93 replies to this topic

[Sirous]

Lawler, on 03 November 2012 - 12:24 AM, said:

A technology of significant enough advancement will seem like magic to the ignorant.. or something to that effect.

No, it's not magic, it's the next evolution nof the heat sink. They aren't bigger than regular heat sinks, they simply take more critical space because they're more delicate and/or susceptible to enemy fire. It's the balancing system they used in tabletop to allow for those big cannons, but make lighter weapons doing less damage viable because they were more reliable in combat. If size were a reflection of critical spaces, a 400 rated engine shouldn't take up the same space as a 100 rated engine.

And as far as engines and the heat sinks within them goes... Once again, we're talking FUSION reactors that only take up a few tons. The only fusion reactor we know about currently is sitting above your head every day and is considerably more weighty. So I guess if you really want to call it magic, I suppose if they can magic up a ******* fusion power plant to fit inside my walking death machine, I think they can magic me up some double strength heat sinks at some point, too.

Directly From Sarna

Quote

Their drawback is that they are much bulkier than a standard heat sink (unless integrated into a fusion engine).
The advanced Clan version twice the size of a standard heat sink; Star League era double heat sinks and those later (re-)developed by the Inner Sphere are three times as bulky as a standard heat sink.

See I did my research of sorts before starting this little escapade. Or at least tried to anyway.

Don't get me started on the Engine sizes, that one I let die awhile ago. See I have all sorts of questions that are not answered anywhere.

That being said, just about everything except when it comes to the engine and its heat sinks is a compromise, XL's included that was a compromise and for the very same reason that DHS were added, you lose crit slots for weight, so why when you add DHS to the engines for the same reason, they are bulkier but weigh the same do you not add crit slots to the engines. THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE even in the crazy world of BattleTech and all of its crazy rules. I have no issue with doubling the heat dissipation of the engine but make it a compromise of sorts, do that and now you must add two crits to the side, hell they don't even have to be Engine Crits, I don't care but nothing is compromised for doubling the heat dissipation of an entire engine.

[Vassago Rain]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

Directly From Sarna



See I did my research of sorts before starting this little escapade. Or at least tried to anyway.

Don't get me started on the Engine sizes, that one I let die awhile ago. See I have all sorts of questions that are not answered anywhere.

That being said, just about everything except when it comes to the engine and its heat sinks is a compromise, XL's included that was a compromise and for the very same reason that DHS were added, you lose crit slots for weight, so why when you add DHS to the engines for the same reason, they are bulkier but weigh the same do you not add crit slots to the engines. THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE even in the crazy world of BattleTech and all of its crazy rules. I have no issue with doubling the heat dissipation of the engine but make it a compromise of sorts, do that and now you must add two crits to the side, hell they don't even have to be Engine Crits, I don't care but nothing is compromised for doubling the heat dissipation of an entire engine.

Because some materials and contruction technologies will produce bigger and lighter products, while others make more compact, but heavier ones?

[Lawler]

Khobai, on 03 November 2012 - 12:14 AM, said:

If laserboats arnt a problem then why are they so reluctant to make double heatsinks 2.0? Obviously laserboats are the concern here... because gauss and streaks barely generate any heat anyway so the move to double heatsinks doesnt affect them.

People are only boating lasers (small and medium specifically) because the heat system is so borked right now, they're the only heat manageable weapons until you get to the gauss rifle and LoLRMs. This was almost the same thing we had on the tabletop at one point and the introduction of double heat sinks finally saw players throwing varied loadouts on their mechs. The simple fact is, if PGI puts carefull thought into hard points in the future, boating of any kind with double heat sinks won't be of big concern. It will still happen to be sure, but with a viable PPC, you might find players dropping a couple of those mediums to pick up some range that they otherwise wouldn't have.

Lights historically haven't had many heat issues. With double heat sinks, they never did. I'm ok with that. A scouts job is to operate alone, without support. Being bogged down by heat as a scout is like being out of gas or ammo. You're just not effective at that point. Similarly, mediums become the mainstay of an army (as they were in the game) because they can now mount bigger and better weapon loadouts and still remain fairly manageable. Heavies and assaults NEED traditional double heat sinks to make their available weapon loadouts competitive in the future. For these chassis, double heat sinks aren't a tonnage saver like lighter builds, they're a space saver since the more doubles you can throw in your engine, the more space you have for firepower. And heavies to assaults traditionally have the largest engine ratings (on table top. Not so much anymore since PGI let's you swap out engine sizes).

[Farmer]

Monies. Lots and lots of monies. Keep in mind, a 400 engine is not the same, in universe, from mech to mech. Hell, even on the same chassis the engines of the same rating were different when sourced from different manufacturers. It's all an abstraction. All handwavium. The three crits is more to model that it's easier to shoot than the fact they're physically bigger. Likewise, the damage tables were originally a complete abstraction. Some AC's were burst fire, some were single rounds, some were constant fire. They just were all about as vulnerable and did about the same amount of damage. Some were VASTLY larger.

[Urza Mechwalker]

Sirous, on 02 November 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

I just love how everyone was whining that DHS didn't work in the engine, though with my lack of knowledge of BattleTech, I figured thats how it was supposed to be, Engines came with 10 SHS. The doubles were just for saving weight on the rest of the Mech. While losing crit slots.

I did not realize that the doubles were supposed to work in the engine as well. When I heard that the first though I had was holy **** that will unbalance this game to no end. Honestly really first thought I had when I heard that it was supposed to work in the engine.

Sorry for all of the BT fans out there but DHS working in the engine to me does not make any sense, I don't care you won't be able to convince me otherwise.

First off they take up three times the crit slots, and magically there are Ten in the engine, Three times the space used in the same engine. At most you should only be able to fit 3 into the engine in the same amount of space that are currently used by your magic 10 HS engines. 5 if you go by the supposed 2 crit slots for Clan DHS's.

In all of the craziness that is BattleTech, as I have been studying these here rules there are many that don't make sense to someone basically looking in from the outside.

There is much that I don't understand about this world of BattleTech and MechWarrior. But take it from someone that just wants a fairly well balanced game.

I like the change to 1.4, though while talking to a few people, I assumed as much when they said they will be looking into DHS. I told them that they will probably just lower it to 1.5 or something.

Now while you are all up in arms over this here double heat sink issue, We have yet to actually test out how it will work and all the maths and speculation will not prove real world application so to speak.

Just a note on other balance changes that I would like to see.
LRM Damage reduced to 1.5, ammo increased slightly per ton to compensate.
SSRM Damage reduced to 1.5, due to homing nature of missiles.
Gauss Weight and Crit slots increased.
GaussCat move ballistics into the arms(ears).
AC/20 Heat reduced
AC/10 Heat Reduced
PPC's Heat Reduced / Hud/electronics affected by headshot.

All of these are coming from someone whose only real experience with the BT MW world was playing Mechwarrior 3 for a month or two. While I don't know what the world is about I do know when things are slightly off kilter.

Let me repeat for the hundred time. DHS Are supposed to be absolutely superior. That is a BT concept. And that is why they cost more and are harder to fit in larger mechs.

As months follow new mmodules of tech 2 will start to appear and thy e ARE supposed to be as much "unbalanced as this!"


But there is no unbalance since all mechs can use DHS.

[trycksh0t]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 12:12 AM, said:

So they magically doubled the Heat dissipation of the engines. Hence the issues I have with it in particular. Not DHS mind those make sense to me but the whole you magically have doubled the engine values with absolutely no compromise elsewhere in the design of the mech.

Okay, let's take this from a different perspective. When it comes to heat, there's really only two ways to increase dissipation: Better (read: more expensive) materials or increased surface area that allows for more heat to diffuse into the atmosphere. Let us again assume that engine heatsinks and external heatsinks are not the same thing, as that would make no sense, unless the engine is mounted in such a way that it is in contact with the outer part of the 'Mech, and that would expose the fusion reactor to impact shocks that would be...less than optimal for a fusion reactor.

Now, if we agree that external and in-engine heatsinks would be fundamentally different yet offer similar performance, we could then say that the engine DHS were made with previously unknown materials that offered significantly improved heat dissipation while taking up the same amount of space, yet are extremely costly to produce. External heatsinks, on the other hand, owe their greater bulk to needing more surface area because they are made from inferior materials, and hence considerably cheaper. Since external heatsinks are one of those items in BT that are invariably shot to crap, cheaper would be preferable, where as fusion engines are less likely to be completely destroyed and have limited space they must fit into, hence the more expensive yet smaller heatsinks used there.

Edited by trycksh0t, 03 November 2012 - 12:48 AM.

[Lawler]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

Directly From Sarna



See I did my research of sorts before starting this little escapade. Or at least tried to anyway.

Don't get me started on the Engine sizes, that one I let die awhile ago. See I have all sorts of questions that are not answered anywhere.

That being said, just about everything except when it comes to the engine and its heat sinks is a compromise, XL's included that was a compromise and for the very same reason that DHS were added, you lose crit slots for weight, so why when you add DHS to the engines for the same reason, they are bulkier but weigh the same do you not add crit slots to the engines. THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE even in the crazy world of BattleTech and all of its crazy rules. I have no issue with doubling the heat dissipation of the engine but make it a compromise of sorts, do that and now you must add two crits to the side, hell they don't even have to be Engine Crits, I don't care but nothing is compromised for doubling the heat dissipation of an entire engine.

You did the research, but didn't READ it. It specifically states "unless integrated into a fusion engine". Yeah, lore is important in battletech, but you can also find literally hundreds of instances where it contradicts itself. There are many threads on it all over the web. Bulk and weight are not the same. Once again, if a 100 rating engine takes the same space in a mech as a 400 rating engine, then either the 100 rating is massively ineffienect and therefore robbing you of space or the whole system is an abstract design to ballance the game. I'm gonna lean more towards the later in this case.

Edited by Lawler, 03 November 2012 - 12:46 AM.

[Sirous]

Lawler, on 03 November 2012 - 12:46 AM, said:

You did the research, but didn't READ it. It specifically states "unless integrated into a fusion engine". Yeah, lore is important in battletech, but you can also find literally hundreds of instances where it contradicts itself. There are many threads on it all over the web. Bulk and weight are not the same. Once again, if a 100 rating engine takes the same space in a mech as a 400 rating engine, then either the 100 rating is massively ineffienect and therefore robbing you of space or the whole system is an abstract design to ballance the game. I'm gonna lean more towards the later in this case.

Ahh the good ole suspension of disbelief, once again rears its ugly head in BattleTech. For as much as I love playing this game. The engines have got to be the most confusing. In all of these years noone has come up with a good reason as to Double Heat Sinks when installed in an engine (though Bulkier and take up more space). Do not take up any more crit spaces. If size and Crit Space allotments were different why does the DHS even take up three to begin with or an AC20 take up more than a Gauss, or LL take up more than a ML. Contradictions aside in BattleTech. From all I have read and seen thus far everything has been a compromise between Weight, heat and Crit spaces EXCEPT for DHS in the engine.

[Lawler]

trycksh0t, on 03 November 2012 - 12:45 AM, said:

Okay, let's take this from a different perspective. When it comes to heat, there's really only two ways to increase dissipation: Better (read: more expensive) materials or increased surface area that allows for more heat to diffuse into the atmosphere. Let us again assume that engine heatsinks and external heatsinks are not the same thing, as that would make no sense, unless the engine is mounted in such a way that it is in contact with the outer part of the 'Mech, and that would expose the fusion reactor to impact shocks that would be...less than optimal for a fusion reactor.

Now, if we agree that external and in-engine heatsinks would be fundamentally different yet offer similar performance, we could then say that the engine DHS were made with previously unknown materials that offered significantly improved heat dissipation while taking up the same amount of space, yet are extremely costly to produce. External heatsinks, on the other hand, owe their greater bulk to needing more surface area because they are made from inferior materials, and hence considerably cheaper. Since external heatsinks are one of those items in BT that are invariably shot to crap, cheaper would be preferable, where as fusion engines are less likely to be completely destroyed and have limited space they must fit into, hence the more expensive yet smaller heatsinks used there.

You probably said it more rationally than I, but you're 100% on the money. There is also a rule in the table top game saying once you put an engine in a mech, you must decide how many heat sinks you are going to put in the engine (if it can hold more than the free 10) and of what type (single or double) and that once this is determined, you may not add more internal heat sinks since engine heat sinks and external heat sinks are fundamentally different nor may you use a different type of heat sink. Believe it was in the construction section of the rules.

Also, there have been several printings of the battletech rules over he years. Some have had quite a bit more details as to the construction of a mech than others. The battletech compendiums have had, by far, the most in depth descriptions, but even these have had gaps or straight contradictions before.

[Farmer]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

Ahh the good ole suspension of disbelief, once again rears its ugly head in BattleTech. For as much as I love playing this game. The engines have got to be the most confusing. In all of these years noone has come up with a good reason as to Double Heat Sinks when installed in an engine (though Bulkier and take up more space). Do not take up any more crit spaces. If size and Crit Space allotments were different why does the DHS even take up three to begin with or an AC20 take up more than a Gauss, or LL take up more than a ML. Contradictions aside in BattleTech. From all I have read and seen thus far everything has been a compromise between Weight, heat and Crit spaces EXCEPT for DHS in the engine.

Because they used that to add more weapons. DHS were introduced specifically to speed up the game by allowing combat to start sooner (ER weaponry) and end faster (all other L2 weapons.)Period. That's what L2 did. That's the ONLY reason it was introduced. This had the added benefit of making it possible to let players use Clan-tech, which was originally conceived to be NPC only tech for use in scenarios.

Edited by Farmer, 03 November 2012 - 12:59 AM.

[Lawler]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 12:54 AM, said:

Ahh the good ole suspension of disbelief, once again rears its ugly head in BattleTech. For as much as I love playing this game. The engines have got to be the most confusing. In all of these years noone has come up with a good reason as to Double Heat Sinks when installed in an engine (though Bulkier and take up more space). Do not take up any more crit spaces. If size and Crit Space allotments were different why does the DHS even take up three to begin with or an AC20 take up more than a Gauss, or LL take up more than a ML. Contradictions aside in BattleTech. From all I have read and seen thus far everything has been a compromise between Weight, heat and Crit spaces EXCEPT for DHS in the engine.

We've told you repeatedly and you refuse to listen. It was a game balancing mechanic meant to keep things simple and allow for the technology to progress without having to scrap and/or rewrite all the old content. It thusly created several "levels of play". Hence the tech levels. When the game was regularly played in tournaments, there were multiple categories based on these tech levels that you could not deviate from in your choice of mechs and designs. If they hadn't done this, they could not have introduced clan technology (or star league for that matter since it didn't exist in the game until the clan invasion was introduced to reinvigorate the franchise) without seriously reconfiguring the way they did critical space in a mech. Was is kinda sloppy? Looking back on it, yes. But it was the easiest, most cost effective solution from a buisiness standpoint. Argue suspension of disbelief all you want, but that's a rather weak arguement considering you readily accept the concept of fusion powered giant fighting robots with lightning guns, but can't, for some reason, accept that they found a way to double the effeciency of said fusion engines cooling systems.

Edited by Lawler, 03 November 2012 - 01:06 AM.

[Sirous]

Lawler, on 03 November 2012 - 01:04 AM, said:

We've told you repeatedly and you refuse to listen. It was a game balancing mechanic meant to keep things simple and allow for the technology to progress without having to scrap and/or rewrite all the old content, It thusly created several "levels of play". Hence the tech levels. When the game was regularly played in tournaments, there were multiple categories based on these tech levels that you could not deviate from in your choice of mechs and designs. If they hadn't done this, they could not have introduced clan technology (or star league for that matter since it didn't exist in the game until the clan invasion was introduced to reinvigorate the franchise) without seriously reconfiguring the way they did critical space in a mech. Was is kinda sloppy? Looking back on it, yes. But it was the easiest, most cost effective solution from a buisiiness standpoint. Argue suspension of disnelief all you want, but that's a rather weak arguement considering you readily accept the concept of fusion powered giant fighting robots with lightning guns, but can't, for some reason, accept that they found a way to double the effeciency of said fusion engines cooling systems.

Yes they did, just like they found a way to make them lighter as well with a caveat, same concept only this time they did not throw that little compromise in this time, why. The Balancing Mechanics in BattleTech are Heat, Weight and Critical Slots. You give and take. They did that with XL's hell they even did that with DHS itself, but not with the ones in the engine. I am not arguing the idea behind but the methods used to employ the balance adjustment. Why didn't they add crits to the sides, say if you are going to use doubles you can only add 7 instead of the ten, Some sort of Compromise, within the mechanics of the game itself this one is way off base, thus far.

Yet everyone here readily accepts it, I do not. Don't mind DHS use them in just about all of my Mechs at the moment. Don't agree with the engines getting doubled without the giving up of something.

[Calmon]

+1 to topic. DHS in engine for just nothing giving up is totally stupid.

- Don't come with the argument it costs 1.5 Mio because is no real limit
- Don't come with the argument it has higher repair costs because is no real limit
- Don't come up its 'new technology'. In a game where modifying is possible and nothing limits you other than ingame money. Eeverybody go for the most efficiency. Do you want a game where everybody just plays the best without limitations? This would take out 75% of stuff. There would be another solution for this: a battlepoint system but this needs time to implement and has a lot of things to consider. -> we just don't have it for now so speculating doesn't help.

So all this is nothing real important on current state. 99% want to play a good team game and want to win so take the best. Sure there is grinding in moment where costs are more important but at one point the grinding players will be a minority.

Edited by Calmon, 03 November 2012 - 01:19 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

trycksh0t, on 03 November 2012 - 12:45 AM, said:

Okay, let's take this from a different perspective. When it comes to heat, there's really only two ways to increase dissipation: Better (read: more expensive) materials or increased surface area that allows for more heat to diffuse into the atmosphere. Let us again assume that engine heatsinks and external heatsinks are not the same thing, as that would make no sense, unless the engine is mounted in such a way that it is in contact with the outer part of the 'Mech, and that would expose the fusion reactor to impact shocks that would be...less than optimal for a fusion reactor.

Now, if we agree that external and in-engine heatsinks would be fundamentally different yet offer similar performance, we could then say that the engine DHS were made with previously unknown materials that offered significantly improved heat dissipation while taking up the same amount of space, yet are extremely costly to produce. External heatsinks, on the other hand, owe their greater bulk to needing more surface area because they are made from inferior materials, and hence considerably cheaper. Since external heatsinks are one of those items in BT that are invariably shot to crap, cheaper would be preferable, where as fusion engines are less likely to be completely destroyed and have limited space they must fit into, hence the more expensive yet smaller heatsinks used there.

Actually, clan XL engines are made from a special material that can only be found on the clan homeworlds, so the clanners who fled into the IS had to make new tech, that yields slightly less optimal results.

[Digital Ninja]

Sirous, on 02 November 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

DHS, From a new player in Mechwarrior.

Underlined the part where I suddenly stopped caring about your opinion.

[Vassago Rain]

Calmon, on 03 November 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

+1 to topic. DHS in engine for just nothing giving up is totally stupid.

- Don't come with the argument it costs 1.5 Mio because is no real limit
- Don't come with the argument it has higher repair costs because is no real limit
- Don't come up its 'new technology'. In a game where modifying is possible and nothing limits you other than ingame money. Eeverybody go for the most efficiency. Do you want a game where everybody just plays the best without limitations? This would take out 75% of stuff. There would be another solution for this: a battlepoint system but this needs time to implement and has a lot of things to consider. -> we just don't have it for now so speculating doesn't help.

So all this is nothing real important on current state. 99% want to play a good team game and want to win so take the best. Sure there is grinding in moment where costs are more important but at one point the grinding players will be a minority.

But...it's not for nothing. You upgrade to an entirely different tech level, with guns that use more heat, and the sinks you need to add take up triple the space. It makes the game go faster, and you get to build really weird mechs.

Clan sinks are 'for free.' IS sinks aren't for free. Even single sink mechs are often heat neutral, like the ancient awesome.

Since they ported the whole system, if they don't stick to it, they're gonna break it, and will have to make a new one, or go back to what they ported in the first place. Basically, they can't escape doing work this time.

[Lawler]

Calmon, on 03 November 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

+1 to topic. DHS in engine for just nothing giving up is totally stupid.

- Don't come with the argument it costs 1.5 Mio because is no real limit
- Don't come with the argument it has higher repair costs because is no real limit
- Don't come up its 'new technology'. In a game where modifying is possible and nothing limits you other than ingame money. Eeverybody go for the most efficiency. Do you want a game where everybody just plays the best without limitations? This would take out 75% of stuff. There would be another solution for this: a battlepoint system but this needs time to implement and has a lot of things to consider. -> we just don't have it for now so speculating doesn't help.

So all this is nothing real important on current state. 99% want to play a good team game and want to win so take the best. Sure there is grinding in moment where costs are more important but at one point the grinding players will be a minority.

No. The fact is, sh*tty tech will be the standard for new players. They will get owned and it will suck. Many will likely quit because they either aren't willing to invest the time, don't understand the universe they're playing in, or both. Advanced tech is just that. Advanced. They need to build up to it. It's a grinding mechanism just like the c-bills needed to afford your own mech. Right now it really sucks, but it will likely be steadily tweaked as the game progresses. Being able to afford DHS (in any iteration), ultra ACs and all the other tech is the carrot PGI is dangling in front of the player. If that carrot is rotten and tiny, the player won't care, will get bored or discouraged, and eventually leave. If that carrot, say, doubled his cooling properties but cost him as much as his mech, it's really shiney and something he's going to grind for. He may even drop a dime on the game so he can simply buy his mech and uses all his saved c-bills to get the upgrade faster. With the example in this case being double heat sinks, there is nothing but good that these can do for the game as a whole. The player gets something he feels is über, the company makes some money, everybody wins.

[Sirous]

Digital Ninja, on 03 November 2012 - 01:27 AM, said:

Underlined the part where I suddenly stopped caring about your opinion.

Ahh yes because I am new to battletech, and have only played the beta since July, but haven't played any MechWarrior (besides MW3 for about a month) or Battletech before my opinion means nothing, no wonder most of the people I know have you blocked.

Edited by Sirous, 03 November 2012 - 01:38 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

Sirous, on 03 November 2012 - 01:38 AM, said:

Ahh yes because I am new to battletech, and have only played the beta since July, but haven't played any MechWarrior (besides MW3 for about a month) or Battletech before my opinion means nothing, no wonder most of the people I know have you blocked.

It's a bit like when a new player comes into counter-strike and starts shouting that AWP is uber, 'because it's better than what I have!'

[trycksh0t]

mike29tw, on 02 November 2012 - 11:39 PM, said:

People actually think PGI can make a competitive multiplayer game with BT DHS value?

LOL

Russ said it in an interview. They don't want this game to become an arm race. They want to make the game as skillful and competitive as possible, so of course lots of the BT value is gonna get changed.

Meant to get to this earlier, but got distracted. I missed that interview, but if they weren't looking for an arms race, they picked the wrong game. The alterations to the core rules, thus far, has pushed MWO far from being skillful or competetive, as evidenced by the fact there are only a handful of builds that are actually competetive based around an even smaller handful of weapons that operate at their maximum potential while weapons that were once feared are rendered useless.

Had they not wanted an arms race, they never should have chosen a time period where new technology was being introduced that made previous tech. obsolete.

Edited by trycksh0t, 03 November 2012 - 01:49 AM.