Heat and thermodynamics

The second part of Revelations introduced a new feature: Heat. With Heat came the option of overloading your modules for an extra performance boost. When you need to squeeze a few more shield hit points out of your shield booster, or you need to deal just a little bit more damage to your opponent, you can overload your modules for extra effect.

The drawback of overloading is the generation of heat. Prolonged exposure to heat will damage and eventually knock your modules offline, making them unusable until they have been repaired.

Heat is distributed over racks, which cover your High, Medium and Low power slots. Heat will spread over the rack causing heat damage to some or all modules on the rack. This means that you can damage many modules while only overloading one module. Multiple overloaded modules will cause increased heat consumption on the rack and faster damage to your modules. It is thus advised to treat this with caution.

Different modules cause more damage than others when overloaded. You can find out the exact amount with the Show Info tool. Heat damage is spread across their respective fitting class (referred to as racks). High slot modules overheat and cause damage to high slot modules, Medium slot modules cause damage to other medium slot modules, etc.

Operating Heat

Equipped modules in the User Interface have a circle around them. If they are capable of being overloaded, you will notice that there is a button on the top of the ring.

Once activated, the top part of the ring will glow green indicating activation. Your heat consumption is measured above the Capacitor and lists the three racks.

Once modules start taking damage, the rest of the ring around them will start glowing red. A module will be off lined once the ring is completely red.

There are 3 small buttons with "fitting" symbols on them. Their purpose is to overload all possible modules in a rack (high, medium or low) with a single click.

Heat will dissipate slowly, and over time.

Heat and Damage Attenuation

Heat builds up quickly, and is slow to dissipate. As modules continue to be overloaded, the amount of heat will rise, and your modules will take damage over time.

It is possible to slow down the rate heat builds up, and reduce the damage modules take from overload:

• The Thermodynamics (rank 3, Science) skill not only allows overheating, but it also reduces heat damage by 5% per level.
• Offline modules and empty module slots function as heat sinks, reducing the damage taken over time. While it is usually better to fit an active module, if no CPU or power grid is available, these heat-sink modules can be used to great effect.

Damage Distribution

Damage will not spread in a totally random way over the rack. It will most probably hit the overloaded module(s) generating heat. There is less chance of damage being done to modules equipped next to them, with further reductions in chance to modules further away from the overloaded one. The exact formula can be found and discussed in the "Ships & Modules" section of the forums.

Having the Thermodynamics skill at a high level and clever fittings won't let you overload your modules forever, but it might give you those additional 2 or 3 cycle's advantage that can make the difference between an expensive repair bill and a whole new ship purchase.

Repairing Heat Damage

If you find yourself needing to repair your modules, you can always dock at a friendly station and utilize the repair service. However, you may not always have that option available to you in deep space. If the modules are still online, you can also repair damaged modules with Nanite Repair Paste.

Nanite Paste is quite expensive, and can take up a considerable amount of space if you intend to overload your modules frequently. Nanite Operation (A rank 2 skill in the Mechanic category) reduces the amount of paste needed by 5% per level. Nanite Interfacing (a rank 3 mechanic skill) increases the speed of the repairs by 20% per level.