For those of you wise to the ways of the street, you know the phrase Mad Hops means having exceptional jumping ability. My DBX shares the name, and for that reason. Mine isn't exceptional, but it does hop madder than any other ship I own. I flew this one to Colonia last year, about 29 thousand light years the way the drunk crow flies. And back too, of course, much more soberly. Fitted out for that trip, or the way I see fit, she had a jump range of 64 and change. Over time she had gained some weight, as they tend to do through the years. I remember when we first met, and I had taken her out to the engineers, and she jumped 70. But that one had little on it, and anyway was too slow dammit. D-rated thrusters lasted about 2 hours, and half of that was spent engineering them. First time I flew it out after, I hit boost, looked back at the station, and it was still about the same spot haha. No no no. That was the last time I used non-As in any ship.
And then I thought about how I would use it. It's going to be one of the fastest DBX's around (500 Coriolis-world boost), but I also need it to survive. So class 4 shields, even if they are Ds, and engineered as they are, weigh just 2t. And of course what is a DBX without a rover? And that integrity could use a boost. HD/DP HRP. And before long 70 jump was but a memory. With enough stuff dropped maybe it would come close. But then it wouldn't be mission-capable, instead some ideal that never got flown that way. I would still toss out the occasional "my 70 jump DBX", even if that was only what it showed on max. And claiming max is like the skydiver bragging about his free fall velocity one foot above the ground. OK, well not like that, it seemed more clever before I wrote it. But who jumps 70 light years on an empty tank? Dead skydivers, that's who. I made it work.
But
thisclose to 65 jump range is good enough. Really it is. 70 though has a mystique to it, like shooting 63 at the Masters.
Then one day, actually yesterday, I walked in to a tech broker. Wasn't expecting to find anything, I never have before. But this time was different. Right there in front of me was the Class 5 Double Engineered Long Range Fast Boot FSD that was part of a CG I don't think I participated in. I had scoffed at it, as why would I need fast boot right? That's for min-max PvPers. And it costs mats, not money. You do not unlock it per se, you buy one with mats. Want a second one? Spend more mats. Want eight, lots of mats. Not cheap ones either. So I bought it, of course I did. Then I noticed what I had failed to already know. Fast Boot is not an experimental (double engineered!), and it has a higher optimal mass! It's not just long-range, it's longer-range. How did I not know this? So this means I can still add mass manager, keep the fast boot and get a better FSD than engineering allows. Yes please.
It just appears in your module storage. Do not buy one without the room! Bunch of hoarders 'round here, so this is possible haha. So tonight the first thing I did was swap to Mad Hops. What else? Installed the new FSD and flew to Felicity's shop. Added Mass Manager and boom, 70 light years jump. It took two jumps to get there, but only one to fly back. Some how the rover fell out, and I present the Madder Hops.
This thing has 71 (unladen) jump
I have ten ships in my fleet as mentioned and six of them have class 5 FSDs. Orca, DBX, and four Kraits haha. I guess most of the people reading this already knew what this FSD was, but I didn't. Not only am I glad I walked in to the tech broker, but that I had the mats!
Sometime later.... took my iEagle wake scanner out to scan some DWEs, but that was too slow, so flew to the Jameson Cobra to fill up on G5 encoded then traded enough to have 20 DWEs and bought two more of these. They do have higher mass, thermal load and power draw, plus lower integrity, according to the description, but the only differences I see are the 2s boot time, lower integrity, 16% higher thermal load and 8% higher optimal mass. Mass and power are the same. According to EDSY at least, idle is unchanged, still at 14%. I said 18% earlier but that was incorrect. FSD temp does increase four points, from 51 to 55%. For this sort of optimal mass increase it seems well worth the minor drawbacks. Going to try it in the Orca and one of the Kraits.