Silent Running: Difference between revisions

'''Silent Running''' is a mode that can be activated to reduce the visibility of thea ship to others, allowing it to remain undetected and makemaking it harder to be targeted.

All powered ship modules (including the reactor) generate heat. When a module's thermal limit is exceeded, heat is transferred from it to the ship’s cooling system, which radiates the heat away from the ship via cooling vents. If more heat is being generated than radiated, the excess heat transferwill maybuild stopup orin eventhe reversemodules, overheatingcausing modulesoverheating. When heat levels exceed set thresholds, some modules may automatically turn off/ or begin to suffer fatigue damage. Excessive heat puts a strain on the ship’s atmosphere control, (reducing the capability of life support modules). Further increase in heat directly impacts the pilot and crew’s ability to function and will eventually kill them.

Most ships have articulated heat vanes which can be raised, significantly increasing heat dissipation from the ship. However, such activity normally affects the flight model of the ship and always increases the ship’s thermal signature whilst active. Heat stored in a ship’s cooling system generates a thermal signature for the ship,; a high signature makingmakes it easier for other ships to locate it using heat-based sensors, and for heat-tracking weapons to lock- on.

When engaging silent running is engaged, shields immediately go offline (and won't recharge until silent running is disengaged), and the cooling vents of the ship shut, preventing any heat from escaping. fromThe it. Heatheat signature dramatically reduces, causing the ship to become more difficult to detect on thenearby ships’ scanners of any nearby ships. The less heat a ship generates and the furtherfarther away it is from another ship, the more effective this will be.

Heat generated by any active ship systems and modules starts to build up inside the ship, which can be observed bycausing the ship'sship’s temperature gauge start to rise.

Using systems that generate heat (such as firing energy weapons) while in silent running will cause the ship to show up on other ship'sships’ scanners.

The heat signature may be reduced even further while in silent running by switching off additionalnon-essential ship modules (even including life support). The total current heat output of active systems on the ship can be seen on the Modules section of the right-hand systems panel, and individual modules can be switchedtoggled offon and onoff from this screen.

To achievego totally beingdark off(i.e. scannercompletely undetectable), the ship must coolgenerate avirtually lotno (causingheat, anto icethe effectpoint towhere appearit is so cold that ice forms on the cockpit canopy), with weapons stored in their bays and engines turned off.

Silent running never, by itself, hides a ship completely from the scanner. It will make the ship appear as a "ghost" or "vague" contact though, so peopleother pilots will know something is there but they won't be able to lock on to it.

{{Main|Heat SinkHeatsink Launcher}}

HeatHeatsink sinkLauncher modules can be fitted to hardUtility pointsMounts. When activated (i.e. fired), a heat sink module flushes the cooling system’s heat into a heat sink, an expendable unit which is then ejected from the ship. This will cause a blip to be generated on the scanners of any nearby ships. Ejected heat sinks can also be used as a form of chaff to confuseagainst heat tracking missiles, causing them to lock on to the sink instead of your ship (n.b. This is not a behaviour of regular chaff, which only disrupts enemy gimballed and turret weaponry, so does not affect missiles that have already been launched).