How can I turn off my fuel scoop?

[JohnMalcolm]

I think most of the responses have been from people trying to help. Sometimes a bit of humour can be taken as a dig. I for example asked if this was a joke thread. It wasn't a malicious statement. People don't keep coming back to threads like this for fun. They could be having more fun playing the game. During beta and gamma coming to these forums was how I learned most of what I know of this game. It's hard to guess exactly what you're doing from your descriptions alone.
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You say that when you intend to scoop you do so at low speed without problems.. You say that otherwise you arrive at a star with throttle set to full and quickly swing round to your next target. I can see this being OK if that next navigation target is another star system as part of a planned route and it happens to behind you.
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If your next destination isn't a route planner star, and you have your throttle set to 100% when you arrive when do you select that next target? Are you still flying directly into the star in the present system while trying to select a target in your navigation screen? If not: how to you know which way to turn to head towards a Nav beacon or other in-system object? I have yet to find, in my travels, a Nav beacon that lives inside scoopabale range of its star.
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I did an experiment last night. I stopped my usual "throttle to zero" routine. My fuel scoop module was powered/active as always. Ever single place I arrive I was able to turn the ship round and head away from the star without ever entering the scooping zone. In most cases I was turning in the direction away from the centre of the star, but I was also able to do it by turning 180 through the centre point of the star facing me.
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I then went back to my method of arrival and took some notes. I noted what distance I was at when I arrived at a star, the type of star and then I flew slowly straight towards it until fuel scooping began and took a note of that distance. Obviously star size and power with classes varies a fair bit, but that isn't an issue here. The issue is that I have to actually move nearer to these stars to even begin scooping.
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Type of star: F
Arrival distance: 5.60LS
Scoop distance: 5.05LS
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Type of star: K
Arrival distance: 2.91LS
Scoop distance: 2.60LS
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Type of star: M
Arrival distance: 2.85LS
Scoop distance: 2.55LS
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Type of star: M
Arrival distance: 2.60LS
Scoop distance: 2.36LS
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Type of star: T
Arrival distance: 2.89LS
Scoop distance: NA
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I can happily fly around stars at a third of lightspeed scooping at maximum rate and keeping heat in the 95% - 110% range. I don't though. I do what most folk do and position my ship in the sweet spot and throttle back, getting high scoop rate and with temp being fairly stable.
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My money's on poor rated equipment combined with taking shortcuts through the 'atmosphere' of stars. Out of interest, what is your temp on arrival typically? Time saved on arrival by not having throttle set at zero is negligible. If you are coming out of a jump at full throttle (closing the distance between you and the star), charging FSD for the next jump immediately and have poorly rated equipment you will end up getting expensive heat damage. What's the rush? Using the zero throttle arrival method gives you plenty of time to: select your next navigation target manually, or, align your ship calmly for scooping, or, target an unknown star in front of you to begin scanning, or, fire off your discovery scanner, or, bury your nose in the Galaxy Map, or, a whole host of other things that involve no increase in heat, no heat damage and no drama. The only risk to your ship at this point is an interdiction. Once you've did what you have to do you can align with your target and throttle up. Even if I'm fighting the clock on a time sensitive mission, I still start from throttle down, quickly select my next navigation point and then move off.

 

[tristancliffe]

Several people, myself included, mentioned your power plant issue AGES ago in this thread. It was fairly obvious the problem was going to be that (or something similar) because rate of heat build up AND/OR rate of scooping have nothing to do with speed or whether your scoop is active or not assuming your ship isn't a badly cobbled together mess of modules that don't work.

 

[Libluini]

Yes, and that made me wonder why the game would put bases so near a star that my fuel scoop would engage, but it would seem I have a bug.

I am wondering if I am getting these problems because I bought a higher end fuel scoop than my basic engine can cope with and if I had worked my way up by buying a basic fuel scoop until I could afford a better engine, that I wouldnt have had this problem?

Your engine doesn't matter, your power plant does. If it is too low-rated, you're not only getting into trouble supplying everything with energy, your ship will overheat like mad. Just fly somewhere, anywhere and look at that gauge left of your speed gauge. That line represents how much your plant has to work to supply everything. It is coincidentally your heating gauge. As soon as that gauge hits 100%, you'll get the overheating-warning.

Normally, with sensible module combinations, that gauge should never go over 50% away from a star. At what heat level is your gauge flying perfectly normal? (For comparisons' sake, my own heat is at 38-40% in normal flight.)

If you upgraded your powerplant and your ship still has trouble staying cool, here are some tips:

1. Go into your right menu and assign some power priorities. Stuff like your thrusters, life support, power distributors and so on should stay at priority 1, but your weapons and FSD can savely be at 2, since you can't use your FSD with hard points in position anyway, and weapons can't be used if your FSD is active, so it's completely irrelevant if one has to power done when the other is online.

2. Your cargo hatch and your scanners (not sensors, those are important) can even be down at priority 3, for the same reason as under 1. You won't be shooting or jumping with your cargo scoop open anyway, so not having it online together with them is equally irrelevant.

3. Go a step further and switch your cargo hatch off. You can still load and unload at stations without trouble, just jettisoning stuff is impossible. This lets you get rid of some additional heat while only costing a couple seconds to undo if you really want to shoot your cargo into space.

4. Don't get greedy with your fuel scoop. Just wait a bit longer instead of burning to a crisp after getting too close to the star. As you know, 100-150% heat is the safe range.

5. Additionally, take interdiction-attempts into account. If you see trouble on your radar, make sure to stay below 100% heat to give you some time to react.

6. If you make continous jumps, wait inbetween jumps until your heat buildup has been bleed off again. If you jump too fast, your heat will continue to build up. Which is bad.

7. When upgrading your ship, take a look at how much power your modules draw in the fitting window and remember: The closer you get to drawing full power, the more heat problems you will have. Make sure you always have a power plant good enough to have some left over energy after supplying everything.

This should help you out.

 

[JohnMalcolm]

Thank you for taking the time to map it this invaluable information. From the numbers I can see that some stars will trigger a fuel scoop earlier than others upon exiting, and I wonder how much does the solar mass of the star factor into the trigger distance.

It's not that valuable tbh. Class, size and heat are all important. Note that I have two M stars with different numbers. I should have noted size/mass/intensity also. My point was to show that Arrival distance > Scoop distance.

 

[Milomaine]

We don't think you're lying, we think you're dumb.

Less of the "WE" , Who made you our representative?
I don't know what's going on with his scooping issue but name-calling doesn't really help does it?

 

[Libluini]

Less of the "WE" , Who made you our representative?
I don't know what's going on with his scooping issue but name-calling doesn't really help does it?

Which is why I made that huge effort post you missed. Because I thought about this issue a bit and concluded since it can't be the fuel scoop, it probably has something to do with his heat management.

Also wow, calling someone dumb is name calling? We all are dumb sometimes, that's just human nature. No reason to get upset about something so mild.

 

[Zanten]

Whilst this is true, in my experiment, dont go from minimum to full, just the tiniest bit of throttle to increase your scooping speed a little, you then dont need to increase any more, the temp will just keep rising.

When I turn the fuel scoop off, yes, i still get a slight temp increase as I increase speed, but then it cools down as I fly further from the star.
With fuel scoop engaged, it never cools down when you go above that minimum fuel scoop speed.

I wish some of you guys would try my experiment.

In my experience, even TURNING increases the heat, (i.e., miminum throttle, then I start turning around, wobbling back and forth, basically using the thrusters that adjust ship orientation,) and this is without a fuel scoop even attached, once I'm in the 'sweet spot,' i.e. around 95% steady heat. With a fuel scoop attached, the same thing happens, but the fuel scoop absorption rate doesn't change as long as I'm facing the sun, meaning I'm 'scooping' the exact same amount of fuel, but continuing to get hotter, despite still being on minimal thrust. Your ship's systems generate heat; thrusters, engines, afterburners, etc. If you're close to the sun and already on the 'edge' in terms of heat tolerance, you're going to see a spike the moment you have your engines do anything. Not sure why YOUR heat didn't go up when you were turning.

 

[Nambo]

Nambo, I don't believe you are trolling at all, but I do believe you have you heart set on the fact that the fuel scoop is the cause of the heat generation. It would be very hard pressed for anyone to convince you otherwise because you still feel the problem is caused by a bug and not a game-play concern.

If you could provide me with the location of the star you experienced the issue with and I will go there to test and record the process.

I have this issue with all stars.
The Star with the base so close was a one off that there is no way I can remember where.

 

[Nambo]

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If your next destination isn't a route planner star, and you have your throttle set to 100% when you arrive when do you select that next target? Are you still flying directly into the star in the present system while trying to select a target in your navigation screen? If not: how to you know which way to turn to head towards a Nav beacon or other in-system object? I have yet to find, in my travels, a Nav beacon that lives inside scoopabale range of its star.
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First of all, I am covering vast distances that the route planner has mapped for me, when I arrive at a star I instantly pull away whilst also looking at my little blue scanner to line up for my next jump whilst also charging my fog horn scanner, I never have heat issues doing this provided my fuel scoop isnt on.
Sometimes I don't realise that I have arrived at my final star system right away, but this is still no problem as I have already turned quickly away from the star with the momentum of full throttle.

If my fuel is low, then before I exit hyperdrive I pull my throttle back to zero, and still turn away whilst I then go to the module to turn the scoop back on.

Will be interesting to see if my issue resolves when I can afford a better engine, though now I know how to turn my scoop off, I have no problems providing I remember to turn it off again every time I have used it.

 

[Nambo]

Your engine doesn't matter, your power plant does. If it is too low-rated, you're not only getting into trouble supplying everything with energy, your ship will overheat like mad. Just fly somewhere, anywhere and look at that gauge left of your speed gauge. That line represents how much your plant has to work to supply everything. It is coincidentally your heating gauge. As soon as that gauge hits 100%, you'll get the overheating-warning.

Normally, with sensible module combinations, that gauge should never go over 50% away from a star. At what heat level is your gauge flying perfectly normal? (For comparisons' sake, my own heat is at 38-40% in normal flight.)

Cheers for this, I didnt know about that gauge, I will have a look when I play a bit later.

 

[Nambo]

Cheers for this, I didnt know about that gauge, I will have a look when I play a bit later.

I came out of a station, the gauge was about 55%
When I came out of hyperdrive and did some fuel scooping in SC it was about 40%
I then got attacked, after I had beaten him and was still in normal flight, all shields charged up, nothing differant as far as I could tell, but the gauge now said around 75&

 

[Nambo]

Well I think this must have been an online bug because I have not touched any settings, I have not changed anything on my ship but tonight I have jumped from star to star to star, with my fuel scoop on, and tonight it has been fine, I still approach stars at full throttle and turn away right away, sometimes the scoop will engage, but even when it does it turns off as out of range before the heat has gone more than a degree or two, whereas from when I noticed this problem, the scoop would stay on for a long long way from the star.

 

[Libluini]

Well I think this must have been an online bug because I have not touched any settings, I have not changed anything on my ship but tonight I have jumped from star to star to star, with my fuel scoop on, and tonight it has been fine, I still approach stars at full throttle and turn away right away, sometimes the scoop will engage, but even when it does it turns off as out of range before the heat has gone more than a degree or two, whereas from when I noticed this problem, the scoop would stay on for a long long way from the star.

OK, now this could be. A few days ago or something the transaction server made trouble. Transactions took sometimes hours to complete, problems with ghost cargo, problems with exploration data, the whole deal. I could see the scoop not disengaging be a server problem.

This would also explain why you were the only one experiencing this, some of the bugs (like some people suddenly getting billions in credits) are rather rare and a similarily rare bug with the fuel scoop would be a lot less visible. Especially since not everyone uses fuel scoops. So if this bug happens to someone not using a fuel scoop, he wouldn't notice.

If it happens again, make a ticket and a post in the bug thread, just to be on the safe side.

 

[Shismar]

Why the heck would you go to a nav point anyway? They are only good to pick a fight.

I am rare trading atm and using a fuel scoop and I I have never had none of your issues. It sure is not an online bug as well as there hasn't been an update either. Glad it works for you now.

 

[OldSalt]

Why the heck would you go to a nav point anyway? They are only good to pick a fight.

I am rare trading atm and using a fuel scoop and I I have never had none of your issues. It sure is not an online bug as well as there hasn't been an update either. Glad it works for you now.

That is exactly why I go there.

 

[Shismar]

That is exactly why I go there.

Yeah, but the OP is doing rare trades too. He sure does not want to go to a nav point.

Any way, the gauge on the left side is the temperature. Top is 100% of whatever and the usual range is between 40% and 90% ish after a jump. Fuel scoop engaging does not reduce speed, never did.

Hints: When arriving at a system always pull up outwards. The orbital lines give a good hint to where that is. The nav point can be anywhere, even straight through the star!

 

[schuesseled]

Yeah, but the OP is doing rare trades too. He sure does not want to go to a nav point.

Any way, the gauge on the left side is the temperature. Top is 100% of whatever and the usual range is between 40% and 90% ish after a jump. Fuel scoop engaging does not reduce speed, never did.

Hints: When arriving at a system always pull up outwards. The orbital lines give a good hint to where that is. The nav point can be anywhere, even straight through the star!

I both trade rares and fight at nav points.

The gauge is temperature as a percentage of safe capacity. Your ship can only be so hot before it starts to take damage, 100% would be 100% heat tolerance reached i.e. any higher and you'll run the risk of taking damage, (which starts at 150% incidentally, so assumably there is an additional 50% redundancy built-in)

 

[Nambo]

Why the heck would you go to a nav point anyway? They are only good to pick a fight.

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Lots of wanted NPC's hang around them, I only started the Rare Items runs during the course of this thread so dont do the Nav points now.
Got attacked by a Clipper Expert NPC tonight, so still some fun to be had, guess he was after my 34 tons of Rares, earned over 30,000 for that one, I am almost on the verge of affording an A3 engine now.

One question, if you buy an upgrade, then later sell it to upgrade the item further, do you lose a percentage when you sell the first upgrade back?
I tend to hold out for the best items rather than working my way up, but guess there is no point if you got the same money you spent back.

 

[tristancliffe]

No, you sell modules for 100% of their price. So you can work your way up safely. You can even test modules - go for a fly with them and if you don't like it bring it back and buy your old one back.

Ships themselves are sold at 90% of their value. So when upgrading a ship as a part exchange, sell your current modules separately.