Newcomer / Intro What's the practical value of Thermal Shock?

[Old Duck]

I decided to try the Thermal Shock experimental effect on my size 4 fixed beam on my Conda. My question is, what exactly is the benefit of this EE? I assumed it would be useful against ships with really strong shields by causing them to take heat damage while their shields are still up, but I've yet to see an NPC be destroyed by overheating. In every battle so far (I just added this EE last night), I've had to take the ship down to 0% hull to destroy it.

I have seen some strange behaviors, however. I was using this weapon on a FDL, and the ship just stopped moving for a bit. I think I said "thank you" out loud, as it made it very easy to target. At the time I attributed it to AI glitching, but then I started to wonder if perhaps this was a side-effect of TS... Does overheating cause module failure in NPC ships? Are there any other benefits to using TS? If I end up in a PvP battle, will this offer me any advantage at all, or can a player just counter using heatsinks?

 

[Para Handy]

I live convinced that the AI is never bothered by heat issues. See how often they fire SCBs - even in combat near a star at a nav beacon. So, not an informed opinion but for me TS is a waste for PvE stuff - but I am not combat-oriented so could be well off the mark (see what I did there? ).

 

[Maymo]

Someone with a stronger pedigree than myself will probably be able to give you more information but I believe some time ago the heat buildup of thermal shock was capped so that it couldn’t outright incinerate ships.
I still sometimes hear the PvP folks refer to the “heat meta”, it didn’t sound fun...

Not sure if it’s any use these days, in fact I’m not sure its ever been any good for PVE as most ships die before the modules have finished melting.

The special effect that causes modules to malfunction on a rapid fire burst laser can be fun though...

Corrosive rounds are still the most powerful special effect for bounty hunting in my opinion. It increases damage from all sources so if you’re in a RES you’re boosting up the already significant cop damage and dropping ships far quicker.

 

[Morbad]

Thermal load inducing weapons have been repeatedly weakened to the point there is very little reason to ever use them.

I still sometimes hear the PvP folks refer to the “heat meta”, it didn’t sound fun...

It wasn't, though it was probably better than the MJ are everything "meta" that's come to dominate since every ship has been able point at any other a significant portion of the time.

 

[Old Duck]

Thermal load inducing weapons have been repeatedly weakened to the point there is very little reason to ever use them.

Do you have a recommendation for a good effect on a fixed S4 beam for PvE? It seems to melt shields even without effects, so I could just go with a light weight or something else innocuous that doesn't have negative effects.

 

[Para Handy]

Do you have a recommendation for a good effect on a fixed S4 beam for PvE? It seems to melt shields even without effects, so I could just go with a light weight or something else innocuous that doesn't have negative effects.

I always use Efficient Weapon on beams.

 

[pzykozomatik]

In my experience it's not very useful atm and not worth the damage reduction that comes with it.

On my beams I either use a mix of the two shield regen effects when I'm hunting in wings, or thermal vent which is great again after 3.0 in keeping your heat low (if you hit more often than you miss that is) and enables you to fire additional volleys of e.g. rails as long as there is juice in your capacitor while the heat stays well below critical levels. In other cases I just leave the beams without an experimental effect or use something like oversized or flow control depending on the power levels of the ship.

 

[Old Duck]

I always use Efficient Weapon on beams.

On my beams I either use a mix of the two shield regen effects when I'm hunting in wings, or thermal vent which is great again after 3.0 in keeping your heat low (if you hit more often than you miss that is) and enables you to fire additional volleys of e.g. rails as long as there is juice in your capacitor while the heat stays well below critical levels...

I use efficient beams on ships like my Vulture that struggle with powering such weapons, but my Conda has a pretty buff power plant and distributor, so most of my lasers are long range. My two small hardpoints have turreted beams both with thermal vent, and I have my fire group set up so I can just have these firing while the other turrets stand down. They can chill my Conda to 1% heat

It does sound like I'll go back and swap out the thermal shock. Pity that a number of these experimental effects are essentially useless...

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Thermal vent is pretty good, especially if you are also using plasmas or rails.

I'm pretty sure that heat effects have been nerfed to useless, same as anything that briefly becomes a META. I have a DB Explorer with two thermal shock beams (efficient) and a large thermal shock cannon (overcharged). NPCs don't appear to be overly bothered by the heat. I haven't tried it on a CMDR yet.

 

[Old Duck]

The special effect that causes modules to malfunction on a rapid fire burst laser can be fun though...

I just tried this (scramble spectrum) on my two burst turrets on my Conda, and I love it! I don't know how often they actually trigger module failure, but I love how they look. Frontier must have modeled these after the Zat'nik'tel from Stargate: SG-1. I sometimes will choose EE for the visuals, like thermal conduit on beams for that ST:TNG phaser look.

As for thermal shock, I've replaced it with thermal vent, giving me 3 beams with this mod. I'm a flying ice box!

 

[ArchAngelofDeath]

Thermal vent. Puts ice on my windshield.

 

[Yure]

Does thermal shock or vent make turrets aim more accurate?

 

[Stabby_Dave]

I’m flying a FDL with g5 efficient beam with thermal vent on the huge, g5 multi with corrosive, g5 multi with incendiary and 2x g4 multi with auto loader all gimballed. Everything melts except me.

 

[Yure]

Running an eagle with cyto burst lasers. Originally was going to go for inertial, but now I'm wondering if should have a scramble or thermal experimental.


Scramble would in theory allow me to survive line vs those who have gimbaled and turrets.

Hearing thermal was nerfed so wasn't planning on taking it. But was wondering If the extra heat would allow turrets to target better. I have a short range canonn for module damage, and right now it does well, but was wondering if the higher a target's heat the more accurate the turrets hit.

 

[Old Duck]

Hearing thermal was nerfed so wasn't planning on taking it. But was wondering If the extra heat would allow turrets to target better. I have a short range canonn for module damage, and right now it does well, but was wondering if the higher a target's heat the more accurate the turrets hit.

I could be wrong, but I believe from my own observations that Emissive Munitions SE causes gimbals and turrets stay on target much better (normally they tend drift around quite a bit).

 

[Para Handy]

...........t. But was wondering If the extra heat would allow turrets to target better. I have a short range canonn for module damage, and right now it does well, but was wondering if the higher a target's heat the more accurate the turrets hit.

I believe the target-lock is binary - you are either locked-on or not. You could possibly make a DBX for example less "elusive" if you raised it's heat sig I suppose. However, as far as I am aware there is no intermediate "poor lock" condition producing more aiming errors, I believe aiming errors are all down to RNG of your weapon's jitter.

N.B. I am not a hot-shot combat type so I stand to be corrected by those who are.

 

[RastaFrog]

Hey CMDRs! Wanna to up this topic a little bit ). So, nowdays, is there any point of adding heat effect against NPC? There is a rumor that heating make them use plasma/rails less, , hm?

 

[Dommarraa]

Hey CMDRs! Wanna to up this topic a little bit ). So, nowdays, is there any point of adding heat effect against NPC? There is a rumor that heating make them use plasma/rails less, , hm?

No, I doubt there is any significant difference if any at all.
NPC do not panic when they overheat like a Human. They take the damage and/or pop a heat sink.
For them, surviving the next 5 minutes is more important than some module damage (quite rightly).

 

[d8veh]

It's very difficult to figure out what happens to NPC when you use thermal shock because you can't see what's going on in their ship. I reckon that it probably has a lot more effect than what people say. It's result would be that the NPC won't be able to shoot you so much, especially if it has beams, rail guns or plasma. You won't kill it any quicker, but it won't be able to do so much damage to you. If it has SCBs, they only ever have three heatsinks, so if it has to use its heatsinks to stop the ship from boiling because of your weapons, it will be quicker to kill because either it won't be able to use one or more of the SCBs or it'll take a lot of damage when it does.

 

[Craith]

NPCs do take heat damage, but, as with power plant failure, the effect is easy to miss, since their ships are less min maxed than our ships, so they don't operate that close to 100% heat. You can see their modules taking heat damage when they use SCBs and are out of heat sinks - most of the time they use a heat sink alongside it though.

IMO thermal shock still doesn't make much sense, since the increase is to low.

I like thermal vent, like many others, on my long range beams, or regeneration / concordant sequence if with wingmates.