Voyage of the Anagolda

[Yakkus]

Ok, well, I've gone with the recommendations: Two SRVs, a Fighter, and............had some materials to engineer to grade 4. I now have a respectable range of 45.27
I'm considering the point about a cargo rack. In all seriousness, what is actually possible to find? Alien tech? And if so, does it count as 'cargo'?

 

[JetsonRING]

Ok, well, I've gone with the recommendations: Two SRVs, a Fighter, and............had some materials to engineer to grade 4. I now have a respectable range of 45.27
I'm considering the point about a cargo rack. In all seriousness, what is actually possible to find? Alien tech? And if so, does it count as 'cargo'?

One never knows, does one? The essence of exploration is, you do not know what you might find. Probably nothing but what is the miniscule mass of a cargo rack compared to the anguish of "If only I had brought a cargo rack!"?

 

[JetsonRING]

ONLY A RATED PP! Take as small an A rated one as you can, but the A rated are the most heat efficient. It might be worth it to engineer one with low emmisions - when you want to travel fast to those nice rich unexplored areas or just want to get back to the bubble already you can scoop closer to the star and lose heat faster to jump. Might save you if you get too close and drop out of SC(or stumle to close orbiting binaries),a seriosly dangerous possibility. Especially when you're going back with all that data onboard.

Judgement call. I always run A-rated power plants so that is what was fitted when I did my 5000 LY trip and for that, A-rated anything and everything is OK, just cuts a bit off jump-range (it really is a fairly short trip). For long, protracted exploration expeditions though, consider using the smallest power plant that will boost and run everything on your ship. A-rated power plants (are heavy) mass a lot and cut down jump-range significantly. If you want to do some exploring instead of trying to go 5000 LY as fast as you can, remember that you do not absolutely need to maximize your jump range. Shorter jumps means exploring more systems. More systems explored means more exploration data income and greater possibility of new discoveries. It will just take a bit longer to finish the trip. Super long jump ranges are most useful when the CMDR is exploring the fringes of the galaxy, where the stars are simply farther apart. Inside the denser portions of the galaxy, jump-range is less important to the explorer and more important to traders and passenger ship CMDRs trying to get somewhere fast.

In general and if the CMDR can afford it, A-rated power plants (like everything else A-rated) are usually the best "general" fit, for their power budget, flexibility (you can hang almost anything on an A-rated PP) and thermal efficiency. o7

 

[MrFailfactory]

Just to offer a counter-point to something that is said a lot in response to the OP's question:

Your absolute minimum time between system entry and system exit is ~20 seconds. There is some flex here, but it's not really worth grinding on about.

Why people think that they need a fuel scoop that runs much faster than that, is something I have a hard time processing. It took me a depressing amount of time to get some of the frequent posters in the Exploration forum to finally realize it, but only some of them. Hopefully, people elsewhere are better at seeing what is actually happening, and what benefits they are actually realizing, instead of just looking at the kg/s on the scoop.

An Anaconda, with the standard fuel tank can use a 5A, and top off easily between jumps. This would be the minimum for smooth sailing, but not the optimal choice. The below comparison is both for topping off after every jump, and an empty-to-full scoop session.

From Coriolis:

5A - ~9M credits, 55 seconds from empty to full
6A - ~28M credits, 35 seconds from empty to full
7A - ~91M credits, 25 seconds from empty to full
7C - ~6M credits, 35 seconds from empty to full

Now...which one do you think is the optimal choice?

The only actual benefit to getting a 7A is the fact that you can have a higher scoop speed while being farther from the star. This is a nice benefit, to be sure, and offers a larger safety margin, but I would say that it's hardly necessary.

Also - you have to add quite a bit to an (Engineered) Anaconda to appreciably lower its jump range. Unless you are going to the extreme fringes, there really isn't much difference between a 50 and 53 light year jump range. The point of diminishing returns is actually around 40 light years.

Riôt

 

[yolomcbobbinz]

on an exploration conda a size 5 shield is not really needed.. a size 4 will easily cover your mass
boosters are not needed... its not like anyones going to attack you once you leave the bubble

He's probably using a class 5 shield and boosters to help cushion a bad landing