183 replies to this topic

[wanderer]

FiveDigits, on 08 November 2012 - 06:17 AM, said:

What irks me is that we have to discuss this at all. A DHS Jenner with a 250 rated engine and no external HSs works as it should be, dissipating heat at the rate of 20 SHS equivalents. It works like that now. Does this make heat a non-issue on said Jenner? Is this Jenner able to "core an Atlas in 3 seconds"?

No.

The whole preemptive 1.4HS nerf is a bad joke. Give us real DHSs and let's go from there. It's beta. Even if the claims were true that 2.0 heat dissipation DHSs makes heat management trivial (which we conjectured they won't) values could be adjusted after testing it in the field.

Let's put it this way- with the coding being borked not once but -twice- now, nobody's actually testing DHS at 2.0. It's been some weird mix of 1.0 + 2.0 or now 2.0 + 1.4, and depending on engine rating, the same number of heat sinks performs differently for one person than another.

What kind of useful data can you get out of that? Last patch, my Atlas with DHS lost heat effectiveness thanks to it's bigger engine storing more DHS into effective SHS. Now, it'd mean more DHS and fewer 1.4 DHS.

*headdesk*

[wanderer]

Zyllos, on 08 November 2012 - 07:45 AM, said:

Wow, I never noticed that. I took a look at the book and noticed, Light mechs have -8 critical slots, mediums -4, heavies -2, and assaults are unchanged.

Unfortunately, that also renders many stock designs impossible to reproduce if you reduce crit slots. Part of the reason the rule wasn't copied over to Tactical Operations or the current run of rulebooks.

[Vermaxx]

Waste heat doesn't start at 50%. 50% isn't even 'all heatsinks full.' Stop suggesting things that make the game worse as balancing factors.

Adding in all the sht that actually happens at bad heat, and making those effects last for a set time period (they were with you until the end of the next turn, so ten seconds sounds fair) would start punishing people for running up to overheat, and then firing another alpha as soon as they came out of heatdown. If you run up again, the timer resets, so now you're looking at however long it has been plus another ten seconds.

At this point I don't even know if true DHS would be overpowered. I thought so, back when I believed PGI when they said all heatsinks were functioning at 1.4 right now. Since that is apparently not true by math, I fail to see how giving everyone full DHS would break the game. They already gave people 'some' true DHS, and as a result lights and mediums lost a lot of their heat worries.

The assault pilots were expecting the narfstick BY MATH, but in game performance has been softer than the math. Which means that if PGI actually sets ALL SINKS to 1.4, assault pilots are going to get narfed "again" since they never dealt with the full effect of the narf originally.

[Amaris the Usurper]

Zyllos, on 08 November 2012 - 07:48 AM, said:

I think your looking into it too much.

In the TT, having high heat can cause ammo explosions. In MWO, high heat (only over 100% for whatever reason), your internals randomly start taking damage. I am saying they should start to have chances to cause critical hits (unless it is already like this, but I have never seen heat over 100% cause any destruction of weapons). Of course, I think if you go over 100% and you let it shutdown, you do not take damage, which is incorrect.

In TT, a mech can generate as much heat in one turn (10 seconds) as it has HS (or twice the number of DHS) without suffering ill effects. Go over that, and you start to lose top speed, have trouble hitting accurately (presumably due to pilot discomfort and the myomer bundles in the actuators becoming less responsive at high temperatures), and risk both ammunition explosion and automatic shutdown. Having a high heat level removes a fixed amount from the top speed (not a percentage), so lighter/faster mechs are relatively less affected. This last may not make much sense, but it is how the rules work.

A nice way to include these effects into the game would have been to have a "free" range at the bottom of the heat scale: one could move the heat into this area without suffering any ill effects. In absolute (not percentage) terms, the free range would be four plus either the number of HS or twice the number of DHS, so that we would have the same ability to alpha strike as in TT. On top of this would be a range of 26 heat points, over which one would lose more top speed and gain an increasing chance of suffering an ammo explosion or automatic shutdown. Shutdown would always occur at the top of the scale.

It would be easy to check continuously (say 10-20 times per second) for ammo explosion and automatic shutdown in such a way that the total probabilities over 10 seconds match the TT values. Since (to my knowledge) the turn and torso twist rates in MWO scale with the top speed, heat effects on ease of target tracking would be included automatically when the top speed is recomputed.

For physiological effects, the pilot's vision could become increasingly blurred and/or wobbly, with very high levels inflicting permanent injury along with a chance to temporarily lose consciousness.

Also, movement should introduce some random wobble into the crosshairs (especially so for jumping), so that being stationary confers more of an offsetting advantage.

I'm not saying any or all of this should or must be incorporated (i.e., that most of the player base would like it), but I would love to see these features, and I expect that many others would too. Just as many are probably not so much into the BT canon and would just be irritated by the necessary alterations to their play style. Maybe if MWO becomes popular enough, these things can be included in a "hardcore" game mode.

[FiveDigits]

wanderer, on 08 November 2012 - 08:28 AM, said:

Let's put it this way- with the coding being borked not once but -twice- now, nobody's actually testing DHS at 2.0. It's been some weird mix of 1.0 + 2.0 or now 2.0 + 1.4, and depending on engine rating, the same number of heat sinks performs differently for one person than another.

What kind of useful data can you get out of that? Last patch, my Atlas with DHS lost heat effectiveness thanks to it's bigger engine storing more DHS into effective SHS. Now, it'd mean more DHS and fewer 1.4 DHS.

*headdesk*

That's actually my point. The decision to go with 1.4HS is based on no factual data. A TT DHS has 0.2 HPS dissipation. TT stats are the base line for MW:O. So, implement DHS as double HS and let us - the beta testers - test them with various builds. All (anecdotal) evidence points to 0.2 dissipation not being broken. Diverging fom the TT base line for DHS is wrong until it's proven (through extensive testing) otherwise.

[Zyllos]

wanderer, on 08 November 2012 - 08:33 AM, said:

Unfortunately, that also renders many stock designs impossible to reproduce if you reduce crit slots. Part of the reason the rule wasn't copied over to Tactical Operations or the current run of rulebooks.

Wonder which stock builds become impossible.

[Vermaxx]

An AC20 Hunch possibly, depending on how the crit slots come out.

[wanderer]

FiveDigits, on 08 November 2012 - 08:38 AM, said:

That's actually my point. The decision to go with 1.4HS is based on no factual data. A TT DHS has 0.2 HPS dissipation. TT stats are the base line for MW:O. So, implement DHS as double HS and let us - the beta testers - test them with various builds. All (anecdotal) evidence points to 0.2 dissipation not being broken. Diverging fom the TT base line for DHS is wrong until it's proven (through extensive testing) otherwise.

Oh, I agree with you. If we've been passed coding that's been wrong not once, but twice? I cannot under any circumstance think that PGI's internal testers have been delivering data that was useful to them. Even now, we're not seeing some kind of horrible broken mind-wrecking gameplay from all-2.0 DHS lighter designs, and we KNOW that DHS are less effective on assaults and other crit-hungry chassis anyway...so logically, we can infer that all-2.0 DHS in engines AND external mounts isn't going to break the game as Bryan stated.

Let's say this again for the peanut gallery: The devs have been basing their decisions on DHS from data derived from coding that causes DHS to function in a way differing from what they expect.. Their responses don't make sense to us math-hammering types because garbage in is producing garbage out and what they're saying is happening is based on something different than they think is the actual situation.

This thread pretty much confirms why my DHS-chassis laserboating Catapult was functioning so well, too. Whole lot of 2.0 engine DHS.

[Joehunk]

Wow. Wow. So I guess we have another nerf incoming? Or dare we hope they take a typical build of let's say, 5 externally mounted DHS, average it to (10x2.0 + 5x1.4) / 15 = 1.8?

[wanderer]

Zyllos, on 08 November 2012 - 08:42 AM, said:

Wonder which stock builds become impossible.

A lot of later designs already squeeze every crit out of more tech-heavy models (endo + FF + DHS is the worst culprit, but lots of DHS alone can pull it off).

Any change that renders a stock model impossible to construct, IMHO is a change that cannot stand in MWO. As it is, we're gonna see some wonky stuff with designs that come stock with TAG, since they doubled the weight (why, I have no idea).

Edited by wanderer, 08 November 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Zyllos]

Vermaxx, on 08 November 2012 - 08:44 AM, said:

An AC20 Hunch possibly, depending on how the crit slots come out.

From the document, it was -2 LA/RA/LT/RT for lights, -1 LA/RA/LT/RT for mediums, and -1 LA/RA for heavies.

wanderer, on 08 November 2012 - 08:55 AM, said:

A lot of later designs already squeeze every crit out of more tech-heavy models (endo + FF + DHS is the worst culprit, but lots of DHS alone can pull it off).

Any change that renders a stock model impossible to construct, IMHO is a change that cannot stand in MWO. As it is, we're gonna see some wonky stuff with designs that come stock with TAG, since they doubled the weight (why, I have no idea).

TAG weighs 1.0t in the TT, not sure what your talking about.

[Onyx Rain]

Well here is what I know...

All my atlases, and my aws-9m seem to play pretty much like they did before the patch. I think at best it seems like I may be dissipating heat slightly faster, but my heat threshold before shutdown seems about the same...maybe less.

I predicted that the "fix" overall would be functionally equivalent to the "broken system"... Now I don't know if they screwed up implementation of the "fix" or what...but my experience is basically the same = fix is what I predicted (for me at least).

OK, time to buff DHS....we need a better compromise between what it was/is and True 2 threshold/ .2 dissipation DHS.

[Amaris the Usurper]

FiveDigits, on 08 November 2012 - 08:38 AM, said:

That's actually my point. The decision to go with 1.4HS is based on no factual data. A TT DHS has 0.2 HPS dissipation. TT stats are the base line for MW:O. So, implement DHS as double HS and let us - the beta testers - test them with various builds. All (anecdotal) evidence points to 0.2 dissipation not being broken. Diverging fom the TT base line for DHS is wrong until it's proven (through extensive testing) otherwise.

A likely scenario for how DHS got to where they are today is as follows:

• DHS accidentally implemented as 0.1 engine and 0.2 non-engine.
  
• This is noticed through testing.
  
• Engine DHS corrected to 0.2.
  
• zOMG some configurations are too powerful!
  
• Trial fix: nerf DHS by reducing heat dissipation to 0.14.
  
• Forget (or fail to communicate) that engine and non-engine DHS values must be set separately; accidentally change only the non-engine value.
  
• Test this fix; see that everything seems better balanced now.
  
• Conclude that the 0.14 nerf worked and release the patch, even though the real values (during testing) were probably between 0.16 and 0.18, depending on configuration.

Since everything seems pretty well balanced now (LRMs aside), a good trial fix would be to just change DHS effectiveness to 0.18 heat/second (i.e., 90%) and see how that works. Alternatively, they could just let us have full 0.2 DHS for a week and see what madness (if any) results. I would like the chance to try it out.

It's hard to believe that the current solution had any serious effect on lights. A Jenner with a 300XL engine would lose only a few effective SHS, i.e., the 5 or so non-engine DHS would go from 10 effective SHS to 7, but the engine DHS would continue to act as 20 SHS. So we would be going from 30 to 27 effective SHS, or a 10% reduction. This shouldn't fundamentally change what is possible with the mech.

Edited by Amaris the Usurper, 08 November 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[wanderer]

Zyllos, on 08 November 2012 - 08:57 AM, said:

From the document, it was -2 LA/RA/LT/RT for lights, -1 LA/RA/LT/RT for mediums, and -1 LA/RA for heavies.

TAG weighs 1.0t in the TT, not sure what your talking about.

Braindead today. You're right, TAG -was- .5 tons before in MWO and I'm used to them going with TT values- instead, they actually had it half weight. Never mind.

[Zyllos]

wanderer, on 08 November 2012 - 09:04 AM, said:

Braindead today. You're right, TAG -was- .5 tons before in MWO and I'm used to them going with TT values- instead, they actually had it half weight. Never mind.

It's fine, happens to be best of us.

Would still like to see what canon stock builds that reducing the critical slots would hurt. It might be worth adding to add balances. If I remember correctly, each mech has 53 critical slots with a STD engine, this would mean Light mechs would have 45 critical slots, so with ES and FF, that would leave 17 critical slots left, which sounds plenty. Turns into 11 with an XL engine.

This might be an interesting tweak and I might see if adding this hurts any current stock builds in MWO.

Edit: This makes the heat mechanic of adding slowing down mechs and stuff very interesting as they increase the heat cap for those outside the engine (or above the 10 free but inside the engine) and there just is not much room left for DHS outside the XL engines with ES and FF for Lights.

Edited by Zyllos, 08 November 2012 - 09:13 AM.

[Vermaxx]

I don't know anything offhand about which designs get borked, because all mechs have the same critspace. There is a reason that rule didn't get ported to the new books. A lot of kaaa-raaaazy rules came out as FASA tried to keep Battletech in print, and most of that got dumped with the rules came back into print with a new company.

I forget which book it was, but one of them had a blurb at the beginning of the light category pointing out the apparent paradox of 'light' mechs being able to carry 'heavy' weapons better than some other weight classes. It raised the point that light mechs had relatively low engine/structure/armor weights, and couldn't carry a lot of tonnage, so they had a ton of internal slots left. If they wanted to completely monopolize the mech with one gimmick, they could. And from that we got the Hollandaise.

My personal belief is that everything has the same inner dimensions. Obviously the artwork doesn't back this up, but my idea is that everything has the same internal 'size' and only the the outer dimensions varied. The amor might be thicker, the arm bulkier, but the inside of a Commando arm and the inside of an Atlas arm had the same sized blank space for equipment.
Nothing in BT is realistic, so changing the internal sizes of mechs as balance isn't any better than leaving them alone.

The balancing factor is weight. No matter how many crit slots a Jenner has, it only weighs 35 tons. At best it has six hardpoints. So it can carry 6 medium lasers if it really wants to (or six pulse) and a ton of dual sinks, and endo, and an xl engine. That can happen. The mech doesn't need 8 fewer crit slots as balance, because it still dies when you shoot it.

The hit detection improved apparently, so you can melt Jenners again. Once they put tripping back in, people will stop circling at zero range. Jenners will go from 'four on every match,' to a handful of really dangerous pilots.

We don't need to adjust concrete mech principles to balance mechs. We need to find relative balance in the weapons (this will never be a shining example of 100% skill based esports combat), we need to find relative balance in speed versus netcode stability, and we need to find a heat balance. Heat isn't going to be across the board unless sinks scale to the mech weight. You have to accept that sometimes that Jenner gives zero fk about heat, while even with a ton of DHS that Atlas has to think about it.

[Krivvan]

Vermaxx, on 08 November 2012 - 08:27 AM, said:

Yeah, a Jenner with 6 small, or 4 small and an SSRM probably has zero heat problems. Even if they take endo and FF, though I'm not sure if FF is actually useful on a Jenner since they don't really need that weight for anything.

They used to actually run very hot, some of the hottest mechs in the game due to how few heat sinks they had. It's now that I barely have to worry about heat anymore.

[Zyllos]

Vermaxx, on 08 November 2012 - 09:12 AM, said:

I don't know anything offhand about which designs get borked, because all mechs have the same critspace. There is a reason that rule didn't get ported to the new books. A lot of kaaa-raaaazy rules came out as FASA tried to keep Battletech in print, and most of that got dumped with the rules came back into print with a new company.

I forget which book it was, but one of them had a blurb at the beginning of the light category pointing out the apparent paradox of 'light' mechs being able to carry 'heavy' weapons better than some other weight classes. It raised the point that light mechs had relatively low engine/structure/armor weights, and couldn't carry a lot of tonnage, so they had a ton of internal slots left. If they wanted to completely monopolize the mech with one gimmick, they could. And from that we got the Hollandaise.

My personal belief is that everything has the same inner dimensions. Obviously the artwork doesn't back this up, but my idea is that everything has the same internal 'size' and only the the outer dimensions varied. The amor might be thicker, the arm bulkier, but the inside of a Commando arm and the inside of an Atlas arm had the same sized blank space for equipment.
Nothing in BT is realistic, so changing the internal sizes of mechs as balance isn't any better than leaving them alone.

The balancing factor is weight. No matter how many crit slots a Jenner has, it only weighs 35 tons. At best it has six hardpoints. So it can carry 6 medium lasers if it really wants to (or six pulse) and a ton of dual sinks, and endo, and an xl engine. That can happen. The mech doesn't need 8 fewer crit slots as balance, because it still dies when you shoot it.

The hit detection improved apparently, so you can melt Jenners again. Once they put tripping back in, people will stop circling at zero range. Jenners will go from 'four on every match,' to a handful of really dangerous pilots.

We don't need to adjust concrete mech principles to balance mechs. We need to find relative balance in the weapons (this will never be a shining example of 100% skill based esports combat), we need to find relative balance in speed versus netcode stability, and we need to find a heat balance. Heat isn't going to be across the board unless sinks scale to the mech weight. You have to accept that sometimes that Jenner gives zero fk about heat, while even with a ton of DHS that Atlas has to think about it.

PERSONALLY, I agree with you. I always viewed critical slots as locations for mounting internal components. Not the "bulk" left on the mech. So humanoid mechs had less mounting locations due to having acutators for arms/hands while the torso/chicken mechs basically had free locations to mount with missing arm/hand actuators. But tonnage is the major factor in what a mech can hold.

Still think they need to add the other heat management mechanics to the game.

[Icebound]

I hope they bump up the value of DHS' soon. Their usefulness is so limited that it's barely worth grinding the c-bills to use them in most cases, and sometimes actually has a negative effect.

[Vermaxx]

Krivvan, on 08 November 2012 - 09:15 AM, said:

They used to actually run very hot, some of the hottest mechs in the game due to how few heat sinks they had. It's now that I barely have to worry about heat anymore.

Yes, I am operating from the assumption of adding in DHS. You are doubly benefitting right now because most of the DHS a light slots are the engine, and you're getting FULLY BOOK VALUE out of those. You are operating the way the game intended DHS to operate. Mediums are close, fielding around half and half. Assaults are fielding more in the 'not doubled' category and still getting skrewed. Not as hard as if all sinks were 1.4 mind you, but skrewed nonetheless.

Zyllos, on 08 November 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

PERSONALLY, I agree with you. I always viewed critical slots as locations for mounting internal components. Not the "bulk" left on the mech. So humanoid mechs had less mounting locations due to having acutators for arms/hands while the torso/chicken mechs basically had free locations to mount with missing arm/hand actuators. But tonnage is the major factor in what a mech can hold.

Still think they need to add the other heat management mechanics to the game.

This absolutely needs to happen. At 100% heat, not at 50%. With a hard coded timer that keeps the effects on for a reasonably punitive time frame. Right now the only risk to high heat is the shutdown, which you can outright avoid, and the heatsplosion. USUALLY, the second bad alpha won't kill you, so neither penalty means anything.