How to build exploration ships

[newman1702]

Probably wrong area to ask for this, but does the materials in cargo affect the jump range? I mean, im going to use these remaining 2 weeks in collecting as much as materials as possible for SRV repairs, fuel and the most importantly FSD boost if and when needed.
But, will the 300 pieces of materials in cargo affect the jump range in any way?

Materials do not go into your cargo racks and do not add to your mass - and therefore don't affect your jump range at all. They are treated much like exploration data; they are always with you no matter what ship you switch to, the only difference is the maximum amount of materials you can have is capped at 300. But you do not need a cargo rack to collect and carry them at all. The only way materials affect your build and range is indirectly, through the fact that you need to carry at least one SRV in order to be able to collect them.

 

[Henkka77]

Ok thx, thats what i thought also but was unsure about. Back to Scarab then..

 

[Arnoldo]

Materials do not go into your cargo racks and do not add to your mass - and therefore don't affect your jump range at all. They are treated much like exploration data; they are always with you no matter what ship you switch to, the only difference is the maximum amount of materials you can have is capped at 300. But you do not need a cargo rack to collect and carry them at all. The only way materials affect your build and range is indirectly, through the fact that you need to carry at least one SRV in order to be able to collect them.

Although, if my reading of a post on this subject was correct, you dont necessarily need an SRV. It appears that, if you have a spotter on the ground finding and shooting the mats, you can can scoop from your ship...

 

[newman1702]

Although, if my reading of a post on this subject was correct, you dont necessarily need an SRV. It appears that, if you have a spotter on the ground finding and shooting the mats, you can can scoop from your ship...

Hardly practical or viable, but I suppose theoretically possible. There's no reason to do it since you still need Horizons to access the planetary surface, SRV or no SRV I haven't tested this, though, and it may get tricky to line up snowball sized lump of material with your entire ship without bumping it against the surface. Other than that, the scooping works similar to how you scoop cargo (though you need to be less precise, you just need to drive over the mats with your cargo scoop on - you can even collect them while they are still flying on lower gravity worlds, so in theory it should work the same with a ship's cargo scoop). Maybe it could be done in deep space if one explorer lost all their SRV's and another one is helping them find jumponium.. other than that I see no reason for it. I think Frontier should just let us abandon and pick up SRV's.

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

I'm testing various anaconda builds. The last one has 566T, 37,08 Jumprange and I've found that 28T are enough to make 4x 37 jumps.
I mean, not on coriolis, i launched, manually selected jumps that were just under 37 (no less than 36.5, like the route plotter would do in a good density area). I could do full 4 jumps. Sure one the last jump I almost had no fuel left,and the star wasn't scoopable I would have died.

Few post above someone wrote the every FSD has a fixed usage. I disagree.
the more the range the more fuel used
the more the mass the more the fuel used
the more the mass the less the range.

For 566T anaconda 28 is enough to make 4 jumps at 37. If I go down to 26T it's 3 jumps.
Loosing 4T of fuel lets me upgrade PD from 1D to 5A (boost), and loose only 1 ly range.
I have to test it on a 2000 ly route to see if problems occur, and have to understand if it makes it more complicated to jump on fumes, becouse that looks like my perfect loadout.

I'm between the ones that think tha boost in an anaconda is suicide more than safe, and in fact I've binded boost to a complicated series of buttons so i need a good second and coordinated movements to boost. Still having it is better for RP, the ship feels less a frame with a thruster, has a function more. A function that probably will make your demise, but more fun, considering the social nature of the expedition.

 

[c48113]

Looks like I need to make some changes to my Asp Explorer, too bad I'm 10,000 LY out. One thing I do different is I disable Shields and Vehicle Hanger and Leave Heat sinks active. I only enable Shields when landing, The ship runs cooler and if I jump into the middle of a couple of stars the heat sinks are ready to use.

 

[newman1702]

Looks like I need to make some changes to my Asp Explorer, too bad I'm 10,000 LY out. One thing I do different is I disable Shields and Vehicle Hanger and Leave Heat sinks active. I only enable Shields when landing, The ship runs cooler and if I jump into the middle of a couple of stars the heat sinks are ready to use.

That's really all up to the individual player. My personal preference is to leave the shield on (I never overheat with it on, anyway) and leave the heatsinks off until needed, because I have been known to hit the heatsink hotkey by mistake in the past - if they're off I can't accidentally launch one. I find there's usually plenty of time to bring one HSL online when needed before my heat goes over 100, but again - personal preference. Neither way is wrong, someone may prefer to have a HSL on at all times and have a binding that makes accidental deployment unlikely. I personally got used to a key physically close to my jump key, so.. yea

 

[c48113]

That's really all up to the individual player. My personal preference is to leave the shield on (I never overheat with it on, anyway) and leave the heatsinks off until needed, because I have been known to hit the heatsink hotkey by mistake in the past - if they're off I can't accidentally launch one. I find there's usually plenty of time to bring one HSL online when needed before my heat goes over 100, but again - personal preference. Neither way is wrong, someone may prefer to have a HSL on at all times and have a binding that makes accidental deployment unlikely. I personally got used to a key physically close to my jump key, so.. yea

Yea I set a couple heatsinks off by accident this trip, then I changed the fire groups so i have to change fire group then set off the heatsink, which works for me. I mainly turn shields off because they are only useful when being attacked, rammed or crashing into the surface and I haven't seen a ship for over a week. But all personal choices are good!

 

[puca]

Few post above someone wrote the every FSD has a fixed usage. I disagree.
the more the range the more fuel used
the more the mass the more the fuel used
the more the mass the less the range.

For 566T anaconda 28 is enough to make 4 jumps at 37. If I go down to 26T it's 3 jumps.
Loosing 4T of fuel lets me upgrade PD from 1D to 5A (boost), and loose only 1 ly range.
I have to test it on a 2000 ly route to see if problems occur, and have to understand if it makes it more complicated to jump on fumes, becouse that looks like my perfect loadout.

This is not something you can disagree with, because it's how the game works. Facts are not subject to your opinions.

A max range jump on a class 6 class A FSD always costs 8 T of fuel. Always. What changes is what the max range _is_. The more mass your ship has, the less the max range. Anacondas can go up to about 40 ly max range jumps with an exploration loadout. Or down to about 16 ly with a combat loadout. Both of those jumps would cost 8 T of fuel. If you don't believe me, you can go and test this right now.

 

[mbar]

Thank you. I am adjusting my Asp build with the OP advice. I'd +rep you but I must have done that already today. I am so looking forward to getting away from the bubble!

 

[dognosh]

Thread added to sticky

 

[relayer]

Great guide and great work! Thanks!

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

This is not something you can disagree with, because it's how the game works. Facts are not subject to your opinions.

A max range jump on a class 6 class A FSD always costs 8 T of fuel. Always. What changes is what the max range _is_. The more mass your ship has, the less the max range. Anacondas can go up to about 40 ly max range jumps with an exploration loadout. Or down to about 16 ly with a combat loadout. Both of those jumps would cost 8 T of fuel. If you don't believe me, you can go and test this right now.

As I wrote I tested it myself: 28T tank, 37,01Ly filled tank range. I went out and have done 4x 36,5 jumps without refuelling. Last one the tank was empty.

 

[Becquerel]

This is very good information!
I would just expand upon point 13, and say that every aspiring explorer should go through the following exercise:
1. Open galaxy map
2. On the view tab, set the filter to show star class
3. Un-check all of the scoop-able stars (O, B, A, F, G, K, and M). Now only the "bad" stars are visible.
4. Move your cursor up and down along the Y axis and observe the plane of stars from roughly -25 to -45

Note that this plane of bad stars is galaxy wide and be aware of it when plotting your route.
I use a half-sized fuel tank (4C) in my Asp and have been to the galactic center several times without running out.
Awareness of that plane of stars is key.

 

[newman1702]

This is very good information!
I would just expand upon point 13, and say that every aspiring explorer should go through the following exercise:
1. Open galaxy map
2. On the view tab, set the filter to show star class
3. Un-check all of the scoop-able stars (O, B, A, F, G, K, and M). Now only the "bad" stars are visible.
4. Move your cursor up and down along the Y axis and observe the plane of stars from roughly -25 to -45

Note that this plane of bad stars is galaxy wide and be aware of it when plotting your route.
I use a half-sized fuel tank (4C) in my Asp and have been to the galactic center several times without running out.
Awareness of that plane of stars is key.

I agree, and it's good advice, but going a bit out of bounds of a specifically ship-building tutorial, it expands on how to use filters on a galaxy map which then starts being more of a general exploration tutorial - something that has been written very well several times already by members of this community I think it's enough to just mention not to forget the z-axis when plotting; the unscoopable regions are easily avoided.

 

[ASC]

As I wrote I tested it myself: 28T tank, 37,01Ly filled tank range. I went out and have done 4x 36,5 jumps without refuelling. Last one the tank was empty.

Interesting. This must be mostly the effect of the ship getting lighter and having a longer range as you use up the fuel. I'm surprised it is so pronounced.

But burning up around 8T of fuel only increases your jump range by 0.5LY. And 36.5 isn't close to 37 when you're dealing with similar sized changes to the range. I think if you were trying to do 4 jumps of 37.0LY rather than 36.5, you would not make the last one.

But right now I'm flying an anaconda with just 18T of fuel. So 28T is plenty.

 

[iain666]

As I wrote I tested it myself: 28T tank, 37,01Ly filled tank range. I went out and have done 4x 36,5 jumps without refuelling. Last one the tank was empty.

Yep, those are nearly full range jumps - not full range jumps (and each jump is further away from the full range as the fuel burns off).

A full range jump is 8t but since the fuel requirement increases exponentially with range 4 nearly full range jumps as the tank empties averaging to 7t each is unsurprising.

You're both right really - 4 consecutive jumps each at the absolute limit of your range would take 32t, with 28t you will be able to do 4 consecutive jumps each within spitting distance of your full tank maximum range to the point where it is unlikely to matter that much in normal play.

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

Yes, all of you is right. I jumped back and forth between systems that were 36,5, while my maximum range on filled tank is 37. On the last jump, I had completly depleted the tank, meaning that only the SC tank was left. If that star wasn't scoopable I would have died trying to SC to the station.
So if the route plotter throws a full 37 I wouldn't make the 4th jump at full range.
So 28T lets you do 3,9 jumps, or 3 ar full range and one around 35.

Fact is that, mainly thanks to others suggestions on the DW main thread, I came with a fit that can boost, has 5D shields, 2 SRVs, and downgrading the tank to 28T still jumps 37-38,3.

When I'll be back home I'll try a quick trip over omega nebula, and see if that 4 less tons of fuel poses threats to my playstyle or not. Usually I top the tank at every scoopable flying by at full speed, but I don't want to make an entire expedition always in costant worry of the fuel gauge.

Also I'm still undecided about boost. The definitive answer does not exist, all the pros and cons have been considered, I have to understand what works for me.

On one side I've landed so many times on Achenar 3 that I know I don't need boost. On the same time for my personal me, boosting is dangerous,to the point that I binded a sequence of 2 buttons too boost, so I can do only for fun,and I really have to think how to move my finger before boosting, so it can't be an impulse.

On the other side the Anaconda stripped down too much feels just a frame with a thruster from an RP point of wiev, while knowing I can boost if I want, more than beeing usefull in itself, makes me feel the ship more real. And maybe if I land 20km from the group I can think to reach the, before gerring old and stuff.

Shields are the same, I could do with 3D, but 5D makes me feel a ship I'm proud to command since it feels stronger in my mind.

I'm not afraid of mistakes, I am aware that I'll have to leave in that ship for 6 months (i consider to go to abyssal plane after beagle), and I want to feel good every time I log in.

 

[newman1702]

Ok, I have to ask, how is boosting dangerous? What are you guys doing that gets you killed (or almost killed) by it? I ask because I've now done a lot of landings with various ships, including a 5D conda on Achenar 3 and that 9.7g world at HD somenumber, and never had any situation to indicate boost is anything but useful. So, specific examples, please. What were you landing on, with which ship, what thrusters, and what happened?

And know in advance that saying "accidentally hit boost while pointing down" is a bad answer and doesn't prove boost is dangerous, it just proves your binding for it is bad I never once boosted by accident in this game, having boost bound to a button on the back of my throttle that would be pretty hard to hit by accident. If this is the argument against boost, one could say it's dangerous to have on a combat ship because you can boost into a rock in a RES by accident. Obviously, nobody claims that because it's an obvious fallacy; binding this to something you can easily hit by accident is a big mistake and the player's fault, not a function of boost being somehow dangerous. It's not when used right

 

[dognosh]

Ok, I have to ask, how is boosting dangerous? What are you guys doing that gets you killed (or almost killed) by it? I ask because I've now done a lot of landings with various ships, including a 5D conda on Achenar 3 and that 9.7g world at HD somenumber, and never had any situation to indicate boost is anything but useful. So, specific examples, please. What were you landing on, with which ship, what thrusters, and what happened?

And know in advance that saying "accidentally hit boost while pointing down" is a bad answer and doesn't prove boost is dangerous, it just proves your binding for it is bad I never once boosted by accident in this game, having boost bound to a button on the back of my throttle that would be pretty hard to hit by accident. If this is the argument against boost, one could say it's dangerous to have on a combat ship because you can boost into a rock in a RES by accident. Obviously, nobody claims that because it's an obvious fallacy; binding this to something you can easily hit by accident is a big mistake and the player's fault, not a function of boost being somehow dangerous. It's not when used right

Totally agree, and can't rep you anymore. Just been testing my setup(the other thread) and boost gives you so much more freedom when it comes to skimming and maneuvering on a higher G planet. Not only it can save you on higher G it is also fun, but I understand when people say it is not really needed. I wouldn't explore without it now since Horizons.