Newcomer / Intro Multi-star system question - Dangerous jumps

[CMDR Redmen]

Hello everyone! New commander here and I am hooked on exploration. I am currently a couple thousand light years outside of the bubble on my second expedition. I have a question regarding jumping to multi-star systems.

Last night, on two different occasions, I jumped to a F class system that turned out to be a multi-star system. The stars were very close together in both systems. Both times I came out of the jump oriented lengthways with the way the stars lined up and was nearly cooked by the neighbor to the star I jumped to.

Is there a way to prevent this? Has anyone ever destroyed there ship doing this? Should I just avoid multi-star systems? I am in the habit of watching what star type I am jumping to on my plotted course in the jump indicator, but it doesn't show if it is a multi-star system. The only way to see that is by looking on the galaxy map first. It seems like it would be tedious to chart a course around every multi-star system.

 

[varonica]

No don't avoid them, they are the most interesting systems, situations like the above are rare, and for the most part little danger once you learn how to get out without getting overheated, and if you are really worried carry a couple of heat sinks with you!

I have done millions of light years and even when these systems were actually much more dangerous I have never been destroyed in one. The last was an entry where I passed through the orbiting star and got a bit hot, but it's surprising how much heat your ship can take without getting destroyed, and carrying an AFMU let's you repair quite easily.

Glad you are enjoying exploration, maybe we will bump into each other some time.

 

[aRJay]

No way of preventing the chance of an issue arriving in a multi star system, FDev did change things some years ago to make it this safe.

You can destroy your ship through overheating but it is pretty hard to do it in one go. Apart from the aforementioned heat sinks and AFMU keep in mind that your ship generates a lot of heat so shutting down systems you don’t need can slow the buildup giving you more time to think your way out. The systems to shutdown are pretty much the ones you shutdown if you hit the exclusion zone of a star they are everything but FSD, Thrusters, Life Support and Sensors. Some recommend running with only those plus Fuel Scoop FSD booster and Scanners when out in the black.

 

[Ashnak]

No way to prevent this, a few ways to mitigate the results.

Old advice was to carry heatsinks. Problem is, by the time you actually need them, they're usually gone - and to synthesize them, you'll need to have stocked up on some manufactured materials in advance.
Nowadays, though, you can rearm and repair at most of the carriers of the DSSA.

Best way, if you tend to run into these things a lot, is to get a Dolphin as expedition ship. Properly outfitted, you can't overheat it. Even improperly fitted you may get the occasional overtemp warning, but no actual damage. An exploration Dolphin can charge its FSD while scooping at full throttle and still won't overheat.

 

[CMDR Redmen]

Thank you everyone! I appreciate the helpful advice! I have an AFMU, but fortunately haven't had to use it yet. Also, I was unaware that shutting off systems reduced heat. I will have to read up on that more. I was already shutting off non-critical stuff like the SRV to reduce fuel consumption. And the rabbit hole goes deeper . . . lol

Hope to see you all out there!

 

[metatheurgist]

The direction you jump into a binary actually matters, but it's usually too late when you find out which. Before they "fixed" it so binary jumps were safer, there was a HIP system I used to do a lot of business at where if you jumped in from one system, you were guaranteed a cooking. So I learned to jump from another system. Good times.

 

[varonica]

Keep in mind all these suggestions and hints are actually optional, I use none of them, no AFMU, no heatsinks, no heat mitigation strategies. I have explored in a Type 6, Python, Cobra 3 and currently a Phantom, the few times I have met my end out in the black is by being whacked by planets, they're the nasty ones! You can survive out there without them, but if they make you feel safer then sure go ahead.

 

[SlickPBW]

Sauce for the goose…

 

[Sapyx]

They have modified the FSD arrival calculator to try to ensure that a ship is no longer in danger of being insta-killed by being dumped too close to a secondary star. An alert pilot should be able to escape a contact binary situation with minimal or even no damage.

This doesn't mean such a star can't still kill you slowly. So try not to get into the habit of pressing the "J" button, then going AFK. A contact binary can kill an AFK ship in under a minute.

As for "avoiding it", there is one in-game option: if you are not filtering for star type, and you are cruising about the galaxy with the galaxy map in "realistic" mode, you do get a slight hint as to the nature of the upcoming system on the galaxy map: it shows you a little miniature model of the star system, with the multiple stars and their approximate orientations. There are explorers who routiely use this mini-map to avoid potentially dangerous binary encounters. Of course, this does require you to pop the galaxy map open before each jump.

The other thing to note about dangerous contact binary systems is that they are not permanent. The stars in binary systems orbit around each other, and if they're that close, then the orbits are usually very brief, only a few days long. So if you jumped into that exact same system from that exact same direction a few hours before or after you did, you would have been perfectly safe and probably not even noticed that the secondary star was right there as you scooped your way around the primary.

Plus, of course, your arrival point is determined by the system you jumped from, so if you'd jumped into that same system at that same time but from a completely different direction, you would likewise not have been in danger. This is why nobody's compiled a list of "dangerous binary systems", because such systems aren't actually dangerous 95% of the time.

 

[Greasetrap42]

The direction you jump into a binary actually matters, but it's usually too late when you find out which. Before they "fixed" it so binary jumps were safer, there was a HIP system I used to do a lot of business at where if you jumped in from one system, you were guaranteed a cooking. So I learned to jump from another system. Good times.

Interesting. This must mean binary stars don't actually move relative to each other in the game correct?

 

[varonica]

Interesting. This must mean binary stars don't actually move relative to each other in the game correct?

They are on orbits around a common point, a barycenter, so relative to each other is not a good term to use. Binary stars of different masses can often form different orbits types, for instance the smaller could be on a highly elliptical orbit, binary stars of similar masses will appear to not move relative to each other much as the orbits are often very circular. best way to check this sort of thing out is to look at the orrery in interesting systems.

 

[Greasetrap42]

Ah, so perhaps @metathurgist is saying if the system was approached in line with the orbital planes of the stars there was a good chance of disaster, because you would appear within the orbital planes and other star could be swooping around. Whereas if the approach was perpendicular to the orbital plane it might be safer because you would appear "above" the orbital planes instead of within them. Interesting thing to experiment with. I have never given much thought to where I "appear" after a jump.

 

[Hooplah]

Wait for your ship temp to drop below 50 before activating the Frame Shift Drive for the next jump then while in 'witch space' us old timers call it. Drop your throttle to zero before arriving at the next star. That provides the lowest ship temp then more time to decide whether to fuel scoop or move away from close binary suns.

Engineering? Here is a Asp Explorer build that I did looking for the coolest ship in the game and it worked. It has a 16 temp in super cruise and never goes over 65 temp when fuel scooping circling any sun at max throttle. I use it in the bubble and 1000LY out for the fastest known way to jump, fuel scoop, jump but could easily be setup for exploration.

Forget my weapons or pointe defense not really needed just makes me feel better. Even sillier the heat sinks I never use even with binary or neutron stars. Anyway something to consider if a player is going to fly 100,000LY efficiently across the galaxy. Play the game your way.

Regards

 

[varonica]

Ah, so perhaps @metathurgist is saying if the system was approached in line with the orbital planes of the stars there was a good chance of disaster, because you would appear within the orbital planes and other star could be swooping around. Whereas if the approach was perpendicular to the orbital plane it might be safer because you would appear "above" the orbital planes instead of within them. Interesting thing to experiment with. I have never given much thought to where I "appear" after a jump.

In theory most system should have an orbital plane in line with the galactic plane due to the way the galaxy formed, so jumping into a system from above or below shouldn't be hard to work out. However in the real galaxy it's way more complicated due to the little fact that our galaxy has absorbed at least a few other smaller galaxies, somewhere between 5 and 11, and this will of course result in a lot of systems that aren't aligned with the galactic plane due to angle of approach when being absorbed and gravitational disturbance to the existing galaxy. How accurately, if indeed at all the ED galaxy models this I have no idea.

 

[Sapyx]

In ED, as appears to the be the case in the galaxy at large, star system orbital plane orientation is random.

I think the chaos of a stellar nursery, with stars, protostars and rogue planets colliding and flying about every which way, would pretty much cancel out whatever impulse there may originally have been for all stars to form with their equators lined up with the galactic plane.

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

Keep in mind all these suggestions and hints are actually optional, I use none of them, no AFMU, no heatsinks, no heat mitigation strategies. I have explored in a Type 6, Python, Cobra 3 and currently a Phantom, the few times I have met my end out in the black is by being whacked by planets, they're the nasty ones! You can survive out there without them, but if they make you feel safer then sure go ahead.

So that must mean you don't use neutron and white dwarf stars for a boost. There is sense in that if you don't want to miss potential discoveries near neutron and white dwarf stars.

 

[varonica]

So that must mean you don't use neutron and white dwarf stars for a boost. There is sense in that if you don't want to miss potential discoveries near neutron and white dwarf stars.

Nope, never used one, that's correct.