Obtaining maximum ship speed?

[DukeIronHand]

"I feel the need...the need for speed."

I like fast ships for a lot of obvious reasons. It is probably the primary attribute in my choice of ships and one of the first things I try to improve on when upgrading modules.

This question is not about the fastest ship but how to make any ship you are flying go as fast as it can. Let me preface this by saying I get the role of fuel and cargo weight in speed - again how to maximize your speed in whatever configuration you are in.

I mentioned this to another Cmdr in another thread in regards to the T6. She (I think based on my interpretation of the avatar - sorry if wrong!) ran some tests with boost and pips. She(?) also posted her Corolis test ship config and I asked her if she ever obtained the speed Corolis said she should get in the T6 as I never do - especially with the "6".

The Cmdr said to obtain top speed to boost with FA OFF. Well I was just flying my Cobra Mk III (with some cargo and fuel on a mission but that doesn't matter here) and obtained, with 4 pips to Eng, my top cruise speed then boosted and noted top speed.
Switched to FA OFF and repeated the same "test" and found I was about 6 m/s slower boosting with FA OFF.

Did other things, checking on stuff, but this post is getting long enough...

How does one obtain the maximum designed speed, through pip settings and game controls, in a whatever ship (in any configuration and load) they are flying?

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

You have to boost twice in a row at least to see your real top-speed^^
Generally, the lesser mass, the higher the speed. Cmdrs talk about, that the courier is best for this.
I have atm an Hauler with enhanced thrusters amd lvl3 dirty-drives goin 540m/s makes fun but i can't nothing do with it except racing. One single ton of cargo reduces it to 530m/s...

 

[Thetele]

The best engines and power distribution you can get from out fitting. No weapons or any internal modules. Smallest fuel tank available and all modules you have to have d-rated. The go to engineers. Grade 5 dirty-drives (good roll) and grade 5 engine focused power distribution. Every other module modded with light weight module. And make sure that your power plant can still just power up the ship. Then just keep boosting until the speed doesn't get higher. Thats how you get ship go as fast as it can. It will be useless for other stuff but at least it go fast.

 

[goemon]

- "normal" a class-Thrusters will provide maximum speed at 50% optimal mass - overall mass of your ship (including fuel and caro) is what counts here. enhanced performance thrusters (class 2/class 3) will provide maximum speed bonus ~75% optimal mass - 70t for class 3

- all ships have a base speed, bonus for a grade thrusters and getting below optimal mass are applied on top of that. fastest ship possible with normal thrusters is cobra mkIII, fastest ship that can fit enhanced thrusters is an imperial eagle, which is therefore fastest ship in the game atm.

- to reach maximum speed you need to boost at least twice; not all ships are able to do so - the energy for a boost depends on ship type, not all ships can sustain perma-boost

- FAOFF doesn't move maximum boost speed, what it does is reducing the speed bleed after a boost - e.g. you'll loose speed a bit slower. this is helpfull for ships that loose top boost speed faster than others, especially for ships with a small distributor and large difference between top boost speed and top straight line speed

- what happenend in your exampel is, that you had a minimal input for some movement into another direction during FAOFF. e.g. your ship have been moving "forward" with a small vector to any other side.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-Roll-and-Acceleration-for-(nearly)-Everyship : "Boost* figures are the highest boost achieved in practice due to speed bleeding out. Other figures are where a hard limit was clearly hit on boosting." --- best thread on that question.

 

[Siranui]

Low mass, 4 pips to engines, big A class thrusters with dirty drive 5 modification, boost repeatedly in a straight line.

Also helps to retract cargo scoop and landing gear.

 

[Muzz UK]

Class D everything for light weight, pick a fighter or small craft and level 5 engineer the hell out of it with full pips to engines.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Thank you gentlemen.
Perhaps to rephrase (assuming ED Shipyard and Corolis are accurate) you design a ship with this and that modules.
The above sites say the ship should be this fast with this fuel, this cargo, etc. Generally it is fairly accurate however the T6 is always quite a bit off whereas the Cobra Mk III seems very close in my eyeball testing. Think my Asp and Python are pretty close too...I think.

What needs to be done, in-game, to reach these speeds?
Someone above mentioned boosting twice is necessary (which I think I do) but things still seem a bit off. 4 pips to engines? Are there other factors slowing me down like...location perhaps? The presence of nearby planetary bodies (gravity) slowing me down etc? FA ON/OFF? Does it depend on the ship?

EDIT: And thanks for the above link goemon.

 

[Bounder]

A space speed limit.


A speed limit... in space.


All space, everywhere. Designed into the ship itself.




Last night i set up Pioneer with HOTAS. It's basically Elite, but with real spaceflight, so there's no such thing as a "speed limit". You simply dial in whatever speed you want, or none at all, or use manual thrust, with or without rotational damping enabled (ie. proper, useful 'flight assist' controls).

Trust me, there's simply no alternative for the real thing. Flying to a planet, on autopilot or manual, dropping into a suitable orbit, lining up on a LZ and bringing it in as hot or cool as you like, totally seamlessly, no transitions of any kind... sublime fun and satisfaction, the way Elite used to be. And if you still prefer the water-wings and stabilisers approach of ED, you can just set your speed limit to whatever you were comfortable with in ED - you still have the same roll'n'pitch (AKA "pew pew") handling for dogfigthting and barnstorming etc., but without nerfed yaw, so you can twist, barrel roll and just generally manoeuvre much more fluidly and intuitively.

Doubt i'll be trying ED again anytime in the near future. Horizons really slammed home the crippling speed limit. You see an enticing valley below, a perfect little mach loop to tear thru, except it's 40,000 km away and your "max speed" (spit) is only 250 m/s, so it's gonna take hours to get there, and even once you arrive it'll be no fun crawling thru at a snail's pace. So you have to enable "supercruise" which ditches all physics (and with it, all fun), to get into "glide mode" (spit), which then keeps crashing you out again for being at too shallow an angle, each time with that jarring lockup of a transition, when all you can do it let go of the stick and reach for a smoke in withering exasperation at these incessant interuptions - by the game itself - at your every attempt to have any fun with it...

Space flight is fun. ED's player base has bought into the lie that it's either inimical to fun, or outright impossible to implement in the first place. But what Pioneer - thanks to previous versions of Elite itself - demonstrates is that it's actually the core game. Everything else is window dressing. The trading, combat, mining or whatever is made fun only in the context of the spaceflight tying it all together. When there's nothing else to do, spaceflight itself is its own reward, and always engaging. But in ED it's a cheesy oversimplistic chore, with all the fun and reward ripped out. It's basically "spaceflight" in a kind of "no-clipping" mode, a dot-tracking minigame with a droning noise and annoying, uncontrollably-floating velocity variation. That is not spaceflight. That is not fun. Supercruise is no substitute for spaceflight, F=MA is not velocity dependent, and earnest discussions about ED ship speeds are like turkeys expousing the virtues of bread source over cranberry..


A space speed limit. A limit, on velocity.. in space.

There's an alternative. Real spaceflight, real piloting skillz, real satisfaction, not to mention real value on your HOTAS setup...

http://pioneerspacesim.net/download

 

[goemon]

Someone above mentioned boosting twice is necessary (which I think I do) but things still seem a bit off. 4 pips to engines? Are there other factors slowing me down like...location perhaps? The presence of nearby planetary bodies (gravity) slowing me down etc? FA ON/OFF? Does it depend on the ship?

4 pips to engines. 50% optimal optimal thruster mass. boost-boost. and out of orbital cruise line of a planet. that is all with every ship which can sustain constant boost.