HBS Heat Banks...

[Daryk]

I may have missed it somewhere, but I don't recall seeing anyone proposing any rules for how Heat Banks work in the video game.  My shot at it is below.

Heat Bank
Heat Banks aren't particularly efficient heat management equipment, but they do offer an alternative to Heat Sinks.  A basic Heat Bank can absorb 5 heat, and does so at a rate of 1 point per 2 points not dissipated by a 'mech's Heat Sinks (rounding down).  For example, if a 'mech overheats by 5 points, 2 would go into the Heat Bank, leaving the 'mech with only 3 heat.  Points of heat accumulated in a Heat Bank are dissipated last by the rest of a 'mech's cooling system.  Once a Heat Bank has reached its capacity, it no longer absorbs any heat.  A basic Heat Bank weighs 1.5 tons, and takes up 4 critical spaces.

Improved Heat Bank
Imperfectly leveraging Inner Sphere Double Heat Sink technology, an Improved Heat Bank can absorb 10 heat, but weighs 2 tons, and takes up 7 critical spaces.

[Hptm. Streiger]

 :-X isn't this how a heat sink works  :o
because you don't have the space to radiate your heat you use coolant to safe it temporary. Of course, you can also release the coolant (that could help to keep your Mech from melting).

Speaking off that heat bank necessarily need to be "flushed" in a couple of rounds - so it builds up 1 heat per round in every round it contains extra heat.
Its optional that you can flush extra heat - but the Heat Bank is not longer workable (this could be used for other heatsinks as well if modified)

[Daryk]

Not quite... Heat sinks flush the heat overboard immediately.

[The_Caveman]

They should have named Heat Sinks something else, like Heat Pumps based on the way they work. A true heat sink is more like a battery--it has a certain capacity that can be filled up and it drains to the environment over time.

If you limited heat dissipation to the 10 freebie sinks in the engine (rename them Radiators) and treated all other sinks as "heat banks" it'd go a long way toward fixing Double HS supremacy...

[Daryk]

Oh, I see... Hptm. Streiger meant REAL heat sinks... in that case, yes, that's how they work.  Not BattleTech ones, though...

[Hptm. Streiger]

Not quite... Heat sinks flush the heat overboard immediately.

no they are real heat sinks, they radiate heat (see the heat sink pictures have radiators. In terms of BT they have a round time to release that extra heat.

heat bank is just an additional tank of coolant that can "store" more heat.

[SCC]

no they are real heat sinks, they radiate heat (see the heat sink pictures have radiators. In terms of BT they have a round time to release that extra heat.

This isn't how heat sinks work IRL.

[Retry]

Not quite... Heat sinks flush the heat overboard immediately.

The stuff I find on BT Heat Sinks explicitly describes them as heat pumps.  I can't find anything about flushing the coolant overboard.  Unless you meant the heat is being dumped overboard.

They should have named Heat Sinks something else, like Heat Pumps based on the way they work. A true heat sink is more like a battery--it has a certain capacity that can be filled up and it drains to the environment over time.

I agree in principle but I think it's a few decades too late to start renaming things now.

Heat sinks are really more like "heat transfer enhancement devices" than a literal energy sink, at least in terms of electronics.  That's exactly why heat-generating electronic components usually have those big old fin structures and sometimes fans mounted on them, to increase the surface area and to help convect excess heat away from the chip, not necessarily to absorb the heat itself (although it does do a bit of that).

If all it's doing is absorbing heat without actually conducting/convecting/radiating any of it away, that just means you're going to burn out that chip (or Battlemech) in 10 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

If the goal is to put heat into your sink without letting that energy escape (like a Battery), then it's a thermal energy storage device rather than a heat sink.  But that's nothing like either circuit heat sinks or Battletech heat sinks.

[SCC]

What BT calls heat sinks are really heat pumps AKA Air Conditioners, this is explicitly mentioned in Tech Manual if I remember correctly. Interestingly a quick visit to Wikipedia reveals the set up does actually include a proper heat sink, the outside air.

[Daryk]

*snip*
Unless you meant the heat is being dumped overboard.
*snip*

Yep, that's exactly what I meant.

[Retry]

I see.  Although passively radiating or convecting the heat away would be an option for heat control, until the environment gets hotter than the mech at least.  But I guess that's why BT's "heat sinks" are heat pumps.

I do quite like the idea of the Heat Bank though.  Maybe it should be a bit simpler though.  Say for instance, just remove the rule that the Heat Bank absorbs only 1 point for every 2 points of heat and just let it absorb the excess "at will", as I don't think that adds much other than an extra hurdle to keep track of.  Then it's useful for giving a bit of a buffer for alpha striking, charging PPC capacitors, and getting hit by unlucky inferno shells.  If you additionally allow the player to choose how much excess heat to absorb or to maintain the heat at a certain level, it'll make them useful as heat management devices for TMS as well, as you can get a bit of a buffer to stay at the TMS's sweet spot.

[Daryk]

I see what you mean, but that's not how they apparently work in the HBS game, which is what I was trying to emulate.

[Retry]

I see what you mean, but that's not how they apparently work in the HBS game, which is what I was trying to emulate.

Fair.  It's a good way to emulate the HBS game.  I'm of the mind that it doesn't have to be a 1-to-1 conversion.  The HBS game certainly isn't a 1-to-1 conversion of the board game, after all.

I mostly just don't want to see yet another piece of equipment that ends up inferior to existing equipment/weapons and thus ends up used on one or two new shiny things and is forgotten immediately afterwards.  The various rulebooks are full of weapons and equipment like that.

(Off-topic, but would you think the Thermal Exchanger would be worth replicating in some form as well?)

[Daryk]

Hmmm... I'll have to give that one some thought.  Since the HBS game multiplied heat values, percentages made more sense as a reduction.

[Colt Ward]

IMO Heat Banks would not affect your actual heat dissipation . . . rather it affects the heat scale.  Instead of losing a movement point at +5 heat, its bumps up to +7 . . . +1 THN?  You need a 9 . . . etc

I think that more accurately reflects HBS Heat Banks.

[Retry]

IMO Heat Banks would not affect your actual heat dissipation . . . rather it affects the heat scale.  Instead of losing a movement point at +5 heat, its bumps up to +7 . . . +1 THN?  You need a 9 . . . etc

I think that more accurately reflects HBS Heat Banks.

Temporarily "Storing" the heat wouldn't affect dissipation per sey.  Storing the heat seems like it'd basically accomplish the same thing as expanding the heat scale.

[Colt Ward]

Which is why I suggested that be the effect of the equipment.  The wiki says the equipment increases the heat threshold and total heat to cause shut down.  The penalty IMO would be the Heat Bank had to be in the torso and could not be in the same location as ammo.  The Heat Bank takes 2 crits, 1 ton and raises the numbers by 1 (6 instead of 5 for -1 MP).  The Heat Bank+ is 3 crits, 1 ton and raises it by 2 . . . ++ is 4 crits, 1 ton, and raises it by 3 . . . +++ is 5 crits, 1 ton and raises it by 4.  Oh yeah, and if its crit, it dumps the number of crits right into the heat- so a crit +++ will give a mech +5 heat that turn.

I think one of the suggestions I read was more like the Heat Exchanger . . . though really its sort of like the Radical Heat Sink system.

 . . . I need to find one of those Exchangers, I have two Banks (norm & +).

[Retry]

Which is why I suggested that be the effect of the equipment.  The wiki says the equipment increases the heat threshold and total heat to cause shut down.

Well, err, yeah.  I'd personally still prefer to track a "stored heat" value than have to keep track of one particular mech's entire heat scale being increased by a few points.  Seems easier to me and I'd feel less likely to, for instance, accidentally forget that this particular 'Mech has a slightly higher heat scale.  I guess it's just an accounting thing.

[Daryk]

Screwing with the heat scale on TT just seemed too hard, so I went with storing heat instead.  Which yielded an effect I saw in the HBS game.  The longer you went without adding heat, the more effective your Heat Bank appeared to be.

[Colt Ward]

You draw one/two/whatever different shaped boxes below the standard scale.  Makes it easy to remove them if the equipment gets crit and requires no alteration in the basic sheet.

Besides, how are you going to track it on a sheet?

Daryk, are you talking about a bank or a exchanger?  Because I gave the definition of the bank exactly- it moved the shut down line on your orange heat status bar further out.  The exchanger instead lowers the effect of your weapons to produce heat.

[Daryk]

The exchanger (to my memory... it's been a few months since I played) provided an explicit percentage reduction to heat generated by weapons fire.  The bank made getting to shutdown slightly longer, but didn't lower the heat generated at all.  To me, that looked liked it was just storing a static amount.

[Retry]

I've been thinking about the Heat Banks and Heat exchangers for a while now, and I've started tinkering a bit with the ideas.

The Heat Banks I ended up with are roughly similar to Daryk's so I won't bother with that here.

The Thermal Exchangers are the biggest difference from its HBS counterpart.  I wanted to make the Exchanger effective but I also wanted it to be a bit more distinct than "Heat Sink 2.0".  So instead of being modular, it needs to be integrated directly into the design (fixed, non-omni), and also has an extra disadvantage in the event that it's damaged.

I'm not 100% happy with it but I think it's perfectly functional right now, certainly no worse than the slew of redundant equipment that already exists.

Code: [Select]

Thermal Exchanger
The Thermal Exchanger is, in all its forms, a passive system that marginally enhanced heat rejection.  The heat
exchanger is primarily an upgrade to the heat pump, which increases the flow velocity of the coolant and with it its
effective heat-carrying capacity, although some models also feature an additive dispensing and monitoring system for the
coolant line.  The net effect is to slightly reduce the overall heat production of the ‘Mech, not quite as effectively as the
Radical Heat Sink system can in short bursts, but much more safely and sustainably.

Thermal Exchangers do not stack and cannot be pod-mounted.  In addition, a critical hit to the Exchanger reverses the
heat reduction and causes extra heat production instead.

Light-Weight Thermal Exchanger
150,000 C-Bills
Tech Rating E X/F/E/D
Reduces heat production by 1 point every 10 (8 clan) points.
1 ton
2 crits (Center Torso)

Thermal Exchanger
400,000 C-Bills
Tech Rating E F/F/D/C
Reduces heat production by 1 point every 7 (6 clan) points.
2 tons
4 crits (2 Center Torso, 1 Left/Right Torso)

Heavy-Duty Thermal Exchanger
1,000,000 C-Bills
Tech Rating E X/F/E/D
Reduces heat production by 1 point every 5 (4 clan) points.
3 tons
6 crits (2 Center Torso, 2 Right Torso, 2 Left Torso


[Daryk]

Interesting idea!  The only problem I see is the jump from "normal" to Heavy-Duty is bigger than between Light and normal (the three are 10%, 12.5% and 20% reductions for the IS).

[Retry]

Interesting idea!  The only problem I see is the jump from "normal" to Heavy-Duty is bigger than between Light and normal (the three are 10%, 12.5% and 20% reductions for the IS).

Yeah, I went back and forth on making the normal heat dissipation 1-in-7 and 1-in-8.  Perhaps I was a bit too cautious.  Maybe I should switch the IS medium exchanger to 1-in-7?

[Daryk]

That's exactly what I was thinking...  :thumbsup:

[Retry]

All right, edited my post with that change.

[Daryk]

Cool... that makes it 10%, 14%, 20%, which is much closer to "right" I think...  :thumbsup: