57 replies to this topic

[Felix Dante]

Absolutely.

Heat problems are a core idea of Battletech and many of the basic mech designs take advantage of this fact.

Throw in super-heated areas (burning cities and volcanic/magma battle areas) Flamers, Infernoes
(unknown in MWO right now), Inferno Artillery (possible later with an upgrade?), and later Plasma weapons,
this is even more important.

[Felicitatem Parco]

Even worse - Party Primaries.

3rd place = Win!

[Maverick Howell]

no thanks

[guardian wolf]

Heat is definitely a major factor when it comes to designing load outs for my team, and thank god that I don't have to do any major customization options for right now (thank you Paul). I was in charge with coming up with load outs for my merc unit, which was a member of the Wolf's Dragoons, but we were a deep recon unit, and were likely to never see friendly supply lines for weeks on end, if not more. Thus I had to resort to making mostly energy weapon payloads, but we always had to stack sinks, and make sure to watch our heat. I was kind of disappointed when I came in to MW4 Mercs free release, and regular MW4 Mercs, watching people just Alpha like crazy, and when the heat finally comes on, just flush coolant. We need to have negative effects for those who don't watch their heat, and make people pay for firing that Alpha when your in the deep red. So I am for this.

[Dakkonn]

Heat should definitely either cause instant death (if its high enough) or keep the mech shut down for extended periods to prevent over use of Alpha striking. It's meant as an all out/last resort not the most commonly used attacking method.

[Saren21]

Heat should be a factor! it makes it so you have to have a trade off for the loadout you want.In MW3 On my Shadow cat I ran 4 med lazers, that kitty had claws I can tell you that but it was a major trade off for armor and had to fill my mech with heat sinks just to keep it from blowing up when I alpha striked. I was a glass cannion I had to rely totaly on the speed of my mech and its fire power. The 6 anit missle pods I was able to throw on there helped out alot too. I think it made me alot better at hit and run and close up fights. However if I was stuck out in the open or was attacked by two or more mechs I would be crushed for the simple fact my armor was so low i would not fair well in a stand up fight.

[El Loco]

Yes... it doesn't necessarily have to kill the pilot as an immediate consequence, but it should have serious effects. I.e. blurry vision (making it harder to aim), fried circuits (loss of sensors and beam weapons), ammo explosions, and loss of motory functions of the 'Mech (loss of actuators and other heat sensitive equipment). Smashing that little shut down override button should come at great costs. I've never been a fan of alpha striking... it renders your machine defenseless for some time. In a team oriented game environment, this means three have to watch over one for a couple of seconds. A worthy opposition will know how to exploit this situation, which is likely to cost you the victory in the scenario.

By the way, I always considered the shutdown time a too short in MW3 and MW4... 10 seconds would have been more appropiate.

[Convaras Bloodskorn]

I'd say establish it with risking shutdown/ system and weapons malfunctions, but I would shy away from instant death.

[SI The Joker]

In short yes, in theory a player should be able to blow themselves up in a poorly designed Mech should they overheat by "too much".

Heat is a balancing factor in the universe. Part of piloting a mech is understanding how your weapons create and dissipate heat, and using that knowledge to defeat your foe.

Piloting a mech should be just that... piloting a mech... not running around playing Call of Duty in giant armor with missles and lasers.

Devs could go further and consider things that would likely happen before a reactor meltdown... ammo explosions, gyro destabilization, distorted HUD/cockpit due to heat/smoke... I think there's a general consensus on this thread about things like that.

I would like to believe that the dev team has this worked out already though... and that we will have details in due time. What it will boil down to is finding the balance between simulation/game that appeals to a more broad audience than just BT purists, but still includes at least some of those basic BT tenets to make those folks feel as though they matter too.

My 2 c-bills on that.

[Mautty the Bobcat]

My thread had nothing to do with 'killing' someone who overheats too far...glad that these topics were merged when they had different topics entirely... /sarcasm

So now that the entire point of my original thread was lost, I was specifically talking about heat effect on the mechs themselves and to a lesser extent the pilot.

[GDL Irishwarrior]

If you mean should our pilots die from overheating, my answer is a most resounding no. However, our 'Mechs should definitely be susceptible. If our 'Mechs run hot enough, we should shut down for sure. If we get much hotter than that, we should have ammunition explosions, reactor meltdowns, etc. That was a big thing I always thought the PC games handled badly - in MW3 you had to try to kill yourself through heat generation, and MW4 was only slightly better. Meanwhile, between both of those games, I experienced an ammunition explosion once, in MW3 - and it didn't even do anything. I don't think MW4 even had an ammunition explosion mechanic... All in all, I think MW:O offers a huge chance for heat generation to finally be seen as a real danger

[Dragorath]

Of course, heat is part of the came! Every noob is able to preess the fire button, but only good pilots know when it is ok or beneficial, respectively, to perform an alpha strike!

[TimberJon]

Fellow Mechwarriors, we don't really have any numbers to crunch here to speculate whether or not a 'Mech would really catastrophically disintegrate from too much heat. Though I'm sure some engineer or another has attempted to pin down heat values, does anyone know how much heat is released within the 'Mech if one PPC discharges? How much support equipment is it attached to? As one person said, the heat may spike horribly but not cause an instant explosion. The safety, power, backup, weapons, etc... systems would be over-engineered to properly function in worst-case scenarios, being hard combat. Things will fail and ammo may cook off, but you shouldn't be able to blow up with an Alpha strike. In fact, according to lore, everything continues to work fine with really high heat levels since the pilots always hit the shutdown override to keep on moving.

Here are my thoughts. You alpha too many times: The reactor will spike, the capacitors (if so equipped) will lose their maximum charge capacity until they cool, a lower damage output for all energy weapons for a time, your screens fizz, your radar distorts, your boots get real hot, you smell melting myomer and circuitry (think antifreeze dripping on your exhaust manifold), a few of your myomer bundles might actually snap. Weakened or dislodged armor panels might pop free. A module might burn out, or minor weapon system like an AMS or MG. The tracking computer will be slow to lock, the mech's turret and locomotive movement will be sluggish. Heat sinks might explode where a unit couldn't cope with a sustained bottle-neck of coolant. The 'Mech should be suffocating on heat for at least a few seconds. And IMO it should be considered that some or all of these components should take damage due to negligent heat management. IRL, ALL those systems that work so harmoniously together to power your 'Mech might malfunction or become damaged in combat. Maybe your tech backed your capacitor banks with Belkin surge protectors instead of APC brand... ok going too far!

my 2 cents here

Edited by TimberJon, 25 February 2012 - 01:16 AM.

[neodym]

definately yes,I loved loading my nova and supernova with only flamers,plasma cannons in mw4 and making barbecue out of any mech as long as I wasnt interupted,I could keep thim in overheat shutdown forever.Also I loved when some mech,most of the time my own blown from overheat becose he was in magma lava,heat defo should make you blown you mech to pieces if you aint carefull

[neodym]

TimberJon, on 25 February 2012 - 01:15 AM, said:

Fellow Mechwarriors, we don't really have any numbers to crunch here to speculate whether or not a 'Mech would really catastrophically disintegrate from too much heat. Though I'm sure some engineer or another has attempted to pin down heat values, does anyone know how much heat is released within the 'Mech if one PPC discharges? How much support equipment is it attached to? As one person said, the heat may spike horribly but not cause an instant explosion. The safety, power, backup, weapons, etc... systems would be over-engineered to properly function in worst-case scenarios, being hard combat. Things will fail and ammo may cook off, but you shouldn't be able to blow up with an Alpha strike. In fact, according to lore, everything continues to work fine with really high heat levels since the pilots always hit the shutdown override to keep on moving.

Here are my thoughts. You alpha too many times: The reactor will spike, the capacitors (if so equipped) will lose their maximum charge capacity until they cool, a lower damage output for all energy weapons for a time, your screens fizz, your radar distorts, your boots get real hot, you smell melting myomer and circuitry (think antifreeze dripping on your exhaust manifold), a few of your myomer bundles might actually snap. Weakened or dislodged armor panels might pop free. A module might burn out, or minor weapon system like an AMS or MG. The tracking computer will be slow to lock, the mech's turret and locomotive movement will be sluggish. Heat sinks might explode where a unit couldn't cope with a sustained bottle-neck of coolant. The 'Mech should be suffocating on heat for at least a few seconds. And IMO it should be considered that some or all of these components should take damage due to negligent heat management. IRL, ALL those systems that work so harmoniously together to power your 'Mech might malfunction or become damaged in combat. Maybe your tech backed your capacitor banks with Belkin surge protectors instead of APC brand... ok going too far!

my 2 cents here

wise word but I dont like bringing to much of this real world into game,its all fiction,non of it exist,I say let them blow from heat and I dont need any fiction logic why it is like that,bu

Edited by neodym, 25 February 2012 - 11:43 AM.

[TimberJon]

Whoa I'm sorry. None of it exists? The components exist. I did a major report on this very subject back in 2003 and the majority of necessary components existed then. I dislike other universes because of their lack of grounded physics.

We have cockpits, gyros, servos, artificial muscle, reactors (JET, ITER, Etc..), cannons, Gauss, missiles, machine guns, AMS, ECM, even Harjel and maybe even something like a PPC somewhere. I have always respected BattleTech for its foundation on physics. How 'Mechs don't just fly around on magic wings. They stumble on trees, uneven footing, bleed, fall over when the pilot's sense of balance is disrupted from a knock on the head, etc..

I have been following ITER development for a long time. But this is not fictional fusion. Now a construction site exists and progress is being made. Many of the projects have been or are being completed ahead of schedule even. Read here. http://www.iter.org/mach

The ONLY component that ties them all together which is missing is a miniaturized power plant. All major and minor systems require alot of energy, and something like a reactor is the key. ITER is promising because of the research done, tests on other similar reactors and the scale of the project. Its success is what will likely lead to miniaturization of the system. I recall the BT timeline said something like 2021 -2023 for the first commercialized reactor? It won't be commercialized but ITER is coming along and is scheduled to have first Plasma in 2019. (http://www.iter.org/proj/iterandbeyond)

I invite you all to subscribe to the ITER newsline here: http://www.iter.org/newsline

Edited by TimberJon, 25 February 2012 - 01:12 PM.

[TimberJon]

Also, the Devs have laid out skill trees and the like that provide efficiency improvements to the combat system. Why should there also not be factors that reduce those bonuses?

[SI The Joker]

I agree with TimberJon that a great thing about Battletech is that aside from Jumpships and things of that nature... the mechs themselves could be something that we can build today using technology we as humans have. I loved the Belkin/APC comparison. Haha nice touch!

We already know that no harm can come to the pilot... it's the mech that gets destroyed.

I still think that if you overheat too quickly and/or by too much (Let's say alpha twice with an array of energy weapons, then get nailed by a flamer or two) your mech should just explode on principal of physics. It should not count as a kill for anyone, and may even count as a suicide for the player who died.