51 replies to this topic

[Tilon]

Hello Mechwarriors,

In most previous Mechwarrior games I have seen, Heat has not been correctly calculated.

A quick example: Place four PPCs on a mech in Mechwarrior 3, and 40 heatsinks. Since the heatsinks only act to increase the speed of heat dissipation, firing all four PPCs will always cause an overheat, no matter how many heatsinks you use. This is obviously not correct, yet most Mechwarrior games have had this fault to one degree or another.

In the board game, firing four PPCs with 40 heatsinks will never raise a unit above 0 heat, unless it generated other heat by walking or running. This is not to glorify the board game, it is to point out that a mech which is well-built and donating 40 crit-spaces worth of space and weight to heatsinks should not be riding to the top of the heatscale by simply firing the weapons that it is designed to handle.

The solution:

I have seen this used on Battletech MUX, which was a real time adaptation of the board game.

What you do, is you have your heat scale:

|:::::::::::::|:::::::::::::::|
0--------14----------30

And depending on how many heatsinks a unit has, you add a 'buffer zone': So, if it has ten heatsinks...

::::::::::|:::::::::::::|:::::::::::::::|
--------0---------14---------30

So more heatsinks not only dissipates faster, but creates a 'buffer zone' to hold the heat as it dissipates. This perfectly translates the rules to real-time, makes sense in reality (heat sinks do absorb more heat the bigger they are) and makes the rules work in a consistent manner so that heavily armed, well sinked mechs aren't a trigger away from overheating, as they shouldn't be.

Edited by Tilon, 06 March 2012 - 10:16 PM.

[LordKelvin]

I don't believe that any specific details regarding heat have been released yet, and I don't remember any questions pertaining to it in the Q&A sessions either.

Supposedly a demo goes up for the press at GDC tomorrow, so you'll have to wait and see.

[Tilon]

LordKelvin, on 06 March 2012 - 10:16 PM, said:

I don't believe that any specific details regarding heat have been released yet, and I don't remember any questions pertaining to it in the Q&A sessions either.

Supposedly a demo goes up for the press at GDC tomorrow, so you'll have to wait and see.

Yes, but I want to get people interested in the mechanics of it so that we understand it and know what to look for, and so people will be motivated to ask about it. It's a very important part of gameplay that is often overlooked in favor of shinier topics.

[EDMW CSN]

Yes but you have to remember the board game handles everything in a 10 second round.

So if you put that into real time implementation, 20 HS / 10 DHS will only sink 2 heat per second.
So firing any other weapon will cause the heat to spike beyond your cooling ability.

A buffer period on top of gradual cool down actually make sense though.

[Reno Blade]

i like to disagree with you there.
MW3 was realy the best (with MW2) in regards to heat!
it is way better to have heat build up and get cooled down afterwards, if you dont think in the TT 10second rule.
even if you think in TT rule. the heat is handled in the last phase and all the heat build up is calculated then. as a turn is said to take 10sec, the heat is already handled by the heatsinks after 10sec.
if you translate that to a PC game, the heat would build up from shooting and cool down in a certain timeframe.
what you also get is: alpha strike reduction. nobody would like to alphastrike to 30+ and then shut down for a few seconds, but would chain their weapons to make time for cooling down your mech.

[EDMW CSN]

Reno Blade, on 06 March 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

i like to disagree with you there.
MW3 was realy the best (with MW2) in regards to heat!
it is way better to have heat build up and get cooled down afterwards, if you dont think in the TT 10second rule.
even if you think in TT rule. the heat is handled in the last phase and all the heat build up is calculated then. as a turn is said to take 10sec, the heat is already handled by the heatsinks after 10sec.
if you translate that to a PC game, the heat would build up from shooting and cool down in a certain timeframe.
what you also get is: alpha strike reduction. nobody would like to alphastrike to 30+ and then shut down for a few seconds, but would chain their weapons to make time for cooling down your mech.

I too prefer instant heat build up (under 1 second), then gradual heat dissipation which is done over a period of 10 seconds.

But heat sinks should also add a heat buffer so you do not shut down the moment you fire all your high heat weapons.
So if you can vent 40 heat, you should get a minor heat buffer before factoring in the 30 pt overheat table.

As for chain fire vs alpha, it is a preferences. Some prefer high alpha to take out an enemy early in the fight or at least cripple him, others prefer sustained DPS / knockback with chain attacks (missile boats and light AC boats tend to do this), heat scale affects on play style is kinda minor imo.

Edited by [EDMW]CSN, 06 March 2012 - 10:49 PM.

[Fluffinator]

You should get heat immediately from fireing. You should cool down over time due to heat sinks. Anything else would just be plain silly.

[nubnub]

Fluffinator, on 06 March 2012 - 10:59 PM, said:

You should get heat immediately from fireing. You should cool down over time due to heat sinks. Anything else would just be plain silly.

Not true. In real life it would take some time for the heat sinks to heat up and then finally dissipate that heat.

[Siilk]

Reno Blade, on 06 March 2012 - 10:40 PM, said:

i like to disagree with you there.
MW3 was realy the best (with MW2) in regards to heat!
it is way better to have heat build up and get cooled down afterwards, if you dont think in the TT 10second rule.
even if you think in TT rule. the heat is handled in the last phase and all the heat build up is calculated then. as a turn is said to take 10sec, the heat is already handled by the heatsinks after 10sec.
if you translate that to a PC game, the heat would build up from shooting and cool down in a certain timeframe.
what you also get is: alpha strike reduction. nobody would like to alphastrike to 30+ and then shut down for a few seconds, but would chain their weapons to make time for cooling down your mech.

Agreed. Besides, in tabletop, alphastriking 4 PPCs would simply mean firing 4 of them during 10 seconds time period, not firing all of them at once, so there would be no heatspike as there would be enough time between the shots to dissipate at leas some of the heat.

[Fluffinator]

nubnub, on 06 March 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

Not true. In real life it would take some time for the heat sinks to heat up and then finally dissipate that heat.

Which proves me correct...where do you think that heat is until the heat sinks can asorb it and disapate it? Yep messing with your mech.

[Nighthound]

This is a rather simple matter if you think about it ..... look at the rules (TT) but not only the standard rules but the duel rules and you will see that weapons generate heat instantly while the heat sinks try to keep up and dissipate that heat.
If you are still not sure .... read the books. I can't count how many times I read something like "...after firing her lesers, she braced herself, as waves of heat slammed into her cockpit, as the reactor tries ..... blablabla", again weapons generate heat instantly.

Your Idea of a Buffer is not a bad one though and I wouldn't discount it outright, but I would be very careful with that because it just might upset game balance.

[Dr Killinger]

Whether it follows the tabletop rules or not, I don't want people alpha striking four PPCs willy-nilly.

[CheeseThief]

I always assumed that the heat was the temperature the reactor was having to put up with, because some of the temps spat at me in ye olde MW2 were enough to boil steal. Regardless of a mechs size dumping too much heat into the reactor is very bad for business and I can't imagine that larger mechs would have significantly higher safety cut offs than smaller ones.

Heat sinks shouldn't effect how much heat your mech can take before wanting to shutdown, only how quickly you can syphon it off. Your internals aren't going to gain a higher melting point because you stuck more heat sinks on the back.

Edited by cheesethief, 07 March 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[Elizander]

Alpha striking with no worries about shutting down oversimplifies the game to the point of it being a one-button wonder gameplay. Coolant only makes this worse.

Edited by Elizander, 07 March 2012 - 02:33 AM.

[Kiyoshi Amaya]

First question is, do you really understand how the cooling system on a mech would theoretically work.
Second question is, do you understand just how much heat is generated in super-heating particles to create destructive beam of particles.

Google is a good place to start.

[Strum Wealh]

So, to put the fluff out there...

1.) "Heat sinks, which sharing names with real world passive radiators found in computers, are actually complete heat pumps, not 'true' heat sinks in the engineering sense."

2.) "Heat sinks operate by collecting heat with coolant distributed to heat sources (weapons, engines, myomers, electronics, etc.) and delivering that to a radiator. Because a BattleMech may operate in environments considerably hotter than the interior of the 'Mech, the system includes a heat pump to 'force' the heat out of the 'Mech by elevating the temperature of the coolant in some reversible fashion. (The vapor-compression heat pump of home air conditioners is a typical example, but 31st Century BattleMechs may make use of more exotic heat pumps.)

Note that if the heat sinks were true heat sinks or simple combustion engine radiators, a BattleMech operating in a hot environment would find the exterior heat being driven into the BattleMech rather than having internal heat rejected.

BattleMechs generally have two types of heat sinks: those mounted in the fusion engine and those mounted elsewhere on the chassis. The chassis-mounted heat sinks perform as described above, while the engine-mounted heat sinks constitute a 'regenerative cooling' system that scavenges excess heat for power."

3.) "Despite the heat pump, heat sinks are affected by the surrounding environment as a matter of basic thermodynamics - it takes less work to dump heat into a cold environment than a hot one, and water is a better coolant than air. Many 'Mechs on desert worlds often have to be refitted for the different conditions, or risk overheating from the compounded effects of weapons-fire and the environment. Conversely, heat sinks operating in cold regions and worlds dissipate heat much more effectively, as the environment's natively-cold temperature helps cool the BattleMech by default. This often leads to many garrisons on ice-worlds using a larger number of energy weapons, as they don't have to worry about heat as much. A 'Mech submerged in water, however, is often the one with the most efficient heat sinks as they can pump dense water (with its enormous heat capacity) over the heat sink radiators instead of low density air."

Canonically:
Each Standard Heat Sink (SHS) normally dissipates one unit of heat per 10-second period (one TT turn), or an average of 0.1 units of heat per second.
Each Double Heat Sink (DHS) normally dissipates twice as much heat in the same time period - an average of 0.2 units of heat per second.
Being submerged in water doubles the heat dissipation rate (0.2 heat/second for SHS, 0.4 heat/second for DHS).
Having the BattleMech walk at its cruise speed generates an average of 0.1 units of heat per second (one unit of heat per turn).
Having the BattleMech run at its maximum speed generates an average of 0.2 units of heat per second (two units of heat per turn).
Activating a BattleMech's Jump Jets generates three units of heat, plus an additional one unit of heat for each 30 meters (one TT hex) covered.
Each attempt to stand after falling generates one unit of heat.
Firing weapons and being subject to heat weapons (Flamers, Inferno rounds) produces the documented effects.

The Heat Scale:

One MP = approximately 10.8 kph, so achievable speed could decrease as temperature increases so that the listed speed losses are realized when the temperature is at the listed heat level.
"Modifier to Fire" could be implemented via having the reticle(s) begin to come unaligned and having tracking/convergence speed decrease as the BattleMech's temperature increases.
"Avoid Shutdown" could be implemented via a player-toggled override (which should not function if the temperature exceeds 30 heat points).
"Avoid Ammunition Explosion" could be implemented via a chance simulator (yes, a random number generator ) testing against the average heat level across a 10-second period, computed for each 10-second interval where the temperature passes one of the ammo explosion risk levels.
Average Heat = 0-18.999 units: 0% chance of ammunition explosion
Average Heat = 19-22.999 units: 18.18% chance of ammunition explosion
Average Heat = 23-27.999 units: 36.36% chance of ammunition explosion
Average Heat = 28+ units: 54.55% chance of ammunition explosion

IMO, the environment should have additional effects - wading through a forest fire should impart heat on a 'Mech, being in a hot-and-dry desert environment should reduce the effectiveness of the Heat Sinks, cool-and-humid environments might see a slight increase in Heat Sink efficiency, icy/arctic environments might see a larger increase in Heat Sink efficiency, warm-and-humid environments might see a slight decrease in Heat Sink efficiency, having different atmospheric compositions and densities (or even a lack of atmosphere) should have an effect on Heat Sink efficiency, and so on and so forth.

Your thoughts?

[2bad]

Tilon, on 06 March 2012 - 10:13 PM, said:

In the board game, firing four PPCs with 40 heatsinks will never raise a unit above 0 heat

I would like to quote sarda net for that one: specificaly the Warhawk:

http://www.sarna.net..._%28Masakari%29
"To dissipate the waste heat produced in its various configurations, it carried an awesome twenty double heat sinks"
"While unable to fire all of the ER PPCs at once it could use a volley fire strategy to manage its heat."

(emphasis mine)

So basically: a clan mech, with 40 heat sinks, could not alpha strike 4 ER PPC at once without shuting down.

[wolf74]

Also See Under Suggestions http://mwomercs.com/...ill-agree-with/

***Copied from my post in the above listed Thread ***
Changing the Heat Scale, You need to have a Term for the time it take one Heat sink to remove it's heat level(AKA Double Heat sink the time it take it to remove 2 heat). I call it a "Heat Tic". The formula for getting how much heat a weapon & the Mechs Heat Effect are changed by is: (10/Heat Tic)=Multiplier

CBT 1 Turn = 10sec (Bulk of most games) = Multiplier of 1
Solaris VII 1 Turn = 2.5sec = Multiplier of 4
1sec Heat Tic = Multiplier of 10
½sec Heat Tic = Multiplier of 20

Walking: 1Heat per Tic (66% of Max speed or slower)
Running: 2 Heat per Tic (67% of Max Speed or higher)
Jump Jets: 3Heat per Tic or #Jump Jets Heat per Tic Which Ever is greater
Weapons Heat = CBT heat X Tic Multiplier
Engine Hit 1st/2st; 5/10 heat per Tic (I think the 20/40 in the Solaris book was a mathematical typo)
A Heat Sink Remove its normal Heat Point(s) per (TIC) SHS=1 DHS=2
The Overheat Chart we all know and love on the side of our Mech sheets = (Number value X Multiplier)
The Effects of the Overheat chart need a small Delay before kicking in somewhere between 2.5sec to 10sec giving the Pilot a chance to let the mech cool or jump in to a lake and hope his armor not breached.

***End of copy***

[Hayashi]

I agree with the OP's point but disagree with the OP's solution. Instead creating a buffer (which in effect is going to make heat sinks more powerful than they should be and bias weapons loadouts towards beam types), we should slow the rate at which the 'Mech heats up the more heat sinks it gets, in addition to increasing the rate at which it dissipates that heat. Physically, it takes longer to heat up 1L of water than 100 mL of water to the same temperature, as a coarse analogy. It makes no sense that heat is always an instant spike, but creating a buffer prior to zero would in effect mean that firing a small laser generates zero heat since it falls below that threshold. That can be very dangerous - what the OP recommended will surely be abused by players in the creation of medium pulse laser boats.

So, for instance, if with zero heat sinks a PPC takes 1 second to reach its maximum heat potential (say +2000K) and heat dissipates at a base rate of 250K/second, requiring 8 seconds for complete heat dissipation. Thus the maximum heat it actually reaches is +1750K at the time of 1 second from the time the laser is fired.

Adding 5 heat sinks might increase the time taken to reach maximum heat to 2 seconds (0.2s per heat sink), and the dissipation rate to 500K/second (50K per heat sink), requiring a total of 4 seconds for complete heat dissipation. Thus the maximum heat the 'Mech actually reaches is +500K at the time of 2 seconds from the time the laser is fired.

Adding 15 heat sinks will increase time taken to reach maximum heat to 4 seconds, and the dissipation rate to 1000K/second, requiring 2 seconds to dissipate. Thus the 'Mech doesn't actually heat up since its sinks dissipate heat faster than the heat can be produced. However, if there were now 4 PPCs instead of 1, the time taken to reach maximum heat is still 5 seconds, but now the total heat produced is 8000K worth, which takes a total of 8 seconds to dissipate, so now its maximum heat reached is 3000K. Of course, these numbers are too low to be useable in the game, but it's the concept I'm hoping to illustrate here.

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. A pulse laser boat will still heat up because each successive fire will stack the amount of heat the 'Mech will undergo, but the rate at which the heat dissipates is CONSTANT.

To be even more realistic you can set it such that it dissipates faster at high heat levels and less at low heat levels so that players will generally hover around a level of 5000K or so for max efficiency, as would be in the case should it be real combat. But even a constant heat dissipation rate is already far closer to reality than what either the previous games or the OP suggested.

The dark side of delayed heating is that if you should overfire your PPCs, your 'Mech can overheat beyond 11000K and blow up even after you shut down, like was the case in Mechwarrior 2, and players with Inferno SRMs or Flamers can leverage this to reduce overzealous beam weapon users to slag at the hands of their own reactor. That was something that was not possible in Mechwarrior 4, but this time, it would happen even if you didn't override shutdown and even if nobody shot you with a flamer, if you fired your PPCs so damn often that your 'Mech could overheat beyond 11000K in the first place. To save your skin you'd have to jump in a lake or flush coolant pre-emptively - doing it too late will mean you blow up anyway in the midst of flushing.

Edited by Hayashi, 07 March 2012 - 06:34 AM.

[ice trey]

2bad, on 07 March 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

I would like to quote sarda net for that one: specificaly the Warhawk:

http://www.sarna.net..._%28Masakari%29
"To dissipate the waste heat produced in its various configurations, it carried an awesome twenty double heat sinks"
"While unable to fire all of the ER PPCs at once it could use a volley fire strategy to manage its heat."

(emphasis mine)

So basically: a clan mech, with 40 heat sinks, could not alpha strike 4 ER PPC at once without shuting down.

Keep in mind that both the clan and inner sphere versions of the ERPPC generate 15 points of heat, so a Warhawk firing all four of it's PPCs would generate a whopping 60 heat from it's weapons fire alone. Even with dissipation, that only brings it down to 20 heat leftover - risking shutdown and even ammo explosion.

As for the whole "Should be able to generate 20 heat on a mech with 20 heat dissipation without the heat scale moving", it's supposed to be 20 heat dissipated over 10 seconds, or 2 heat per second. If you stagger your shots, you should have no problems, but letting loose with a single MW4 style pop-tarting snipe should put you in some serious trouble.

This was also addressed in the Solaris 7 boxed set from the very early 90s, which reduced the scale of the maps and the time of the turns - making the heat-sinks only half as effective.

That said, I wouldn't necessarily be against making heat have no effect (up to the number of heat sinks per 10-second period), but the heat spillover should dissipate at the appropriate rate - which usually means very slowly in the middle of a 'mech fight.

Edited by ice trey, 07 March 2012 - 06:39 AM.