Sit down, grab a drink and read my latest tale of woe, one that I am rather embarrassed about because I have been playing the game long enough I should have know about it! Meh, maybe some newbie will gain from my misfortune, that is all I hope for.
Anyway, here is the sorry tale: One of the tasks I have set myself upon my return from self imposed exile is to go through every ship and make sure it is suited for it's assigned task and if need be, fully engineer it (NO THIS ISN'T A WHINGE ABOUT ENGINEERING, I will leave that to the professionals). Have so far done about 7 ships, about half my fleet with no problems, got mat collecting down to a fine art, actually enjoying the process. So far so good right!
My latest ship is one of the first ships I purchased, my old faithful speed beast, The Scout, a lovely little Imperial Courier. After some playing around with Coriolis, I settled on a configuration I wanted and plugged the required engineering upgrades into Inara to find out what mats I need to get - big surprise, 14 modules requiring some degree of engineering, from just adding or changing an experimental to complete G1 to G5. The big surprise is that I had sufficient mats to do it all, no hunting for ENC, RAW or MAT items required, which is kind of amazing because I had just completed engineered my Cutter. Anyway, feeling rather pleased with myself, I looked at the engineers I actually had to visit (as against what I could do remotely) and worked out I needed to visit 8 different engineers.
This is where the dunce cap comes it.
Lets be honest here, the Courier doesn't have long legs does it, sure at this stage it had around a 32ly jump range but I knew from experience that I might have to travel around 190LY between some engineers and that was over the total range of the tank (178ly to be exact). I realised I had a few options: (A) Plan my route to very carefully and hope everything works; (B) Plan on breaking a journey to refuel; ((C) set the route to economical and do LOTS of little jumps or (D) fit a fuel scoop. Option D is the most logical of course but I could only fit a Size 2 scoop and we all know how damn efficient that would have been. So I opened up the galaxy map and started planning my route - THEN A LIGHT WENT OFF. After I finished telling my partner off for scaring the bejebus out of my by walking in a turning the damn lights on without telling me (she is normally very good about things like that lol), I realised I had another option, one I have never considered before.
Yep, you all know what my missing option is, buy a damn 2C Fuel Tank. I have never thought of that before, always associated extra fuel tanks with long range exploration builds, not scooting around the bubble. But a quick check on Coriolis confirmed that if I swapped my 2E cargo rack that was going to be empty anyway with a 2C fuel tank my total range from 178 LYs to 253LYS, way enough for what I want. Fitted the tank and a little over 90 minutes later, back hope with a fully engineered (to my specs at least) Imperial Courier that I am very happy with.
So there is my tale of woe, finding out something basic after all these years playing. The number of times I could have used an extra fuel tank in the past and it honestly never occurred to me - I feel so damn stupid, you may all laugh in my general direction now lol
TL: DR Had a ship with a small range, had some distance to travel, didn't want to run out of fuel, didn't realise I could fit additional fuel tanks
Anyway, here is the sorry tale: One of the tasks I have set myself upon my return from self imposed exile is to go through every ship and make sure it is suited for it's assigned task and if need be, fully engineer it (NO THIS ISN'T A WHINGE ABOUT ENGINEERING, I will leave that to the professionals). Have so far done about 7 ships, about half my fleet with no problems, got mat collecting down to a fine art, actually enjoying the process. So far so good right!
My latest ship is one of the first ships I purchased, my old faithful speed beast, The Scout, a lovely little Imperial Courier. After some playing around with Coriolis, I settled on a configuration I wanted and plugged the required engineering upgrades into Inara to find out what mats I need to get - big surprise, 14 modules requiring some degree of engineering, from just adding or changing an experimental to complete G1 to G5. The big surprise is that I had sufficient mats to do it all, no hunting for ENC, RAW or MAT items required, which is kind of amazing because I had just completed engineered my Cutter. Anyway, feeling rather pleased with myself, I looked at the engineers I actually had to visit (as against what I could do remotely) and worked out I needed to visit 8 different engineers.
This is where the dunce cap comes it.
Lets be honest here, the Courier doesn't have long legs does it, sure at this stage it had around a 32ly jump range but I knew from experience that I might have to travel around 190LY between some engineers and that was over the total range of the tank (178ly to be exact). I realised I had a few options: (A) Plan my route to very carefully and hope everything works; (B) Plan on breaking a journey to refuel; ((C) set the route to economical and do LOTS of little jumps or (D) fit a fuel scoop. Option D is the most logical of course but I could only fit a Size 2 scoop and we all know how damn efficient that would have been. So I opened up the galaxy map and started planning my route - THEN A LIGHT WENT OFF. After I finished telling my partner off for scaring the bejebus out of my by walking in a turning the damn lights on without telling me (she is normally very good about things like that lol), I realised I had another option, one I have never considered before.
Yep, you all know what my missing option is, buy a damn 2C Fuel Tank. I have never thought of that before, always associated extra fuel tanks with long range exploration builds, not scooting around the bubble. But a quick check on Coriolis confirmed that if I swapped my 2E cargo rack that was going to be empty anyway with a 2C fuel tank my total range from 178 LYs to 253LYS, way enough for what I want. Fitted the tank and a little over 90 minutes later, back hope with a fully engineered (to my specs at least) Imperial Courier that I am very happy with.
So there is my tale of woe, finding out something basic after all these years playing. The number of times I could have used an extra fuel tank in the past and it honestly never occurred to me - I feel so damn stupid, you may all laugh in my general direction now lol
