Newcomer / Intro Thrusters and heat

First off, my apologies if I posted this in the wrong section of the forums. I sifted around for too long, and this seems the most appropriate location...

So, I have been engineering my thrusters and came across something that I do not fully understand. Heat output from this module! I have searched the internet and could not find the specific answer to this question.

I'll make this question as simple as possible, does the heat output from thrusters come strictly from when you boost? or does this encompass a constant output of heat while you are flying around and not boosting? i.e. Temperature resting point and cool down speed.

-I know that boosting will cause an increase in heat that will eventually let off and your ship will begin cooling off. But when simply flying around, based on the thruster type and especially engineering, will this cause my heat levels "resting point" to remain at a certain level? for instance, lets say I take whatever thruster and throw g5 dirty drives on it, I know this will "increase heat", but to what extent beyond boosting heat? will this raise the "resting point" of heat levels? Will this cause my ship to cool off slower?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but there are only so many ways I can ask and explain what answers I am looking for. Thank you to any and all that can help me to figure this out!
 
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Thrusters consume a lot of power, the amount of power consumed will influence how much heat is generated (even at idle)

For example, the 6D thrusters on my freighter consume 22% of the power output, the highest heat generation of all modules onboard the ship. Shields are another power hog.

Each thruster class also has a thermal load rating, this can be check in outfitting. Through engineering you can modify thermal load & power consumption.
 
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Wot he said^^

If you want to keep your ship cool, you have several options:
- you can engineer your thrusters to put out less heat at the expense of some performance (mainly clean drives tuning)
- you can engineer your powerplant to dissipate heat more efficiently
- or you can simply use powerful enough powerplant to have some power overhead (if you use the PP at 80% instead of 95%, it will have easier job cooling itself)
 
This answers a couple things, but I am still curious...

I am looking to understand how and if the thrusters have a continuous heat output.

I need to know if thrusters heat output has any effect on the "resting tempurature".. also if having a lower heat generating thruster will affect the speed of which my ship cools off..

*Let's say I throw clean drive tuning on my thrusters.

1) Would that lower my resting temperature?
(By resting, I mean the coolest point your ship can be while sitting idle, on the temperature gauge to the left of the speed gauge)

2) Would it increase the speed of which my ship cools off? (Because it will not be fighting more of the idle heat put out by the thrusters?)
 
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I'm sorry, but this does not answer my question. I am asking about thrusters, not the power plant.

I am basically looking to understand how and if the thrusters have a continuous heat output.

I need to know if thrusters heat output has any effect on the "resting tempurature".. Or the speed of which my ship cools off..

Let's say I throw clean drive tuning on my thrusters. Would that lower my resting temperature? Would it increase the speed of which my ship cools off?

Then the answer is yes. Thrusters put a constant heat load on a PP from 0 to 100% thrust and extra heat while boosting. This load doesn't depend on PIP settings or anything else. I't an inherent number for every class and rating of a thruster, modifiable only via engineering.

The number means "heat units put out per second". The number on the powerplant means "heat units dissipated per second" The difference in these two numbers is what governs your "resting temperature" AND the rate by which your ship cools down.

(naturally all other systems put out the heat, too and so does firing the weapons, but thrusters are by far the most prominent as they take up about third of all power consuption/heat generation)
 
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This answers a couple things, but I am still curious...

I am looking to understand how and if the thrusters have a continuous heat output.

I need to know if thrusters heat output has any effect on the "resting tempurature".. also if having a lower heat generating thruster will affect the speed of which my ship cools off..

*Let's say I throw clean drive tuning on my thrusters.

1) Would that lower my resting temperature?
(By resting, I mean the coolest point your ship can be while sitting idle, on the temperature gauge to the left of the speed gauge)

2) Would it increase the speed of which my ship cools off? (Because it will not be fighting more of the idle heat put out by the thrusters?)

Thrusters have a continuous output and it effects the resting temp, as already mentioned, this is tied to power consumption and thermal load. Heat output will occur even at idle thrust.

Simply throwing on clean drives will not guarantee you a reduction in idle temps, clean drives reduce thermal load but will increase power consumption, on G5 it can increase consumption by a large amount.

Reinforced thrusters reduce thermal load with no increase to power consumption.

Chris Simon mentions using a higher A class powerplant to reduce heat (due to having excess power) I did quite a bit of research on this, apparently it is not the case, I didn't see any reduction in temps when I was building various cool running ships, quite a few forum posts backed that up. The thing is each ship handles heat differently , excess power might be a good thing on some ships, I just haven't noticed it on any of mine.

Cheers
 
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Simon mentions using a higher A class powerplant to reduce heat (due to having excess power) I did quite a bit of research on this, apparently it is not the case, I didn't see any reduction in temps when I was building various cool running ships. The thing is each ship handles heat differently , excess power might be a good thing on some ships, I just haven't noticed it on any of mine.

Cheers

I haven't really tested this particular part, either, tbh, but it just feels like it. But it may as well be just because the better powerplant simply has higher heat efficiency, so yeah, that part of my post - a pinch of salt, please. :)
 
I haven't really tested this particular part, either, tbh, but it just feels like it. But it may as well be just because the better powerplant simply has higher heat efficiency, so yeah, that part of my post - a pinch of salt, please. :)

What you say should make complete sense, it's just in game it doesn't seem to work that way. Always best to run A class powerplant for best heat efficiency, pick the size that meets your requirements, anything larger is just excess mass.
 
Something else to consider is the overall power usage of your ship. A ship that is running at 99% of its available power will have more heat issues than a ship running at 60%...

It gets pretty complicated when you start looking at the best engineering mods to keep a ship cool.

For example, you may decide to take a ship to get its powerplant modded with g3 low emissions in an attempt to cool it, you get a great heat efficiency result but the huge drop in available power means you’re now running at 101% power capacity and have to turn the cargo hatch off...

Is the ship now cooler? Or was it better in its original state when it consumed just 70% of its available power? :)
 
This all makes sense. But still.. what a mind **** when you attempt to "fix" an issue such as overheating, only to create the same problem over again.
 
A sidenote on the "constant output": that's only part of the story. I mean, it's true that thrusters simply for being switched on create a certain amount of heat, just like any other module. But also note that thrusters create additional heat for being used.
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It's easy to confirm that, too. Just fly anywhere, leave supercruise. Stay motionless, check your heat. Then start wild maneuvers on all axes, watch your heat display. The more thrusters you manage to fire at the same time, the more heat you pump into your ship.
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That being said, i only once really experienced issues with heat from thrusters: in a dogfight within over a high gravitation planet. As others already have said, having a reactor with good heat efficiency and possibly some power spare really helps. As long as your setup is not extremely power hungry, there's a simple way to get there, too. Grade 1 modifications come cheap at engineers and a grade 1 overcharged power plant gives nice additional power at a rather low price of heat efficiency. Just roll a few times, till you get an upgrade with improved heat efficiency and you have a reactor which produces more power for less heat than a standard reactor. It's one of the few engineering upgrades where something really good can be acquired for a really cheap price.
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If you are engineering your powerplant as well as your thrusters, be careful of the heat efficiency.

I bought and engineered a Type-7 over the weekend. They have small powerplants, so I got a grade-4 overcharged with very high power output, but poor efficiency. Once I put the grade-5 dirty drives in, it didn't take much to overheat the ship. most jumps took it over 100%, though I could get it to as low as 98% by letting it cool off fully between jumps. This powerplant had more power than I needed for most purposes, so I went and downgraded the powerplant to grade-3 with just enough power and a much better heat efficiency. She now completes a jump around 85% heat.
 
Spaceships in ED never actually "orbit" things under normal circumstances. In normal space, your thrusters are constantly working to keep your ship at rest relative to the gravitational frame of reference (usually the nearest star, planet, moon or space station). How much work those thrusters have to do, depends on the mass of said object. And the more they have to work, the hotter they get.

Try this simple experiment. Go to a landable planet with as high as gravity as you are comfortable landing on - anything over 1 G should be adequate. Get down near the surface (but not too close!) and hover in place: your thrusters have to work hard to keep you hovering there (which you should be able to see in external camera shots), and your ship will be considerably above "rest heat" levels, which you can find out simply by landing your ship and waiting till the engines shut down and cool off.

While you're still hovering there above that planet, roll your ship until you're hovering upside-down. You'll notice your heat will build up rather dramatically. That's because your underside thrusters are larger and more powerful than your topside thrusters, since the topside ones aren't designed to support the entire weight of the ship very often. So when you fly upside-down, the smaller topside thrusters have to work much harder to keep you from falling out of the sky. And thrusters working harder generate more internal heat.

This is also why doing intense combat maneuvers while deep in the gravity well of a high-G world can sometimes push your heat into hazardous levels, even if you never fire a shot.
 
This answers a couple things, but I am still curious...

I am looking to understand how and if the thrusters have a continuous heat output.

I need to know if thrusters heat output has any effect on the "resting tempurature".. also if having a lower heat generating thruster will affect the speed of which my ship cools off..

The simplest way of showing that they do is to power down your thrusters from the RH pannel and see the ships temp drop.
 
you can also manipulate your heat creation by FA off, since thrusters in FA off deactivate unless there is a input, you can see how much heat is created FA on (active engines) vs FA off (input for output) which I tried a few times myself, and heat gen is deffinatly less in FA off then in FA on

if your escaping from some one, to keep heat gen down, go FA off, silent running, and use as little power as possible until your in a relitevly safe area, active your FSD and you'll be gone with not as much of a heat overload as you woud with FA on, SR on and FSD charging
 
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While you're still hovering there above that planet, roll your ship until you're hovering upside-down. You'll notice your heat will build up rather dramatically. That's because your underside thrusters are larger and more powerful than your topside thrusters, since the topside ones aren't designed to support the entire weight of the ship very often. So when you fly upside-down, the smaller topside thrusters have to work much harder to keep you from falling out of the sky. And thrusters working harder generate more internal heat.

This is also why doing intense combat maneuvers while deep in the gravity well of a high-G world can sometimes push your heat into hazardous levels, even if you never fire a shot.

This effect nearly got me killed during my first planetary expedition - I figured it out instinctively but I imagine it's nice to know beforehand.

Would turning FA off make difference ? Haven't tested yet, just stopped flying "upside down" :)
 
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