Silent Running

Silent Running mode can be activated to reduce the visibility of a ship to others, allowing it to remain undetected and making it harder to be targeted.

The visibility of a ship depends on its heat signature - that is the amount of heat that it generates. A high heat signature means that the ship will be easier to see on the sensors of other ships and can be detected from further away.

Heat Management

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 heat transfer may stop or even reverse, overheating modules. 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 making it easier for other ships to locate using heat-based sensors and for heat-tracking weapons to lock-on.

Engaging Silent Running

When 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 from it. Heat signature dramatically reduces causing the ship to become more difficult to detect on the scanners of any nearby ships. The less heat a ship generates and the further 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, causing the ship's temperature gauge 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's scanners.

The heat signature may be reduced even further while in silent running by switching off additional 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 switched off and on from this screen.

To go totally dark (i.e. completely off scanner), the ship must generate virtually no heat (to the point where it 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 people will know something is there but they won't be able to lock on to it.

Heatsinks

Main article: Heat Sink Launcher

Heat sink modules can be fitted to hard points. When activated (i.e. fired), a heat sink module flushes the cooling system’s heat into a heat sink 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 confuse heat tracking missiles.