Haven't tried it yet to see how it copes with an SCO drive, but the Dolphin is great for exploation in general and exobiology specifically. Yeah, you can't look through the floor, but I just tilt the ship, fly at a 45 degree angle to the ground and look out the huge canopy. Also, it can land on a stamp.
Ships Tired of Mandalay for Exobio ... when will Cobra Mk5 be available to be purchased in game?
- Thread starter Starbound
- Start date
I think that if you want to do exobiology and don't want to use the Mandalay for some reason, then the DBX would be the next best option. Has the third-largest jump range (can reach over 80 Ly with the new pre-engineered SCO drive), and has about the same footprint as the Mandalay, so it can land anywhere the Mandalay does (and perhaps even a few places where it can't, because of the wings.) Good canopy view too (even better than the Mandalay.)
About the only downside is the smaller fuel scoop, but meh; having to scoop for 10-or-so more seconds is fine. No biggie.
The one advantage the Dolphin is that it can charge and scoop at the same time even with a G5 overcharged plant. Also it makes cute sounds
. According to EDSY my Dolphin would jump 60 ly when swapping the FSD for a new SCO one (not the tech broker one, a normal engineered one - I can't be bothered to collect Titan crap for it). That's not too bad.Is that so even if using the pre-engineered SCO drive? The Mandalay quite (in)famously can also scoop&charge for the next jump at the same time without overheating... with the normal SCO drive, but with the pre-engineered one it starts overheating. That thing runs hot.
I don't know. My Dolphin still has the old CG FSD in it. I haven't taken it out of the hangar for a long time, I don't really do exploration or exobiology anymore. My Mandalays with non-tech broker SCOs get quite a bit hotter charging and scooping to the point of overheating though. Way hotter than my Dolphin ever would.
Can confirm it is the same with the pre-engineered SCO, popped over to Colonia and back with this in my dolphin and the hottest I saw was 62% while jumping and scooping at max rate.
The Mandalay can fit a class-6 fuel scoop, which is nice when you are in a hurry. Also more maneuverable, and better SCO handling.
The better SCO handling is nothing to scoff at. You can travel 1 million lightseconds in constant SCO mode, and still have fuel to spare at the end, just with the stock fuel tank. With the DBX, like all old ships, I don't think you can travel even 100 kls in SCO. With the Mandalay those ELWs and biologicals that are 400 kls from the entry point are no longer a nuisance.
If you engineer the Mandalay Power Plant for good thermal efficiency it still can scoop and jump on the vast majority of stars even with the Titan FSD. Big/hot stars will still cause you to overheat, but those stars are significantly less common.
This, I'm using an armored 5 / thermal spread 4A pp and I can usually initiate the jump while still in the red zone. Sometimes I need a sink if I hit it too early,
and it's not a Dolphin (totally ignoring any heat
), but it's generally better than a lot of ships. With a low emissions pp it would be even better.
Strange, in my case I have the Mandy with that Pre-engineered SCO with mass distribution and I have never suffered from overheating, it is rare that it goes over 70% when I scoop fuel, and I do not have any other engineered component with thermal improvements, only with mass reduction or whatever to extend the range without sacrificing grade A or size (except for life support and sensors which is D), reaching between 71ly minimum and a maximum of 300ly with overcharge, could it be that reducing the size of some components affects thermal efficiency?
The overheating happens if you are scooping and start charging for the jump to the next system at the same time. (This is a technique that commanders who want to get to their destination as fast as possible love to use, rather than having to supercruise away from the star before starting the jump.)
With the normal SCO drive the Mandalay does not overheat in this situation, while with the pre-engineered SCO drive it does (although, as someone mentioned, engineering your power plant for "low emissions" might help).
Still, in my case doesn't happen, while I generally prefer to get away quickly with the SCO, sometimes I charge the jump while I'm still scooping and it still doesn't go over 80%. I would have to stay still and to close to the star to happen, but not while I'm moving even it I'm on the red zone. In any case, for the moment I've only used the 6A fuel scoop (grade 5 shielded), the 5A pre-engineered FDS SCO with mass distribution and everything else reduced, light weight, nothing with thermal improvement, and even then if I charge the jump before finishing and in the red zone of the star, I don't even see the need to use a heat ejector since I don't go over 80% in the worst case.
Anyway, for me the Mandalay seems to manage heat very well (the Type 8 for me is the worst of the SCO ships in heat management, with that one all the time I'm overheat even if I scoop at the furthest scooping zone), that's why I find it curious that they comment that it overheats when scooping, but maybe it's something in my build.
Try not to fly into suns with a exploship
I mean really. Why would you need a cold running ship? You should just FSS when scooping.
I don't like the two vertical bars across the windscreen of the Mk5, they are always too bright, and much prefer the Mandalay myself.
Bingo. Smaller modules, less heat. But not all people are willing to minmax that way - for good reason.
But only those two are D grade, not smaller, I use full size, just D grade, full engineered but not smaller size, could it be just that?
In any case, in case it helps those who are having the overheat problem, I leave you the build in Coriolis and EDSY, I clarify that it is for exploration, but you can still try and modify the optional internals and see what happens.
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
Last edited:
You are using a normal SCO drive, not the pre-engineered one. That's why it isn't overheating.
By the way, applying "lightweight" engineering to a lightweight alloy hull is pretty useless. It's just a waste of materials.
The lightweight hull already has, effectively, 0 weight (ie. it's counted as 0 when calculating the "weight" of the ship for jump range and thruster speed). Applying the "lightweight" engineering to it does literally nothing to that weight. What you want is the "heavy duty" engineering. That's because said engineering increases the weight by a percentage, but any percent of 0 is still 0, so it doesn't increase the weight at all, and thus is a complete freebie (in terms of weight and thus jump range), while increasing the resistance of the hull very significantly. It has purely positive effects, with no drawbacks.
This is particularly important because apparently you are also using the ship for combat, given all the weapons. (I'm not really sure why you are mixing elements of a combat build with elements of an exploration build. Not much combat to be done in exploration, really. The weapons only add to the weight and the power plant requirement, decreasing jump range.)
Using "clean tuning" on thrusters is unusual because there's very little benefit to it (compared to "dirty tuning") as far as I know.
Remember that both Coriolis and EDSY do not recognize the pre-engineered FSD SCO since INARA does not either (and I exported the build from INARA), I leave you a screenshot of the game (although it is in Spanish since it is my native language and it is easier for me to play in this one) where it clearly says "Prediseñado" (pre-designed or pre-engineered), this one is actually the 5A that I received for participating in the bombing of Cocijo, although I'm later acquired 4 more, so is not that I don't know the correct module XD.
Regarding the armor, thanks for the information. I didn't really know that since I'm not one to pay attention to all the statistics and what affects them. I actually thought it reduced it even more, but I never checked if it actually did. Without a doubt, I'll change it to heavy duty.
As for combat, I don't necessarily use it for combat, but I like to have my ships prepared for defense since I constantly maintain high notoriety (I'm not a criminal XD, but since I'm increasing combat rank by attacking settlements of rival powers and collecting Power Play data along the way, I rise my notoriety to 9 and get attack so many times that I'm paranoid now XD), I do have light modules for when I'm exclusively exploring.
And finally, I already had a maxed-out trusters with that modification, and I was too lazy to buy and max out a new one with dirty tuning. XD
Regarding the armor, thanks for the information. I didn't really know that since I'm not one to pay attention to all the statistics and what affects them. I actually thought it reduced it even more, but I never checked if it actually did. Without a doubt, I'll change it to heavy duty.
As for combat, I don't necessarily use it for combat, but I like to have my ships prepared for defense since I constantly maintain high notoriety (I'm not a criminal XD, but since I'm increasing combat rank by attacking settlements of rival powers and collecting Power Play data along the way, I rise my notoriety to 9 and get attack so many times that I'm paranoid now XD), I do have light modules for when I'm exclusively exploring.
And finally, I already had a maxed-out trusters with that modification, and I was too lazy to buy and max out a new one with dirty tuning. XD