Ships All ships ranked by maximum jump range

[DjVortex]

Today the thought occurred to me: "Which ship has the lowest jump range, even when maximally optimized for it?" Then I thought, why not rank every single ship based on that, and make a sorted list? So I did a bit of testing at edsy and created the list.

Approach: Only jump range matters, ie. only optional modules that affect jump range and nothing else (which in practice means the only optional is a guardian FSD booster). From all the other modules, the lightest one that doesn't have a red warning symbol on edsy. Besides engineering the FSD (or using the 5A FSDv1 if applicable), full engineering for weight on everything, of course (ie "lightweight" or "stripped down" experimental, whichever applies). Lightest power plant that can power up everything (with "overcharged" engineering as needed).

Ship                 |  Rng (ldn/max)| Cost (with modules)
---------------------+---------------+--------------------
Anaconda             | 76.45 / 79.54 | 168 M
Diamondback Explorer | 75.99 / 82.01 | 5.05 M
Krait Phantom        | 74.61 / 80.14 | 42.8 M
Asp Explorer         | 73.11 / 78.38 | 13.1 M
Orca                 | 70.84 / 75.72 | 54.9 M
Krait Mk II          | 66.38 / 70.54 | 51.2 M
Dolphin              | 63.33 / 67.52 | 9.32 M
Type-7 Transporter   | 62.88 / 66.52 | 23.5 M
Python               | 60.46 / 63.76 | 62.7 M
Asp Scout            | 60.16 / 63.85 | 12.2 M
Type-6 Transporter   | 59.36 / 62.93 | 9.05 M
Hauler               | 58.48 / 65.44 | 1.81 M
Alliance Chieftain   | 57.75 / 58.90 | 25.6 M
Imperial Clipper     | 57.67 / 58.82 | 28.1 M
Beluga Liner         | 55.63 / 60.34 | 142 M
Adder                | 54.44 / 60.36 | 2.18 M
Imperial Courier     | 54.23 / 60.08 | 4.62 M
Keelback             | 53.72 / 56.49 | 11.1 M
Alliance Challenger  | 53.13 / 54.06 | 36.6 M
Diamondback Scout    | 53.05 / 56.10 | 3.77 M
Imperial Cutter      | 52.42 / 54.12 | 261 M
Cobra Mk III         | 52.39 / 55.14 | 5.16 M
Federal Assault Ship | 50.76 / 51.60 | 26.1 M
Viper Mk IV          | 50.51 / 53.02 | 5.25 M
Type-10 Defender     | 49.90 / 51.41 | 181 M
Alliance Crusader    | 49.27 / 50.04 | 29.1 M
Cobra Mk IV          | 47.13 / 49.25 | 5.55 M
Eagle                | 46.60 / 47.86 | 2.16 M
Imperial Eagle       | 46.60 / 47.86 | 2.20 M
Vulture              | 46.20 / 47.89 | 12.9 M
Viper Mk III         | 46.17 / 47.40 | 2.24 M
Type-9 Heavy         | 46.16 / 48.30 | 96.1 M
Federal Corvette     | 44.75 / 45.57 | 210 M
Federal Dropship     | 44.48 / 45.07 | 20.5 M
Federal Gunship      | 44.06 / 44.64 | 42.0 M
Mamba                | 43.63 / 44.22 | 63.7 M
Sidewinder           | 43.29 / 44.44 | 0.99 M
Fer-de-lance         | 43.18 / 43.76 | 59.6 M

 

[DjVortex]

I find it a bit funny that the description of the Orca says "the Orca has not been designed for combat or exploration" even though you can achieve the 5th largest jump range of all ships...

 

[Morbad]

I find it a bit funny that the description of the Orca says "the Orca has not been designed for combat or exploration" even though you can achieve the 5th largest jump range of all ships...

Almost all ships were designed before Engineering or Guardian tech. The Orca was also given a major buff (in the form of a large mass reduction) about seven years ago without the ship description being altered.

Approach: Only jump range matters, ie. only optional modules that affect jump range and nothing else (which in practice means the only optional is a guardian FSD booster). From all the other modules, the lightest one that doesn't have a red warning symbol on edsy. Besides engineering the FSD (or using the 5A FSDv1 if applicable), full engineering for weight on everything, of course (ie "lightweight" or "stripped down" experimental, whichever applies). Lightest power plant that can power up everything (with "overcharged" engineering as needed).

Anaconda | 76.45 / 79.54 | 168 M

Without swapping fuel tanks or creating a ship that cannot boost, I get 79.97 / 83.57 for the Anaconda:

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

A more optimized (and practical) range loadout reaches over 83.4ly unladen:

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

Boosting with 4D thrusters is a bit overrated and there is little point in retaining the functionality at the cost of having to use a much larger distributor. Downsizing the fuel tank to maximum single jump, plus a two-ton margin was generally most efficient for reaching fringe systems, until fleet carriers made jump range for exploration moot. Using the rest of available thruster mass for cargo rack so that jump plots can be tuned to save fuel (even 24t of virtual cargo significantly increases range per tank) helps as well.

I can currently build the above ship with an 83.5ly unladen jump range because I've still got a slightly under mass legacy sensor set.

 

[DjVortex]

Without swapping fuel tanks or creating a ship that cannot boost, I get 79.97 / 83.57 for the Anaconda:

The difference appears to be in the power distributor. Maybe I trusted too much the red exclamation symbol in edsy, presuming that choosing one would just not work.

 

[Morbad]

The difference appears to be in the power distributor. Maybe I trusted too much the red exclamation symbol in edsy, presuming that choosing one would just not work.

You do need the ENG focused cluster capacitors to get the 4D distributor to allow an Anaconda to boost and limiting the thrusters to G1 is not an immediately obvious way to allow drive distributors to get 4D thrusters to a sufficiently high optimal mass.