Chaff should generate Heat

[Darth Ender]

Why exactly should releasing metal flakes into space generate heat? What about that makes sense?

I know it looks metallic but I would think it would have to be some kind of meta material married to the energy signature of the ship it's equipped to by the chaff launchers at launch time. Causing them to reflect the specific energy signature as the particles flip around in space. That's why it has no effect on targeting any other ship regardless of how nearby another ship is using chaff.

Still shouldn't generate heat. That's what a decoy would do. In a certain book i read, decoys were used that had mini FSD's that you could send off to another system and it would look like you jumped out while sitting in silent running waiting for someone to take the bait. Wouldn't be very useful for visual encounters. Also, wouldn't generate any more heat than a missile.

 

[JerryLove]

Why exactly should releasing metal flakes into space generate heat? What about that makes sense?

Technically: all work generates heat.

I just wouldn't think the heat generated from the above would be consequential.

 

[GraXXoR]

Chaff in Elite is literally the only defense system that does not have any downsides to it. You can equip Dual Chaff launchers and spam it all day long. However the sensors on our ships are looking for thermal signatures and the only way to confuse thermal / infrared sensors looking for thermal signatures is to provide them with something hotter. Therefore Chaff is very hot. However deploying chaff does not cause any heat on our ships. This should be addressed, both for balance and immersion purposes.

The limitations of chaff are - 10 uses until you have to reload

Let us take a look at the other defense systems available in Elite
SCB - generate a metric ton of heat. Require heat sinks in order not to burn your ship.
Point Defense - Does not cover the entire ship, especially large ships. Has limits on its firing arc and rate of fire. Can be defeated by a large number of missiles fired at once.
ECM - must be manually fired and tends to aggro every ship it hits, assuming they were not hostile before

No it shouldn't. You're firing a capsule of nano matter / superconductive shrapnel / handwavium particles. That's all.

/thread.

 

[Saxual]

No it shouldn't. You're firing a capsule of nano matter / superconductive shrapnel / handwavium particles. That's all.

/thread.

+1
/thread. Chaff is by definition thinly cut aluminum strips why should releasing those into space require heat to increase?

 

[Sandmann]

+1
/thread. Chaff is by definition thinly cut aluminum strips why should releasing those into space require heat to increase?

Chaff in the 21st century is aluminium strips that reflect radar. Chaff in the 34th century, designed to fool heat sensors, would NOT be aluminium strips... unless they were burning. If you look at chaff in the game you'll see it actually emits light, something aluminium strips simply wouldn't do. Chaff in the game actually acts more like flares today. My guess it was a poorly named thing back in 1984 and they've just stuck with it out of tradition... much like the "silent running" feature which has everything to do with storing heat and nothing to do with being quiet. It was a name for a feature that was designed to convey an understanding, not to be technically accurate.

Burning powdered aluminium
[video=youtube;5DE8phRMOjo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DE8phRMOjo[/video]

Of course it'd be more effective to burn a different metal - magnesium.
[video=youtube;S-W9EFiB74o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-W9EFiB74o[/video]

True, you can't burn things in a vacuum... unless you package it with some sort of medium that contains it's own oxygen, as with a solid fuel rocket engine.

 

[CMDR Crumpeteer]

My guess it was a poorly named thing back in 1984 and they've just stuck with it out of tradition

Chaff didn't exist in the original game. :S

 

[Sandmann]

Chaff didn't exist in the original game. :S

You sure? Wow, memory fades. Makes sense, since we didn't have gimballed weapons way back when either. Oh well, still a poorly chosen name intended to convey an idea rather than be technically accurate.

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Chaff in Elite is literally the only defense system that does not have any downsides to it.

There's also the downside that equipping chaff is not only a very selective defence (unlike silent running which makes you pretty much unhittable until you're visually spotted of you explode) that ONLY targets gimballed/turretted weapons, and that it chews up a spot that you could use for something more offensive such as a wake scanner or a KWS. THere's also a very easy, cheap way to defeat chaff... fit fixed weapons. It's a bit like the docking computer failure recently... it only affects you if you're using a "crutch", which rewards those who choose the harder, non-assisted method (manual landing/fixed weapons). The OP is coming from the point of view that gimballed/turretted weapons are "the norm" and that chaff is too powerful a defence against them, that it prevents you u sing your weapons as often as you "should" be able to. The reality though is that fixed weapons are "the norm", computer assisted gimbals/turrets are the "added advantage", and that chaff is the "nerf" to counter it. Why would you nerf a nerf?

A possibly better solution might be to add a "firing mode" to gimbals similar to the one for turrets which would disable the gimbal and turn them into fixed weapons on demand. This could even be done as an engineer mod.

 

[DragoonKnight]

You sure? Wow, memory fades. Makes sense, since we didn't have gimballed weapons way back when either. Oh well, still a poorly chosen name intended to convey an idea rather than be technically accurate.

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There's also the downside that equipping chaff is not only a very selective defence (unlike silent running which makes you pretty much unhittable until you're visually spotted of you explode) that ONLY targets gimballed/turretted weapons, and that it chews up a spot that you could use for something more offensive such as a wake scanner or a KWS. THere's also a very easy, cheap way to defeat chaff... fit fixed weapons. It's a bit like the docking computer failure recently... it only affects you if you're using a "crutch", which rewards those who choose the harder, non-assisted method (manual landing/fixed weapons). The OP is coming from the point of view that gimballed/turretted weapons are "the norm" and that chaff is too powerful a defence against them, that it prevents you u sing your weapons as often as you "should" be able to. The reality though is that fixed weapons are "the norm", computer assisted gimbals/turrets are the "added advantage", and that chaff is the "nerf" to counter it. Why would you nerf a nerf?

A possibly better solution might be to add a "firing mode" to gimbals similar to the one for turrets which would disable the gimbal and turn them into fixed weapons on demand. This could even be done as an engineer mod.

Gimballs and Turrets are the new norm. Stop flying your Cobra and move to something bigger. Then you have no choice but to use turrets and gimballs. Show me an all fixed weapon Corvette, Conda, Cutter, or Python and I'll show you a big target that will never kill anything.

 

[Sandmann]

Gimballs and Turrets are the new norm. Stop flying your Cobra and move to something bigger. Then you have no choice but to use turrets and gimballs. Show me an all fixed weapon Corvette, Conda, Cutter, or Python and I'll show you a big target that will never kill anything.

No, in game design the "norm" is the base level equipment. Other things that have benefits on top of the base level also require negatives to balance. Oh, and I fly a python and have ALL gimballed weapons... I'm not touting my own case here, I'm talking about game design.

 

[thorn-]

Chaff in the game actually acts more like flares today.

No, it doesn't. Chaff in the game behaves like "actual" chaff - it presents too many reflections for the radar to resolve.

Flares are a heat source, a different counter-measure entirely.

I'm quoting reality btw, not some passage of Lore written by Drew Wagar...

 

[Sandmann]

No, it doesn't. Chaff in the game behaves like "actual" chaff - it presents too many reflections for the radar to resolve.

Flares are a heat source, a different counter-measure entirely.

I'm quoting reality btw, not some passage of Lore written by Drew Wagar...

You're right in that flares act like a decoy while chaff distorts a lock, but that's not what I was getting at. I didn't mean that sort of flare... I just meant a generic "flare"... y'know... a thing that burns metal to create heat/light/smoke. Truck drivers use them to mark their trucks out of they break down, airfields in the 1920's used them to communicate with pilots before they had radios, soldiers in Vietnam used them (smoke grenades really but the same thing) to mark their position for choppers to land, etc. My point was that our chaff behaves like a flare because it emits heat to cover a heat signature rather than using metal strips to brak up a radar signal. No it's not being a decoy (not a bad idea though, I always thought that ejected heatsinks should act like decoys for missiles/torps actually), it's like a bunch of tiny little flares that create a sort of "heat cloud", if you will, that causes gimballed etc weapons to lose lock.

Who knows though. Perhaps it's just strips of metal that've absorbed engine heat and glow red hot too as some people've suggested. Perhaps it's swarms of tiny itty bitty little demons that get summoned by an arcane rite. Who cares.

 

[GluttonyFang]

The heat meta's not bad enough for some people apparently.

Yes, more heat generating to ships, make them microwaves, every one of them!

*Chuckles in the background*

 

[thorn-]

My point was that our chaff behaves like a flare because it emits heat to cover a heat signature rather than using metal strips to brak up a radar signal.

Who told you this... where did you get this idea? You don't see the particle flakes flying out of the back of the ship?

Seriously - your concept of this is just completely off.

 

[Cmdr Dubstep Dragon]

The heat meta's not bad enough for some people apparently.

Yes, more heat generating to ships, make them microwaves, every one of them!

*Chuckles in the background*

you sure do laugh alot in the back ground,almost like you have an evil plot *moves arround GluttonyFang and laughs harder*

 

[GluttonyFang]

you sure do laugh alot in the back ground,almost like you have an evil plot *moves arround GluttonyFang and laughs harder*

Nah, just me losing faith for this forum, so I try to turn my saltiness into sarcasm, nothing personal.

 

[Cmdr Dubstep Dragon]

Nah, just me losing faith for this forum, so I try to turn my saltiness into sarcasm, nothing personal.

what is this "faith" you speak of, *snickers in the background*

 

[Borgkube]

Chaff is basically just ribbons/ flakes of metal used to confuse tracking systems. Why would it create heat? They don't cause you to lose lock-on. They only confuse gimbals and turrets, which as far as I can tell, don't rely on heat signatures. A flare on the other hand is burning magnesium and other metals to give them specific colour. They create heat, but would be useless in a vacuum. They need some kind of oxidizer to keep burning and there's no O2 in a vacuum to do it.

You used to be able to time dropping a heatsink to confuse missiles as they are indeed hotter than your ship is when dropped. Not sure if they still work in that regard.

O2, really...? Rocket motors burn in the vacuum of space because they carry the oxidizer in a tank along side their fuel. I would imagine that a space flare would have the fuel and oxidizer combined in some way as well. No O2 needed.

 

[GluttonyFang]

what is this "hope" you speak of, *snickers in the background*

Yes, join me in my venture <3

 

[thorn-]

O2, really...? Rocket motors burn in the vacuum of space because they carry the oxidizer in a tank along side their fuel. I would imagine that a space flare would have the fuel and oxidizer combined in some way as well. No O2 needed.

A combustible munition can certainly contain its own oxidant.

However, that doesn't mean that chaff is a combustible; it is not.

 

[Bacalao]

Actually if anything it should reduce heat, it would either be reacting as it leaves the ship (no gain) or heat from your ship would be dumped into it to get it hot and them ejected (like tiny heat sinks).

In reality, chaff is fine. Limited ammo, ignored by fixed or untargetted gimbals or very close attacks, very finite duration. It is useful but not a cure all, if it was then every build would require it...which they don't. It's in a good place.

A better question would be if the duration/ammo needs tweaking. I sometimes think it would better if it were more like cqc. Shorter duration, but bump up the ammo capacity.