Having never done a Titan run, I devoured the tales of grizzled veteren CMDRs for hints and knowhow, and commissioned myself a new custom ship from the Jameson Memorial shipyard.
It sounded like the Kraith MkII was the easiest way to build a ship that could operate under 20% heat passively without expending heatsinks, and therefore go undetected around the Titan Cocijo. So that's what I did. I selected and upgraded all the components to reduce heat, plus metaalloy corrosion-resistent hull reinforcements, and so on. I'm normally an explorer, a profession where low thermals are advantegous, so quite a few of my pinned blueprints were for lowering heat. Perfect! I did some engineering on top of what should be a good cold build, and went on my way.
"Wait... this ship isn't as cold as I hoped! I can't get it to stay under 20%, even turning off a bunch of modules. I guess my engineering wasn't enough, I better do some more"
I engineered the crap out of everything, and was only barely making it below 20% by shutting down a lot more of my ship than I was comfortable shutting down. I thought my engineering options were pretty high-end, but the way people described how easy it was to get the Krait cold, vs how I had to tap almost every engineering option I had, often to grade 5, maybe most people know more engineers than me? I even made a special trip to a materials trader and the engineer to get my drives to G5 clean.
Temperatures were still borderline. But with a combination of fancy flying and shutting down EVERYTHING (up to and including sensors) I was able to operate unseen at the Titan surface. That trip was a bust - I didn't know how to properly use extraction missiles, but the Cocijo sure noticed me trying. I fled for the asteroids in a hail of fire. My hull was too badly damaged to make a second attempt, so I returned to repair and restock. I made it out of the maelstrom, but had run out of corrosion sinks and the corrosive on the hull got to me before I reached the station. At least it didn't happen in the Titan so my escape pod wasn't in danger of being picked up by the wrong side.
I did some more engineering, taking the last G3's to G5. It was weird how much harder this was than described. I was really struggling to achieve something that several CMDRs seemed quite flippant about. On testing the new upgrades, I was colder but when I deployed hardpoints now I exceeded power capacity and lost priority-4 and 5 systems. Damn! This was getting weirder; my build didn't even have weapons, it was a rescue-and-run build, surely there would be more power overhead than this?
At this point I was getting suspicious. I return to dock, go to outfitting, and start going over the ship with a fine-tooth comb. Something has GOT to be wrong. Then I found it:
When I A-rated all my ship's modules, I had somehow skipped the power plant! I had been engineering the crap out of a 7E power plant! Facepalm! Facepalm! Facepalm! All this time!
Don't be like me.
Epilogue: I bought a 7A powerplant, engineered it to G5 low thermals (without the bonus thermal spread as that would involve a personal trip to the engineer and after the wild goose chasing I've done enough travel for now) but ooh baby it's cold outside now!
Returning to Cocijo, able to operate multiple systems at once while passively under 20%, I managed to rescue some unfortunate souls from the Titan. Not many, but I bet it means a lot to them!
Next up, I might try bombing. That seems easier. (Famous Last Words)
It sounded like the Kraith MkII was the easiest way to build a ship that could operate under 20% heat passively without expending heatsinks, and therefore go undetected around the Titan Cocijo. So that's what I did. I selected and upgraded all the components to reduce heat, plus metaalloy corrosion-resistent hull reinforcements, and so on. I'm normally an explorer, a profession where low thermals are advantegous, so quite a few of my pinned blueprints were for lowering heat. Perfect! I did some engineering on top of what should be a good cold build, and went on my way.
"Wait... this ship isn't as cold as I hoped! I can't get it to stay under 20%, even turning off a bunch of modules. I guess my engineering wasn't enough, I better do some more"
I engineered the crap out of everything, and was only barely making it below 20% by shutting down a lot more of my ship than I was comfortable shutting down. I thought my engineering options were pretty high-end, but the way people described how easy it was to get the Krait cold, vs how I had to tap almost every engineering option I had, often to grade 5, maybe most people know more engineers than me? I even made a special trip to a materials trader and the engineer to get my drives to G5 clean.
Temperatures were still borderline. But with a combination of fancy flying and shutting down EVERYTHING (up to and including sensors) I was able to operate unseen at the Titan surface. That trip was a bust - I didn't know how to properly use extraction missiles, but the Cocijo sure noticed me trying. I fled for the asteroids in a hail of fire. My hull was too badly damaged to make a second attempt, so I returned to repair and restock. I made it out of the maelstrom, but had run out of corrosion sinks and the corrosive on the hull got to me before I reached the station. At least it didn't happen in the Titan so my escape pod wasn't in danger of being picked up by the wrong side.
I did some more engineering, taking the last G3's to G5. It was weird how much harder this was than described. I was really struggling to achieve something that several CMDRs seemed quite flippant about. On testing the new upgrades, I was colder but when I deployed hardpoints now I exceeded power capacity and lost priority-4 and 5 systems. Damn! This was getting weirder; my build didn't even have weapons, it was a rescue-and-run build, surely there would be more power overhead than this?
At this point I was getting suspicious. I return to dock, go to outfitting, and start going over the ship with a fine-tooth comb. Something has GOT to be wrong. Then I found it:
When I A-rated all my ship's modules, I had somehow skipped the power plant! I had been engineering the crap out of a 7E power plant! Facepalm! Facepalm! Facepalm! All this time!
Don't be like me.
Epilogue: I bought a 7A powerplant, engineered it to G5 low thermals (without the bonus thermal spread as that would involve a personal trip to the engineer and after the wild goose chasing I've done enough travel for now) but ooh baby it's cold outside now!
Returning to Cocijo, able to operate multiple systems at once while passively under 20%, I managed to rescue some unfortunate souls from the Titan. Not many, but I bet it means a lot to them!
Next up, I might try bombing. That seems easier. (Famous Last Words)
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I still remember landing on Farseer's base in Deciat to upgrade my new ship's systems only to discover that two critical modules were rated E 
Had to spend 30 minutes waiting for the right modules to arrive.
