Schlepping: Type-8 vs Type-9

[Neilski]

7D clean drives. When I was whipping around the star lining up for a new jump, I was getting a lot of overheating.

Ahh. See below for heating-related thoughts. (Overheating takes ages to actually cause any damage, as you probably know, even if it makes irritating noises.)

Also, I was going for cheap the total cost now is 112 million. A 7A drive alone costs 51 million.

Fair enough. However, that money can be raised quite literally within minutes (e.g. I get offered 50 M all the time at my local station, just to source 250 gold or similar, i.e. a sub-15-minute round trip), so you may want to reconsider the benefits of the better drive.

Can we link a Coriolis comparison?

Here's my current T9 (pending upgrade to the Prismatic shields I recently unlocked): https://s.orbis.zone/qXrc
However, I'd recommend reviewing it within EDSY instead (https://edsy.org/s/v6FzsEt) because EDSY gets so many things right - e.g. the handling data - which Coriolis gets wrong.

When I use EDSY to compare the handling for my own T9 (7A G5 dirty + drag) to what it would be if I changed only the thrusters to match your T9 (7D G1 clean + thermal spread), I get a really massive variation in the numbers: with 4 pips to ENG, mine has roll/pitch at 32.5 degrees/second, while with your thrusters I get only 22.5 degrees/second. That's enough to make it feel like a very different ship. I'm not so sure I'd be flying my T9 quite as much as I do if it handled like yours
Although Coriolis gets the handling calcs wrong, so I can't directly check your T8's performance, my best guess from some quick exploration with EDSY is that your T8 (5A G3 DD) has around 38 degrees/second of pitch (and much faster roll). Nippier, for sure, but the gap has been closed rather a lot.

A few thoughts on your T9 build:

• I notice that you've used thermal spread in a few curious places, probably because the ship runs hot
  • you'll probably find it much easier to do thermal tuning with the help of EDSY, because it gets the thermals correct (Coriolis barely does this at all, and what it does do it seems to do incorrectly)
  • NB: sadly, you can't export from Coriolis to EDSY (the other direction works fine) but if you use EDDiscovery (a great app) then you can trivially load up any of your ships in either Coriolis or EDSY at the click of a single button, using your journal data to make for a perfect transfer
• for example, instead of using G1 OC + TS on your PP, I'd have gone with G5 Armoured + TS - this gives similar power output but with ~32% thermal "efficiency" instead of ~38%, which will help to cool things down (but maybe you chose a lot of G1 engineering because you haven't got the mats for G5?)
• you're using the pre-eng IR+FB SCO drive - a beautiful drive for jump distance but it runs very hot, even with thermal spread, and that makes it a tough choice for a T9 (I use the normal SCO drive on mine, with IR G5 + MM, which gives a wee bit less jump range than the pre-eng drive but runs a fair bit cooler)
• I'm a bit confused by the weapons you've fitted, plus the bi-weave shield. Do you bother to deploy the hardpoints much? And do the turrets succeed in killing anyone? (If you do engage in combat, I'd have thought it'd be worth engineering the weapons, but the usual approach is of course not to bother with weapons on a T9 hauler.) If not, you'd probably benefit from a regular 5A shield in place of the 5C.
• I'd be inclined to tweak the PD so that you can boost at the maximum rate (6 seconds)

 

[GTwannabe]

T-9 is too slow entering and exiting port and it can be mass locked by a ham sandwich.

 

[Brieus]

Btw, the Type-8 can carry 406 tons and the Type-9 can carry 790 tons. I'd wager that you'll get more transported per hour if you dedicate all the optional module space to cargo racks, even if it means 10 Ly less jump range because of the lack of the FSD booster.

Maybe you might want to redo your test in that manner.

If you have access to the Imperial Cutter, try it too. It's a very temperamental ship (much more so than the Type-9) but it's more maneuverable. (And if you don't yet have access to it, well, there's an idea for your next goal... )

406 tons capacity means 1 fewer trip, but it would take 4 jumps on the way back. Each round trip would go from 5 total to 6 total jumps. An increase of at least 20% in transit time.

 

[Neilski]

406 tons capacity means 1 fewer trip, but it would take 4 jumps on the way back. Each round trip would go from 5 total to 6 total jumps. An increase of at least 20% in transit time.

Yeah, I don't think that 406 is really such a big win vs 384 (it's less than 6% extra cargo, at the cost of a shield and the FSDB), but nonetheless:
Firstly your FSDB is currently only class 1 but sitting in a class 2 slot, so it's a no-brainer to bump that to class 2.
Secondly, 6 jumps is indeed 20% more than 5 jumps, but because the round-trip time contains other elements (e.g. undocking twice, redocking twice, leaving the mass lock of the station twice, supercruising from drop-in to the station twice), you'll find that the extra 45 seconds for that extra jump would add a LOT less than 20% to your round-trip time (well under 10%, I expect - and probably rather similar to the 6% cargo boost above).

 

[nemolomen]

For colonization, I choose between hauling in the T-8 (320t) and T-9 (688t) based on how much cargo I need to pickup/deliver at a particular location.

 

[Brieus]

Colonisation without an FC sounds like hard work.

Well, that's my next project. I did the math and I can cram almost enough stuff for 2 small installations and 1 medium inside.
I'm jumping the carrier to the system with 90%+ of the materials available and filling it up there.
Just need to find 328 bioreducing lichen. My starter outpost in-system sells it, but only 8 per tick. It did have enough Water Purifiers, Power Generators and Survival Equipment to fulfill requirements.