Measured SCO Fuel/Hour and Speed Rates

[Kira Goto]

Personally, on a Corvette running an overcharged powerplant(too lazy to make an armored one for builds that don’t need the extra power), I found a C rated SCO to work much better than the A rated which just overheated it within a few seconds and before it could really build up good speed.

Low emissions seems to handle A rated totally fine even on a Cutter with its size 7 drive. Saying that, it only has a LE(G2) reactor because I use it as a Thargoid war evac ship and when converting it back to a hauler only swap out the passenger cabins, keeping the weapons off it. Still retains enough shield to hold off whichever bothersome pirates might come at it. So it’s probably not representative of more general use cases.

 

[V'larr]

Great suggestion, thanks. I've updated the sheet with some frozen rows/columns as described. I've included column B too as the FSD rating is tied to the row data.


Thanks for going into more detail V'larr. Yeah I think something like this would be useful in-game too. Where it would really shine (and I think all the other data too) is in ship builder tools like EDSY and Coriolis, giving players an idea of SCO distance and heat stats for their exact build, rather than just a number from a non-functional test loadout. I think a smaller batch of testing with the purpose of producing a way to predict how long heat takes to build up would be a better use of time than just testing every ship and FSD rating again. The heat research is there plus the heat generation rate on the SCO modules. I could probably do some testing but I feel there are much more capable cmdrs out there for this task, especially the EDSY and Coriolis folks. Not sure when I can look at this but hopefully some others can too

If you already have your ships built, you could always take them out for a spin with each FSD rating to get a feel for their heat build up and total distance/time. The working distance tab on the sheet can give you a very rough idea of distance too but you'll need to save your own copy to plug in the actual fuel your carrying.

I went ahead and made a copy and plugged in an Imperial Cutter with A-rated SCO & the default 64 ton fuel tank - the result seems significantly shorter than the distance I can achieve using it in bursts up to 100% heat. I don't really have ideas about how to turn that into a formula, though knowing the 'total SCO duration' I have is at least something!

Amazing how much of a difference 0% throttle makes, kinda wish Fdev would just make that default as it's not the most intuitive.

 

[Jack Winter]

What other difference does the throttle have on the SCO?

 

[Osiliran]

I went ahead and made a copy and plugged in an Imperial Cutter with A-rated SCO & the default 64 ton fuel tank - the result seems significantly shorter than the distance I can achieve using it in bursts up to 100% heat. I don't really have ideas about how to turn that into a formula, though knowing the 'total SCO duration' I have is at least something!

Amazing how much of a difference 0% throttle makes, kinda wish Fdev would just make that default as it's not the most intuitive.

Sounds about right to me if you're gliding off the boost a bit, ends up being more fuel efficient. Yeah, I was surprised at how big some of the differences were too. Good to have it as an option.

What other difference does the throttle have on the SCO?

Besides generating less heat, throttling down to 0% appears to also affect your speed, your fuel/hour rate and, anecdotally, your wobble (control interference). All in all, a smoother, cooler, longer ride, just not as quick.