Why heat sinks for exploration?

piugattuk

piugattuk
Just curious because I've been traveling without them for a good while and never needed them, but never really asked why I would need them?

The only reason I've seen so far is jumping in and finding a neutron star but if your paying attention you just throttle down quickly, other then that what use are they?
 

Kloothufter

Kloothufter
I carried a heatsink all the way to sag A and back without ever needing it, maybe if you have a hot setup... my asp ran very cool
 

Murishani

Murishani
Ok so, this has been asked before, and I did not understand until I actually needed one.
The answer is: "If you're very careful, never" The perhaps slightly more realistic answer is: "When you're too hot to jump"

When out exploring stuff happens, you slip into a gravity well accidentally, either from not braking or scooping too close, whatever.
When this happens you will not be operating at standard temperatures.

As a for instance for my 'gotcha' I realized how close I could get to a black hole out of supercruise, and wanted to play with the lensing effect and take pictures, so I did, what I did not realize is that when near a black hole (or other bodies) and out of SC, your operating temperature gets pretty high and then levels off. Now all of this is dependent on your baseline operating temperature as Kloothufter said, a cool running ship wont rise as high.
There are however instances where even if youre at a safe operating temperature close to the star/planet/whatever, it will be high enough that if you engage your FSD, it will increase to dangerous levels and damage your modules. In these situations a heat sink can allow you to jump out of the gravity well without damaging your ship.
 
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Dommarraa

Dommarraa
If you hit a nasty close binary, then it can take 200% heat to escape. These are as rare as rocking horse doo doo, and I am not even sure that the people who experienced it didn't just mess up their escape. I tend to carry one, but have never used one
 

Murishani

Murishani
Dommarraa said:
If you hit a nasty close binary, then it can take 200% heat to escape. These are as rare as rocking horse doo doo, and I am not even sure that the people who experienced it didn't just mess up their escape. I tend to carry one, but have never used one
Click to expand...

Also this. They are not a frequently used item, but they can be life savers.
 
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Erimus Kamzel

Erimus Kamzel
They're just a safety precaution. On rare occasions we explorers sometimes exit hyperspace between two close orbiting stars; contact binaries. When that occurs the ship can rapidly overheat if you don't quickly drop out of supercruise and fire off a heatsink before hyperspace out of there.

Its rare though, if my experience is anything to go by it occurs once in ever four thousand jumps.


Edit: Ninj'ed by ninja's :)
 
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Dommarraa

Dommarraa
I have done 10,000 jumps and never needed one. Yes, I have had close binaries, but always just accelerated out taking no more than a couple of points damage. I am not saying that more dangerous ones don't exist, but maybe they don't.
 

Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
When I went out for a month and a bit to Sag. A* and beyond, and back, I carried Zero heatsinks and Zero AFMU's.

Returned to dock, with 0% ship integrity, 100% Hull, 100% modules, and Zero cracks in the windows.

So in my particular experience, I saw no need for such niceties.

I am a particularly careful explorer though ;)
 

b0rg9

b0rg9
I'm sold on carrying a heat sink launcher next time, for the above mentioned reasons.

I guess I could search harder, but I want to hear from someone where the AFMU saved their butt. Last time out for around three weeks the most any ship system was down to was 89%, with most stuff still in the high 90-some %'s.
 

Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
Bounced into a couple of systems with close binaries but managed to get out with just 1% damage to the hull and modules. I don't carry a heat sink at all.
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
An amfu doesn't take any mass, nor is it powered during flight, so there is no reason NOT to take 1. While it is unlikely to make the a difference in survival, it can make your journey less annoying. Once your fsd or scanners get more than a little damage, they can frequently fail, doing the action multiple times can be a pain. You also don't want your boost to fail when avoiding that last interduction
 

Murishani

Murishani
I think it's funny how this is such a divisive topic on this forum.

borg9 in answer to your question, I carry the afmu because I have the thought that sometime, somewhere, 10k out, my scanner will go dead, Id like to be able to repair it rather than ending the entire mission. Is it likely? no. But an AFMU weighs nothing and is not expensive to bring along, why NOT bring it?

The heat sink on the other hand does impact jump range and whatnot but it's so minimal compared to the benefit it could bring, I see no reason not to bring it.

If the argument was "Why I carry an ultra heavy railgun into the black" then yes I think there may be a little more room to debate the merits, but these are teeny tiny safety modules. Even if their inclusion is overly-cautious, talismanic and superstitious it's not like they're weighing us down much.

To me the debate sounds like:
"What's that eye wash station for?"
"Washing your eyes if you spill the chemicals in them, it almost never happens, but you know... just in case."
"Ive worked in this dangerous chemicals lab for ten years and never needed the eye wash station, no reason to have it. I say rip it out and put nothing in it's place."
 

Kancro Vantas

Kancro Vantas
Heat sinks get you out of a hot spot.

"You just got to be careful" doesn't cut it for me. I am careful. Just like most of us.

But one day, you will be jumping, and jumping and jumping, for the hundredth time, and then your tea/coffee/soda/whisky will spill on your keyboard, or your toddler, or your cat on your lap, or a sudden crash right outside of your window will cut your attention, or you will just simply blink the eye at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night....

And all what you will know is that your ship is out of SC and into the gravity well of what now seems to be the hottest star in the whole galaxy....

"Ha! I'm so glad I left the heat sink back in civilization!" -Said no one in such situation.
 
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Lupin

Lupin
TruffleSnout said:
I carry one because my Asp has 4 utility slots, and what am I going to do with Shield Boosters out there?
Click to expand...

Personally I use shields boosters, seems to help with scooping and if you need to run from NPC or players when coming back the extra time is useful.
 

dognosh

dognosh
If you are happy with 31LY or less jump range in an Asp :
carry AFMUs (can be handy,no weight penalty)
don't carry HEATSINKS
carry SHIELDS(but switch off when in deep space and no NPCs are around)
carry shield boosters if you are still happy with your jump range

I have done 105000 LYs of exploration without Heatsinks, not needed :)
and 50000LY without the others
 

dannywhac

dannywhac
You might need HS's. If you end up in a trinary system in close orbit and pass through one of the stars as you come in, it can punt you nearer the primary star and the third star (if you're unlucky). Had it happen to me in my last jaunt out - even with zero throttle I tried getting out of the buggers way but it dropped me out of SC. HS saved my rump getting out of a nasty heat-related incident.

Admittedly having pottered around the galaxy a lot, this was a one off, but like Murishani said earlier in the thread - they're there if you need them, and a single one will only knock 0.12Ly range off you in an Asp.

You can run an Asp with 3A shields + HS (and AFMUs if you like) and full of fuel you'll still get 34Ly+ jump range, low fuel = 36Ly+.

As for HS's for silent running when back in the bubble - you're better off not relying on HS's and just carry shields (and boosters if you like). I'd rather not rely on another CMDR not noticing I'd suddenly gone into SR and more rely on shields + boost + jumping to another system to get the **** out of Dodge.
 
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