Heat Sink vs. Missile

[Lucke]

Anyone know if launching a heat sink after a missile has been launched at you will make the missile lose track of you and go for the heat sink? Is that even a thing or do missles not track you by your heat? The heat sink would be a very interesting point defense.

[S-Array 03]

while that would be a very interresting counter, a point defense or an ECM is probably better anyway since the heat sinks have low ammo count

[malorob]

it would almost like saying turn of everything inside to make your ship go ice cold
will make you impossible to hit......

get your ship to a cold state and fly would be better than heat sink.
if you could fly 10 degrees or cooler maybe , i am not sure how cool you can get a ship but if you could then why the need of a heat sink.

as they say silent running with out the need to be in silent running

[Fix]

You are describing the chaff, you'd made the chaff redundant if heatsinks did the same thing.

[Lucke]

Originally posted by Fix:

You are describing the chaff, you'd made the chaff redundant if heatsinks did the same thing.

I thought chaff just messed with gimbals, making their aim all wonky. Does it really counter homing missiles too?

[Lucke]

Originally posted by malorob:

it would almost like saying turn of everything inside to make your ship go ice cold
will make you impossible to hit......

get your ship to a cold state and fly would be better than heat sink.
if you could fly 10 degrees or cooler maybe , i am not sure how cool you can get a ship but if you could then why the need of a heat sink.

as they say silent running with out the need to be in silent running

So here's the hypothetical: You get interdicted and either submit or fail to flee. The bad guy already has you locked since he shot a missile at you. Pretend you don't have point defense, of if you do, you're out of ammo. Silent running is a preventitive tactic. Doesn't do anything once you're targeted (like smuggling, you engage silent running BEFORE the police scan you. If you engage silent running during a scan, it's too late). Bad guy fires a missle and you release a heat sink hoping that it will go for the hotter object, in this case, the heat sink since you are an ice cube.

I'm just thinking of explorer ships that don't generally carry weapons, but they may have heat sinks to make fuel scooping less dangerous. All they have is a heat sink.

DISCLAIMER: The silent running info I gave was on the wiki so may be outdated or whatever. Correct me if I'm wrong

[Fix]

Originally posted by Lucke:

Originally posted by Fix:

You are describing the chaff, you'd made the chaff redundant if heatsinks did the same thing.

I thought chaff just messed with gimbals, making their aim all wonky. Does it really counter homing missiles too?

Chaff affects anything that locks onto you.

[Bannor]

Originally posted by Lucke:

Doesn't do anything once you're targeted (like smuggling, you engage silent running BEFORE the police scan you. If you engage silent running during a scan, it's too late).

That's false, I believe. There's a video I've seen on YouTube where they actually tested this. One guy lost target lock on his buddy when he deployed a heat sink.

[An Ning]

I lose targets all the time when they hit silent running... though if I recall correctly a better scanner -especially an engineered scanner- is able to track targets farther away and recognize targets better in silent running from further out (at the expense of scanner field of view)