So, about those "functional differences" for new ships... (spoilers, maybe?)

[Kayvan]

The radiation is supposed to be much more inefficient than convection.

That's correct. You need either pretty big or extremely hot radiators to dissipate the kinds of heat ED power plants produce.

Let's look at worst-case scenario, the E-rated PP, and take a ship with a straight 4E PP, no engineering. It has an eff rating of 1, which means 1MW of heat for 1MW of usable power. (We'll ignore the heat of all other systems for now; most of it is thrusters anyway, which should get rid of their own heat through the exhaust nozzles.) 10.6MW of usable power means 10.6MW of heat.
[For comparison, a 4A PP with Low Emissions 5/TS has 13.3MW at an eff rating of 0.13, so it produces only 1.72MW of heat]

The efficiency of radiation scales with the 4th power of the temperature, so for a given amount of heat it's desirable to run the radiator as hot as possible. However, there are physical limits, for instance the boiling point of the coolant. The best theoretical coolant would be Lithium, with a boiling point of roughly 1600K. But it has other issues, so in practice you'd probably want to use something like a molten salt at a considerably lower temperature.

The radiators of a Cobra Mk III seem to be roughly 50m² in area. Maybe 60 but certainly not much bigger.
To reject 10.6MW of heat over a 50m² radiator, it would have to run at 1400K --> that's extremely hot, so basically lithium is the only acceptable coolant.

The same ship running that 4A/LE/TS PP would require a radiator temperature of only 890K, still pretty hot but probably doable with molten salt coolant.
Either way, the radiator glow we observe in the game is pretty consistent with temperatures around - broadly - 1000K.

(Note that present-day spaceship radiators operate only at something like 360K, but only have to dissipate a few kW, and use organic fluids as coolant.)

Calculations done with https://space.geometrian.com/calcs/radiators.php

Edit: I mixed up some numbers between 4E and 4A PP, fixed

 

[Walter2]

OK - writing as someone whose depth of ignorance is measured in light years, does the ambient temperature and material nature of the environment into which the heat is being bled have an effect on radiator efficiency? In space, obviously, a fan behind a honeycomb radiator would be as much use as a chocolate teapot (now there's an image to play with - a chocolate teapot in space).

 

[Morbad]

The same ship running that 4A/LE/TS PP would require a radiator temperature of only 890K, still pretty hot but probably doable with molten salt coolant.
Either way, the radiator glow we observe in the game is pretty consistent with temperatures around - broadly - 1000K.

Some ships seem to have much less radiator area per watt of waste heat than the Cobra, and at high enough temperatures, our radiators can glow white hot (suggesting 1500K+).

I don't think a single stage coolant loop would be practical...must be some sort of fantasic super high temp heat pump in there to boost radiator temps higher, even if adds a bit of power itself.

This is another reason I have problems with the game's inflationary tendencies...they probably did the math for radiator temperature and area, which went out the window when peak powers radically increased with no corresponding increase in radiator area. So what was once vaguely plausible now looks like outright fantasy and in more areas than heat.

OK - writing as someone whose depth of ignorance is measured in light years, does the ambient temperature and material nature of the environment into which the heat is being bled have an effect on radiator efficiency? In space, obviously, a fan behind a honeycomb radiator would be as much use as a chocolate teapot (now there's an image to play with - a chocolate teapot in space).

In a near vacuum the only issue is if you were pointing the radiators at a nearby star, which could seriously compromise the ability to cool the ship. The background temperature of space is single digit kelvin, which sets the floor for radiative cooling.

In an atmosphere, convective/conductive cooling would rapidly become dominant over radiation.

 

[Kayvan]

Some ships seem to have much less radiator area per watt of waste heat than the Cobra

Yes, good point.
BTW I just realized I made a booboo up there, which is fixed now -- in the original post I had conflated the output of a 4E and 4A PP.
Anyway so the Cobra's max waste heat is 10.6MW, and for instance the Alliance Chieftain sits at up to 16.8MW, while its radiator area appears not to exceed 60m² either. So its radiators will have to run hotter.

And yeah all that also leaves out external heat influx entirely, such as when flying close to a star, fuel scooping and stuff. Personally I'd find it fun if you had to keep in mind to point your radiators away from the star.

Then again, there is absolutely no reason why the radiator area couldn't be bigger than what has actually been implemented in the ship designs, and built on the dorsal and ventral sides likewise. In actual spacecraft design, you'd probably do that even if you don't want huge radiator sails. Granted they are a certain liability in combat ships, but in ED shields are a thing, so it would make sense to add a lot more radiator area (that could be covered with armoured panels when they are at risk of taking hits).

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

OK - writing as someone whose depth of ignorance is measured in light years, does the ambient temperature and material nature of the environment into which the heat is being bled have an effect on radiator efficiency? In space, obviously, a fan behind a honeycomb radiator would be as much use as a chocolate teapot (now there's an image to play with - a chocolate teapot in space).

Space's environment is the vacuum. I think the temperature matters but the vacuum does not carry temperature. It's a matter of being exposed to energy radiation. Notice space station ISS. The solar panels face toward the sun. The radiators turn to have their edge face the sun so they don't get exposed to solar radiation.

 

[varonica]

OK - writing as someone whose depth of ignorance is measured in light years, does the ambient temperature and material nature of the environment into which the heat is being bled have an effect on radiator efficiency? In space, obviously, a fan behind a honeycomb radiator would be as much use as a chocolate teapot (now there's an image to play with - a chocolate teapot in space).

Space's environment is the vacuum. I think the temperature matters but the vacuum does not carry temperature. It's a matter of being exposed to energy radiation. Notice space station ISS. The solar panels face toward the sun. The radiators turn to have their edge face the sun so they don't get exposed to solar radiation.

Arguably, in Walter's post, you could for instance heat up air or water and eject it as a form of heat using a heatsink, in this case the heatsink is a liquid or gas that's heated to super hot temperature then ejected through pipes, but the same applies as it does to a solid heatsink, you can only carry so much water or air, and when that runs out you have no way to shed excess heat. But a fan in space will of course have no effect as he says, but blowing a fan over a honeycomb radiator, then ejecting the heated air into space would work, until you haven't got enough left to breathe of course.

The same applies to any method of getting rid of heat, the only continually effective method of getting rod of excess heat in space is via radiator.

 

[AlSki]

I hope not.

Engineering and tinkering with different configurations is one of my favourite pastimes

I have 10 Imperial Couriers. Without the "Engineering Grind" that everyone moans about, only half of these would be effective.
Its like a game within a game, and probably a good job that Coriolis and EDSY don't record how many thousand hours went there too....

 

[Fizzatron]

I really thought we'd have gas mining and resource extraction points in gas giants. This could be interesting if you implemented dangerous atmospheric pressures and lightning as you went deeper into the clouds. Perhaps small ships like fighters could get deeper than larger ships without being crushed. That means that you might escape pirates by risking hull damage, until they send fighters after you.
I was originally hoping for tritium to be mined from these gas giants efficiently to power not only carriers, but also ships equipped with a new military fsd. This fsd would have the darker, scarier jump sequence of capital ships, and it would let you jump within system or jump to other stellar bodies of other star systems the same way fleet carriers can. It would also have a longer jump range. But the disadvantage is that you cannot refuel on stars anymore, and the gas giants with tritium are the less common ones.
This would be a good thing to release to get players back, who are maybe bored of the long supercruise times and small jump ranges, and riskless route plotting because almost every star is a fuel star. Fueling on gas giants creates a much more interesting way to explore- but only if the advantage is in heavily increased jump ranges and the ability to skip long supercruise times.

I like the idea of having the option of an FSD that operates like a carrier for ships. Maybe there could be a dual option FSD for bigger ships that can do both but the carrier type jump would also have a spin up / cool down so it would be more of a strategic decision to use, it would also have to have its own fuel tank added to an optional internal slot. The animation of it would be similar to the Fleet Carrier/Megaship but more like how the animation was for the jumps in Frontier & FE.

 

[CMDR Yates]

Might be worth considering why all the new ships are variants, instead of completely new designs.

Especially if, like the one we've seen so far, the "variants" all have exteriors that, while a similar basic shape, are redesigned from the ground up (so they're not saving much on design cost versus an entirely new ship), and are "functionally different" to the existing versions.

From listening to Arthur's statement, I see where the idea is coming from that "functionally different" must be some special ability that only these four ships have, but at the same time I'm just not convinced they'd completely lock an entirely new environment (such as gas giants or oceans) down to only a few special ships. I think they're just saying there: "these ships look and feel different, with different functional strengths and weaknesses to the base model".

But then, why make it a Python Mark II?

One possible reason for variants instead of all-new designs is so they can believably keep the interiors more or less the same.

If, for example, ship legs was being considered as a feature, they'd want to limit the additional workload of yet more layout variations. The proliferation of different interiors and types of airlock access already (with all the different animations etc.) is probably a big part of why it hasn't been added before now.

So I think the new feature could just possibly be ship legs and/or a whole new salvage game loop where we can enter into large wrecks in person and extract components, etc.

That's not hopium, I say that as someone who would marginally prefer atmospheric or oceanic exploration, but I think it's slightly more likely at the current juncture.

 

[Shurimal]

So I think the new feature could just possibly be ship legs and/or a whole new salvage game loop where we can enter into large wrecks in person and extract components, etc.

On-foot salvage and EVA to recover stuffz from wreckages would be a reasonable answer to the new feature. Don't need full interiors for ships, either—wrecks could have simple, limited interiors (airlock, engineering bay, bridge and a corridor between them with some side rooms; maybe a cargo bay, too). It'd be very cool, and no need to implement interiors for flyiable ships, either.

 

[CMDR Yates]

On-foot salvage and EVA to recover stuffz from wreckages would be a reasonable answer to the new feature. Don't need full interiors for ships, either—wrecks could have simple, limited interiors (airlock, engineering bay, bridge and a corridor between them with some side rooms; maybe a cargo bay, too). It'd be very cool, and no need to implement interiors for flyiable ships, either.

The existing planetary salvage gameplay feels very placeholdery too. The scenarios being same couple of downed satellites and a handful of Eagles and Sidewinders with a cuttable panel or two, in a couple of standard crashsite variants.

Then again, it would be faaaar from the first placeholder-ish thing to be introduced and just stay that way forever.

But it feels especially placeholder-ish. And the tools are all there to make much richer use of, it's literally just the environments that are missing. Which makes it seem like a prime candidate for a revisit.

 

[Darrack]

but at the same time I'm just not convinced they'd completely lock an entirely new environment (such as gas giants or oceans) down to only a few special ships

Yup i cant see them locking any content to specific ships, ED has always had the great advantage that any ship can do anything.

O7

 

[Ian Skippy]

I assumed "functional differences" simply means "different hardpoint/optionals config", to make clear it's not just a visual alternative.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I assumed "functional differences" simply means "different hardpoint/optionals config", to make clear it's not just a visual alternative.

Rational. I rate this as "likely".

 

[Shurimal]

The existing planetary salvage gameplay feels very placeholdery too. The scenarios being same couple of downed satellites and a handful of Eagles and Sidewinders with a cuttable panel or two, in a couple of standard crashsite variants.

True, the Horizons surface POI-s and downed Anacondas have so much potential, too. The doorways, access panels, catwalks are there for Horizons POI-s, they have the right proportions when you explore the sites on foot and it would open up so much new gameplay involving salvage and on-foot bounty hunting or hostage rescue.

I assumed "functional differences" simply means "different hardpoint/optionals config", to make clear it's not just a visual alternative.

That is the safest assumption and one I've set my expectations to. My guess is that it'll be a combat-oriented leaner, meaner, faster version of Python. There is an unfulfilled niche for a competitor to Mamba. At the moment the only other 600 m/s class boost speed medium ship is Phantom, but it has less firepower than Python, Krait MKII and Mamba, so not really the first choice for combat for most. Python MKII having 600...630 m/s maximum achievable top speed with jumprange and firepower comparable to Krait MKII (maybe 3 large, 3 medium hardpoints) combined with reduced size class 6 power distro and smaller optional slots (eg 6-5-5-4-3-3-2-2-1) to balance it out would be an interesting ship for combat with some cargo/mission/multirole capacity. Would make a decent AX ship, too, and maybe even viable for PvP.

 

[Aris Tarkus]

Pure speculation, but what if thee canopy has to be that way. Total lack of transparency so you can actually manoeuver in hyperspace. Don't want to look outside because the view would drive you crazy. Or its a drop down (up) shielding to protect the canopy during some other activity that requires you to operate only via instrumentation.

 

[Doctor Dread]

I assumed "functional differences" simply means "different hardpoint/optionals config", to make clear it's not just a visual alternative.

This.
The only meaningful "functional difference".
Of course, not making an optional slot 7 when the largest existing is 5, but splitting 4 into two 2 etc. Now that would be great.

 

[Walter2]

Space's environment is the vacuum. I think the temperature matters but the vacuum does not carry temperature. It's a matter of being exposed to energy radiation.

That I had forgotten. Thank you - it's been a long time since I sat in a school physics lab.

 

[varonica]

Pure speculation, but what if thee canopy has to be that way. Total lack of transparency so you can actually manoeuver in hyperspace. Don't want to look outside because the view would drive you crazy. Or its a drop down (up) shielding to protect the canopy during some other activity that requires you to operate only via instrumentation.

It's hard to see in the screenshots, but it is actually transparent, it's an early model of the ship so it's probably not had its final polish, but if you zoom in you can see the pilot and looking at the far corner you can actually see right through, they said this is not final render but an early version, so whatever it looks like now as far as finish is concerned will almost certainly not be what it looks like when finally released.

 

[Jmanis]

It's hard to see in the screenshots, but it is actually transparent, it's an early model of the ship so it's probably not had its final polish, but if you zoom in you can see the pilot and looking at the far corner you can actually see right through, they said this is not final render but an early version, so whatever it looks like now as far as finish is concerned will almost certainly not be what it looks like when finally released.

Yeh... I think any fine detail is a red herring owing to this being concept art only.