Heavy Duty v. Armored Gyro

[Hazard Pay]

As the title says, which do you think is better? Armored Gyros add 2t for a standard gyro, 1t for Compact (on top of the +50% weight of the Compact Gyro) and 3t for XL Gyros, which counters the weight loss the XLG grants.

Conversely the HD Gyro doubles weight for about the same effect, with the real benefit coming from if you’re running something with a 1t Gyro like an Urbanmech become a 2t.

I read the rules and they seem to operate roughly identical to one another.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

It is not something you need to think about much - armored gyro is always better for it grants the better effect for the lighter weight. The only time you ever consider a heavy gyro is when you make it armored as well for you are really fear for losing the gyro for a random reason.

Also heavy duty gyro does not have the same effect with the armored component; it's inferior to armored component due to it only makes the mech sustains 1 more gyro hit and it also cause the bad effect. While every single critical of armored part soaks a critical individually and leave the component all safe.

[Hellraiser]

As I'm a huge fan of Compact Gyros, I have to go Armored by default.

Not to say HD doesn't have its uses.  Just that I prefer Compact for the crit space so I have to go Armored as well.

[Lycanphoenix]

Armored Compact Gyro wins out over Heavy-Duty Gyro any day.
Now an Armored Heavy-Duty Gyro on the other hand... That's a different story.

[Retry]

Armored compact gyro still wins in that scenario because it's lighter and takes less space, as well as being much less likely to be hit in the first place.

Really, the Heavy Duty gyro is mostly there for flavour.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Like as compact heat sink, which sucks up larger slots than double heat sink on the reality and don't even fulfill its very reason of existence, but developed later than reintroduce of DHS.

Well, actually heavy duty gyro is better than compact heat sink, for it can be technically combined with armored component which is its superior replacement(although it is unlikely that you ever need to do that), while compact heat sink does not.

[Lycanphoenix]

Compact Heat Sinks are useful as an upgrade for things like the UrbanMech. That puny engine can't hold very many heat sinks normally, and the UrbanMech doesn't typically need the extra heat dissipation of Double Heat Sinks.

[Retry]

The Urbanmech doesn't need to save the crits.  There's just not enough crits being consumed from other systems (like advanced armor or structures) that compact sinks are necessary for its function.  In fact having the sinks outside the engine is a net benefit for the design because the heat sinks can take crits in lieu of other important systems like your guns, engines, gyros, etc.

SHS Urbies would benefit more from DHS upgrades than CHS upgrades for the same reason; even if they run perfectly cool on SHS alone, more heat sink slots means a lower likelihood that a critical hit ends up crippling.

[Hazard Pay]

Only reason you'd use C-HS is if you're really Crit starved, like if you're usign HFFA + Endo + XL etc. and no weapons at all so heat dissipation is uneeded. Like some kind of Scout. Scratch that, C-HS are really dead ends, even more so than the Blazers and are on par with HVACs than anything else.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

It's worth noting that crit starved as well as has lower engine rating to ship most of its stock heat sink within the engine, not only crit starved. For heavier mechs, sometimes it's better to push the engine rating far more than ideal weight to buy more internal heat sink capacity. But for light mechs sometimes it's not so easy.

Still CHS is only useful on very, very specific situation over DHS, makes it usually neglectable. You better forget about it for good, until when you face the situation that you really, really need to even consider CHS for a very weird reason.

Anyway, back to the topic, heavy duty gyro is not something useful unless you cannot use armored component, or you need extreme durability on gyro specifically for some reason. But... is the condition really required?