Well as you know I recently ran a 20,000 light year trip in my DBX out to Hawking's Gap via the Outer Orion Spur (and had an absolute blast in doing it, too!). I had a number of goals with this, but one of them was to upgrade to a new ship when I got back. I'd managed to squeeze a 48 ly range out of my DBX without fully engineering the FSD, and when I got back I bought an Asp Explorer.
Thing is, like for like, with fully engineered FSDs it turns out my DBX slightly pips the Asp to the post in terms of range, with 54 lyrs standard jump range vs 52. Both can go slightly further at minumum mass but again the DBX wins out. True, the Asp X can fit a 6A fuel scoop which makes refilling the tank significantly faster, but with my playstyle I tend to sit on the star while scanning the system anyway, and naturally the DBX as the most heat-efficient ship in the game wins hands down there as well. Finally, in terms of handling (especially braking!) the DBX seems to have an advantage too.
So besides being a bit flashier but also more expensive if I break it without a Guardian FSD booster I'm wondering in what way the Asp X wins out? To get better performance out of the Asp X vs the DBX without an FSD booster I have to start sacrificing components (such as fitting a smaller fuel tank). All in all, I'm a bit surprised; I supposed I naively assumed that with the Asp X there'd be a significant step change from the DBX, in the same way that the DBX was a huge improvement over my Adder (love that ship, btw!).
I'm not saying that the AspX is a bad ship, it definitely isn't, but it's just very surprising how much of a run for its money an (on paper) cheaper ship gives it like for like. I'm toying with the idea of trading the AspX in and going for a Krait or Python explorer build. What do you guys reckon?
Thing is, like for like, with fully engineered FSDs it turns out my DBX slightly pips the Asp to the post in terms of range, with 54 lyrs standard jump range vs 52. Both can go slightly further at minumum mass but again the DBX wins out. True, the Asp X can fit a 6A fuel scoop which makes refilling the tank significantly faster, but with my playstyle I tend to sit on the star while scanning the system anyway, and naturally the DBX as the most heat-efficient ship in the game wins hands down there as well. Finally, in terms of handling (especially braking!) the DBX seems to have an advantage too.
So besides being a bit flashier but also more expensive if I break it without a Guardian FSD booster I'm wondering in what way the Asp X wins out? To get better performance out of the Asp X vs the DBX without an FSD booster I have to start sacrificing components (such as fitting a smaller fuel tank). All in all, I'm a bit surprised; I supposed I naively assumed that with the Asp X there'd be a significant step change from the DBX, in the same way that the DBX was a huge improvement over my Adder (love that ship, btw!).
I'm not saying that the AspX is a bad ship, it definitely isn't, but it's just very surprising how much of a run for its money an (on paper) cheaper ship gives it like for like. I'm toying with the idea of trading the AspX in and going for a Krait or Python explorer build. What do you guys reckon?