Heat related mis-hap...

[CMDR Space Lurker]

After returning from my last trip out to the edge of the galaxy, I played a bit with those trigger happy Thargoids, then was away from the game for weeks, to return days ago and equip a Diamondback Explorer for some serious travel into the core and beyond.. It all started well. But today, I was admiring some blue gas giants, and heading over ot a large landable planet, (2g surface gravity), and bothched the approach. Crashed out with "Too fast for Supercruise", suffering the first damage during the trip. While the FSD was cooling down, I was looking at the galaxy map, and suddenly heard "Temperature Critical!"... Very strange, thought I, I was nowhere near any star, and megameters above the planets surface. Heat was indeed inexplicably building up. I tried shutting modules on and off, toggling silent running just to make sure it wasn't accidentaly on, (it wasn't, things got worse)... Things started to look quite bad, and I decided to gamble on it being something with the planet making it happen, so I pointed the ship away from the planet, prepared to Hot Supercruise out of there... but then.. temperature started dropping, and within a minute the Diamondback was back at its usual near-freezing temperature.... I found it a complete mystery.. and find myself with a burned ship early on in my Great Trip....

I remember hearing similar stories, but know not what is the cause... Bug? Guardian Heat Rays?... Things Untold?

Sending two pictures, one of general Gas Giant admiration, and one of the Heat Disaster in progress.

Admiring striped Gas Giant:

Heat Disaster:

 

[Major Klutz]

Shields are off I see which makes me think Silent Running, but you checked that.

What was your ships orientation when you dropped out of SC at high altitude? Boosting or banking and charging the FSD at the same time can cause overheating. Especially in high gravity and if your engines are tuned dirty.
What engineering mods do you have?
What's your normal heat level? (update, I see it's at 16% in the first photo, so your power usage is probably not very high)

270% is really high. Never seen that myself under any circumstances that weren't close to a pair of stars or accidentally engaging silent running.

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

Shields were off due to them being turned off to reduce heat.
Ship was on a shallow approach to the planet when dropping out, and left more or less like that flight high over the planet when I went off to check the galactic map. But I think one of its "wings" was pointing groundwards, so it was tilted 90 degrees on its side. The ship wasn't even running at full speed when I went off to the map while the FSD was cooling down after the emergency drop.
The only engineered module is the FSD, which is grade 5 for extended range.
Normal heat is about 17%

 

[Major Klutz]

A 90 degree bank to the side can overheat some ships in high G but not normally a DBE. Lateral thusters can't hold you up in high G so they work extra hard and that can cause excess heat.
If you have an A rated power plant, I would not expect this to happen on a DBE. If you have a power plant that is not A rated, that might be the cause. You can always test by trying to reproduce if you're on your way back for repairs.
If you can't reproduce it, I'd say it was a game glitch.

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

The lateral thrusters theory fits observed facts, I was indeed falling due to them not being up to the task of keeping me in place, and it seemed like it was me turning the main thrusters towards the planet that solved the problem... but it seems strange that the lateral thrusters would be capable of generating so much heat.. way more than main thrusters boosting. Will have to check this out next time I come across a big landable.
I decided not to turn home, I still have 70% hull, and a full AMFU. So I'll just be careful going round the backside of the core, and swing by colonia for repairs.

 

[Satsuma]

It's definitely not silent running. When that's on, the heat display at the lower right is replaced with the words "Silent Running", but your heat display is very active. You're not mass locked, you're not scooping, you're not charging for a jump It's a mystery.

Maybe log a ticket on it? It sounds like a bug in the game. I'm glad you made it out of that situation with relatively little damage.

 

[Orvidius]

I'm favoring the thruster theory too, now. In high-G environments, they're not always strong enough to overcome gravity. With Flight Assist turned off, you would be unable to slow your descent, in such a situation. Flight Assist is able to cheat, and can drive the thrusters harder than their design limit so that you always have a minimum capability of 5m/s acceleration away from the surface. I haven't tested it, but I suspect the heat generation goes up considerably when it does this.

Are you using undersized thrusters?


(A fun factoid is that this "minimum acceleration" cheat also applies when you boost. If the boosted acceleration is still less than 5m/s with your nose pointed straight up, you can still accelerate upward, however if your nose is pointed at an angle, your trajectory can still "fall" over toward the ground. So in a high-G environment, it's generally best to climb straight up into supercruise before pitching over to jump out, for instance.)

 

[Pirin]

A 90 degree bank to the side can overheat some ships in high G but not normally a DBE. Lateral thusters can't hold you up in high G so they work extra hard and that can cause excess heat.
If you have an A rated power plant, I would not expect this to happen on a DBE. If you have a power plant that is not A rated, that might be the cause. You can always test by trying to reproduce if you're on your way back for repairs.
If you can't reproduce it, I'd say it was a game glitch.

This is my guess too.
High degree bank tends to increase heat quite a lot. Especially in high G environments and with (i guess?) downgraded thrusters.

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

The thrusters are indeed both undersized and D-grade. I will see if I can confirm the thrusters theory next time I hit a Big Landable... seems a bit odd that a small and weak thruster could generate that much heat. But we will see.

 

[Lurker]

Greetings CMDR!
Please also consider the "[OHClog] Hazardous Substance Detected" message above the heat demage warning.

Salute!

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

I have googled the Hazardous Substance thing, and most answers I find, mainly on reddit, seems to indicate that this warning turns up every now and then when heat rises above 120%.
I have no cargo rack, and no substances were showing on my scanner. After cooling down, I successfully returned to the planet and even landed on it without suffering any heat disasters, or recieving any substance warnings. I was, however approaching the planet from a different direction then, so I was thousands of kilometers away from where the incident occured.

 

[Orvidius]

I've mainly seen the "[OHClog] Hazardous Substance Detected" message appear when my FSD is malfunctioning, due to falling below 80% after neutron jumping. At least, that's when I've noticed it.

 

[Satsuma]

I've also seen the "hazardous substance detected" message in high heat situations. I think it's a symptom of the heat damage, not a cause.

You mentioned using undersized D-rated thrusters, but I don't think a DBX can use 3D thrusters. They have a maximum mass of about half of the hull mass of the DBX. Are you sure you're not using 4D thrusters? Those are full-sized for the ship, so they shouldn't have any problems, especially if the planet is under 2G gravity.

This still smells like a game bug to me...

 

[iain666]

I've definitely seen heat spike with some planet side manoeuvres in even moderate g if leaning on the lateral thrusters (with the clipper build linked in my sig). I've never tried going to supercruise at the same time but I'd expect the heat to get to damaging levels if I did.

 

[disorganise]

Almost certainly thrusters...looks to me like you might be upside down (numbers decreasing *upwards*) which can really cause heat sometimes, especially if some yaw is added.

I asked recently about the hazardous substance warning.....seems to be that it pops up when you take heat damage to the cargo hatch.

 

[CMDR Space Lurker]

I have now tested this in a more safe manner. Tilting the ship 90 degrees and falling out of the sky did indeed cause the ship to heat up from the side thruster's futile attempt to maintain altitude, but heat did not get any higher than 50% and stabilised there. Warm for a Diamondback, but far from 270%..

It wasn't quite the same conditions, though. Gravity was at about 1.3g where I did my safe test, compared to 1.6g at the Heat Disaster. Still, I was falling out of the sky in both cases. I'd say this would indicate thrusters aren't the whole story.. but I don't know what is....

Meanwhile, here's my ship in an ice ring: