Passive heatsink warm up time

[-SM-SUCKER]

Reading the heatsink cost thread I had an idea how to reduce the effectiveness of alpha-strikes and yet keep the red line riding as it is now.
The basic idea is, that not all heatsinks need to be active.
If the asset needs to dissipate five points of heat, five heat sinks are active 100%. Or two DHS at 100% and another one at 50%.
Now if the heat increases a lot, by firing a/many weapons, the remaining heatsinks start working, but not in an instant, but with a short delay.
This means that the mech cannot dissipate heatspikes as fast as it can do now.
But if you keep the heat level at a continuous level, the mechanics are similar to the current ones.
I have to admit, that this seems rather complicated to implement, but this would render most mechs unable to deliver alpha strikes with energy weapons only. But chainfiring should be manageable.

[lordgrog]

Wut?

[General_Armchair]

^This is a heatsink.  It is made out metal with high thermal conductivity.  It has many small fins to increase its surface area and help radiate heat away from the heatsink.

How exactly do you intend to turn this hunk of metal "off"?

[1N4001]

Mechs are liquid-cooled. A fluid circulates all heat-producing components and the reactor, where it warms up. It then is pumped through radiators to dissipate that energy. These radiators are what Battletech calls heatsinks.

How do you "turn" heatsinks off? By bypassing them, duh. What did you think would happen once you lose an arm, "bleed" the mech out?

If you really wanted heat to become more realistic, a lot of complexity would need to be added. Temperature couldn't be measured uniformly anymore, hotspots would appear. Every weapon and the reactor would need its own temperature gauge. Coolant temperature would also vary over the entire machine. The effects of weapons fire on the reactor temperature would be far less prevalent (due to the massive heat capacity that water or water-based fluids offer) and it could take tens of seconds until it actually affects the temperature at all. etc...
Overall, not something we want, and not in the spirit of Battletech.

[TAX_MAN!]

Very silly.  The only reason you turned off heat sinks in battletech was for TSM.

[Spooky]

How do you "turn" heatsinks off? By bypassing them, duh. What did you think would happen once you lose an arm, "bleed" the mech out?

Bleeding mechs are often described in the books

[Mitchpate]

Heatsinks are turned on when the reactor is engaged.  There's no reason for them to be disabled on a vehicle powered by a fusion reactor.  When that sort of thing happens in RL they call it a nuclear disaster.

[=KoS=Zeus]

Heatsinks continue to work even when a mech is shut down, otherwise there would be no way to cool the mech down if the reactor shut down due to critical heat levels.

[ELH_Vivicector]

HS can be disabled, but it won't lead to any good result.

I understand the gameplay change behind the idea, it is not bad really. But it won't be Battletech anymore.

[Waffnuffly]

^This is a heatsink. 

Pfft, that's just a little chunk of metal slats. THIS is a heatsink:



If your heatsink doesn't look like it was invented by aliens or isn't big enough to nearly snap your motherboard in half, it's no heatsink!


Seriously WaytronX has to be the most clowned out cooler I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. Good god. (I actually have the Hyper 212 you posted and it's great)

[=CJW= Dhalrin]

THIS... is insanity!

[-SM-SUCKER]

I think we can be open minded when it comes to "realistic" behaviour of components in the BT universe. And heatsinks can be thought of active units. Compare them with a fridge if you like.
But if they have active parts, they can also be run at different rates.
And the basic idea is not related to how exactly this would work out in the BT universe or even in real life, but a way to change the current heat system just a bit.
Someone posted something about a game (or a ruleset) where the classic 10s rounds where split into five parts, and this changed the heat management and tactics around it.
But if the dev-team has no intention to change this particular part of the heat management, that is ok with me.

[=KoS= Tripod]

HS can be disabled, but it won't lead to any good result.

I understand the gameplay change behind the idea, it is not bad really. But it won't be Battletech anymore.

alphastriking to your heart's content and then just sipping some coolant slurpee so you can alpha strike some more isn't battletech, buddy

Hell, as it is, most mechs are pretty much useless once they run out of coolant because their DPS drops to 50% while everyone else is still playing with "no heat" rules and can continue munchkin spraying all weapons all the time

[=CJW= Zweistein000 (W)]

^This is a heatsink.  It is made out metal with high thermal conductivity.  It has many small fins to increase its surface area and help radiate heat away from the heatsink.

How exactly do you intend to turn this hunk of metal "off"?

 

[Taemien]

The fans that blow through the heatsinks can be turned off. Hatches can also be closed.