Compact Heat Sink

An advanced variation of the standard single-strength Heat Sink, the Compact Heat Sinks take up half the space but weigh one half more. They are taken in groups of two.

With the increasing use of lighter but more bulky structural components such as XL Engines, Ferro-Fibrous armor, Endo Steel chassis and massive Gauss Rifles in Inner Sphere BattleMech designs after the initial Clan Invasion, designers found that while they still had weight to spare that they were often left with less space to install other equipment such as additional heat sinks beyond those mounted as part of the Fusion Engine.

Unable to match the size reduction of Clan-tech Double Heat Sinks and Inner Sphere versions only adding to the problem, researchers in the Federated Commonwealth instead turned to reducing the size of standard heat sinks. By 3058 the New Avalon Institute of Science had developed prototypes of so-called Compact Heat Sinks, with two single-strength compact heat sinks able to fit into the space of a one standard heat sink. Unfortunately much like the Compact Engine and Gyro, the use of denser but more compact materials increases the weight of each compact heat sink by half, generally restricting their use to heavier 'Mechs who have weight to spare. By 3079, the Compact Heat Sinks entered limited production, were re-rated as Advanced Technology, no longer as hard come by as when they were only experimental.

Compact Heat Sinks are thus far exclusive to the Inner Sphere, with the Clans' reductions in the bulk of advanced armor, engines and chassis components making the situation much less critical for them.