Newcomer / Intro New ships built for SCO drives - as good as Titan SCO drives?

[Frankymole]

The Mandalay (for instance) steers wonderfully in Supercruise with a "normal" human SCO drive. But there also exist "special" SCO drives that a tech broker can make using a Titan Drive Component and a few other specialist materials.

Will the Mandalay behave the same - or even better - with one of these drives, or does it fly best using a "normal" SCO drive?

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I never bother with them, but I assume it is the equivalent to the old V1 preengineered drive. The SCO drives from the tech broker have quick boot and a higher optimized mass resulting in higher jump range at the cost of some thermal load and integrity, but that's it. I wouldn't expect them to behave any different.

 

[Frankymole]

I never bother with them, but I assume it is the equivalent to the old V1 preengineered drive. The SCO drives from the tech broker have quick boot and a higher optimized mass resulting in higher jump range at the cost of some thermal load and integrity, but that's it. I wouldn't expect them to behave any different.

Thank you! I'm more than halfway to getting one prepared (just transferring the materials from an alt account) so will "do the science" but I won't now expect to see a lot of difference. I don't mind some small sacrifices for extra range.

 

[CMDR Magitek Angel]

You'll get a few more light years compared to a fully engineered regular SCO drive, but when you've also put the hours into optimizing every last plate and bolt on your ship for range, a few Ly feels like a lot!

 

[Frankymole]

Yes indeed. I think I got about 4 extra light years, unladen. With some other lightweighting on core modules, and even with a vehicle hangar, my Mandalay has 92 light years range. I haven't noticed any difference in supercruise handling.

 

[DracoNB]

Will the Mandalay behave the same - or even better - with one of these drives, or does it fly best using a "normal" SCO drive?

afaik there is no difference in SC itself between the titan / pre-eng SCO and regular A SCO. The pre-eng offers higher jump range though so is recommended for any builds you jump a lot with.