Heat Bank -or- Thermal Exchanger?

[Derrick]

I am at a location (early Campaign) where the store has both the Heat Bank and the Thermal Exchanger. I want to improve my PPC loaded Marauder to deal with the heat as best as possible. I've looked at the stats for both trying to make heads or tails of it, to no avail. I currently have Double-Heat Sinks on, but it only gives a +2 difference and takes 2 added slots.

I am going to buy both and install them during the next long jump. Any suggestions on the best one to use?

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Thermal Exchangers are always better than Heat Banks. Heat Banks are never really worth it.

[Derrick]

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

Thermal Exchangers are always better than Heat Banks. Heat Banks are never really worth it.

Thank you for that.

I had to dig through many search results to find the relevant info on the two.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/637090/discussions/0/2952595757886542698/

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Originally posted by Derrick:

Originally posted by HurtfulPlayer97:

Thermal Exchangers are always better than Heat Banks. Heat Banks are never really worth it.

Thank you for that.

I had to dig through many search results to find the relevant info on the two.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/637090/discussions/0/2952595757886542698/

There is another thread where the numbers are crunched to prove this. I didn't feel ambitious enough to hunt it down. lol

[Simon12]

thermal exchanger is a no brainer, thought I would only put it on heavies and assaults.

[wesnef]

Originally posted by Simon12:

thermal exchanger is a no brainer, thought I would only put it on heavies and assaults.

Or a really tricked-out lostech Medium (phoenix hawk or griffin)

[MasterBLB]

Thermal exchanger all the way. There is one use-case though were heat banks are better - it is when you use COIL-type weapons, TEX does not work with them.

[Bob of Mage]

The exchanger is only better if you are generating a high enough heat during each attack. It does nothing for stuff like jump jets, which can be an issue for certain mechs like the phoenix hawk. Weight wise, a normal heat sink is better until you are sinking more than 60 heat, and for a double it would need >120.

So exchangers are best used for either mechs that produce a large amount of heat, or in rarer cases where space is an issue, and you can't fit more enough heat sinks, but have a few spare tons.

Heat banks aren't totally useless, but they are too rare to get much usage. It allows a mech to fire more weapons for longer, but doesn't really make much difference unless the margin is slim already.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Unmodded... the exchanger. If you're running multiple PPCs, that'll generate a lot of heat and the exchanger's usefulness will scale with that.

The heat bank increasing your maximum tolerable heat won't be as helpful generally -- mostly for builds where you expect to be alpha striking only intermittently, due to recoil (large ballistic weapons) or overkill + ammo conservation concerns (maybe you're boating a lot of LRM tubes and want to sometimes fire a large salvo but not always). The COIL type weapon mentioned above is also another possible reason, because it can be quite spiky in terms of heat generation. Heat bank might also make sense if you want to build a pilot around Coolant Vent -- higher overheat threshold to reach, then being able to dump a lot of that heat at once every so often.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

o exchangers are best used for either mechs that produce a large amount of heat, or in rarer cases where space is an issue, and you can't fit more enough heat sinks, but have a few spare tons.

Yes, TEX are best used in those scenarios, that's the most obvious use case, but they still help if you're generating low or moderate amounts of heat. Not optimal but they do something as long as you're firing. While Banks do nothing for you if don't generate enough heat (and/or quickly enough) so you're above your native overheat threshold but not above your extended overheat threshold.

For example assuming you really don't want to overheat a regular Bank only improves over a regular HS if you generate exactly 94-95 heat in a single round with a high stats pilot. And it is always worse if it took you two rounds or more. Of course for the +/++ the window where banks are useful widens and low level pilots make Banks look better but still are too niche even compared to basic heatsinks, and they're rarer too.

All of that means that for taking any advantage from Banks you have to really plan your build around them, and also taking the biome into consideration.

I might consider a Bank++ for a coil based ASN/Jenner, but not for certain. And that's the best bank, the regular one is absolute garbage imo.

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

So exchangers are best used for either mechs that produce a large amount of heat, or in rarer cases where space is an issue, and you can't fit more enough heat sinks, but have a few spare tons.

Let's look at a 3×ML setup, which I'd say it's not a large amount of heat. It generates 3×12 = 36 heat, 12 heatsinks to keep it heat neutral. If you had a TEX10%, you get 3×10 = 30 heat generated (heat is rounded down on a per weapon basis), so you need 10 heatsinks, plus the two tons of the TEX10% makes it equal while you're firing and superior in desert or hotter biomes, which are pretty common. This means that here the break point is not 60 but 36, a very big difference.

That said TEX are not nearly as dependable as actual heatsinking. I'd take 3×HS over 1×TEX10% 1×HS even in a hot biome, but it serves for illustrating my point.

Also means that the theoretical break point is loadout and biome dependent, and that some weapons benefit more from TEX than others and from some TEX than others. And another funny thing is that the regular TEX10% is actually very good for lots of builds not generating huge amounts of heat if you don't have DHS around.

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

Heat banks aren't totally useless, but they are too rare to get much usage. It allows a mech to fire more weapons for longer

With Banks you don't just need a lot of heat being generated but also the right amount of it, you essentially need to minmax in order to make them useful. And that will work only for given biome, you'll have to rework it for different ones.


The real usefulness of Banks is when you don't care about overheating, because you now are using the +shutdown threshold instead of the +overheat threshold.

[Bob of Mage]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

So exchangers are best used for either mechs that produce a large amount of heat, or in rarer cases where space is an issue, and you can't fit more enough heat sinks, but have a few spare tons.

Let's look at a 3×ML setup, which I'd say it's not a large amount of heat. It generates 3×12 = 36 heat, 12 heatsinks to keep it heat neutral. If you had a TEX10%, you get 3×10 = 30 heat generated (heat is rounded down on a per weapon basis), so you need 10 heatsinks, plus the two tons of the TEX10% makes it equal while you're firing and superior in desert or hotter biomes, which are pretty common. This means that here the break point is not 60 but 36, a very big difference.

That said TEX are not nearly as dependable as actual heatsinking. I'd take 3×HS over 1×TEX10% 1×HS even in a hot biome, but it serves for illustrating my point.

Also means that the theoretical break point is loadout and biome dependent, and that some weapons benefit more from TEX than others and from some TEX than others. And another funny thing is that the regular TEX10% is actually very good for lots of builds not generating huge amounts of heat if you don't have DHS around.

Ignoring wonky rounding, in your example a 2 ton TEX should lower the heat output by 3.6 units. Two heat sinks would improve your base sinking rate by 6. So 32.4/30 vs 36/36. The TEX should result in a heat deficit of 2.4.

Of course that ignores the wonky rounding that can take place, but lets assume it is fair so we don't have to do a super deep dive of the exact numbers the game uses for every weapon. As the numbers per weapon get higher the rounding stops favouring the TEX so much.

[Derrick]

Thanks for all the well thought out replies.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

Ignoring wonky rounding, in your example a 2 ton TEX should lower the heat output by 3.6 units. Two heat sinks would improve your base sinking rate by 6. So 32.4/30 vs 36/36. The TEX should result in a heat deficit of 2.4.

It you ignore how the game actually works then yes, that would be correct.

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

Of course that ignores the wonky rounding that can take place, but lets assume it is fair so we don't have to do a super deep dive of the exact numbers the game uses for every weapon.

Fair or unfair has nothing to do here, unless it can be modded (which I don't know) it is what it is.

And my above example wasn't exactly a deep dive but just a counterexample, a very basic setup consisting on three very common weapons to showcase how you don't need to generate large amounts of heat in order to take advantage from TEX and how the break points can be much lower than 60/120.

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

As the numbers per weapon get higher the rounding stops favouring the TEX so much.

Certainly.

[LASci]

Heat banks are kind of a niche use. Usually with heat you want to sink it, or just reduce the total amount generated (thermal exchanger). However, a third option exists with the heat bank - just carry the heat out of the match. What you're looking for are mechs that are "toasty" but not blazing hot. If your build has maybe 6ish alphas before overheat you might want to consider a heat bank instead of sinks/exchangers. For me, the classic example is the Annihilator with UAC5X5. Technically the "best" build for the Annie is jamming every open slot with double heat sinks, but those are expensive and hard to accumulate enough of until the end game. Instead, I often just use single heat sinks and throw a heat bank on there and just carry the heat to mission completion.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

An Annihilator never needs double heat sinks if you go all AC build.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by LASci:

However, a third option exists with the heat bank - just carry the heat out of the match

No, that's the opposite of what's going on. Heatsinks and exchangers do carry the heat out of the match. Heat is actually being removed or prevented from being generated, while banks temporarily store a very limited amount of it, the heat is still in the match.

Originally posted by LASci:

If your build has maybe 6ish alphas before overheat you might want to consider a heat bank instead of sinks/exchangers.

???. This makes no sense at all. The more alphas in a row the worse banks become. In six consecutive alphas a regular heatsink has actually gotten rid of 18 heat, vs the +15 OH threshold of a Bank++.

Originally posted by LASci:

For me, the classic example is the Annihilator with UAC5X5. Technically the "best" build for the Annie is jamming every open slot with double heat sinks, but those are expensive and hard to accumulate enough of until the end game. Instead, I often just use single heat sinks and throw a heat bank on there and just carry the heat to mission completion.

Could you describe that loadout in more detail?, because I heavily suspect a Bank in there is likely going to be completely useless.