Does top speed signify maneuverability and acceleration?

space voyager

space voyager
For a long time I've been equipping my exploration ships with max thrusters, engineered to the full. I want to have fun around planets and asteroids and good thrust helps. But for kicks I tried equipping D rated thrusters, even a class smaller - and top speed was practically the same due to the low mass of the ship.

Does that mean the same maneuverability and acceleration, too? Meaning that huge thrusters on a low-mass ship are totally wasted?
 

Gavin786

Gavin786
Absolute best bet when working out anything like that about your ship is to go to https://coriolis.io or edshipyard.

You can build your ship there and see all the parameters of it's performance including maneuverability(but NOT acceleration - would be great to have that!). I dont know if anyone has bothered measuring that for the ships. Would be some fantastic stats to see.

If you go to the "Profiles" tab on coriolis you will see the maneuverability stats for the ship.

CMDR Gavin786
 

CMDR Harada

CMDR Harada
NO.

But you can validate that by doing a timed test. Try timing 10 loops, rolls, and turns. Swap out to better/worse thrusters and try again. Better graded and engineered wins for identical mass. The PVP'ers wouldn't be doing it ( the good ones, anyway ) if it wasn't worth it.
 

Sylow

Sylow
CMDR Harada said:
The PVP'ers wouldn't be doing it ( the good ones, anyway ) if it wasn't worth it.
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Might be true. But keep in mind, speed by itself already is absolutely worth it. If you can control the distance, you can control the fight.

Mind you, it's true that engineering also improves ship handling, i just wanted to point out that merely "PvPers use it" doesn't necessarily mean it gives handling improvements. I even think that for a number of PvP setups handling disadvantages would be accepted in favour of higher speed and thus distance control.
 

space voyager

space voyager
CMDR Harada said:
NO.

But you can validate that by doing a timed test. Try timing 10 loops, rolls, and turns. Swap out to better/worse thrusters and try again. Better graded and engineered wins for identical mass. The PVP'ers wouldn't be doing it ( the good ones, anyway ) if it wasn't worth it.
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PvPers all have heavy ships so naturally the bigger the better. I was testing with exploration builds and those easily fall into the optimal mass requirement of smaller or D-rated thrusters.

I was testing with Anaconda and 7A and 7D thrusters gave me same speed with and without boosting. This got me thinking as the mass (and jump) difference is quite high.

Ok, Coriolis it is I guess.
 

rrobes

R
I've found that A5 thrusters improve the agility of the large ships and get you higher boost speeds (though that higher boost may be of little difference in some of the large ships when everything else is 100+ faster). The Cutter is the exception with its superior boost.
 

CMDR Cknarf

CMDR Cknarf
Even if they're not totally equal (Which in this case, they may be, I'm not sure) it's not like any slight maneuvering advantage would make much difference in an exploration ship.

As for PvP stuff, you're going to see The best A rated thrusters Dirty/Drag on nearly everything, the exception being ships equipped with Enhanced Performance Thrusters, then you may see Drive Distributors being used instead of drag.
 

Cmdr Nemo

Cmdr Nemo
WR3ND said:
As far as I know, supercruise maneuverability is ship specific and not affected by loadouts. They can affect things like heat tolerance though.

Edit: Never mind; seems you guys are just talking about normal space.
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Where else but normal space does one utilize thrust-er's?
 

BradHann

BradHann
space voyager said:
I was testing with Anaconda and 7A and 7D thrusters gave me same speed with and without boosting.
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Not surprising - 7A and 7D thrusters both have Optimal Mass values far in excess of typical explorer builds. I currently run unengineered 5D on my Exploraconda which has Optimal Mass much much closer to my ship's actual mass. If you do this, you'll notice a dramatic difference in your speed.
 

space voyager

space voyager
Ok, I did my own testing, just for kicks. Had to fully engineer another 7D thruster... I compared 6A, 7D and 7A thrusters. Same (explorer) Anaconda setup, all complete level 5 dirty drives with drag drives, all pips to engines.Turned out my memory did NOT serve me well, so the info about 7A and 7D performing the same is WRONG, sorry.

But even more surprisingly, 6A and 7A performed exactly the same! I mean EXACTLY, the turn rates, top speeds, all the same far beyond my certanty of time measurement. Did three tests for each with each thruster, so I thrust ;) my results. The only statistical difference is that with 6A my jump range is 72,79LYs, with 7A it is 68,69LYs.

7D is actually a bad choice. The jump range is 73,68LYs, so less than 1LY extra for lessened performance. Turn and roll times aren't much worse but top speed is. If anyone's interested, I can post all the results (turn, roll times...), though they only apply to my build, naturally.

EDIT: Tried testing fully engineered 5A thrusters, too, but I wasn't able to mount them. My guess is that in most cases a size lesser drives will perform exactly the same in explorer builds. Which means I have two more thrusters to exchange... Well, one at least. Will test this with Krait mk.II, too.

EDIT2: Just remembered I could compare the accelerations, too. At least the times needed for the ship to reach 100m/s and full speed, that should do the trick.
 
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Stealthie

Stealthie
space voyager said:
For a long time I've been equipping my exploration ships with max thrusters, engineered to the full. I want to have fun around planets and asteroids and good thrust helps. But for kicks I tried equipping D rated thrusters, even a class smaller - and top speed was practically the same due to the low mass of the ship.

Does that mean the same maneuverability and acceleration, too? Meaning that huge thrusters on a low-mass ship are totally wasted?
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Blimey, that's a broad question.

There's all sorts of things to consider, such as weight, thermal efficiency, engineering and power requirements.

The best advice, as has been said, is probably to just have a play with coriolis.io to decide what's acceptable for your ship in it's intended use.

As a rule, I fit the biggest possible A-rated thrusters to my combat ships for ultimate performance, I fit the biggest possible D-rated thrusters to my multiroles, which usually doesn't make a big difference to performance (once they're engineered) but means I can fit a smaller PP/PDist to save a bit of weight and maximise jump-range, and I fit the smallest possible D-rated thrusters to my exploration ships.
 

space voyager

space voyager
Stealthie said:
Blimey, that's a broad question.

There's all sorts of things to consider, such as weight, thermal efficiency, engineering and power requirements.

The best advice, as has been said, is probably to just have a play with coriolis.io to decide what's acceptable for your ship in it's intended use.

As a rule, I fit the biggest possible A-rated thrusters to my combat ships for ultimate performance, I fit the biggest possible D-rated thrusters to my multiroles, which usually doesn't make a big difference to performance (once they're engineered) but means I can fit a smaller PP/PDist to save a bit of weight and maximise jump-range, and I fit the smallest possible D-rated thrusters to my exploration ships.
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Well, I used to put max thrusters to all my ships. Just so that I can have some fun even out there. But now I see that max thrusters sometimes make no difference at all! Well, except extra mass and thus shorter jump range. I didn't know this is the case so now I have an additional engine to engineer.

Considering I like my ships lively, D rated thrusters are obviously out of the question, especially smallest possible D. I'm not max-jump-range-addict, I also carry SLFs, SRVs etc. etc. on my exploration ships.
 

BradHann

BradHann
A or D is just a distraction, all you're really looking for is your Min, Max and Optimal Mass* values, and how they compare to your ship's current mass. I'm sure there are threads somewhere that go into excruciating detail about it. In simple terms - if your ship's mass equals your thruster's Optimal mass, then you'll get the baseline performance. As you lower your ship's mass, your thrusters will improve in performance, until you reach Min Mass, at which point going any lower will not provide further benefit. Conversely, as you increase mass, your thrusters will perform worse and worse, until you reach Max Mass, at which point you can't actually increase the ship's mass any further without upgrading your thrusters.

*Strictly talking about performance. Obviously there are other factors that go into overall ship build, like power draw, cost, etc.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
space voyager said:
Considering I like my ships lively, D rated thrusters are obviously out of the question, especially smallest possible D. I'm not max-jump-range-addict, I also carry SLFs, SRVs etc. etc. on my exploration ships.
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Don't be too quick to dismiss the idea.

I've got D-rated thrusters on a heap of ships, from Cutters and Annies to AspXs and DBXs, and most of 'em are still pretty lively.

My Cutters are cargo ships and fitting 8D thrusters knocks roughly 20m/s (cruise) and 40m/s (boost) off the speed... in a ship that doesn't really need to be good at running away.
Using them saved me Cr250m (in thrusters, PP & PDist) and made a worthwhile improvement to my jump-range.

I have 2 AspXs running 5D thrusters and they both do around 480(c)/520(b) m/sec and they both feel really agile to fly.
As an aside, anybody who thinks the AspX is a slug without engineering the thrusters really needs to DD5 one, which really sharpens up the way they fly.
Again, that's about 20m/s down on my mining AspXs, which are fitted with 5A thrusters.

Not gonna try and say D-rated thrusters are as good as A-rated, cos obviously they aren't, but in ships where speed/agility is a secondary requirement (rather than a primary one) it's well worth having a play with Coriolis before committing to a build in-game.
When you swap out A-rated thrusters for D-rated you can often fit a smaller PP/PDist and that'll help claw back some performance and improve your jump-range.

Course, my exploration Annie, with 5D thrusters, is undeniably a slug but I went to Beagle Point in a T10 so I'm okay with exploring in a slug. :unsure:
 
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