Engineers Best Engineering mods for Explorers?

[AgamemnonWhen]

So, you've got your stripped-down Asp X and you want to go out into the black - there are the obvious engineering upgrades for your FSD; namely boosted range. That's the easy choice.

In a stripped AspX, I would have no weapons, so lightweight mount mods are redundant. Lightweight Armour mods don't affect the stock Lightweight Alloys. Powerplant and Disty mods all seem to either add mass or not affect it at all.

Felicity works her magic on your drives and gives you a decent jump range... that's all well and good: But there doesn't seem to be much more one can do after that. All I can see that's useful to explorers is:

• Enhanced, low power shields: Gives you some minor weight reduction.
• Lightweight Point Defence (if you use them), but that makes little difference when they're only 0.5t anyway.
• Lightweight life support: Actually fairly significant dropping a couple of tons on D-rated LSUs. If you lose your O[SUB]2[/SUB] when you're thousands of LY from the bubble, you're probably gonna die anyway.

Have I missed anything? What else have you stripped back with the help of engineers to reduce your weight?

I'd love a few more Explorer engineer mods, most of which would be around reducing mass - Felicity must have a few ideas about that! For example:

• Lightweight hull modification: Strip back non-essential plating, carpets and panels to reduce mass at the expense of integrity and/or hardness. Negative Modifier applied to hull mass. Who needs that extra chair anyway?
• Lightweight Powerplant: Retains power output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and (of course) mass.
• Lightweight Thrusters: Retains thruster output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and mass.
• Lightweight AFMU: Lose integrity and lower ammo count, reduce mass. Most explorers with an SRV will be able to re-stock anyway.
• Lightweight Planetary Vehicle Hangar: Reduces deployment/retrieval speed and integrity for reduced mass.
• Efficient Fuel Scoop: Increases scoop's power draw but improves thermal efficiency (?) and reduces mass.
• Lightweight Shield Generator: Trades mass for slower recharge rate & lower total shielding. Explorers only really use them for soft landings anyway!
• Focussed Scanner: Increases range of the Detailed Surface Scanner, so you can start surveying from further out.
• Lightweight ADS: Reduces mass of the Advanced Discovery Scanner but increases the honk time and/or reduces integrity.
• Thermally Conductive HRP: Replaces armoured hull reinforcement for a thermally conductive layer that reduces the heat build-up from scooping too close to a star. Tradeoff is reduced hardness / hull integrity (maybe mass? Copper & aluminium heatsinks are quite light compared to tough tungsten/steel alloys, right?)

Fellow Explorers: Your thoughts?

 

[AgamemnonWhen]

Whilst I'm at it, why not throw in a few more for Miners, too?

Improved Collector & Prospecting Controllers: Extended Lifespan on limpets would be the obvious place to start with very little additional work, surely...

 

[Archon Valec]

So, you've got your stripped-down Asp X and you want to go out into the black - there are the obvious engineering upgrades for your FSD; namely boosted range. That's the easy choice.

In a stripped AspX, I would have no weapons, so lightweight mount mods are redundant. Lightweight Armour mods don't affect the stock Lightweight Alloys. Powerplant and Disty mods all seem to either add mass or not affect it at all.

Felicity works her magic on your drives and gives you a decent jump range... that's all well and good: But there doesn't seem to be much more one can do after that. All I can see that's useful to explorers is:

• Enhanced, low power shields: Gives you some minor weight reduction.
• Lightweight Point Defence (if you use them), but that makes little difference when they're only 0.5t anyway.
• Lightweight life support: Actually fairly significant dropping a couple of tons on D-rated LSUs. If you lose your O[SUB]2[/SUB] when you're thousands of LY from the bubble, you're probably gonna die anyway.

Have I missed anything? What else have you stripped back with the help of engineers to reduce your weight?

I'd love a few more Explorer engineer mods, most of which would be around reducing mass - Felicity must have a few ideas about that! For example:

• Lightweight hull modification: Strip back non-essential plating, carpets and panels to reduce mass at the expense of integrity and/or hardness. Negative Modifier applied to hull mass. Who needs that extra chair anyway?
• Lightweight Powerplant: Retains power output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and (of course) mass.
• Lightweight Thrusters: Retains thruster output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and mass.
• Lightweight AFMU: Lose integrity and lower ammo count, reduce mass. Most explorers with an SRV will be able to re-stock anyway.
• Lightweight Planetary Vehicle Hangar: Reduces deployment/retrieval speed and integrity for reduced mass.
• Efficient Fuel Scoop: Increases scoop's power draw but improves thermal efficiency (?) and reduces mass.
• Lightweight Shield Generator: Trades mass for slower recharge rate & lower total shielding. Explorers only really use them for soft landings anyway!
• Focussed Scanner: Increases range of the Detailed Surface Scanner, so you can start surveying from further out.
• Lightweight ADS: Reduces mass of the Advanced Discovery Scanner but increases the honk time and/or reduces integrity.
• Thermally Conductive HRP: Replaces armoured hull reinforcement for a thermally conductive layer that reduces the heat build-up from scooping too close to a star. Tradeoff is reduced hardness / hull integrity (maybe mass? Copper & aluminium heatsinks are quite light compared to tough tungsten/steel alloys, right?)

Fellow Explorers: Your thoughts?

Not bad,except for one thing...
How would reducing weight on both the AFMU and fuel scoop work?
They both already weighs zero
as for the DSS, not just range, but speed!!!
make the DSS much faster, that's the most annoying part of exploring right now!
good start though, rep+ for you!

 

[GraXXoR]

Nice suggestions although the AFMU is already massless, or it was...

 

[V'larr]

[*]Enhanced, low power shields: Gives you some minor weight reduction.

If you're wanting to trade shield capability for less weight, I'd just go with a D-rated or lower class shield and stick to maximizing resistances as much as possible with whatever shielding I have left.

Which is why I kinda don't understand why this particular blueprint exists....

[*]Lightweight Point Defence (if you use them), but that makes little difference when they're only 0.5t anyway.

Yeah, as you point out, it's probably not worth the materials, unless you're on a ship heavily affected by even the slighest chance in tonnage.

[*]Lightweight life support: Actually fairly significant dropping a couple of tons on D-rated LSUs. If you lose your O[SUB]2[/SUB] when you're thousands of LY from the bubble, you're probably gonna die anyway.

This one, totally useful, especially for ships that *must* use high-class life support. You could even consider using it on an A-rated LSU for the extra benefit (not that that's likely to help in deep space, but still).

[*]Lightweight hull modification: Strip back non-essential plating, carpets and panels to reduce mass at the expense of integrity and/or hardness. Negative Modifier applied to hull mass. Who needs that extra chair anyway?

Well, the default lightweight alloy bulkheads have a weight of "0" (the ship's default weight includes these, so to speak), you can't really get any lighter than 0...I mean, I get what you're saying, but I look at it as the default bulkheads already being the minimum necessary for the strains of regular space flight.

[*]Lightweight Powerplant: Retains power output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and (of course) mass.

I'd like a lightweight powerplant mod, just not one that reduces thermal efficiency. I like my thermal efficiency!

[*]Lightweight Thrusters: Retains thruster output but reduces thermal efficiency, integrity and mass.

Interesting idea for keeping thruster performance without a jump range penalty, I wonder if those are sufficient trade-offs though...?

[*]Lightweight AFMU: Lose integrity and lower ammo count, reduce mass. Most explorers with an SRV will be able to re-stock anyway.

Can confirm these already have no weight. If anything I'd like a mod that reduces the power draw....

[*]Lightweight Planetary Vehicle Hangar: Reduces deployment/retrieval speed and integrity for reduced mass.

I'd like this, too. Increased power draw could/would be a likely trade-off for this, I think.

[*]Efficient Fuel Scoop: Increases scoop's power draw but improves thermal efficiency (?) and reduces mass.

Fuel scoops have no mass already, but I'd like this as well - I'm all for improved thermal efficiency!

[*]Lightweight Shield Generator: Trades mass for slower recharge rate & lower total shielding. Explorers only really use them for soft landings anyway!

Same problem with that as the lower-power-enhanced blueprint mentioned above, I think.

[*]Focussed Scanner: Increases range of the Detailed Surface Scanner, so you can start surveying from further out.

Makes sense, kind of like the improved range on the FSD interdictor....

[*]Lightweight ADS: Reduces mass of the Advanced Discovery Scanner but increases the honk time and/or reduces integrity.

Well...it's only 2 tons, this could help very small ships to be used for exploring I guess?

[*]Thermally Conductive HRP: Replaces armoured hull reinforcement for a thermally conductive layer that reduces the heat build-up from scooping too close to a star. Tradeoff is reduced hardness / hull integrity (maybe mass? Copper & aluminium heatsinks are quite light compared to tough tungsten/steel alloys, right?)

So basically, instead, a 'permanent heatsink' module that can be put into optional internals? That'd be pretty neat.

There, you have my thoughts!

 

[Chris Simon]

@V'larr - Regarding one of your points - We do have lightweight powerplant mod.
Just take a powerplant one class lower and overcharge it. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you even gain thermal efficiency.

 

[Deareim]

Thanks for the info but I think the gain of it doesn t worth the time spending grinding the material.

 

[Chris Simon]

Thanks for the info but I think the gain of it isn't worth the time spending grinding the material.

Speaking about "worth the time" to explorers is... well...

Anyway. The beauty of these things is that you usually only need Grade 1 mod to gain the lightweight secondary effect. Grade one meaning that for most of the things you need only one unit of basic materials that are found in scores per hour.

 

[AgamemnonWhen]

How would reducing weight on both the AFMU and fuel scoop work? They both already weighs zero

Good point! You're right, of course - as weird as that is from a gameplay perspective - I'm not sure how a sophisticated hydrogen collector and a high-tech self-repair "robot" module have zero weight, but I'm not complaining!

How about replacing those with:

AFMU UPS: AFMU has a battery backup (so you can repair your power plant), but you sacrifice ammo capacity / performance.

Focussed Fuel Scoop: Tight-beam Bussard collector allows refuelling from further away, but you have to be pointing the ramscoop towards the star.

 

[V'larr]

@V'larr - Regarding one of your points - We do have lightweight powerplant mod.
Just take a powerplant one class lower and overcharge it. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you even gain thermal efficiency.

That's not an actual blueprint though...and I'm not sure I've ever seen a secondary effect for thermal efficiency that would outweigh a g5 overcharge roll? Not that that's strictly necessary to use g5, I guess, but still.

The main thing for me is the heat efficiency - otherwise if weight is the primary concern I'd just use a D-rate powerplant.

 

[Chris Simon]

That's not an actual blueprint though...and I'm not sure I've ever seen a secondary effect for thermal efficiency that would outweigh a g5 overcharge roll? Not that that's strictly necessary to use g5, I guess, but still.

The main thing for me is the heat efficiency - otherwise if weight is the primary concern I'd just use a D-rate powerplant.

Yes, I know.
I just wanted to point out that if you use undersized, but A-rated PP (For example 2A instead of 3D, you will end up with better efficiency AND lighter ship.

 

[roboteconomist]

The same could be said about using the high charge capacity mod to fit a smaller power distributor. Too bad that there isn't a mod to boost optimal mass on thrusters -- you could save weight there too.

 

[Chris Simon]

The same could be said about using the high charge capacity mod to fit a smaller power distributor. Too bad that there isn't a mod to boost optimal mass on thrusters -- you could save weight there too.

If you get lucky with secondaries, you can get positive OM on clean drives. But I actually haven't tested if it is enough to justify downgrading to lower class.
But when Horizons first hit, I had a one class lower drives on my Asp and still was able to safely operate on planets up to 3G, so I think it's doable.

 

[Y nt Zoidberg7]

There is another kinda useful blueprint you left off your list- increasing the ammo capacity for heatsinks, from 3-4...although they really need to just let us synthesis the ammo. And it'd be nice in the next update if we could get some useful blueprints for some of the placeholders- at least I hope they were placeholders- why I need a fuel scoop with 300 integrity I have no idea.

 

[roboteconomist]

If you get lucky with secondaries, you can get positive OM on clean drives. But I actually haven't tested if it is enough to justify downgrading to lower class.
But when Horizons first hit, I had a one class lower drives on my Asp and still was able to safely operate on planets up to 3G, so I think it's doable.

I think the most Opt Mass boost you could get from a secondary effect is 5 or 10%. That's the difference between a grade D and C drive of the same class, not an A and E of different classes.

 

[bookmite]

I get what the op means, doing the engineering can take ages to sort out, and gets frustrating when you're itching to get going on your journey. The only benefit I can see is to get a maximum possible jump range , reduce your mass as much as possible and be done with it. I haven't done the sums, but even a 25% increase would significantly reduce your travel time I'm sure

Go for level 5 if you can be bothered to get all the materials, if not don't bother, it will just take you longer, but what you've never had, you'll never miss

 

[z33r0x]

I could suggest low emession powerplant, grade 3, to keep ship cooler, in this way, you can jump faster from the sun without overheating your ship, I did that when I went to Colonia, it was really nice, recommend it.