Supercruise handling of ships

[Jackie Silver]

For reference, my (engineered, but not excessively engineered) exploration Clipper gets about 38 light years jump range and is lovely to fly in supercruise, and using a 2A overcharged powerplant I don't experience any significant problems with heat buildup. It helps that the Clipper's enormous fuel scoop* lets me keep stars at arm's length.

I like flying the FAS (and it has a quirky cockpit that is quite attractive) but for a mid-range, agile exploration ship I think the Clipper is a more practical choice. But hey, we're Elite explorers, practical isn't necessarily our game...

*If memory serves me right only the Type-6 has a better scoopage / fuel usage ratio. Although I'm not sure how the Type-10 compares. That's another of the "hidden exploration characteristics" of a ship!**

**another would be "how hard does it hit the ground when you miscalculate your landing"; I'm sure the Clipper fares poorly in this respect (c.f. "whatever happened to the RV Sonnenkreis"), whereas it seems some of the smaller ships are more "bouncy" and lose relatively less hull from an accidental smash. Anyone?

 

[Stealthie]

I'll be honest here - I'm having trouble reconciling the importance of Supercruise agility when common practice for Explorers is to cherry-pick what they scan in a system.

If you are cherry-picking as a matter of habit, then how much does it actually matter? It can be annoying, sure, but just for scanning planets, I can't get on board.

Simple fact is, if you're exploring then you'll probably be spending the vast majority of your time in SC (either honk-jumping or scanning planets) so SC agility becomes as important to an explorer as real-space agility is to a combat pilot.

Never really thought about a Clipper as an exploration ship.
I guess the number of slots would be useful.
Can it manage 35Ly jumps, when suitably outfitted?
That'd be the bare minimum jump-range I'd want from an exploration ship.

*EDIT*
Above post seems to address that. [up]

 

[iain666]

If I had an exploring D rated power unit this could cause some rather uncomfortable problems while exploring.

Exploring should be done with an A rated power unit. If you can run the ship on a Dn PP then you can run it on an An-1​ PP which will be even lighter and have better heat management.

 

[Jackie Silver]

Exploring should be done with an A rated power unit. If you can run the ship on a Dn PP then you can run it on an An-1​ PP which will be even lighter and have better heat management.

And further to that, I usually go for an overcharged A powerplant, with only a grade 1 modification on it - if you try a few times, you should be able to get one that has a secondary effect that negates the overcharge mod's usual penalty to heat efficiency, and provides more power, all from a less massive powerplant. It's very handy!

That said, I do have to turn various bits of my ship on and off to fly with only a 2A powerplant...

 

[marx]

Never really thought about a Clipper as an exploration ship.
I guess the number of slots would be useful.
Can it manage 35Ly jumps, when suitably outfitted?

Yep, you can go as far as 40 ly without stripping it down to near-uselessness. Here's what I'm flying: https://eddp.co/u/dj8Y647e (A bit outdated since, but the improvements have been minor.) But if I were to just take that FSD, and remove everything else modded, it could still fit 6A thrusters (plus a bigger power plant) and stay above 35 ly. Slap a mod on the thrusters then, and it can easily go above 400 m/s.
On the other hand, a completely cardboard build could just about make it to Semotus Beacon. As far as I know, nobody has done that yet.

another would be "how hard does it hit the ground when you miscalculate your landing"; I'm sure the Clipper fares poorly in this respect (c.f. "whatever happened to the RV Sonnenkreis"), whereas it seems some of the smaller ships are more "bouncy" and lose relatively less hull from an accidental smash. Anyone?

Yeah, the Clipper can reach a lot of momentum - heavy ship, powerful thrusters - and its shields are weak. That's a rather unfortunate combination when it comes to collisions. So far, I had two unplanned lithobraking events in my Clipper, and it survived both, but with the hull at 37%/56% only.
On the other hand, the Imperial Courier has incredible shields for its size (even a 2D shield generator produces 250 MJ, stock), and is so lightweight that it can survive most collisions, unless you happen to be boosting at 700 m/s straight into the ground. Or into a canyon wall. But it's not like I've ever done that, nope, not me, I'm not that careless.

 

[Non Grata]

And further to that, I usually go for an overcharged A powerplant, with only a grade 1 modification on it - if you try a few times, you should be able to get one that has a secondary effect that negates the overcharge mod's usual penalty to heat efficiency, and provides more power, all from a less massive powerplant. It's very handy!

That said, I do have to turn various bits of my ship on and off to fly with only a 2A powerplant...

Equally you can do it the other way around too - a G1 efficient PP with an increase in capacity.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I misremembered my stats - the Clipper has the best scoop to fuel ratio bar none. Here's the full rundown.

 

[Morbad]

I misremembered my stats - the Clipper has the best scoop to fuel ratio bar none. Here's the full rundown.

Heat willing, anything under 6-7 seconds usually has time to scoop to full, orient itself, and start charging for the next jump as soon as cooldown finishes.

 

[Mengy]

Excellent thread Marx, very informative!

I've flown the T10 a lot since it became available, and I absolutely love everything about the ship except for it's pathetic supercruise performance. It flies very good at sublight, but in SC it handles worse than anything else in the game. For that reason alone I could never ever explore in the T10 long term. It's why I can't stand exploring in an Anaconda, scanning a system in it just takes far too long, and the Anaconda flies like a sports car compared to the T10! I stick to ships with agile SC performance when exploring, it's like my second lowest criteria right below jump range.

 

[oldmanklc]

I wonder how much handling actually matters. Is it perception that it speeds up time or is it fact? Here's why I'm wondering - I assume the biggest supercruise handling issues come about when turning around to head towards another target for scanning. This presumably is at the lowest velocity part of that journey with the higher velocities closer to the end when you're already aimed at your target. As you're in the process of ramping up speed while turning around, I don't think your ship is going that far outside of the trajectory toward its target when doing so.

Rather than measuring handling, what is the difference in time to arrival at scan range assuming equal surface scanners on each ship. I've a feeling handling plays less of a role in this than one would assume.

 

[marx]

I wonder how much handling actually matters. Is it perception that it speeds up time or is it fact?

Well, it certainly decreases the time required to turn.

Here's why I'm wondering - I assume the biggest supercruise handling issues come about when turning around to head towards another target for scanning. This presumably is at the lowest velocity part of that journey with the higher velocities closer to the end when you're already aimed at your target. As you're in the process of ramping up speed while turning around, I don't think your ship is going that far outside of the trajectory toward its target when doing so.

Rather than measuring handling, what is the difference in time to arrival at scan range assuming equal surface scanners on each ship. I've a feeling handling plays less of a role in this than one would assume.

Personally, my feeling was that all ships accelerate and decelerate the same in supercruise. But that will require some testing to verify. I'll try out two or three ships on the exact same route: if the times taken are the same, then my estimate would be right. If they weren't, then I will have been wrong, and more measurements will be needed. It's because of the latter that I hope I'm right.

Update: I ran some tests on four ships, and they all had the exact same results. Specifically, I started from Jameson Memorial, pointing towards Shinrarta Dezhra AB 3, which at the time was 4,855 ls away. Stopwatch started when the countdown to supercruise reached zero, and stopped when distance went below 855 ls - so, 4k ls travelled. The ships tested were a Sidewinder, an Asp Scout, a Type-10 Defender and an Imperial Cutter. All four took 2m 31s to do this. So it looks like my hunch was right. I didn't test deceleration, as it's considerably more difficult to recreate the same starting conditions for different ships, but it's acceleration that matters when getting into scanning range anyway.

 

[Stinja]

I wonder how much handling actually matters.

Good SC handling can also let you face triangles, so they cannot get behind to interdict you.

If you're a Fuel Rat, SC handling can mean precious seconds saved on a c0de red, which can be all the difference a live and dead client (and why the Cobra MK3 is better than a slug-conda ).

And I've heard from *cough* friends, that it lets you get back to a station faster after a loop of shame. Apparently...

 

[Orvidius]

FDev has mentioned before that having different SC speeds and acceleration rates for different ships is something that they're open to in the future, but have had no immediate plans. That sort of indirectly confirms that they're all the same in SC, except for turn rates.

EDIT:

And I've heard from *cough* friends, that it lets you get back to a station faster after a loop of shame. Apparently...

I can... *ahem*... neither confirm nor deny this.

(but actually can confirm this).

 

[marx]

FDev has mentioned before that having different SC speeds and acceleration rates for different ships is something that they're open to in the future, but have had no immediate plans. That sort of indirectly confirms that they're all the same in SC, except for turn rates.

Hm, I didn't know that. Still, it's better that we verified the acceleration part now.

 

[Deluvian]

(...) after a loop of shame. Apparently...

I just love it

 

[Alec Turner]

Terrific resource marx! I'll add this to my sticky "Best of forum" thread tomorrow so people can find this again in the future.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

So it seems that we are saying that the only difference between ships in supercruise is the rate they turn? Perhaps this is enough to significantly slow down scanning a system or maybe it's just a perceived slowness. I guess we need to have a system scan race between a few different ships to make that determination.

 

[Orvidius]

So it seems that we are saying that the only difference between ships in supercruise is the rate they turn? Perhaps this is enough to significantly slow down scanning a system or maybe it's just a perceived slowness. I guess we need to have a system scan race between a few different ships to make that determination.

Right. The turns rates differ, but that can have a noticeable impact on how long it takes you to navigate through a star system, since it takes longer to swing around and to get "on target". If you're flying at speed during that turn, then you're travelling through a large arc, which increases the distance travelled. The speed differential at different distances from the gravity source doesn't always compensate much for this. And of course, this is all ignoring the "loop of shame" scenarios.

(but without someone doing some timing experiments, we can't say for sure how large the difference is).

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Right. The turns rates differ, but that can have a noticeable impact on how long it takes you to navigate through a star system, since it takes longer to swing around and to get "on target". If you're flying at speed during that turn, then you're travelling through a large arc, which increases the distance travelled. The speed differential at different distances from the gravity source doesn't always compensate much for this. And of course, this is all ignoring the "loop of shame" scenarios.

(but without someone doing some timing experiments, we can't say for sure how large the difference is).

I reckon the slow turn rate is not so significant because you're accelerating all the time. De-acceleration maybe a big factor though.

I plan to find two similar systems that I haven't scanned and the time myself scanning them in my ASP and a T10. Or I suppose I could do the scan and then blow myself up to do it again.

 

[oldmanklc]

Well, it certainly decreases the time required to turn.


Personally, my feeling was that all ships accelerate and decelerate the same in supercruise. But that will require some testing to verify. I'll try out two or three ships on the exact same route: if the times taken are the same, then my estimate would be right. If they weren't, then I will have been wrong, and more measurements will be needed. It's because of the latter that I hope I'm right.

Update: I ran some tests on four ships, and they all had the exact same results. Specifically, I started from Jameson Memorial, pointing towards Shinrarta Dezhra AB 3, which at the time was 4,855 ls away. Stopwatch started when the countdown to supercruise reached zero, and stopped when distance went below 855 ls - so, 4k ls travelled. The ships tested were a Sidewinder, an Asp Scout, a Type-10 Defender and an Imperial Cutter. All four took 2m 31s to do this. So it looks like my hunch was right. I didn't test deceleration, as it's considerably more difficult to recreate the same starting conditions for different ships, but it's acceleration that matters when getting into scanning range anyway.

What would happen if you repeated the same experiment, but started with each ship pointed 180 degrees away from the target? I'm sure the times would be different - but how much different?