Efficient Beams + Thermal Vent + Vulture = Permanent Silent Running?

[video=youtube_share;l8SrSkus00w]https://youtu.be/l8SrSkus00w[/video]

Soooo... I uh.... accidentally made a quasi-permanent Silent Running Vulture by using two G5 Efficient Thermal Vent Beam Lasers and a 4A G5 Armored Powerplant with the Thermal Spread special on a Vulture... and now I'm really interested in making this a full-on stealth ship.

I've been reading up on Elite's stealth mechanics and am learning a good deal, but there is one question that I don't have a clear answer on yet: Is there any difference thermal signature-wise between running at or near 0% heat with my shields up, and Silent Running?
 
Is there any difference thermal signature-wise between running at or near 0% heat with my shields up, and Silent Running?

No difference in PvP at least, they are the same. Can't comment on NPC's.

Sorry if teaching you to suck eggs but be aware that you will become fully targetable (including subsystems) by everything except seeker missiles as soon as you fire your beams at the enemy. Keeping cool will reduce gimbal tracking effectiveness a little but has no effect on fixed weapons or turrets.
 
Thats awesome! I’m glad we got ship cooling back but pretty sure silent+vent was what got that mod to get nerfed in the first place. Gonna enjoy it while it last I guess :)
 
No difference in PvP at least, they are the same. Can't comment on NPC's.

Interesting... Bit of optimistic theorycrafting/hypothesizing: If I reconfigure the modules a bit to make the build more thermally efficient, I might be able to keep the Vulture cool enough following a prolonged Beam attack to become an Unresolved Contact for a brief moment before my target reacquires lock... IIRC it takes 4 seconds to "drop off" someone's scanners when Silent or Cool Running beyond the Auto Resolve Range, right?

Best-case scenario it probably won't amount to much if anything at all (especially with the ubiquity of the Long Range Sensors mod), but it's something to test with my friends at least :D

Sorry if teaching you to suck eggs but be aware that you will become fully targetable (including subsystems) by everything except seeker missiles as soon as you fire your beams at the enemy. Keeping cool will reduce gimbal tracking effectiveness a little but has no effect on fixed weapons or turrets.

Oh no - I was aware of the "tracking while firing regardless of temperature" quirk. I was just surprised that, assuming I can keep those Beams on target for long enough, I could potentially keep Silent Running up for prolonged periods of time and hopefully long enough to lose general target lock when I'm not firing the Beams. Certainly not as efficient as using a Heatsink, but hey - it kinda works!

Thats awesome! I’m glad we got ship cooling back but pretty sure silent+vent was what got that mod to get nerfed in the first place. Gonna enjoy it while it last I guess :)

If it's any consolation, I don't think Thermal Vent alone could achieve that effect. I'm running a G5 Armored Powerplant with the Thermal Spread special, pushing my Thermal Efficiency down to ~0.33, and currently I do not have Drag Drives on my G5 Dirty Drive Thrusters. Even with all of that, Thermal Vent is juuuuust barely able to dump the heat generated during Silent Running. In order to make Thermal Vent + Silent Running really effective, it looks like you have to practically build around that combo - and factoring in what Truesilver mentioned above about Silent Running, I don't think it'll fall into the "OP plz nerf" category.
 
For PvE, thermal vent is great as a kind of "Active Cooling" that can be used in combination with other "hot" weapons — my favorite being railguns.

I also found it useful for those conflict zones that are in a enough low orbit to make your thrusters overheat.
 
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