Ships Trying to make a Phantom or DBS cold ship for smuggling

[IReaperI]

So I love the idea of starting smuggling as a little side hustle and see how well I can get into stations without ever getting scanned, but doing it the stylish way and going in unnoticed, never showing up on radars or scanners.

That being said, I am trying to make a stealth smuggler that can get in and out of stations and starports unnoticed. I am trying to make a build that would run very efficiently with little to no heat generation, but I am struggling to understand power priorities and how to set them as I never fiddled around with that before.

Ideally I would want to make the Krait Mk2 or Phantom into a smuggling ship, because.... it does look like a smuggling ship after all

I've tried to make a comprehensive build but I think I failed and I would require some assistance from some more experienced Commanders who know a thing or two about cold running and PWR priority management.

Here is my half finished build so far.

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

And please... no half-made or sarcastic comments, I am trying to make a ship that follows lore and is as close to a real smuggle ship as it would be. Nothing practical, I know how to fly through stations normally without ever getting a finished scan. I want to make it feel like I am actually sitting in a ship tailored for quick in and out smuggling jobs.

Thanks for any Commanders in advance who will make the effort to help me out here.

 

[Factabulous]

You don't mention what heat % you get from your build, so it's not easy to say if you succeeded. DBX builds typically get down to 8% and if you're under 20% you should be good. I use edsy.org for thermal builds as it actually lists the thermals so you can tweak them (in the THM panel). I wouldn't trust coriolis heat levels (unless you're finding them accurate) as they have typically not been correct.

 

[IReaperI]

Hey Factabulous.

So I'm trying to make a ship that when it's out of supercruis in front of a station that with only thrusters it would run below 20% heat, effectively hiding my heat signature from authority vessel scans. I'm unfamiliar with edsy but I am building a Krait Phantom there right now.

I just have a passenger cabin for wanted people, criminal transportation and a few cargo holds for illicit cargo transportation as a mission runner.

Here I tried to make a similar build on EDSY, check it out.

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

Let me know what you think.

According to EDSY it runs at 10% heat on idle and 12% when thrusters are at full impulse? Correct me if I´m wrong.

 

[Factabulous]

Thanks: so EDSY says 10-12% which should be fine. ofc some ships are more likely to be scanned than others, so that will affect scan rates, but I think the phantom isn't bad. Nothing will stop them seeing you if you get too close to the NPCs though - just pop a heatsink as usual and you don't really need a cold ship for that

 

[IReaperI]

Thanks: so EDSY says 10-12% which should be fine. ofc some ships are more likely to be scanned than others, so that will affect scan rates, but I think the phantom isn't bad. Nothing will stop them seeing you if you get too close to the NPCs though - just pop a heatsink as usual and you don't really need a cold ship for that

Thanks for the quick answer, I am guessing I setup the power management correctly then, in the sense that critical systems wouldn't switch off because I messed something up?

Sorry, it's just that I don't fully understand power priority management to confidently say "yeah this will work and my thrusters and life support totally won't switch off in the middle of a hyperspace jump" hahaha.

 

[colprice2002]

I've used this technique on many ship to enter undetected...

Fly about 10km from the station and align your ship with the slot.
Full power/speed and request docking at 7.5km.
Release a heat sink next, then reduce speed, enter the station, stop and dock (or use docking computer).

You need to ignore speed warnings and hope there isn't a Cutter or T9 exiting...

 

[IReaperI]

I've used this technique on many ship to enter undetected...

Fly about 10km from the station and align your ship with the slot.
Full power/speed and request docking at 7.5km.
Release a heat sink next, then reduce speed, enter the station, stop and dock (or use docking computer).

You need to ignore speed warnings and hope there isn't a Cutter or T9 exiting...

I know of such technique, read about it a lot and how you don't need to engineer or customize a ship for this specific role because it is actually quite easy to master this technique and have smuggling jobs complete without a hitch.

The main reason I am doing this is because I want to expand my knowledge on ship builds and mess around with fun builds typically tailored for a specific need or purpose, so on another note I actually want to ask about the viability of cold running ships in general. What are other aspects that a cold running ship would be extremely useful, viable for? Stealth reconnaissance, stealthy infiltration of mega-ships? I've read a lot about people using stealth, cold-running ships to probe unaware thargoid ships for samples and materials.

 

[Three Stars]

A Dolphin is worth considering nowadays for cold activities. Its heat radiating ability was buffed in a previous patch to fix a heat buildup bug. I built one to land on Skardee 1 and didn’t have to touch heat sinks at all.

edit: I meddled with a very simple cold cargo build in EDSY and got an idle heat of 9%. YMMV.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

I've used this technique on many ship to enter undetected...

Fly about 10km from the station and align your ship with the slot.
Full power/speed and request docking at 7.5km.
Release a heat sink next, then reduce speed, enter the station, stop and dock (or use docking computer).

You need to ignore speed warnings and hope there isn't a Cutter or T9 exiting...

In a word no. Boosting spikes your heat and completely negates all your work on cold running.
In basic terms get the largest A rated power plant you can fit and give it low emissions. You can then either top it off with thermal spread if you want to go for ultimate low temp or monstered for more capability.
Thrusters want to be clean tuned with drive distribution. (I recommend A to give you power for options when the unexpected happens)
FSD will always be A with long range perhaps with thermal spread.
Distributer should be matched to your shield, armoured with flow ctrl.
The shield wants to be a biweave with enhanced low power, low draw.
You should fit shield boosters with thermal resistance and flow ctrl.

This will allow you to sail past any patrol as
Long as you don't boost, scan, deploy hard points or bump into anything.
To reduce temp further you can switch off your shield boosters or even the shield completely.
A decent distributer will allow you to raise it again quickly.
Have Selene work on your bulkheads to give you survivability whilst shields are down.
A chaff launcher can break a scan if anyone does take an interest.
If anyone does find you they're going to be close. Cytoscramblers and Frag cannons/ Pacifiers come in very handy.

 

[sinisalo]

10% idle is fantastic. Nicely done with your cool-runner. NPCs will need to bump in to you to know you're there.