18 replies to this topic

[Daniel Cromwell]

I was in a game and fired twice. Stood still with stealth on heat scale at 8% and the heat just kept going up? Is this a bug it was the default for a pb 4xsm lasers and x2 mg with 10 single heatsinks. Why is this happening?

[Marcel Leander]

Daniel Cromwell, on 03 July 2023 - 01:50 PM, said:

I was in a game and fired twice. Stood still with stealth on heat scale at 8% and the heat just kept going up? Is this a bug it was the default for a pb 4xsm lasers and x2 mg with 10 single heatsinks. Why is this happening?

A couple of my stealth mechs do that - when you're in stealth you don't dissipate anything, but there are things that can still add heat when you're standing still doing nothing. What map were you on? A few maps add heat to your mech, particularly depending on where you are standing.

[LordNothing]

damaged, lost sinks?
standard heat sinks?
lams?
standing in lava?

Edited by LordNothing, 03 July 2023 - 05:56 PM.

[RockmachinE]

There is a rare heat bug where your heat simply wont dissipate or simply raise until you die. It's extremely uncommon though so don't worry.

Regardless, upgrade those heatsinks to doubles, always upgrade to DHS. There might be literally one or two builds in the entirety of MWO that benefit from a SHS setup, those are ancient experimental joke build assaults that have the slots, other than that there's really no reason to run singles.

Edited by RockmachinE, 03 July 2023 - 06:10 PM.

[Marcel Leander]

RockmachinE, on 03 July 2023 - 06:02 PM, said:

There is a rare heat bug where your heat simply wont dissipate or simply raise until you die. It's extremely uncommon though so don't worry.

Regardless, upgrade those heatsinks to doubles, always upgrade to DHS. There might be literally one or two builds in the entirety of MWO that benefit from a SHS setup, those are ancient experimental joke build assaults that have the slots, other than that there's really no reason to run singles.

This has been my understanding of doubles vs singles -

Single heat sinks have a +70% capacity over Doubles. (.85 for a single vs .5 for a double), Double heat sinks have a +47% increase in dissipation over Singles (.22 for doubles vs .15 for singles). So the very specific situations where singles are preferable is you're going to use a lot of heat at once and then go somewhere else to cool off. In which case, having a larger heat cap lets you get off more alphas in rapid succession, the extra dissipation doesn't add up to the same immediately available heat. So if I'm running a light with big heat generating weapons doing strike and retreat, totally worth it.

And then in addition to that, if you're running a stealth and attacking while stealthed, all of your dissipation is turned off when stealth is on, so having the additional dissipation of doubles doesn't benefit you until you're out of stealth. All it does is let you cool off faster when you hide and decloak so you make another attack sooner. But if you have a higher heat cap, you can fire off more shots, generate more heat before you have to run away and decloak to cool off. And then you're just hiding and cooling a little longer. In the end you get to pop off more damage per attack run with less attack runs - pretty similar damage either way but one has you spending less time where the enemy can shoot you.

Edited by Marcel Leander, 03 July 2023 - 07:46 PM.

[John McClintock]

Daniel Cromwell, on 03 July 2023 - 01:50 PM, said:

I was in a game and fired twice. Stood still with stealth on heat scale at 8% and the heat just kept going up? Is this a bug it was the default for a pb 4xsm lasers and x2 mg with 10 single heatsinks. Why is this happening?

Where you playing the world's most exciting game of "The Floor is Hot Lava"?

[RockmachinE]

Marcel Leander, on 03 July 2023 - 07:45 PM, said:

This has been my understanding of doubles vs singles -

Single heat sinks have a +70% capacity over Doubles. (.85 for a single vs .5 for a double), Double heat sinks have a +47% increase in dissipation over Singles (.22 for doubles vs .15 for singles). So the very specific situations where singles are preferable is you're going to use a lot of heat at once and then go somewhere else to cool off. In which case, having a larger heat cap lets you get off more alphas in rapid succession, the extra dissipation doesn't add up to the same immediately available heat. So if I'm running a light with big heat generating weapons doing strike and retreat, totally worth it.

And then in addition to that, if you're running a stealth and attacking while stealthed, all of your dissipation is turned off when stealth is on, so having the additional dissipation of doubles doesn't benefit you until you're out of stealth. All it does is let you cool off faster when you hide and decloak so you make another attack sooner. But if you have a higher heat cap, you can fire off more shots, generate more heat before you have to run away and decloak to cool off. And then you're just hiding and cooling a little longer. In the end you get to pop off more damage per attack run with less attack runs - pretty similar damage either way but one has you spending less time where the enemy can shoot you.

There's never a doubt if you should run DHS or SHS. You benefit from DHS way more. Your mech will run cooler, you will have less downtime throughout the match and your overall damage output will be much higher. In fact running SHS is extremely inefficient compared to DHS. DHS + heat skills pretty much on all, but the coolest mechs is the norm.

There's literally no reason to run SHS in MWO unless you're going for fringe or meme builds.

While in stealth you still cool down just quite a bit slower.

Edited by RockmachinE, 03 July 2023 - 08:32 PM.

[Marcel Leander]

RockmachinE, on 03 July 2023 - 08:05 PM, said:

There's never a doubt if you should run DHS or SHS. You benefit from DHS way more. Your mech will run cooler, you will have less downtime throughout the match and your overall damage output will be much higher. In fact running SHS is extremely inefficient compared to DHS. DHS + heat skills pretty much on all, but the coolest mechs is the norm.

There's literally no reason to run SHS in MWO unless you're going for fringe or meme builds.

While in stealth you still cool down just quite a bit slower.

I may have to go back and run some of my builds through mechdb to see what they're getting with and without doubles. It's unfortunate that the in game mechlab doesn't show capacity and dissipation totals. I know there were a few builds with bigger IS mechs that once I had them loaded with weapons I had plenty of tonnage left and only two slots left in each component and I switched to singles to fill them up. I normally try to keep my engine small enough that I can keep all my slots filled for crit-padding sake, so anything over a 300 is a waste unless I have the extra tonnage to go up 25 and add another heat sink to an engine slot.

[Meep Meep]

Daniel Cromwell, on 03 July 2023 - 01:50 PM, said:

I was in a game and fired twice. Stood still with stealth on heat scale at 8% and the heat just kept going up? Is this a bug it was the default for a pb 4xsm lasers and x2 mg with 10 single heatsinks. Why is this happening?

Ten single sinks don't have enough dissipation rate to counter the constant heat tick of 1.5 heat per second of stealth armor if you are on a hotter than average map.

This should be your fit. lct-pb

[Delete Dragon]

RockmachinE, on 03 July 2023 - 08:05 PM, said:

There's never a doubt if you should run DHS or SHS. You benefit from DHS way more. Your mech will run cooler, you will have less downtime throughout the match and your overall damage output will be much higher. In fact running SHS is extremely inefficient compared to DHS. DHS + heat skills pretty much on all, but the coolest mechs is the norm.

There's literally no reason to run SHS in MWO unless you're going for fringe or meme builds.

While in stealth you still cool down just quite a bit slower.

Gauss builds run fine with single heat sinks.

[SafeScanner]

Meep Meep, on 03 July 2023 - 09:15 PM, said:

Ten single sinks don't have enough dissipation rate to counter the constant heat tick of 1.5 heat per second of stealth armor if you are on a hotter than average map.

This should be your fit. lct-pb

Pretty much the gold standard there the 1 back armor is vexing me tho

think i am going to buy a secong PB just try a non stealth version but its hella annoying keep thinking i am gimping myself when i know i am not

[Marcel Leander]

Meep Meep, on 03 July 2023 - 09:15 PM, said:

Ten single sinks don't have enough dissipation rate to counter the constant heat tick of 1.5 heat per second of stealth armor if you are on a hotter than average map.

This should be your fit. lct-pb

That PB comes with a +10% dissipation quirk.

I have my PB sitting in the testing grounds at Terra Therma, and also tried Rubellite Oasis because MechDB says it has an even bigger effect on heat despite its lower listed temp.

Either way, XL190 + 3 external heat sinks = 10 SHS. Sitting there in stealth, on Terra Therma I get no heat build up over time. On Rubelite, it's about .5%/s build up. With the +20% dissipation of a full set of Cool Run nodes, no build up on either.

Had a Light PPC with me in Terra Therma, fired it a few times to get up to 40% heat and standing still in stealth the heat gauge stayed exactly in place. With those Cool Run nodes, I even watched it slowly tick down.

Now, running on either of them while in stealth added enough heat to give me a slow heat build up, and standing in lava had a very rapid effect. But just standing still in stealth, even with SHS, the PB's heat quirk should counter the build up on anything other than Rubellite.

Edited by Marcel Leander, 04 July 2023 - 03:34 AM.

[RockmachinE]

SafeScanner, on 03 July 2023 - 11:25 PM, said:

the 1 back armor is vexing me tho

I think the whole 1 armor in the rear was popularized by competitive and group players where you have people covering your back, there's more control over positioning, and good communication. You don't have to worry about the chaotic nature of play in public so 1 armor in the back is optimal. Other players just copied the comps and it became a thing.

If you play solo in public you definitely want more than 1 armor in the rear components. Still frontload it, but a few more points are better for lone players. Especially in lights where you will be showing your back more and a single stray shot can hurt you badly even with armor.

Edited by RockmachinE, 04 July 2023 - 03:59 AM.

[Rain Dark Sky]

Meep Meep, on 03 July 2023 - 09:15 PM, said:

Ten single sinks don't have enough dissipation rate to counter the constant heat tick of 1.5 heat per second of stealth armor if you are on a hotter than average map.

This should be your fit. lct-pb

TLDR: It's a waste to put all that armor on the head and arms, and 3 tons is way too much ammo for only 3 machine guns, IMHO.


why?

(100% ammo buff, 50% rate of fire buff)

That's 1 ton per gun, I rarely run out with only 1/4 ton per gun.

If you give it 1/2 ton ammo x 100% ammo buff = 1 ton of ammo / 2 MG x ROF 50% buff = 1/3 ton per gun, that's with basically full armor.

I rarely lose a PB arm even without any armor on them.

Wouldn't that extra ton of ammo and some of that armor be better spent with a BAP or TC, maybe even swap a SL for a Flamer?

You can even raise it to (1 ton x 100% ammo buff = 2 tons) and still have enough tonnage for BAP/TC and plenty of armor.

You can give it 10 points on the head and 20 on the left arm, the arm is so small it doesn't even need that much because it rarely gets hit, and 10 armor on the head is only for it you accidentally run into an airstrike, since nobody is going to head shot a running locust.

[Rain Dark Sky]

I'm sure someone will hate on it, but you can also run a 180LT with 1/2ton MG ammo. Lets you put all the heat sinks in the torso, and lets you lose a torso without dying. Still does 156.7kph with buff, VS 165.4kph with a 190, a loss of only 8.7kph and it still runs up walls in the canyons.

Putting 5 points in rear armor gets you the extra point if you use harden armor *without losing an extra point in the front, free armor points are nice. I spend half my time running away anyways, so it's nice to have to extra points in back.

[Meep Meep]

Rain Dark Sky, on 04 July 2023 - 09:31 AM, said:

TLDR: It's a waste to put all that armor on the head and arms, and 3 tons is way too much ammo for only 3 machine guns, IMHO.


why?

(100% ammo buff, 50% rate of fire buff)

That's 1 ton per gun, I rarely run out with only 1/4 ton per gun.

If you give it 1/2 ton ammo x 100% ammo buff = 1 ton of ammo / 2 MG x ROF 50% buff = 1/3 ton per gun, that's with basically full armor.

I rarely lose a PB arm even without any armor on them.

Wouldn't that extra ton of ammo and some of that armor be better spent with a BAP or TC, maybe even swap a SL for a Flamer?

You can even raise it to (1 ton x 100% ammo buff = 2 tons) and still have enough tonnage for BAP/TC and plenty of armor.

You can give it 10 points on the head and 20 on the left arm, the arm is so small it doesn't even need that much because it rarely gets hit, and 10 armor on the head is only for it you accidentally run into an airstrike, since nobody is going to head shot a running locust.

TC is pointless as the beam range bonus is only going to give you a few extra meters of range on an already knife fight fit and the crit bonus is negligible.

If you want more range then swap to lmg and er smalls.

Same for Bap since the extra sensor range and other bonus are not going to help much with a knife fight fit.

As to the ammo the 50% rof increase will tear through your bins a lot faster than you would think and is a more valuable addition over tc or bap.

Armor especially on the head is due to the locust having a near center mass cockpit that is a lot easier to hit than you would think by someone simply aiming center of the red target box.

I often do the same to enemy locust when sniping and you get a surprising number of head shots.

Same with the arm armor. When evading or taking fire you should be twisting like a top and you need every point you can get to absorb laser sweeps or the odd direct hit of a ppc or projectile.

Rain Dark Sky, on 04 July 2023 - 11:51 AM, said:

I'm sure someone will hate on it, but you can also run a 180LT with 1/2ton MG ammo. Lets you put all the heat sinks in the torso, and lets you lose a torso without dying. Still does 156.7kph with buff, VS 165.4kph with a 190, a loss of only 8.7kph and it still runs up walls in the canyons.

Putting 5 points in rear armor gets you the extra point if you use harden armor *without losing an extra point in the front, free armor points are nice. I spend half my time running away anyways, so it's nice to have to extra points in back.

Its a legit fit.

The rear armor is just the way the mechlab sets it up when you use the max armor tool. Redistribute it as you will and I typically run with at least 5 back armor.

As to me this is how I run my pb and its hella fun.

lct-pb

A bit less arm and head armor than I prefer but the armor and structure nodes shore it up nice enough and you should be trying to stay out around 600m anyways.

This was my old go to pb fit before lppc became fun and its arguably the better overall fit for damage dealing.

lct-pb

But lppc spam is just so fun I can't resist.

[Rain Dark Sky]

Meep Meep, on 04 July 2023 - 12:46 PM, said:

TC is pointless as the beam range bonus is only going to give you a few extra meters of range on an already knife fight fit and the crit bonus is negligible.

If you want more range then swap to lmg and er smalls.

Same for Bap since the extra sensor range and other bonus are not going to help much with a knife fight fit.

As to the ammo the 50% rof increase will tear through your bins a lot faster than you would think and is a more valuable addition over tc or bap.

Armor especially on the head is due to the locust having a near center mass cockpit that is a lot easier to hit than you would think by someone simply aiming center of the red target box.

I often do the same to enemy locust when sniping and you get a surprising number of head shots.

Same with the arm armor. When evading or taking fire you should be twisting like a top and you need every point you can get to absorb laser sweeps or the odd direct hit of a ppc or projectile.




Its a legit fit.

The rear armor is just the way the mechlab sets it up when you use the max armor tool. Redistribute it as you will and I typically run with at least 5 back armor.

As to me this is how I run my pb and its hella fun.

lct-pb

A bit less arm and head armor than I prefer but the armor and structure nodes shore it up nice enough and you should be trying to stay out around 600m anyways.

This was my old go to pb fit before lppc became fun and its arguably the better overall fit for damage dealing.

lct-pb

But lppc spam is just so fun I can't resist.

I have a simple rule.

Every build should occasionally (very rarely) run out of ammo, (or come very close) . If not, you are carrying too much ammo.

Have you ever run out of ammo while carrying 1.5tons (3 tons equivalent)? If so then, wow, great job, you must be getting some incredible damage numbers.

I just ran a game in a PB- 180LT, 4erSL, 2LMG and only 1/2ton ammo (1 ton equivalent).

I got 394 damage, 3 kills. I did not run out of ammo, got just bellow 25%. Just some back of the napkin math here...
In order to run out with 1.5tons (3 tons equivalent) I would need to do close to 1500 dmg!

I don't know about you, but I have serious doubts about my ability to get over 1000dmg in a PB, I rarely break 1000dmg in anything, much less a knife fighting light with some of the weakest armaments in the game.

I could see an argument for going up to 1ton (2 ton eq) but, 1.5t (3t eq) would be a waste for me.

As to TC it does help with crits, BAP can also help your team mates, so both do have some functionality, and you can carry either with 1 ton ammo (2t eq) and still have plenty of armor.

I'd say just put 2xHMG in there and 1 Ton ammo(2t EQ)... the recent range boost on HMG makes that build much more viable.

As to losing arms and head shots, it's just not a high probability hit, and the fixed armor bonus is (frankly) almost all I ever need.

I have a similar rule on arms/legs as I do on ammo, trim armor on the arms until you start to lose them about the same time as the st/ct (cavet* almost never trim leg armor on lights)

p.s. Love the twin LPPC PB build, BTW. I was running a FLE-20 earlier today with 2xLPPC.

Edited by Rain Dark Sky, 04 July 2023 - 08:54 PM.

[Star Lit Night]

I just did an actual test, using Mk1 eyeball, test is accurate +/- 1 second, so all values are approximate. It does appear that MG uses 10 rounds per second per machine gun.

Feel free to check my math.

IS test:

FLE-19 with 1/2 ton MG ammo (has 100% ammo buff = 1 ton total) and 5 machine Guns

MG: 1.00 DPS @2300 rounds, 46 seconds = 230 dmg/ton

LMG: 0.85 DPS @ 3600 rounds, 72 seconds = 306 dmg/ton

HMG: 1.50 DPS @ 1800 rounds, 36 seconds = 270 dmg/ton

Clan test:

PIR-1, with 1 ton of MG ammo and 10 machine guns

C-MG: 1.00 DPS @ 2200 rounds, 22 seconds. = 220 dmg/ton

C-LMG: 0.85 DPS @3200 rounds, 32 seconds = 272 dmg/ton

C-HMG: 1.40 DPS @1600 rounds, 16 seconds = 224 dmg/ton

[Rain Dark Sky]

1 ton (x2) of HMG ammo allows 2 minutes of continuous fire. Yielding 270 + 270 = 540 dmg from HMG fire!

In that same time (with full cooldown nodes) 4 small lasers will do 719 damage.

719 + 540 = 1259 dmg in two minutes of continuous fire!

If you cut that back to 1/2 ton (x2) you only get one minute of continuous fire, so "only" 630 dmg before running out of ammo.

1 ton (x2) of MG ammo will last ~2.5 minutes, 1 ton (x2) of LMG ammo will last 4 minutes (I just tested it to be sure, because it sounded ridiculous). Nearly impossible to spend 4 minutes firing in a match, so anything more than 1 ton x2 of LMG ammo is probably wasted.

ETA: put the extra armor and DHS on the right, better to shield with an empty arm, since most people circle counter clockwise.

Edited by Rain Dark Sky, 05 July 2023 - 02:57 PM.