History Main / OverHeating

** That is more of a concern for mobile devices as smartphones and tablets, that have few if any heatsinks to speak of, except some smartphones designed for gaming that include also fans, and where components are crammed together, and is one of the reasons -other being power consumption- that explain why despite often having specifications comparable to those of desktop and laptop computers, and despite advances in technology, the former lag behind the latter in performance and games and apps must be optimized for them.

* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey IV'' provides an example with its final class, the [[spoiler:Imperials]]. Their [[{{Magitek}} drive]] [[{{BFS}} blades]] can be used to dish out truly phenomenal amounts of damage, but must cool off for a number of turns after their most powerful attacks. Initially, the cooldown period is as long as 9 turns, but this can be mitigated with the right set of abilities.

* In ''VideoGame/ChooChooCharles'', the mounted weapons have InfiniteAmmo, but they'll glow red and overheat if you continually fire.

* The G36 may be an [[CoolGuns/AssaultRifles awesome gun]] in ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'', ''VideoGame/FarCry1'', and ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', but in reality, [[https://medium.com/war-is-boring/german-soldiers-dont-trust-their-battle-rifle-e1070a9a67dc it has serious problems with overheating]], and German soldiers consistently [[OlderIsBetter prefer the G3 instead]]. The rumor goes that in a serious enough firefight (that is, as little as a couple of mags fired back-to-back) the overheating gets so severe that the rifle's polymer frame warps from the heat, throwing the sights hopelessly out of alignment and requiring a complete rebuild. A dozen mags reportedly can cause the rifle to literally ''melt''. Not surprisingly, Heckler & Koch retorted with the actual build contract that made the G36: Nobody stated that the rifle had to perform well if abused by stressed-out soldiers.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Mechwarrior}}'' games, much like its parent ''TableTopGame/BattleTech'' franchise, this is an inherent gameplay trait. All weapons create heat that must be dissipated by your 'Mech, but energy and missile weapons cause the most heat. Heat sinks can help dissipate the heat generated, but there's still a danger of overheating, and once you pass a certain threshold the 'Mech engages an automatic shutdown. If you override this automatic shutdown[[note]]or if your 'Mech is forced into critical overheat too quickly for it to trigger[[/note]], you run the risk of [[MadeOfExplodium ammunition explosions and reactor meltdowns]]. In ''Living Legends'', going past the shutdown heat while overriding will cause your armor to literally melt off, generally starting with both arms. If you mount a Gauss rifle in either arm, [[MadeOfExplodium it'll explode when destroyed]].

* In ''TableTopGame/BattleTech'', heat is an important balancing factor. [=BattleMechs=] are environmentally sealed, powered by fusion engines and artificial muscle-like actuators that aren't exactly 100% efficient, and often bristling with energy, ballistic, and/or missile weapons; virtually everything they do starting with simple movement will cause heat to build up, which needs to be funneled out of the 'Mech via dedicated 'heat sinks'. Build up heat faster than those can handle, and your 'Mech will slow down and the accuracy of its weapons fire will suffer until they have caught up again. At sufficiently high levels it may even automatically shut down and/or see explosive ammo start to cook off.

** They're [[http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/2008/3/Plasma-23124627.jpg totally worth it]], [[MemeticMutation though]].

* Youtuber IraqVeteran8888 frequently does "meltdown" videos for guns, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cr9e3N6HEw some of which have actually caught fire]].

Some games give you [[BottomlessMagazines unlimited ammo]], but the designer [[NecessaryDrawback doesn't want you to fire continuously]], so your gun will overheat if you fire continuously for too long, and you have to wait for it to cool down before you can use it again. Alternatively, you may have to reload, but have unlimited magazines. The heat management mechanic allows players to fire in shorter bursts to keep the weapon cool, while the magazine mechanic places a cap on how long you can go before having to reload. This doesn't just apply to guns. For example, a motorcycle overheating if you go fast for too long.

Some games give you [[BottomlessMagazines unlimited ammo]], but the designer [[NecessaryDrawback doesn't want you to fire continuously]], so your gun will overheat if you fire continuously for too long, and you have to wait for it to cool down before you can use it again. Alternatively, you may have to reload, but have unlimited magazines, which is functionally identical. This doesn't just apply to guns. For example, a motorcycle overheating if you go fast for too long.

** The Vickers gun was a descendant of the original Maxim gun, which was also water-cooled and known for spraying barrages like no tomorrow.

* For reference, tests show that even comparatively thin-barreled assault rifles really start overheating after several hundred rounds fired non-stop (about a dozen magazines). This means second-degree burns if the barrel is touched, and the handguard around the barrel smoldering, warping or even straight bursting into flames. Surprisingly, a rifle can still go on -- although this coincides with a ''very'' marked drop in accuracy on account of a slightly deformed barrel. If the shooter pushes forth, two things inevitably happen. First, rounds begin to cook-off in the chamber (going off on their own from heat alone), causing a runaway automatic fire and potential blown-up action if the bolt didn't have the time to fully close. Second -- an overheated barrel might rupture in a weak spot, also catastrophically destroying the weapon with a pressure spike. These two phenomena work together very nicely -- and if this happens with a machine gun (that has a large ammo capacity and powerful powder loads) the result is definitely not pretty: "catastrophic destruction" frequently means that pieces of gun's action fly straight into the shooter's face. Luckily, well-designed air-cooled machine guns can fire up to thousands of rounds under acceptable heat levels. Nevertheless, if the surviving shooter keeps abusing his weapon to the point of even a "smoldering" overheat, he can expect a very strong-worded reproach by his quartermaster -- because heat warping and increased stress wears out the gun extremely quickly.
* Light support weapons that are intended for protracted firing, as opposed to assault rifles that are intended to be fired in bursts, are equipped with a spare barrel that switch out on the fly to help prevent this. Soldiers are trained to switch them out quickly, even during the midst of a firefight, to prevent stress and warping of the weapon.
** If a belt-fed machine gun that fires from a closed-bolt really overheats and begins cooking off ammunition, the worst thing for the gunner to do is to drop the weapon in the hopes that simply ''not depressing the trigger'' will stop the runaway gun. Machine gunners are told that should their weapon overheat and runaway on them that they ''twist the ammunition belt'' so that the gun cannot feed and then wait for the gun to cool off.
* There is a story about an army band who (in keeping with regulations) had to do target practice including with machine guns, but due to inexperience they tended to keep firing for too long which would overheat the barrels and damage the guns. Finally, the range master realized that they were better musicians than they were machine gunners, so he mounted a piece of sheet music on the guns consisting of two bars of music showing one whole note followed by one whole rest. Result: trope averted and no more damaged machine gun barrels.
* This trope shows up, played ''perfectly'' straight, in a very unsuspecting device: the flashlight. More specifically, the small-size and high-power LED light typically fed by a lithium-ion battery. [=LEDs=] may be more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs of old, but they still generate a ''godawful'' amount of heat if driven hard enough (particularly potent models that dish out thousands of lumens or candelas can put out enough heat to be used as lighters), and that heat can burn up the diode or, in more extreme cases, ''melt the solders''. Heat sinks mostly solve the issue in larger appliances, but when you have to keep it compact for portability's sake, even an entire aluminum body with the user's hand sucking up some of the heat (an uncomfortable practice even in the cold, as depending on its size and power,[[labelnote:*]]such as the Thrunite [=TN36=], a 2016 light the size of a soda can that can put out over 6,500 lumens, more than ''double'' of a regular car's headlight[[/labelnote]] the light gets '''HOT''') isn't enough. As such, these flashlights for the most part have a step-down feature in their circuits that either drops the output to a lower level or turns the torch off altogether before the heat buildup can become damaging.[[note]]Now [[AluminiumChristmasTrees good luck finding that]] as a justification for the TenSecondFlashlight trope so common even in futuristic fiction.[[/note]]

** That is more of a concern for mobile devices as smartphones and tablets, that have few if any heatsinks to speak of and where components are crammed together, and is one of the reasons -other being power consumption- that explain why despite often having specifications comparable to those of desktop and laptop computers, and despite advances in technology, the former lag behind the latter in performance and games and apps must be optimized for them.

* Your entire mech can have this problem in ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore 3''. It was quite the ScrappyMechanic.

* ''TabletopGame/GURPS'' Supplements:

* ''TabletopGame/GURPSHighTech'' naturally has [[DevelopersForesight detailed rules for overheating of automatic weapons, including barrel swaps, heating management by burst firing, and the possibility of spectacular malfunctions]]. ''TabletopGame/GURPSUltraTech'' has optional overheating rules for energy weapons.

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}} High Tech'' naturally has [[DevelopersForesight detailed rules for overheating of automatic weapons, including barrel swaps, heating management by burst firing, and the possibility of spectacular malfunctions]]. ''GURPS Ultra Tech'' has optional overheating rules for energy weapons.

* ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'': In "Fighting Tools", Snafu tries to kill a Nazi soldier with a M1917 Machine gun, but because he didn't connect the water tank, it not only ends up overheating, the whole gun literally melts into a puddle.

* On the other hand, some firearms (especially those not expected to hose an enemy for hours) have a very pronounced tendency to overheat. For example, the AKS-74U (the PDW version of the AK-74 that filled the SMG niche in the Soviet/Russian arsenal for some time) begins literally "spitting" bullets after so much as several magazines fired back to back: in other words, accuracy and velocity both go to Hell.

* This trope shows up, played ''perfectly'' straight, in a very unsuspecting device: the flashlight. More specifically, the small-size and high-power LED light typically fed by a lithium-ion battery. [=LEDs=] may be more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs of old, but they still generate a ''godawful'' amount of heat if driven hard enough (particularly potent models that dish out thousands of lumens or candelas can put out enough heat to be used as lighters), and that heat can burn up the diode or, in more extreme cases, ''melt the solders''. Heat sinks mostly solve the issue in larger appliances, but when you have to keep it compact for portability's sake, even an entire aluminium body with the user's hand sucking up some of the heat (an uncomfortable practice even in the cold, as depending on its size and power,[[labelnote:*]]such as the Thrunite [=TN36=], a 2016 light the size of a soda can that can put out over 6,500 lumens, more than ''double'' of a regular car's headlight[[/labelnote]] the light gets '''HOT''') isn't enough. As such, these flashlights for the most part have a step-down feature in their circuits that either drops the output to a lower level or turns the torch off altogether before the heat buildup can become damaging.[[note]]Now [[AluminiumChristmasTrees good luck finding that]] as a justification for the TenSecondFlashlight trope so common even in futuristic fiction.[[/note]]

* This trope is why [[GatlingGood rotary cannons]] are the mechanism of choice for when you ''really'' want an extreme rate of fire in one weapon. Single-barrel weapons can't go much past 1,000 rounds per minute before the accumulated heat starts melting the barrels way too fast for comfort. Spreading the rate of fire around multiple barrels means each barrel can have a sane rate of fire while the overall weapon has the rate of fire you need -- most ones in use with the US military, for instance, fire at about six thousand rounds per minute, usually distributed at about a thousand per barrel. This is particularly {{iron|y}}ic for video games trying to balance such weapons, however, in three aspects: they not only overheat much faster than in reality, but they are also the ''only'' weapons that do so in the vast majority of games, or their cyclic fire rate is so low that the anti-overheat property of the design is pointless.

* ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu]]'': In "Fighting Tools", Snafu tries to kill a Nazi soldier with a M1917 Machine gun, but because he didn't connect the water tank, it not only ends up overheating, the whole gun literally melts into a puddle.

* In the animated US Army training cartoon ''[[PrivateSnafu]]'' episode "Fighting Tools", Snafu tries to kill a Nazi soldier with a M1917 Machine gun, but because he didn't connect the water tank, it not only ends up overheating, the whole gun literally melts into a puddle.

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