Ships Conda explo thrusters - 6D, 6A or 7D?

[Scott Scale]

I'm currently engineering a highly modded Conda for deep exploration. This is an old build I used, but since I haven't played for 2 years all my mods are legacy and since I have to fix that anyway, I decided to completely remake it.
My current build has 6D thrusters with no mods and 5D distributor with engine focused mod. However I am not entirely satisfied with handling and turning, also landing on anything higher than 1.5G is a tricky business. I plan to apply dirty drives but before I do that I am considering if I should change the thrusters first. I am however relucant to do it as it means more mass, thus less jump range.
So the question really is: does DD modding improve handling in any significant manner or should I go for 6A or 7D and THEN mod it? I am considering 7D as alternative as it's a bit lighter than 6A but I am not certain how good it will be in "oh !" situations if I ever need to abort landing and boost away. What are your thoughts?

Current build: https://s.orbis.zone/3_tr
Please note that not all engineering is complete, mostly due to lack of materials.

 

[everstream]

The answer is as usual - it depends on. How much of the jump range are you ready to sacrifice. My Explorer Annie has 7A thrusters, good shield, armour, full weaponry and much more modules, but goes 300m/s on 4 pips and 400 in boost. Why do you take weapons and a fighter with you, if you don't make an armoured power plant (brings also more power) and you don't have even a single shield booster? I have built this one: Explorer Annie ... have still to get the fixed variants of guadian shards and am also not sure, whether I'll take an ECM instead of second PD. But all in all, that iss the build for the moment. For me a jump range of 45,19 laden is OK. The good thing is as maneuvrable as my transporter/trader Corvett and is a little bit faster as it.

 

[everstream]

One hint more, although you probably easily notice this in my build - take a 4G SRV hangar. What will you do, if you loose your one and only SRV by accidentally rolling down a crater or shot to pieces by a guardian/thargoid sentinel? Go back to bubble with risk of needing materials for jumponium and/or repaisr and not heving them? Give yourself a second chance and take two SRVs with you.

 

[Zeb Lazarus]

Greetings,

This is what I'm currently running out in the black: https://s.orbis.zone/41ch and its treating me pretty well. I went with 5D dirty drag drives with a 5D Stripped down engine focused Distributor (249 m/s cruise, 342 m/s boost) and its came in handy for me a few times now (I tend to land somewhere when I'm logging off for the night). On this trip the highest I've dropped down on is a 2.5G planet but I didn't have any issues ...except for maybe not paying enough attention to how fast I was descending… However I feel that I could definitely land on something with a few more G's and be fine. I feel the dirty drives and a distributer that allows me to boost was definitely worth it. I don't have any weapons like your build, so you would have to do a bit differently if you wanted to keep them. Also, the fighter bay is just for fun really and you could pick up a few more Ly by ditching it.

 

[Scott Scale]

Thank you all for your input. I have already changed PP to armoured, that was old build. I have SLF because I like flying them over planetary surface. It's just another tools for exploring

 

[Innocentius]

On the highest G planets thruster performance does not matter at all. You know that right? Anyhow, I made some small change suggestions to your build. The 5D thrusters with DD5 and Drag drives does actually give pretty good performance to anaconda because it is so light in exploration outfit (you have to go all the way to 6A to see a significant change in the thruster performance and above that it does not matter again as from 6A to 7A there is almost no difference because of the light build). I also added some shield strength to make landing a bit safer if you are struggling with it at times.

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EDIT: Just to clarify DD5 and drag drives improves handling immensely in normal space for anaconda. Just not on very high G planets where handling is capped on the downside by the game mechanics. See:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/thrusters-acceleration-and-high-g-planets.218171/

 

[Zeb Lazarus]

I actually didn't know that about high G planets. Thanks for the info, that's very useful! I haven't ever done any landings on anything above 3 G but something I need to practice once I get back in the bubble.