Question re heatsinks wrt exploration

[Para Handy]

Last week I aborted my latest attempt at getting out into the black because I ran out of heatsinks.

Three times I had been dropped at my h-jump destination through one of a close binary and found myself dumped out of supercruise, rapidly overcooking - requiring me to fire off a heatsink before escaping.

Obviously I am going to make a point of carrying another heatsink launcher for future trips but it got me to wondering:

What do you do when you are many hundreds of kylies from the bubble and you run out of heatsinks?

Do you carry on regardless and hope not to get destroyed in that sort of situation?

Was my experience just very unusual, 3 times in only a few KLy?

Is there any hope at all that F D will provide some form of heatsink ammo synthesis in the future? Have they addressed this WRT exploration rather than the stealth disincentive?

 

[Col Frost]

never used a heatsink and travelled over 1 million light years

 

[goemon]

very unusual! you have been unlucky.

i have not run out of heatsink ammo ever.

i tend to fly really low-temperature builds, which also helps with that. i might take modul damage, which i can repair.... not sure when was the last time i took hulldamage by overheating.

i wouldn't turn around if i had fired my last heatsink, i think. bbut i would probably look for the "closest" station to replenish.

 

[StiTch]

Heat sink synthesis would open more cans of worms than stealth. Infinite uses across on or two heat sink launchers would be chaos - unlimited SCB cooling, thermal shock meaningless etc.

If your ship can handle several without hurting jump range much, do it. But you really shouldn't be burning through them that fast (excuse the pun), and they should be there to stop you taking the odd bit off attrition damage or coincidental catastrophe- not as a "you gon' crash and burn in 10 jumps without them".

Obey "throttle down on countdown" and you should only take damage when you stop paying attention

 

[goemon]

Obey "throttle down on countdown" and you should only take damage when you stop paying attention

this is unfortunately only true in ~99,5% of all cases. if you jump into a binary/trinary system, you will overheat, attention/trottle to 0 or not.

 

[Iron Orchid]

As a rule I've not carried heat sinks for ages. You don't need them. I went all the way to Beagle Point with one and never used it. I think you have been unlucky - one way is when you get "dumped" out of supercruise - turn off everything that isn't necessary (to reduce heat) and jump out and repair your ship when safe with the AFMUs (if you've fitted them). Just remember to exit supercruise when you do repairs though. When exploring a low heat ship is good thing.

 

[StiTch]

this is unfortunately only true in ~99,5% of all cases. if you jump into a binary/trinary system, you will overheat, attention/trottle to 0 or not.

Aye, hence "should", though it's not that black or white....hit plenty of binary systems and a couple of trinaries, and not taken damage from them. It seems to be dependent on landing yourself directly in the corona of one or more stars

I am also aware neutron stars can bug out still and pull you into cone-death instantly.

The former however is why I would still carry a couple of heat sink launchers where possible

 

[Faded Glory]

never used a heatsink and travelled over 1 million light years

Neither have I, but that's not the point, the OP had three occasions in (relatively) quick succession where he did need them.

It's pretty illogical that heat sink ammo cannot be synthesized, yet specialist ammo and fuel and increased range FSD jumps (presumably much more complicated stuff) can be, and as the OP implied, the only reason it cannot be (as far as we know) is that it could imbalance combat by allowing stacking of SCBs.

Surely a simple way of overcoming that issue would be for heat sink ammo to take time, say a few minutes, to synthesize, and only be able to synthesize one unit at a time, which would make it useless for combat, but just fine for explorers.

 

[Para Handy]

Thanks for the replies, I am going to assume I was just a blip in the statistics this time - but I will fit another launcher next trip.

I always reduce throttle to zero by the end of the countdown. I once alt-tabbed to my email as I zeroed the throttle and was alarmed to hear "fuel scooping" (I survived but with lots of damage) - the throttle pull-back had obviously not registered in the game. That was when I first started playing, so now I always make sure of zero throttle on hyperjump.

I take it then that F D have not given any "official" response as to a very slow (for example) synthesis of heatsink ammo for exploring - well I suppose that fits with their apparently combat-oriented view of things.

 

[Nerwan]

Remember you can engineer the launchers now so they're super light weight. I took two on my last trip. I used one (by accident). I've only ever jumped into a close binary system once a long time ago.

 

[Col Frost]

I didn't mean to sound curt with my short comment, was at work and can't stay on for long at that time.

By disabling all unnecessary modules when exploring I've never felt the need to have a heatsink.

I recently jumped into this system which has 4 very close stars and my heat went up to 95%, but I was able to make it without taking heat damage, Each to their own though, if commanders want to use heatsinks I wouldn't ever criticise, just never really got it myself

 

[Para Handy]

I didn't mean to sound curt with my short comment, was at work and can't stay on for long at that time.

By disabling all unnecessary modules when exploring I've never felt the need to have a heatsink.

I recently jumper into this system which has 4 very close stars and my heat went up to 95%, but I was able to make it without taking heat damage, Each to their own though, if commanders want to use heatsinks I wouldn't ever criticise, just never really got it myself

My issue in each case was that I had been dropped into normal space, had sparks flying and Mrs Croft was informing me that I was taking heat damage, so before charging the FSD into supercruise and heading for the escape vector I needed to fire off a heatsink. I assumed that if I didn't do so then the heat damage would have been terminal. If people are saying that the ship can survive that then I would be happy to take the damage and just use the AFMU to repair. Thoughts on that would be well received.

BTW - how do you cope with not being able to repair the power plant? Do people just put up with it and rely on reboot/repair when/if it gets below 5%?

 

[StiTch]

BTW - how do you cope with not being able to repair the power plant? Do people just put up with it and rely on reboot/repair when/if it gets below 5%?

Er, you basically don't let it get that low by being careful.

If it just started malfunctioning like that and needing a reboot it would just drop you from SC and damage your hull repeatedly anyway.

 

[Col Frost]

My issue in each case was that I had been dropped into normal space, had sparks flying and Mrs Croft was informing me that I was taking heat damage, so before charging the FSD into supercruise and heading for the escape vector I needed to fire off a heatsink. I assumed that if I didn't do so then the heat damage would have been terminal. If people are saying that the ship can survive that then I would be happy to take the damage and just use the AFMU to repair. Thoughts on that would be well received.

BTW - how do you cope with not being able to repair the power plant? Do people just put up with it and rely on reboot/repair when/if it gets below 5%?

I've honestly found that I only take damage to the power plant if i'm drunk or distracted or both. Maybe I've just been lucky, but it's actually possible these days to get to Beagle point and still have 100% hull

 

[Redfox]

...rapidly overcooking...

Would you mind sharing your ship, the power plant you got installed and at what temperature-% you're running when in deep space (=not close to a star)?

When briefly flying a T7 waaay back I'd overheat all the time, even when cautiously fuel scooping. This was AFAIK mainly due to the T7's inherently bad heat mgmt and my loadout that ignored all aspects of heat generation.

 

[iain666]

My issue in each case was that I had been dropped into normal space, had sparks flying and Mrs Croft was informing me that I was taking heat damage

I've never been dumped out of SC from dropping out of hyperspace in a close binary (approaching 30k jumps and many sticky binary situations).

If you're zeroing the throttle before you jump then make sure when it goes pear shaped you are taking the time to point your nose into empty space before you floor it again. An emergency drop implies to me that you are panicking and accelerating before you're properly aligned with a clear escape route.

If you keep calm and you're running cool then you should be able to eliminate or severely reduce your heat sink usage.

If I manage to get my power plant below 50% I'll head for home - on current going I could do another couple of laps of the galaxy rather than a single circumnavigation before that happens (not that I will). If this is already concerning you then I would suggest that you could perhaps be a wee bit more careful?

 

[varonica]

this is unfortunately only true in ~99,5% of all cases. if you jump into a binary/trinary system, you will overheat, attention/trottle to 0 or not.

I have jumped into many binary and trinary systems close enough that I have seen the stars my passing windows as I emerge and I have never used or needed a heat sink, I don't carry one, I always throttle down as well. I can see maybe where if you emerged between two hot stars it may be an issue but the only time I have ever taken damage from a star is through my own stupidity. For the OP to take so much damage in quick succession is extremely unusual. One thing that has never happened is being dumped out of SC and taken heat damage on entry no matter how close the star or how many unless I leave throttle wide pen and don't turn away fast enough. I learnt my lesson when I first started playing after a few bad experiences with white dwarf stars.

It's funny we get threads complaining about how boring travel is and asking or autopilot it's so boring, then we get people who keep getting their fingers burnt on stars. I personally don't think heat sinks are required, but if you make a mistake or have a bad system entry they could come in useful.

 

[Allitnil]

I've never been dumped out of SC from dropping out of hyperspace in a close binary (approaching 30k jumps and many sticky binary situations).

If you're zeroing the throttle before you jump then make sure when it goes pear shaped you are taking the time to point your nose into empty space before you floor it again. An emergency drop implies to me that you are panicking and accelerating before you're properly aligned with a clear escape route.

125k jumps here and essentially the same experience & advice. One thing to bear in mind is that if you drop into a close binary and your temp is rising rapidly then the danger is almost certainly behind you as you will still be a safe distance from the main star that is in front of you. If you turn round to try and escape the visible star then you are just making things worse and will likely drop out of SC. Indeed, you might almost be safer in such circumstances to have not throttled back on jump entry since you want speed to escape the menace behind. Whether you have or not, full throttle and angle yourself to go fairly close to the star you can see. If you were alert on entry then you should know the orientation of the star behind you so can set your trajectory to get further away from it.

If you do drop out of SC then your temps should decrease quickly (at least that's the case with a stripped down Conda when close to a single star - I've never had to test it close to two or more!) and you're unlikely to need a heatsink. You will gain temp when jumping out but it probably won't be too bad if you jump back into SC rather than attempt an immediate jump to another system. I've not tried it but if you log out to the main menu & back in again you might find yourself a safe distance away (it certainly happens if you log out in SC next to a star). But if that works it's probably an exploit.... your choice!

As long as your heat doesn't go above 150% you will only get module damage which can be repaired. The only limiting factor here is the life support since repairing that uses up some of your emergency oxygen supply. I still don't know why that never gets replenished but since it does not, when repairing the life support use all available AFMUs and give consideration to refilling them with premium ammo (using synthesis) to reduce the repair time.

I reckon that a careful & sober CMDR could do a trip of 100k or more systems before absolutely needing to dock for repairs.

 

[Para Handy]

Would you mind sharing your ship, the power plant you got installed and at what temperature-% you're running when in deep space (=not close to a star)?

When briefly flying a T7 waaay back I'd overheat all the time, even when cautiously fuel scooping. This was AFAIK mainly due to the T7's inherently bad heat mgmt and my loadout that ignored all aspects of heat generation.

OK - I have stripped it down and stuck it in storage for this week but from memory (I'm in a different system at the moment):

AspX all core modules full A class except scanner as a D

6A fuel scoop
5A AFMU
3A shield gen
2g PVH (with scarab)
3E cargo rack (I think)
DSS
ADS

I had left on a chaff, 2pdt and one heatsink launcher - I can't remember if I had left on the hardpoint fit as I was not looking to get a huge jump range (the FSD was engineered and the ship had a 40ish Ly range anyway).

I have no idea what the running temp was/is - on H-Jump it went up to 58% I believe.

As you can see I didn't really strip down for exploration trip, just wandered off on a whim with a couple of internal module changes (smaller shield, fit AFMU and biggest scoop).

 

[Para Handy]

I've never been dumped out of SC from dropping out of hyperspace in a close binary (approaching 30k jumps and many sticky binary situations).

If you're zeroing the throttle before you jump then make sure when it goes pear shaped you are taking the time to point your nose into empty space before you floor it again. An emergency drop implies to me that you are panicking and accelerating before you're properly aligned with a clear escape route.

If you keep calm and you're running cool then you should be able to eliminate or severely reduce your heat sink usage.

If I manage to get my power plant below 50% I'll head for home - on current going I could do another couple of laps of the galaxy rather than a single circumnavigation before that happens (not that I will). If this is already concerning you then I would suggest that you could perhaps be a wee bit more careful?

The point was that in each case I had throttled to zero before the jump, did not touch the throttle after the drop, I came in through a star, I was dropped out of SC and temp went daft. I immediately opened my modules panel and de-activated my fuel scoop as I did not want that to start heating me up when the FSD was re-engaged, I turned to be not facing the star in front of me, when my FSD timer finished I fired a heatsink, initiated supercruise and turned to face the escape vector target.

I don't see that anything that I did was wrong, there was certainly no panic as I had experienced this before and new that I would survive as long as I took the right steps, rushing would not have been a correct step as more haste definitely makes for less speed.


BTW - The power plant repair question was just a "I wonder what if" - with my three "fun drops" my power plant was still on 99% when I docked again. I never took a great deal of damage in any case, only modules getting a few percentage points of heat damage hits - I still had to synth AFMU ammo anyway for the third "hit".