Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth
While I don't see any rules about how that interacts with detection, it would be reasonable to suggest that reactors have reduced heat signature when radiators are shut down. (Rockets probably shouldn't, because of hot exhaust, but that doesn't matter if you're using reactionless.)
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This won't affect reaction drives, although reactionless likely would be affected, but I'd probably have closing the main radiators reduce IR signature to +3 (equivalent to auxiliary power) or by -2, whichever gives a lower modifier (and with a lower limit of 0, of course). Rather than the ship having 30 minutes to shut down heat generating components, I'd scale the time to what the vessel's IR signature
should be. I suspect the 30 minute estimate would be appropriate for a fission reactor, which is +6, so I'd set that as the base. Every +1 to signature would be -1 step on the SSR table to the time the vessel can operate without the main radiators, every -1 would be +1 SSR. So, a vessel running off a fuel cell would be at +2 to detect (normally +4) and would operate for 70 minutes (probably round it to an even hour) with the main radiators closed or destroyed, while one with a cosmic power plant would be at +3 to detect (normally +12) and would operate for all of 3 minutes.
While on this tangent, I'd say that reaction drives with internal reactors (that is, all the ones that require main radiators) are probably at around -1 to detect with the main radiators closed. They last as long as a reactor with an IR signature 2 steps lower - that is, an NTR would be detected at +5 (normally +6) and would operate for 70 minutes (or an hour) with the main radiators closed.