Heat ????
- Thread starter BennyBoyW
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Deleted member 38366
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Frankly, I don't understand how this change to the heat display mechanics could even be considered - let alone pass Beta Testing and still deemed a Release Candidate.
It fails every single common sense-check at first sight.
Anything below 100% in engineering is considered within safe operating limits; at best coupled with a time or count limit attached to it.
Anyway, I'm not surprised either this change will receive its due attention and commenting
No, the only common sense failing here is people not reading patch notes for major patches. If they don't read them that AND do not see the difference in the heat readout I.E their ship running apparently cooler under normal conditions and STILL don't check the notes for changes then they pay the price.
As for your Engineering example, you prove the point. Whatever object you are referring to will have operators manuals and training, or in other words that have already been said: RTFM.
To be fair the heat mechanic confused us all in beta to start with. 2 days later we were all (well mostly all) good with it. Especially after a couple of bugs were fixed. Give it a chance, it's not game breaking once you are used to it. To be honest, it makes a bit more sense to me that I shouldn't be sitting at 120% heat taking no damage!! The change to heat hitting modules first also makes sense to me too.
Ok I see where you're coming from, but to my layman's eyes this system makes more sense. Previously it seemed bizarre parked over a star at 145% heat with no damage occurring whatsoever. This way the player has a clear demarcation - don't get to 100%.
100% is the old 150%. Until you reach the 100% mark you are not doing damage to your ship. You actually have the same headroom...the big change is that your modules take heat damage starting at 100 up to the top bar. Once you go into the top bar your hull takes damage. Remember you can 'reboot' you ship, basically shut down all power and realign the teh damage amongst the various modules.
It's quite an oddball indeed.
Basically 65% is the "new 100%".
Problem is : 65% reads, looks and feels harmless - by all means.
There isn't even a yellow marker or something, neither does the colour i.e. change to Yellow or any Caution Signals popping up when you approach/pass it. Nothing that would have catched my eye.
So I think it's safe to assume that folks i.e. first see the significantly reduced heat figures operating in Normal Space and SuperCruise, thinking their Ship's Heat output has simply been "nerfed" and think they now got more headroom to play with.
That will need some refining in order to explain why Ships now start irreversibly overheating (unless you take positive action) at 65% heat, with both HUD display updating rather slow, temps creeping up continuously and smoke beginning to come up from the dashboards
At bare minimum, Fuel Scooping needs a big, fat marker line to clearly display the significance of different Temperature thresholds.
Haven't done enough combat yet to make a sound call on that arbitrary 65% figure.
ok, to summarize the changes to heat in 1.2 vs 1.1...
1: The display has been rescaled. The amount of heat your ship can take or the amount modules produce has NOT changed, it is just what used to be the 150-ish on the old scale where you started taking damage is now 100%. 100%, the first line on the gauge, (above which the gauge starts flashing red) is now a HARD limit, above which you WILL be taking damage.
2: Rather than damaging the hull as soon as you cross the threshold, heat damage first goes to modules. If you were to cross that last line on the gauge, around 160% (which on the old scale would have been around 240%!) THAT is when you are melting your hull. At these levels you are going to die very soon. You have gone from "regular" to "extra crispy".
3: PAY ATTENTION TO THIS IF YOU GET INTO COMBAT. The charge level in your WEP capacitor impacts how efficiently your weapons are cooled. Weapons still generate the same amount of heat as before but a full WEP capacitor allows the weapons cooling system to handle most of it, a nearly empty WEP capacitor means the weapons cooling systems can handle almost none of it and ALL THAT EXCESS GETS DUMPED INTO YOUR SHIP. Firing particularly hot weapons with an almost-depleted WEP capacitor is not recommended, because you will go over 100% and start damaging modules rather quickly. Gone are the days of mashing the trigger on beam lasers and holding it down until they run out of power. Doing that will cook your ship. You may have stayed below 160% heat and still be at 100% hull but when every module or weapon is malfunctioning every other time you try and use it that 100% hull isn't going to last long.
No, below 100% you are doing no damage to your ship. The impression that heat inexorably increases above 65% is not incorrect but it is incomplete.
65% is just one "equilibrium point" at which the heat incoming from the star (and absorbed from the hot hydrogen you're scooping) matches the capacity of your ship to radiate it - above that point it is much harder to find equilibrium, as you get closer to the star the amount of heat you absorb from its radiant energy rises with the square of changes in your distance but it is POSSIBLE to maintain a constant distance from the star and a constant temperature until you get beyond the point at which the incoming heat exceeds your maximum capacity to radiate. You are still within the safe operating envelope of your ship, but you are approaching the edge and must actively monitor heat to take action to reduce the incoming heat (move further away from the star) while you still have time to do it. You may not have to YET but soon you will. You are approaching but not yet in that transitions zone marked in the -1 graph you posted in your earlier response, which begins at the threshold where you cannot radiate the heat you are absorbing. Because incoming heat rises with the square of distance changes that is a shorter reduction in distance to the star than it looks and so it appears that it's "controllable below 65% but not above it". The actual mechanic is more complex than that, your approach to the star needs to become radically shallower above 65% or you are likely to cross that threshold into transitional operation. Since we don't have a -1 for these ships we don't know exactly at what altitude above what star type that transition zone begins, the point where positive action is REQUIRED to prevent crossing the 100% heat threshold. You up for writing one? (just kidding)
There, fixed that for you.
Google is your friend Manuals change so often these days that it is impossible to properly do one and get it right. For that you need a technical writer and they cost money, especially when your product is so fluid. That said, one of the forum rules is "Search before posting." I've seen plenty of threads killed because of that. A simple search before posting would have probably made the OP more "What do you think of the way heat is handled." rather than "Has this as gone weird." to which the response can really only be "Didn't you get the memo?"
Seeing as now we are moving in the realm of the former I'll say this: Even in 1.1 I was able to successfully equalize at around 110% whilst Fuel Scooping at 40whatevers/s. It climbed a bit, and the cabin would start to smoke but that was it. I suspect that there was additional wear and tear, but cannot prove that. So really the 65% issue is a non-starter. No real need to have a dash in that point except for memories.
Where this will really count, as others have said, is in combat.
