Steiner stared at the man for a moment, listening to him come to his own conclusions, but then first part of that last statement-the knowledge on local military formations was odd; Yamatai even with his limited dealings didn't strike him as willing to make that public knowledge, short of him being a merc as he had been who'd had a run in with them, and while his knowledge of most of the local powers was sketchy, he doubted that the-...huh. 'Alright then...guess we'll have to wait and see.' He decided, figuring it wasn't an issue quite worth raising, but he would look into it at some point.
"Generally speaking, most mecha powerplants generate heat Mikael." He replied, pulling up a rough diagram of most of the commonly available powerplants of his home universe, pulled from after action reports and trade they had conducted, "Most mechas tend to use fusion reactors for powerplants, myself included-" The mechanoid rapped his chest lightly, the noise echoing throughout the warehouse though his armor absorbed the shocks from the motion keeping them from disturbing the fluid in his unit, "But again, this is not unnessciarily the golden standard-some have been known to use nuclear fission plants and recycle the waste materials for use in fusion plants, then use the byproducts from that process-usually plutonium-to power the fission plants. Reduces fuel costs, but add a degree of logistical trouble." Steiner was ready to go further into the subject, and realized that it was best to stay on topic. "Others may use internal combustion engines-these are usually construction or security models-but I have encountered a few military models that use them, which do get fairly hot and normally can't use energy weapons without modifications to weapons themselves or using an external handheld weapon, but the radiators are usually sufficient to deal with any excess heat generated."
"Much like the Fission/Fusion combination, it has its own share problems, fuel to name one. The third is a power cell or battery array if you want to get technical-these generate next to no heat, but are far more prone to failure or detonation due to overheating depending on whatever is used to store electricity and only have a fraction of the endurance of even a gas engine. Usually why their regulated to either extremely lightweight mechas, combots, power armors, or combat vehicles, also why most of them use solid slug weaponry, though we'll cover that in just moment." Impulsively, Steiner stretched, his mecha's servos squealing slightly in protest. "The fourth, and final that I know of is a fuel cell-usually hydrogen and oxygen-runs pretty cool, not near as stupidly explosive as a power cell if they get hot, but while it has better endurance than the aforementioned power source, it needs replacing every so often but it can power energy weapons more easily."
"Now most fusion plants have some form of heat shielding, usually some form of tungsten alloy combined with a liquid cooling system-and no-due to it's low boiling point liquid nitrogen does not make a good fluid to put in a cooling unit. Most of the cooling systems usually use a water-based solution-usually a glucose solution, though corrosive liquids can be used as well-as for weapon heat generation," Steiner took a moment to gather his thoughts, figuring the best place to start, "First things first-all weapons generate heat-not just chemical projectile-or chemical powered- weapons, and normally internally mounted weapons tend to generate more heat than carried weapons."
"Ballistic weapons tend to generate the least amount of heat, but given how hot gunpowder burns this isn't saying much." He began to pace, his hand moving with each word, cannon pointed down and across his chest, "Most cooling systems can deal with the heat quite effectively, but large caliber guns can be troublesome, so caution should be exercised when firing. Missile weapons also tend to generate quite a bit of waste heat, though this normally related to the type of missile used, amount of propellant, number of tubes, etc."
"Energy weapons are arguably the most troublesome in this regard; fairly damaging and considerably lighter than most other systems." He turned and looked at Mikael, "For the most part-not having an ammunition feed or a supply to worry about is usually helpful as most energy weapons draw directly from the powerplant for the purposes of firing-the tradeoff for this is the enormous amount of waste heat generated when fired."
"Handheld weapons usually have their own cooling systems, though some machines and models have the ability to plug directly into the mecha and take advantage of the cooling systems involved-though this possesses similar disadvantages to the internally mounted weapons. As for the diagrams," He let out a chuckle and flipped back to the formations, "Line formations are not used for actual combat short of those equipped with old black powder weapons, though I will admit it makes for a rather poor example of combined arms tactics."
"On the topic of infantry and mechas capable of true flight-my experience is once again limited save for blasting them out of the sky as they were fairly rare and were made priority targets once they made their appearance-that kind of force projection is usually...troublesome." He paused, looking as pensive as a mecha could, before shaking his head. "I guess most forces here prefer a quick decisive strike then?"