Engineers Why is Heat a different damage type to Thermal?

[Devari]

Why do you keep talking about "the cooling effect of the mounting point"? That would be under normal conditions.

No, there would be no significant cooling from the heat transferred from the mounting points. Any heat transferred will be a tiny amount of the total heat the component generates.

What I am trying to tell you is that when your ship hull temp is being increased, then that mounting point will also get hot and transfer that heat back to whatever is connected to it. Things inside are much more sensitive to heat than outside.

The amount of heat that you could transfer to an engine through it's mounting points is trivial. You are not going to heat a car's engine block by heating the mounting points, any more than you are going to heat up a brake rotor by heating the brake fluid. Any tiny amount of heat that you are going to transfer would be trivial in comparison to the heat the component itself is generating.

You need to read my posts more carefully. I never said that the mounting points are used for cooling effect. I said that they can be a point of heat transfer into the hull from excessive heat of that component.
There is a difference which you have either failed to understand or simply misread.

I read your posts just fine. You're suggesting that a thermal shock weapon conducts heat from the ship's hull, through to the mounting points of internal modules and causes the internal temperature to rise as a result. That just makes no sense, it would be like saying I overheated your car's engine block by heating the mounting points or that I overheated your brake rotors by heating the brake fluid. Any heat that might be conducted in this manner is trivial compared to the heat the component is already generating and you have a cooling system that is actively removing all of this heat.

 

[DragoonKnight]

No, there would be no significant cooling from the heat transferred from the mounting points. Any heat transferred will be a tiny amount of the total heat the component generates.



The amount of heat that you could transfer to an engine through it's mounting points is trivial. You are not going to heat a car's engine block by heating the mounting points, any more than you are going to heat up a brake rotor by heating the brake fluid. Any tiny amount of heat that you are going to transfer would be trivial in comparison to the heat the component itself is generating.



I read your posts just fine. You're suggesting that a thermal shock weapon conducts heat from the ship's hull, through to the mounting points of internal modules and causes the internal temperature to rise as a result. That just makes no sense, it would be like saying I overheated your car's engine block by heating the mounting points or that I overheated your brake rotors by heating the brake fluid. Any heat that might be conducted in this manner is trivial compared to the heat the component is already generating and you have a cooling system that is actively removing all of this heat.

You dont have a cooling system to remove heat from the ship. You have a cooling system to move heat from your internal components to someplace else. That is the problem. Best you can do is transfer that heat to the hull / radiators. You can only dissipate heat away from your ship through radiation.

 

[Devari]

And a mounting point that can take the heat without melting does not necessarily make for a poor conductor of heat.

Actually, it would make sense for most mounting points to be thermally isolated (and possibly vibrationally isolated) as much as possible to minimize unintended stresses on the point of contact between the component and the hull. In fact most car engine mounts are designed with rubber mounting points to minimize vibration that is transferred to the car chassis and in these cases there wouldn't even be any direct metal connections to conduct heat (i.e., you would melt the rubber long before you transferred heat to the engine). Given that you claim to race cars I'm rather surprized you would suggest that engine mounts would be expected to be good conductors of heat when their design would often exclude this possibility.

You dont have a cooling system to remove heat from the ship. You have a cooling system to move heat from your internal components to someplace else. That is the problem. Best you can do is transfer that heat to the hull / radiators. You can only dissipate heat away from your ship through radiation.

The heat only leaves the ship once it reaches the external heat vents that are part of the ship's cooling system. Simply heating the hull is not going to conduct heat back to those internal components and in fact the component mountings that make contact with the ship's hull are likely thermally and vibrationally isolated to minimize the stresses they are subjected to. If the ship's cooling system is not removing heat (i.e., with radiator vents opened) then this heat has nowhere to go, any trivial amount of heat that might be "transferred" to the mounting points is going to do almost nothing to cool the components.

 

[DragoonKnight]

Actually, it would make sense for most mounting points to be thermally isolated (and possibly vibrationally isolated) as much as possible to minimize unintended stresses on the point of contact between the component and the hull. In fact most car engine mounts are designed with rubber mounting points to minimize vibration that is transferred to the car chassis and in these cases there wouldn't even be any direct metal connections to conduct heat (i.e., you would melt the rubber long before you transferred heat to the engine). Given that you claim to race cars I'm rather surprized you would suggest that engine mounts would be expected to be good conductors of heat when their design would often exclude this possibility.

You are comparing apples and oranges, again. Engine mounts in cars dont have to deal with extreme heat. A few hundred degrees at worst. Not a big deal.
There are also tradeoffs in using softer rubber mounts. Typically race cars use harder materials and rubber is not used at all. The goal is to prevent high HP engines from twisting and moving excessively.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

In fact, here you go. Typical steel motor mounts
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mor-62630/overview/

 

[Devari]

You are comparing apples and oranges, again. Engine mounts in cars dont have to deal with extreme heat. A few hundred degrees at worst. Not a big deal.
There are also tradeoffs in using softer rubber mounts. Typically race cars use harder materials and rubber is not used at all. The goal is to prevent high HP engines from twisting and moving excessively.

That is my point, there is almost no heat transferred between a car's engine block and the engine mounts. If you claim to understand how engine mounts work, then why would you suggest that heat transfer would somehow be a significant factor for Elite ships?

In fact, here you go. Typical steel motor mounts
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mor-62630/overview/

Yes, there are various engine mounts that can be used as alternatives to the standard rubber mounts. The point is that you are not going to be transferring any significant amount of heat either to OR from the engine block through these mounts. In fact, what you're suggesting is even worse. You're suggesting that a thermal shock weapon heat the hull, then is conducted to the mounts, then heat the components through the mounts to raise their internal temperatures. That's ridiculous, it's like suggesting that you're going to overheat an engine by heating the car door.

 

[DragoonKnight]

The heat only leaves the ship once it reaches the external heat vents that are part of the ship's cooling system. Simply heating the hull is not going to conduct heat back to those internal components and in fact the component mountings that make contact with the ship's hull are likely thermally and vibrationally isolated to minimize the stresses they are subjected to. If the ship's cooling system is not removing heat (i.e., with radiator vents opened) then this heat has nowhere to go, any trivial amount of heat that might be "transferred" to the mounting points is going to do almost nothing to cool the components.

If heating the hull did not conduct heat back to your internals then fuel scooping would be different.
And if the hull gets hot then it has dissipate heat away by radiation. And not just to the outside. It can go to the inside too. And if there is an atmosphere then you have convection. And whatever is touching the hull... that gets hot too. Its called physics.

 

[Devari]

If heating the hull did not conduct heat back to your internals then fuel scooping would be different.
And if the hull gets hot then it has dissipate heat away by radiation. Its called physics.

This statement shows me that you know very little about either Elite ship technology or physics. Your fuel scoop generates heat by scooping fuel. If you're scooping fuel near a star and are too close you'll see your heat rise, then if you turn off your fuel scoop it suddenly stops generating heat because it is closed and not actively scooping. Your fuel scoop is causing heat buildup during scooping but this has nothing to do with heating your hull directly which does not suffer any hull damage from this process. The issue here is that your fuel scoop is literally scooping superheated hydrogen into your ship. You're not simply conducting heat through your hull, the fuel scoop itself is heating up directly as it scoops superheated hydrogen fuel and your ship has to deal with the increased internal temperatures.

 

[DragoonKnight]

Fly close to a star without a fuel scoop. Heat will rise. Fly close to two stars and you will probably go over 100% heat. No superheated hydrogen necessary.

You think that you can perfectly isolate a hot ship hull from internals and ignore physics? Using what, magic leprechauns? Please tell me more of your delusions.

 

[Devari]

Fly close to a star without a fuel scoop. Heat will rise. Fly close to two stars and you will probably go over 100% heat. No superheated hydrogen necessary.

You think that you can perfectly isolate a hot ship hull from internals and ignore physics? Using what, magic leprechauns? Please tell me more of your delusions.

You clearly have no idea how heat management works in Elite. Fly close to a star, watch your internal heat rise. Then turn of your modules and watch your heat drop. The proximity to the star makes your ship less efficient at dissipating heat through the external heat vents but the majority of the heat inside your ship is still being generated by your internal components. The ship's hull is not conducing this heat and if anything it is most likely an excellent insulator because when those heat vents are closed the heat in your ship increases even more quickly. The outside hull temperature has little if any bearing on the internal heat generated by your modules. What the external temperature does make your ship's cooling system less efficient at getting rid of this internal heat. You can even see this when you charge your FSD in proximity to a star, your heat will rise rapidly due to the FSD's internally generated heat. This is the heat generated by the FSD directly, the star is not magically "cooking" your FSD through your hull. If you fly close enough to a star the heat will be sufficient to cause your ship to overheat even when running minimal modules but at this point you are close enough to the star for the external heat to start affecting your internal modules directly.

I'm sorry but I just don't think you have the appropriate science/engineering background to understand these concepts. I've tried explaining it several times with several different examples of real-world engineering principles. You just can't seem to understand that the way that thermal shock weapons work in Elite makes zero scientific sense and is a terrible game mechanic. Making up the idea of heat being transferred through the ship's hull and then through "mounting points" or similar nonsense is simply ridiculous and is not how heat management works in Elite.

 

[DragoonKnight]

Your so called engineering examples were all disproved because they were based on a combination of wrong assumption and lack of knowledge (on your part). Now your entire argument relies on conveniently ignoring basic thermodynamics and pretending that a ship hull, that is being heated to thousands of degrees, does not dissipate heat away from itself via radiation and conduction.
Congratulations! You went full circle and you are now doing the same thing that you accuse thermal weapons of doing, ignoring the laws of physics.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You two should get a room.

 

[Devari]

Your so called engineering examples were all disproved because they were based on a combination of wrong assumption and lack of knowledge (on your part). Now your entire argument relies on conveniently ignoring basic thermodynamics and pretending that a ship hull, that is being heated to thousands of degrees, does not dissipate heat away from itself via radiation and conduction.
Congratulations! You went full circle and you are now doing the same thing that you accuse thermal weapons of doing, ignoring the laws of physics.

Your attempts to claim that heat will be conducted through a ship's hull is not how Elite ships manage heat and makes zero sense. An Elite ship's hull is very thermally resistant and is designed as an excellent insulator, much like the ceramic tiles on the space shuttle. The only external effect that causes your internal heat to build up is a high ambient temperature such as that encountered in proximity to a star, but even these high external temperatures are not conducted directly through the hull until you get extremely close to a star. At normal distances when your ship is near a star the ambient temperatures simply makes the ship's heat radiator vents less efficient and your ship is not as effective at dissipating this internal heat. According to the principles of heat management established in Elite there is no conceivable manner for a thermal shock weapon to affect a ship's internal heat because the ship's shields/hull will dissipate any external heat effectively without conducting this heat to the internal modules. If the ship's heat vents are operating then any internal heat should be dissipated effectively by the ship's cooling system as long as the ambient temperature is not too high (i.e., too close to a star). There is simply no other way for me to explain this. Thermal shock weapons make no sense, even in the fictional context of Elite ships and how they manage heat, and there is no conceivable scientific explanation of how they would cause your ship's internal temperature to rise so sharply. Thermal shock weapons and the internal heat they cause is a severely broken game mechanic that not only ruins immersion but is also a massive problem from a game balance perspective.

 

[Devari]

You two should get a room.

Nothing to see here, move along. We're just having a .... heated ... argument.

 

[Dbrn47]

Nothing to see here, move along. We're just having a .... heated ... argument.

 

[PeachSlices]

DBrn47 that post, i nearly died. DragoonKnight, you dont know how the game works. Quit it already.

Components dont magically ignore internal insulation and conduct heat to other components.

Imagine what a 30 MW powerplant (the equivalent capacity to a large photovoltaic powerplant) would do to the pilot if it magically vented heat to the hull (AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE SHIP). Cooked human.

Devari is right.

Want to prove it to yourself, do this. Turn on silent running. Job done. Silent running closes these vents, preventing internal heat energy from escaping. (If you go into external camera, you can see the vents, the cutters are particularly awesome).

The ship has a total internal heat output internally which is vented "passively" *not with heatsinks. This rate changes if you turn off high usage components like shield generators and shield cell banks.

If the heat entering the ship through the fuel scoop exceeds the rate which you lose it, you heat up. FSD is the same, if you use it it increases in heat output and if you are close to a star it heats up not because the star is hot but because the gravity makes the FSD work harder, hence why you also heat up close to planets, which are cold.

No passive vents would mean that the ship had no way to maintain a heat equilibrum with the vacuum of space, and yes the heat would stay in the ship. Cooking everything. That is what radiators do, they provide a high heat flux surface area to vent heat through.

Duh.

My questions have very little to do with the basic mechanics of the game which most people easily get when it is explained, but much more how the game just ignores Reflective Armour Bulkheads when "magic heat imparting" from thermal cascade occurs.

The basics that Heat is transfered through thermal energy flow, which shields have resistance against if modded, this resistance becomes more than 0. Heat weapons completely ignore shield and hull resistance and "impart" the heat.

 

[DragoonKnight]

DBrn47 that post, i nearly died. DragoonKnight, you dont know how the game works. Quit it already.

Components dont magically conduct heat to other components, imagine what a 30 MW powerplant (the equivalent capacity to a large photovoltaic powerplant) would do to the pilot if it magically vented heat to the hull (AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE SHIP). Cooked human, please stop being obtuse.

Devari is right.

Wnat to prove it to yourself, do this. Turn on silent running. Job done. Silent running closes these vents, preventing internal heat energy from escaping. The ship has a total internal heat output internally which is vented "passively" *not with heatsinks. If the heat entering the ship through the fuel scoop exceeds the rate which you lose it, you heat up. No passive vents would mean that the ship had no way to maintain a heat equilibrum with the vacuum of space, and yes the heat would stay in the ship. Cooking everything. That is what radiators do, they provide a high thermal energy flow differental, also called DeltaT.

Duh.

If you are talking about real life, then the heat has to go somewhere and needs a way to get there. And the way it gets there will affect the rate of heat transfer.
If just want to say that the answer is "video game physics" then nothing more needs to be said and you should just say "video game physics" for any further questions regarding thermal shock or heal beams.

A powerplant in Elite has the cooling systems, as part of it, that make sure it is cool, doesnt cook the pilot, and doesnt blow up inside your ship. Do you really need this to be explicitly stated in the Game? Its a video game - not every detail has to be modeled you know. All you need to worry about is that the power output is enough for the modules you want to use.

If you are talking about real life, then 30 MW is not that much. Many nuclear reactors used in aircraft carriers and submarines produce way more power (and way way more heat) than that.

 

[PeachSlices]

No thats the point, it is modeled. This "magic heat" is just ignoring the rest of the principles of the game.

I edited my post, to make things a bit more clear, Sorry you were too quick to reply.

Have a read, go back to OP, AND then submit your thoughts.

Thanks

 

[Broken_One]

heat damage in the game comes from internal heat of moduls building up - your ship is overheating. whether you fly close to a star, close your heatvents while running "silent", or fire an scb: it is your internal heat damaging your ship.

thermal weapons are attacking from the outside - your shield and your hull mitigate that damage.

now - how does heat get through shielding or hull? i have no idea, but i also have no idea, how your multi-canonn bullets get out of your shielding.... while bullets from the outside can't get in.

As far as the bullets it is polarization. to TLDR it, think of a speaker magnet. Negative on the inside positive on the outside. -- kinda like that

 

[Broken_One]

Just because something is reflective to one thing, does not make it reflective to everything. Reflective armor is good for reflecting the frequencies used by laser weapons, but not good at all against the higher frequencies used in heat weapons. Very high frequency radiation (like gamma rays) will penetrate almost anything.

-- Shouldn't matter. heat has to do with motion, so any thermal resistance (which is heat resistance) would apply if laws of science applied. -- It is possible to say that thermal dissipation is not effected in the same way that reflectance is (hence internal ship heat may not be affected by thermal resistance in the same way) but external heat sources should all be degraded by resistance. -- That being said reflectance should still affect dissipation as well because of the way heat dissipation works (and I would imagine ship engineering, as it already has some dissipation mechanisms. --- TLDR external radiation should be all affected the same way, though you are correct that frequency does factor in.

 

[Noobilite]

They really need to design this game on more complex ground from the standpoint of material knowledge. If they did this there would be a much more complex range of materials and customizations to make. And there wouldn't be overly simplified mechanics. The game balance would also be better as natural principles and values would be implemented much more completely. Even if that resulted in the same level of complexity to calculate as now as an end result. You could still do a separate item creation to get the same results, but with different values.

In real engineering you would absolutely use the materials to help deal with such a situation. And given space nations would have less material limitations and pilots would have less money problems to care about cost potentially, there should be basically no limit as to what you can build. Outside of forced situations like laws. Which in this game could be bypassed by the average player by going somewhere else.

It's similar to the issue with generic M3 for volume versus using slots. slot could represent mounting brackets within the generic volume. It might take a bit to do, but if you can whittle down enough parameters you can then limit how the brackets can be used within the volume going into less generic volume to specific volume creating real reasons the hull can't have certain shapes. this could allow different bracket options for different internals and much more customizable designs.(Getting rid of their need to design things themselves.) And on occasion different ship variations on realistic grounds. Or at least a wider set of parameters. Given infinite money and no other restrictions. There is not reason we can't make our own ships and whatnot either.

Maybe one day they will embrace the wide world of engineering. I thought their game was going for that sort of thing originally. I wonder why they don't. It makes for much better design and balance. In fact the less the devs have to design the better. That is an advantage of this approach. The more it's filled with actual information the less work they have to do in many ways. They don't have to make up things as much leaving the game less vulnerable to generic design problems. And it narrows it down for when you do have to, making the game more stable and consistent. They can also design more advanced things ahead of time and then scale it back to fit computer performances of the time if needed and keep development way ahead of schedule potentially. Or at least work out more things ahead of time. Plus this makes an advantage of interest to the player. The brain is designed to deal with natural complexity. We naturally crave complex things.

Obviously this can lead to complex game changes, but it would be interesting.

BTW, I've never used anything but free armor and the Reactive Surface composite. Has anyone tested mirror armor to see if it effects this. A reflective hull should hypothetically reduce sun in some way. It would probably effect potential sensor info too and make you more visible depending on the sensors. Could make for an interesting reason to use mirror armor.

I've never been able to figure out if direction and vent placement has to do with heat build up either. Does facing away effect the heat in any way. I think a lot of vents are on the rear potentially. Can you block them to increase heat efficiency with facing.

BTW, why do we have static shield stats to begin with. Why can't we calibrate shields on the fly. Can they not be changes to reflect different things?!I would think some of the differences should be minimally set to hardware over software. Shields should be versatile. Armor should be the opposite until a solution is made like nanobots or some organic healing designs. That could make the game more interesting. Limits of shield versatility in design.

I think some of the arguments in the thread are based on a fundamental presumption of function. You can design anything. It depends on the circumstances you have at the moment as to which way you do something. You can make a hull be a thermal conductor or you can make it an insulator. It depends on circumstances. Combat could have the circumstances of exploration or those things can change in any variation possible over time. It depends on factors. Or if anything raw choice.

you could have a reason to have thermal go both in and out fast. You could have a reason for the opposite or any other number of factors as that will not realistically ever be that simple.

And conduction and convention not being present is false. We have both potentially. we have atmospheres and other things as parts of the ships. It depends on how the modules work. We could have a ship filled with water or other materials and not have it mentioned. Hell it could be the mysterious difference in weight of the hull and other things. Still can't figure out why the armor of different ships is so weird. Keep meaning to make a thread to ask that. And there are other odd variables. The idea that the hull and armor are only extraneous is also potentially false and unkown. Way to many variables. So all things are potentially on the table.

The rest of the problem is way too many unknowns about how this would need to work and what extremities would be taken. Saying something combat related may need any parameter is even stupid as we don't know in space the difference between combat and normal usage in a different environment well enough. It could radically change normal parameters. There could be endless reasons for both and any level of simplistic versus complex solutions. Would a small percentage of heat reducing the melting at a point from a laser be feasible? Can manufacturing in game get past limitations now opening up new possibilities about a, "point," of contact from the laser to reduce melting point for instance or anything else. The more interesting question might be is this less sever or more sever than normal operations for non combat. Would this change compared to earth. Which again may not have different parameters as we ship atmosphere and other thing and can use it. Can in the game melt and resolidify armor or use known principles to do more advanced things either temporarily or for repair. There are way to many specifics that have to be whittled down to figure it out correctly. Each ship could easily be radically different solution to each problem.

Another potential examples could be wether a conductor can out perform an insulator and not be discernable in various circumstances. You could get really complex. Especially with hypotheticals. You could get weird fantasy materials that could be indescernable from our perspective. Or things we can't even think of. Even looking at material and manufacturing methods that space opens up how much could be done with realisticly assumed to be known things?