And one last thing, from personal experiences : don't go through repairs mindlessly when supercruisng, you don't want to see what happens if you try to repair the thrusters or FSD in that situation
I will look into this, I assumed increasing the integrity would give it a longer life span.First, I'm not sure you want to Double Brace your powerplant.
The only way to take damage to the PP as far as I know is A) being shot at and B) emergency drops from supercruise, whatever the reason.
Now, you most likely won't get shot at while travelling outside of the Bubble, and the damage from emergency SC exits is a fixed percentage. So more integrity just means you're going to take more damage but the percentage will be the same.
As it stands, power doesn't seem to be an issue although I have prioritised some modules: fuel scoop & heat sink at 2, SRV at 3 and cargo hatch at 4. Does reducing power consumption by switching modules off increase the life span of the PP?Also what alexzk said, you can save some power by using priorities and simply turning some modules on and off manually.
ie you can power down the AFMUs when you don't need them (and you only need 1 to be powered at a time when you have to repair), and you can turn off the cargo hatch too.
Even better, you can put your SRV bay at the lowest priority. When you land on a planet, the thrusters get turned off automatically, which frees up power for the bay, which will turn on on it's own too (and the other way when taking off, again automatically). So there's no need to ever have to manually power the bay on and off.
According to Inara I can't engineer my life support until I get to Colonia.PS : Lightweight Life Support
I've not had any heat issues while out and about between engineers. I can happily scoop fuel without overheating and I thought this may be the only time heat will be an issue, or am I mistaken?She is going to run hot with an efficiency of .50
You only give up 1 Ly of range to go with a 4A armored/stripped down, and get efficiency down to .35, and leaves enough extra power to go to a 5A AFM without messing with power priorities.
Lightweight the life support gets that Ly back, and then if you feel like it, add a second planetary vehicle hanger for redundancy. If you blow up your scarab, and it does happen, you have a second one. That still has you in the over 65Ly range.
Urgh, I've never understood how to use that map but sure the site has some interesting stuff that is sure to help.And @Safester : the interactive galaxy map on EDAstro is a good place to look. Have fun!
By the way, about the double AFMU stuff: if you have only one AFMU, and somehow manage to break it down to 0% integrity, all is not yet lost. You can do an Emergency Reboot and Repair (see your ship menu) which will bring it up to a couple percents. Sure, it still won't repair itself, but at least it'll repair the other modules then.
Boosting was an area of concern for me and was one of the things I tested with different class distributors (not PP's) and this is one area where my lack of technical awareness let's me down. I opted for a 2A because I thought I wouldn't need boost much flying in open space. Yes, I will land on some planets but I'm quite comfortable with this as I do take a very slow and steady approach and I don't intend on landing on anything higher than a 4G planet should I encounter any. However, after some crashes and near misses while teaching myself planetary landings you've made me think more about increasing my boost potential.The PP is G5 overcharged, the Phantom is slightly below average when it comes to heat tolerance in my experience. I actually went above and beyond on mine to reduce the heat (it wasn’t worth it FWIW).
That said, I’d recommend increasing the size of the PP and going for G1 low emissions/thermal spread.
The power distributor is only allowing you to boost every 11 seconds. Not only is this 0 fun it’s also potentially very dangerous if you’re down on planets. Not having the energy to boost at the right moment can lead to an untimely death...
Boosting is almost an inherent part of flying a Krait, there’s a reason why they can boost so frequently, they use it for directional correction...
Your shield strength is also low for a ship as big as the Phantom. You can comfortably push that up with some small shield boosters.
Here’s what I’d change
Ship is 60m/s quicker, can boost twice as frequently and has more than double the shield strength. It’s also much much cooler... Loses just 2ly jump range.
I didn't even consider a hull repair controller, I will look into this and see if it's something I feel required to take.Neutron Stars and White Dwarves will degrade PP. You might also consider fitting a Hull Repair Limpet Controller, although you will need to add storage for the limpets. This might reduce your jump range somewhat, but since the idea is (presumably) to get back in one piece, it's a worthwhile trade-off, imo. The longer you stay out, the more the chance of accidents occurring. Watch out for those high G landings. . Good luck and safe travels.
Thanks, will take a look at your build later.This is my exploration Phantom, the Minokawa. It has served me well so far on my most recent expedition. Runs cool, scoops fast, repairs quick (haven't had to use the repair limpets yet, but the AFMU has been used to repair my FSD up from 88% about 4 or 5 times now and still hasn't needed a replenish). She's fast out of supercruise, jumps decently and will take a solid hit if I ever mess up a high G landing. She can even mine me jumponium and can dump fuel for longer jumps (used this once, when I was just barely within range and couldn't be bothered making 2 jumps).
What's Vithigar's Elite Observatory? Yeah, I always check the Orrery view when navigating a system, mainly for time management reasons.Before you leave: catch Vithigar's Elite Observatory, and get much more info more easily as you fly. Check the Orrery view as well as the flat system map, you get some good surprises.
I will look into this, I assumed increasing the integrity would give it a longer life span.
According to Inara I can't engineer my life support until I get to Colonia.
as it stands, power doesn't seem to be an issue although I have prioritised some modules: fuel scoop & heat sink at 2, SRV at 3 and cargo hatch at 4. Does reducing power consumption by switching modules off increase the life span of the PP?
Shields are another area where I struggle with the technical aspects, I just don't know what numbers are good or bad.
I can happily scoop fuel without overheating and I thought this may be the only time heat will be an issue, or am I mistaken?
You were right. Last time I checked, being inside a neutron star jet (didn't try white dwarfs, so I just assume they are the same) only damaged your FSD.Huh, I thought only the FSD was degraded by those. Are you sure ?
Sure. Emergency repair does take off some module integrity from your other modules, but you could then repair those with the now-functional AFMU.Thanks for the AFMU tip, can this be done multiple times?
The higher the better Something unexpected will happen to you eventually, and having stronger shields (versus the lightest you can carry) could well be the difference between looking at the rebuy screen or not. It's always a trade-off, of course, but with some engineering, you can usually get quite a lot more shield strength out of your build while not sacrificing much jump range.Shields are another area where I struggle with the technical aspects, I just don't know what numbers are good or bad. I just thought that if my ship's hull mass was below the optimal mass strength of the shield then that was good. Again, I didn't think shields were majorly important in deep space but adding some shield boosters may give some reassurance.
Yes, I understand this. As I said in my first post, I'm quite happy with my build, I just wanted to know if I had missed anything 'obvious' for a long exploration trip.I forgot to say yesterday, but what's the "best" exploration build is quite subjective, though you could probably notice looking at the various answers
You're correct, I didn't even think about engineering to lower grades. Thanks!Well, you only looked who could engineer it to grade 5 and yeah, that's Dorn
Lori Jameson can engineer it to grade 4 and Bill Turner to grade 3.
In that case I'll probably stick with the single AMFU.Sure. Emergency repair does take off some module integrity from your other modules, but you could then repair those with the now-functional AFMU.
That said, this is pretty theoretical: I doubt you'll ever sustain that much internal damage while exploring that this could become an issue.
'The higher the better' is about the extent of my technical knowledge. The issue I have is to upgrade my shields I'll have to swap out my 6A fuel scoop. I think the scoop will get more 'use' so I'll likely just fit some shield boosters instead.The higher the better Something unexpected will happen to you eventually, and having stronger shields (versus the lightest you can carry) could well be the difference between looking at the rebuy screen or not. It's always a trade-off, of course, but with some engineering, you can usually get quite a lot more shield strength out of your build while not sacrificing much jump range.
I'd never really heard much about these before yesterday, I think I'm going to have to research them a bit. The whole purpose of my trip is to try and see stuff that I won't / don't see in the bubble so I may well go and look for some of these intriguing features of ED and I best be prepared for that.Oh, one more thing. Instead of a repair limpet controller, you might want to take a decontamination limpet controller instead. Why? Because some lifeforms in NSPs deal caustic damage if you get too close to them. Sure, you can burn that away by deliberately overheating your ship, but that'll cost you a lot of module and hull damage. (Still better than a destroyed ship, though!) Also, decon. limpets double as repair limpets as well, although not as effective.
Of course, you can always just stay a good distance away from NSPs. Besides, unless you go deliberately looking for them, then in the majority of the galaxy, you're highly unlikely to come across some.
https://github.com/Xjph/EliteObservatory/releases will give it to you. Best everyday exploration aid I know of - well. aside from galactic maps, etc...... You can check out the thread on this very forum.What's Vithigar's Elite Observatory?