Engineers Dirty or clean drive?

Barinthus74

B
Good evening Fellow Cmdrs.

I could do with some help with Engineering.

I am currently using a Viper IV for Hi-res combat and wish to make it more maneuverable. My current understanding would be to go to Farseer and improve the Engine I.e Thrusters. Now i have unlocked level 3 on both Dirty drive and clean drives. Which is the better one to apply for combat or should i leave the Thrusters Vanilla.

Many thanks in advance
Barinthus
 

UnhappyDev

UnhappyDev
Barinthus74 said:
Good evening Fellow Cmdrs.

I could do with some help with Engineering.

I am currently using a Viper IV for Hi-res combat and wish to make it more maneuverable. My current understanding would be to go to Farseer and improve the Engine I.e Thrusters. Now i have unlocked level 3 on both Dirty drive and clean drives. Which is the better one to apply for combat or should i leave the Thrusters Vanilla.

Many thanks in advance
Barinthus
Click to expand...

Probably go with the dirty drives for combat.

Use Clean drives for cold running ships, e.g. stealth builds or exploration builds, but generally go dirty for combat.
 

Barinthus74

B
Thank you for that.
Still getting to grips with engineers. Been a bit hit and miss so far but i'm sure i'll get the hang of it
 

Ceekay

Ceekay
If you have the mats multi-rolled DDT grade 3 can be as high as a 23% (max 20% typically) a worthwhile increase in performance and with cracked industrial firmware being AWOL a lot easier to achieve,
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Barinthus74 said:
Good evening Fellow Cmdrs.

I could do with some help with Engineering.

I am currently using a Viper IV for Hi-res combat and wish to make it more maneuverable. My current understanding would be to go to Farseer and improve the Engine I.e Thrusters. Now i have unlocked level 3 on both Dirty drive and clean drives. Which is the better one to apply for combat or should i leave the Thrusters Vanilla.

Many thanks in advance
Barinthus
Click to expand...

Dirty unless you explore, I think that's the crack.
 

Earth Ultimatum IV.

Earth Ultimatum IV.
Always dirty, even for cold ship. Dirty are so much superior, and the decreased heat on clean won't even be visible. Clean is only good for explorers.
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
Earth Ultimatum IV. said:
Always dirty, even for cold ship. Dirty are so much superior, and the decreased heat on clean won't even be visible. Clean is only good for explorers.
Click to expand...
That's not always true - the clean drive mod has a higher optimal mass than the dirty, and the optimal mass can sometimes even rise as a secondary effect. For most combat-oriented ships, this doesn't really matter, but for ships that are near the thruster optimal mass already (such as the Viper Mk. III,) the difference in optimal mass can make a significant difference to pitch-rates and thruster performance.

For the Vipers, the choices are:

  1. Dirty drives - big boosts to speed at the expense of turn-rate and thruster performance
  2. Clean drives - less of a speed boost with little-to-no loss on turnrate with boosts to thruster performance

I don't fly a Viper Mk. IV generally. I put clean drives on my Mk. III and absolutely love it.

*edit*

Looking at the Mk. IV though, I would say dirty all the way.
 
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ExoForce

ExoForce
Always dirty. Just did bunch of clean drives rolling - results are according to description but waste of time and materials..
 

m1dane24

m1dane24
I guess it depends on what you want to use them for. For all my combat ships, it's Dirty Drives all the way. Clean Drive upgrades are nice to have for stealth and silent running, I have a DBS that runs below 20% (i think 29% if i fire up the FSD) on temp and im still trying to see if i can still lower down the temp :)
 

duckofdeath

duckofdeath
The only moment it's really worth going for clean drives is when heat is an issue. I even have G5 dirty tuned advanced thrusters on my explorer Eagle, just for the speed. I had to tweak the power plant a lot to accommodate for the extreme heat while jumping but, it actually works. :D
Short story shorter: If your dirty tuned drive gives you problems, get a clean tuned drive.
 
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[VR] Deggial

[VR] Deggial
duckofdeath said:
The only moment it's really worth going for clean drives is when heat is an issue. ...
Click to expand...

But isn't this an issue?

For some reason, clean drives have a higer power demand than dirty drives. It is very likey, that in order to sustain them, the power plant will have to be upgraded more than for dirty drive-enhanced ships. Doesn't this counteract the idea of low heat builds?
I always thought, clean drives should consume less energy than dirty ones (but of course more than unmodded ones). It is even somehow intuitive, imo.

Or do I overestimate the effect? Isn't the heat gain from overcharged powerplants so noticeable as I imagine? (I've never taken such a close look, in all honesty ... :( )
 

Deleted member 38366

D
IMHO for any Combat Ship (and basically all Multirolers), Dirty is the way to go. No severe downsides (if any at all) but better performance. Their heat tolerances can easily cover the increased heat from the Engineered Thrusters.

Exceptions to that rule : Medium/Big Ships with Thrusters one Class higher than PowerPlant.
Those suffer from the increased heat of Thrusters (especially over Planets) far more than any others.
The most notable one being the Beluga, for example. It would suffer very badly under many conditions.

Take a Viper or Python with Grade 5 Dirty Drives, and you can likely still charge the FSD while Afterburning around (even with a fairly far overcharged Power Plant) - and not run into any big heat problems.
Try that in a Type-7, Type-9 or Beluga.... well, you'll want to carry a Heatsink, otherwise enjoy the "hot show". The Beluga will be very easily cooked off and quickly spike way beyond 100% heat in absolutely no time.

Try the same in a T7/T9/Beluga over even a mild G Planet... Brace yourself and be sure to have placed the Hamburgers onto the cockpit panels in time. They'll be ready-to-eat in virtually no time xD
 
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Earth Ultimatum IV.

Earth Ultimatum IV.
the100thmonkey said:
That's not always true - the clean drive mod has a higher optimal mass than the dirty, and the optimal mass can sometimes even rise as a secondary effect. For most combat-oriented ships, this doesn't really matter, but for ships that are near the thruster optimal mass already (such as the Viper Mk. III,) the difference in optimal mass can make a significant difference to pitch-rates and thruster performance.

For the Vipers, the choices are:

  1. Dirty drives - big boosts to speed at the expense of turn-rate and thruster performance
  2. Clean drives - less of a speed boost with little-to-no loss on turnrate with boosts to thruster performance

I don't fly a Viper Mk. IV generally. I put clean drives on my Mk. III and absolutely love it.

*edit*

Looking at the Mk. IV though, I would say dirty all the way.
Click to expand...


All wrong. Flying both vipers regularly, had clean drives too. They're straight up worse than dirty, there's absolutely no reason to use them. Even the heat is the same.
A speed boost at the expense of turn rate? That doesn't happen. Both speed and turn rate are based on the same parametres - thrusters and mass. When you increase speed, you also increase turn rate, and vice versa.


Do not use clean drives, ever.
 

UnhappyDev

UnhappyDev
IMO Clean drives should offer more thermal efficiency than they currently do, but conversely there should be a greater heat penalty for dirty drives.

My corvette has G5 DDs and a G3 overcharged power plant. It should feel like a hot running ship, but it doesn't.
 
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