Mirrored surface question

majogl · Feb 23, 2015

Nutter said:
Well Mirrored Amour reflects some of the light and heat of a weapon, which makes sense.

However, sitting next to a star would be the same as sitting inside a really hot oven, which is a different type of heat. Put a mirror in the oven, it's gunna get HOT, fire a laser at a mirror and expect the majority of energy to be reflected.

So - I don't think your going to gain any advantage.

Better rated modules help with heat, get a A rated power plant for cool running, also if you are carrying a shield, switch it off until you really need it (<500ly from a station)

No... what you are thinking off is transmitting heat via particles in contact or close proximity, which in space doesnt happen (same reason sound doesnt travel.). When you are very close to the star however (fuel scooping) there are some particles that you collect which transfer their heat on you, but that should still leave the majority of the heat to be caused by IR radiation, which can be reflected (if you shine strong IR rays on a mirror and say a wooden plank, the plank would heat up, but the mirror would stay cool). Thats my take on this anyway.

Just to play davils advocate, might also be that FD intended 100% of the heat to be caused by the fuel you scoop (it was flung into the corona through thermonuclear fusion after all), so who knows. I dont visit these forums often. whats the best way to get this answered by somebody official?

slipperysquid · Feb 23, 2015

Mmmmmm isn't the underside of the space shuttle black? Though darker materials absorb heat better, they also radiate heat better to!

LeetNoob · Feb 23, 2015

glynie said:
Check out what the first few posts say in this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=82738&highlight=mirrored+reactive

Bare in mind that these posts were made after the official release, not in beta...this decision is proving more difficult. Now I'm also considering military grade composite, but it doesn't seem right that the cheaper armour is the best choice.

I agree, the pricing of the Amor doesn’t make sense. I wonder what the logic in the thinking was.
If military gives 50% reduction to both types,
Mirrored 75% to energy and 25% to kinetic and
Reactive gives 25% to energy and 75% to reactive,
then unless you find yourself getting hit by one type over another consistently, then surely military is the best choice as it’s balanced, even if they were all the same price. As it is military is a lot cheaper than the other two.

I tried to think why would you specifically go for the other options and came up with this.
If you do a lot of PvP, CMDR’s tend to use the old combo of energy weapons with lots of pips to drop shields and then kinetic against hull with pip’s elsewhere. So reactive armor would be better in that situation.
If you do a lot of PvE, bots tend to just use whatever weapons they have, so if your shields are down, it is more likely that you are up against a ship with good energy weapons, as they are better against shields, in which case you’re better with the reflective armor.
Then I thought I’m thinking too much, and military is the best option and also not too expensive.

As for the original question, reflective armor reducing heat when scooping would make sense, however I extremely doubt it was thought of during implementation.

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slipperysquid said:
Mmmmmm isn't the underside of the space shuttle black? Though darker materials absorb heat better, they also radiate heat better to!

The underside of the space shuttle is decide to resist heat from friction, not from radiation, very different thing.

Starlanced · Feb 23, 2015

You would need mirrored armor that would reflect in infrared to be useful when scooping

hiciacit · Feb 23, 2015

I thought it was mentioned at some point by a dev that mirrored and reactive are both better than military for resp. energy damage and kinetic damage, but provide the same benefits for the other type. Not sure though, and cannot immediately find the quote...

Non Grata · Feb 23, 2015

hiciacit said:
I thought it was mentioned at some point by a dev that mirrored and reactive are both better than military for resp. energy damage and kinetic damage, but provide the same benefits for the other type. Not sure though, and cannot immediately find the quote...

That could possibly be true now, as at the time that the table above was made the 3 types of armour cost almost the same (I think, anyway).

glynie · Feb 25, 2015

I've tested the armour on the current game version, for pretty much everything. Results:

Weapons Damage (% to hull)
-------------------------------
LIGHTWEIGHT ALLOYS: Missile 17%, Cannon 15%, Beam 23%
REINFORCED ALLOYS: Missile 12%, Cannon 11%, Beam 10%
MILITARY GRADE COMPOSITE: Missile 9%, Cannon 8%, Beam 7%
MIRRORED SURFACE COMPOSITE: Missile 10%, Cannon 11%, Beam 2%
REACTIVE SURFACE COMPOSITE: Missile 5%, Cannon 2%, Beam 13%

Collision Damage (% to hull)
------------------------------
LIGHTWEIGHT ALLOYS: 9%
REINFORCED ALLOYS: 4%
MILITARY GRADE COMPOSITE: 4%
MIRRORED SURFACE COMPOSITE: 6%
REACTIVE SURFACE COMPOSITE: 3%

Heat Damage
---------------
Testing with silent running, star collisions, thruster and FSD overheating, the armour makes no difference at all. Whether you're fuel scooping, silent running or flying in a star's atmosphere (both in and out of super-cruise), any armour is as good as any other.

*All weapon tests used fixed mount class 2 weapons
*Missile and cannon tests measure a single shot
*Beam laser was tested for exactly 5 seconds each time
*While tests were sometimes done more than once with the average being taken, results varied and may not be 100% accurate
*Shields were deactivated for all tests
*Collision tests were performed at the same speed with the same obstacle every time
*All tests performed with a Cobra MKIII

Vladimir Seya · Apr 13, 2015

That's some great testing Glynie, I can't believe the topic died after that. I found it on google, looking for someone who did exactly what you did.

So, what do people prefer? Does anyone have an idea what npc's are most likely to use? I never really managed to make a tally myself while being shot at.

glynie · Apr 15, 2015

Vladimir Seya said:
That's some great testing Glynie, I can't believe the topic died after that. I found it on google, looking for someone who did exactly what you did.

So, what do people prefer? Does anyone have an idea what npc's are most likely to use? I never really managed to make a tally myself while being shot at.

Thanks buddy

Well, I can't speak for anyone else but personally I just go with reactive surface composite. I think any 3 of the heavier more expensive ones though are a good choice. You could argue that I'm using the worst: Military grade is a good all-rounder for all situations, but mirrored offers greater protection against lasers combined with shields offering greater protection against cannons - so with mirrored you've got both types covered.

Saying that, I think reactive really helps out if you get rammed.

Whiskey Galore · May 25, 2015

Time is the only equation here when exploring. It's Frontier's simple mathematics which is the problem. There should be more variables.
Get there as fast as you can, do whatever it is you have to do, then get back as fast as you can. So an asp with A6 fuel scoops is the key and everything else with no weight to increase the range. Get the best shield you can to get you to the last outpost and sell it there with a repair, then one jump or two should put you out of AI range. Head back there to sell too.
You need crew, which means a husband/wife or someone who can do night shift. Family perhaps. I've tried everything, but you have to sleep, and while you do...your hull is degrading. Fast. I think too fast myself. But then...you travel vast distances in no time at all which kinda balances things so you can understand their logic there. The whole game is speeded up in reality. Something that should take tens of thousands of years in a generation ship can be done in a day or two. You can't really complain about the mechanics, it's pure fantasy. All you can do is cope with it. Less time = less hull damage. It's as simple as that. Big fuel scoop, no mass, longer range and no drooling at the scenery.
One more thing ... keep the speed at optimal. Max engine speed and using thrusters = hull degradation.
Unfortunately that means cherry picking and having a limit on how far you go to scan something. You can scan more things in less time if they're close to the star. Move on, you'll get more names on things. I've found the same with trading. You get the same prices on the distant stations in a system. That's just plain wrong. It means more than ninety percent of the stations are there for decoration and not much else. Should get higher prices or more money from scanning things the further out you go.