GURPS BattleTech, working out heatsinks and the effects of heat buildup

[Rupert]

The idea that a vehicle would be designed such that the ammo can explode from heating long before the pilot is roasted seems very strange. That the ammo would be allowed to get hot enough to cook off before the vehicle automatically shuts down is also odd.

The game was fun, but it never made too much sense.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The idea that a vehicle would be designed such that the ammo can explode from heating long before the pilot is roasted seems very strange.

Mech cockpits have comprehensive life support. You can operate them in space or underwater. So they definitely have more climate control than the ammo bins.

Though the it does seem like by the time things are hot enough to spontaneously ignite ammunition you'd be having other forms of structural or mechanical breakdown happen.

Originally Posted by Rupert

That the ammo would be allowed to get hot enough to cook off before the vehicle automatically shuts down is also odd.

Considering how appealing an idea it isn't for your combat machine to turn itself off in the middle of active combat, I'm more puzzled that they automatically shutdown at all rather than letting you keep pushing until you vaporize the reactor if you choose.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Rupert

The idea that a vehicle would be designed such that the ammo can explode from heating long before the pilot is roasted seems very strange. That the ammo would be allowed to get hot enough to cook off before the vehicle automatically shuts down is also odd.

The game was fun, but it never made too much sense.

Well, by the time the ammo tries to cook-off the first time the 'Mech has tried to shut down twice. It's just that meat-'Mech inside it refuses to let it.

And, to be fair, I've never seen anyone let their 'Mech get that hot by choice.

SRM-2 Infernos man.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Mech cockpits have comprehensive life support. You can operate them in space or underwater. So they definitely have more climate control than the ammo bins.

That's what's very strange. Your ammo blowing up (given that blow-out panels seem to be lacking, at least on the old designs) is going to be about as bad as your climate control failing and the pilot cooking, so if you can cool the cockpit, you should also be cooling the magazines. Yes, the pilot should have better aircon than the ammo, but only because the ammo won't go up until it's at a couple of hundred degrees, whilst the pilot cooks well before that.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

That's what's very strange. Your ammo blowing up (given that blow-out panels seem to be lacking, at least on the old designs) is going to be about as bad as your climate control failing and the pilot cooking, so if you can cool the cockpit, you should also be cooling the magazines. Yes, the pilot should have better aircon than the ammo, but only because the ammo won't go up until it's at a couple of hundred degrees, whilst the pilot cooks well before that.

Only if you're assuming that making the mech survive extreme overheating is a design priority.

If you instead suppose that running a mech that hot is a warranty-voiding, out-of-specification abuse of the equipment that it turns out you can sometimes get away with, not engineering the ammo bins to resist it makes a bit more sense....

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Only if you're assuming that making the mech survive extreme overheating is a design priority.

If you instead suppose that running a mech that hot is a warranty-voiding, out-of-specification abuse of the equipment that it turns out you can sometimes get away with, not engineering the ammo bins to resist it makes a bit more sense....

But in that case, why would the cockpit be designed to handle that sort of heat?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

But in that case, why would the cockpit be designed to handle that sort of heat?

Incidental benefit of being built as a universal hostile environment capsule.

Plus in typical mech design the cockpit is further out in the head while the ammo is somewhere in the torso, though for some designs it's not clear how that's a real distinction.

[Kfireblade]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Mech cockpits have comprehensive life support. You can operate them in space or underwater. So they definitely have more climate control than the ammo bins.

Though the it does seem like by the time things are hot enough to spontaneously ignite ammunition you'd be having other forms of structural or mechanical breakdown happen.

Considering how appealing an idea it isn't for your combat machine to turn itself off in the middle of active combat, I'm more puzzled that they automatically shutdown at all rather than letting you keep pushing until you vaporize the reactor if you choose.

In at least one of the novels I remember someone pushing until they did just straight up blow the reactor.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Kfireblade

In at least one of the novels I remember someone pushing until they did just straight up blow the reactor.

I don't know if that was "entertaining" fiction but it''s definitely more like author-created dramatics than any actual game play I've ever see.

[borithan]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

AFAIK mechwarriors are always an exception, even in the later days - mech units involve a ridiculously small number of combatants for their footprint. But the earlier content had more focus on most mechs being ancient and often hereditary personal possessions. Which has the problem of raising major questions about how you can continue having any of them if you keep destroying them in wars...

Well, the early fiction also very much emphasised the small scale of conflicts. The early scenario books all featured individual *companies* (12 mechs), who might be tasked to 'take' an entire world on their own. And half of them would be horribly borked messes that didn't match up to the paper specs because they had been repaired too many times. While the actual experience of the tabletop wouldn't likely match up (given the tendency for players to play to destruction), the fiction also made clear units would often bug out when they had taken too much damage (some of the newer scenario packs have the objective to reduce the opponent to a "crippled" status in an *attempt* to reflect this).

As far as I can tell, it pretty much went out the window with the 4th Succession war though, where they have regiment upon regiment being thrown into the meat grinder... also about the same time a lot of the 'named character' units were often expanded to make them still seem relevant in the new context (Colonel Fleabody's Walker Company not really seeming like a big deal when whole divisions of armour are at play...).