DevTracker: About Silent Running

Ship heat: As you power draw increases (from turning on modules that require power), your power plant generates heat inside the ship. This is represented by the heat bar to the left of your sensor disc.

Separately from this, your ship has a signature, which describes how visible you are to other ship's sensors. As heat is radiated out, your signature increases. This radiation rate is not the same as your internal ship heat, though obviously there is a direct connection. The hotter your ship is, the more heat it's radiators put out, and the bigger its signature.

When you rig for silent running, you close off your ship's radiators. Your ship still generates heat and cooks, but to other vessels it appears cold. As part of silent running you also turn off shields as the context is that these effectively radiate heat directly.

So how does signature work? Well, the smaller your signature, the closer a ship has to be before its sensors will detect you as a fuzzy contact (where the sensor marker flickers and moves around) and then as a resolved contact.

You can gain a similar benefit that silent running gives you by manually turning off modules. Your power plant runs cooler so less heat is generated and radiated. However, unless you basically turn off everything (including life support) the effect will be less effective.

There are two caveats to silent running benefits:

A) when your ship gets very close to another vessel its sensors will be able to detect you even if you are rigged for silent running. This auto-resolve distance is normally around two to three hundred metres.

B) ships can be fitted with more powerful sensors that increase the distance that they can detect you, and that can push the auto-resolve distance out to around five hundred metres or more (good sensors are the silent runner's worst nightmare).

All this being said, silent running can be used during combat, but it's a very dangerous gambit. Missiles, turrets and gimbal-mounted weapons *do* use signature to determine when they can lock on, so going silent can often make them lose lock until you are very close. In fact, if you rig for silent running and you're not within auto resolve distance then an aggressor will not even be able to target you to check your shield/hull status.

Silent running is certainly most effective at range, of course, out beyond the auto-resolve distance.

It's also important to note that we specifically did not want a "cloak" stealth ability that was indefinite, which is why silent running has various limitations.

Heat Bar Update

The ship’s heat bar has been updated. It is now clearly segmented.

The bottom, largest segment represents nominal ship temperature; no heat damage will occur if the ship’s temperature is in this segment.

The middle, smaller segment represents unsafe ship temperature. This segment will flash red when ship heat is within it, and alarms will sound, as well as short circuiting effects. Your modules will take damage when ship heat is in this segment.

The top, smallest segment represents catastrophic ship temperature. This segment will flash faster when ship heat is within it, in additional to all other indicators. Your ship hull will lose integrity when ship heat is in this segment.

Temperature Gauge

The percentage reading above the temperature gauge relates to how close your ship is to its safe operating envelope. The extra sections of the gauge define two levels of unsafe temperature ranges - the first showing when module damage occurs, the second showing when hull integrity starts to fail.

If you just want to look at the percentage, it's now simply this: over 100% value and your ship starts to cook and take module damage, over 160% and the hull starts to melt.

The bottom line: keep your temperature in the main gauge to avoid mishaps - if the temperature gauge is flashing red, your ship is hurting.

The main heat gauge counts from 0% to 100%. This represents the ship' safe thermal operating envelope.

The two additional segments are unsafe threshold indicators: the first, larger one shows 101% to 160% heat range - this is the module risk range; if your ship heat is in here your modules will take damage over time.

The second, smaller segment represents catastrophic heat range; if your ship's temperature is in here, prepare to see the hull melting off.

You get a heat warning at around 80%, I think, and alarms trigger, including segments of the temperature gauge flashing when your heat level rises above safe operating thresholds.

Heat damage

So, under the hood the mechanics are exactly as before, we're just scaling the numbers that are shown on the heat UI so that 100% is the danger point (it makes more sense to most people, subjective of course ) - it's exactly as hard to reach what is now shown as 100% as it was to reach the old 150%. The fuel scoop UI doesn't seem to have been updated to match... yet, which I think is a source of confusion for now.

At the 100% danger point you do indeed now start taking module damage rather than hull damage, hull damage kicks in at 166% (previously 250%).