Silent running and gimbaled weapons

[Tucker Dale]

Hello CMDRs,

I have a question about silent running and its use to avoid being tracked by gimbaled weapons. I outfitted a Diamondback Scout with a very low heat profile and tough armour (no shields).
I thought, that my ships signature would vanish from the sensor screen and someone who tracks me, would loose its gimbaled weapon lock. Is there a minimum range where a 'cool' ship (silent running activated) will always appear normal on the sensor screen?

 

[eaxs]

AFAIK, depending on the sensor grade, you will be trackable and visible on the radar at some distance.

 

[777Driver]

I did some tests with another cmdr a little while back, I don't have the hard figures, but we were very close to each other, my iced up cobra was invisible, once I started moving I appeared as a fuzzy dot on the scanners, he still couldn't get a lock.

 

[Tucker Dale]

Thanks for your answers. I guess I will further investigate that subject.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Be aware - while this works for human players NPCs cheat. There isn't really stealth mode that works on them properly as far as I can tell.

 

[Jacob Marshall]

This threads worth a look if you haven't seen it already

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159841&p=2580374&viewfull=1#post2580374

 

[Tucker Dale]

This threads worth a look if you haven't seen it already

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159841&p=2580374&viewfull=1#post2580374

Thanks! That's a lot of really good information.

 

[Steve72]

Playing with this myself. Having mixed results.

If silent engaged my temperature should only matter to me ie dont cook your self as im not venting heat. But both npc and players still seem to get a lock on me. Do I still need to keep temerature near zero?

Had 2 players still track me when silent. Anaconda kill mission can track and yet ive had sss where I have taken two condas out with no problems.

The low dps is frustrating and running pure mc to keep pips to engines limits time in the field but accept these limitations and its the best fun I have had in ages.

Running hybrid at mo. Shields to scb and then silent went shields go. It seems to work ok.

 

[Yodafone]

This threads worth a look if you haven't seen it already

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=159841&p=2580374&viewfull=1#post2580374

Useful thread, haven't seen that one before, here's another I started a while back with dev Sandro's response explaining Silent Running.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68069

 

[Nonya]

Here's what I've found from my extensive testing of this Stealth Scout concept that a far smarter player than myself originally conceived:

1) In PVE, the enemy's weapons will be able to track you and hit you better than a CMDR's. I don't care for anyone else's comments on this, I've seen it with my own eyes. Don't want to hear from FDEV about how the NPC's can only do things a regular CMDR can using equipment that functions exactly the same as ours - we've all been interdicted mysteriously by teleporting NPCs, interdicted through stars, etc. We all pretty much know by now that's not entirely true.

2) In PvP, a CMDR will not be able to lock on to you however you WILL show up on his radar however the further out you get from them the more likely your icon gets shifty and eventually disappears. Now of course this depends on the type of scanner the enemy CMDR is running but I've found that the hardcore PvP folk tend to run only D-rated scanners for weight savings and anyone else running A-rated scanners is usually new enough to be easy to get away from and still disappear.

 

[Jacob Marshall]

Useful thread, haven't seen that one before, here's another I started a while back with dev Sandro's response explaining Silent Running.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=68069

And I, had missed this one I'll have a look once coffees done, but will be interesting to see Sandro's reply; as Nonya said above NPCs are doing things they shouldn't be able to when you're in SR. 2km out to 3km in SR from a Cobra yesterday and it followed me.

SRs good, but from the little I tried yesterday it needs fixing; until then it's a PvP tactic rather than PvE.

 

[HectorW]

Here's what I've found from my extensive testing of this Stealth Scout concept that a far smarter player than myself originally conceived:

1) In PVE, the enemy's weapons will be able to track you and hit you better than a CMDR's. I don't care for anyone else's comments on this, I've seen it with my own eyes. Don't want to hear from FDEV about how the NPC's can only do things a regular CMDR can using equipment that functions exactly the same as ours - we've all been interdicted mysteriously by teleporting NPCs, interdicted through stars, etc. We all pretty much know by now that's not entirely true.

2) In PvP, a CMDR will not be able to lock on to you however you WILL show up on his radar however the further out you get from them the more likely your icon gets shifty and eventually disappears. Now of course this depends on the type of scanner the enemy CMDR is running but I've found that the hardcore PvP folk tend to run only D-rated scanners for weight savings and anyone else running A-rated scanners is usually new enough to be easy to get away from and still disappear.

+rep

when reading this post it hit me with that for a very long time I didn't read anything with real content here.
I'm trying silent DBS myself lately. You post is informative and useful. We need more of these. Thanks.

 

[Jacob Marshall]

...
when reading this post it hit me with that for a very long time I didn't read anything with real content here...

There's a lot of gold on the Forums, but you often have to sift a lot of stuff to find it.

...
If silent engaged my temperature should only matter to me ie dont cook your self as im not venting heat. But both npc and players still seem to get a lock on me. Do I still need to keep temerature near zero?

Technically no, SR is SR but some CMDRs have said they noticed a difference when the temps were high.

The low dps is frustrating and running pure mc to keep pips to engines limits time in the field but accept these limitations and its the best fun I have had in ages.

Yeah MC on a solo DBS isn't going to be fast for Condas. Na'Qaan's Velites run/ran with Rails and heat sinks. If I was out for big boats in PvE I'd most likely drop 4 x MC and run 2 x Beam (for shileds) and 2 x MC (they're fun) to drop shields asap and then focus the Power Plant. In PvE SR is, I believe, bugged vs NPCs.

The link I posted had more detail on SR at range, and is clearer than I can manage having not long woken up.

 

[Nonya]

+rep

when reading this post it hit me with that for a very long time I didn't read anything with real content here.
I'm trying silent DBS myself lately. You post is informative and useful. We need more of these. Thanks.

Yes, I've noticed an issue with almost everything anyone official from FDEV puts out in these forums - instead of getting straight to the point with examples, they use overly broad language filled with flowery prose that never really explains anything clearly leaving more questions than answers.
What most folks can explain in two easy-to-understand paragraphs, FDEV takes almost an entire page and doesn't really explain it that well.
It's definitely a problem when it comes to complex subjects such as this.

 

[Morbad]

Is there a minimum range where a 'cool' ship (silent running activated) will always appear normal on the sensor screen?

It's about 500m with A class sensors to lock onto a silent running target and ~350m with D.

You'll show up as an indeterminate contact at about four times this range, however.

1) In PVE, the enemy's weapons will be able to track you and hit you better than a CMDR's. I don't care for anyone else's comments on this, I've seen it with my own eyes. Don't want to hear from FDEV about how the NPC's can only do things a regular CMDR can using equipment that functions exactly the same as ours - we've all been interdicted mysteriously by teleporting NPCs, interdicted through stars, etc. We all pretty much know by now that's not entirely true.

Any NPC and any CMDR who knows what he or she is doing can fire at you without having to target you and can track you without sensors if you fly in front of them. There used to be a tutorial mission based on silent running, and it was easy to demonstrate this in a repeatable scenario with this. Why they scrapped that mission (which was probably the best one) I have no idea. Regardless, it's not hard to sneak up on NPCs and follow them around while silent running with them being none the wiser...until you let them actually see you.

Generally, I find low heat or silent running much more useful against NPCs than skilled CMDRs. The inverse is often true with novice CMDRs.

Now of course this depends on the type of scanner the enemy CMDR is running but I've found that the hardcore PvP folk tend to run only D-rated scanners for weight savings and anyone else running A-rated scanners is usually new enough to be easy to get away from and still disappear.

"Hardcore PvP folk" can visually identify ships at 10-20km by the sort of exhaust trails they leave and the spread of weapons fire. They are also most likely to investigate unresolved sensor contacts, when a novice might ignore something they can't target, until it starts shooting at them.