Ships Thermals (Super Cruise / Scooping in particular)

[Osiricc]

Hi all, I saw some conflicting stuff on this so thought I'd ask.

I wanted to make scooping absolutely ideal on my long range exploration AspX. With that in mind I made this build.
The armor (thermal resistant/reflective plating), thrusters (clean tuning), and shields (thermal resistant) were all given these mods mentioned.

My question is this, does any of that even actually help me when it comes to scooping stars and staying cool? I'm seeing threads saying that those will only matter if I'm getting blasted with energy weapons, is that accurate?

Again, my goal was to absolutely optimize distance, and then thermals in 2nd place, so I can scoop stars more easily/quickly. If none of the mods specifically mentioned actually help with that, then I may as well go with heavy duty/deep plating, dirty tuning, and lo power or something for the shields. ( I went with stripped down where possible, for better jump range).

Build (range/thermals)

 

[metatheurgist]

Armor and shield mods do nothing. What matters is your ship's running temp which is a factor of the powerplant's heat efficiency and how much power you use. EDSY has a Thermal section that calculates your operating heat so you should be able see what your changes are doing.

 

[Osiricc]

Okay, cool, thanks for the info. So all that matters from that is what my running temperature is, makes sense as that would lower the baseline I start at when jumping/scooping. I'll just go with heavy-duty/deep-plate on the armor then, and something else on shields, maybe low power. I'll check out the EDSY thing to see my running heat and what affects it.

 

[pFVD]

From your link, swap in a 4A Power Plant, Low Emissions, Thermal Spread.
You could also add Thermal Spread to the FSD, but you'd lose about a 1ly+ compared to Mass Manager.

 

[Osiricc]

From your link, swap in a 4A Power Plant, Low Emissions, Thermal Spread.
You could also add Thermal Spread to the FSD, but you'd lose about a 1ly+ compared to Mass Manager.

Recently I was considering some more drastic thermal changes to the power plant and distributor. Lately I've done some jumping with my low heat/emissions mamba AX build. Playing solo, I ended up stranded once or twice and decided to add a fuel scoop, hyperdictions and a small fuel reserve were getting annoying.

I was blown away by how I could start charging my FSD mid-scoop! It might be worth beefing up my power supply and/or distributor on the AspX for smoother scoops. It'd be interesting to try it both ways and compare results, see if one actually leads to more efficient travel. Even if it doesn't, there's just something nice about not having to pull off the star, cool off for a sec, then hit the FSD.

On the AspX I put the power plant as small as possible, so it's lighter, and better jump range. Would a bigger power plant help thermally? Like would a 4a low emissions, thermal spread power plant be any better than a 2a? I plug it into EDSY and it looks like the thermals are the same regardless. Is there any downside to running a 2A and getting that little bit of extra range with the lower weight, assuming I can still concurrently power everything I want to?

 

[Osiricc]

Ah, yeah... no. I see what you're saying, I could maybe get away with a 3A power plant if I went that thermal route, no way I could give up that power plant overcharge and still make the 2A work.

 

[Robert Rockbite]

I have got an ASP with a 3A power plant with low emissions thermal spread and it's a pain in the ASP. You want a 4A power plant with low emissions thermal spread.

You might also want an FSD V1 from the tech broker if you don't have one (edsy shows normal FSD) - but be warned that currently there seems to be a bug that prevents people from putting experimentals (mass manager recommended) on the V1.
You might also want a DSS V1 from the tech broker (edsy shows normal engineered DSS).
You might also want enhanced low power low draw on your 3D shield generator.
You might also want to unlock G5 lightweight live support - well, maybe you don't exactly want to do the unlock, but you would certainly want the results.

 

[Osiricc]

Awesome, thanks for the tips. I do have the pre-engineered FSD and DSS, they must not have shown with how I exported the build from Inara to Edsy.
I had no idea you were supposed to be able to add an experimental effect to the FSD V1! I'll have to go try that out right now and see if it's still bugged.
G5 lightweight would be amazing, that's at the top of my to-do list after this thargoid war. I'd hate to miss one of the Titans popping if I left for Colonia right now.

 

[Osiricc]

No luck, yeah it won't let me add an experimental effect. I'm finding conflicting threads saying that may or may not be by design. Hopefully we can again at some point, and I didn't just miss out on getting an uber legacy FSD again, like those double engineered 6A (maybe 4 and 3 too) on that CG a couple years back when I wasn't playing.

I was able to get away with a 3A power plant though (low emissions, thermal spread).
It's really not bad, I just have to turn off the AFMU and SRV Hangar if I'm not using them.

 

[Osiricc]

Here's where I landed, pretty happy with it. I did end up sacrificing some jump range and made the power plant 3A low emissions, thermal spread. The QoL upgrade is worth it to me.
I did have to trade out stripped down for low draw on the shields experimental effect. Took me from 100.X power usage, to 99, with optional units like AFMU, SRV bay, and cargo hatch/repair limpet powered down. I figure those are used pretty rarely, I can turn them on when I need out in the black. SRV bay is easy enough to power when you land on a planet and have your thrusters off anyway.

 

[Greasetrap42]

AFMU - 4B consumes a bit less power and has more repair capacity. I see no reason to engineer with shielded. Arguably the AFMU is a wasted slot unless you are using it simply to hold the slot and absorb internal damage, which is good. (better than an empty slot)

Repair Limpet Controller + Cargo rack - I never installed these. I had no need for them even before fleet carriers. Now with reliably located DSSA fleet carriers scattered across the galaxy its easy to get repairs. I filled these slots with the flight assist modules. Even if you don't use Supercruise Assist (which is pretty handy after traveling to your 500th planet for exobiology) this module has the auto brake (autothrottle?) feature when you jump to a star. This prevents you from taking accidental damage from running into the star. IMO much more valueble than AFMU or repair limpets. Keep the AFMU, especially if you are neutron star hopping.

It depends on what you are going to use this ship for. For long distance travel it is good.

If you are planning normal-space exploration activities like exobiology I would want reasonably decent thrusters and distributor. The undersized 4D thrusters and 1D distributor would really suck.

Edit: This is my AspX

 

[Osiricc]

Thanks for the tips. That's cool, I wasn't aware of those fleet carriers with the "DSSA". In that case I will forego the repair limpet.
I was torn about bringing them at all, I've done some good damage to myself out in the black before and been happy I had them. But now that I know the auto-dock computer can safely land you on planets, plus these DSSA fleet carriers, I think I can do without.

Yeah the shielded one was just for kicks, a "why not, I've got it lying around" sort of choice.

It is more of a long distance ship, so I'm okay skimping on the distributor. I just cannot get into exobiology, it kills me how you have to get 3 in a row, and have to ignore other bio signs while you're completing the one. Maybe down the line they'll let us engineer a better bio collection tool that will let you collect samples for more than one strain at a time.

Those are great considerations though for exobiology, the undersized thrusters and distributors. Thanks for the tips, that will help me think things through better if I decide to do more exo-bio I might not want to go so stripped down on those.

What! The supercrise autobreaks and keeps you from launching into a star? That's awesome, I think I will add that too then, since I'm dropping the repair limpet and cargo rack anyway.