Are Engineered SCO FSD Drives Worth the Effort?
- Thread starter Cmdr Travers
- Start date
What you need to decide is basically whether it's the faster boot OR the SCO what you prefer as a secondary capability.
I may end up replacing 2 ships FSD with the SCO version in the near future...Well, I've already depleted my Datamined Wake Exceptions and have started the round trips between Jameson's crash site and Ray Gateway... for the first bunch of ships.
In the fullness of time, I'll see...
yes, DC is a Min/Max approach.. a personal taste, i use it on some builds, small ship, small tank, good fuel scoop, and this kind of ship gain most from SCO (Fuel usage tied to default fuel tank, handling in OC mode, thermal load, etc...)
rule of thumb, for all legacy FSD is: size 4 and below, using Deep Charge (+10% fuel per jump) to gain a very small jump range increase compared to MM, you can test it on EDSY; the gain is minimal but still present.
I pointed out that SCO come with a pre-eng "mini" Deep Charge, theoretically you can apply Deep Charge to SCO and we have to discover if the bonus is addictive or multiplicative.
Yesterday i have engineered and tested SCO from size 7 to size 4 with IC/MM, i have to gather mats then i will do the test with "double Deep Charge" for size 4, 3 and 2.
Then i will compare legacy and SCO with EDSY and "in-game values", because i still thinking there is some "hidden numbers" on SCO.
you can check my post with screenshot of 5A SCO vs 5A FSDv1, and see the "mini" Deep Charge hidden pre-engineering, Deep Charge is +10% fuel per jump, so for a size 5 FSD would have been from 5 to 5.5, but you can see that is only 5.2, that why i call it "mini" per-eng Deep Charge.
at this EDSY link you can check my IC Speeder with legacy 3A FSD IC/DC, change between MM and DC to see the minimal gain in jump range with DC.
Today i will do some test on the IC swapping to 3A SCO IC/DC and IC/MM, Courier was alot of fun and can be even more with SCO.
I will post here screenshot and result of test.
Only if one just must replace all the drives in their fleet at once and must get them all to G5 immediately
I feel no such compulsion, got three class 5, and one each of class 3, 4, 6. Got only one cl 5 to G5 increased range, mass manager—the rest can stay at G3 or 4 or unengineered until I actually need them. And on most of my ships G3 increased range is good enough.
Also, I believe G5 increased range FSD is probably the cheapest G5 to max out—it usually takes me just 5 or 6 rolls, compared to some other blueprints that consistently take 10 rolls...
Well yes, obsolete, but not useless, you lose a few ly jump range and don't have SCO, but then again my old car doesn't have bluetooth connectivity or an android OS but I still drive it. It's a nice thing to have, but you have to decide what advantage it gives you and whether it's worth doing. For instance my T9 now has an SCO FSD, but it's never going to be engineered because it's never going to have to jump between stars, it's purely a miner and Tritium hauler and nothing more, why would I engineer it?
You don't even lose that much jumprange with the v1 class 5 FSD (one that is the most relevant)—the difference is almost negligible. Basically, it becomes the question of whether fast boot or SCO is more important for a specific build that would benefit from highest possible jumprange. For most combat builds, fast boot SCO drive would be fine
Now, the biggest difference is material cost: v1 FSD costs 18 datamined wake exceptions, getting an SCO drive to full grade 5 only takes 5...7 DWE-s. And you don't even need maxed G5 for many builds, two or three rolls are OK.
Picking up the DWEs - if done by scanning wakes rather than cross-trading - will also get a huge number of the G1-G4 materials, plus most of those are also available separately as mission rewards.
With the SCO drive's higher baseline range, stopping at G4 will only lose a few percent jump range (likely unnoticeable on most ships in practice) compared with G5 standard, and you also get the SCO benefits.
You don't even lose that much jumprange with the v1 class 5 FSD (one that is the most relevant)—the difference is almost negligible. Basically, it becomes the question of whether fast boot or SCO is more important for a specific build that would benefit from highest possible jumprange. For most combat builds, fast boot SCO drive would be fine
Now, the biggest difference is material cost: v1 FSD costs 18 datamined wake exceptions, getting an SCO drive to full grade 5 only takes 5...7 DWE-s. And you don't even need maxed G5 for many builds, two or three rolls are OK.
Yeah true.
Basically you can choose any 2 of these 3 main things:
1. high jump range,
2. fast boot,
3. SCO.
Actually it's a bit more complicated, since the shielded mod is also useful (especially in PvP), so once you've decided that you want to use a SCO FSD (which is pretty much a no brainer in most cases), you can go for one of the following 3 options:
1. high jump range,
2. fast boot,
3. high FSD integrity.
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I think that the faster boot time is an extremely niche feature. I can only think of two scenarios where it might be marginally useful:
- In the kind of combat situation where your FSD gets shut down, and you need to be able to get it back as fast as possible.
- If traversing the neutron highway as fast as you possibly can (in which case you need to be able to shut down your FSD, AFMU it, and bring it back up).
The main reason why "faster boot sequence" in the pre-engineered FSD is useful is because that modification, too, increases jump range a bit, making it better than "increased range" on its own.
Now that the new SCO drives give you about that same extra jump range anyway...
Varonica, could you please post the build specs of your T9 miner? I'm trying to build a Tritium-only miner for my newly acquired fleet carrier. Thanks!
O7
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Especially if you're willing to wait for the upcoming Engineering changes, and already have the mats ready to go. For everyday mission running, I don't really need the extra jump range G5 engineering gives me, so I'll probably just buy A-rated SCO drives for those ships, and use my pre-existing legacy drives as a Bubble taxi.
Comparison between 3A SCO IR/DC vs 3A SCO IR/MM
i used an ICourier just as reference, are stats in datasheet that matter.
3A SCO Increased Range/Deep Charge
3A SCO Increased Range/Mass Manager
same result of legacy FSD, size 4 or smaller gain a minor, almost negligible, jump boost.
Comparison between SCO and CG FSDv1
i do not have a CG 3A FSDv1 (double eng FSD), so i will compare using EDSY values on same build (limited reliability),
3A FSDv1 IR/DC 52.81 vs SCO 52.94
3A FSDv1 IR/MM 52.58 vs SCO 52.71
of course, All this statements will be lost in time, like tears in rain... as soon the next patch will arrive.
i used an ICourier just as reference, are stats in datasheet that matter.
3A SCO Increased Range/Deep Charge
3A SCO Increased Range/Mass Manager
same result of legacy FSD, size 4 or smaller gain a minor, almost negligible, jump boost.
Comparison between SCO and CG FSDv1
i do not have a CG 3A FSDv1 (double eng FSD), so i will compare using EDSY values on same build (limited reliability),
3A FSDv1 IR/DC 52.81 vs SCO 52.94
3A FSDv1 IR/MM 52.58 vs SCO 52.71
of course, All this statements will be lost in time, like tears in rain... as soon the next patch will arrive.
Having switched the FSD on my 80.44/222.29 DBX to the SCO, the change to 80.69/??? ranges made me think if what Sirius will come up with is unlocking double engineering for the base FSDs, while SCOs effect will be considered an "engineering" so it won't be coupled with another kind of engineering. That would be an interesting counter to non-SCO ubiquity, since the IR+FC combo is interesting against drive reboot attacks (some Thargoids, enemy players, maybe even more if some NPCs start using them too). Would be kinda not nice to the CG people, since their exclusivity would be gone, but at least beats having something in the game that is useless and exists for no other reason than to switch to something better (like IE's existence as a web browser).
Also, fuel consumption isn't really "per jump", that value is still based on max jump. You spend more fuel to travel further. The change in fuel/light-year is minimal, and specially irrelevant if you have a scoop. Only way of properly judging that would be to make a table on the fuel/LY for all combinations of IR/DC and IR/MM for all classes.
Also, fuel consumption isn't really "per jump", that value is still based on max jump. You spend more fuel to travel further. The change in fuel/light-year is minimal, and specially irrelevant if you have a scoop. Only way of properly judging that would be to make a table on the fuel/LY for all combinations of IR/DC and IR/MM for all classes.
For 5A drive the optimised mass increases from 1856.4 T to 1894.1 T, the module mass is the same. It translates into jump range increase of my exo DBX from 74.42 (80.27) Ly to 74.65 (80.47) Ly.
What is an Infrared + Fleet Carrier combo?
That should have been gone long ago. The existence of unique items and generally the lack of level playing field is the worst possible design decision in any multiplayer game.
There’s no reason to have a choice or to balance anything with the drive, it’s simply a technological innovation that has come along that is better than the previous one and has completely replaced it. It happens all the time in real life. If you want to maintain that long supercruise immersion simply don’t use the SCO function of the drive. People can finally skip the SC loading screen now, there’s no reason to punish their jump range for it.
With all of the electric vehicles coming out now trying to replace gasoline engines, are you thrilled that they don’t have nearly the range of their previous counterparts for the sake of “balance” and “choice”? Would it be better if they had all of the advantages of gasoline engines as well?
I was thinking about that whilst I was doing a DSS-all-the-things flit last night (in the Bubble.) I was using my in-system Cobra which is barely engineered, with the SCO FSD from a couple of weeks ago, so there's really nothing particularly "cold" about the build.
- I don't think the additional heat is a practical concern given how it's balanced in 18.04 (yesterday's release). I didn't hear the warning once and I flitted between 50+ bodies using SCO as appropriate. And that's using the presumably pretty crufty module from a couple of weeks ago.
- You absolutely DO have to watch fuel now. I had to replan one run where I was spiralling out to cover as many bodies as possible because I needed to make sure I hit somewhere I could buy fuel. I think out in the black I'll probably swap something off the AspX to add more fuel tanks. It's all very well having a fuel scoop but that's not going to help if you run dry getting to E 7 h ...