What's up with Vehicles and heat?

[Delta Assault]

So I'm pretty well versed in tabletop, except for vehicles. Never did learn the rules. But, I do know that vehicles can never overheat. They always have enough heat sinks built in to fire everything. I always found that a little odd, but I went with it.

...But what about biomes? I'm thinking about this game, where you can go to a planet where you only sink 65% of your normal heat dissipation on a Mech. How can vehicles still operate at full heat sink capacity? It's very confusing. Are vehicles using some magical heat sink technology that ignores environmental conditions? And if so, why aren't they using them on Mechs? Should HBS have come with their own new heat mechanic for vehicles, just to address this biome issue? Cause it's a huge advantage to vehicles at the moment.

 

[Havamal]

So I'm pretty well versed in tabletop, except for vehicles. Never did learn the rules. But, I do know that vehicles can never overheat. They always have enough heat sinks built in to fire everything. I always found that a little odd, but I went with it.

...But what about biomes? I'm thinking about this game, where you can go to a planet where you only sink 65% of your normal heat dissipation on a Mech. How can vehicles still operate at full heat sink capacity? It's very confusing. Are vehicles using some magical heat sink technology that ignores environmental conditions? And if so, why aren't they using them on Mechs? Should HBS have come with their own new heat mechanic for vehicles, just to address this biome issue? Cause it's a huge advantage to vehicles at the moment.

It's a game balance rule. Vees are already crunchy. Why limit them to the heat mechanic when they already have it built into their construction rules. It makes them behaviorally different from mechs, which adds variety to combat situations.

I like it the way it is. YMMV.

 

[CarpeMortis]

In TT only Energy weapons added heat for V's, and you had to pack enough HS to cover their heat.

Environments that effected a Mech's ability to dissipate heat, usually effected the movement of V's instead of changing their heat. Though IIRC there is equipment you can add to make them more effective in those environments.

On more than one occasion I've dropped with V's in MegaMek/Mekwars only to find they were effectively immobile...

I have no idea how HBS is handling this or if they are just ignoring it. It makes a certain amount of sense to assume that any unit operating V's in a given Biome would make the necessary modifications to deal with the environment before they deploy them.

 

[wundergoat]

Long and short, vees don’t track heat, period. As part of construction rules, they must have the sinks to cover heat from energy weapons and most heat-causing weapons get extra damage against them, but they effectively ignore heat. Chalk it up to an advantage in how they are designed. It’s one of the few things they have over mechs.

 

[Hasler]

I guess if you think about it they don't have mynomer which is heat sensitive and their weapons are mounted externally instead of under armor so they shouldn't place heat stress on the reactor for non-ice vehicles

 

[Sigil]

So I'm pretty well versed in tabletop, except for vehicles. Never did learn the rules. But, I do know that vehicles can never overheat. They always have enough heat sinks built in to fire everything. I always found that a little odd, but I went with it.

...But what about biomes? I'm thinking about this game, where you can go to a planet where you only sink 65% of your normal heat dissipation on a Mech. How can vehicles still operate at full heat sink capacity? It's very confusing. Are vehicles using some magical heat sink technology that ignores environmental conditions? And if so, why aren't they using them on Mechs? Should HBS have come with their own new heat mechanic for vehicles, just to address this biome issue? Cause it's a huge advantage to vehicles at the moment.

Vehicles do not have (and have never had) to allocate heat sinks for both ballistic and missile weapons. One could speculate their lack of environmental sealing and stressed skin frames simply dissipate heat in a fundamentally different way than BattleMechs. In any case, vehicles are, by design, weaker than a BattleMech of equal weight. This is best demonstrated by their base hit location chart, which includes motive damage, turret damage and crew stunned entries. It appears HBS is making vehicles fodder or "minions" for BattleMechs, especially with their added vulnerability to physical attacks. I simply don't see any serious advantages for vehicles in the current game implementation, even given they aren't "penalized" for ambient heat. Also, vehicles are "destroyed" when the structure of any location is destroyed and they have only 5 locations max as compared to 8 for BattleMechs. This also has the added effect of concentrating damage across fewer locations. BattleMechs can survive the loss of limbs and side torsos and remain combat effective.