Low cost exploration ship.

[Ernest T Bass]

Right now, I'm about to leave the Pyramoe sector, on my way to Sag A. The only thing special, is the ship I'm using. I had a wild idea after building a ship per the escort Salome event. And I thought it might easily adapt to deep space. I was right! Well, if you can accept not carrying *any* cargo. With a 8t fuel tank, it can do a real world range of 400 ly on an efficient route, and a normal long jump is just over 32 ly.

Check it out!

https://eddp.co/u/wi3qhSzz

 

[duckofdeath]

I prepped a iCourier for a long range trip myself once, because it has a neat fighter jet-like cockpit.
The undersized fuel scoop was unfortunately a deal breaker for me, so I only did something like 10 kyiles in it.

BTW, what's with the C rated life support and sensors? I mean, I don't think the extra 150 seconds of air will do you much good if your canopy breaks 5,000 light years from the nearest dock.

 

[space voyager]

I stupidly keep a cargo rack in my exploration ship in hope of Frontier adding into the game something worth hauling back. Never happened so having no cargo space is very acceptable. Sadly. Nice ship.

You'll very likely not travel on efficient route when a actually going somewhere though.

 

[Lestat]

I stupidly keep a cargo rack in my exploration ship in hope of Frontier adding into the game something worth hauling back. Never happened so having no cargo space is very acceptable. Sadly. Nice ship.

You'll very likely not travel on efficient route when a actually going somewhere though.

People whined when their was POI in deep space. It gave us something to do. I think they should add them back in in well traveled areas. Destroyed ships and such.

 

[Major Klutz]

If you're already on your way. Good luck and fly safe.

If your goal is low cost, you can go cheaper and get better jump range with this ...
https://eddp.co/u/jjyLsm86
No reason to equip class C sensors and life support.
The bi-weave shields cost more and weigh more.
A 2C AFM repairs more than a 1B and costs less.
The money saved will get you a 3A fuel scoop which will make the trip go a lot easier.

 

[Ashnak]

...
If your goal is low cost, you can go cheaper and get better jump range with this ...

...and going for a 3B scoop will be even cheaper, with a minimal increase in scoop time.

But if you want to go even cheaper, get a T-6.

 

[Cdr Voorheez]

D rate everything except Fuel scoop FSD and Power plant.

 

[DethApostle]

People whined when their was POI in deep space. It gave us something to do. I think they should add them back in in well traveled areas. Destroyed ships and such.

On my last trip out I found a couple of wrecked ships. I was around 5000-6000ly from Sol at the time so I don't know if that qualifies as 'deep space' or not!

DA

 

[Lestat]

On my last trip out I found a couple of wrecked ships. I was around 5000-6000ly from Sol at the time so I don't know if that qualifies as 'deep space' or not!

DA

How long ago was this. I have found nothing and I been out for over a year.

 

[goemon]

On my last trip out I found a couple of wrecked ships. I was around 5000-6000ly from Sol at the time so I don't know if that qualifies as 'deep space' or not!

DA

same here

How long ago was this. I have found nothing and I been out for over a year.

2.2., pre 2.3. - so: fairly recent. my impression is it gets more unlikely the further you are from the last uninhabited system (or similar). but a couple of 1000 ly from sol, you find wrecks quite often if surveying surfaces.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

same here



2.2., pre 2.3. - so: fairly recent. my impression is it gets more unlikely the further you are from the last uninhabited system (or similar). but a couple of 1000 ly from sol, you find wrecks quite often if surveying surfaces.

most POI on planets tend to be wrecks of ships / nav beacons / SRV's unless of course your CIRCA 5kly out from an inhabited system, with the addition of asteroid bases etc, you can now find these POI's further from Sol than before.

 

[marx]

Compared to other ships of its size, the Imperial Courier isn't cheap. The ship itself costs 2.5 million Cr, while an Adder which has a comparable (if worse) jump range costs 87,810 Credits. Of the small ships, the Courier is actually luxury-priced. Of course, both are quite cheap when compared to the "mainstream" exploration ships - a couple of untagged ELWs will pay for the price of the ship.

I'm flying a Courier as an exploration vessel myself - alternating between that and a Clipper. On my current Courier expedition, I've flown around 50 kly (and counting) so far, so it would have been enough for a round trip to Sag. A* and back; the ship's perfectly fine for that.
Without an SRV bay, my Courier does 41.87 ly on a full tank, while having a forward/boost speed of 504 / 684 m/s. See the build here. You can go higher on the jump range (see my 44.86 ly build here), but that's by sacrificing the other strengths of the ship. Personally, I like to know that I can easily survive an interdiction even without hitting the boost button.

Oh, and for exploration, you don't want bi-weave shields. Those are useful for prolonged combat, like in PvE builds, where you want to fight for a long time. Instead, you'll want as high shield strength as you can reasonably achieve, like in most PvP builds. You don't want to stay and fight (especially without weapons!), you want to survive the alpha strike and run away. If your shields drop, by the time a bi-weave would bring it back online, you'll either be dead or will have successfully run away.
Also, note my shield in the build above: an enhanced mod on a 2D shield will provide a bit better strength than a 2C bi-weave, while being much lighter.

As for fuel scooping and such: in my opinion, the Courier's default tank size of 8T is oversized. A 4T is fine for everything, especially with route plan filtering now, but even 6T is decent. On this featherweight ship, even that 2T counts for a lot. The fuel scoop size / fuel tank size ratio isn't very good, but with a 3A scoop and a 4T tank, I still don't need to brake for stars. Personally, I find that very useful.

 

[DethApostle]

same here



2.2., pre 2.3. - so: fairly recent. my impression is it gets more unlikely the further you are from the last uninhabited system (or similar). but a couple of 1000 ly from sol, you find wrecks quite often if surveying surfaces.

Yeah, I set off during 2.2 and returned after 2.3 dropped, so pretty recently.
Perhaps there is a dropoff and 6000ly isn't that far out?

DA

 

[newman1702]

Others have already given you advice on C rated stuff etc, so I'll just cover two things that could be improved. First, bi-weaves don't make much sense for an explorer. The whole point is that shields come back up and recharge faster, where for explorers most of the shield's utility is basically preventing damage when landing, in which case recharge times are less important. Unless you prefer bi-weaves when dodging interdictions on your way back, I'd switch to standard shields on an explorer build.

Secondly, why the 1B AFMU? Why not 2A? Saving cash? Even so, don't go for B rated, they might have more ammo, but repair less per unit of ammo. A's are better. People constantly getting this wrong has kind of become a pet peeve of mine by now

 

[newman1702]

Compared to other ships of its size, the Imperial Courier isn't cheap. The ship itself costs 2.5 million Cr, while an Adder which has a comparable (if worse) jump range costs 87,810 Credits. Of the small ships, the Courier is actually luxury-priced. Of course, both are quite cheap when compared to the "mainstream" exploration ships - a couple of untagged ELWs will pay for the price of the ship.

Size notwithstanding, Courier and Adder are not in the same class at all - Courier is actually a very capable combat vessel that can explore if you want it to. Adder can be taken into fights but is nowhere near as capable as a courier. You're drawing your conclusion by watching them from a perspective of their exploration capability, which is not the Courier's main role. For it's capabilities, Courier is actually fairly cheap - it costs about 10 million to set her up for combat, same as a Cobra III, but is (arguably) a lot better in a fight. I don't find that ship luxury priced at all, though I do see how it can seem that way from an explorer's perspective. From a combat perspective, which is it's main focus, it's a bargain, so on balance you need to grind a bit of rank for it.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Others have already given you advice on C rated stuff etc, so I'll just cover two things that could be improved. First, bi-weaves don't make much sense for an explorer. The whole point is that shields come back up and recharge faster, where for explorers most of the shield's utility is basically preventing damage when landing, in which case recharge times are less important. Unless you prefer bi-weaves when dodging interdictions on your way back, I'd switch to standard shields on an explorer build.

Secondly, why the 1B AFMU? Why not 2A? Saving cash? Even so, don't go for B rated, they might have more ammo, but repair less per unit of ammo. A's are better. People constantly getting this wrong has kind of become a pet peeve of mine by now

that is debatable, depends on your ship build and power consumption, sometimes you might want to take a b spec if your not so proficient with power priorities or indeed that's your playstyle, but that said I take an A spec as its more efficient in repairing modules per ammo unit and I do indeed sort my power priorities out

the op is talking about cheap exploration ships though so B class makes perfect sense if you want the cheapest possible (bang for buck so to speak)

 

[marx]

Size notwithstanding, Courier and Adder are not in the same class at all - Courier is actually a very capable combat vessel that can explore if you want it to. Adder can be taken into fights but is nowhere near as capable as a courier. You're drawing your conclusion by watching them from a perspective of their exploration capability, which is not the Courier's main role. For it's capabilities, Courier is actually fairly cheap - it costs about 10 million to set her up for combat, same as a Cobra III, but is (arguably) a lot better in a fight. I don't find that ship luxury priced at all, though I do see how it can seem that way from an explorer's perspective. From a combat perspective, which is it's main focus, it's a bargain, so on balance you need to grind a bit of rank for it.

I think you misunderstood parts of what I wrote. Bear in mind that the thread's title is "Low cost exploration ship", and the Courier for exploration is what it was about. The Courier does cost quite a lot compared to other ships of its size (also of its mass, of its internals, and so on), and also other ships for exploration too. It's actually more expensive than the DBE. Mind you, I'm talking about ship costs, not total setup costs. You can bring the total cost to setup into the mix, but that wasn't mentioned, and it matters less: you can buy, transfer or sell equipment at no loss, so you can reuse parts of your other ships at zero cost. The best example would be an ADS+DSS combo. You could include their 1.8 million cost in the total setup cost, but unless it's your very first explorer ship, you don't have to pay that again.

I don't think I'll go into combat capabilities here, as it would be off-topic, but I'd still like to mention that you might be underestimating the Cobra Mk III: a hull-tanking Cobra can punch well above its size with a decent pilot. Even in PvE, having a whole lot of armour lets you get away with many more mistakes than it would with a Courier. We could discuss combat setups if you'd like, but I don't think this thread would be a good place for it.

 

[newman1702]

that is debatable, depends on your ship build and power consumption, sometimes you might want to take a b spec if your not so proficient with power priorities or indeed that's your playstyle, but that said I take an A spec as its more efficient in repairing modules per ammo unit and I do indeed sort my power priorities out

the op is talking about cheap exploration ships though so B class makes perfect sense if you want the cheapest possible (bang for buck so to speak)

As I said, I can understand it from a saving money perspective, but a lot of people see more ammo and think it's better (i.e. will actually repair more than an A, which it won't), so I'm just saying A's are better in every way except price. Power consumption is largely irrelevant because you want to drop out into normal space before repairing anyway - it's way too easy to start repairing thrusters or FSD while in SC and causing further damage to your ship. Repairs aren't something you'll be doing too often, so dropping out before repairing is a good habit to have; and when you do that it's easy to just shut something down to free up power for the AFMU. It's more of a matter of common sense than play style, really.

 

[newman1702]

I think you misunderstood parts of what I wrote. Bear in mind that the thread's title is "Low cost exploration ship", and the Courier for exploration is what it was about. The Courier does cost quite a lot compared to other ships of its size (also of its mass, of its internals, and so on), and also other ships for exploration too. It's actually more expensive than the DBE. Mind you, I'm talking about ship costs, not total setup costs. You can bring the total cost to setup into the mix, but that wasn't mentioned, and it matters less: you can buy, transfer or sell equipment at no loss, so you can reuse parts of your other ships at zero cost. The best example would be an ADS+DSS combo. You could include their 1.8 million cost in the total setup cost, but unless it's your very first explorer ship, you don't have to pay that again.

I don't think I'll go into combat capabilities here, as it would be off-topic, but I'd still like to mention that you might be underestimating the Cobra Mk III: a hull-tanking Cobra can punch well above its size with a decent pilot. Even in PvE, having a whole lot of armour lets you get away with many more mistakes than it would with a Courier. We could discuss combat setups if you'd like, but I don't think this thread would be a good place for it.

So, luxury priced for an explorer of that size and capabilities. Sure, I can agree with that. I just like to look at ship's pricing through the lens of it's primary role - seems to make more sense to me. I never was one to do just one thing in a game, so likewise in Elite I don't just explore, so I guess I see the Courier a bit differently and always considered it a bargain. But I do see your point. Thread title and all that.
I also always considered total setup costs more relevant to hull costs, because for one, I don't know what someone else might or might not have already parked in their garage, and I myself never could be bothered transferring equipment ship-to-ship like that since grinding cr isn't that difficult, and then if I want to use something else I can just hop into a ready ship instead of gutting one to prep another. Again, just me. And with new boosted exploration payouts, it makes even less sense to strip ships of ADS/DSS and transfer them to save cash. I just did a quick hop to Colonia following the Cygnus-Sag arm before beelining to it from the galactic west. Not exactly the longest trip ever but it netted me 150 million without even trying to scan that much. And that's just one way, going back should easily put me over 300mil from this trip - point is, new players just need to scrounge up enough cash to set up for that first trip, and they'll have more than enough money on their return to not have to save by transferring equipment like that. Credits in this game are abundant, and stuff to spend them on is finite. I do apologize for going on a bit of an off-topic tangent, though.

 

[marx]

As I said, I can understand it from a saving money perspective, but a lot of people see more ammo and think it's better (i.e. will actually repair more than an A, which it won't), so I'm just saying A's are better in every way except price.

A minor note of curiosity on this: AFMUs do have integrity, and as such, a B-rated one can take more damage than an A-rated one. Of course, in practice this doesn't matter, since if you suffered enough internal damage that it would kill your AFMU(s), then you'd likely have far bigger problems anyway. Bill Turner and Lori Jameson actually offer Shielded mods for AFMUs - one of the most useless blueprints in the game.