Overall, I support this idea. However there a few things here that I feel need to be addressed:
- The power plants of the scout and explorer are too small. They will have some serious power issues coupled with heat issues when the power plant is inevitably modded for more power. I would recommend giving them size 5 power plants for more comfortable thermal handling after engineers.
- The hardpoints are diabolically bad. I'm all for limiting the firepower of a new exploration ship, but this is just ridiculous. I would recommend giving the scout 4S and the explorer 2M + 2S.
- The fuel tanks on the scout and explorer are too small for dedicated exploration ships. A 5A FSD uses 5T of fuel per jump, meaning that it will go through a 16T fuel tank in about 3 jumps. The explorer doesn't have it much better, with 4 jumps before having an empty tank. I would recommend increasing the fuel tanks to a size 5 for the scout and a size 6 for the explorer.
- The explorer has an extremely low hull mass for having a size 6 FSD. It will be capable of massively out-jumping the anaconda. It would have something like an 86 LY max jump range when fully stripped down, and ~70 LY laden with a good exploration build. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but I thought it might be worth mentioning that the explorer might need an increase in hull mass.
Other than that, everything here seems pretty good. Hopefully we get something new in Q4
Great suggestions!
Admittedly, I didn't give much thought to the fuel usage, fuel tank or power. I also don't take weapons out into the void so I didn't think about them much.
If the python can fit 3L 4M into that small form factor and weight, then 4S / 2M 2S doesn't seem unreasonable.
I chose the mass on purpose, by my math, the explorer had about +10ly jump range on the conda. I did that on purpose since it seemed like it should be possible for somebody to double the size of the FSD in a python if they were willing to compromise other stuff, like half-sized thrusters, much smaller plant & distributor, fewer cargo holds, etc..
It would also be nice if the Scout version of the ship felt like a real choice and not just a budget version you'd only take if you didn't want to save up for the real ship.
Revised:
| Ship | AspX | New Scout | New Explorer | Python |
|---|
| Cost | 7m | 40m | 50m | 57m |
|---|
| Mass | 280 | 320 | 340 | 350 |
|---|
| Armor | 210 | 200 | 250 | 260 |
|---|
| Agility | 148 | 140 | 130 | 129 |
|---|
| Shield | 140 | 130 | 150 | 260 |
|---|
| Hardpoints | 2M 4S | 4S | 2M 2S | 3L 2M |
|---|
| Utilities | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
|---|
| Power | 5 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
|---|
| Thrusters | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
|---|
| FSD | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
|---|
| Life Support | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
|---|
| Distributor | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 |
|---|
| Sensors | 5 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|
| Fuel Tank | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
|---|
| Module Slots | 6533322 | 64333211 | 654333211 | 666554332 |
|---|
