Recycling Heat Sink

[DemiserofD]

Heat sinks are nice, but synthing them isn't. What if there were a special heat sink that would retain the heat, and then you'd need to release it inside your ship again to use it again?

This would be a nice alternative to the current heat sinks, which facilitate spamming more, but lack longevity.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Uhhm... releasing a heat sink inside your ship? Like for cooking your eggs and bacon? It might be a bit hot for that.

 

[DemiserofD]

Uhhm... releasing a heat sink inside your ship? Like for cooking your eggs and bacon? It might be a bit hot for that.

Nah, just releasing it back into your ship's thermal reservoir. It would overheat you for 10 seconds, but if you're not firing any weapons/your distro is full, you could safely radiate it away, allowing you to reuse the heat sink indefinitely.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Nah, just releasing it back into your ship's thermal reservoir. It would overheat you for 10 seconds, but if you're not firing any weapons/your distro is full, you could safely radiate it away, allowing you to reuse the heat sink indefinitely.

I think some laws of thermodynamics would disagree with your idea. Try running an airconditioner on your kitchen table and see how well it cools your house.

 

[aRJay]

Nah, just releasing it back into your ship's thermal reservoir. It would overheat you for 10 seconds, but if you're not firing any weapons/your distro is full, you could safely radiate it away, allowing you to reuse the heat sink indefinitely.

Sort of like a perpetual motion machine.

 

[metatheurgist]

I think some laws of thermodynamics would disagree with your idea. Try running an airconditioner on your kitchen table and see how well it cools your house.

Or cooling your house with your Fridge.

 

[Schmack]

The entire reason you release a heat sink is so the heat is removed. Without releasing it you never get rid of the heat, so you're not releasing it back into your ship since you never isolated it from your ship to begin with.

if you could capture a popped heatsink and use the energy that would be cool, otherwise Newton might object.

 

[Tividar]

Heat sinks already work based on handwavium. We currently reverse entropy to concentrate shipwide heat into tiny “heat sinks” that we then dump into space. Not that much of a jump to reverse the process since that’s what the universe wants to do anyway. Might create some interesting but pvp wrecking silent running options.

 

[Fixitman]

Re-usable heat sinks would require them to be more complicated to use. They would become meaningless (as in "easy mode") otherwise.

 

[DemiserofD]

I think some laws of thermodynamics would disagree with your idea. Try running an airconditioner on your kitchen table and see how well it cools your house.

Uh...it wouldn't. And neither would this. It would just store it temporarily.

Sort of like a perpetual motion machine.

The idea behind heat sinks is, you store the heat in the sink and eject it so you don't need to deal with it. But if you wanted to, you could un-store it and release it back into your ship.

That's what I'm suggesting. You use the heat sink; your heat drops to 1% for 10 seconds, and the heat sink fills up. But instead of ejecting it, you keep it contained in an insulated container, and at a later time, when you're ready, you can release it back into your ship, and allow your ship's heat vents to dissipate the heat. While it's releasing, your ship would heat up to 90-100% heat to maximize heat dispersal, until the heat sink is drained, and then you can use it again.

For spamming, this would be less good than a normal heat sink, because you can only use it once. But for sustain, it would be better, since you can use it over and over again. For example, use it near a star while fuel scooping, then drain it once you move away from the star.

 

[Greasetrap42]

That's what I'm suggesting. You use the heat sink; your heat drops to 1% for 10 seconds, and the heat sink fills up. But instead of ejecting it, you keep it contained in an insulated container, and at a later time, when you're ready, you can release it back into your ship, and allow your ship's heat vents to dissipate the heat.

Why store excess heat in an insulated container inside a spaceship that is surrounded by cold hard vacuum of space?

Ships are already designed with heat sinks that vent excess heat out of the ship. In-game they are called heat vents but obviously they are heat sinks with venting.... because these "vents" are drawing excess heat from the ship... like a heat sink. These are mounted on external surfaces isolated from the interior of the ship*. The reason why these vents are all glowing is because they are hot. They are intended to dissipate excess heat.

If you were to add bigger or additional heat sinks to the external surface of a ship... might as well add the venting too. Why not? Whatever... anyway...

... but yes... additional heat sinks could be mounted on the external surface of the ship. This would make much more sense than adding them to the interior of a ship.

What you are effectively asking for is additional heat management and dissipation built into the design of the ship. This is a ship design change. You might as well ask for additional hard points and utility mounts too. Or the ability to install larger power supplies, or power distributors.

Perhaps engineers could upgrade the ship heat vents through modification. Using better materials or something. But installing heat sinks in the interior of a ship using insulated boxes does not seam like a reasonable solution to heat management. This reminds me of cmdrs asking for crew chairs to be removed from the cockpit for additional cargo space. Or my silly idea of adding trailer hitches and roof racks to ships.



* Edit: Yes the ship heat vents are mounted on flaps that open and close. But they give all appearances of being separated from the interior spaces of the ship. Obviously the ship doesn't lose atmosphere when the vents are opened up.

 

[DemiserofD]

What you are effectively asking for is additional heat management and dissipation built into the design of the ship.

I'm sorry if I'm still being unclear, but that isn't quite it. Let me try again.

Background Info: The Heat Sink module temporarily stores heat on an independent and sealed system. We know it is sealed, because it does not create its own radiant source of heat that enemies can track while the Heat Sink is active. From this, we can conclude that heat sinks are insulated well enough to avoid this pitfall. This is one of the most important aspect of Heat Sinks. They allow player ships to temporarily avoid enemy fire, by reducing their emissive signature.

However, the one-time use nature of heat sinks means they must be synthesized after a fight is over. This can create an issue over long exploration journeys, or prolonged fights.

What I am suggesting is this: Rather than having multiple disposable heat sinks (which are ejected after use) this new module will be a single, supplementary heat sink. This additional heat sink would likewise be independent and sealed, but rather than being ejected after use, it would instead remain isolated temporarily, stored inside the ship, within the same insulation that conceals normal heat sinks from enemy sensors.

At a later time of the player's choosing, this supplementary heat sink could be unsealed, releasing the heat back into the player's ship, where it would then be vented into space, using the ship's built-in heat dissipation system. Once fully dissipated, it would be ready to be re-used.

This Recycling Heat Sink would therefore fill a very different niche from either (1) the default thermal venting systems or (2) the existing heat sink module. It would allow infinite use, at the cost of a much harsher limit on repeated use.

Is this explanation a little bit more clear?

 

[Greasetrap42]

Using the OP idea.... current heat sink launchers could simply hold on to the heat sink. Simply don't ever launch it. At a more 'convienient' time the heat collected in the heatsink gets "re-routed" to the ships built-in heat dissipation system.

This is effectively using the utility mounts to add some additional permanent heat sinks to the ship.

 

[Miscellaneous]

You could put it in a thermos

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Synthing heatsinks uses grade 1 mats. Collecting one grade 5 and trading down gives more than enough materials for the maximum possible number of reloads. Saying this costs too much really is silly.

 

[DemiserofD]

Synthing heatsinks uses grade 1 mats. Collecting one grade 5 and trading down gives more than enough materials for the maximum possible number of reloads. Saying this costs too much really is silly.

One place it could be particularly useful is for long-range explorers, who cannot collect the manufactured materials needed to synthesize heat sinks.
Another would be for frequent thargoid combatants, who may not want to need to hunt down a nearby materials trader regularly.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Another would be for frequent thargoid combatants, who may not want to need to hunt down a nearby materials trader regularly.

If you are "regularly" going through 150 heatsink synths you are doing something wrong.

 

[DemiserofD]

If you are "regularly" going through 150 heatsink synths you are doing something wrong.

Not really. For a solo hydra you can easily burn through several dozen synths. For my snake eater run I think I was synthing an average of somewhere between 20-25 per attempt.

And people are out there earning hundreds of billions.

 

[aRJay]

I'm sorry if I'm still being unclear, but that isn't quite it. Let me try again.

Background Info: The Heat Sink module temporarily stores heat on an independent and sealed system. We know it is sealed, because it does not create its own radiant source of heat that enemies can track while the Heat Sink is active. From this, we can conclude that heat sinks are insulated well enough to avoid this pitfall. This is one of the most important aspect of Heat Sinks. They allow player ships to temporarily avoid enemy fire, by reducing their emissive signature.

If by active you mean ejected from the ship then last time I checked they did show up on the scanner, if you are talking about while they are sucking the heat out of the ship the cooling ship will be masking them, as the ship gets cooler they get hotter so for an external observer the total heat is much the same until they are ejected and all the heat goes with them.

However, the one-time use nature of heat sinks means they must be synthesized after a fight is over. This can create an issue over long exploration journeys, or prolonged fights.

What I am suggesting is this: Rather than having multiple disposable heat sinks (which are ejected after use) this new module will be a single, supplementary heat sink. This additional heat sink would likewise be independent and sealed, but rather than being ejected after use, it would instead remain isolated temporarily, stored inside the ship, within the same insulation that conceals normal heat sinks from enemy sensors.

Much better to store outside the ship in case of emergencies.

At a later time of the player's choosing, this supplementary heat sink could be unsealed, releasing the heat back into the player's ship, where it would then be vented into space, using the ship's built-in heat dissipation system. Once fully dissipated, it would be ready to be re-used.

This Recycling Heat Sink would therefore fill a very different niche from either (1) the default thermal venting systems or (2) the existing heat sink module. It would allow infinite use, at the cost of a much harsher limit on repeated use.

Is this explanation a little bit more clear?

A bit but it still feels dodgy, but then thermodynamics usually does.

 

[GroG79]

Synths are dirt cheap. Especially heat sinks. I did a lot of AX and only sometimes there is a need to get another batch of mats. After 100 synths or so...

Just synth

Next you suggest we can use limpets to pick up the used heatsinks for recycling...