Tooltip for heat bar?

[shellashock]

I personally am a big fan of energy heavy loadouts and thus spend a lot of time "riding" the overheat threshold. One issue I persistently face is I tend to struggle "predicting" how much heat I will be generating/dissipating throughout a battle (particularly with jumpjet mechs) and frequently find myself making firepower sacrifices or suffering overheat damage due to some bad judgement/miscalculation etc.

(Example of my shiny new JR7-D about to suffer overheat damage due to paying attention to heat bar instead of flashing overheat warning. I would not have overheated from this shot if I had jumpjetted one less square.)

As much as this is bad play on my part (I have only played the game for 16 hours, so still getting the hang of it), I feel managing heat can be unnecessarily hard because there is no tooltip for the heat bar telling you how much heat (in unit form) your mech is generating from movement and firing weapons. I find it peculiar how hovering over each weapon can tell you (in unit form) how much heat is being generated; but I can't hover over the heat bar and get a tooltip breakdown of how many units of heat capacity you have left until overheat/shutdown, how many units of heat JJ'ing a certain distance will generate,etc.

To be fair, this isn't THAT big of a deal because you shouldn't be relying on a single square worth of movement for heat optimization as your optimal strategy; but for those of us that like to push the edge of heat management, expanding the info the heatbar tells you via a tooltip with unit values would be a great QOL feature.

Any thoughts?

 

[Havamal]

I personally am a big fan of energy heavy loadouts and thus spend a lot of time "riding" the overheat threshold. One issue I persistently face is I tend to struggle "predicting" how much heat I will be generating/dissipating throughout a battle (particularly with jumpjet mechs) and frequently find myself making firepower sacrifices or suffering overheat damage due to some bad judgement/miscalculation etc.

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(Example of my shiny new JR7-D about to suffer overheat damage due to paying attention to heat bar instead of flashing overheat warning. I would not have overheated from this shot if I had jumpjetted one less square.)

As much as this is bad play on my part (I have only played the game for 16 hours, so still getting the hang of it), I feel managing heat can be unnecessarily hard because there is no tooltip for the heat bar telling you how much heat (in unit form) your mech is generating from movement and firing weapons. I find it peculiar how hovering over each weapon can tell you (in unit form) how much heat is being generated; but I can't hover over the heat bar and get a tooltip breakdown of how many units of heat capacity you have left until overheat/shutdown, how many units of heat JJ'ing a certain distance will generate,etc.

To be fair, this isn't THAT big of a deal because you shouldn't be relying on a single square worth of movement for heat optimization as your optimal strategy; but for those of us that like to push the edge of heat management, expanding the info the heatbar tells you via a tooltip with unit values would be a great QOL feature.

Any thoughts?

Depending on the mech, I dont have any qualms about constantly riding a high heat curve for some builds either. With Wellllllll over 100 hours in beta I can assure you that it will become more second nature after a while to check heat every time. Just resist the urge to rapid click through combat settings.

 

[shellashock]

Depending on the mech, I dont have any qualms about constantly riding a high heat curve for some builds either. With Wellllllll over 100 hours in beta I can assure you that it will become more second nature after a while to check heat every time. Just resist the urge to rapid click through combat settings.

That is absolutely true and I am getting the hang of it now. That being said, I still think a tool tip would be super useful for when you want to plan out your attacks before you complete the movement phase as the amount of heat capacity you have available is not obvious until you enter the firing phase. Only after you enter the attack phase can you determine how many weapons you can fire before overheating; at which point your previous movement could have been the deciding factor between overheating or not killing the target.

The only things the heat bar tool tip needs to display are the numbers for current heat level, overheat level, and shutdown level; effectively exposing the values that make up the visual "heat bar".

There are two situations I frequently come across that this would help with:

Situation 1: At the beginning of my movement phase, two targets are in range if I move to a certain square, but only one target is in line-of-site from my current position. My mech has enough firepower to destroy both of these targets in the same turn using the Gunnery "Multi-Target" skill; BUT there is the possibility of overheating if the heat created is more then my available capacity. I check the health of the targets and compare it to the damage potential of my weaponry and determine the chances of destroying both in one turn is high enough to bother attempting. I then check the heat output of firing related weaponry (displayed in the game as "units" of heat) and compare it to my available heat capacity before overheating. Without the suggested tool tip or any hard numbers for my heat capacity, I have to use intuition/experience of how much the bar will increase if I fire a specific weapon: thus making the choice of moving to a square that will let me fire at both targets a risky one that could cause me to overheat if I fire all weapons.

If the values for the heat bar were known (via a tool tip or other method), I could subtract my current heat level from the overheat threshold to determine how much heat capacity I have remaining and then compare my heat capacity to the weapon heat + movement heat to determine if I will overheat during this attack. I can then determine if the attack is worth it by factoring in a guaranteed presence or absence of overheating damage.


Situation 2: At the beginning of my movement phase, one target is in a position that is best countered by jumpjetting a long distance; thus incurring a hefty heat penalty. My mech has enough firepower to destroy the target in the same turn AND enough heat capacity to absorb all the weapon heat; BUT there is the possibility of overheating if the heat created from the jumpjets is more then my available capacity. Without the suggested tool tip or any hard numbers for my heat capacity, I have to use intuition/experience of how much the bar will increase from my attack and compare it to the relative increase of the heat bar (displayed in-game) for every square you JJ from your current position to determine if it will overheat; thus making the choice of moving to a square that will let me fire at the target a risky one that could cause me to overheat if I jump to the wrong square or misjudged the bar lengths.

Once again, if the values for the heat bar were known (via a tool tip or other method), I could subtract my current heat level from the overheat threshold to determine how much heat capacity I have remaining and then compare my heat capacity to the weapon heat + movement heat to determine if I will overheat should I JJ to a square and attack. From there I can make the choice to execute the attack with certainty of taking overheating damage (or not).


Sorry for the long winded reply, hopefully that clears up any confusion over my initial post that is more venting about my newbie mistakes and hastiness more then actually making a suggestion.

 

[Don't Panic]

it will become more second nature after a while to check heat every time. Just resist the urge to rapid click through combat settings.

Habit established here!

That said, an indicator that is clearer is seconded.