6 replies to this topic

[Nashaz]

Title: Excessive Overheat Issue Bug when C-ER ppc's is immediately fired after C-Gauss rifles

Description:
Bug was observed with the following loadout on a Kodiak in latest patch:
(For reference: Loadout was used for several years on the kodiak with no ghost heat issues)
- 2x C-Gauss Rifle
- 2x C-ER PPC
- 6x Double Heatsinks (Engine)

Firing of the following sequence causes excessive (ghost) heat to shutdown mech immediately,
- Caused by 2x C-Gauss rifle fired with immediate succession of 2x C-ER PPC in sequential order
- Causes mech to hit past 100% heat threshold from 0%
- Excessive ghost heat generated in the bug will completely destroy torso and engines immediately if override is used
- Ghost heat bug is not triggered if firing order is reversed (C-ERPPC's immediately before C-Gauss Rifles)
- Ghost heat bug is not triggered if C-ERPPCs are fired alone only (3-4 fire cycles before 100% heat threshold is reached)

Location: Global

Reproduction Rate: 100% (Tested in Academy)

Steps to Reproduce:
1) Select group fire for 2x C-Gauss rifle
2) Select group or sequential fire for C-ER PPC
3) Charge 2x C-Gauss rifle
4) Fire C-Gauss rifles
5) Immediately fire C-ERPPC (group or sequential)
6) Heat will jump from 0 - 100%
7) If override is used, it will cause complete engine destruction and destroy the mech from full health (Causes Gauss Rifles to explode killing mech)


Video Link attached for reference:
https://www.dropbox....%20Bug.mp4?dl=0

Video Highlights to note:
- C-ERPPC fired BEFORE C-Gauss Rifles (Bug not triggered, no 100% heat)
- C-ERPPC fired AFTER C-Gauss Rifles (Bug triggered, excessive ghost heat generated)

Edited by Nashaz, 30 June 2021 - 11:54 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Just to state prior to the information listed below so it doesnt get lost, Ghost Heat was generated both times, with the first time being 3 of the weapons being linked while the second time it was with all 4 weapons.

Those weapons are linked ghost heat, and even if weapons are on different weapon groups, if fired with a short time span of each other you are hit with the Ghost heat. The timing interval is anything fired within 0.5 secs. To avoid it you would need to utilize a macro.

And even though the PPCs are in chain fire mode, manually firing have them hit linked ghost heat since all of them fired within 0.5 secs both times, with the first firing hitting the ghost heat on 3, while the second firing hit the ghost heat with all 4.. Ghost heat is generated when firing 3 of the weapons or more within that 0.5 sec limit.

Below is the link to the July 2017 patch where PPC + GR were linked for ghost heat.

https://mwomercs.com...14126-18jul2017

Take it the testing/proving grounds and ungroup one of the PPC then regroup and ungroup one of the GR.

Heat spike will of course be higher with 2 PPC + 1 GR (like firing 3 PPC+) vs 1 PPC + 2GR (firing 2 PPC+) The ghost heat percentage is greater than 1 PPC heat. Smurfys hasant been updated in awhile but 3 ERPPC ghost heat is approx 58 heat points. Do not confuse this with the heatbar which is measured in percentages, regardless of the number of heatsinks or if single/double HS.

There were several threads but here is one from 2013 when link Ghost Heat was introduced to the game.
https://mwomercs.com...-heat-interval/

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 30 June 2021 - 07:02 PM.

[Nashaz]

Thank you for kindly highlighting the above, I understand about the ghost heat generation based on the fire order, however Id like to highlight that this behavior was not observed previously as this configuration was used around 2017-2020, firing all 4 simultaneously did not result in excessive ghost heat to the point the mech would shut down.

Im not sure if the tweaks to the range of PPCS done in the last few patches could have caused it.

However the point being raised here in the report is that the ghost heat generated is too excessive as a penalty for firing the said configuration and hence I suspect that it is a bug.

Edited by Nashaz, 30 June 2021 - 07:23 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Just as a reminder, you can take any mech in the store, temporarily equip it and take it for a run in the Proving/Testing grounds from the mechlab.

As for the other, do you have video of previous firings, even during combat, where maxing out the heat bar did not happen? Since the ERPPCs are in chain fire in the current video, if one was to hold down the button to chain fire has 0.5 sec delay, enough so that ghost heat would be generated for only 3 of the weapons instead of 4, whereas repeat button pressing would bypass that 0.5 sec delay.

With the above, what are your results when the ERPPC are not setup for chain fire??? That would be the critical test since it removes any possible delays that has the potential to push one of the ERPCC outside that 0.5 sec range.

Also Heatsink capacity latest change that I could find was the Oct 2018 patch notes.

https://mwomercs.com...41850-16oct2018

Heat Capacity reduced to 0.5 (from 1.5) / So if I read your original post correctly, engine HS (10 HS) = 20pts capacity then 6 extra DHS went from 9pt capacity to 3pt capacity. 23pt capacity from the HS added to the default baseline 30pt capacity, bring the heatbar capacity to 53pts (100%)

ERPPC heat was brought down from 13.5 to 12 heat. Also, on the ghost heat, iirc, GR ghost heat is the ERPPC amount. (edited, the above is for isERPPC - cERPPC is still 14.5)

Take the Highlander IIC-A ( allows 3 ERPPC to be fired w/o ghost heat), equip with 4 ERPPC XL engine and 6 HS and no skills. Firing 2 ERPPC send the heatbar to over 50% mark, 3 ERPPC over 75% heat bar. Firing all 4 generates ghost heat now, which exceeds the 100% heatbar.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 July 2021 - 07:41 PM.

[Nashaz]

I unfortunately do not have the videos from the previous times, however if memory serves correctly alpha strike with the said configuration 2x Gauss + 2x ERPPC would cause 100% overheat but the shutdown would be around the 1-2sec before the heat threshold dropped to below 100% (as opposed to ~10sec in the video), hence the chain-fire configuration was used to mitigate the overheat issue. I recall being able to fire off about 3 to 4 rotations of 2x gauss + 1xppc + 1x ppc in quick succession before reaching the heat threshold. To be fair to the diagnosis of this issue, I have not played MWO for the past year and only recently came back online so there might be updates or tweaks that I may not familiar with.

It was precisely that the heat was reduced for the erppc which is why I thought I would be able to fire off more salvos (~4-5) before reaching the heat threshold but instead ran into the highlighted issue.

Further testing with the suggested delay of 0.5s or more for each ppc shot resulted in no significant ghost heat generated but compromised the engagement method that was used previously.

Do kindly advise accordingly if I understand this correctly:
The mechanism of ghost heat is generally specific to weapon groups of the same type (eg 4x ERLL or 3x ERPPC etc) and rarely has crossovers (eg. Gaussrifle + erppc).

In this crossover case, two different values of cumulative ghost heat are calculated base off the firing order (1xERPPC + 1xERPPC+ 2xCGR) vs (2xCGR + 1xERPPC + 1xERPPC) - from the video of which one order has exponential cumulative ghost heat generated (2xCGR + 1xERPPC + 1xERPPC) that results in ~10s or more above the 100% threshold while the other fire order is within the heat threshold.

From this I gather that the mechanism only detects how many weapons are being fired and does not factor in the actual heat value of the previous weapon into calculating the ghost heat that is to be generated for the subsequent weapons?

Eg: After 2x gauss rifle is fired, although the 2gauss hardly generates any heat, the mechanism assumes that it is equivalent to 2xerppc being fired and calculates the ghost heat as a 3rd and 4th erppc that is being fired.

And vice-versa, after 1+1erppc is fired, the mechanism detects the 2x gauss rifle as being a 3rd and 4th gauss rifle and calculates the ghost heat as such?

thank you for kindly replying to my earlier posts as well, sincerely appreciate it for helping me understand the game mechanics better

[Tarl Cabot]

Correction. cERPPC is 14.5 heat. I had looked at some patch notes instead of the in game and/or took the isERPPC values. Apologizes.

Correct, from what I do understand, the "hottest" weapon of any Linked set used to calculate the total heat penalty in a formula. And regardless of the firing order, it is best that at least one ERPPC is outside that 0.5 sec range. Correction highest base heat then highest multiplier so these values can come from different weapons that are ghost heat linked.

And found the post from Paul (2013) - https://mwomercs.com...cale-the-maths/

And the newest one Vblog 4-01-2021 - https://mwomercs.com...ril-dev-vlog-1/

And.. 2xGR + 1 ERPPC (within 0.5secs) are fired

53pts capacity - Heatbar 100% no crits on HS

• 2 pts heat - 2xGR = 2ish% heatbar (
  
• 14.5 pts heat - 1x cERPPC 26.xx% heatbar
  
• Combined - 16.5 pts heat before Ghost heat is added, or 28.xx % heatbar if not ghost heat.

****The above when Ghost heat is generated with those 3 weapons - Heatbar - 71ish %



1x cERPPC - 26.xx% heatbar
2x cERPPC - 56.xx % heatbar

1x GR - 1% (game likely rounds up the numbers)
2x GR - 2%

Formula from the linked posts above.

(3x Base Heat + [ 0.18 x Heat Penalty x Base-Heat]).
(4x Base heat + [ 0.30 x Heat Penalty x Base-Heat])

Gauss Multiplier appears to be 8.5 per a previous post but it may actually be 8.0 .... and cERPPC is 4.5 multiplier (based on the in-game results, formula uses highest multiplier of the weapons gh linked)

1. 3rd weapon fired beyond max free alpha = 0.18
2. Calculate base heat 1+1+14.5 = 16.5 base heat
3. Add extra heat for the number of weapons fired beyond Max Free Alpha multiplied by the heat penalty
3a. Heat Penalty = Heat Scale * Multiplier = 0.18 * 4.5 = 0.81 or is the higher multiplier ? 0.18*8.5 = 1.53
3b. Multiply heat penalty by the base heat value for the number of weapons beyond Max Free Alpha. 1 extra weapon fired. Additional Heat = 14.5 * 0.81 (or 1.53) = 11.745 (or 22.185)
4. Sum base heat and additional heat. 16.5 base heat + 11.75 (or 22.85) = 28.25 heat. (or 38.685)

***(38.685 w/ghost heat pts / 53 heat capacity) * 100 pct = 72.99% heat bar This closely matches the heatbar % in game

Based on the formula, it uses the highest weapon base heat (cERPPC) and the highest weapon multiplier of the weapons (gauss rifle) I did it with the ERPCC originally for base heat and its multiplier then the highest numbers between the two..

******************

Firing 2*GR + 2*cERPPC (reviewing this one - completed. correct the 0.8 to 0.3)

1. 4th weapon fired beyond max free alpha = 0.3
2. Calculate base heat 1+1+14.5+14.5 = 31.0 base heat
3. Add extra heat for the number of weapons fired beyond Max Free Alpha multiplied by the heat penalty
3a. Heat Penalty = Heat Scale * Multiplier = 0.3 *8.5 (higher multiplier ) = 2.55
3b. Multiply heat penalty by the base heat value for the number of weapons beyond Max Free Alpha. 2 extra weapon fired. Additional Heat = 29.0 * 2.55 = 73.95
4. Sum base heat and additional heat. 31.0 base heat + 73.95 = 104.95 heat w/ghost

104.95 w/ghost heat pts / 53 heat capacity) * 100 pct = 198.0% heat bar. Thus with the dissipation rate, it would be why it takes so long for it top drop below the 100%. And then there is the possibility with the structural crit, it is taking out DHS, even the extra ones located into the engine. Extra engine heatsinks will crit!! (edited that part). And using a stop watch a few times, after shutdown Mech started up at approx 12 secs later then was completely cooled down approx 14 secs later.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 July 2021 - 11:25 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

Below is firing 3 cERPPC


1. 3rd weapon fired beyond max free alpha = 0.18
2. Calculate base heat 14.5*3 = 43.5 base heat
3. Add extra heat for the number of weapons fired beyond Max Free Alpha multiplied by the heat penalty
3a. Heat Penalty = Heat Scale * Multiplier = 0.18 *4.5 = 0.81
3b. Multiply heat penalty by the base heat value for the number of weapons beyond Max Free Alpha. 1 extra weapon fired. Additional Heat = 14.5 *0.81 = 11.745
4. Sum base heat and additional heat. 43.5 base heat + 11.745 = 55.245 heat w/ghost

55.245 w/ghost heat pts / 53 heat capacity) * 100 pct = 104.235% heat bar. Over the 100% heatbar with a slight shutdown unless override is enabled whereas 2*GR + 1cERPPC a player would not shutdown from 0% heatbar, reaching approximately 72% of the heatbar with 53 heat capacity.

------------------------------

Below is firing 4 cERPPC

1. 4th weapon fired beyond max free alpha = 0.3
2. Calculate base heat 14.5*4 = 58.0 base heat
3. Add extra heat for the number of weapons fired beyond Max Free Alpha multiplied by the heat penalty
3a. Heat Penalty = Heat Scale * Multiplier = 0.3 *4.5 = 1.35
3b. Multiply heat penalty by the base heat value for the number of weapons beyond Max Free Alpha. 2 extra weapon fired. Additional Heat = 29.0 *1.35 = 39.15
4. Sum base heat and additional heat. 58.0 base heat + 39.15 = 97.15 heat w/ghost

97.15 w/ghost heat pts / 53 heat capacity) * 100 pct = 183.30% heat bar. Slightly less overall than that 2*GR + 2*cERPPC but where with GR you could fire those immediately after restarting without worrying about heat.

Edit.. okay.. who took my Jack and coke... advise me if any of these calculations do not appear okay

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 02 July 2021 - 11:22 PM.