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I have a question regarding how heat is marked on the record sheets. I've looked in the books and haven't really found a clear answer. I know that you take your total heat for the turn and subtract your number of heat sinks from that, so if you take 13 heat for the turn and have 10 heat sinks, you have 3 heat left over that isn't dissipated by the heat sinks. So here's the question:

On the record sheet, the heat scale starts with a box with a 0. Is that the first box you mark when you have excess heat? So if you have 3 heat that is not absorbed, do you mark up to the number 2 box on the record sheet, or do you skip the 0 box and go straight to the number 3 box?

Thanks a lot! I hope that question made sense. I'll gladly clarify if necessary. If it's actually stated in one of the books (Total Warfare or the Introductory Rulebook), and you know the page number or section, that would be greatly appreciated as well.

Heat 0 means exactly that on the sheet.


If your example holds then you would mark on the 3rd heat space.

So, for example if a mech generated 20 heat and only sank 15 of it, then on the sheet it would crawl up to the 5 spot on the heat scale.

Okay, thanks! That makes sense, and that was my gut instinct. The only reason I wasn't sure was because it doesn't really make sense to include a 0 box if it's never going to be marked. I don't know why they didn't just start the scale at 1.

Hordini wrote:Okay, thanks! That makes sense, and that was my gut instinct. The only reason I wasn't sure was because it doesn't really make sense to include a 0 box if it's never going to be marked. I don't know why they didn't just start the scale at 1.

Probably to show that zero is perfectly acceptable.

I vaguely remember some Battletech record sheets were also designed with use of tokens in mind... So you'd move a small widget up and down the heat track as needed. Treat it as a track showing the current heat, not as a counter, if that makes sense.

Balance has a great idea there. We always used to use d20s to track heat by placing them next to the mech in question. Otherwise you are going to be doing a ton of erasing on that heat bar.

Gitzbitah wrote:Balance has a great idea there. We always used to use d20s to track heat by placing them next to the mech in question. Otherwise you are going to be doing a ton of erasing on that heat bar.

Paper clips work great for this.

We used to use the plastic page protectors and dry erase markers.

I print out the page with Solaris Skunk Werks that have the extra tables, and just make a note at the bottom in the Double Blind section.

Thanks guys! The paperclip idea sounds good. I'll probably just lightly mark the heat box with a pencil. The Solaris Skunk Werks record sheet tables are a great option though, of course. Solaris Skunk Werks is probably the best thing to happen to my Battletech situation.