45 replies to this topic

[Indoorsman]

The examples I was seeing of weapons that need DHS were energy weapons. They haven't touched those in months, maybe we should see how they balance those first, rather than do 2.0 DHS w/only 2/3 weapons types tweaked lately.

[Sifright]

Indoorsman, on 01 December 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

The examples I was seeing of weapons that need DHS were energy weapons. They haven't touched those in months, maybe we should see how they balance those first, rather than do 2.0 DHS w/only 2/3 weapons types tweaked lately.

They make a big difference for missile weapons but a lot of people don't really think about balacing heat load on a ammo Dependant mech.

[Vermaxx]

DHS are necessary for almost every 3050+ mech in existence. The game is set right at the edge of that tech level, in a time where almost every inner sphere mech retrofitted to DHS because they were COMPLETELY BETTER. Even taking up 3 critslots they were COMPLETELY BETTER FOR ALMOST EVERY MECH.

The DHS we have are not COMPLETELY BETTER. They are 'largely better' but the amount of "largely" is open to interpretation. They certainly aren't impressive if PGI ever adjusts engine sinks back to 1.4, and you aren't using the XP system. Hell, at that point they go back to being 'kind of shart.'

You get some negatives with true DHS, like light and medium mechs that can shoot until the cows come home. You also get assault mechs that can keep firing longer and with bigger guns. The system balances out when big mechs carrying big tools slap the smaller mechs in the faces with those big tools.

Right now, with engine dubz running at 2.0, light mechs and fast mediums have all the advantages. Heavies and assaults often have to decide between taking heavier singles and buying dubz. This shouldn't be a decision, it should be a no-brainer.

PGI needs to set engine dubz and external dubz to the same thing, and start balancing instead of ignoring it. 1.4 is not going to be high enough without the engine boost we have been running on. It will still favor lighter mechs with small weapons. Heavy mechs with big weapons will continue to get shafted.

[Indoorsman]

Vermaxx, on 01 December 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

Heavies and assaults often have to decide between taking heavier singles and buying dubz.

Well, an Assault should never be able to take the best weapon for every weapon hardpoint IMO. If you agree, then it's not rly a hard choice even for an assault to take "dubz". Here's an Atlas loadout that wasn't possible until the "dubz" came along:
skip to 1:08 for the action

[FrostCollar]

Vermaxx, on 01 December 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

DHS are necessary for almost every 3050+ mech in existence. The game is set right at the edge of that tech level, in a time where almost every inner sphere mech retrofitted to DHS because they were COMPLETELY BETTER. Even taking up 3 critslots they were COMPLETELY BETTER FOR ALMOST EVERY MECH.

The DHS we have are not COMPLETELY BETTER. They are 'largely better' but the amount of "largely" is open to interpretation. They certainly aren't impressive if PGI ever adjusts engine sinks back to 1.4, and you aren't using the XP system. Hell, at that point they go back to being 'kind of shart.'

You get some negatives with true DHS, like light and medium mechs that can shoot until the cows come home. You also get assault mechs that can keep firing longer and with bigger guns. The system balances out when big mechs carrying big tools slap the smaller mechs in the faces with those big tools.

Right now, with engine dubz running at 2.0, light mechs and fast mediums have all the advantages. Heavies and assaults often have to decide between taking heavier singles and buying dubz. This shouldn't be a decision, it should be a no-brainer.

PGI needs to set engine dubz and external dubz to the same thing, and start balancing instead of ignoring it. 1.4 is not going to be high enough without the engine boost we have been running on. It will still favor lighter mechs with small weapons. Heavy mechs with big weapons will continue to get shafted.

What are singles for then? If they were unambiguously better for all mechs, then Double Heat Sinks would just serve as a 1.5 million hurdle to get to a viable build.

[Sifright]

FrostCollar, on 01 December 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

What are singles for then? If they were unambiguously better for all mechs, then Double Heat Sinks would just serve as a 1.5 million hurdle to get to a viable build.

They were for older historical mechs that were cheap crap built with defunct rubish and they served as cannon fodder to the clan mechs that come rampaging through the inner sphere murdering everything in about... 9 months?

[Vermaxx]

A gauss, four mediums, and two SSRM is easily possible with singles. Especially mediums doing book heat.

The addition of the UAC5 is cute, but I bet it isn't a huge portion of his viable damage. It is there to soften things for either the gauss round, the laser salvo, or the missiles. In other words he could be almost as dangerous without it.

He should be able to run three or four large lasers as an Atlas, with similar heat function. That is what true dubs let assaults do. They let them carry 'assault' weapon loads. This is a very optimized load, but it could also fit on a heavy mech.

FrostCollar, on 01 December 2012 - 08:59 PM, said:

What are singles for then? If they were unambiguously better for all mechs, then Double Heat Sinks would just serve as a 1.5 million hurdle to get to a viable build.

You are exactly correct. Singles were trash when doubles were invented. This is not a game world where everything is always useful. New tech makes old tech worthless.

True singles were for a handful of mechs that were either too packed with stuff to fit dubz, or had some other gimmick going on.

CLAN DOUBLES eliminated almost every one of THOSE examples. Clan doubles were absolutely flat better than any other sink period.

[Indoorsman]

Vermaxx, on 01 December 2012 - 09:04 PM, said:

He should be able to run three or four large lasers as an Atlas, with similar heat function. That is what true dubs let assaults do. They let them carry 'assault' weapon loads.

I have another Atlas w/3LL 1Gauss and 2 SSRM, that is cooler running but has an XL350. If I drop the XL for a standard 300 the efficiency is still w/in 0.05 of the Atlas in the video. Not possible w/o DHS

[Vermaxx]

I don't really understand what you are trying to do. Are you trying to argue that DHS are better than SHS?

No one here is arguing that. We admit they are better. We are arguing that they aren't good enough. We are arguing this because the reasons given for their implementation are bawls.

The reason why your situation is so similar is that you have the heat efficiencies, and at least ten engine sinks running at 2.0. Every mech I have mathed out comes out to ABOUT 1.9 average per sink when you have the 15% heat buff from the XP system. I have done 8 internal and up. Now, if PGI were to cut those engine sinks back down to 1.4, your assault mech would be back to heavy mech weapons loads.

The reason why many say 'just give us true DHS' is because we basically already have them, shooting holes in Garth's argument. No one so far has come forward and admitted destroying an Atlas like he did (although a Jenner with a big engine ALREADY GETS FULL DHS), and no one has come forward saying "yeah guys I think true DHS would really break this game." The reasons were bunk, but PGI continues to stand by them. Yes, they will probably raise the numbers at some point, but I will suspect that they raise the numbers and fix the engine sinks so that average dissipation goes down instead of up.

The game was set in 3049, where heat stopped being an issue for most inner sphere mechs because their weapons sucked. Heat is an issue for Clan mechs. The IS bonus is that they can shoot more often, but for less damage. If PGI wanted heat to be the major balancing factor of this game they should have set it in the 3025 ruleset, and saved the hassle of streaks, or gauss, or DHS, or ER weapons, or Endo Steel / ferro fibrous / XL engines...basically ALL the things people complain about.

Edited by Vermaxx, 01 December 2012 - 09:21 PM.

[Indoorsman]

Vermaxx, on 01 December 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

I don't really understand what you are trying to do. Are you trying to argue that DHS are better than SHS?

No one here is arguing that. We admit they are better. We are arguing that they aren't good enough.

My point is that you can make assault worthy loadouts using DHS as they are.

Vermaxx, on 01 December 2012 - 09:19 PM, said:

The reason why many say 'just give us true DHS' is because we basically already have them

If we basically already have them then what is the argument? To give us true 2.0 DHS so that we can have 2.3 or 2.4 after elite perks?

[MustrumRidcully]

Indoorsman, on 01 December 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

My point is that you can make assault worthy loadouts using DHS as they are.

If your mech is lucky enugh to mix weapon types. But what if you're in an Awesome 8Q,that has only energy slots?

Of course, I am not opposed to adjusting the energy weapons heat output instead of adjusting DHS. There are many ways to improve the balance, the question is which one PGI willing to take?

1) Tweak Heat Values and nothing else?
I've got answers for that already, what you'd probably have to do and should work reasonable well (fine-tuning may still be required.)
2) Tweak heat sinks.
I have ideas on this and probably some tools to estimate whether they'll work or what else needs to be changed.
3) Go back to the drawing board and think everything through from the beginning.
This is really what I would prefer, but I don't believe it will happen. We're in an "Open Beta" that's just a thinly veiled release.
But they should have made clear decisions from the start on whether tech advances should be power advances as well, or be side grades instead, how clan tech integrates in the game, and how they want their heat management to work. I think they only had the vague idea "heat management must be important, so let's make weapons create a lot of heat, then it requires managing to avoid shutdown", without really looking a the details - doubling a weapon's rate of fire does not necessarily the heat load of a mech much. (Sure, it may be a100 % increase for that weapon, but it makes quite a big difference whether you overheat by 1 point every 10 seconds or by 10 points...)

Playing Megamek a bit, using mostly 3025 tech mechs, I never ever got any of my mechs near the shutdown limits. I already halted my fire when I observed that my mech was going slower and suffering to-hit penalties. Heat management in battletech isn't about riding the shutdown override button, it's about managing the penalties and making decisions on whether firing a weapon is worth the penalties the next round. It is very rarely worth to stand around for 5 seconds with no ability to defend yourself, but it can be worth losing a few points of speed and suffering attack penalties in the next turn...

Indoorsman, on 01 December 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

My point is that you can make assault worthy loadouts using DHS as they are.


If we basically already have them then what is the argument? To give us true 2.0 DHS so that we can have 2.3 or 2.4 after elite perks?

Should we lower Single Heat Sinks to giving only 0.08 heat dissipation per seconds because of these perks?

I think the best approach toi the perks would be to make it not a percentage bonus, but a +x heat dissipation per heat sink (regardless of type). If we're really worried about 2.3 DHS with perks.

[Indoorsman]

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

If your mech is lucky enugh to mix weapon types. But what if you're in an Awesome 8Q,that has only energy slots?

That's kinda my point, they just adjusted ballistics quite a bit. Missile/ballistic heavy mechs are already viable. They haven't touched energy weapons in a long time though and the AWS-8Q suffers not from DHS outside the engine being 1.4 but from energy weapons not being revised lately.

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 06:02 AM, said:

Should we lower Single Heat Sinks to giving only 0.08 heat dissipation per seconds because of these perks?

I think the best approach toi the perks would be to make it not a percentage bonus, but a +x heat dissipation per heat sink (regardless of type). If we're really worried about 2.3 DHS with perks.

Seems like a good idea, although whatever value x was it would benefit singles more than doubles.

[MustrumRidcully]

Indoorsman, on 02 December 2012 - 09:18 AM, said:

That's kinda my point, they just adjusted ballistics quite a bit. Missile/ballistic heavy mechs are already viable. They haven't touched energy weapons in a long time though and the AWS-8Q suffers not from DHS outside the engine being 1.4 but from energy weapons not being revised lately.

The only ballistc weapon that could a heat tweak was, IIRC, the AC/20. Ballistics got rate of fire tweaks mostly, and missiles received tweaks to rate of fire, damage per missile and their grouping/flight behavioru.

The reason this kinda "worked" was that these weapons never really had much heat problems.

Since we do not have a heat scale in MW:O, one thing that is different from the table top is that it doesn't really matter if your heat goes up by a few points. In the table top, a heat level of 5 already caused penalties. Now, you can go a lot further, and with the exception of the AC/20, most ballistic weapon use simply doesn't get you in any "dangerous" heat territory anymore - you've got a minimum effective heat capacity of 40, and a minimum dissipation of 1 heat per second. Most combinations of ballistic and missile weapons can manage to stay within that level for 20 seconds or so, and by that time you can deal enough damage to kill most enemies - and if you couldn't, you're either dead yourself, or you also ad firing pauses that extend your endurance.

Energy weapon builds are the only weapon group for this is not generally true, and it's hard (as in "more weight than those ballistics spend for sinks, ammo and the weapon itself) to fit enough heat sinks to avoid this.

[Indoorsman]

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 11:16 AM, said:

The only ballistc weapon that could a heat tweak was, IIRC, the AC/20. Ballistics got rate of fire tweaks mostly, and missiles received tweaks to rate of fire, damage per missile and their grouping/flight behavioru.

The reason this kinda "worked" was that these weapons never really had much heat problems.

Since we do not have a heat scale in MW:O, one thing that is different from the table top is that it doesn't really matter if your heat goes up by a few points. In the table top, a heat level of 5 already caused penalties. Now, you can go a lot further, and with the exception of the AC/20, most ballistic weapon use simply doesn't get you in any "dangerous" heat territory anymore - you've got a minimum effective heat capacity of 40, and a minimum dissipation of 1 heat per second. Most combinations of ballistic and missile weapons can manage to stay within that level for 20 seconds or so, and by that time you can deal enough damage to kill most enemies - and if you couldn't, you're either dead yourself, or you also ad firing pauses that extend your endurance.

Energy weapon builds are the only weapon group for this is not generally true, and it's hard (as in "more weight than those ballistics spend for sinks, ammo and the weapon itself) to fit enough heat sinks to avoid this.

I built an Atlas loadout specifically to look bad on paper yet I did really well with it, uploading will provide link later. 4LL LB10XAC and 2SSRM

[MustrumRidcully]

Indoorsman, on 02 December 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

I built an Atlas loadout specifically to look bad on paper yet I did really well with it, uploading will provide link later. 4LL LB10XAC and 2SSRM

It would be interesting to have a FRAPs of such builds in action and see how people fight with or against it.

[Indoorsman]

MustrumRidcully, on 02 December 2012 - 11:59 AM, said:

It would be interesting to have a FRAPs of such builds in action and see how people fight with or against it.

ETA 3 hrs :-p

[IIIuminaughty]

only scrubs use DHS

[Deadoon]

StrataDragoon, on 02 December 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

only scrubs use DHS

So nearly every user of a light, medium or heavy mech is now a scrub?

[IIIuminaughty]

Deadoon, on 02 December 2012 - 12:15 PM, said:

So nearly every user of a light, medium or heavy mech is now a scrub?

including me

[MustrumRidcully]

Papa Smurf, on 02 December 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

ETA 3 hrs :-p

Are we there yet?