Combined scanner suite for ships?

[mossfoot]

One problem for potential explorers is having room on your ship for everything. As it stands unless you want to go Shieldless you need five slots minimum.

Shield (this will be far more popular in horizons I think)
SRV hanger
Fuel scoop
Discovery scanner
Detail scanner

And most will want a field repair kit, which is six.

For many ships that leaves zero room for even a token amount of cargo they might come across. By adding the hanger snug ships are either cramped, or no longer viable explorers

But why do we have discovery and detail scanners separate? Can't we combine them at a higher cost, have it take up a class 2 or 3 slot? That would free up an internal slot and make more ships exploring viable.

What do you think?

 

[M. Grey]

Yes, combining these two (Advanced Discovery Scanner and Detail Scanner) would make sense. Make it a size 2 or 3 internal module, maybe ~10% more power usage than separate modules to make up for the free slot?

 

[Mephane]

Yes, combining these two (Advanced Discovery Scanner and Detail Scanner) would make sense. Make it a size 2 or 3 internal module, maybe ~10% more power usage than separate modules to make up for the free slot?

Make it class 2. We are specifically talking about helping the smaller explorers, which may not have a spare class 3 slot in the first place. The combined scanner can be expensive. 5 million, 10 million, you name it, I will buy it.

It would enable my dream explorer, this Adder: http://www.edshipyard.com/#/L=70f,mpV0Wg0Wg,2-3I5K4s2C3m5K5A,4zM7Q4mpT2UI0HM

The ADS would be the new combined scanner, the empty slot holds the SRV.

 

[M. Grey]

I think class 2 would be fine, ~2.5 million shoud be ok. This still would be almost twice the price ot the separate modules.

 

[Erna Jedermann]

Why not put the ADV/Detail Scanner from the Internal Slots, to the external Utility Slots ?
Anyway you must retract them, so why not use as Utility ? Many explorer didn't need all of the Utilityslots....

 

[cptdavep]

There have been a few threads recently stating the problem for explorers module space with Horizons, hopefully Frontier are paying attention and will either give exploration ships an extra class one slot (maybe splitting a class 2 into two class 1?) provide a combined scanner, or make scanners utility mountable.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Having the ability to put multiple Class 1 Equipment i.e. into a single Class 2 Slot would help as well.
Right now, alot of precious space is wasted due to having to put a Class 1 piece of Equipment into a bigger Class 2-4 Slot.

Alternatively, fitting flex-Cargo racks into such blocked larger Internals would work as well. Then at least unused space gets a Cargo function.

 

[Chernabog]

Having the ability to put multiple Class 1 Equipment i.e. into a single Class 2 Slot would help as well.
Right now, alot of precious space is wasted due to having to put a Class 1 piece of Equipment into a bigger Class 2-4 Slot.

Alternatively, fitting flex-Cargo racks into such blocked larger Internals would work as well. Then at least unused space gets a Cargo function.

That is a great idea and I would think easy to implement ... basically you always get the module you want, plus cargo to fill out the rest of the size of the bay. So for example you are planning to add a detailed surface scanner, that requires a class 1 slot. Depending on the internal compartment you add it to you would get the below:

Class 1 = Just the scanner
Class 2 = The scanner plus two tonnes of cargo space
Class 3 = The scanner plus four tonnes of cargo space
Class 4 = The scanner plus eight tonnes of cargo space

Etc.

Repped

 

[sewerratuk]

I wouldn't mind so much if you could upgrade the DSS to a Class 2 so it scans from a greater distance

 

[Mephane]

I wouldn't mind so much if you could upgrade the DSS to a Class 2 so it scans from a greater distance

That could be another option, at a higher class. Currently we have:
Class 1 DS
Class 1 IDS
Class 1 ADS
Class 1 DSS

Then a new combo-scanner:
Class 2 ADS+DSS

And a deluxe scanner:
Class 3 ADS+DSS+DSS range boost

 

[Dr.Evanzan]

Having the ability to put multiple Class 1 Equipment i.e. into a single Class 2 Slot would help as well.
Right now, alot of precious space is wasted due to having to put a Class 1 piece of Equipment into a bigger Class 2-4 Slot.

Alternatively, fitting flex-Cargo racks into such blocked larger Internals would work as well. Then at least unused space gets a Cargo function.

Yeah, I always envisaged they would need to some sort of Multi-Slot item that would add fitting several smaller modules into a larger module size once they started releasing more module types.
For example, 2-Slot Class 2 Multi-Module that could fit 2 Class 1 modules (or a Class 3 Multi-Module that could fit 2 Class 1 modules if that is too generous).

With the new nested setup for the SRV Hangar (i.e. you buy a Hangar module then populate it with individual SRVs) they should be able to use the same UI mechanism in Outfitting to represent this.
(Only issue is you probably wouldn't be able to nest Multi-Modules or Hangar modules in a Multi-Module).

 

[Iron Orchid]

The exploration scanners should fit into the utility slots like the Warrant scanner.