22 replies to this topic

[RoyalWave]

Quote

When a BattleMech overheats, it will automatically shut down to prevent catastrophic events from occurring. While shut down, the BattleMech cannot move or fire its weapon systems and will remain in this state until heat levels return to a manageable level.


The MechWarrior (pilot) does have the ability to override critical heat shut-down but they do so at the risk of catastrophic failure and can result in internal ammunition detonations.

That seems to be a very "binary" thing. AKA don't overheat to shutdown point and if I do decide to override or not. It doesn't seem as interesting or as balanced as it possibly could be.

I would much rather see actual heat management becoming a very critical factor for smart mechwarriors. So I propose or suggest that MWO adopt closer to a heat scale like the tabletop.

As you start overheating past what your heat sinks can dissipate on your own, as you escalate your mech slows down a bit, you lose some accuracy etc. An "inbetween" point is needed between just shutting down/exploding and being fine.

The reasons are just really part of the core mechanics of Battletech and translate even to real time games. If you alpha strike with your laser boat in tabletop, you are crippled for a while. If you alpha strike with a laser boat in all the MW games I've played, you go up in heat a bit but can safely ignore it.

Heat really needs to be a factor to encourage cycling of weapon types, ballistics, etc. Also heat should be crippling, and something good pilots avoid. Heat is an enormous factor in the tabletop, and it doesn't seem to translate as well to real time games in that most of them seem to give a ton more leeway to pilots.

I think making heat a pretty big thing to avoid would help dissuade the most common "best design" in pretty much 99% of mech games, a big heat hungry laser/ppc boat. Because heat is usually never that crippling. I really would love to have a "cake and eat it too" balance with heat for MWO, where it is something you really have to manage, but at the same time you can still have a lot of enjoyment without being shut down every fight. So a "heat scale" like Table top, with penalties inbetween "anti fun" shut downs/explosions that make you a bit slower or fire worse would be really interesting.

Although I know you've all thought of this, can't help nerding out a bit now that I actually got excited over this game.

[Necrodemus]

I like this idea. In most machines that I deal with heat is not all or nothing. There are usually performance penalties incurred due to high heat well before there is a catastrophic malfunction or thermal shutdown. You could possibly take this a little further in that if you maintain that "in between" for too long you suffer permanent performance penalties even if you don't take it to the shutdown/explode point. Bearings failed due to warping from heat, hence you move/twist/aim slower. IC's suffer from electromigration, hence poor aiming, sporadic sensor readouts, mistargetting, etc. The list could go on and on. Admittedly it would add complexity, but I appreciate detail in a sim.

Edited by Necrodemus, 23 June 2012 - 11:37 PM.

[Freyar]

Couldn't one argue that shutdown is the "starting point" of that in-between?

[Necrodemus]

Freyar, on 23 June 2012 - 11:39 PM, said:

Couldn't one argue that shutdown is the "starting point" of that in-between?

I would think that in a machine designed for this purpose shutdown would be the last resort. Either shutdown or boom. It's up the the pilot to determine if they NEED to take the systems so far they cause some damage.

[Xando]

Something like this was in MW4 mercs. When your heat level got into the red, the mech would slow down and your hud would flicker.

[Regina Redshift]

One of the few MW games in recent memory to include movement penalties for heat was Dark Ages, and we all know how well that
went over.

I would like to see that play into the risk/reward scenarios for recon mechs. Sure, you can dig into the enemy with your PPC, but you might not be able to get out of the way of the retaliation volley. Maybe there's space in role warfare for the pilot to be able to counter-act the movement effects of overheating.

[RedDragon]

IIRC in MW3 your HUD became full of static whenever your heat level got too high.

I'm all for more penalties at higher heat levels. Make the mech go slower and the Hud blur a bit. Maybe even simulate the uppermost heat levels with "damage" to the pilot, i. e. something like the black-out you get in flight-sims under too many g's.

[Bobfrombobtown]

Archwright, on 25 June 2012 - 06:24 AM, said:

One of the few MW games in recent memory to include movement penalties for heat was Dark Ages, and we all know how well that
went over.

Wrong. Table Top heatscale from what's now called "Classic Battletech" had the following heat scale

H Level* Effects

30 Shutdown
28 Ammo Exp. avoid on 8+
26 Shutdown, avoid on 10+
25 –5 Movement Points
24 +4 Modifier to Fire
23 Ammo Exp. avoid on 6+
22 Shutdown, avoid on 8+
20 –4 Movement Points
19 Ammo Exp. avoid on 4+
18 Shutdown, avoid on 6+
17 +3 Modifier to Fire
15 –3 Movement Points
14 Shutdown, avoid on 4+
13 +2 Modifier to Fire
10 –2 Movement Points
8 +1 Modifier to Fire
5 –1 Movement Points

Edit: Also, I don't really believe any of the MW Game titles have handled the heat thing properly, though the last few came pretty close.

Edited by Bobfrombobtown, 30 June 2012 - 06:35 AM.

[Vaktor]

I kind of liked the way Mechwarrior 4 handled it although it seemed to me that I should have exploded a lot more than I did... They can always give penalties for convergence time if you have high heat as well to sort of make the effects more tangible... Maybe have a effect where your vision blurs a bit at higher heats to simulate the oppressive environment of a mech running too hot.

[Da Ugh 1701]

I believe that there has to be a cost to too much heat. I liked what they did on MW3 & 4, flickering the HUD but I also think they should slow the mech down, which I can't remember if that occured or not as it's been quite a bit of time since I've played the games. As for Ammo explosions, that might be tough for the programmers to configure, but it should be a risk. a way out of this might be to incorporate what they did in I believe MW4, give each mech a finite amount of extra coolant to flush into the mech to rapidly bring down the heat level

[Edustaja]

Yeah a sweating/blurred vision effect on the mechwarrior him/her self would be a hot thing
Also if your mech shuts down there should be a chance to fall over and damage both the warrior and the mech.

Edited by Edustaja, 30 June 2012 - 06:54 AM.

[Oy of MidWorld]

Edustaja, on 30 June 2012 - 06:53 AM, said:

Yeah a sweating/blurred vision effect on the mechwarrior him/her self would be a hot thing

Exactly! And with todays technology it's easy to achieve.

[Bobfrombobtown]

Yeah MW4 had the coolant flush ability. It was neat, even if it wasn't canon. Still, not a terrible idea though. And both MW3 and MW4 had the "holy crap my HUD is freaking out!" thing which would make it harder to hit a target since the targeting reticule would be broken up and jumping around all over the HUD. I feel like this is a fairly accurate way to demonstrate the "to-hit" penalties from the table top. I don't recall any movement penalties. But, I would like to see movement penalties introduced. The ammo explosions would be a bit trickier since I can already see some people raging about getting destroyed by their own inability to manage the heat build up.

[PhelenWard]

I think that as far as movement is concerned that over heating should slow a mech down by 10%-25%. As far as a mech building heat from movement, maybe on some desert or volvanic worlds but in moderat or ice worlds where a mech can dissapate heat faster it shouldn't be a problem.
Overriding a shut down should only result in actistofic falure if the pilot decides to keep firing. If the pilot just decides to try and get away or to cover. There should be a minimal risk of reactor overload.
As people have said earlier that effect like in MW4 for over heating should be incorporated.

Now I just lost my train of though and will post more if I remember what I was going to say......

[B4silisk]

First off, the "coolant flush" of mw4 was a terrible idea, it just got ridiculous with all the ppc/laser boats alpahing away all the time.

Secondly i really hope to see heat penalties and would rather enjoy seeing people blow themselves up because they didnt pay attention to their heat levels. It is a core mechanic of BT and i would love reading them rage about it... ok i like seing them suffer, but they don´t really deserve better in my opinion^^

[BFalcon]

PhelenWard, on 30 June 2012 - 07:10 AM, said:

I think that as far as movement is concerned that over heating should slow a mech down by 10%-25%. As far as a mech building heat from movement, maybe on some desert or volvanic worlds but in moderat or ice worlds where a mech can dissapate heat faster it shouldn't be a problem.
Overriding a shut down should only result in actistofic falure if the pilot decides to keep firing. If the pilot just decides to try and get away or to cover. There should be a minimal risk of reactor overload.
As people have said earlier that effect like in MW4 for over heating should be incorporated.

Now I just lost my train of though and will post more if I remember what I was going to say......

Well, heat does destroy/damage magnetism and that's all that's holding the fusion plasma from touching the side of the reactor... not saying it would explode, but perhaps it would cause it to go out or create a pressure-cooker-type explosion (after all, the pressure in the mech as a whole would be higher due to the heat buildup - and electronics and moving parts, such as the safety mechanisms might also be failing. Just a thought.

Ammo explosions and component failure in the weapons should be a real risk though.

B4silisk, on 30 June 2012 - 07:11 AM, said:

First off, the "coolant flush" of mw4 was a terrible idea, it just got ridiculous with all the ppc/laser boats alpahing away all the time.

Secondly i really hope to see heat penalties and would rather enjoy seeing people blow themselves up because they didnt pay attention to their heat levels. It is a core mechanic of BT and i would love reading them rage about it... ok i like seing them suffer, but they don´t really deserve better in my opinion^^

Agreed on both counts... nothing more funny than watching a newbie redesign a mech (often a Daishi) and then, when you point out the heat buildup, wondering why there's only a pair of legs left standing where his mech was.

[Bobfrombobtown]

I'm certainly not saying that there should not be ammo explosions, just that it's going be semi-difficult since the developers will need to make money on the game to keep it alive. This means that, while there is a large following of BT fans that may not be enough to keep the game sustainable in the long run so they need to make it appeal to the masses, like all those CoD kids and what not. These will also be the people running around alpha striking all the time and then crying when they get shutdown by too much heat or have an ammo explosion rip apart their 'mech from the inside out.

[DerMaulwurf]

Yes, this issomething that was missing from previous MW games and tilted balance even more towards energy weapons. Which wasn't needed at all.

Considering that missilies and ballistics are further handicapped by shooting money, I think this is needed.

[HRR Insanity]

Necroing this thread for further discussion.

The heat scale should have a downside to running at 80% constantly vs. 10% constantly.

[Aaron DeChavilier]

it's actually bewildering that the CBT heat scale wasn't implemented earlier on.