SRV fuel conservation strategies?

[Ship Puppet]

To conserve SRV fuel while on 2000+ Lyr expeditions, what strategies are effective?

One that comes to mind is land, disembark deploy, scan in a circle for signals, board, fly, repeat to bracket the signal source.

 

[Val Sylvana]

Apparently you can turn the shields off to save a bit since they don't protect from collision damage anyway. But you know you can synthesise it from readily available sulphur and phosphorus?

 

[Ship Puppet]

Yes, I'm aware of fuel synth. But, I need the mats to do that

 

[Ship Puppet]

I'm not out in deep space, yet. Still learning how to drive the SRV and use my feet while gathering materials for the Dweller.

 

[SlickPBW]

You can surface prospect for the mats to synth fuel. They are very common.

 

[colprice2002]

If you simply circle your ship, the ship signal will swamp the scanner.
Best strategy is to scan the system, select planets with sulfur and/or phosphorout, land, then search for the objects that will give you these materials.
just shoot the “rock” and scoop.
Pretty soon you’ll have enough materials to refuel several times.
Remember that the are Fleet Carriers scattered around, docking will refuel the SRV.

I‘d suggest using the Scorpion SRV - it’s easier to steer, a little more agile, greater firepower and carries the same cargo load.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Sulphur and Phosphorous are available in high quantities on any world except metal-rich (high metal content is fine). So long as you shoot and scoop the rocks you come across you're not going to stand any chance of running out of fuel, provided you don't exclusively go to metal-rich worlds.

Give it a go while practising driving in the bubble (just wait until you're out of the no fire zone!) and you'll have plenty to get you started for your actual trip.

I‘d suggest using the Scorpion SRV - it’s easier to steer, a little more agile, greater firepower and carries the same cargo load.

But, on the other hand:
- doesn't have a wave scanner, so you can't use it for the prospecting trips to get the synthesis materials (well, you can, but you have to spot the rocks by eye or get lucky and drive right up to one so it shows on the regular scanner)
- is much slower to accelerate
- has terrible off-ground boost

I tend to use the Scorpion for icy world exobiology (where the lack of a wave scanner isn't a problem and the stronger grip is really useful) and the Scarab elsewhere. If you have a class 4 hangar you can take one of each, of course.

 

[Codger]

I‘d suggest using the Scorpion SRV - it’s easier to steer, a little more agile, greater firepower and carries the same cargo load.

Actually the Scarab has twice the cargo capacity. Just sayin'

 

[LifesAJourney]

To conserve SRV fuel while on 2000+ Lyr expeditions, what strategies are effective?

Cheap method: synthesis
Expensive method: fleet carrier

 

[GroG79]

Conserving SRV fuel does not give positive returns

Just synth it when needed. Search/find the occasional rock. A lot come with grade 3 or 4 mats.

If you are really scared of running out of materials to synth; visit a material trader before leaving the bubble.

 

[Alec Turner]

Having completely circumnavigated five separate planets now I can confidentially say that running out of fuel isn't a significant concern. You can turn off shields for sure and also set pips how you want them (all to ENG for travel) and turn off the power distributor too (plus anything else you’re not using). But really, the materials you need for synthesis are easily found and the SRV can go a long way on one tank.

 

[Ship Puppet]

Thanks for the tips and reassurances. I've only this week started messing around with the SRV -- after buying Odyssey -- in preparation for deep space exploration.

Found a tiny moon with massive fields of materials today:

After basically starting out with no mats:

 

[The Own of Noon]

Actually the Scarab has twice the cargo capacity. Just sayin'

And it's relatively a bit lighter!

 

[Ship Puppet]

While searching for ET life, I learned how to skim in the ship at 50-250 m altitude. I used the same skimming techniques to hunt for planetary resource nodes, and found it effective and fast to find fields rich with planetary resource nodes -- enough for hours of farming nodes with distances under 250m between nodes.