Lazn brings up an interesting point in this thread HERE He is quite correct. Using my mechbuilder (Skunkwerks) if DHS and ES function as they do in table top game you can make some absolutely unstoppable light weight machines. We are talking Atlas Killahs here. Instead of packing small lasers you can pack mediums, drop in the DHS and you can feed those mediums and do far more DPS than you ever could before. This would literally chew up Atlas mechs at a rate of roughly 2.25x what it currently is. So to put things in perspective; if it used to take 10 shots to kill an Atlas in the back armor with the Small Laser jenner it will now only take roughly 4 and some change depending on distance etc. etc. This is before your mech XP bonuses as well. Yes, people will complain about this for sure! Especially Atlas pilots!
What about the reverse side of this scenario? Doesn't this mean the Atlas (to use your example 'mech) will have more armor and be able to upgrade its lasers too? It can be argued that this is more a buff for the light-weights but I don't think we can ignore the benefits heavy-weights will be getting as well. One thing is for certain however; with DHS we'll see the PPC return in force. Especially if they buff it the way they've been saying they will. Will PPC be the "New Gauss"? Maybe.
How many spare crit slots does an Atlas have compared to a Jenner? Not many, I've seen some Atlas builds that have no spare slots at all. At the very best an Atlas or other ballistic 'Mechs will benefit from DHS in the engine. Energy 'Mechs that don't have slot-hungry weapons such as the Awesome 8Q are going to have a hayday. So it's not all bad for Assault 'Mechs or not even so bad for ballistic. In fact it's all good for any kind of 'Mech, moreso for lights when it comes to Endo Steel but DHS are good for every build simple due to the doubling of the engine heatsinks. The only disadvantage is cost and we all know how that went over when they had the XL Engine repairs high, everyone complained that's not how you balance a game and poof, now the repair costs are just an afterthought. BEAR IN MIND MY COST FORMULA DOESN'T ACCOUNT FOR DHS AND ES. See that Jenner worth 10 million? Lol. It's probably going to cost closer to 15-20 million! Which gets me to my main point:Should the game balance combat using repairs as a variable? If not, how are you going to balance Double Heatsinks? The only downside to them is that they are damn expensive.
Maybe if you forego the high caliber ballistic weapons. But then what do you put in place of that lost DPS. In order to keep the DPS high, you won't be able to take endo or FF, in an Atlas. I've looked at it and can't see a benefit. I could be wrong though.
That's exactly right, E.S. is a flat boost to lights and practically nothing else, you'll save more weight with double heatsinks on a medium than you will with E.S. to the point you won't have room for it. Even if you did, you couldn't use the tonnage for anything but a small engine upgrade. I'd go so far as to say DHS is a flat boost to weapons that don't use very many slots... What weapons are those? Energy weapons!
I might look at doing something with the RS, you might be able to make some sort of Direct fire support mech out of it. It really wouldn't justify the tonnage though. The smaller assaults have better fits for that. I guess it would depend how the matchmaker finally shakes out.
Don't forget that when they implement the engine change for heat sinks that's gonna be an interesting change for all involved. Bigger the engine, the more HS you can stuff in it whether it's DSH or SHS.
According to Solaris Skunk Werks, the price for standard internal structure on a Jenner is 14,000 C-Bills. That only rises to 56,000 C-Bills with Endo Steel internal structure. Also, 10 standard heat sinks costs 0 C-Bills. 10 Doubles costs 60,000 C-Bills. I have a custom variant of the JR7-D Jenner with ES, FF (104 out of 119 max), 10 DHS, 5 JJ, 245XL, 4 MPL, 1 SRM-4, 2 tons SRM ammo, and CASE, and the grand total is 5,898,375 C-Bills. Mech Name: Jenner JR7-K4 Tonnage: 35 Rules Level: Tournament Legal Total Cost: 5,898,375 Tech Base: Inner Sphere Total BV: 1,014 Item Cost Internal Structure - Endo Steel 56,000.00 Engine - XL Fusion Engine 2,286,666.67 Gyro - Gyro 900,000.00 Cockpit - Standard 320,000.00 Heat Sinks - Double Heat Sink 60,000.00 Musculature - Standard 70,000.00 Actuators 31,500.00 Jump Jets - Standard Jump Jet 175,000.00 Armor - Ferro-Fibrous 120,000.00 Medium Pulse Laser 60,000.00 Medium Pulse Laser 60,000.00 Medium Pulse Laser 60,000.00 Medium Pulse Laser 60,000.00 SRM-4 60,000.00 @ SRM-4 27,000.00 @ SRM-4 27,000.00 CASE 50,000.00 Cost Multiplier 1.350 Dry Cost 5,898,375 Total Cost 5,898,375
MWO's formula for calculating the cost of a 'Mech's internal structure is just a copy/paste of the TROs value rather than CBT's formulas. They don't have the actual formula in the game. The jumpjets are flat fees rather than based on the tonnage of the chassis, same for internals same for basically everything that's supposed to be chassis-based. I have no idea how they plan on adding the cost of ES and FF since both of them are wholly chassis-based. The way they did JJs was just to split them into categories and have each category cover a weight-class. Worse still, I can't even begin to imagine how they plan on adding in FF because of the way we handle armor. You're SUPPOSED to have to add armor in half-ton intervals and round up to the nearest half for what's left over, obviously that won't work with how they have the 'Mech Bay right now. So I won't be adding in the table top formulas to my final cost formulas until I see how they get past the chassis-dependent costs.
