Heat Levels Critical

One thing I want to do in this blog is dig into the systems of MW:O. In particular, systems that seems to have a lot of misunderstanding/arguments within the community. Today, we will discuss heat.

Before I begin, I would like to point out that a lot of the in game weapon stats and the handy chart pictured below are care of Ohmwrecker, I will put his information at the bottom of the post. You should go check out his YouTube channel; he knows something about this gameJ.

So to begin the conversation with heat, you have to begin with the table top implementation of it. I will attempt to keep it fairly simple so that we may move on to the important parts.

Heating the table

Heat Chart from the Battletech rulebook

In table top Battletech, heat calculations are done in one phase at the end of a turn. All forms of heat generation (weapons fire, movement, etc.) and heat dissipation (heat sinks, water submersion, etc.) are calculated simultaneously. Heat generation adds to the total, and dissipation is subtracted from. The final result is applied to the previous heat, and then impact is calculated. As your heat climbs, you slow down, it is harder to hit, emergency shut downs were performed and ammo can explode. This is all based on a maximum of thirty heat “points”. It is important to note that in Battletech, one turn is ten seconds.

The “Problem” with MW:O

MechWarrior Online Weapons Cart Via Ohmwrecker

In MW:O heat sinks are designed to function exactly the same way as their table top brethren. Each heat sink reduces your total heat by one every ten seconds (or .1 every second). So if you have ten heat sinks, you heat is reduced by one a second. Likewise, with few exceptions, all weapons generate the same heat as they did in the table top rules. That is where the system begins to break down, and the arbitrary ten second rounds take its toll.

While the heat sinks are working on a ten second timer the weapon systems are generally working on a one to four second timer. This means that most weapons are firing at least three times more, and thus generating three times more heat, then the table top is designed to equate for. Many people point to this as to the reason why heat mechanics are “broken” in MW:O.

Note: to compensate for the ten second round, the “max heat” of a mech in MW:O is 30 + number of heat sinks.

So what is “Heat” anyways?

Heat is designed to provide a balance to a mech just doing everything it possibly can in a round, and also to be a balance to ammo-less weapon systems such as PPCs, and lasers. Almost all weapons generate heat. Ballistics generally creates less heat, but use up ammo. Energy weapons generate far more heat (almost double in many cases) but have no ammo. And missiles are a mix of heat and ammo. Ammo obviously requires tonnage to bring, and heat requires heat sinks to dissipate.

Note: In MW:O moving does also impact heat, however it is still in balance with the table top rules. They did this by effectively removing heat sinks while moving, whereas water effectively adds heat sinks.

The Million Dollar Question

So the real point to all this is does the current heat system break balance in favor of ballistics, in particular the Gauss Cannon, that generates next to no heat for very high damage. The answer is yes and no. Like many things, reality refuses simplicity. Let’s say a Catapult K2 with twin Gauss annons can fire five times before the enemy figures out that moving is a good idea. That would take twenty seconds and he would deal 150 damage for an average of 7.5 damage per second. Meanwhile another Catapult K2 ops to have twin PPC. The PPC fires once every three seconds, so to be generous let’s give him twenty-one seconds of fire. In that time the twin PPCs will deal 140 damage, and fire seven times with an average of 6.66 damage per second. Also, during this time it generates 140 heat, well beyond anything that any mech could possibly handle. In fact, that K2 would require forty tons of heat sinks in order to sustain this firepower, plus the fourteen tons for the PPCs, you only are left with eleven tons for everything else. Meanwhile, ten shots for the Gauss K2 is thirty-one tons (thirty for the twin Gauss, one extra for the ten rounds). By this logic one could confirm that the Gauss is superior in every single way and rage and wine about balance surrounding heat.

And they would be half right

The problem is that the above theory-crafted scenario is totally impractical. First, the idea of an enemy allowing you to fire non-stop for 20 seconds is impractical. Second, the target would be dead long before this was over. Third, you must take into consideration that after this time is over; the Gauss at is now out of ammo (which can be fixed by adding more tonnage). Fourth, you fail to take into consideration the time off target benefit of heat weapons.

Once contact with the enemy is lost, the efficiency of heatless weapons drops dramatically. After four seconds (the reload time of Gauss), those thirty tons of guns are doing nothing, and getting you nowhere. Meanwhile the PPC K2 is continuing to dissipate heat, making him more prepared for the next engagement. Given enough short breaks in combat by proper use of cover, energy weapons are more effective over the entire course of the game. It is extremely rare to be able to sustain fire over more than ten seconds without at least an opportunity for breaking combat to occur. All the while every shot from the projectiles/missiles that miss means loss of combat potential overall.

While I am not saying it is 100% balanced, I do say that making any drastic changes to the system at the moment would be throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This issue will also see changes as we move to twelve v. twelve as ammo conservation becomes a bigger deal. Simply speaking, counters do exist, and reasons exist to utilize both weapons (even more so if PPCs will start ruining enemy targeting). Simply looking at one side of the problem will ruin more game balance then it solved.

Once again, thanks to Ohmwrecker for pervading the stats and chart used to create this blog. He has several such charts which I will list below. Check them out, and check out his YouTube channel. Be advised: it is up to him to update the information displayed.

Ohmwrecker's Hardpoint Chart
Ohmwrecker's Weapon Chart
Ohmwrecker's Engine Cheat-sheet
Ohmwrecker's Engine Values
Ohmwrecker's YouTube