Measured SCO Fuel/Hour and Speed Rates

[Osiliran]

They gave us free slots for those in small ships so no loss of jump range, if they combine them all into a single one I would expect them to take away the free slots they gave us to put them in, and you would end up with less available slots to individualise your ship, not more, and lesser jump range!

We could swap out the jump range decrease with something more suitable like more power draw or boot up time, whichever compromise makes sense.

If they did combine them they might take the slots away, that's possible, though I feel they wouldn't. That update came with a heavy QoL focus and all ships benefitted, not just a beginner's small ship that might have typically used the two new modules.

 

[aRJay]

We could swap out the jump range decrease with something more suitable like more power draw or boot up time, whichever compromise makes sense.

If they did combine them they might take the slots away, that's possible, though I feel they wouldn't. That update came with a heavy QoL focus and all ships benefitted, not just a beginner's small ship that might have typically used the two new modules.

Yes so to take advantage of the QoL modules small ships gained two slots and others only gained one new slot.

Hopefully they won’t take those modules away or even combine them after all they didn’t upgrade the Docking Computer they gave us an Advanced version in addition but if they did do that I feel they would take one or all those slots back, though it could be tricky for ships using those slots for something else.

 

[Flimley]

I slung one of these sco's into an asp explorer. This ship happen to have clean drive mod with thermal spread.
... does this make any difference? I'm thinking probably not butyou know. Worth an ask.

Flimley

 

[aRJay]

I slung one of these sco's into an asp explorer. This ship happen to have clean drive mod with thermal spread.
... does this make any difference? I'm thinking probably not butyou know. Worth an ask.

Flimley

I think the colder (and smaller) the ship is makes a difference to how soon things get toasty.

Important thing is to remember to press the button again to switch the boost off.
Doing that while you aren’t too hot is generally a good thing.

There is a cooldown for the boost of around ten seconds before you can trigger it again.

 

[Three Stars]

I slung one of these sco's into an asp explorer. This ship happen to have clean drive mod with thermal spread.
... does this make any difference? I'm thinking probably not butyou know. Worth an ask.

Flimley

Clean drives use more power than dirty ones at grades 4 and 5, so while at Frameshift they generate more heat.

Any thermal benefits from Clean drives only help when out of Frameshift.

 

[Osiliran]

Hi all, some updates:

• De-throttled (speed at 0-50%) F/H + speeds have been recorded and updated on the sheet.
  • Fuel efficiency improved for all ships in this speed state.
  • Moving from 0% to 100% speed saw fuel consumption increase by 40-42% and speed increase by 16-31%, depending on the ship's FSD class.
  • Ships with smaller FSD classes saw a bigger increase to speed from 0% to 100% throttle, meaning in the lower speed state, ships with larger FSDs enjoyed more of an increase to fuel efficiency than those with smaller FSDs.
• Fixed the time calculation on the Working Distance tab that was displaying seconds as a percentage of a minute, not real seconds themselves.
• Ships took massive damage when abruptly exiting from supercruise while under the effect of SCO compared to exiting abruptly from regular supercruise. If your control interference is directing you into a planet/star, turn off the SCO before impact to avoid taking extra damage.
• It appeared that ships with a high level of SC agility felt the effects of control interference much more profoundly than ships with poor agility. This meant that the higher the ship's FSD class (control interference) and agility were, the more difficulty in controlling the ship under SCO in SC there was. For example, the Asp Ex was difficult to control and took longer to reach full speed with compared to low-agility ships that share the same FSD class, such as the FDS and Orca.
• Tested another speed state that I'm going to call Boost Gliding (BG).
  • Offered the greatest fuel efficiency under SCO but was dependent on the distance from gravity wells.
  • Testing is incomplete for this and only has some niche use cases. More on this below.

Nice to see larger ships got more benefit out of the lower speed state as smaller ships already enjoy better fuel efficiency. I feel that some of the community's most revered exploration ships, like the DBX and Asp Ex, are hit hard by SCO use more so than other ships because of the level of control interference at that FSD class and their natural SC agility. At the extreme other end, the Type-9 is fairly easy to control due to its poor agility. When testing, there didn't seem to be a mass-related link to this, but can't be sure at this stage.

The other speed state, boost gliding, is something most Cmdrs will already be using I think. It's about reaching max SCO speed and then killing the boost to glide back into natural SC speeds, then boosting to max speed again to repeat the process. When killing the boost, the F/H would take approx. 6 secs to return to resting F/H rates, but the speed took much longer to return to the natural SC speed. This meant during the period of deceleration you could enjoy higher than average speeds at the resting F/H rate of your ship. The longer the acceleration process boosting to max, like when close to a gravity well, the less efficient it was, sometimes even less so compared to 0% throttle fuel efficiency, so the best use of this was far away from the gravity well where natural SC speeds were already 1300C+. For example, the sidewinder fuel efficiency is 0.057 at max, 0.053 at 0% throttle and 0.037 over a period of BG where natural SC speeds were 1800C. Where natural SC speed was 1C next to a star, sidewinder BG was only 0.056 fuel efficient. If you were fuel conscious travelling to very far away bodies, but still wanted a faster time than regular SC, then the 0% throttle or BG speed states would be good use case.

I was thinking of suggestions I could make for ideal SCO use for popular player activities - I might make some later on. Think the community probably has this covered but can't hurt.

Edit: Reduced length, too wordy, spelling etc.

 

[aRJay]

So the Anaconda should be in the more controllable SCO ships.

The boost gliding info is good though I am struggling to think of the last time I was hitting those sorts of SC speed other than at Hutton.

 

[Osiliran]

So the Anaconda should be in the more controllable SCO ships.

The boost gliding info is good though I am struggling to think of the last time I was hitting those sorts of SC speed other than at Hutton.

Because of the Ana's agility, that's right. Yeah, not many situations you'd find yourself in where you need to SC at 1300-1800C+. The Hutton run is probably the only real use case until we work out at roughly what minimum SC speeds would it be worth using BG.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

Did a quick run in the Orange Sidewinder. A full 2T fuel tank (after scooping from a star) lasted 60K LS before I was just on the internal tank. I just made the remaining 108K LS before the tank went dry.

Sorry No Fuel Rats (yet!)

 

[Osiliran]

Real life is getting in the way of some science right now but when time permits on the weekend, I will test the new SCO class additions. Python mk II will probably be an outlier . I'll probably revisit fuel efficiencies for A class, speeds, deceleration times from SCO to normal supercruise, and module differences.

I think worth mentioning some previous discussions on supercruise agility as a follow on from the coversation above:

Reddit - PSA Supercruise Agility
ED Forums - Supercruise handling of ships

Take away was 50% throttle in the blue zone improved agility in supercruise. This could mean sitting in the blue zone during SCO use might increase your susceptibility to control interference. Anecdotally, 0% throttle felt more stable during SCO use which I think lines up with those supercruise agility discussions, but me testing this hasn't been an exact science.

Unrelated, but I think I've found a way to set your own F/H+speed state. F/H and speed still seem inextricably linked, but continuing to play with this. Will report more when I have more data.

 

[Osiliran]

I've updated the OP and added some edits. I've not completed all the measuring yet, but the rates have changed for the FSD C class due to patch 18.04. So, the google sheet data is now obsolete. It seems the current FSD A now has the pre-patch FSD C fuel/hour rate and current FSD C rates have worsened. An early look at FSD B rates show some great fuel efficiency. This great post on Reddit here put me onto exploring B rates in more detail. I've also added details to the OP about setting your own fuel/hour and speed rates and found the only real use has been making Hutton runs.

 

[Northpin]

I've updated the OP and added some edits. I've not completed all the measuring yet, but the rates have changed for the FSD C class due to patch 18.04. So, the google sheet data is now obsolete. It seems the current FSD A now has the pre-patch FSD C fuel/hour rate and current FSD C rates have worsened. An early look at FSD B rates show some great fuel efficiency. This great post on Reddit here put me onto exploring B rates in more detail. I've also added details to the OP about setting your own fuel/hour and speed rates and found the only real use has been making Hutton runs.

This is the part i find the most interesting from that reddit post (i havent noticed it myself since i'm not used to take into consideration FSD of lower grades than A-rated)

Notably, the B, C, and D rate SCO drives have the same optimised mass as a regular A rate FSD (which was not the case for the old FSDs), so while they won't be as popular as the A rate SCO drive, they do have more legitimate niche use cases that don't sacrifice on jump range, e.g. I have found a good use for the D rate SCO drive in my 896m/s super fast Imperial Eagle to still get 42Ly jump range: https://edsy.org/s/vmHLjgr

 

[Osiliran]

This is the part i find the most interesting from that reddit post (i havent noticed it myself since i'm not used to take into consideration FSD of lower grades than A-rated)

Yeah, it was a great point and opens options for players. Outside SCO stuff, I'm not drawn to ratings other than A too and it flew past me. On the FSD stats tab, I should include all the FSD metrics, might be some other interesting things there. On another note, the Reddit poster was right on FSD Es, they're absolutely hot garbage. I did some more testing last night and the rating Es had some terrible speeds, but high fuel use and heat. The 7E SCO FSDs didn't even have a speed increase, just the standard max supercruise speed of 2001C

 

[Pask]

Yeah, it was a great point and opens options for players. Outside SCO stuff, I'm not drawn to ratings other than A too and it flew past me. On the FSD stats tab, I should include all the FSD metrics, might be some other interesting things there. On another note, the Reddit poster was right on FSD Es, they're absolutely hot garbage. I did some more testing last night and the rating Es had some terrible speeds, but high fuel use and heat. The 7E SCO FSDs didn't even have a speed increase, just the standard max supercruise speed of 2001C

I think they given us an hint in 18.04 patch notes, https://www.elitedangerous.com/update-notes/4-0-18-04

A full selection of SCO Frame Shift Drives, ratings E-A and Sizes 2-7 with varying specialisations are now available at many markets across the galaxy.

maybe they have some use case in mind for future contents, anyway is nice to see some kind of "specialization matrix" rating/size wise.

 

[Kira Goto]

I did decide to keep the C rated SCO on my bubble runner Phantom because of its better thermal performance, even if the range is slightly less than the pre-engineered one I used for it prior. Explorer, though, just slapped A rated on and went off.

Not sure I’d currently have a use case for a B or D rated SCO, though, but I guess the options are good to have.

 

[Pask]

Not sure I’d currently have a use case for a B or D rated SCO, though, but I guess the options are good to have.

D rated is fine on fast small ship (ex. imperial eagle or courier), less tons for higher top and boost speed, in this niche case D vs A jump loose is negligible.
B have best overcharge range, maybe for some Hutton race without friends refuel pitstop

 

[Three Stars]

If you are deliberately lightweighting a combat ship to minimum thruster mass, then a D grade SCO will give you that functionality and still give you about 92% of the jump range of the A grade while only weighing 40% of the mass of an A grade SCO. It also saves a bit of power too.

 

[Zalwig]

If you are deliberately lightweighting a combat ship to minimum thruster mass, then a D grade SCO will give you that functionality and still give you about 92% of the jump range of the A grade while only weighing 40% of the mass of an A grade SCO. It also saves a bit of power too.

My iEagle even jumps further with a D rated SCO.
Edit: sorry that was fake news.

 

[Osiliran]

Hi SCO enthusiasts, I've updated the google sheet with fuel and speed rates across all ships and FSD ratings as of patch 18.06. Some SCO FSDs have stat overlap between ratings, but nevertheless I wanted to test them all. Besides adding the new SCO module stats, I've also:

• Measured resting super cruise fuel per hour and subtracted this from recorded SCO fuel rates for a more accurate fuel/h measurement.
• Speeds recorded are the highest speeds reached during testing for that FSD rating/ship combination.
• Added an approximate time to reach max speed. Control interference introduced a lot of variance.
• Observed how max "advertised" speeds compared to the recorded speeds.
• Updated the Working distance tab to allow a drop down menu for ship and FSD rating selection for distance until empty estimation. You'll need your own sheet copy for this to work (won't work in viewer only mode).

This has already been echoed by other members of the community but as a high level summary the FSD ratings showed:

• A - best speed and 2nd best fuel rate
• B - 2nd best speed and best fuel rate
• C - 2nd best speed, least heat build up and 3rd best fuel rate
• D - 2nd best speed, lightest module weight (generally) and 3rd best fuel rate
• E - worst speed and fuel rate but lowest power draw

Ships with high super cruise agility, like the Asp Ex and Dolphin, suffered the most from the control interference and as a result took longer than average to reach max speed. The Type-Xs and the FDL are fantastic SCO ships and control interference felt minimal with them. Ships tended to cap out their max speeds at 3% less than the speeds that should be possible based on their module stats, except for the Python Mk II. The Python outperformed the advertised module speeds by 41% and consumed 45% less fuel than a ship with the same sized modules. On average, fuel consumption reduced when moving to 0% throttle by 29.50%.

Since the OP, there have been outliers that didn't exactly follow the halving/doubling fuel rate rule that came with changes to the core fuel tank size, suggesting other factors determining fuel rate were at play. After examining the data, I've made a rough formula for predicting fuel per hour to better understand what might be driving it. Now I'll preface by saying I have no experience determining formulas and although it works, I'm sure the structure or constants are probably incorrect. This post here helped to understand how Fdev may have approached this. If anyone can offer guidance with this that would be fantastic.

I considered the following factors were likely affecting fuel consumption:

• Fuel base value (f)
• FSD class constant (c) - when the FSD class changed, so did fuel per hour.
• FSD rating constant (r) - moving across ratings affected fuel per hour.
• Ship constant (s) - some ships that shared the same FSD/FT module sizes had different fuel rates.
• Core fuel tank size (ft) - moving up or down always affected fuel per hour, whether other factors remained the same or not.
• Throttle (t) - de-throttling reduced fuel per hour.

Fuel per hour = f * c * r * s * 2^ft * t

where f = 120 and other constants noted below:

Rating Size	Rating Constant	FSD Class	FSD Class Constant	Throttle Increments	Throttle Constant
A	1.00​	2​	1.1000​	100%​	1.000​
B	0.75​	3​	1.0000​	0%​	0.705​
C	1.05​	4​	0.9625​
D	1.05​	5​	0.9625​
E	1.10​	6​	0.9625​
		7​	0.9625​

The ship constants table is listed in the sheet for the sake of saving space in the post. Most ships were a constant of 1.00 but the Fed mediums, Clipper and Type-X ships were a constant of 1.10 to align them to their fuel rates. The new Python was a constant of 0.60 after reviewing its fuel/speed rate above what was expected for its size. There's grouped columns in the sheet that check how the formula performs against the data and it seems to be accurate, save for two Beluga results due to it consuming so much fuel it dropped a demical place in game and so I had to take a rounded figure. The throttle at 0% didn't offer a steady fuel rate like at 100% and fluctuated. I recorded the highest instance of the fuel I could see but it was never a clean looking percentage change from max rates. The average I mentioned of 29.50% I used as the throttle constant.

Any critique or discussion is welcome. I've got some more to share but I want to verify some of it first and I'm entering an exam period shortly. Excessive ship boosting will have to wait

edit: some grammar, clarified stats.

 

[Cosmo]

Ship	Total Fuel Capacity	SCO F/H Max	SCO Speed Max (approx. ~50)	F/H/Speed Max Ratio	FHSM Ratio/Fuel Cap

Can you add to the table what the acronyms F/H/Speed and FHSM Ratio stand for? Also, can you add the normal ship speeds without SCO?