Ship Transfers inadvertently nerfed a very big part of ship fitting which I call "Penetrator" fits. That is, a fitting with a large total jump range (i.e maximum distance able to be travelled having expended your whole fuel tank), but no organic refuelling capability.
This was great for force projection. Moving combat ships with their short jump range around was "hard", because the big time-waster is refuelling, whether it's with a fuel scoop or docking at a station. Installing some extended fuel tanks, you didn't have to worry, and it didn't screw your fitting around too much (plus fuel tanks are fairly ubiquitous).
There's one other practical use for the "penetrator" fit which is when shipping large volumes of corrosive cargo, where waiting for the ship to scoop fuel is very dangerous. Their only other use is for fuel rat functions, or if you simply can't afford the transfer or the cost of a reasonable fuel scoop (in which case, why are you even flying that ship
you probably can't afford the rebuy! )
Frankly, FFE and FE2 had the right idea with their implementation of Military/Hyperspace drives. So rather than bind you to jump range or fuel limitations, you are bound by fuel availability. This is critical for maintaining the distinction between exploration ships and fighter ships, giving fighter ships the ability to have a superior jump range, but still be poor exploration vessels, while affording the ability to fit for long-range exploration, with a vastly inferior per-jump range. This can easily be designed in ED (implementation is a whole other bag).
Skipping out the background, here's how I'd do it in ED.
1. Put in two sorts of FSD, civilian and military. Civilian FSDs have ranges as-per current game. Military FSDs have 3x the range, or whatever makes balance sense. Any ship can fit any FSD. The extended range rebalances the fact that military drives in FE2/FFE took up less room in your ship, allowing you to fit more weapons and, importantly, more fuel for longer trips, while ED does not have the concept of fittings taking up "space" like FE2/FFE did.
2. Refuelling of a civilian FSD is as-per current game, either by fuel scoop or by station refuelling services. Military FSDs can *only* be refuelled at a station.
3 (optional). Put in two sorts of Extended Fuel Tank, Military and Civilian.
And that's pretty much done. What you now have is a massive amount of flexibility in fitting, at the trade-off of maximum range (as ability to refuel is mandatory for any exploration type of activity) versus force projection (range and speed at which you can deploy a military force). This is exactly how FFE/FE2 did it. Take the
Viper versus the
Asp Explorer, for example. With a class-3 hyperdrive, the Viper had a superior jump range at 41 LY, compared to the Asp Explorer which can only get out 32LY per jump with it's largest drive. However, to get that 41LY jump range in the viper, a C3 military drive was mandatory. This meant you needed military fuel, which could only be bought at stations, binding you to a maximum range from a station. If you wanted to be able to fit a fuel scoop to the viper, you needed to trade down to a C2 hyperdrive which only gives 18LY (a C3 hyperdrive doesn't practically fit in a viper) . Meanwhile, the Asp's 32LY range used a C4 hyper drive, and you could also fit a fuel scoop with it. So, your options were:
- 41LY jump range in a viper, but bound to the bubble for refuelling at a station; or
- 32LY jump range in an Asp, but theoretically infinite projection range (for exploration, obviously)
Now, fitting ships works entirely differently in ED, and to cut out explanation, offering military drives (or whatever they want to be called) for all ships makes a measure of sense. To try out the 3x jump range idea, in ED we get
- 60-oddLY jump range in a viper, but bound to the bubble for refuelling at a station; or
- 41LY jump range in an Asp, but theoretically infinite projection range (for exploration, obviously)
But what if we throw a military drive on an Asp in ED? That gets 120LY range, but is bound to the bubble. Because fitting works differently in ED, the Asp is still a poor combat vessel choice compared to a viper, but we now have an excellent reconnaisance ship, or even a decent long-range fighter. Now comes the cool bit. If you throw 64t fuel extension tank on a 40LY Asp, you get around 600-700 LY without having to refuel. So throw that on an Asp with this "military" drive, and you can (based on how the fuel consumption works in-game) get 1800-2100LY without having to refuel. So the Asp can fill a lightweight combat and reconnaisance element with a military fit out to a long range, while the more heavyweight fighters have some reduced projection range, but can still have influence over a bubble-sized region. With the way the game is going, and how many outposts we're getting in places like Witch Head/California Nebula, there's some real application for that.
This even works for traders. The jump range of a fully laden hauler is low, so a military drive on, say, a T9 would still only give it =~ 30LY per jump, and it would only have a max range of 150LY or so, which isn't enough to cross the bubble. But if you don't plan on kicking out further than 30LY for trade, and always pay for fuel, it's a great option. Meanwhile a civilian + scoop fit gives you the option of getting all over the bubble... useful for rare trading or exploiting powerplay trade effects.
Throw in the idea of distinct civilian/military fuel tanks, and the Fuel Rats out there could even set up a ship with an organic refuelling capability for self-sustinence, but load out with military fuel tanks to "support" a fleet moving much further than they normally could.
So the short version, this would:
- Give fighters much bigger jump range to improve force projection to about 600LY, without turning them into explorer ships.
- Maintain the role of exploration ships with theoretical infinite range
- Introduce new "Long-range fighter/Force Recon" roles for ships out to 2,000LY.
- Introduce the idea of refuel support ships to military fleets that can't just be resolved by fitting a scoop.
