Thoughts on reduced size fuel tanks on ship builds

[Cmdr aRadish]

Greetings Commanders

I recently had a short and unproductive online discussion with another commander about exploration ship builds. He had fitted a small(er than stock) fuel tank and I asked him why as this would marginally increase his max jump but would also reduce his range considerably and you could get the same jump distance by simply maintaining a 1/2 full tank (or can you) Still giving you the larger range for low density scoop areas. He got grumpy and didn't respond. So I thought it might be worth looking into. My hypothesis was that the ED route plotter wa probably not as clever as I assumed, so I tested it with the results below.

I would be interested in someone repeating for different jump/ship/journeys and also thoughts from other Explorer Commanders out there RE: Jump vs Range
Its worth noting that a C4 tank gives >50% range (267.83ly vs 492.89ly in my case).

From my data below id say a reduced fuel tank is advantageous, until you hit a sparse scoop able area maybe. I'll update if I do more tests

However you fly, have fun.
Cmdr aRadish


Starting Location :Shinrarta Dezhra
number of jumps to destination:
1k = California section FW-W D1-36 = 1020.36ly
5k = OUTOPPY BX-C B26-2 = 5001.72ly
10k = EAFOFF CA-V B30-2 = 10,004.94ly
20K = SIDGOE GF-N B34-0 = 19,995.55ly

Ship AspX : plotter with all star classes selected

Amount Fuel	Ship panel info LY	1k	5k	10k	20k	1k + cone boost	5k + cone boost	10k + cone boost	20k + cone boost
C4 tank 16t	unladen 70.15 current 68.13	16	76	156	311	16	69	138	301
c5 tank 32t	unladen 70.15 current 65.57	17	80	163	323	16	64	142	315
c5 tank 16t	unladen 70.15 current 68.13	17	80	163	323	16	64	142	315

Ship AspX : plotter with only KGBFOAM star classes selected

c4 16t	unladen 70.15 current 68.13	16	76	156		16	76	156	310
c5 32t	unladen 70.15 current 65.57	17	80	163		17	80	163	322
c5 32t	unladen 70.15 current 68.13	17	80	163		17	80	163	322

 

[CMDR CHIGGY VONRICTOFEN]

I actually prefer a larger than stock tank myself. You can still get the max range jumping on fumes (and carry a 1D (lightweight) rail gun with fuel slug mod to fine tune fuel load).
With the extra fuel you can make more back to back neutron boosts for super fast traveling while still having the ability to jump out on the fringes and get that last little bit out of a jump. All that is assuming you have room for the extra fuel...

 

[goemon]

no suprise there! the routeplotter always works with fully fueled assumed, and we can't disable extra tanks (which would be my dream).

how much of a use it is depends on how you are exploring ... chaning many neutronboosts after each other could justify a larger fuel tank (before you go scooping). if you like to fly 400k ls to those planets and investigate all pois in an unscoopable system you probably want to have enough fuel for 2 hours plus one or two jumps. if you like to explore unscoopable systems (i like l-class systems for exampel) again you migth want to ahve more fuel.

in terms of getting somewhere it doesn't matter (as chiggy i have a fuel dumping plasma slug fitted), and i have not needed more than 3 total jumps without scooping ever. my conda and my aspE used to have fuel for 3,5 max jumps. but my dbe has the standard 32t - if it needs scooping, i anyway do a short break

 

[marx]

How much jump range downsizing your fuel tank gets you depends on how sensitive to mass changes your ship is. Generally, the lighter the ship and the lower the FSD class, the more jump range you get from the same weight... or the more you lose.
For example, shaving off 4T will see barely any changes on an Imperial Cutter, with its class 7 FSD, while it'll see several ly if you do it on an Imperial Courier, with its class 3 FSD and feather weight.
You can see a calculation of this for every ship on the EDAstro Ships page.

Me, I like to shoot for 2.5-3 jumps in the tank, because anything more is dead weight unless I'm chaining neutrons, which I rarely do. And if I do, I have a ship built for that. Even more so now in Odyssey, because I much prefer to use smaller ships to look for surface life down on planets, so now I'll get to the nearest suitable carrier then pop into my Courier.

 

[Swaynky]

With engineering i no longer see a need for standard fuel tanks....back in the day on most ships you'd get about 5 jumps before needing a refill and you range on one tank would be 100-150ly on it...nowadays you can get that range in some cases just 2 jumps, so having a tank big enough for 3 jumps is good enough to get you through places with extending range in comparison to the old ways...why not eek out some extra ly per jump. I've had no problems with this nor run into a situation were i was afraid of not finding any scoopable stars so toss what isnt needed. The only time i would use standard tank on a build is if im specifically exploring the outer edges of the galaxy where stars are few and far and have less options. All in all its your build and you can do what you want, not really a wrong way of doing things nor a reason to really break out maths to prove why something would be better when everyone has there own play style and those maths mean nothing to their gameplay style

 

[Cmdr aRadish]

With engineering i no longer see a need for standard fuel tanks....back in the day on most ships you'd get about 5 jumps before needing a refill and you range on one tank would be 100-150ly on it...nowadays you can get that range in some cases just 2 jumps, so having a tank big enough for 3 jumps is good enough to get you through places with extending range in comparison to the old ways...why not eek out some extra ly per jump. I've had no problems with this nor run into a situation were i was afraid of not finding any scoopable stars so toss what isnt needed. The only time i would use standard tank on a build is if im specifically exploring the outer edges of the galaxy where stars are few and far and have less options. All in all its your build and you can do what you want, not really a wrong way of doing things nor a reason to really break out maths to prove why something would be better when everyone has there own play style and those maths mean nothing to their gameplay style

absolutely everyone should build what they like. I just like to make an informed decision and it appears my ideas (probably from when I started playing and got stuck in an unscoopable area) were too cautious. I also thought the plotter might be a bit more sophisticated. Now i know better I can build 'better' ships. One size down seems to suit most times having gone through my builds in coriolis.

 

[goemon]

i actually really like those tables. it's a good reference for how much a significant range increase reduces number of jumps - not much in my perspective (and that's me, who generally tries everything to squeeze another 0,18 ly out of a build) .

 

[Cmdr aRadish]

i actually really like those tables. it's a good reference for how much a significant range increase reduces number of jumps - not much in my perspective (and that's me, who generally tries everything to squeeze another 0,18 ly out of a build) .

yes it puts things into perspective. Squeezing an extra 1ly jump really doesn't translate in practical terms, because those pesky stars aren't placed at convenient distances so you rarely use that extra 1ly anyway. On a 5kly trip, does the time the 4 jumps you save equal the extra time you need to scoop when a standard tank gives you 3 jumps without scoop.

Small tank gives about 5% less jumps but 55% range

 

[Swaynky]

absolutely everyone should build what they like. I just like to make an informed decision and it appears my ideas (probably from when I started playing and got stuck in an unscoopable area) were too cautious. I also thought the plotter might be a bit more sophisticated. Now i know better I can build 'better' ships. One size down seems to suit most times having gone through my builds in coriolis.

i wasn't trying to directly attack your tables BTW, in my view as long as your in the milky way you got an unlimited fuel source so unlimited range and i rarely bucky ball so just park next to star when using FSS and refueled by the time i'm done so a lot of that information is pointless for me in regards to exploration. If i were to be going to point A to point B as fast as possible on the other hand that table is really good information.

I totally think people learning from their experiences early in the game do lead to being overcautious...pretty sure we all were...i don't even put heat sinks on exploration ships...i see them as unnecessary weight...from my few brief experiences of overheating from binary/trinary systems power plant wasn't taking any damage so i just accept the heat and when needed will drop from supercruise and just use AFMU which has no weight and puts (almost) everything back in order. I save heat sinks for combat loads only now.