Ships How about this exploration Beluga Liner?

I'll make a few comments, because I really can't help myself, staying out of build threads.

Overriding it all is that you should fly whatever you want, however you want it. Everyone has a different vision. This build does not fit mine, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

A few changes I would suggest....

Four SRVs is excessive. With a few common mats, you can repair them through synthesis. I think two is plenty.

Put Heavy Duty on your stock alloys. This will add no mass while increasing integrity

Lightweight your life support and heat sinks

A single pulse laser won't do much. I\d either go fully armed or unarmed. My exploration ships, and my Orca (I don't own a Beluga for reasons) are unarmed. Or add mining lasers if that's what you want to be doing out there. As it sits, one of each of these makes it poor at both, in my view.

I'm no fan of D-rated thrusters. Speed is life, and the additional capability will pay off at the crucial moments on high-G worlds. Going to 7A would cause power issues, so that would have to be revisited too. Plenty of commanders use Ds, just not my style. 6D thrusters have an optimal mass well below what this ship actually weighs.

This build is quite different than what I go for, so I feel a little unqualified to critique it. But with some of these changes I think you could improve it a bit.

Not sure this will help at all, but here is my Orca in long range exploration trim. A different ship obviously, but it shows the engineering I like. It is fast, good jump and idles at 14% heat, which isn't crucial, but is an advantage, particularly when scooping. It takes advantage of heat and power-saving engineering such as Enhanced Low Power, Lo-Draw, Thermal Spread and Low Emissions

 
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The single pulse laser is usually used for research - some lifeforms react when tickled and this lets you check another box (and get a few credits) in the Codex.
The fighters are usually brought by the pilots of big, slow lumbering ships ;) - for photo ops and to have a little bit of agile fun in canyons or when meeting other CMDRs.
I'd go for an A-rated lightweight life support (make a short stop at creepy Etienne, or just go for grade 4 with Lori). 25 minutes between synthesis will make reaching the nearest DSSA carrier a bit easier in a worst case situation.
Yes, 4 SRVs are a bit excessive - but on the other hand, those 7 tons just give him another 0.3 ly jump range, so why not. Less than 1%.
For me, on a Beluga, though (I'm usually a small/medium ship pilot), I might swap the SCA for an ADC. My nightmare would be getting stuck in the toast rack when returning. On the third hand, though - landing on a friendly carrier (or low-g planetary outpost) and buying (or transferring) a stored bubble taxi isn't a big issue, either.
 
The single pulse laser is usually used for research - some lifeforms react when tickled and this lets you check another box (and get a few credits) in the Codex.

Thanks. My ignorance meant I couldn't see the utility. So I retract the comments about how it is armed. I see now.

And the point about the SRV hangar is good too. But we all look for every edge we can. Here it isn't significant you are right. But it's still lighter! :)

The bigger hangar also draws more power, but I imagine most would have it shut down when it's not in use.
 
I'll make a few comments, because I really can't help myself, staying out of build threads.

I feel the same about the entire forum tbh.

I’m not sure I would ever use such a big ship to land on a planet to use the SRV, some of those distant places have the tiniest of planets with mats at the bottom of a valley that thing is never finding a parking spot in.

Each to their own though.
 
I'll make a few comments, because I really can't help myself, staying out of build threads.
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Thanks for feedback! @Ashnak summed upped most of it pretty nicely. I´m in VR and theres nothing better then boosting through a canyon in one of those small agile ships. Also 4 SRV´s is a bit much but what I loose in jump range is neglible and if I would be tempted to geiser jump an SRV in to outer space I can afford to loose one or two :) .
I agree on the thrusters. Will probably look at A rating those. Also look in to engineering my hull (y)

Thanks for the Orca build!

The single pulse laser is usually used for research - some lifeforms react when tickled and this lets you check another box (and get a few credits) in the Codex.
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Yes yes and yes! I think SCA is a must on long expo trips, if going faaar in to a system and be able to get up and have a drink and maybe check out the spa area of the beluga for some R´n´R while the ship flies itself :)

Havent even test flied the Beluga yet so will practice some docking for sure. Have only used the ADC once in some new-player-tutorial-thingy some months ago so have had plenty of manual docking practice with other ships. But I understand the Beluga is extreme in this case.

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I’m not sure I would ever use such a big ship to land on a planet to use the SRV, some of those distant places have the tiniest of planets with mats at the bottom of a valley that thing is never finding a parking spot in.
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Yes that is indeed a "problem". Also the lousy SC handling of larger ships. But im in VR and the canopy is super important. Combine that with the fact that i want minimum 50 jump range and a load of gear including SLF´s there´s not many ships fitting my needs.

This is my Exploraluga.
https://s.orbis.zone/8td0
I go for survival over jumprange.

Thanks for sharing!
 
I tweaked the build a bit based on feedback and rethinking things:

I now have 7A thrusters and even a bit dirty for some extra boost :cool:

Bigger shield and AFMU and much smaller cargo rack. I will fly unladen most of the time anyway and synth limpets as i need them.

Im trying to keep my planned engineerings realistic as I dont have much patience for G4 and G5 mats.

I really really wish there was an explorer SLF that could hold an SRV and could land on planets :)
 
I really really wish there was an explorer SLF that could hold an SRV and could land on planets :)

I imagine you want something that could be deployed from a mother ship. I wanted to do some bubble exploration, and instead of my usual exploration ship suspects, I wanted to do it with a SRV and canyon running at ludicrous speed. The Courier is one of my favorite ships. It's a bounty hunter by trade, but a little re-jigging and module swapping and this is what I used

Velocity Explo Trim

Good jump, especially around the bubble. Not sure I'd take this out deep. Excellent speed, good protection, a SRV. Not its normal role as I said, but can be repurposed in a blink to mix things up. Take all pips off ENG when landing!!

Not sure why the HRP (and DSS) is greyed out but it has more integrity than the total at the top. And if you own a carrier, this is indeed like a SLF from a mother ship :)
 
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Haha yea yea you know what i mean :geek:

I imagine you want something that could be deployed from a mother ship. I wanted to do some bubble exploration, and instead of my usual exploration ship suspects, I wanted to do it with a SRV and canyon running at ludicrous speed. The Courier is one of my favorite ships. It's a bounty hunter by trade, but a little re-jigging and module swapping and this is what I used

Velocity Explo Trim

Good jump, especially around the bubble. Not sure I'd take this out deep. Excellent speed, good protection, a SRV. Not its normal role as I said, but can be repurposed in a blink to mix things up. Take all pips off ENG when landing!!

Not sure why the HRP (and DSS) is greyed out but it has more integrity than the total at the top. And if you own a carrier, this is indeed like a SLF from a mother ship :)

Yes I had such high hopes for the courier because i LOVE the imperial eagle, But I just cant stand the nose of it in VR. I really really tried to get used to it but no go. Same reason I will probably never own an Anaconda. If the cockpit had been more like the imp eagle it would be high on my my "potential exploration ships" list since no SLF´s needed when your main ship is a basically an SLF :)

Anyways yesterday I finally massacered enough pirates to be able to afford an Beluga Liner. I grandfathered some of the expensive modules from my T10 so I approximated my theoretical build and took it on a test spin and oooooh noooo the heat in SC i absolutely terrible! :LOL:

Time to rethink. I haven't got much experience with heat management but main thing seems to be getting your power plant as efficient as possible and turn off everything that's not in use. So I will try out this build: https://s.orbis.zone/celv

Very efficient power plant, cleaned those dirty drives and turned off everything thats not used in SC. The things only used in SC is on prio 2 so if i turn on any of the powered off modules they will go off, and thats fine.

Also equipped some shield boosters that only will be on when docking and landing at planets because wow this ship is BIG o_O

I think I have to gather some more engineering mats before getting there though sigh
 
Actually, if SC heat is your problem, then Dirty drives are supposed to be (slightly) better than clean drives. Thrusters are not contributing to the heat in SC, but their power consumption will - and clean uses more power than dirty. The niche for clean thrusters is smuggling and other "dark" ships that need to operate in real space.
PP - if you can tolerate the heat, armoured is usually considered the better option. Improves integrity (and the PP is the only thing you can't repair in the field) with slight improvements in power generation and heat. Armoured G5/thermal spread usually gets 0.32 efficiency.
That brings me to the next pooint - not only switch off anything you don't need, also downsize or D-rate anything else you do need. That Beluga is fine with 6A thrusters - you're still below optimum mass there.
You probably could step down to a 4A PP - but that might become a problem if you aren't very careful with power management on planetary landings: you're landed, so thrusters are off, power on SRV hangar, leave the ship --> all ok.
Now the ship takes off on autopilot, which means thrusters are activated... power failure, everything goes off, boom.
 
Actually, if SC heat is your problem, then Dirty drives are supposed to be (slightly) better than clean drives. Thrusters are not contributing to the heat in SC, but their power consumption will - and clean uses more power than dirty. The niche for clean thrusters is smuggling and other "dark" ships that need to operate in real space.
PP - if you can tolerate the heat, armoured is usually considered the better option. Improves integrity (and the PP is the only thing you can't repair in the field) with slight improvements in power generation and heat. Armoured G5/thermal spread usually gets 0.32 efficiency.
That brings me to the next pooint - not only switch off anything you don't need, also downsize or D-rate anything else you do need. That Beluga is fine with 6A thrusters - you're still below optimum mass there.
You probably could step down to a 4A PP - but that might become a problem if you aren't very careful with power management on planetary landings: you're landed, so thrusters are off, power on SRV hangar, leave the ship --> all ok.
Now the ship takes off on autopilot, which means thrusters are activated... power failure, everything goes off, boom.

Ah thanks! So the powerplant cant be repaired, I did not know that :oops:

Ok this build looks very nice in terms of power used and pp integrity, and even 1 lightyear or so extra jump range! (y)

I´m usually not in a rush somewhere, but if I want to cover some distance I want to be able to get in to that nice "jump - scoop/honk/chargeFSD - jump" flow. It was impossible to charge FSD even on the tail end of leaving the star while scooping in the build I tried yesterday and I can imagine that gets old real quick when out in the black.

Ok new plan! I took your build and realized I can downgrade the shield boosters to E rated for another .3 or so jump range. They are mostly an extra luxury anyway.

So now I' m here:

Edit: And regarding the smaller PP. I dont think I should handle a build thats able to self-destruct in that way. :LOL: That would be bound to happen sooner or later in my case
 
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I call clean drives a trap. By all means use them if you like them, I did too for a long time. I focus on heat in my builds, and I believed clean drives were the right solution. I had the Orca, an AspX, DBX and even an Anaconda using clean drives! I know right?

One day I happened to notice that clean drives draw more power. And since power draw is what creates heat I wondered how much cooler clean drives actually are. So I ran some tests.

I had been under the mistaken impression that dirty drives would make the ship hotter all of the time, something I did not want in my cool ships. What I found was there is some increase in thermal load, but only when the thrusters are being used. Makes sense right? But what I failed to consider is that the thrusters are only used when speed is changed or the ship is maneuvered. So as soon as you reach a stable speed and attitude the thrusters stop producing heat and the ship returns to it's cool state.

Even then, the difference was a few percentage points of heat. Where it really shows is chain-boosting, where the additional heat stacks through the boosts. Once I realized this I re-did my ships with dirty drives. They become much faster, and since dirty drives draw less power than clean, some of the heat gain is traded off intrinsically. For a point or three of heat, the loss in speed potential is not worth the trade off in my view.

My clean drive days are in the past now. And as Ashnak noted, this does not apply to supercruise, so anyone using clean drives for say better scooping is not getting the benefit they think they are. It only has an effect in normal space, and even then, as my test showed, the difference is minor.
 
I call clean drives a trap. By all means use them if you like them, I did too for a long time. I focus on heat in my builds, and I believed clean drives were the right solution. I had the Orca, an AspX, DBX and even an Anaconda using clean drives! I know right?

One day I happened to notice that clean drives draw more power. And since power draw is what creates heat I wondered how much cooler clean drives actually are. So I ran some tests.

I had been under the mistaken impression that dirty drives would make the ship hotter all of the time, something I did not want in my cool ships. What I found was there is some increase in thermal load, but only when the thrusters are being used. Makes sense right? But what I failed to consider is that the thrusters are only used when speed is changed or the ship is maneuvered. So as soon as you reach a stable speed and attitude the thrusters stop producing heat and the ship returns to it's cool state.

Even then, the difference was a few percentage points of heat. Where it really shows is chain-boosting, where the additional heat stacks through the boosts. Once I realized this I re-did my ships with dirty drives. They become much faster, and since dirty drives draw less power than clean, some of the heat gain is traded off intrinsically. For a point or three of heat, the loss in speed potential is not worth the trade off in my view.

My clean drive days are in the past now. And as Ashnak noted, this does not apply to supercruise, so anyone using clean drives for say better scooping is not getting the benefit they think they are. It only has an effect in normal space, and even then, as my test showed, the difference is minor.

Interesting. Heat, and heat in relation to power draw, is one of the more esoteric parameters in the fine art of ED ship building I think.

But yep my drives are back to as dirty as G3 can be as suggested by @Ashnak
(with some thermal spread for good measure)
 
Yes I had such high hopes for the courier because i LOVE the imperial eagle, But I just cant stand the nose of it in VR. I really really tried to get used to it but no go.

Perfectly reasonable position, and as a Track IR devotee not one I would not have considered. I love the cockpit of the Courier. It evokes those cool 1950s fighter jets like the F-86 Sabre and F-80 Shooting Star with the canopy framing. I use a blue HUD scheme, and it just dovetails so nicely with the smart blue piping in the Courier cockpit. Top three ship for me :)

Krait II, Orca, Courier, in no particular order.
 
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Perfectly reasonable position, and as a Track IR devotee not one I would not have considered. I love the cockpit of the Courier. It evokes those cool 1950s fighter jets like the F-86 Sabre and F-80 Shooting Star with the canopy framing. I use a blue HUD scheme, and it just dovetails so nicely with the smart blue piping in the Courier cockpit. Top three ship for me :)

Krait II, Orca, Courier, in no particular order.

Aaaargh you´re making me want to have another go with Courier again :LOL:
If there only was a way to turn of those two blue dots in the front I think it would be more tolerable.

Krait 2 is awesome and is my main explorer right now! Need to check out the Orca some time.

Right now I'm broke and mostly out of manufactured mats. I guess ill fire up that Courier and do some mission running and see if there will be love after all :)
 
A few laps around Dav's Hope with a few HGEs along the way and you'll be set.

One of my Kraits is what I call a combat sweeper. Outfitted with collector limpets it's role is to scoop the mats dropped from combat kills. Each time I log on I try to do a little bounty hunting and grab some more. Then when I am ready to engineer something I have plenty of trade bait on board to get the stuff I actually need. HGEs are great obviously because those G5 mats go a long way at the trader. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

You're in ship-building mode at the mo PR-303, and I know that burns through them mighty fast.

This is the combat sweeper Krait. I just finally got around to unlocking GSRs recently to finish it off. Great speed, jump, protection, idles at 28% heat. This is the ship I fly most often

Poison Whiskey
 
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You're in ship-building mode at the mo PR-303, and I know that burns through them mighty fast.

Haha indeed it does! I know of Dav´s Hope but have never been there. Time for a visit me thinks.

But ship building plans on hold for now. Went over to HIP 54530 to support Jupiter Division. Would love to see a new slightly insane ship builder in game (y)

Thanks for the Krait build. Bookmarked for later. Will use my trusty Chieftain for the combat CG. (even though I get beat up pretty bad in CZ's usually)
 
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