

Heatsinks & Engine Size
#1
Posted 08 April 2012 - 02:58 PM
It seems to me that larger engines should contain more heatsinks. A certain engine size could be given an arbitrary number of heatsinks and larger or smaller engines could have their numbers adjusted accordingly. I.E. 200 rating = 10 heatsinks. 100 rating (100/200)*10= 5 heatsinks, 300 rating (300/200)*10 = 15 heatsinks
This conversion ratio is not set in stone, but I believe that this is a much more realistic method for apportioning heatsinks; and it's something that has bothered me about engines in every mechwarrior game to date.
#2
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:00 PM
#3
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:01 PM
#4
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:02 PM
#5
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:03 PM
Gun Bear, on 08 April 2012 - 03:01 PM, said:
Yes, but 10 heatsinks would weigh more than the entire engine on some smaller mechs. In addition a higher power output is going to require a larger cooling module (or whatever it's called in canon).
#6
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:04 PM
For the purposes of MWO, aligning Heat Sinks is more of a waste of time. Unless you're willing to go through the whole process of building a mech from scratch, the system of distributing heat-sinks really isnt much of a factor, as it would be assumed (using Hard Points system) that the Heat Sinks, Endo-Steel, Ferro-Fibros, etc is eating up most of the mechs invisible allocation slots.
#7
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:08 PM
boogle, on 08 April 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:
Yes, but 10 heatsinks would weigh more than the entire engine on some smaller mechs. In addition a higher power output is going to require a larger cooling module (or whatever it's called in canon).
boogle, on 08 April 2012 - 03:03 PM, said:
Yes, but 10 heatsinks would weigh more than the entire engine on some smaller mechs. In addition a higher power output is going to require a larger cooling module (or whatever it's called in canon).
The perhaps the size of the cooling module is the same relative to the size of the engine. It was originally done for simplicitys sake since the game is already insanely math intensive it made heat simple and balanced and they saw it was 'ok'. So far the Dev team wants to stick to the canon so they will probbaly use the existing formula.
#8
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:14 PM
Say, Im new (not to the Battletech premise- i played the RPG over 20 yrs ago) to this online idea for this game, can anyone tell me where to find the Mech Specs?
Sorry if i am breaking some forum protocol...
#10
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:21 PM
Kensyn, on 08 April 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:
Say, Im new (not to the Battletech premise- i played the RPG over 20 yrs ago) to this online idea for this game, can anyone tell me where to find the Mech Specs?
Sorry if i am breaking some forum protocol...
To my knowledge the only available info is some of the 'mechs that will be seen in the game. I'm assuming they will closely resmble their canon cousins statistically.
Edited by Gun Bear, 08 April 2012 - 03:22 PM.
#11
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:35 PM
#12
Posted 08 April 2012 - 03:50 PM
boogle, on 08 April 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:
It seems to me that larger engines should contain more heatsinks. A certain engine size could be given an arbitrary number of heatsinks and larger or smaller engines could have their numbers adjusted accordingly. I.E. 200 rating = 10 heatsinks. 100 rating (100/200)*10= 5 heatsinks, 300 rating (300/200)*10 = 15 heatsinks
This conversion ratio is not set in stone, but I believe that this is a much more realistic method for apportioning heatsinks; and it's something that has bothered me about engines in every mechwarrior game to date.
The TT construction rules include 10 heatsinks with the engine weight.
The engine can incorporate more or fewer heatsinks according to its rating. For each full multiple of 25 in the engine rating you include the crits of the (single or double) heatsinks in the engine. This is part of the reason why some mechs like the Timber Wolf (mad cat to spheroids) are so powerful as energy weapon platforms. The TW has a 375 rated engine (75 tons at 5/8) and therefore can (and does) include 15 (double) heatsinks in the engine. Ten heatsinks were "free" with the engine and 5 more were added in the base configuration. The Flashman is a prime IS example. The
There is room to argue about the number of "free" heatsinks by engine size, but the TT rules already account for varying the number of incorporated heatsinks.
I would note a little bit of thermodynamics that you have probably not considered as well. You dissipate heat by surface area and smaller cylinders (treat mech torsos/legs/heads/arms as cylinder for simplicity) have a higher relative surface area than larger cylinders. This gives lighter mechs a proportionally higher dissipation rate by convection/radiation than heavier mechs.
Mech heat generation would also scale with size (weight, specifically). Heavier mechs would require more/stronger myomers with more power to drive them. By the time you say that a heavier mech would generate more heat just to move and be worse at radiating it away without aid, it becomes relatively fair, thermodynamically, to give lighter mechs "undeserved" free heatsinks.
#13
Posted 08 April 2012 - 04:00 PM
Learn to balance your heat.
#14
Posted 08 April 2012 - 04:17 PM
Der Kommissar, on 08 April 2012 - 04:00 PM, said:
Learn to balance your heat.
Your post brings nothing to the table and does not address the issue of inherent heatsinks not being tied to engine size/power. Perhaps der kommissar should read the above post(s) again.
#15
Posted 08 April 2012 - 04:34 PM
Kensyn, on 08 April 2012 - 03:14 PM, said:
Say, Im new (not to the Battletech premise- i played the RPG over 20 yrs ago) to this online idea for this game, can anyone tell me where to find the Mech Specs?
Sorry if i am breaking some forum protocol...
There's the unofficial MW:O wiki
http://www.mwowiki.o...title=Main_Page
(not sure I'm supposed to post or not nor how accurate all the variants are which ones will be in or not the chassis yes the variants not so much)
They are also somewhere on the site. I think if you go into the dev section of the forums they have the release information of mechs.
#16
Posted 08 April 2012 - 04:37 PM
example:
300 / 25 = (up to)12 hs's
Johannes Falkner said this but seemed a bit longwinded for some people
keeping it simple

#17
Posted 08 April 2012 - 04:52 PM
boogle, on 08 April 2012 - 02:58 PM, said:
"heat sinks" in the engine aren't actually heat sinks proper, as are used in the rest of the mech. They're only tracked as such for ease.
They're actually an integral part of the secondary heat reclamation system of the fusion engine... and larger engines can have larger regenerative cooling systems (more "heatsinks").
Quote
http://www.sarna.net...ower_Generation
#18
Posted 08 April 2012 - 06:07 PM
#19
Posted 08 April 2012 - 06:15 PM
osito, on 08 April 2012 - 06:07 PM, said:
The "ten heatsinks" (they are NOT heatsinks!) are required to absorb the waste heat of the fusion engine.
#20
Posted 08 April 2012 - 07:28 PM
Regardless of what their technical function is, they are listed as heatsinks in every technical readout (that i've seen anyway) and they dissipate heat as a heatsink normally would. In addition, upgrading the heatsinks of a mech to double heatsinks doubles the 'value' of the inherent heatsinks as well. In summary all evidence points to a fusion engine granting a mech 10 heatsinks regardless of power plant size.
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