[Research] Detailed Heat Mechanics

[taleden]

Interesting! So the thermal capacity doesn't factor into idle temperature?

In terms of idle heat percentage, no, it doesn't seem to; the only ship attribute in play there is the maximum dissipation rate, because the idle heat level is precisely the level at which heat dissipation equals heat generation. But in terms of heat value, that's where you'd multiply the percentage level by the ship's heat capacity, so if two ships both idle at 50% heat level but one of them has a much higher capacity, then 50% of that higher capacity means more "heat units" than 50% of a lower capacity. Whether those heat units matter for anything I'm not sure; it's possible that would make a difference for the range at which the ship can be resolved by another ship's sensors, and I know someone was doing some research on that not long ago.

edit: In theory you could test this by finding two ship hulls with identical maximum dissipation rates but different heat capacities, equip them for exactly the same MW of power draw and power plant efficiency, and see if their idle heat level percentage is the same. I just scanned through my data and it looks like possible pairs for such a test would be the Federal Dropship and Alliance Chieftian (heatdismax:46.5, heatcap:331 vs 289), the Federal Assault Ship and Alliance Crusader (heatdismax:45.23, heatcap:286 vs 316), Alliance Challenger and Federal Gunship (heatdismax:51.4, heatcap:316 vs 325), or the Fer-de-Lance and Mamba (heatdismax:41.63, heatcap:224 vs 165).

 

[FIGRIN]

It does not. Only 3 things matters for it, as others already said.

1 - How much MW. is actually in use.
2 - Heat dissipation attribute or ship thermal capacity or BTU (call it whatever you like)
3 - Powerplant efficiency

I think you might be conflating the heat dissipation attribute(s) with the thermal capacity. There seem to be three different values for each ship (capacity, min dissipation, and max dissipation).

Edit: I see you noticed this and edited accordingly. Edit because of your edit.

In terms of idle heat percentage, no, it doesn't seem to; the only ship attribute in play there is the maximum dissipation rate, because the idle heat level is precisely the level at which heat dissipation equals heat generation. But in terms of heat value, that's where you'd multiply the percentage level by the ship's heat capacity, so if two ships both idle at 50% heat level but one of them has a much higher capacity, then 50% of that higher capacity means more "heat units" than 50% of a lower capacity. Whether those heat units matter for anything I'm not sure; it's possible that would make a difference for the range at which the ship can be resolved by another ship's sensors, and I know someone was doing some research on that not long ago.

In theory you could test this by finding two ship hulls with identical maximum dissipation rates but different heat capacities, equip them for exactly the same MW of power draw and power plant efficiency, and see if their idle heat level percentage is the same. I just scanned through my data and it looks like possible pairs for such a test would be the Federal Dropship and Alliance Chieftian (heatdismax:46.5, heatcap:331 vs 289), the Federal Assault Ship and Alliance Crusader (heatdismax:45.23, heatcap:286 vs 316), Alliance Challenger and Federal Gunship (heatdismax:51.4, heatcap:316 vs 325), or the Fer-de-Lance and Mamba (heatdismax:41.63, heatcap:224 vs 165).

Wow, this really is a paradigm shift from our understanding in the old Frenotx thread, where capacity seemed to be the end-all-be-all of thermals. It would be great to get some data on this. It would have a lot of implications for stealth builds. Thanks again for all the info!

 

[taleden]

Wow, this really is a paradigm shift from our understanding in the old Frenotx thread, where capacity seemed to be the end-all-be-all of thermals. It would be great to get some data on this. It would have a lot of implications for stealth builds. Thanks again for all the info!

I don't think it's so much a paradigm shift as just an extension of the prior model in which capacity and dissipation are recognized to be independent variables rather than deriving one from the other. And I think Frenotx (and everyone in this thread) did an outstanding job of developing that prior model given the circumstances at the time, which were not favorable: heat attributes of ship hulls were not displayed in-game (still aren't, of course) or provided by FDev in any other way (this thankfully has changed), and the only available method of deriving heat attributes experimentally has a huge margin of error (because the cockpit UI rounds to whole percentages and isn't actually real-time, but only updates when the heat level changes by ~2% from the current readout). So it was natural to start with the assumption that ships had only one heat attribute, and since heat capacity and heat dissipation both tend to be higher for larger ships, the data almost kind of fit within the margin of error by using capacity as a proxy for dissipation.

There were notable exceptions to that trend though, like the DBX for example, which was the main clue at the time that something was missing from that model, but I don't think we ever could have figured out how it really worked until FDev made the real attribute values available so we at least knew what the relevant constants were and could focus on finding a formula to combine them in the right way to match the observed results.

 

[yLordMagnus]

I was talking with Taleden on Discord about some heat related stuff and found something interesting about heat from stars and he said I should post it here, so here I go.

For explorers jumping between systems, there are 3 main things that produce heat, the Ship itself (MW * PPeff), the FSD when charging (its Thermal Load) and the Star you are flyng close to, that last part I don't see much people researching about and I was kinda of needing that info for planning cold running exploration ships without actually needing to test every random build in-game, so I did some testing of heat very close to stars (Basically with the Exclusion zone on the radar, 0% Thrusters in SC), my Dolphin, got around 30.5 BTU/s from stars, my Type-6 got around 23.9 BTU/s from the same stars and finally my Anaconda got around 64 BTU/s.

The Dolphin I used on the test had 182.9 Tons, the Type-6 167.4 Tons and the Anaconda 511.6 Tons, if I divide the Mass of the ship by the BTU/s generated I get basically 1 BTU for every 6 Tons on the Dolphin, 1 BTU every 7 Tons on the Type-6 and 1 BTU every 8 Tons on the Anaconda.

So my guess here is that Small ships receive 1 BTU for every 6 Tons of mass, Medium every 7 Tons and Large every 8 Tons.
(I think it is based on Ship class and not Mass because the Dolphin weighs more than the Type-6)

That is pretty useful for me since I can now make the sum of basically 99% of the heat production of ships (Ship Heat + FSD Heat + Star Heat).

Reminder: All of this is based on testing only 1 ship of each class (Dolphin, Type-6 and Anaconda) with only a handful of scoopable stars around Shinrarta Dezhra, so don't trust this 100%, I'm sharing this because it at least looks like it is somewhat right in some way?

The only big fault on this entire system is that the ratio is from when you are literally almost hitting the Exclusion zone, so in 99% of the cases for explorers this ratio will be a bit different since I think no one goes so close to the stars when jumping between systems so the heat generated by the star should be a bit smaller.

Would be nice if someone could provide a formula to know how much this ratio changes based on the range from the star, the only point I have now is that at the Exclusion zone it seems to have the ratios I mentioned and the Heat per ton decreases depending on the distance.

 

[Cmdr aRadish]

Hi Cmdrs

I've been playing on and off for a while, I only have ASPx and ViperIII , each partially engineered. I've been exploring and grinding. So have just started looking at ship building now I have some cash. Was interested in building a "stealth" ship. So ended up here. I used Coriolis and EDSY and came up with this. Just to be used for smuggling, salvage recovery. Looks like I could just boost and drop heat sinks to evade scans but thought it would be fun.
would this work or am i reading the building stats wrong? EDSY shows running with thrusters at heat 13%?

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

[Diamondback Scout, "budgie smuggler"] [+1]

U: 0I Heat Sink Launcher [+1]
U: 0I Heat Sink Launcher [+1]
U: 0I/T Point Defence [+3]
U: 0F Electronic Countermeasure [+3]

BH: 1C Lightweight Alloy
**: Heavy Duty 5 100.0%, Deep Plating
**: Hull Boost +76.6%; Kinetic Resistance +2.6%
**: Thermal Resistance +2.2%; Explosive Resistance +3.0%
PP: 4A Power Plant
**: Low Emissions 5 100.0%, Monstered
**: Mass +32.0%; Power Capacity -10.8%; Heat Efficiency -65.0%
TH: 4D Thrusters [+1]
**: Clean Tuning 5 100.0%, Drag Drives
**: Integrity -16.0%; Power Draw +16.0%; Optimal Mass -10.0%
**: Optimal Multiplier +33.1%; Thermal Load -56.0%
FD: 4D Frame Shift Drive [+1]
**: Increased Range 5 100.0%, Deep Charge
**: Mass +30.0%; Integrity -15.0%; Power Draw +20.8%
**: Optimised Mass +55.0%; Max Fuel per Jump +10.0%
LS: 2D Life Support [+2]
PD: 3D Power Distributor [+1]
**: High Charge Capacity 5 100.0%, Flow Control
**: Integrity +30.0%; Power Draw -10.0%; Weapons Capacity +42.0%
**: Weapons Recharge -18.0%; Engines Capacity +42.0%
**: Engines Recharge -18.0%; Systems Capacity +42.0%
**: Systems Recharge -18.0%
SS: 2D Sensors [+1]
FT: 3C Fuel Tank (Cap: 8)

3: 3A Shield Generator [+1]
*: Enhanced, Low Power 5 100.0%, Lo-Draw
*: Mass -50.0%; Integrity -25.0%; Power Draw -52.0%
*: Optimal Mass -6.0%; Optimal Strength +15.2%
*: Distributor Draw -20.0%; Kinetic Resistance -0.6%
*: Thermal Resistance -1.2%; Explosive Resistance -0.5%
3: 3E Cargo Rack (Cap: 8)
3: 3E Cargo Rack (Cap: 8)
2: 2A Fuel Scoop [-3]
1: 1D Hull Reinforcement Package
*: Heavy Duty 5 100.0%, Deep Plating
*: Mass +40.0%; Hull Reinforcement +89.2%
*: Kinetic Resistance +13.2%; Thermal Resistance +13.2%
*: Explosive Resistance +13.2%
1: 1E Advanced Docking Computer [-3]

---

Mass : 198.10 T empty
222.10 T full
Fuel : 8 T
Cargo : 16 T
Cabins: 0
Speed : 386 m/s (524 boost)
Range : 24.72 LY unladen
22.94 LY laden
Power : 8.24 MW retracted (59%)
8.24 MW deployed (59%)
13.92 MW available
Shield: 152.4
Armour: 516.0
Damage: none
Price : 2,907,150 CR
Re-Buy: 145,358 CR @ 95% insurance

 

[PurgeTheXeno]

The 13% heat is your idle heat, not moving*. As for if this build is right for you, it depends. Are you flying FAOff? Or with the training wheels on?

When you fly with FA On, your ship is producing constant thrust to move you forwards, also to keep you from going too fast and to counter turning. This means your thrusters are always on. Clean drives produce less heat when active than dirty drives do.**

However, when you fly FA Off, when you push yourself forwards, you keep your momentum and the thrusters stop producing heat. If you don't keep adjusting where you are going, you are essentially idling while moving forwards. Dirty drives produce less heat than Clean drives do when idling.

In the middle is Drive Strengthening, which draws less power from the reactor (less heat) and gives you no speed multiplier.

Also, if you are looking to be able to silent run for a long time, you might want to go with E rated thrusters. They draw the least amount of power out of all the other kinds.

Finally, what are you looking to do? Are you going up against npcs, or players? NPCs will magically know where you are at some point or another and come scan you regardless of how stealthy you are being.

*(disregard) According to my testing I did last night in a stripped-down unengineered DBS
**The following is the results of last night's FAOff silent running timed tests. A-rated (any size) reactor + E rated thrusters gave me the longest time before overheating. 5:50 for pure idle, 3:10 for constant thrust. You have to turn off everything but the thrusters to get these results.
Edit: Ship Build

 

[Cmdr aRadish]

The 13% heat is your idle heat, not moving*. As for if this build is right for you, it depends. Are you flying FAOff? Or with the training wheels on?

When you fly with FA On, your ship is producing constant thrust to move you forwards, also to keep you from going too fast and to counter turning. This means your thrusters are always on. Clean drives produce less heat when active than dirty drives do.**

However, when you fly FA Off, when you push yourself forwards, you keep your momentum and the thrusters stop producing heat. If you don't keep adjusting where you are going, you are essentially idling while moving forwards. Dirty drives produce less heat than Clean drives do when idling.

In the middle is Drive Strengthening, which draws less power from the reactor (less heat) and gives you no speed multiplier.

Also, if you are looking to be able to silent run for a long time, you might want to go with E rated thrusters. They draw the least amount of power out of all the other kinds.

Finally, what are you looking to do? Are you going up against npcs, or players? NPCs will magically know where you are at some point or another and come scan you regardless of how stealthy you are being.

*(disregard) According to my testing I did last night in a stripped-down unengineered DBS
**The following is the results of last night's FAOff silent running timed tests. A-rated (any size) reactor + E rated thrusters gave me the longest time before overheating. 5:50 for pure idle, 3:10 for constant thrust. You have to turn off everything but the thrusters to get these results.
Edit: Ship Build

Thanks thats excellent information. I kind of looks like there are very limited situations where this sort of build would be worth it, and pointless against NPCs. Shame would be a good game dynamic.

Thanks for everyone that posted on this thread, but it looks like as long as you can fire your weapons or boost away the only other thing you need is heatsinks and manual control.

O7 Cmdr aRadish - PS4

 

[Kulgrinda Kosmarjus]

Thanks thats excellent information. I kind of looks like there are very limited situations where this sort of build would be worth it, and pointless against NPCs. Shame would be a good game dynamic.

Thanks for everyone that posted on this thread, but it looks like as long as you can fire your weapons or boost away the only other thing you need is heatsinks and manual control.

O7 Cmdr aRadish - PS4

I agree with you here completely. Silent running needs a gameplay buff = make it viable in combat against NPCs and create scenarios where running silent and tuning your ship to do so pays off. Also emissive needs to be nerfed severely = decrease the duration, implement a cooldown on how often it can be applied and limit it to non energy weapons only.

 

[goemon]

i was already thinking about a reply, as that statement is correct,

NPCs will magically know where you are at some point or another and come scan you regardless of how stealthy you are being.

but jumping from there to this:

pointless against NPCs.

or that

Silent running needs a gameplay buff = make it viable in combat against NPCs and create scenarios where running silent and tuning your ship to do so pays off.

is plain out wrong.

1. spawning NPC do know where and which of the unresolved contacts is a player and will target it first for scanning. if for exampel you drop with a cool running ship at a comp nav beacon, you'll have a bunch of pirates tailing you trying to scan you. (but can't, so they will follow you around)

2. in all other cases - after spawning and initial targeting of NPC - the usual silent running rules apply. most claims that "silent running does not work against NPC" are down to limited understanding of the mechanics. CMDR Na'Qan has done a very basic video on it - and npc follow that behaviour:

3. if you move out of sensor range (! - see video above), which is down to heat signature/silent running and quality of opposing sensor module plus some npc eyeballing (with was toned down a lot 2016), so you wouldn't even be a fuzzy contact, npc will go about there businness. of course - a new NPC spawning with the intend to scan (a pirate for exampel) will again go for you and try to scan you.

4. you can use silent running and cool running against NPC for exampel to steal from military convoys (i have detailed the process here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/questions-for-experienced-salvagers.549271/post-8574426), and to drop from sensor range. during firing you are always visible - but you can work around that with distance weapons like seeker missiles, and the same applies here for npc and players.

putting this here so the old wrong "silent runing does not work against npc" does not fester. it's usefull in limited ways (as it is usefull in limited ways against players).

P.S.: is it good that NPC with objective scan target player ships first? people tell me, that otherwise they'd never find you... but i personally dislike that a lot).

 

[Kulgrinda Kosmarjus]

the old wrong "silent runing does not work against npc" does not fester

hold your hat there captain, i'm talking about flawed mechanics in npc combat vs silent targets, as in actual shooting mechanics, not just targeting silent targets, which has its own flaws. currently in combat npcs shoot you the same regardless of if you're silent running or not, as someone who flies a silent shield gen mining (oooh don't get me started on npcs and mines) dbs for living i've down a plethora of tests on this matter and the current hit rate is too high and it needs to be dumbed down to simulate a confused opponent (obviously, depending on their combat level) and give players a chance to take any advantage of their silent builds.

 

[goemon]

hold your hat there captain, i'm talking about flawed mechanics in npc combat vs silent targets, as in actual shooting mechanics, not just targeting silent targets, which has its own flaws. currently in combat npcs shoot you the same regardless of if you're silent running or not, as someone who flies a silent shield gen mining (oooh don't get me started on npcs and mines) dbs for living i've down a plethora of tests on this matter and the current hit rate is too high and it needs to be dumbed down to simulate a confused opponent (obviously, depending on their combat level) and give players a chance to take any advantage of their silent builds.

you were saying:

create scenarios where running silent and tuning your ship to do so pays off

- i have replied to that and put some exampels in where cold and silent running against npc is viable and so pays off, and added some exampels under which conditions in combat silent running is viable and pays off against npc.

 

[dekot]

hold your hat there captain, i'm talking about flawed mechanics in npc combat vs silent targets, as in actual shooting mechanics, not just targeting silent targets, which has its own flaws. currently in combat npcs shoot you the same regardless of if you're silent running or not, as someone who flies a silent shield gen mining (oooh don't get me started on npcs and mines) dbs for living i've down a plethora of tests on this matter and the current hit rate is too high and it needs to be dumbed down to simulate a confused opponent (obviously, depending on their combat level) and give players a chance to take any advantage of their silent builds.

Didnt someone do some testing and find that NPCs have a harder time shooting players outside resolve range? I think it might even be earlier in this thread.

 

[lighthaunter]

is there a master list of best ships in terms of heat management? just got back from an exploration trip and I loved the dolphin's coolness. was fueling up right at the limit of the exclusion zone while charging up the fsd and it never went above 51%

 

[Bigmaec]

is there a master list of best ships in terms of heat management? just got back from an exploration trip and I loved the dolphin's coolness. was fueling up right at the limit of the exclusion zone while charging up the fsd and it never went above 51%

In the first post is a list of the heat capacity of the ships.
This list is generally a good point to start, but there are at least two exceptions, the Mamba and the Dolphin.
Both had a buff which upped their heat dissipation ability considerably. As you mentioned, the Dolphin doesn't get hot.
There was a time where it did.

 

[Kayvan]

It seems there are 4 ships missing in the page 1 table; did nobody ever test them?

If I'm not mistaken, these would be:
Imperial Eagle
Crusader
Krait Phantom
Orca

And is the OP still around to update the table, if new results / validations are produced? ^^

 

[Bigmaec]

Here are values from EDSY, including those missing ships.
No idea if correct. @Frenotx propably is still here, but not very active.

A table of all of Edsy's ship thermals.

I made this table to get a more comparative overview for my own purposes, but it occurred to me I might as well share it. AFAIK none of this has been listed before, at least not comparatively other than in the research thread which is sadly out of date and has some unverified data. Thanks to...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Kayvan]

Wow, awesome. That is even better! \o/

 

[Eronaile]

EDIT: I see the original research is apparently not exact. Had a look at the new post by Bigmaec (see 2 posts above) and that would mean Corvette has 'only' 333 heat capacity but also a much higher max. cooling of around 70. Problem is, I am NOT sure how precise heat buildup is calculated by Coriolis... so maybe someone can still help me out, regardless the precise numbers. Thanks.

---

Hey. Super-interesting discussion and thanks a lot for all the research.
I haven't really deep-dived but I have a question because I like the idea of railguns

I was thinking on the lines of this setup:
Corvette Beam+Railguns

(yes I don't have enough for G5, yes I will disable something to get under 100% energy consumption ^^)

If (big if) I understand OP correctly, then a Corvette as 498 'core heat capacity' and on full heat it would dissolve automatically ~9% per second, so roughly 45, or let's say 40 to be on the safe side.

Checking Coriolis, I see that this build would generate around 80 heat per second (more while CSB charges of course).

Does that mean I 'natively' get -40 heat/s and I still have to deal with 40/s?

That's why I put Thermal Vent on the Beam Lasers. I have not had the time to check for research on THermal Vent but I imagine that 2 huge lasers with that should be enough to lose those 40 heat/s, right?

So in theory this build could be heat neutral, right?

Question 2: I have heat efficiency on the PP, so the heat I generate for each MW is 0.45 instead of 0.5, right? Does it have any other effects? Like, does it affect the natural heat dissolve?
It seems Coriolis does not calculate heat precisely, it tells me 80 heat/s no matter if I use the efficiency on PP or monstered, for example.


THANKS in advance.

 

[CaptainPugwash]

EDIT: I see the original research is apparently not exact. Had a look at the new post by Bigmaec (see 2 posts above) and that would mean Corvette has 'only' 333 heat capacity but also a much higher max. cooling of around 70. Problem is, I am NOT sure how precise heat buildup is calculated by Coriolis... so maybe someone can still help me out, regardless the precise numbers. Thanks.

---

Hey. Super-interesting discussion and thanks a lot for all the research.
I haven't really deep-dived but I have a question because I like the idea of railguns

I was thinking on the lines of this setup:
Corvette Beam+Railguns

(yes I don't have enough for G5, yes I will disable something to get under 100% energy consumption ^^)

If (big if) I understand OP correctly, then a Corvette as 498 'core heat capacity' and on full heat it would dissolve automatically ~9% per second, so roughly 45, or let's say 40 to be on the safe side.

Checking Coriolis, I see that this build would generate around 80 heat per second (more while CSB charges of course).

Does that mean I 'natively' get -40 heat/s and I still have to deal with 40/s?

That's why I put Thermal Vent on the Beam Lasers. I have not had the time to check for research on THermal Vent but I imagine that 2 huge lasers with that should be enough to lose those 40 heat/s, right?

So in theory this build could be heat neutral, right?

Question 2: I have heat efficiency on the PP, so the heat I generate for each MW is 0.45 instead of 0.5, right? Does it have any other effects? Like, does it affect the natural heat dissolve?
It seems Coriolis does not calculate heat precisely, it tells me 80 heat/s no matter if I use the efficiency on PP or monstered, for example.


THANKS in advance.

I have used 3 class 2 LR rails on the corvette with next to no heat problems, you should be fine with that build. However you need to be at least 1.8km away to get decent convergence of those two medium hard point, so I would recommend LR over light weight.

 

[Eronaile]

Oh, that's very good to know, I wasn't aware that the M slots are bad for fixed weapons. (the L slot seems to be 'OK' from what I read now)
In that case I would put rails on the two S and the one L slot and maybe gimballed beams or pulse on M. Gotta see how that works because besides heat, capacitor is another problem. Most ppl fly 4/0/2 pips as far as I know which could lead to serious capacitor issues. (and I already went for weapon focus engineering)

Hmm...

EDIT: How bout this?
Link

This may seem VERY unconventional, 'wasting' huge slots on class 2 railguns but I believe with short-range engineering (still very good damage up to ~1.5 km) and the 3 lasers on L and M slots (gimballed) it fixes my overall compromises: very good DPS, not draining the capacitor in 3 secs, heat management.
Although heat really depends on the numbers so I come back to my question: what is the maximum heat dissolve for Corvette 'by itself'? If it's 70, then great, that sohuld be more than enough together with heat vent to get rid of it.