Engineers Dirty or Clean drive tuning?

[Astronut57]

I've opted for clean drive tuning but judging from other posts most people seem to be in favour of dirty drive tuning.
Is this simply down to availability of components or some other reason that's currently eluding me?

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

Speed, everyone just wants more speed no matter the cost.

I did Clean drive tuning, just due to a lack of materials. But soon dirty speed will be mine[alien].

 

[TuxedoSteve]

Clean drive tuning gives less of a boost to performance via the Optimal Multiplier increase, but makes the ships run cooler when accelerating due to the engines generating much less heat (good for silent running or for ships that generally run hot like an Eagle)
Dirty Drive tuning gives a much higher increase to performance with the Optimal Multiplier, but increases the heat output of the engines.

 

[Astronut57]

Clear concise answers there. Thanks.

 

[jacozilla]

Dirty! The dirtier the better.

seriously, my opinion - because it is only that, not saying it is some 10 commandments thing - is generally dirty drives are the overall winner for whatever overall build you are going for

faster cruise and faster boost = good for combat, good for running away, good for easier smuggling docking, etc. there really is no activity that the significantly faster thrust speeds of dirty v clean drives is not a better deal

better / faster pitch and yaw - here I can only go by subjective feel because have not actually tested the 360'degree normal space and SC pitch and yaw rates, but it does feel a bit like dirty drives are better than clean, but I can't see quite as much difference as the obvious delta between thrust speeds

if you want to min/max what clean gives you, it is still a nice mod but I think in most use cases of how most people play / build ships, dirty drives seem the 80-20 rule winner (e.g. If you don't know exactly and specifically why you are building with clean, you ought to just default to dirty)

 

[GammaZ]

Also power consumption. It seem to increase more then with dirty drive tuning, causing more passive heat generation. And if you will be forced to overcharge powerplant because of it you will end up with more heat then without any mods at all.

 

[Kyokushin]

Dirty should leave a black/grey smoke, like tuned tdi.

 

[Karla]

Do the dirty drive mods decrease manoeuvrability? I read some suggestion that they do.

I've been collecting all the materials I need for Level 3 dirty drives and I've finally managed to obtain 4 micro-wave cooling hoses. I'll mod my Cobra and Imperial Courier for fast deliveries and running away, but I'm wondering which two other ships I should modify. I'm considering modding a combat ship but this would only make sense if it meant that I could turn more quickly. So do the dirty mods increase lateral / vertical thrust? Yaw? Pitch etc?

 

[ErichZann]

Do the dirty drive mods decrease manoeuvrability? I read some suggestion that they do.

I've been collecting all the materials I need for Level 3 dirty drives and I've finally managed to obtain 4 micro-wave cooling hoses. I'll mod my Cobra and Imperial Courier for fast deliveries and running away, but I'm wondering which two other ships I should modify. I'm considering modding a combat ship but this would only make sense if it meant that I could turn more quickly. So do the dirty mods increase lateral / vertical thrust? Yaw? Pitch etc?

An upgrade that increased the thruster performance increased the speed AND all of the maneuver stats like pitch etc. Since the dirty drives are more powerful, they also increased these stats a bit more than clean ones.

 

[Von Shadow]

I thought they increased boost speed at the cost of maneuverability ... since the mod up's the optimal multiplier but decreases the optimal mass (opt mass is what governs turn rate i thought)

 

[Derath]

Do the dirty drive mods decrease manoeuvrability? I read some suggestion that they do.

I've been collecting all the materials I need for Level 3 dirty drives and I've finally managed to obtain 4 micro-wave cooling hoses. I'll mod my Cobra and Imperial Courier for fast deliveries and running away, but I'm wondering which two other ships I should modify. I'm considering modding a combat ship but this would only make sense if it meant that I could turn more quickly. So do the dirty mods increase lateral / vertical thrust? Yaw? Pitch etc?

Its pretty close to a flat buff of the percentage you get to all your maneuverability stats, so if you get 15% on a tier 3 your top speed will be 15% higher, you'll pitch 15% faster etc it really makes a huge difference.

As to Dirty or Clean i'd think dirty wins 99/100, occasionally as an explorer you might want heat efficiency so you can recklessly scoop but realistically dirty is just better.

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I thought they increased boost speed at the cost of maneuverability ... since the mod up's the optimal multiplier but decreases the optimal mass (opt mass is what governs turn rate i thought)

optimal mass is a bad side effect but what it does is change at what mass you get your best multiplier at. Currently you get the best stats for being at 50% of your thrusters optimal mass - now some ships can do this and some can't but you get a nice boost the closer you get to 50%. It has a much smaller effect than optimal multiplier however so unless you got an enormous optimal mass decrease you are gonna get much better speed stats from dirty drives.

So essentially if you had an optimal mass of 1000t, you get your best performance at 500T, if you got a 10% penalty to this you'd go to 900/450 however the overall drop in performance would be small.

 

[Gramps]

Clean drive tuning would give you an advantage on explorer ships. Dirty drive for most other activities.

 

[GammaZ]

Clean drive tuning would give you an advantage on explorer ships. Dirty drive for most other activities.

Or will it? If i understand things correctly it will increase heat in supercruise (more power consumption => more heat, and thrusters themselves are not used in SC), and explorer spend 99.9% of time in SC (and outside of SC heat does not matter for explorer).
Increased power consumption can also create issues with power management/powerplant size.

 

[Nerwan]

I've opted for clean drive tuning but judging from other posts most people seem to be in favour of dirty drive tuning.
Is this simply down to availability of components or some other reason that's currently eluding me?

Clean = Less heat and a little bit faster
Dirty = More heat and a lot faster

Most people care much more about speed so dirty is generally preferable to most

 

[Von Shadow]

optimal mass is a bad side effect but what it does is change at what mass you get your best multiplier at. Currently you get the best stats for being at 50% of your thrusters optimal mass - now some ships can do this and some can't but you get a nice boost the closer you get to 50%. It has a much smaller effect than optimal multiplier however so unless you got an enormous optimal mass decrease you are gonna get much better speed stats from dirty drives.

So essentially if you had an optimal mass of 1000t, you get your best performance at 500T, if you got a 10% penalty to this you'd go to 900/450 however the overall drop in performance would be small.

Have some delicious rep

 

[Ashen Seraph]

optimal mass is a bad side effect but what it does is change at what mass you get your best multiplier at. Currently you get the best stats for being at 50% of your thrusters optimal mass - now some ships can do this and some can't but you get a nice boost the closer you get to 50%. It has a much smaller effect than optimal multiplier however so unless you got an enormous optimal mass decrease you are gonna get much better speed stats from dirty drives.

So essentially if you had an optimal mass of 1000t, you get your best performance at 500T, if you got a 10% penalty to this you'd go to 900/450 however the overall drop in performance would be small.

Ok, what about if you're over the optimal mass? Or did I just completely misunderstand what you are trying to say and the optimal mass is where you're getting the max bonus?

 

[JonnyC0mbat]

I opted for clean drives in the FDL. I'm using overcharged weapons and hardened shield boosters, so keeping the heat down became a bigger priority than speed.

The FDL runs hot anyway, so anything that mitigates that problem is a must.

 

[andrak]

I like it dirty...

 

[GammaZ]

Ok, what about if you're over the optimal mass? Or did I just completely misunderstand what you are trying to say and the optimal mass is where you're getting the max bonus?

I did it on corvette, it is ~2000T, and i got quite extreme upgrade with 28% multiplier and -14% optimal mass and i am now ~150T above optimal. Boost speed is 335 (up from 260) and selling few things to get below optimal only added ~5m/s of boost speed (up to 340). If other things like cruise speed and maneuverability are affected in the same way there is nothing terrible in going slightly above optimal.

 

[DragoonKnight]

Its pretty close to a flat buff of the percentage you get to all your maneuverability stats, so if you get 15% on a tier 3 your top speed will be 15% higher, you'll pitch 15% faster etc it really makes a huge difference.

As to Dirty or Clean i'd think dirty wins 99/100, occasionally as an explorer you might want heat efficiency so you can recklessly scoop but realistically dirty is just better.

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optimal mass is a bad side effect but what it does is change at what mass you get your best multiplier at. Currently you get the best stats for being at 50% of your thrusters optimal mass - now some ships can do this and some can't but you get a nice boost the closer you get to 50%. It has a much smaller effect than optimal multiplier however so unless you got an enormous optimal mass decrease you are gonna get much better speed stats from dirty drives.

So essentially if you had an optimal mass of 1000t, you get your best performance at 500T, if you got a 10% penalty to this you'd go to 900/450 however the overall drop in performance would be small.

Correct me if I am wrong, but It sounds like a 10% change in optimal mass is equivalent to a 5% change in multiplier.

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I did it on corvette, it is ~2000T, and i got quite extreme upgrade with 28% multiplier and -14% optimal mass and i am now ~150T above optimal. Boost speed is 335 (up from 260) and selling few things to get below optimal only added ~5m/s of boost speed (up to 340). If other things like cruise speed and maneuverability are affected in the same way there is nothing terrible in going slightly above optimal.

What's your pitch rate and weight?