17 replies to this topic

[HRR Insanity]

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Phlyk - Are we ever going to see gradual decreased to the performance of our mechs based on current heat levels. E.g. having higher heat may mean slower movement and less accuracy (represented by slower RoF maybe?). Are we going to see critical hits on built in mech components such as actuators?
A: No plans to at this time. However, each of these systems is always undergoing tweaks, and we may see something like this in the future.

At present, heat is a binary outcome. You either hit the top of the heat bar and shut down or heat NEVER impacts you. Thus, weapons that generate heat currently are balanced to generate substantially more heat than necessary so the binary condition affects the game.

If mid points on the heat bar affected the game, then the heat for each weapon be slightly reduced and it would make them feel more like BattleTech.

For instance:

25% heat - 20% movement speed penalty
50% heat - 40% movement speed penalty, weapons recycle 10% more slowly
75% heat - 60% movement speed penalty, weapons recycle 30% more slowly
100% heat - shutdown

This would go a long way towards making heat an actual downside...

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

HAHA this is exactly what I was looking for.

There need to be progressive heat penalties for mechs, simple as that, Heat right now, outside of high heat builds, is an afterthought. you build a mech, make sure you have a decent heat eff so you don't shut down mid battle, and go.

There needs to be something more than just worrying about hitting the heat cap.

And this is something that only the battletech pods has ever delt with... no mechwarrior game has really given in to progressive heat issues [mw4 though I think did slow your mech down a bit at higher heats...though I may be just thinking it did]

[Dagnome]

I dont think id agree with movement speed as your base heat is based on your engine, etc. What I would like to see is for them to implement some feature where as follows:

Lets say I am in a mech which generates 35% heat on an alpha strike. I strike once and my heat is at 40% (Lets say I run a 5% as a base). If I then alpha again I would generate not only the 35% heat my weapons cause but an additional % based on how hot my mech is when I fire my weapons. It could be based on some form of scale such as:

10-25% heat = additional 5-10 heat produced
25-50^ heat = Additional 15-20 heat produced
etc, etc. (Obviously a very rough idea/scale)

As it stands now when i see a mech that doesn't run hot or at least warm during a fight I don't consider them doing enough, unless of course they have a 80% alpha strike.

[Smudge504]

i'm sorry but thats just nonsense... if you have a 3 ppc awesome and you fire 1 volley your routed to the spot and can't fire again because of the lengthened recycle time, it just won't work, the way it works now is fine, why fix something that isn't broken?

Edited by Smudge504, 09 February 2013 - 12:38 PM.

[SuomiWarder]

A lot of light pilots carrying lasers and no extra heat sinks would find their style cramped by loss of speed by heat scale. Not that I would mind much. It would be the same for everyone.

Torso twist and weapon tracking should be slower when your myomer muscles are piping hot....but do I really want that bit of "realist feel" to stop me from getting off one last desperate shot when I'm top of heat scale with an enemy nose to nose with me?

I don't know. Trade offs between expected "real feel" and ability be be heroic and save yourself are hard choices.

I suppose some sort of slight degradation for upper heat levels would be good.

[AndyHill]

Well I think the idea is you wouldn't fire alphas that much so you're not rooted to the spot etc. I'm not sure about the given numbers, but I think pinpoint alpha strikes are one of the biggest issues when translating tabletop rules into a real-time simulation and penalizing them has potential to improve improve balance and playability.

[Tarman]

I like the concept, IDK about actual number projections but the idea itself is interesting. Some type of heatscale issues could be challenging if it's done right. And really really annoying if done poorly.

[Merky Merc]

For realistic feel I expect weapons themselves to see the effects of overheating, not my mech. Rattling away with an AC? Yeah now that weapon overheats, slow your fire rates or the barrel is going to melt. Firing missiles? Vent that exhaust out the back of the launcher away from the mech. Etc etc

Or they can just leave it working like it is now, the same way it worked in MW3 and MW4

[De La Fresniere]

Heat limits how often you can fire, so high heat generation and/or low heat dissipation definitely are very significant already. I would have picked different weapons and wouldn't run around with 19 DHS if those stats didn't have a clear downside (voluntarily slower rate of fire, forced shutdown or internal damage).

Your proposed change would make heat more of a gradual detriment. I don't think that would be a bad thing, but I don't really see how it would be better either. It'd just work differently.

I could see some side-effects, though. This would affect fast mechs more than slow ones. An Atlas already can't dodge any attack, so it wouldn't care about lowered speed all that much... but for a Light mech to drop from 130 km/h to 78 km/h, that's a death sentence.

This type of change to heat would have to be carefully considered and tested. I may be biased because I don't care about BattleTech techno-babble, but I'm not sure all that work would be worth the time expense, especially considering PGI's entire team is, like, two guys and the janitor's little cousin who's "really good with computers".

[Zero Neutral]

I dislike this idea intensely. No thank you.

I do not want my movement limited because I am owning, thanks.

[Kyrie]

Zero Neutral, on 09 February 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

I dislike this idea intensely. No thank you.

I do not want my movement limited because I am owning, thanks.

It would, however, be true to BT.

Being able to fire endlessly with practically no penalty is skewing the overall balance; this is the main reason we can't have true DHS in the developers' eyes.

[Frank the Tank]

Merky Merc, on 09 February 2013 - 12:53 PM, said:

For realistic feel I expect weapons themselves to see the effects of overheating, not my mech. Rattling away with an AC? Yeah now that weapon overheats, slow your fire rates or the barrel is going to melt. Firing missiles? Vent that exhaust out the back of the launcher away from the mech. Etc etc

Or they can just leave it working like it is now, the same way it worked in MW3 and MW4

I never understood either how heat from an AC's barrel or LRM missile tubes effected the core temperature of the fusion engine, or how heat sinks in the legs could cool an AC's barrel. Aren't the heatsinks linked to the engine? I understand energy weapons or movement producing heat, because they are drawing power directly from the engine. However, the entire game is "balanced" around the current heat mechanics. If missiles and AC's used individual heat scales it would really complicate balance to energy weapons.

That being said I could get behind moderate penalties for heat, but maybe not as drastic.

[FrupertApricot]

GOD YES. get rid of the huge f ucking heat capacity we have now, give heat sinks canon sink value (hell boost em both to 2x canon value to make up for 3x reload speeds and give us HEAT BASED PENALTIES

Movement speed. Cockpit/crosshair flicker/jitter, weapon cycle speeds, EARLY AMMO EXPLOSIONS.

Holy **** thats how you balance splatapults. make high heat risk ammo splosions before the 100 percent mark. muahahah

[Phlyk]

I have already asked about this in the Q&A

Quote

Phlyk Are we ever going to see gradual decreased to the performance of our mechs based on current heat levels. E.g. having higher heat may mean slower movement and less accuracy (represented by slower RoF maybe?). Are we going to see critical hits on built in mech components such as actuators?
A: No plans to at this time. However, each of these systems is always undergoing tweaks, and we may see something like this in the future.

I think it would be nice to try increasing the maximum heat capacity (double?) and maybe the cooldown rate slightly in exchange for gradual deterioration. Make it a real choice to manage your heat instead of just trying not to hit 100%

However, it does not seem that it will happen soon, but fingers crossed.

[Kroxloq]

This would add a whole new level of interaction between performance/heat! A skilled player would know when to let the heat build up for more DPS potential and when to keep the heat low so you can maneuver/aim without heat penalties.

bump for great justice!

[Deamhan]

Sure they can have heat effects but if they do then I want to see the physics improved. That is, the greater the difference in temperature between the thing that is hot and the cooling medium, the greater the transfer rate of heat. Thus, the higher the %, the faster the rate it goes down. As it goes down, the rate slows down.

Edited by Deamhan, 09 February 2013 - 01:25 PM.

[GODzillaGSPB]

I like the idea, though the penalties are MUCH to high. Implemented like this, it will be like a killing blow to the game. Most people will crawl over the field, I can almost see it in my minds eye lol.

I'd start slowly. Even a 10% speedtweak is currently considered a big improvement, the appropriate pilot tree skill is a great one imho and it takes quite some effort to go there. If this can be countered via a quadrupled malus just by one button press too many (50% heat --> 40% speed loss as per your idea), this would greatly diminish the worth of that accomplishment!

I'd cap the malus to 25%, maybe 30% at maximum heat. Trust me, that's enough of a incentive NOT to reach max heat.

[HRR Insanity]

Smudge504, on 09 February 2013 - 12:37 PM, said:

i'm sorry but thats just nonsense... if you have a 3 ppc awesome and you fire 1 volley your routed to the spot and can't fire again because of the lengthened recycle time, it just won't work, the way it works now is fine, why fix something that isn't broken?

I think you missed the part where I said that the Devs could then lower the heat on weapons (or make heat sinks more efficient) without making boated energy weapons completely ridiculous.

Zero Neutral, on 09 February 2013 - 01:02 PM, said:

I dislike this idea intensely. No thank you.

I do not want my movement limited because I am owning, thanks.

The reason you are theoretically 'owning' is because the Developers haven't managed to figure out how to balance heat.