I recently replied to a thread regarding sensor mechanics over on the main forum with some of my own research. So I thought I would re-post here where its more appropriate and where it won't get bumped off by all the fleet carrier/vr/Odyssey threads.
Here you go:
So what I've come up with is that every ship has an intrinsic property related to how "stealthy" it is. This is the "Average Emissions" referred to in the Sensor module's description blurb. As far as I can tell this value cannot be changed in any way; I've tried with different ratings and sizes of power plants, different bulkheads, different power distributors, different thrusters, etc and nothing appears to modify this value.
The range at which another ship will detect you (as a resolved contact) is
That's all there is to it.
Some of the Average Emissions that I know of are:
Keep in mind that these are approximations, due to there being a kind of fuzzy zone at the very edge of your detection range where ships slip in and out of contact.
In order to use that formula you also need to know a ship's heat capacity, which you can find in this post by Frenotx:
[Research] Detailed Heat Mechanics
You can also obtain these values on your own by doing the following:
1.) Calculate the Thermal Load of the ship you are in by adding up its power usage and multiplying by the powerplant efficiency
2.) Go into silent running and pop a heat sink.
3.) Once the thermal drain from the heat sink expires, start a stopwatch and stay in silent running
4.) Time how long it takes it get various temperatures.
5.) Calculate the ship's thermal content based on the Thermal Load and the elapsed time
6.) Calculate the ship's heat capacity based on the thermal content from Step 5 and the corresponding Thermal Gauge.
Since silent running traps all heat inside the ship, and you know how much heat the ship is generating, you know how much heat is in the ship at any given time.
For example, let's say I'm in a Keelback and its Thermal Load is 5.67. After doing the heat sink test I get the following results (this is just a sample of the results):
From this I concluded that 37.422 is 12% of the ship's heat capacity, 70.308 is 22% of the ship's heat capacity, and 101.493 is 32% of the ship's heat capacity. That corresponds to Heat Capacities of 311.85, 319.582, and 317.17; taking the average of those to smooth out rounding and UI errors, and I get a value of 316.2.
You also need to know the cooling rate formula for the ship you are interested in. The cooling rate is something that Frenotx clued us all in to a few years ago in this thread. As noted in the first post, the cooling rate is proportional to the heat content of your ships, which you can estimate by looking at the heat gauge in your cockpit. Frenotx's post says the constant of proportionality is 0.2; however, during testing, I've found that this constant is an intrinsic property that varies from ship to ship. So far I've found that this value is 0.2, 0.25 or 0.3, and nothing seems to modify it in any way
As for what this coefficient refers to, its the "A" in the following formula:
This formula refers to the rate at which your ship dissipates heat, and is how you figure out what to put in for the "Heat Dissipation" term in the ship detection formula from above. As an aside, you can use this formula to figure out what your resting thermal gauge would be; your resting thermal gauge is where the thermal load from your ship balances out against the cooling rate of your ship
Solving for the above, you get:
So let's look at a few examples to see how all of this fits together. First we need some information:
Let's say that all 3 ships are sitting at 20% thermal gauge, and a ship with a (unengineered) 4C Sensor with a TER of 5,600 m is trying to target them. Each ship's heat dissipation would be:
and the sensor lock range would be:
So those are the major points for how I think it all works. Other things I think you should be aware of are the different sources of heat in the game (beyond just powering modules). These include:
That's all I've got for now...
Maybe to-do in the future:
1.) Gimbal weapons tracking angle: I know the maximum possible angle is 15 degrees, and that the actual angle your ship achieves depends on your target's thermal signature and your distance from them. But what is the exact relationship? [Started some testing, and posted results here]
2.) Related to the above, several years ago Frontier tried to push through changes that would affect gimbal weapon's relationship to ship sensors. The changes never made it to live, for the reasons stated by Mark Allen in this post. But the post also says dropping the proposed changes would " mean that sensors once again aren't linked to much, but there are other options to address that."
So what are those "other options"?
3.) Also related to the above, turret tracking as described by Mark Allen in this post. More specifically I'm interested in this statement:
"It's all based on the acceleration of the target in the plane perpendicular to the vector from the weapon to that target - each weapon has thresholds that it can cope with (smaller weapons work better against faster targets where large weapons have problems), above one threshold confusion increases, below a different one confusion decreases"
The explanation of how it all works sounds like it would be hard to reverse-engineer, involving a bit of randomness. The post is also from 2015, and clearly states they were still figuring out how to alter things.
So what is a reasonable approximation of how it works now?
4.) The game manual states, on page 151:
"During planetary flight your sensors work as normal, though their ability to detect signatures is greatly reduced as they are designed for space flight."
Is this fluff made of 100% hand-wavium, to justify why ships can't pinpoint Points of Interest on the ground? Or are there actual in-game mechanics behind that statement?
Here you go:
So what I've come up with is that every ship has an intrinsic property related to how "stealthy" it is. This is the "Average Emissions" referred to in the Sensor module's description blurb. As far as I can tell this value cannot be changed in any way; I've tried with different ratings and sizes of power plants, different bulkheads, different power distributors, different thrusters, etc and nothing appears to modify this value.
The range at which another ship will detect you (as a resolved contact) is
Code:
(Heat Dissipation/Average Emissions)^2 * Typical Emissions Range
That's all there is to it.
Some of the Average Emissions that I know of are:
Ship | Average Emissions |
Federal Corvette | 9.1 |
Imperial Cutter | 8.1 |
Krait Mk2 | 8 |
Krait Phantom | 8.3 |
Alliance Crusader | 7.5 |
Type 9 | 7.8 |
Keelback | 6.3 |
Any Human SLF | 3.4 |
Vulture | 6.7 |
Eagle Mk. 2 | 5.3 |
Sidewinder | 4.5 |
Mamba | 6 |
Viper Mk. 3 | 6.1 |
Federal Assault Ship | 7.9 |
In order to use that formula you also need to know a ship's heat capacity, which you can find in this post by Frenotx:
[Research] Detailed Heat Mechanics
You can also obtain these values on your own by doing the following:
1.) Calculate the Thermal Load of the ship you are in by adding up its power usage and multiplying by the powerplant efficiency
2.) Go into silent running and pop a heat sink.
3.) Once the thermal drain from the heat sink expires, start a stopwatch and stay in silent running
4.) Time how long it takes it get various temperatures.
5.) Calculate the ship's thermal content based on the Thermal Load and the elapsed time
6.) Calculate the ship's heat capacity based on the thermal content from Step 5 and the corresponding Thermal Gauge.
Since silent running traps all heat inside the ship, and you know how much heat the ship is generating, you know how much heat is in the ship at any given time.
For example, let's say I'm in a Keelback and its Thermal Load is 5.67. After doing the heat sink test I get the following results (this is just a sample of the results):
Elapsed Time (seconds) | Thermal Content (elapsed time x thermal load) | Thermal Gauge (%) |
6.6 | 37.422 | 12% |
12.4 | 70.308 | 22% |
17.9 | 101.493 | 32% |
You also need to know the cooling rate formula for the ship you are interested in. The cooling rate is something that Frenotx clued us all in to a few years ago in this thread. As noted in the first post, the cooling rate is proportional to the heat content of your ships, which you can estimate by looking at the heat gauge in your cockpit. Frenotx's post says the constant of proportionality is 0.2; however, during testing, I've found that this constant is an intrinsic property that varies from ship to ship. So far I've found that this value is 0.2, 0.25 or 0.3, and nothing seems to modify it in any way
As for what this coefficient refers to, its the "A" in the following formula:
Code:
A * (Thermal Gauge)^2 * Heat Capacity
This formula refers to the rate at which your ship dissipates heat, and is how you figure out what to put in for the "Heat Dissipation" term in the ship detection formula from above. As an aside, you can use this formula to figure out what your resting thermal gauge would be; your resting thermal gauge is where the thermal load from your ship balances out against the cooling rate of your ship
Code:
PWR * Eff - A * (Thermal Gauge)^2 * Heat Capacity = 0
Where:
PWR = Ship Power Consumption
Eff = Power Plant Efficiency
Solving for the above, you get:
Code:
Thermal Gauge = Sqrt(PWR * Eff/Heat Capacity/A)
So let's look at a few examples to see how all of this fits together. First we need some information:
Ship | Heat Capacity | Cooling Coefficient | Average Emissions |
Federal Corvette | 498 | 0.3 | 9.1 |
Krait Phantom | 450 | 0.25 | 8 |
Keelback | 316 | 0.2 | 6.3 |
Code:
Cooling Coefficient * 20%^2 * Heat Capacity
and the sensor lock range would be:
Ship | Heat Dissipation | Sensor Lock Range (TER of 5600 m) |
Federal Corvette | 5.976 | 2415.05 |
Krait Phantom | 4.5 | 1771.875 |
Keelback | 2.528 | 901.70 |
1.) Recharging/Regenerating shields through SYS capacitor. Thermal Load for that is simply the rate at which you recharge your shield
2.) Thruster thermal load, which depends on Acceleration, NOT Speed. If your speed is constant, or more accurately your velocity vector is not changing in any way, thermal load from thrusters is zero. Thermal Load for when you are accelerating is the ship's thrust percentage (which you can control in FA Off) multiplied by the listed thermal load on your ship's thruster module information page. If you are changing speed with FA On, your thrust percent is 100%. If you are using more than one directional thruster (forward and lateral, for example) Thermal Load is proportional to whichever thrust percent is greatest.
There is also some evidence to suggest that angular acceleration generates thruster thermal load. But this is hard to test, so I just assume it works the same way as the thermal load from linear acceleration.
Boosting generates heat, as everyone knows. The amount of heat generated is 3x PD Draw. This is in addition to the Thruster thermal load due to acceleration noted above. As an example, the Krait Phantom uses 13.33 MJ of ENG Capacitor for its boost; so it generates 40 units of heat every time you boost.
There is also some evidence to suggest that angular acceleration generates thruster thermal load. But this is hard to test, so I just assume it works the same way as the thermal load from linear acceleration.
Boosting generates heat, as everyone knows. The amount of heat generated is 3x PD Draw. This is in addition to the Thruster thermal load due to acceleration noted above. As an example, the Krait Phantom uses 13.33 MJ of ENG Capacitor for its boost; so it generates 40 units of heat every time you boost.
3.) Being near hot objects, like stars, increases thermal load. I worked out a pair of formulas to describe this thermal load but I don't have it handy at the moment. (see below for formulas). One thing to note about them, is that the thermal load from star heat doesn't actually depend on the temperature of the star; only its radius and your distance from it. The formulas are also only valid for main sequence stars and only when you are in supercruise; you get much lower values once you drop down into normal space, I've noticed.
For the data I used to generate this equation, see below:
Note, thermal gauge and heat has no effect on your detectability in supercruise. While in supercruise you can see and target any ship that is 40x your speed (in c) away from you, and vice versa. So if you are traveling at 10c, for example, you can see any ship that is 40 x 10 c= 400 ls away from you. They, in turn, can see you even if they are traveling at minimum speed.
Code:
Star Heat = M x D + 100
Where:
D= Distance (ls)
M=18.7/(R^0.9)
R=Star Radius
For the data I used to generate this equation, see below:
For this test I used a Krait Phantom with a Thermal Load (due to power consumption) of 6.108. I was using an unengineered A-rated power plant at the time
Star | Radius | Gauge Peak | Distance (ls) | Heat Added |
Ninsun | 0.828 | 0.52 | 3.34 | 24.312 |
Ninsun | 0.828 | 0.59 | 3 | 33.05325 |
Ninsun | 0.828 | 0.64 | 2.76 | 39.972 |
LP 448-41 A | 0.5263 | 0.5 | 2.3 | 22.017 |
LP 448-41 A | 0.5263 | 0.33 | 2.75 | 6.14325 |
LP 448-41 A | 0.5263 | 0.57 | 2.03 | 30.44325 |
LP 448-41 A | 0.5263 | 0.62 | 1.78 | 37.137 |
Alrai Sector GR-V b2-3 A | ||||
Alrai Sector GR-V b2-3 A | 0.3562 | 0.54 | 1.5 | 26.697 |
Alrai Sector GR-V b2-3 A | 0.3562 | 0.57 | 1.4 | 30.44325 |
Alrai Sector GR-V b2-3 A | 0.3562 | 0.61 | 1.3 | 35.75325 |
LTT 14478 | 0.4282 | 0.57 | 1.69 | 30.44325 |
LTT 14478 | 0.4282 | 0.6 | 1.59 | 34.392 |
LTT 14478 | 0.4282 | 0.62 | 1.45 | 37.137 |
LHS 3602 | 0.555 | 0.51 | 2.37 | 23.15325 |
LHS 3602 | 0.555 | 0.56 | 2.15 | 29.172 |
LHS 3602 | 0.555 | 0.58 | 2 | 31.737 |
LHS 3602 | 0.555 | 0.63 | 1.87 | 38.54325 |
Gyvatiges | 0.7289 | 0.48 | 3.24 | 19.812 |
Gyvatiges | 0.7289 | 0.53 | 2.93 | 25.49325 |
Gyvatiges | 0.7289 | 0.57 | 2.75 | 30.44325 |
Gyvatiges | 0.7289 | 0.64 | 2.36 | 39.972 |
Note, thermal gauge and heat has no effect on your detectability in supercruise. While in supercruise you can see and target any ship that is 40x your speed (in c) away from you, and vice versa. So if you are traveling at 10c, for example, you can see any ship that is 40 x 10 c= 400 ls away from you. They, in turn, can see you even if they are traveling at minimum speed.
4.) Firing weapons generates heat as well. I'm not sure where I first read the information for this, but I saw a post that said the thermal load from weapons is: Found the source, it is from baqar79 in this post.
This heat is added on a per-shot basis. If you fire two (or more) weapons at the same time: the game will calculate the heat for one weapon with whatever state your WEP capacitor is in; then deduct the first weapon's PD draw before calculating the next weapon's heat addition; and so on.
As an example, let's look at a Medium Railgun (unengineered). This weapon has a Thermal Load of 20 and a PD Draw of 5.11 MJ. If your ship has a weapon capacitor of 100 MJ, and it is currently full, firing that railgun will add this much heat to your ship:
If your WEP capacitor were only half full, heat added would be:
Or 2.66 times as much in this example.
For the Thermal Vent experimental effect, cooling is 3x the listed value in the weapon's information page. Note that this effect is combined with the heat addition as calculated from the formula above. So if the heat added is greater than the heat removed by the cooling effect, you will end up gaining heat instead of losing it.
Code:
Heat Added = Thermal Load (1 * (4*(Wep Cap - Wep Current + PD Draw)/Wep Cap))
Where:
Thermal Load = Listed on the weapon's information page
Wep Cap = Power Distributor maximum WEP Capacitor
Wep Current = Power Distributor current WEP Capacitor
PD Draw = Power Distributor Draw of the weapon being fired
This heat is added on a per-shot basis. If you fire two (or more) weapons at the same time: the game will calculate the heat for one weapon with whatever state your WEP capacitor is in; then deduct the first weapon's PD draw before calculating the next weapon's heat addition; and so on.
As an example, let's look at a Medium Railgun (unengineered). This weapon has a Thermal Load of 20 and a PD Draw of 5.11 MJ. If your ship has a weapon capacitor of 100 MJ, and it is currently full, firing that railgun will add this much heat to your ship:
Code:
Heat Added = 20*(1+4*(100-100+5.11)/100)
Heat Added = 24.088
If your WEP capacitor were only half full, heat added would be:
Code:
Heat Added = 20*(1+4*(100-50+5.11)/100)
Heat Added = 64.088
Or 2.66 times as much in this example.
For the Thermal Vent experimental effect, cooling is 3x the listed value in the weapon's information page. Note that this effect is combined with the heat addition as calculated from the formula above. So if the heat added is greater than the heat removed by the cooling effect, you will end up gaining heat instead of losing it.
That's all I've got for now...
Maybe to-do in the future:
1.) Gimbal weapons tracking angle: I know the maximum possible angle is 15 degrees, and that the actual angle your ship achieves depends on your target's thermal signature and your distance from them. But what is the exact relationship? [Started some testing, and posted results here]
2.) Related to the above, several years ago Frontier tried to push through changes that would affect gimbal weapon's relationship to ship sensors. The changes never made it to live, for the reasons stated by Mark Allen in this post. But the post also says dropping the proposed changes would " mean that sensors once again aren't linked to much, but there are other options to address that."
So what are those "other options"?
3.) Also related to the above, turret tracking as described by Mark Allen in this post. More specifically I'm interested in this statement:
"It's all based on the acceleration of the target in the plane perpendicular to the vector from the weapon to that target - each weapon has thresholds that it can cope with (smaller weapons work better against faster targets where large weapons have problems), above one threshold confusion increases, below a different one confusion decreases"
The explanation of how it all works sounds like it would be hard to reverse-engineer, involving a bit of randomness. The post is also from 2015, and clearly states they were still figuring out how to alter things.
So what is a reasonable approximation of how it works now?
4.) The game manual states, on page 151:
"During planetary flight your sensors work as normal, though their ability to detect signatures is greatly reduced as they are designed for space flight."
Is this fluff made of 100% hand-wavium, to justify why ships can't pinpoint Points of Interest on the ground? Or are there actual in-game mechanics behind that statement?
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