Interesting DBond. I may just build that Ship for myself as I have the extra hull over at Jameson. God knows I've got the extra modules as well.

I am honored sir!

Of course I'd really like it if you did. Would love to hear your assessment of my ship having flown and fought it. That's a rare thing in this game.

Oh and by the way, you had given me the nudge a couple weeks ago to finally swap the scoop to 6A. Was scooping at 650 kg/sec yesterday @ 62% heat. Insane and mighty nice

https://s.orbis.zone/d3fg

Gneisenau with V1 FSD.

That's a nice Krait Bo. The rover's a nice touch. Good speed, protection, jump. PAs for all occasions. Do you fly this ship often?

It was my main ride until the Vette. The SRV is a hold over from when my fleet was smaller and the Krait was primary. Don’t really fly it much anymore. The medium hp’s cycle between PA, MC, and Impy Hammers.

I'd be flying that one the most haha.

Here's my combat Krait, now with bi-weaves, GSR, class 6 scoop and the double engineered FSD

Poison Whiskey DEFSD

I might re-jig the boosters a bit, kicking it around. I have a few megawatts to play with at the mo.

Looking at Bo's Krait gave me an idea. Instead of spending that power on boosters, how about sensors? Bo's build shows me that G5 lightweight 6A sensors weight just 8t. My G3 Long-Range 6D sensors weigh 25.6t. Detection range as shown on Coriolis is pretty close for those two mods, although the long range Ds are a bit longer. Presumably the better resolution of the As would offset the slight range disadvantage, and anyway in practice should be around 11km max, which is plenty for me. With the 3-plus MW I have to play with I think I'm going to give that change a go. It would make my Krait a little faster, jump a little farther, and maybe get better sensor performance in busy combat spaces. Not a big change, but speed is life, even if it is only 2 m/s better haha. Thanks for posting your boat Bo. Gave me something to work on.

Here's the same Krait, with only the sensors change. Total mass, just 605t. Heat would go up slightly, but so would agility.

Poison Whiskey G5 LW Sensors

That was an interesting test. I flew to Jameson to install the A's, and had enough mats on hand to G5 lightweight. The power draw put me barely over the limit, so had to shuffle priorities to prevent the cargo hatch from shutting down on hardpoints deploy. Idle increased a single point, to 28%

Speed, agility and jump are all boosted nicely. The ship does feel even more maneuverable. I like all these benefits.

The sensor performance took me by surprise a bit. In the descriptions of both a G3 long range D, and a G5 lightweight A, the range is shown as 7+ km. A little higher for a Ds, but we're talking just a few tenths of a KM. In practice though I was getting a hard limit on the As of 8km. I was unable to pick a ship up beyond this range. The G3 long range Ds, even with an equivalent range rating, can lock ships up out to 11km. 3km isn't a huge deal, but as I know from my interest in submarines, increasing search radius even a little, increases the area that be covered by a lot. Then again, I don't necessarily use the sensors to find ships, but to identify them. Still, the greater range gives more ships to 'target next' through.

If A sensors are superior against cool ships it was not apparent to me. A DBS could still be lost even 3 km away. I am not saying this advantage does not exist, but only that I am unable to see it, in an admittedly small sample.

So I am torn about this. On one hand I like the performance boost I get by swapping sensor type. On the other I lose the power overhead to maybe improve protection through different booster choices.

What I should have done is engineer the As to G3 lightweight first, tested those, then go to G5. There may be a preferable middle ground here somewhere.

I used to run long range on my sensors. The mass hit on that mod has driven me to lightweight, especially on the big boys. A long range sensor on the Vette comes with a huge increase in mass.

Yeah, those sensors weigh 160t haha. I can understand opting for lightweight!

I miss the enhanced range of the G3 long-rang Ds in the Krait. No doubt it's better. An extra 3 km search radius means an additional area covered of 179 square kilometers, if my math is accurate.

So using Area = πR2

8km radius = 201 square kilometers

11km radius = 380 square kilometers

So a 37% increase in in radius equals nearly double the area that can be covered.

Still, I really was digging the performance of my Krait in this lightweight trim. I dropped one fuel tank class, for 16t, and cut another 17t with the sensors. The agility is amazing, at times it felt Vulture-like. So at this point I don't know what to do. It's a matter of opportunity cost between speed, agility and jump (and inferior sensor ability) versus retaining the power overhead to spend on increased shield protection (and increased sensor ability). Decisions, decisions.