So how does stealth really work, there are specific components that give off less of a reading so you have to be closer to detect that persons ship? So potentially any ship can be more stealth with the right components?
Stealth Components
- Thread starter Vashpede
- Start date
Yes exactly...
Some component are rated as Stealth (grade from D to A...) and they have a lower emission (both IR and EM) in excange of a lower performance, how much lower depend on the grade, better grade have a reduced tradeoff.
Also keep in mind that different components have different result: foor example a stealth QD doesn't effect your signaturs as much as a Shield or a power generator.
Also weapon have aan influence on your signature: balistic weapon have a much lower energy drow and provide a lesser addition to your signature for example, but oslo different weapon have different value: Hurston attrition series for example have a lower standby signature compared to the Badger repeater series.
Finally, some ship specifically biuld for stealth have a slight additional bonus, do to the fact that they have specific armour plate or chassie-built-in stealth equipment that contribute to reduce the signature.
On this final point I'll like to point out that in the future, there will be the option for changing toy ship armor plate, so it will be possible to mount a stealth armor on other ship that doesn't come stock with it.
The most simplistic way to explain stealth is that the more difficult it is to locate & track something, the more difficult it is to hit that target. The smaller the size, the materials used as well as the lower heat & electrical outputs the more difficult things will be to target & detect with the sensors.
It's also worth pointing out that as of the current state of the game (3.8.2 on PTU) that we are nowhere near a full implementation. Component and ship engine signatures have been being tweaked for quite some time now, but the sensor blocks we will use (radar + scanners) are not even in the game yet. The 'PING' units on the ships are a placeholder.
3 elements to detection:
EM - electromagnetic emissions. Turn it on, somebody can detect it. This is real world and cool to see in game.
IR - Infrared radiation. Heat generated by operation of thrusters and components.
Cross-section - physical size of the ship at the angle the radar sees it. Traditional radar process.
I'm a sucker for buying anything with the label 'stealth'. In the ancient wisdom of Mr Miyagi, "best way to block punch, no be there".
3 elements to detection:
EM - electromagnetic emissions. Turn it on, somebody can detect it. This is real world and cool to see in game.
IR - Infrared radiation. Heat generated by operation of thrusters and components.
Cross-section - physical size of the ship at the angle the radar sees it. Traditional radar process.
I'm a sucker for buying anything with the label 'stealth'. In the ancient wisdom of Mr Miyagi, "best way to block punch, no be there".
Most definitely, almost everything I post about is in reference to the final product and I should have prefaced with that here, thanks for pointing that out!
Interesting so I can see where there may be trade-offs for being more "stealth". Less shield, less detection... More thruster power, more heat generate.. That all makes sense, then there is bonus stealth or built in stealth with specific ships with maybe sensor blocking armor or radar jamming technology like the Prowler. I also read somewhere that later on we will have easier options to turn components completely off if we want to ride stealth at the moment. For instance riding shieldless with weapons offline to stay under the radar but also exposing yourself with no defense if something does happen to come up on you. Very cool stuff!
Because I am a sucker for Drake, I hope there motto of having the bare essentials and there tendency to make ships that seem pirate friendly also tie into being low radar footprint ships.
I'm looking forward to that feature too: I'll love to save a preferred configuration setup, like lowering the shiled energy, power off weapon and heatsink and lower engine power to have a more stealth configuration and then just flip a swith to return to a full power one.
This will be particually usefull with those ship that hasve reduntant components, like 2 power generator: you can have a full militaty powerplantt and a stealth one, so in steaalth mode you can disable the most powerful and then bring it back up with justa button press...
Actually I don't think this is gonna happen: Drake mean cheap and easy to mantain ships, this also mean light armout and exposed component, and those are two tinks that doesn't work well with lowering the signature: an exposed engine is excellent for mantenance, but all the emission are not dumper by any armour plate and heat generated cannot be canalised in a fashion that reduce the IR signature for example...
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
It's also worth noting that in general, when you select components, you can glance at their EM signatures, but they are different once installed. Ships that were designed for stealth, like the Ghost, Sabre, Sentinel, Eclipse, Prowler and Raven, have a special box around the reactor that mitigates much of the EM sig. Since the reactor is the second largest EM sig generator next to shields, the box matters. So ships designed to do stealth will always be significantly better at stealth than others, even once Void armor comes in game and you can equip anything with stealth.
Also worth noting, when this is all fully enabled, the best way to stealth your ship will be to turn stuff off. You can't turn off your only reactor, but if you have two reactors like in the Sentinel, you can mix them so you have one extremely low sig reactor you run when in stealth mode--shields off, and switch on the secondary, much higher output reactor when you go hot for battle.
There is another stealth components thread down below from a week or two ago that mentions some of the newest stealth components as found on HardPoint.
Last point: I believe it is only partially implemented, but IR tracking is still the best way to spot a ship that is using its engines. From what I have seen, it appears the coolers you have installed affect how quickly you kill your own IR sig once using engines, guns, or even thrusters. Coolers are rated in cooling capability per unit time, so better chillers, though they have more EM sig, actually will matter in how you operate your ship. So once again, you have reasons to fly more than one kind of cooler. You might fly one with larger EM but that kills your IR sig faster once you boost, decouple and drift. If you're trying to fly across pirate systems without notice, it may well be worth having a powerful cooler and another with reduced EM and again, turn them on/off when you want a specific capability. If you automatically think twin components like shields, reactors, and coolers should be matched, you have not thought through all the consequences of this yet. Stealth requires you do.
Also worth noting, when this is all fully enabled, the best way to stealth your ship will be to turn stuff off. You can't turn off your only reactor, but if you have two reactors like in the Sentinel, you can mix them so you have one extremely low sig reactor you run when in stealth mode--shields off, and switch on the secondary, much higher output reactor when you go hot for battle.
There is another stealth components thread down below from a week or two ago that mentions some of the newest stealth components as found on HardPoint.
Last point: I believe it is only partially implemented, but IR tracking is still the best way to spot a ship that is using its engines. From what I have seen, it appears the coolers you have installed affect how quickly you kill your own IR sig once using engines, guns, or even thrusters. Coolers are rated in cooling capability per unit time, so better chillers, though they have more EM sig, actually will matter in how you operate your ship. So once again, you have reasons to fly more than one kind of cooler. You might fly one with larger EM but that kills your IR sig faster once you boost, decouple and drift. If you're trying to fly across pirate systems without notice, it may well be worth having a powerful cooler and another with reduced EM and again, turn them on/off when you want a specific capability. If you automatically think twin components like shields, reactors, and coolers should be matched, you have not thought through all the consequences of this yet. Stealth requires you do.
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