Don't snarl at me just yet... I did as thorough a search as my lunchbreak would allow (10 minutes using both th built-in search and google, so sue me).

Premise: Heat as a gameplay element introduced to Vendetta Online.

Say you are drifting aimlessly through Latos H-2, looking for prey... ooo nice! A juicy moth! You hit your afterburners and start to accelerate in your trusty mk2 hog, consistently catching up with the unlucky bugger who managed to warp in the farthest possible distance away from the wormhole. Of course the trader notices you and accelerates himself, hoping to make it on time.

You come within range, and fire off some rockets to throw the ship off-balance and allow you to pummel it with megaposi bolts, to crack the shell around the precious widgets. But suddenly a screeching sound fills your cockpit. After gunning the turbo for so long, your engine has produced excess heat, and minor systems are having trouble cooling down - you need to decrease energy conversion from your power cell. You slow down and watch the other ship boost away, merrily. But oh! Some of your rockets hit the other ship, and the imparted energy from impact, explosion and deformation dissipated all over the silly little trader's ship, and his engines have overheated, as well!

So, basically, what I propose is a heat dissipation management system. It's closely linked to Grid Power, in a way that the more you use of your power grid, the faster your ship will overheat. It will be tough to find a sweet spot where the thing balances itself out against hitting power and speed, but worthwile nonetheless. You can leave the balancing to the automated system, but doing it yourself will add tons of efficiency.

The idea behind this is to make space combat even more a tactical event than it already is.

It's something that plopped into my head about 20 minutes ago, feel free to tear it apart with logic. I was basically just brainwriting.

I actually like the idea, but everything will have to get more powerful in order to balance the "heat" penalty.

it's been suggested in the past that we could use mining beams as weapons to gradually heat up (and asplode) ships.

asplode: been using it a lot today so it's a real, word, ok?

Or it can take longer to come into effect;

Something like the equivalent of 4 minutes of straight boosting, or something like that.

The problem, of course, is that it'd be a radical change to the way the game works at the moment. On the other hand, it would be a kind of 'expendable fuel', judging from the likely effects it might have, only without the permanently being stranded bit. And yes, specific weapons to impart heat would be interesting, I might have missed those in my search. Apologies if that should be the case.

In a similar vein, what about charge? If you're throwing around positron, plasma, gauss, ion beams, surely the things they hit are going to build up massive charges that need to be dissipated somehow? Could even have ships exert a force on each other based on charge... or if they get close enough, arcing explosions!

Why would you reject this idea, Lecter?

Despite his claims of nationalist red, Lecter is at his core a valkjock and thus a runner. All runners cannot stand that this idea was ever suggested, and are probably moving right now to eliminate you, toshiro, and all of your credibility in order to protect themselves.