With Horizons and the addition of the SRV hangar, many exploration ships will find themselves sorely lacking in slots to install enough modules to adequately do the job. I've seen several other suggestions to remedy this: create a slot splitter module that would divide one slot into two lesser slots, create a combined scanner that is an ADS + DSS (Advanced Discovery Scanner plus Detailed Surface Scanner). However, both of these require quite a bit of work on FDev's part to implement and could create balance issues into other areas of the game.
In my opinion, the easiest and most elegant way to solve the internals problem for explorers is to simply move the DSS from an internal slot to a utility slot. Here are my reasons:
1) It's the easiest solution for FDev to implement. It doesn't affect ship mass, nor power curves, and all FDev has to do is change the module type flag in the game's code for the DSS from "internal" to "utility". It won't impact PvP nor PvE nor combat or trading, it will only provide explorers with more choices when it comes to choosing a ship to explore in.
2) There is precedence in the game for this already. The Kill Scanner for the combat types is already a utility slot, as is the Cargo Scanner for pirates, yet the Detailed Surface Scanner for explorers takes up an internal slot. Even from a continuity point of view the DSS should be a utility component.
3) It fixes the problem with ships like the Diamondback Explorer that simply won't be feasible for exploration after Horizons due to a lack of internals. Moving the DSS over to utility will allow the DBE and other ships to be useful again for real exploring, but still keep them less ideal than the big ships like the Asp and Anaconda.
To me it just seems like a reasonable, easy, and elegant solution to the problems introducing the SRV hangar is going to cause for explorers.
In my opinion, the easiest and most elegant way to solve the internals problem for explorers is to simply move the DSS from an internal slot to a utility slot. Here are my reasons:
1) It's the easiest solution for FDev to implement. It doesn't affect ship mass, nor power curves, and all FDev has to do is change the module type flag in the game's code for the DSS from "internal" to "utility". It won't impact PvP nor PvE nor combat or trading, it will only provide explorers with more choices when it comes to choosing a ship to explore in.
2) There is precedence in the game for this already. The Kill Scanner for the combat types is already a utility slot, as is the Cargo Scanner for pirates, yet the Detailed Surface Scanner for explorers takes up an internal slot. Even from a continuity point of view the DSS should be a utility component.
3) It fixes the problem with ships like the Diamondback Explorer that simply won't be feasible for exploration after Horizons due to a lack of internals. Moving the DSS over to utility will allow the DBE and other ships to be useful again for real exploring, but still keep them less ideal than the big ships like the Asp and Anaconda.
To me it just seems like a reasonable, easy, and elegant solution to the problems introducing the SRV hangar is going to cause for explorers.
