Thermal Shock & Other Laser Experimentals - Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous laser weapons can be enhanced by Engineers to exhibit various experimental effects. Thermal Shock is one of those effects but what does it do and how does it compare to other experimental effects?
Thanks to CMDRs who helped me with testing - Olihnak, Asshat, and Trent.
Raw testing footage: • Elite: Dangerous - The...
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
00:28 Laser Experimental Effects
04:46 Thermal Shock Mechanics
06:34 Thermal Shock Implications
10:09 Outfitting for Thermal Shock

[@Ett.Gammalt.Bergtroll]

Scramble can occasionally disable the Drives of the enemy leaving them dead in the water as it were. As it is random, and only one subsystem can be affected at a time, you’ll rarely see it though.

[@paletz]

I'm wondering if drives are special in any way because ships have multiple targettable drives but on the other hand they are reported as a single module. More research needed :)

[@user-wb7ez9ud4p]

For scramble spectrum, sometimes the NPC's thrusters go offline too so it's really helpful!

[@ABRo3l0V]

This is a really good in-depth look at thermal shock!
I have an Eagle with a pair of rapid thermal shock pulses. NPCs boost a lot less, though they still use PAs and SCBs.

[@Bean41]

This is very good, trying to track down what TS does thru years of updates and forums and wiki comments is a real pain. I’ve been running 3 large efficient pulse lasers with TS and sometimes I’ll swear its working and others it seems its not. Interesting that large ships will cook themselves with cells, I’ve found that as well. They don’t seem to bug out and not fire anymore in my experience but they will hold the rails and PAs. You should do super penetration for rail guns next, I swear it doesn’t do anything.

[@kaizaki9148]

Super pen you can test quite well against npcs, once their shields drop, target their drives when they are facing you and fire away.
If works as intended, you should be able to damage the drives through the entire length of the ship. (And any modules along that path)

[@Bean41]

@@kaizaki9148
I’ve never noticed it damage drives from the front and I’ve heard that it’s only 75% of the length of a ship, though I think I can hit a Chieftain’s engines twice (one of only a couple ships to have 4 thrusters). Also NPCs seem to either run all hull or all module reinforcements, if they run the latter you’ll never kill a module before their hull is slag.

[@scarshe5978]

I am going to try using thermal shock for piracy, i think i will make a space trucker overheat so they dont move much, use hatch breakers, profit. thanks for the info

[@paletz]

I hope it works!

[@masoclevine836]

This answers a lot of my questions in regards to Thermal Shock quite well, it’s good to know my initial idea of 2 thermal shock beams was the ideal, want to run them alongside a scramble burst laser in my chieftain

[@Cmdr_GO13BT]

Excellent video Cmdr. You've explained this effect very well.
I'm a fan of thermal shock and have used it in PVP once with success. This was against a gimballed multi-cannon Mamba with incendiary experimental. His modules cooked that much that he encountered thruster malfunction before his shields dropped. You can check this out on my channel if you wish.
Are you on PC, Xbox or PS?

[@paletz]

That's very interesting.
I'm on PC.

[@Cmdr_GO13BT]

@@paletz Ah, that's a shame. I'm on PS

[@Cmdr_GO13BT]

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[@Cmdr_GO13BT]

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