Clean Drive Tuning: Another thought

Wokket

W
There's a pretty clear history of discontent in here re: clean drive tuning.

What are peoples thoughts on CDT removing the smoke trail visual?

The only possible niche use for CDT currently is in SR builds, which are as rare as rocking horse excrement these days (which is a shame, as I've been playing with them for the first time in the last day or two, and it's a cool change up from any other combat I've done)....

Removing the visual smoke trails:
- emphasises this niche use,
- better matches the name (they are clean after all)
- may add another layer for more stealthy builds (quiet approach, then combat as usual after that).

A simple reduction in NPC detection ranges for CDT equipped ships in SR should be enough to emulate this reduced visual signature, and may help make SR more viable in PvE, even if the PvP guys don't want to get back on board.

Any thoughts appreciated...
 

cmdr underhill

C
Unfortunately it appears that clean drive tuning doesn't really decrease your heat output overall, since it often increases power draw more than dirty tuning does (more power increases heat output from powerplant), so I'm not sure clean tuning is all that helpful to a silent-running build in the end anyway.
 
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Wokket

W
cmdr underhill said:
Unfortunately it appears that clean drive tuning doesn't really decrease your heat output overall, since it often increases power draw more than dirty tuning does (more power increases heat output from powerplant), so I'm not sure clean tuning is all that helpful to a silent-running build in the end anyway.
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I understand this, yet there are some examples where it was possibly beneficial (there's a 5 page thread below with some awesome maths/research), which was why I used the phrase 'possible niche use'.

Given the long history of malcontent FDev seem pretty hesitant to make broad changes to the behaviour of CDT in general (balancing stuff is hard), I'm wondering whether a visual change like this would be enough to get it more use by the players, without radically shifting things around.
 

cmdr underhill

C
Wokket said:
...there's a 5 page thread below with some awesome maths/research...
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Link? Something about maths and research always piques my interest :D

I believe with enough rolling in the current engineers, you could come out with a relatively low power draw, and an excellent direct heat signature. That would basically be a god roll for CDT I guess.

Balancing certainly is hard. It's even harder when people with totally unrelated play styles and intentions are asking devs to buff/nerf the same items or gameplay for totally orthogonal purposes.
 

Madrax573

Madrax573
If you go full on with the heat management/clean drive builds then yes CDT can help a load to keep heat down.

But in a general build the increased power usage of CDT often negates the better heat efficiency, especially if the build has an overcharged PP as well.

I like the idea of removing the visual cues though. Nice.
 

cmdr underhill

C
Wokket said:
Link: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/354115-Clean-Drive-Tuning-is-Pointless

One of the advantages of the change I've suggested is that it _isn't_ a numbers change requiring balancing, it's purely a visual one (affecting PvP), and/or a PvE-only change to try and make stealth/SR/CDT vaguely useful in that world.
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Awesome! Makes me smile when I see some real (virtual) world data, rather than my pointless blathering with anecdotal experience ;)

So it seems that CDT may have enough benefit to be useful for small ships (particularly ones with poor thermal performance) and Silent Running builds. I wonder what kind of changes we will see with the REengineering update.

As for the reduction in visual trails, I'm a little ambivalent, but if a Commander spends time and materials on CDT they should certainly get something.
 

StiTch

StiTch
To be honest the heat reduction aspect of clean drives is negligible; in testing, it showed 0% to 1% heat difference compared to dirty drives.

The mod needs tweaks overall to be remotely worth it - revisit of its thermal load, lower power consumption than dirty drives.

The idea outlined in OP is nice, but would require a new (and slightly bizarre) variable to be introduced. It would also have no effect in PvE.
 

Konnivar

Konnivar
In all honesty it really isn't worth using G5 CDT on most ships, in some cases lower grades can be useful; G1 in particular. I'd much rather see the removal of smoke trails be attributed as an Experimental effect for thrusters than attached to clean drive tuning specifically. Clean Drive Tuning needs a considerable overhaul to make it really good at anything; as they stand currently if you get a standard "High" CDT roll with a high power draw as well the performance isn't statistically significant when compared to the standard, unmodified drives. CDT is in effect a mod that allows you to get a bit of a speed boost while maintaining the ability to use silent running like unmodified drives, and that's it (with G5 at least).

In my opinion one of two things needs to happen:

  1. CDT needs to be considerably modified to make it competitive in some respects with DDT by making modifications similar to this:
    • Optimal multiplier 8% to 15%
    • Power draw reduction of 10% to 15%
    • Add a mass reduction of -10% to -20%
    • Integrity -30% to -20%
    • Thermal load -50% to -60%
  2. CDT gets slight modifications and is renamed to remove confusion:
    • Rename Clean Drive Tuning to Silent Drive Tuning
    • Reduce the maximum power draw of Silent Drive Tuning
    • Add a new modification named Efficient Drive Tuning
    • Efficient Drive Tuning should have stats like the following:
      • Mass Reduction
      • Power Reduction
      • Thermal Load Reduction (smaller than CDT [SDT])
      • Reduced Integrity (large)
      • Reduced Optimal Multiplier
      • Increased Optimal Mass

I personally prefer the second option as it maintains the niche use of CDT and adds a new thruster mod specifically geared toward different gameplay styles.


Happy to see some of my research being used! However, some of the methodologies I used in those particular set of tests was flawed. I continued with more comprehensive testing in this thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/358008-PSA-Clean-Drive-Tuning-is-NOT-for-Explorers

There was some controversy over my chosen name for the thread, but the data is sound.
 
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GJ51

GJ51
CDT certainly needs something to make it an attractive option.

I put Dirty Drives G5 on everything and don't see any problems with heat.

The only exception is if you try to boost before a jump in a Beluga. As long as you don't try to jump from a gravity well or boost before the jump, even the whale is ok.
 
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