[Spaceships] Query: Can dirt shielding reduce an IR Signature?

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Thus, the aim of IR shielding, to the degree it's realistic at all, is to make the heat go somewhere where it can't easily be detected. This generally involves one of four strategies:

Another possible strategy is disguise. You could join the heat sink for a covert element to a larger legitimate one and hope that the overall difference isn't noticed, you can make your signature look like something else (for example, a tank with a heat signature which mimics a truck's), or try to make it look 'noisy' by blocking patches (in the same way that conventional camouflage can break up a solid shape into a confusing mess). None of those seem like great strategies for hiding an industrial operation in your basement though.