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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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 Posted: 01-Jul-2004 23:11 Post subject: RE: Heat Scales |
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I still think our best bet is looking up when people die in burning buildings. If 15+ heat points without life support can kill your pilot in 6 rounds, that's got to be HOT!
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A tree fall in the forest, and no one is around, and it hits a mime. Does anyone care?
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Ronin
ComStar
Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 907
Location: United States
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| Posted: 01-Jul-2004 23:32 Post subject: RE: Heat Scales |
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I don't think you'll find that information, at least regarding fire. Most fire casualties are from smoke inhalation. The rest is the same problem as before: what is the average temperature of a building fire? Too many variables.
Why are we suddenly so fascinated by heat? I just had an image... a mech, a Firestarter perhaps, with the phras painted on it "It's not the heat, it's the humidity!" or "It's a dry heat!"
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 14-Jul-2004 14:58 Post subject: RE: Heat lvl and celsius/farenhait |
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I was mainly looking at a reality thing to get a hook to hang the theory on. With a hook a rule of thumb could get established to determine some sort of value that remains functional but in the same ballpark. We are dealing with Game Physics anyway.
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Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and strings also lie under it all.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 14-Jul-2004 15:07 Post subject: RE: Heat Scales |
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You are thinking along the same lines as I was coming up with the rule for standing in water. Paper or wood burns at about 451 deg. F. but I have heard of structure fires hitting over 1000 deg. I figure a bonfire is about the only thing that would really affect a mech, if the mech was standing in it. Most bonfires would be structure fire equivalents.
I can remember burning Xmas tree stumps in 20' diameter piles about 10' high and we could feel the heat intensely a good 50+ feet away.
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Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and strings also lie under it all.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 912
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 14-Jul-2004 16:13 Post subject: RE: Heat lvl and celsius/farenhait |
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The problem is that 1 Heat Level can mean different things and a different temperature depending on the context
There's temperature inside the 'Mech
ammunition cooks off at Level 19, so a good rule of thumb would be, that inside the 'Mech, 1 heat level
could be 10 degrees C , wich mean ammunition cooks off at roughly 200 C
If you mean temperature in the cockpit that's another scale, and is much lower, so say 1 Heat level = 5 degrees C
Now, if you mean outside temperature.. depends on who you ask , the Battletech Compendium wanted to avoid complication and ignored the issue saying outside temperatures don't have effect on a 'Mech cooling unless they are really extreme (-40 C or +60 C) basically it ignored weather, in spite of all the previous fiction, and scenarios. This was reversed in Maximum Tech
Basically figure out that a 'Mech in a desert , with temperatures averaging 40 C will gain 1 Heat level, and 2 in cases of extreme temperatures (50 C)
conversely for heat dissipation purposes, when temperature is at least -10 C you get one extra heat dissipation level
When you are dealing with fires.. don't know, ask a firefighter what are the likely temperatures in a forest in flames, or inside a burning building.
And let's not go into the nightmare of weapons "heat". If you haven't realized it by now, I will say it clear and loud
THE HEAT SCALE IS AN ARBITRARY GAME MECHANICS
it's a way to simulate a lot of things, yes, waste heat is one of them, from a technical point of view, it's going to be a big problem in anything that uses a fusion reactor as its power source, it's just that at times this factor is overrated.
As seen by the above examples, the heat scale covers many different things, so there's no way you can say 1 Heat Level = xxx degress, because it depends of the context.
But most importantly, the heat scale *also* represents power consumption, the way the rules are designed, you can't mount a PPC in a 20 tonner 'Mech, because the power consumption of such a weapon would be so huge that the small power plant couldn't feed it, so the 'Mech would have to stand still to fire.
So you cannot use the heat scale to calculate power outputs and consumption.. it only takes about 2000 Horsepower to move a 60 ton 'Mech around at 60 kph , the power consumption for movement purposes is tiny compared with the power needed to feed the lasers. That running costs you 2 heat levels, and the movement penalties in the heat scale are just a mechanism to simulate that if you fire a lot of weapons very often, your 'Mech will slow down as all the energy will be directed to the guns.
And finally, what drives me nuts is the people that think that they can deduce the power output of a laser following this logic
1 ton of armor = 16 points
Damage of 1 Medium Laser = 5 points
so they think , a laser can melt 300 kilos of steel in 5 seconds, and then deduct from that the power output of the laser
It never ceases to amaze me that people with degrees in physics and engineering fall for the trap of deductive reasoning and attempt to extrapolate real world facts from arbitrary numbers taken out from the rules.
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Ronin
ComStar
Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 907
Location: United States
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| Posted: 16-Jul-2004 22:47 Post subject: RE: Heat lvl and celsius/farenhait |
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Quote:
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On 2004-07-14 16:13, Vampire wrote:
It never ceases to amaze me that people with degrees in physics and engineering fall for the trap of deductive reasoning and attempt to extrapolate real world facts from arbitrary numbers taken out from the rules.
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I don't have either of those, but I can imagine that people do it because it keeps them busy, and it's much more fun than, say, mowing the yard.
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 17-Jul-2004 16:24 Post subject: RE: Heat lvl and celsius/farenhait |
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I take it that you are "dissaproving" of looking for a way to figure heat from the rules. 
I say you have to start somewhere, so take your examples and integrate them into the answer. We are looking at "Tac Nuke" accuracy, not "tack driver" accuracy.
a 10 degree difference is noticable, but not critical, so as long as we come within a 20 degee "slop factor". I would be happy, just for a rule of thumb.
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Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and strings also lie under it all.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
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Rarich
Federated Suns
Leftenant General
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 991
Location: United States
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| Posted: 17-Jul-2004 16:48 Post subject: RE: Heat lvl and celsius/farenhait |
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we are discussing one game. the computer version is a different game. Both games take place in the same conceptual universe.
that makes them about alike as 1st Ed. MWR and 3rd edition mechwarrior rules. Things are similar, but different enough to require some (serious) adjustments.
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Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side & a dark side, and strings also lie under it all.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
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