Is the Python the ship for me?

[locuus]

Hi all!
I'm 2 weeks into ED, so still trying to get my head around universe and choices.
Currently i am on the old version as i wait for a new video card.
While I wait I'm trying to get myself set up for Engineers, and have started with getting permit to Alioth.
To cut a long story short i've made my progression through Cobra Mk3, Asp X, a dalliance with Python, and now an A rated Orca. I've been wondering where to go for here as far as engineering ships and exploration. I've become quite accustomed to the maneuverability of the Asp and now Orca, that I'm wondering what is the best ship for me to engineer and achieve exploration goals. t seems most med to large ships can have adequate jump ranges so I'm thinking that's not an issue if one was to explore rarer areas. Going through threads the most common ships seem to be Asp x and Anaconda for exploration. My concern with the Asp X is what you can fit internally, and also its combat capability. Note:have done pretty much zero combat so far, so not sure how that plays out in deeper exploration and ones options. Obviously the Anaconda is a warhorse, and its internals allow a lot of possibilities. From the ships I've flown and reading I've done I'm a bit turned off by its speed/maneuverability, and its inability to dock at anything but large pads. t also seems the Python is considered a bit of a match for the Anaconda and benefits from maneuverability and medium sized pad docking. Am I missing something(s)? II'll be sad to see the back of my Orca thus my thinking ahead re engineering and what I'll need/can do with specific ships.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Aura Lorell]

The short reply is: for exploration fly the ship you are most comfortable with. The ship you love to fly. This means that you may need to try exploring with a few and see which one wins your heart.

Generally speaking, the exploration loadout is significantly different than the combat loadout so the best way to go about this is to have a separate ship for combat and one for exploration.

Depending on what kind of exploration you want to do you may need to go try different ships. DBX and Anaconda are the long range explorers for the very sparse regions with the Asp coming third. But if you are not interested in sparse regions then you can use literally any ship you fancy.

See this thread for more exploration specific information.

 

[goemon]

hey,

generally, especially with emgineering, you can explore in any ships ... people have taken corvettes and fdls to sag a and beagle point, because they like them.

it's much more about, what you enjoy to fly most.

me for exampel made elite in exploration in a conda, and enjoyed the floating feeling what other call bad supercruise handling. for an upcoming circumnavigation i take a DBE, as it gives me the perfect "small ship in a huge falaxy feeling".

the orca is a brilliant explorer after its hullmass-reduction, i prefer its cockpit above the dolphins one, and gets as fast as a clipper for surface exploration. a clipper has better sc manouverability and a crazy fast fuelscoop.

python makes a very good explorer, with internals for all tools like repair limpets, research limpets, fuel limpets, au, srv ... you can get it up to 45 ly jumprange. on my main account i use a cobrakiv in a similar role, being the even better lander.

there is currently no use of weapons for expliration. weapons have no defensive value in ED, while either speed (boost + boostspeed) or shields/hull can be usefull.

it generally makes more sense to own 2 or 3 ships for different roles, instead of looking for a combat-explorer. a viper mkiii for exampel will outperform an a grade AspE explorer.

so, for exploration in really recommend testing a lot of different ships on 1000 ly travels to the local sights till you find your(s).

i have flown an adder, eagle, DBS, DBE, cobra mkiii, cobra mkiii, viper mkiv, courier, t6, AspE, dolphin, orca, clipper, python, cutter and conda for exploration. eagle, DBE, cmkiv and conda are my takers on my main account, while my third account has doplhin, t6, AspE and hopefully a exploration python soon.

 

[Major Klutz]

The Python is a great all purpose ship IMO.
It's a good combat ship, decent cargo capacity and able to land on a medium pad.
It can even get a decent jump range if it's outfitted right.

That said, if you can afford a Python, you can afford to buy and outfit a DBE for exploration also.
Park the Python and take the DBE out on long range exploration trips. When you return, park the DBE and use the Python in the bubble.

If you like the Orca, there's no reason to get rid of it. The Orca is a fine ship for exploration with a great jump range.

A while back, I wrote up a comparison of different ships by cost and jump range with sample outfitting for exploration.

I've flown an un-engineered DBE on a trip to Sagittarius A*. After that Upgraded to an Asp X for a trip to the southern edge and I've flown an Anaconda on a trip to Eta Carina and to Colonia.
The Asp X is a great all around explorer ship. Better fuel scoop than the DBE, more internals than the DBE and better maneuverability than the Anaconda.
The Asp X would be my recommendation if you're outfitting for your fist long range trip.

 

[Red Anders]

Just on the Orca, I have one kitted out for passenger missions with 3 x passenger cabins. When I strip those out, stick a specially engineered smaller and lighter shield on it, a class 4 SRV bay, fuel scoop and AFMU she jumps 47 LY, so in no way is 'exploration or an Orca' a choice that needs to be made. I'll be using her on my next trip out because despite my Anaconda having a 55LY jump range, I get sick of flying it in supercruise after about five jumps.

Unless you plan on going out where the stars are very sparse, you'll probably never need more than a 25-30LY jump range for exploration, anything more than that is only really useful for getting to a particular sector fast. Having said that, you can jump short in a long range ship but you can't jump long in a short range ship, so there's no denying you get more flexibility with a long range, it's just not end-game stuff for exploration.

 

[locuus]

Some really interesting replies, thank you!
I'm surprised at the love for the DBX. Up until now most of the posts I'd read pretty much focused on AspX and Anaconda. (I still have to comb through the ship links so bare with me if some of my questions are covered) Is there things the DBX had that makes it excel at exploration? Im just interested with regard to the obvious comparisons.
I'll just reiterate for the next few weeks I'm gathering I'll be focusing on the remaining permits and engineers, so this was forward thinking. Having not done planetary exploration I was worried ships like AspX wouldn't cut it with support vehicles, range of bays, etc. Im gathering this is not such an issue? For any of the ships mentioned is there an issue with jump ranges or landing pads for sparser areas? Lastly is there anything to consider in deeper exploration that some ships can do that the others cant?
Thanks in advance, and again advice has been great. Lots to musr over

 

[Red Anders]

Some really interesting replies, thank you!
I'm surprised at the love for the DBX. Up until now most of the posts I'd read pretty much focused on AspX and Anaconda. (I still have to comb through the ship links so bare with me if some of my questions are covered) Is there things the DBX had that makes it excel at exploration? Im just interested with regard to the obvious comparisons.
I'll just reiterate for the next few weeks I'm gathering I'll be focusing on the remaining permits and engineers, so this was forward thinking. Having not done planetary exploration I was worried ships like AspX wouldn't cut it with support vehicles, range of bays, etc. Im gathering this is not such an issue? For any of the ships mentioned is there an issue with jump ranges or landing pads for sparser areas? Lastly is there anything to consider in deeper exploration that some ships can do that the others cant?
Thanks in advance, and again advice has been great. Lots to musr over

The DBX can be built to have great range (on a par with an Anaconda) and is probably more fun to fly than the other popular exploration ships put together because it's small.

Until a couple of updates ago it was limited in that you had to pick any two of a shield, AFMU and SRV bay because it didn't have enough internals to include all three along with an advanced discovery scanner, detailed surface scanner and a fuel scoop.

No shield = every planetary landing needs to be made like you have eggs taped the the bottom of your landing struts, no SRV = well, no fun basically but also no ability to collect jump range increasing materials whilst you're out in the black, or just go for a drive up that awesome mountain you found and no AFMU = no using neutron star jump boosted jumps because your FSD takes damage each time you charge up for one and you don't want to be 30K LY from home with a dodgy FSD.

Then the lovely developers added another class 2 slot to it, which now means you can fit all six of those things onboard. It's now by far the best entry-level exploration ship (in my opinion) because you can build a top-spec one for about 15m credits and have a ship that's just as capable of doing long range exploration as my 200m credit Anaconda. The only slight irritation is that the largest fuel scoop you can fit is a 4A. The DBX's stock fuel tank is a class 5 which takes about a minute and a half to fill from empty with a class 4 scoop - hardly a deal breaker and I never jump to run my tank empty before scooping anyway but some people find it a bit of a pain.

 

[Major Klutz]

... Is there things the DBX had that makes it excel at exploration? ...

The DBX is smaller, more maneuverable, easier to land, great cockpit view.
And since the 2.3 patch, It can carry Everything an explorer would need.

The only downside is the small fuel scoop in relation to the amount of fuel used per jump.
It has a 5A FSD which is the same size as an Asp X, but it's lighter so it has a better jump range.
It also uses the same 5 tons of fuel per jump.
With a maximum size fuel scoop of 4A it takes much longer to refill that 5 tons in a DBE than it does in an Asp with a 6A scoop.
Which means you'll spend a bit more time scooping in the DBE.
IMO, that is the only downside of the DBE.

For many, the much smaller price tag and much higher jump range than the Asp more than makes up for it.
In a race between a DBE and an Asp, the Asp can go faster over short ranges but over long ranges the DBE can outpace the Asp due to it's better jump range.
Also for many, the DBE is more pleasant to fly than the Asp or the Anaconda. The Asp engine noises some find annoying and many don't care for the sluggish maneuvering of the Anaconda.

 

[Major Klutz]

Huh, really? Without shields I guess?

No. Fully equipped for Exploration, with Shields, 45 ly max jump range.
Engineering required of course. And you'll only have room for two limpet controllers if you want to carry any. Fuel and Repair limpets for a Fuel Rat would be viable.
Without engineering, you'll only get ~28ly max with a full exploration loadout, which is still enough to get pretty much anywhere you might want to go.

 

[Cdr Voorheez]

All great answers here. No one ship suits everyone. I've tried and tried to like exploring in certain ships and can't do it yet others swear by them. My choices are likewise incompatible with others.
Back to the python. Awesome ship and one which I would love to explore in. I may even play with a build. It's just let down by it's range. But so is the orca.

 

[iain666]

I spent a few months taking my Python to Sgr A* earlier this year. It was going to be a quick run around to get a few hundred systems of exploration data to sell near Alioth so I could get the permit until I got slightly carried away, so I didn't even bother refitting her into an explorer load out - my best size 5 engineered FSD was enough to give me ~27ly with a full combat ready bubble configuration and I had great fun on a 90kly round trip with her. I regretted not bringing an SRV a few times but that's what happens when the trip is spur of the moment and I'd swapped the hangar out for extra cargo space shortly before I headed out.

The key thing, as others have said, is that "I spent a few months". Any ship you enjoy flying can be an exploration ship and any ship you don't really get on with will be a horrible one however good it might appear on paper.

 

[Valije]

Good thing about engineering one of this ships is that all of them share the same FSD: Size 5. Once you get a good roll you can use it to test dbx, python, orca or aspx

 

[Heavy Johnson]

No. Fully equipped for Exploration, with Shields, 45 ly max jump range.
Engineering required of course. And you'll only have room for two limpet controllers if you want to carry any. Fuel and Repair limpets for a Fuel Rat would be viable.
Without engineering, you'll only get ~28ly max with a full exploration loadout, which is still enough to get pretty much anywhere you might want to go.

Note: getting those max rolls may take some time. I've yet to hit 50% opm on any of my FSDs, after 100+ rolls :/

 

[iain666]

Note: getting those max rolls may take some time. I've yet to hit 50% opm on any of my FSDs, after 100+ rolls :/

My best is only 49.7 but with +4.6% max fuel that Python build gets an extra 0.8ly for those values. I only took me about 25-30 goes to get that and I've not beaten it in the 50-70 since...

41-42ly is easily achievable with that build and average rolls for mass reduction in everything Major Klutz put it against (I've not checked if any of those are lucky secondary effects)

 

[Heavy Johnson]

Sure, sure. I do wonder why a Python, other than for the hell of it.

 

[roboteconomist]

I don't explore in my Python, but I do basically everything else with it.

The funny thing about the Python is that while you can't stretch its FSD range much beyond 45ly, you can easily outfit it for combat or trading without sacrificing a lot of range. My multi-role build almost never dips below 30ly, which is plenty of range for getting around the bubble.

Edit:

Plus, the FSD is totally interchangeable with an Asp or DBX. And its ship kit is dead sexy.

 

[locuus]

One of the reasons I was looking at Python was internals and capacity to collect components/materials, beyond pure exploration. I'm gathering a lot (all?) can be purchased to engineer. I'm working on the premise (rightly or wrongly?) by the time i have all permits and run through engineering process, and go out on longer explorations this will be an ever growing element in game.

 

[Heavy Johnson]

One of the reasons I was looking at Python was internals and capacity to collect components/materials, beyond pure exploration. I'm gathering a lot (all?) can be purchased to engineer. I'm working on the premise (rightly or wrongly?) by the time i have all permits and run through engineering process, and go out on longer explorations this will be an ever growing element in game.

Well, you're not really limited; even a base ship without engineers can go out and do almost everything. What you get from engineers is "more": Longer jump distances; lighter weight (which really means more distance), and other tweaks to hardware. For the explorer, it's convenience, not new worlds of exploration.

If your jump range is very low (below, say, 30 Ly), there will be places in the game you just can't reach - but those aren't too common.

 

[JetsonRING]

Your ship is like a pair of shoes, it needs to fit not only your feet but the job you intend to use it for. Like shoes, some ships are better for some jobs than others, some ships are more flexible in their range of roles than others. You can wear sneakers just about anywhere but you probably would not wear them while wearing your best suit at a funeral.

Since you mention exploration I will say that many will tell you a Python is not a good exploration ship because of its short jump-range and they will recommend the Asp-Explorer (Asp-X) because of its very high jump-range. That is . Those people jump right past systems that should be, need to be explored. The Python is arguably one of, if not the most flexible, medium-landing-pad-capable ship in the game. It can carry a lot of cargo for its size, mounts decent weaponry, can be fitted for mining, then exploration, then trucking, then combat. It is difficult to go wrong in the purchase of a Python but it has to fit your style too. Some people eschew the Python in favor of other ships, like the FerDL which is (IMO) a more combat focused ship. I love my Python Kaa and you could not convince me to sell her. But then I also have an Asp-X and if I need to get somewhere in a hurry I choose my Asp-X or DBX depending on outfitting requirements. I am sure not going to fly my Python to Colonia, for example, I will take the Asp-X or DBX. Hope that helps . . . o7

 

[Heavy Johnson]

Those people jump right past systems that should be, need to be explored.

I'll choose what I want to explore, thank you very much. If you want to explore all of the Y and T dwarves, have fun with that! When I need to get between the very high mass stars (H and G-class) which are hundreds to 1000s of light years apart, high jump range saves large amounts of time.