Ships Top 10 Exploration ships!

[SergMx]

The Fleet Carrier changes everything.

• If I want to get somewhere fast the FC goes 2000Ly per hour. Same as a ship with 65Ly jump range but with less effort.
• Fleet carrier allows me to bring a variety of exploration ships, including various specialized ships and fun planet hopping ships.
• No need for 2 SRV hangars, AFMS, repair limpets, or extra fuel tanks.

The fleet carrier obsoletes many of the traditional needs for an exploration ship. It opens up the shipyard to ships more suited to various exploration activities.

IMO the min/maxed stripped down exploration ship is now just a seldom used special purpose ship I use for exploring very thin density areas of the galaxy. Otherwise I use better shorter range ships.

An aircraft carrier takes a long time to jump, and consumes a lot of tritium.
Anaconda Neitron jets for up to 300 years and that's fast.

 

[Northpin]

If I want to get somewhere fast the FC goes 2000Ly per hour. Same as a ship with 65Ly jump range but with less effort.

That's not entirely correct
A carrier can do 3 jumps per hour or a single jump in 15 minutes.

A ship can easily do a jump every minute (optimized builds can do a jump every 45s, but lets go with 1 minute)
Which means that a 65ly jump ship can do 975ly in 15 minutes or 1300ly in 20 minutes or 3900ly per hour* (while a carrier can do only 1500ly per hour)
And a ship does not requires tritium

So, easy and care free exploration should always be done in a ship.
A carrier is a drag, but undeniably it has it's perks - like perfectly suited for slow-mo A-Class RV style exploration.


*(and that's the worse case scenario, best case would be using the neutron highway in which case the Bubble - Colonia 22000ly trips can be done in about 2h using a 65ly jumps ship and the neutron highway instead of about 15h using a carrier that is script-jumping)

 

[Greasetrap42]

So, easy and care free exploration should always be done in a ship.

• If a cmdr wants to get somewhere fast the fleet carrier is the better choice. Tritium is irrelevent if speed is desired. Presumably the player is capable of getting tritium. If not then they won't be using this method. Obviously during the travel the player is pretty much "hands off". Set a timer, come back later. Not much other gameplay will take place. Go cook dinner or do your laundry.
• Equivalent fast travel in a ship jumping system-to-system the player must have their face glued to their computer monitor for literally hours. Say goodbye to your IRL day. When I did this I was not able to sustain this continuusly for multiple hours. Sometimes I gotta pee. 3900Ly per hour not even close to reasonsable. And obviously no other gameplay will take place.

In either case the player is not doing much leisuraly ingame activity. My point was fleet carriers allow easy long distance travel, much easier than glueing your face to the computer monitor for several hours.

Meanwhile for "easy and care free exploration" a fleet carrier enables a player to have ships better suited to the activities they are engaging in... without having to use a stripped-down paper-thin min-maxed clunky tin can. Jump range is no longer a primary design criteria. There is now much more freedom and flexibility in exploration ship design.