A new heat system

[~SJ~MausGMR]

There's a clear problem with the current system for mechs which go over 9 DHS additional. Novacat's have no real heat management issues, for example, but clan mechs with cerppc's such as the Loki prime and Madcat A, which have half the number of ppc's + fairly low heat backup weapons, and whilst having less heatsinks than the Novacat C, have well over half the cooling efficiency the novacat C has (The loki prime has 70% cooling efficiency compared to the Novacat C), and yet have massive heat buildup problems compared to the nova C. Unfortunately it seems like once you pass a certain thresh hold with heatsinks, heat no longer because an issue.

Compare this to low heatsink mechs, The mk2 prime for example, which although is a gauss/missile boat, has terrible overheating problems after engagement has been made. The same is found with the UAC20 variant, the B, that can barely manage a good rate of fire even at night on extremity. The Hollander A is another great example, if it MASC's to full Heat, it takes around 15-20 seconds to dissipate the whole load, well over CBT values, and well over any desirable cooling speed for a mech that needs its MASC to stay at distance during engagements.

I've suggested this system myself, although in a vaguely simpler form, simply stating that heatsinks should equal capacity, not cooling rate. Currently low heat sink mechs cool at terrible rates, and thus have heavy problems utilising things like jump jets without constantly overheating themselves to the point of suicide, yet high heat sink mechs barely even notice the heat build up.

Overall, it's either going to take a hell of a lot of tweaking (which will all be overridden with the eventual inclusion of mechlab, as I imagine it will be done on an individual asset by asset level), or it's going to need a system overall. As much as it's a pain, I do believe something needs to be done.

[=KoS=Zeus]

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/forum/index.php/board,10.0.html

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/forum/index.php/topic,7470.0.html

If this has changed and the numbers for the systems are willing to be shared, then I would love to know.

[Leeko]

+100 for this thread HAARP

I love your ideas about how heat should work, if you're willing to let volunteers (like Zeus ) have at it I can imagine these changes making the mod a whole lot better.

[Taemien]

This system and the current system have something that I just don't tend to like. They both use heatsinks to cool a mech. Rather then keep it cool.

What the hell am I talking about? 

With a certain number of heatsinks, it should allow you to fire a certain number of weapons without even having the heat level rise. Basically the heatsinks do their job and vent out all the heat. In some of the cooler mechs, they'll never have heat issues unless assaulted by outside factors such as flamers, infernos, or environment.

But this system would be much harder to implement and balance then the current system or the one proposed. But it would help with customizability when mechlabs hit.

[xInVicTuSx]

There's a clear problem with the current system for mechs which go over 9 DHS additional. Novacat's have no real head management issues, for example, but clan mechs with cerppc's such as the Loki prime and Madcat A, which have half the number of ppc's + fairly low heat backup weapons, and whilst having less heatsinks than the Novacat C, have well over half the cooling efficiency the novacat C has (The loki prime has 70% cooling efficiency compared to the Novacat C), and yet have massive heat buildup problems compared to the nova C. Unfortunately it seems like once you pass a certain thresh hold with heatsinks, heat no longer because an issue.

Compare this to low heatsink mechs, The mk2 prime for example, which although is a gauss/missile boat, has terrible overheating problems after engagement has been made. The same is found with the UAC20 variant, the B, that can barely manage a good rate of fire even at night on extremity. The Hollander A is another great example, if it MASC's to full Heat, it takes around 15-20 seconds to dissipate the whole load, well over CBT values, and well over any desirable cooling speed for a mech that needs its MASC to stay at distance during engagements.

I've suggested this system myself, although in a vaguely simpler form, simply stating that heatsinks should equal capacity, not cooling rate. Currently low heat sink mechs cool at terrible rates, and thus have heavy problems utilising things like jump jets without constantly overheating themselves to the point of suicide, yet high heat sink mechs barely even notice the heat build up.

Overall, it's either going to take a hell of a lot of tweaking (which will all be overridden with the eventual inclusion of mechlab, as I imagine it will be done on an individual asset by asset level), or it's going to need a system overall. As much as it's a pain, I do believe something needs to be done.

Thank you for pointing out all the little inconvenient truths about the current heat system which have slipped everyones mind to far.

[Virt]

I would much prefer we maintain a realistic approach to heat dissipation, rather than some unrealistic contrivance of rules which are designed to satisfy someone's perceived game balance needs.   

My point of view reflects my general perference for the physics in MWLL to lean more towards "simulator" than "game"*






* Of course, it's not possible for MWLL to be fully sim-like, given the inherent implausibilities of the subject matter, and limitations of the Crysis engine.   But we can still  make choices to be more realistics vs less realistic, on subjects such as this one.

[Rhiawhyn Zerinth]

I had allways thought that heatsinks were just to pump out the heat, which made me think of this for a little while.

mechs have two heat values, accumulative heat and reactor temperature. Accumulated heat is the mechs overall temperature, if this gets to high the mech (and pilot, but thats not something to worry about in mwll) starts taking damage. this level reduces fairly slowly with its overall capacity being based on the amount of sinks you have.

Reactor temperature varrys wildly, heatsinks will directly pump the reactors exess heat out of it rapidly and add what they cannot remove into the overall heat (much like CBT when you fire weapons over your cooling value). Rather then limiting the amount of times you can fire without waiting, it limits how FAST you can fire (or alpha), mechs like the novacat would cool its reactor extremely quickly, but overall have a hard time keeping its overall temperature cool due to the sheer heat generation.

Note, accumulated heat only cools faster or slower based on your environment, heat sinks will only speed it up >slightly<, instead of speeding the cooling up, they allow you to fire heat generating weapons for overall longer without having to stop.

How does this impact gameplay you ask? simple, fights will be more dynamic, heat in mechs will often stay fairly high but a good pilot will be able to manage HOW high while still laying down adequate fire. Flamer carrying mechs will heat the targets overall heat up fairly quickly, as nothing can directly heat up the reactor until the mechs heat capacity has been reached. If you for example have maximum heat capacity for the mech and it is full, any further heat will raise the base temperature of the reactor, making it harder to fight effectively with energy weapons (or anything for that matter that isint a small ac or machine gun) it will eventually reach a point where you will have to force your reactor to stay online. this however risks a detonation if you do, if the reactor reaches 1.5x the maximum heat it can take, it will detonate. (if your mech is green with low heat accumulated, you will just lose your back armor and take half torso damage.. in a fight when you are allready damaged... boom)

Coolant will be interesting, rather then cooling the reactor, coolant is you flushing out heat from the mech itself, rapidly reducing accumulated heat levels. this allows you to continue fighting or take more heat related attacks. if you are in the red (and thusly increasing your reactors temp) you lower the reactors base first then the overall.


Just a thought (or two) on the heat system, i figured it would be realistic (somewhat), and considering that it works very similerly to CBTs heat system, it should at least satisfy some of the CBT people here (heat sinks will remove x heat per turn, generate more heat and it adds to a total level, get to high and you explode/take damage per round until it lowers to a safe level)


TL;DR, Your mech has overall heat and reactor temperature, heatsinks will pump out heat from the reactor to a base level into your overall cap. Overall capacity will be based on how many sinks you have, it will cool based on your environment.  (water if possible should increase this. submerge a mech and you will be hard pressed to overheat your mech, hell putting just your legs in it should help immensely) Weapons that add heat to a mech will not add to a reactor, rather add to the mechs overall heat. Reactor temperature will vary wildly throughout a fight, where as the overall will constantly rise at a slow but steady rate (or rapid if the mech in question is an energy boater constantly shooting)

[Threesan]

^ I would think venting reactor plasma (flamer) onto (thermal conductivity-based heat pump) heatsinks would serve to reduce the cooling efficiency for the target's heatsinks, thereby increasing the temperature of the reactor. Not as much as dumping heat directly into the core, but still noticeably, I would imagine.

Also, now I want to see a hot Mech boiling water =| (Wonder what that would do to framerate...)

[Rhiawhyn Zerinth]

It would and it wouldn't, they are made to pull heat away from the reactor, until they have no more capacity left that heat will stay in the sinks, afterwords it will rapidly heat up the reactor or even explode it if you hold them on the mech for a little longer (although shutting down keeps the reactor at 0 temperature regardless, meaning while yes you take damage from heat if at max capacity, you don't go critical as the reactor is OFF.)

As to the boiling, you could get this by giving the mechs a vtol style plume of "steam" when over a heat threshold, would look wonky though, and may not only work in water as you may have that on lava too.. or anything liquid for that mater

[(TLL) Heretic]

Found the old thread for those who missed it (because we're going over old ground now):

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/forum/index.php/topic,10045.0.html


5 CERLarge = 947.5 Heat

Now the Lasers discharge over a full second, if it was instant then 947.5 heat would damage the 'mech, so we can assume:

Heat Capacity of 'mechs in MWLL = 900 Heat.

Solution:  Drop the Heat Capacity to 450 Heat and leave the Heat Sinks alone.

How this would effect gameplay: Alpha strikes from energy boats would auto shutdown and damage the machine, folks would start chain firing ERLarge in groups of 2, ERPPCs one at a time and so on.

Really this is the simplest thing that could be done and the easiest solution IMO.

[(TLL)Siilk]

 Interesting fact, CBT NCat prime would have to make a piloting roll after first alpha to override shutdown(due to heat spike) and will start next round with heat at around half of it's maximum heat capacity(with part of the heat spike dissipated by heatsinks). It will go into unoverrideable shutdown after two consistent alphastrikes.  After a round in shutdown it will cool down back to half of it's max heat.

 While it could be seen as being close to what we have in MWLL, keep in mind, that our alphastrikes are, as were pointed out in this already, instant while CBT(which is, of course not MWLL) aplhas are stretched in time through 10 seconds period. That effectively means CBT NCat will shutdown if fired all it's weapons twice per 20 seconds. And how many times can MWLL NCat fire in 20 secs without being critically overheated(given no coolant usage is allowed)? 4 times? 5? And it not necessary means to fire all weapons at once, as MWLL chainfire could pass as CBT aplha, if conducted in relatively short period, that is less than 10 secs.

[HAARP]

I would much prefer we maintain a realistic approach to heat dissipation, rather than some unrealistic contrivance of rules which are designed to satisfy someone's perceived game balance needs.   

Virt, don't doubt my motives in an attempt to devalue the thread. You miss the point, whether intentional or not. Keep our personal feud out of this please.

wall o' text

This introduces a lot of unneeded complexity. While real-world physics are not necessarily a bad thing, it would re-introduce the problems I mentioned at the top of my thread. What good is a 0-1000 heat scale if it never goes under 500 in most conditions? I'm at 950, can I fire weapon X and stay below 999? This is not useful at all, and I'm not talking about the difficulty of heat management. I want it to increase actually.

My goal is to give the player a clear view of the heat he creates and dissipates with a nice, linear scale. When that is established,  heat can be made the focal point of weapons fire, therefore enhancing the simulation aspect. A simulation in a Science-Fiction universe is not defined by real-life physics The whole concept of walking tanks would collapse on itself if we did that.

This would bother me to noooo end being a mechanical engineer and having done heat transfer calculations.

Same goes for this. I'm an engineer aswell btw and don't see the problem though. This issue actually CAN be explained with real-life physics. Think of mech heatsinks as actually being radiators in a closed-loop water-cooling system. More radiators increase the dissipation rate but also store more water to increase heat capacity aswell.

While the community is free to make whatever concepts and designs that they so choose, I currently do not see a need for a radical revisioning of the method by which heat is managed within MWLL.  While the system is not perfect, I would volunteer that no system truly is, nor would even a "perfect" system satisfy all users due to the preponderance and wild range of opinion.
 
There will likely be some tweaks to the MWLL heat system going forward, especially as we introduce new features and weaponry, but the project simply does not have a manpower budget to undergo a massive refactoring of heat.  I would much rather spend that effort on the development of new features and systems for the game.
 
To summarise: "[it] may not be exactly as you envision it, but that does not mean [it] is broken"

I was expecting this answer
I don't think this will ever be implemented due to the work needed, but that doesn't mean the current system isn't broken. Just have a look at most of the answers in this thread Leer, heat is problematic, and the best solution would be a new system indeed.
I'm a perfectionist, I can't help it...

[Cloudburst]

I read the whole thread, and, through all the posts I very much don't doubt that HAARPs heat system would fix the problems it intends to fix. Beyond that, I don't see much thought to be made, as there is in here a whole system that would require game testing to truly identify things.

One other thing that came to mind: Do you like apples, and do you like oranges? Do you prefer oranges over apples, or apples over oranges? Do you have no opinion, and will eat whatever you must? Will you grudgingly eat apples, or will you grudgingly eat oranges? Do you have any medical issues associated to eating apples and/or oranges? Are you inclined to debate the fact that the apples or oranges you are eating are ripe, or not? Do you outdo yourself on finding the right price for your apples and/or oranges? Do you absolutely love apples and oranges, and somehow want to find a way to combine the taste of the two? Or do you simply just not eat either?

[Virt]

Virt, don't doubt my motives in an attempt to devalue the thread. You miss the point, whether intentional or not. Keep our personal feud out of this please.

1. I didn't know we were having a 'feud'.   (Sounds childish, so let's not.)   

2. I didn't devalue the thread, nor did I try to.   My comment on the idea of changing the heat system is: "Whatever we do with it, I'd prefer that the heat be managed realistically and not in some unrealistic manner."

I trust this clears up your apparent misunderstanding of my earlier post, which was only intended to contribute in a meaningful way to the direction of the thread.   I note that others have since posted with a similar point of view, about how to make heat management generally in keeping with the real world laws of thermodynamics.

[zombat]

Found the old thread for those who missed it (because we're going over old ground now):

http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/forum/index.php/topic,10045.0.html


5 CERLarge = 947.5 Heat

Now the Lasers discharge over a full second, if it was instant then 947.5 heat would damage the 'mech, so we can assume:

Heat Capacity of 'mechs in MWLL = 900 Heat.

Solution:  Drop the Heat Capacity to 450 Heat and leave the Heat Sinks alone.

How this would effect gameplay: Alpha strikes from energy boats would auto shutdown and damage the machine, folks would start chain firing ERLarge in groups of 2, ERPPCs one at a time and so on.

Really this is the simplest thing that could be done and the easiest solution IMO.

All assets actually have a heat capacity of 1000 before they start taking damage (you can easily test it with a low heatsink masc unit (eg. Thantos C))


Btw, the Novacat already can fire 2 CERPPC and cool completely in 5-6 seconds, so I don't see how HAARPs idea would change much other than giving low heatsink designs even more heat management issues.

Also all mechs have around 10 free SINGLE heat sinks, giving them a base cooling rate of ~40 per second.
Single heatsinks cool at 4 heat per sink
Double HS cools at 8/sec per sink
Coolant adds 4 cooling per sink