I've been making some changes to my explorer Dolphin, and it has Dirty/Drag drives. Once in awhile I'll find a signal source above the planet, and when I'm flying in normal space, the heat randomly starts screaming. And occasionally when I'm on the planet surface, if I roll to the left or right, the heat suddenly spikes and causes some module damage. When ships don't perform so great on planetary surfaces, will Clean Drives do anything to help?
Would clean drives help keep ships cool, whilst flying over planetary surfaces?
- Thread starter Branithar
- Start date
It may help, sort of.
But what it would help more is to avoid doing stunts while flying above surface.
Even my Cutter gets hot if i do stunts with it
Check this video. I was landing using the autodock on a 1.2G planet. Before engaging the docking computer i boosted - just to give it something to work on.
But what it would help more is to avoid doing stunts while flying above surface.
Even my Cutter gets hot if i do stunts with it
Check this video. I was landing using the autodock on a 1.2G planet. Before engaging the docking computer i boosted - just to give it something to work on.
I haven't spent much time in a Dolphin with dirty drives, but can say that with clean drives and a G5 efficient powerplant if ever the heat rises while rolling I just roll back level and the heat immediately drops, with no heat damage incurred.
Oh, and what about thruster size? Would larger thrusters have any effect on how cool a ship is on a planetary surface? I typically use the smallest D-rated thruster that lets me use Dirty/Drag, but with the Dolphin, I get occasional problems with heat spiking.
Awhile ago, I was outside of the planet's orbit, but still in the sphere of influence, collecting mats, and the heat spiked and started screaming, so it was behaving like I was doing stunts, meters above the surface.
Awhile ago, I was outside of the planet's orbit, but still in the sphere of influence, collecting mats, and the heat spiked and started screaming, so it was behaving like I was doing stunts, meters above the surface.
Last edited:
In my humble experience, having a low-emission A-graded powerplant makes a -huge- difference, whereas clean vs dirty drives makes a rather small difference.
Be very careful engineering low emission on powerplant though, you lose a lot of output, so it may force you to use a bigger powerplant...
Be very careful engineering low emission on powerplant though, you lose a lot of output, so it may force you to use a bigger powerplant...
To true. In the early days of the Beluga the best thing that helped keep it cool for me was over charging the A rated power plant just enough to keep the power plant output below 90%, that was before the experimental's were introduced.
Yes it does have an effect. The dolphin has the same thrusters as an FDL or mamba, so it makes the same amount of heat in a smaller ship. This isnt such a big deal except when you really push them (stunts onca planet surface)
When you roll and maneuver with flight assist on, other directional thrusters are compensating for your movement. This will make you generate more heat.
Also, this.^
Your powerplant effeciency affects your temperature more than anything else.
Also, this.^
Your powerplant effeciency affects your temperature more than anything else.
Same thruster module, but much worse vertical/lateral thruster acceleration, so they have to work considerably harder (and hotter) doing the same maneuvers.
Same modules and an FDL can hover, inverted with FA On, indefinitely over a planet with enough gravity to quickly cause a Dolphin to melt itself.
I don't know if this is still a thing, but the Dolphin used to be also bugged : heat would build up to incredible levels when turning/banking on one side during planetary flights.
Otherwise, as most said it before, heat management starts by the power plant (class, total/used ouput ratio, engineering...), and the engineering of the thrusters will have only a marginal effect in the end - marginal, but still useful. I'm currently building a science vessel for Thargoid study, on which I use clean drives to minimize heat generation : I managed to set a Krait Phantom under 18% under full thrust, with a top speed around 350 m/s and a jump range around 55 Ly (engineering not finished yet...)
Otherwise, as most said it before, heat management starts by the power plant (class, total/used ouput ratio, engineering...), and the engineering of the thrusters will have only a marginal effect in the end - marginal, but still useful. I'm currently building a science vessel for Thargoid study, on which I use clean drives to minimize heat generation : I managed to set a Krait Phantom under 18% under full thrust, with a top speed around 350 m/s and a jump range around 55 Ly (engineering not finished yet...)
Normally the PP makes the bigger difference, but I find that over hot planetary surfaces, the thruster difference can be huge too. But that's the caveat-- it needs to be a hot environment before the effect seems large. Try testing your builds at Skardee 1, which orbits inside the star's scooping zone. You can overheat any ship there. But some of the cooler running ones, with the coolest possible engineering, can still take some crazy maneuvering to overheat. And by contrast, some ships will always overheat on arrival or departure no matter how much you engineer them. But how many heatsinks you need can vary too.
I haven't tried it with the Dolphin, but it was possible to get the Beluga to manage it with Low Emissions 5 and Clean Tuning 5. By contrast, with Armored 5 on the power plant instead, even with thermal spread it would still run quite hot.
EDIT: These days I usually use Clean Tuning 5 + Drag Drives on most of my exploration builds (or Drive Distributors on the smaller ships, if that gives better performance). The thruster performance with that combination is about half-way between Clean 5 and Dirty 5 without experimental effects, and still runs cooler than stock. If it's one of the hotter ship types, then I might do something other than drag drives, and just take the mild performance loss. The only time I use Dirty is if the ship is particularly cool running already, such as the Krait(s). If I do end up using Dirty, then it gets Thermal Spread.
I haven't tried it with the Dolphin, but it was possible to get the Beluga to manage it with Low Emissions 5 and Clean Tuning 5. By contrast, with Armored 5 on the power plant instead, even with thermal spread it would still run quite hot.
EDIT: These days I usually use Clean Tuning 5 + Drag Drives on most of my exploration builds (or Drive Distributors on the smaller ships, if that gives better performance). The thruster performance with that combination is about half-way between Clean 5 and Dirty 5 without experimental effects, and still runs cooler than stock. If it's one of the hotter ship types, then I might do something other than drag drives, and just take the mild performance loss. The only time I use Dirty is if the ship is particularly cool running already, such as the Krait(s). If I do end up using Dirty, then it gets Thermal Spread.
Last edited:
The drawback with clean tuning is that in SC, clean drives consume more power than dirty ones, thus reducing the used/total power output. Therefore the heat management is slightly less efficient in SC, which is the mode in which we explore most of the time (well... for a standard explorer like me... I don't know for true explorers though 
cheers !)
EDIT : for those who like good readings, there is this excellent piece of research on heat mecanics.
cheers !)EDIT : for those who like good readings, there is this excellent piece of research on heat mecanics.