.

It does not.

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SE's are now actually relevant and have a USEFUL advantage over XL's and LFE's! Hooray!

They were already incredibly relevant. You will never make them relevant across all weight classes, though, and there is no merit to trying.

Quote

It's the first time ever in the history of this game that the engine types are balanced, we're just not used to it, so it's a new and strange situation. Don't fear it! Embrace it!

EMBRACE IT I SAY!!!

You are declaring victory prematurely.

[Khobai]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:13 AM, said:

It's the first time ever in the history of this game that the engine types are balanced, we're just not used to it, so it's a new and strange situation. Don't fear it! Embrace it!

So clans are using STD engines? oh wait theyre not. so no the engines arnt balanced. not even close. PGI needed to buff STD engines not nerf CXL. They went the wrong direction with that.

And on the IS side nerfing LFE has just made ISXL more appealing. If youre going to die from losing your side torso anyway with LFE you might as well just reconsider using ISXL instead. And STD is still just as unappealing as it always was for IS. Again the wrong direction.

Engine balance certainly has not gotten better. And you could even make an argument that its gotten worse.

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:13 AM, said:

SE's are now actually relevant and have a USEFUL advantage over XL's and LFE's! Hooray!

STD engines are definitely not relevant LMAO.

Instead whats actually happened is that ISXL has become more relevant because LFE is now practically as bad.

STD engines remain far too heavy to be relevant except maybe on certain assaults.

Edited by Khobai, 11 January 2019 - 11:32 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 11 January 2019 - 11:15 AM, said:

That's not how any of this works.

Ok, then where is it documented in how it's "supposed" to work?

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It does not.

They were already incredibly relevant. You will never make them relevant across all weight classes, though, and there is no merit to trying.

Well if you're of the 'school of thought' that ALL IS tech must suck compared to anything the Clan has, and SE's should only be used if you want to equip an HG then I guess you're right.

That's an incredibly myopic and ignorant point of view, but to each his own.

Prior to this there was no real use for SE's other than needing space to load more/large weapons in the ST's and to equip one meant you were giving up A LOT of speed OR weight, and more probably a chunk of both, with no significant benefit, other than the extremely limited benefit of being able to "zombie" on certain chassis.

NOW there is a tangible benefit that makes the SE actually a preferred engine for many more situations.

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You are declaring victory prematurely.

I'm not declaring victory, I'm just telling you to embrace the change, not fear it! It actually IS a great thing, one of the best changes to heat and engine balance that PGI has ever done.

Khobai, on 11 January 2019 - 11:24 AM, said:

So clans are using STD engines? oh wait theyre not. so no the engines arnt balanced. not even close.

I'm fairly certain the non-Omni's can. Granted the clan XL is SO much better though that the risk of the heat spike when losing an ST is fairly well balanced against the speed/weight/space used differences, but that's because all the other Clan benefits "stack" well with the Clan engine.

Not only is the Clan engine smaller/lighter, but so are all the Clan weapons, which is why Clan alphas are, for the most part, typically so much higher than their IS equivalents.

[Khobai]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:13 AM, said:

I'm fairly certain the non-Omni's can.  Granted the clan XL is SO much better though that the risk of the heat spike when losing an ST is fairly well balanced against the speed/weight/space used differences, but that's because all the other Clan benefits "stack" well with the Clan engine.

Sure. They can use STD engines. But no one does. The engine types still arnt balanced.

If CXL and STD were even partially balanced then STD engines would get somewhat used which isnt the case.

There is really no reason for clans to touch STD engines. So engine balance is still absolutely terrible on the clan side. And balance isnt really any better on the IS side now that LFE has been nearly obliterated as a choice compared to ISXL.

LFE is supposed to be in between ISXL and STD for survivability. It isnt supposed to be instadeath due to shutdown from losing a side torso... When PGI did that they actually upset the balance point for LFE.

Edited by Khobai, 11 January 2019 - 11:38 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 11 January 2019 - 11:34 AM, said:

Sure. They can use STD engines. But no one does. The engine types still arnt balanced.

If CXL and STD were even partially balanced then both would get somewhat used which isnt the case.

There is really no reason for clans to touch STD engines. So engine balance is still absolutely terrible on the clan side. And balance isnt really any better on the IS side now that LFE has been nearly obliterated as a choice compared to ISXL.

I think they are balanced it's just that most of you using Clan XL's on non-omni's have chosen to have more speed and higher alpha and accept the risk of the potential heat spike.

If they wanted to avoid the spike they could give up some speed and/or some alpha to load an SE and not worry about it.

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LFE is supposed to be in between ISXL and STD. It isnt supposed to be instadeath on losing a side torso...

It actually isn't "instant death". I have quite a few 'mechs that I regularly play that still have the LFE loaded. "Instant death" occurs only if you're alpha'ing all your weapons all the time and not paying attention to your ST condition.

Just because you have an f-ton of weapons doesn't mean you should be shooting every single one of them every time you pull the trigger. A lot of players have gotten lazy about fire control and heat management because of PGI's failure to implement a dynamic heat affects table.

Now, it's time to re-think fire control and heat management.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 11 January 2019 - 11:43 AM.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 11 January 2019 - 11:34 AM, said:

Sure. They can use STD engines. But no one does. The engine types still arnt balanced.

If CXL and STD were even partially balanced then both would get somewhat used which isnt the case.

The sheer tonnage requirements of the STD engine will ensure that the only Clan mechs using it seriously will be assault or maybe heavy mechs packing laser vomit builds that run out of slots faster than tonnage, or mechs that want twin Gauss in a single side torso.

Lights and mediums will simply never be optimal with STDs because they inherently lack tonnage by design (thus you want to make the most of your limited pod space rather than squander most of it on your engine). I guess the Hunch IIC-A might be one exception because it can boat a bunch of medium lasers that are super lightweight and thus has plenty of excess weight to spend on the engine. That's about it.

Approaching this problem from the angle of nerfing the CXL until it's just as bad as the STD will just put Clans in the same position that the IS was in before the LFE was introduced. The majority of mechs in the middle of the weight spectrum simply cannot afford the weight of a STD or the fragility of the IS XL. There needs to be some kind of middle-ground engine that doesn't have extreme tonnage or extreme fragility, and that engine just so happens to be the CXL for Clans and LFE for IS.

[Khobai]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:36 AM, said:

If they wanted to avoid the spike they could give up some speed and/or some alpha to load an SE and not worry about it.

Unfortunately thats not how it works. Because speed is survivability in MWO. You give up more survivability by going slower.

Thats why CXL remains vastly superior to STD engines.

FupDup, on 11 January 2019 - 11:44 AM, said:

There needs to be some kind of middle-ground engine that doesn't have extreme tonnage or extreme fragility, and that engine just so happens to be the CXL for Clans and LFE for IS.

I disagree somewhat. no engine should have extreme fragility. you should not die from losing a side torso. period.

Side torso death is okay in tabletop because the hit locations are RANDOM. But when you can surgically obliterate someones side torso with an aimed alphastrike then side torso death needs to be removed from the game.

This heat spike shutdown nonsense on CXL and LFE needs to be reverted. ISXL should survive side torso destruction. And LFE and STD engines should be considerably buffed. CXL needs to stop being nerfed and instead should be the balance baseline for all other engines.

Edited by Khobai, 11 January 2019 - 11:52 AM.

[Dimento Graven]

Khobai, on 11 January 2019 - 11:45 AM, said:

Unfortunately thats not how it works. Because speed is survivability in MWO. You give up more survivability by going slower.

Thats why CXL remains vastly superior to STD engines.

Yeah, welcome to the BS the IS has had to put up with since the inception of the Clans.

The IS 'mechs have been forced to sacrifice speed and tonnage to avoid the insta-death of isXL ST loss. LFE was only marginally better because some weight was saved allowing some extra tonnage for speed or our larger heavier weapons.

This is why I believe the change brings Clan XL, LFE and SE engines closer to being truly balanced, there's REAL trade offs we have to choose from when designing our 'mechs and depending upon your decision, they can affect how you should be playing your 'mech.

[FupDup]

Khobai, on 11 January 2019 - 11:45 AM, said:

I disagree somewhat. no engine should have extreme fragility. you should not die from losing a side torso. period.

Side torso death is okay in tabletop because the hit locations are RANDOM. But when you can surgically obliterate someones side torso with an aimed alphastrike then side torso death needs to be removed from the game.

This heat spike shutdown nonsense on CXL and LFE needs to be reverted. ISXL should survive side torso destruction. And LFE and STD engines should be considerably buffed. CXL needs to stop being nerfed and instead should be the balance baseline for all other engines.

I didn't mean to say that I liked extreme fragility (I don't), just that most mechs can't afford to make that sacrifice. Since PGI wasn't budging on the IS XL that meant the LFE had to fill in the job.

Personally I still think the IS XL's solution should be giving side torsos equal armor and structure as the center torso, thus removing the shortcut to kill option but still keeping the unique flavor. And yes this would be significant, for example the Sunder would gain +20 structure and +40 armor on each side torso with this mechanic.

[Prototelis]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 11:28 AM, said:

Ok, then where is it documented in how it's "supposed" to work?

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heat_Sink

"Heat sinks operate by collecting heat with coolant distributed to heat sources (weapons, engines, myomers, electronics, etc.) and delivering that to a radiator."

IE, in principle they work just like the radiator in your car. If you were to suddenly remove the radiator in a car, or close the thermostat, the heat in the radiator does not magically transfer back into the engine. The heat threshold remains the same, (IE the temperature at which engine oil can no longer cool the engine or loses its lubricating properties, or the temperature at which some other mechanical failure takes place) the rate of dissipation is drastically lowered.

Even if we assume there is an equal volume of coolant in the lines, engine, and radiator removing heat from one system does not magically transfer it to another.

Even if battlemech heat sinks were passive radiators (they aren't) the same would be true.

Edited by Prototelis, 11 January 2019 - 03:18 PM.

[Dimento Graven]

Prototelis, on 11 January 2019 - 12:16 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heat_Sink

"Heat sinks operate by collecting heat with coolant distributed to heat sources (weapons, engines, myomers, electronics, etc.) and delivering that to a radiator."

IE, they work just like the radiator in your car. If you were to suddenly remove the radiator in a car, or close the thermostat, the heat in the radiator does not magically transfer back into the engine. The heat threshold remains the same, (IE the temperature at which engine oil can no longer cool the engine or loses its lubricating properties, or the temperature at which some other mechanical failure takes place) the rate of dissipation is drastically lowered.

Even if we assume there is an equal volume of coolant in the lines, engine, and radiator removing heat from one system does not magically transfer it to another.

Even if battlemech heat sinks were passive radiators (they aren't) the same would be true.

You lose your radiator, you've lost heat threshhold. I had a radiator burst on my 2000 Tundra a few years back, and my engine IMMEDIATELY went into the red and the ICU immediately throttled my power and eventually shut the engine off, because there was no longer any place to store and radiate the heat away from the engine. No, my truck didn't blow up, but if the ICU wasn't there to prevent me from continuing to drive at 70mph on the highway, I'm sure I would have very extremely quickly done some serious damage to the point of needing to replace/rebuild the engine.

So yeah, the current dynamic makes perfect sense to me with that REAL WORLD experience.

[Y E O N N E]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 12:26 PM, said:

You lose your radiator, you've lost heat threshhold. I had a radiator burst on my 2000 Tundra a few years back, and my engine IMMEDIATELY went into the red and the ICU immediately throttled my power and eventually shut the engine off, because there was no longer any place to store and radiate the heat away from the engine. No, my truck didn't blow up, but if the ICU wasn't there to prevent me from continuing to drive at 70mph on the highway, I'm sure I would have very extremely quickly done some serious damage to the point of needing to replace/rebuild the engine.

So yeah, the current dynamic makes perfect sense to me with that REAL WORLD experience.

That's still not how it works.

The engine is considered background heat in MechWarrior and doesn't count toward the heat bar unless being strained by weapons fire or running. When you lose a side torso, you lose some of your heat shielding; that eats into your dissipation, making everything slower to cool off. Since you also lost some mass, you lose some sinking capacity, too, but all the heat that was in that mass is no longer a part of your system.

Similarly, your radiator being holed or removed does not cause your car to instantly spike, it takes several minutes of continuously running the engine to overheat it.

[Dimento Graven]

Y E O N N E, on 11 January 2019 - 01:15 PM, said:

That's still not how it works.

The engine is considered background heat in MechWarrior and doesn't count toward the heat bar unless being strained by weapons fire or running. When you lose a side torso, you lose some of your heat shielding; that eats into your dissipation, making everything slower to cool off. Since you also lost some mass, you lose some sinking capacity, too, but all the heat that was in that mass is no longer a part of your system.

And you're still getting it wrong.

The engine is not passively generating it's own heat, it's a fusion reaction and everything we know about the BT universe's fusion engine it's plasma heated to temperatures exceeding those at the surface of the sun. Moving and firing weapons causes more heat to be generated because of the increased demands for power to make those things function.

Those portions that were destroyed, yet still remain connected are in fact dissipating their heat directly into the rest of the 'mech. The fact that you lost engine shielding AND heat sinks when you lost that ST does in fact mean your heat generating is ALSO increased at the same time your capacity is shrunk. Extra heat generation has always been a consequence of engine damage, ST loss counts as two points of engine damage which is an additional and instant 10 extra points of heat generation, immediately.

Then there's the loss of the heat sinks, which exacerbates the extra heat generation from the resultant loss of your ability to dissipate it.

So yeah, in an RTS simulation, it's time for a check on shutting down pretty much the instant you lose that ST.

It makes perfect sense.

Quote

Similarly, your radiator being holed or removed does not cause your car to instantly spike, it takes several minutes of continuously running the engine to overheat it.

Um, on my truck the INSTANT that craptastic plastic portion of the radiator 'sploded, the engine was nigh instantly running hotter. I heard the bang, saw the steam, and my temp gauge when from about 30% all the way into the red as the coolant went shooting out of what remained of the radiator's top (according to the mechanic it's not unheard of with that year/model of Toyota, though the more "common" form of the problem was just cracks and leaking developing, not actually blowing apart).

So yeah, if we're talking about losing a significant portion of your engine vs. a hole the size of, what a quarter?, the results will be felt VERY fast.

Edited by Dimento Graven, 11 January 2019 - 01:49 PM.

[Prototelis]

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 12:26 PM, said:

You lose your radiator, you've lost heat threshhold. I had a radiator burst on my 2000 Tundra a few years back, and my engine IMMEDIATELY went into the red and the ICU immediately throttled my power and eventually shut the engine off, because there was no longer any place to store and radiate the heat away from the engine. No, my truck didn't blow up, but if the ICU wasn't there to prevent me from continuing to drive at 70mph on the highway, I'm sure I would have very extremely quickly done some serious damage to the point of needing to replace/rebuild the engine.

So yeah, the current dynamic makes perfect sense to me with that REAL WORLD experience.

Because you lost dissipation, not because you lost engine heat threshold.

Many modern electronically controlled engines automagically reduce power to prevent damage on a loss of coolant pressure or after a higher than normal (operating range) temperature is reached elsewhere (Oil, cylinder head, exhaust, sending unit etc). . This is intentional to prevent damage, detonation, and is also a safety feature.

Older vehicles typically have no such provisions and are more than happy to cook themselves to death.

It also depends on what part of the engine that gauge is representing. Cylinder head temperature, for example, spikes VERY quickly on loss of cooling. Not because that heat was transferred back into the system, but because that heat has less places to go and that part of the engine literally holds explosions in.

Oil will also start to heat rapidly but at a slower rate than everything else because it still gathers heat as it travels through galleys, into the cylinder, over components, and dissipates heat in the pan or reservoir.

I holed the radiator (was t-boned, which pushed the radiator into the mechanically driven radiator fan which was made of steel) in my 79 ford f-100 and was still able to drive several miles before the engine began to detonate, if we're trading anecdotes. The temp gauge in that vehicle was literally a half circle with "C" on one end, "H" on the other, and the entire area between the two was "normal." Unless your vehicle had a literal representation of actual temperature there is no way of knowing, short of some science or maybe in a manual somewhere, what range of temperature that gauge actually represents.

I've also blown the jug clean off of a two stroke dirt bike. I can assure you it was still very hot when I tried to retrieve it, and none of that energy moved back into the engine after it went.

The heat threshold of an engine is literally the temperature at which the engine begins to fail, the heat threshold of your coolant system (which is a heat pump) is related but separate. Adding more coolant to the system does not allow the engine to be "hotter," what it does allow is more heat energy to be moved elsewhere.

Its important to note that the coolant system in a battlemech is not only responsible for cooling the engine, but also for cooling components of the battlemech itself. (ie the myomar fibers, lasers, and ballistics all generate heat)

I'm not sure how well its covered in the modern version, but if you want to learn more about engine theory check these out;

https://www.faa.gov/...al_handbook.pdf
https://www.faa.gov/...plant-Vol-1.pdf
https://www.faa.gov/...plant-Vol-2.pdf

Those are the FAA written and approved textbooks for aviation maintenance.

Edit; I'm also assuming that battlemechs have provisions for closing open heat circuits, as evidenced by them not continually pissing out all of their coolant until dry.

Edit 2; Sorry, saw your reply late.

Dimento Graven, on 11 January 2019 - 01:47 PM, said:

And you're still getting it wrong.

The engine is not passively generating it's own heat, it's a fusion reaction and everything we know about the BT universe's fusion engine it's plasma heated to temperatures exceeding those at the surface of the sun. Moving and firing weapons causes more heat to be generated because of the increased demands for power to make those things function.

Not totally true.

http://www.sarna.net...i/Fusion_Engine

"Fusion engines are able to generate a great deal of heat. Simply moving the vehicle creates heat, though this is often a small amount. Though heat can negatively affect the vehicle's pilot or even the vehicle itself, a well-ventilated fusion engine is far less dangerous than the bleed-heat generated by charging and/or firing weapons, especially lasers and particle weapons."



http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heat_Sink

"Heat sinks operate by collecting heat with coolant distributed to heat sources (weapons, engines, myomers, electronics, etc.) and delivering that to a radiator."

Edited by Prototelis, 11 January 2019 - 03:03 PM.