322 replies to this topic

[DivineEvil]

Yes, we need them back.

DHS benefit Jenners the most, since they have plenty of free crit slots. When speaking about assaults that use heavier weapons, DHS are far worse, when you can reserve more weight for SHS. Besides, they're not DHS until they're 2.0 in the first place.

And it's the only way to make PPC's rival heat-free Gauss.

Edited by DivineEvil, 30 November 2012 - 05:05 AM.

[Corvus Antaka]

Wolfways, on 30 November 2012 - 01:41 AM, said:

I wish everyone would be forced to play a K2 (with only PPC's/ERPPC's) for a week and then see if they think the heat system and DHS are "fine".

I play a cataphract with dual ERPPC and 21 DHS and it is just fine.

[Vassago Rain]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 November 2012 - 08:11 AM, said:

I play a cataphract with dual ERPPC and 21 DHS and it is just fine.

Stop lying.

[Wolfways]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 November 2012 - 08:11 AM, said:

I play a cataphract with dual ERPPC and 21 DHS and it is just fine.

So do you overheat a lot, or just not fire much?

With 20DHS you can fire ERPPC's 8 times (chained) before shutting down.

Edited by Wolfways, 30 November 2012 - 08:29 AM.

[whiskey tango foxtrot]

Lefty Lucy, on 29 November 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

The initial reason given for why DHS could not be "true" DHS was the oft-cited "3 second Jenner" that could, according to a dev comment "core an atlas in under 3 seconds." Well, for two patches, the 3 second Jenner has been the norm, as most light and medium mechs get by with just the 10 engine-mounted DHS. They *already have* 2.0 DHS, and the only thing game-breaking about jenners has not been damage output, but survivability due to poor net code.

However, larger mechs that have the tonnage to mount more DHS do not have the full benefit of their DHS. A prime victim of this is the current trial assault, the AWS-9M. With 20 DHS, its dissipation is only 3.4 HPS. A single ERPPC has heat generation of 4.33 HPS. This thing has 3 of them plus other weapons.

Even with "true" DHS, it would not be able to keep a single ERPPC cool, so I think it is clear to see that this would not "break" the mech. However, it would make more well-designed mechs far more useable, and bring heavies and assaults into better parity with light chassis.

The current trial Assault Mech is a complete joke....
agree with you completely Lefty.

[Jeff K Notagoon]

DivineEvil, on 30 November 2012 - 05:04 AM, said:

And it's the only way to make PPC's rival heat-free Gauss.

Besides, you know, tweaking the PPC itself instead of something that affects literally every weapon in the game.

[Lefty Lucy]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 30 November 2012 - 08:11 AM, said:

I play a cataphract with dual ERPPC and 21 DHS and it is just fine.

Your cataphract has, at best, 3.54 hps dissipation, and generates 6.66 hps with just the two PPCs. Sure, you can play in a manner where you don't shut down frequently, but that means you won't be spending as much time in the action as a dual-gauss user. It's a balance thing, not a perception thing.

[Fate 6]

The real buff to DHS is to increase recycle times on weapons. If you can't spam smaller lasers anyway, using DHS isn't as beneficial to you. The current DHS aren't too bad if opponents aren't spamming their weapons. As it stands, the enemy IS spamming weapons, meaning to keep up with them in DPS you have to do the same and then overheat if you use PCCs. Reducing recycle times would also help balance things like SSRMs.

[Vassago Rain]

CodeNameValtus, on 29 November 2012 - 12:29 PM, said:

I thought the community already proved them wrong with this information well before they A) community found out it was less than 2.0 DHS, and before PGI announced they were 1.4 DHS. By math and science, there was really no reason that DHS were ever really going to be 'broken' or 'OP' as 2.0 if they aren't at 1.4....

PGI are like Bioware, and demands that they be considered right, even when everybody knows they're wong.

[Joseph Mallan]

Fate 6, on 30 November 2012 - 08:36 AM, said:

The real buff to DHS is to increase recycle times on weapons. If you can't spam smaller lasers anyway, using DHS isn't as beneficial to you. The current DHS aren't too bad if opponents aren't spamming their weapons. As it stands, the enemy IS spamming weapons, meaning to keep up with them in DPS you have to do the same and then overheat if you use PCCs. Reducing recycle times would also help balance things like SSRMs.

Heat sinks in general need a buff. Game mechanics for a "turn" are move, shoot, vent. But the MMO has made it: Move, Shoot, Shoot, Sh(VENT)ut down. 2-3 turns of shooting to one turn of venting. This is why heat is broken. The BattleTech 10 second turn was handwavium, as far as TT went. I never saw a 4 on 4 turn take under 5 minutes!

[Garth Erlam]

rolly, on 29 November 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

Agreed wholeheartedly. Their Jenner reasoning for a DHS nerf to 1.4 doesn't hold up any longer.

Food for thought. If MechWarrior, MW2 (all of its franchise expansions) MW3, AND MW4 have DHS that work effectively and not hamper the game. Why mess with damage values and SHS/DHS cooling values? If it isn't broken, well proven and canon. Please don't fix it.

Those games also had (not all, but some) PPC's that did 30 damage, lights no-one used, and 'coolant flushing.' Also, in every previous game DHS > SHS in every situation, and we want to avoid that.

[Lefty Lucy]

Garth Erlam, on 30 November 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

Those games also had (not all, but some) PPC's that did 30 damage, lights no-one used, and 'coolant flushing.' Also, in every previous game DHS > SHS in every situation, and we want to avoid that.

Give DHS double cooling without double capacity.

Increase cooling rate across the board but decrease capacity across the board.

There, I did your job for you

edit: I realize that you guys probably have a lot of interdependence in your code, which is why capacity is tied so tightly to cooling rate, so it wouldn't actually be *that* easy to implement, however I these changes would be much better for game balance, especially in regards to keeping trial mechs and other canon variants reasonably useful.

Edited by Lefty Lucy, 30 November 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Dr Killinger]

While I disagree with all heatsinks being 2.0, I strongly agree that light mechs are receiving far more benefit. My proposal would to have all DHS have the same value, but have that value be lower than 2.0. I'd propose 1.7. This way, big mechs benefit, and lighter mechs are taken down a notch.

[Lord Jay]

MrPenguin, on 29 November 2012 - 10:11 AM, said:

1.7-1.8 sounds like it would be fine.

If they set all DHS to a base of 1.74, they would become true 2.0 DHS with pilot skills when you Elite a chassis.

Urza Mechwalker, on 29 November 2012 - 10:10 AM, said:

Just change them to 1.7 and observe...

I agree. This is beta, let us test it. If it does not work then change it back.

[Mister Blastman]

Garth Erlam, on 30 November 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

Those games also had (not all, but some) PPC's that did 30 damage, lights no-one used, and 'coolant flushing.' Also, in every previous game DHS > SHS in every situation, and we want to avoid that.

No Garth, they weren't!

In Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries I routinely used single heatsinks in my Inner Sphere mech builds... all the time! Sure, they were heavy/assault mechs when I used them (not nearly as often as clan mechs) but most of the time I used singles because I knew how to make a properly balanced mech while maximizing critical space. If I had switched to doubles I would have ended up with less cooling capacity.

Clan mechs were another story. I /always/ used doubles in those--but that is how clan mechs are meant to be used.

Edited by Mister Blastman, 30 November 2012 - 09:12 AM.

[FearNotDeath]

I'd like them to remain how they are now. I run an awesome with 4 large lasers and 1.3 heat efficiency I really don't need anymore without it being overpowered.

[Alex Wolfe]

Garth Erlam, on 30 November 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

Those games also had (not all, but some) PPC's that did 30 damage, lights no-one used, and 'coolant flushing.' Also, in every previous game DHS > SHS in every situation, and we want to avoid that.

And yet they had PPCs and ER PPCs that were usable, stock configs that weren't getting a heatstroke heart attack by the second salvo, and Catapults that couldn't turn their heads around like contortionist space owls.

Any chance to maybe meet somewhere in the middle?

[PropagandaWar]

The last implementation of DHS I had to yank my 4 med pulse from my Hunchy SP, and put 4 Med standards in it backed by SRM packs. I still run hot sometimes but rarely shut down and my rig performs well. It just takes one or two shots more. I guess what I am saying is its fine. Would I like it to be a little more efficent? Yep. However when clan tech comes out and you can get two slotted DHS assaults will never ever shutdown. Look to the future not the now.

[Lefty Lucy]

Alex Wolfe, on 30 November 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

And yet they had PPCs and ER PPCs that were usable, stock configs that weren't getting a heatstroke heart attack by the second salvo, and Catapults that couldn't turn their heads around like contortionist space owls.

Any chance to maybe meet somewhere in the middle?

I think that increasing DHS to 2.0 would help light v heavy/assault balance a bit. I don't think lights should be useless, but I think that heavy/assault mechs with big energy weapons should be the "consistent firepower" builds. Right now the only builds that can really offer a non-stop wall of ferrous-nickel-alloy use gauss rifles, because those are the only weapons that are really efficient under MWO's heat system.

The only real fix for stock v. custom balance is an overall tweak to the heat system.

PropagandaWar, on 30 November 2012 - 09:21 AM, said:

The last implementation of DHS I had to yank my 4 med pulse from my Hunchy SP, and put 4 Med standards in it backed by SRM packs. I still run hot sometimes but rarely shut down and my rig performs well. It just takes one or two shots more. I guess what I am saying is its fine. Would I like it to be a little more efficent? Yep. However when clan tech comes out and you can get two slotted DHS assaults will never ever shutdown. Look to the future not the now.

You are also probably getting the most benefit of DHS, as you have mostly engine-mounted heat sinks.

[SteelPaladin]

Garth Erlam, on 30 November 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

Those games also had (not all, but some) PPC's that did 30 damage, lights no-one used, and 'coolant flushing.' Also, in every previous game DHS > SHS in every situation, and we want to avoid that.

In this game we have PPCs that do 10 damage and are only used as specialty weapons instead of as anchor weapons for a build (as they should be), lights that EVERYONE uses, and high heat weapons getting flushed because of lack of cooling. Your method of fixing the problems of previous MechWarrior games seems to be turning the wheel hard in the opposite direction and ending up w/the opposite problem. The result is most definitely not the same old mess, but it's still something of a mess.

You have tech 1 weapons (PPCs) that require tech 2 heat sinks to function even passably and tech 2 weapons (ER PPCs, debatablely ER Large Lasers) that are STILL extremely prohibitive to use even w/DHS thanks to their current implementation compounding w/the way the heat system in this game works. The design goal of keeping SHS viable in some situations is great, but a huge percentage of the tech we will be seeing coming down the pipe going forward were made w/the idea that you had fully functional DHS, period, and they are going to end up sitting on the shelf right next to ER PPCs if the heat situation isn't sorted out.

Gear is only going to get hotter as more new tech gets added. If you push too much on making the stuff we have now difficult to keep cool, the future stuff is going to be impossible.