Deep Space Journal No 1. (otherwise could be described as an experiment in boredom?)
16 Feb 2020Kris Afron
As I write this log I'm on the second stage of an experiment running between Ross 780 and IL Aquarii in a Hauler, but I'm not doing it the conventional way. I'll explain.This idea has been with me for quite a while and it originally occurred as a result of my first run to Hutton Orbital in the Alpha Centauri system which I did to get the Hutton Orbital Landing badge from the EDSM crowd. I've since been again to get a cargo full of Hutton mugs.
The run there is 0.21 ly, said to be the longest distance that you'd ever have to run between the system entry point and a destination station. And it takes some time.
Yesterday I did it again, but purely as the first stage of an experiment that I want to do in the near future. I put together two inexpensive ships, an Adder at just over 1 mil CR and a Hauler at about 375 k CR for use in the test stages for this. I chose small cheap ships to cut my losses should the experiment go wrong. I outfitted them with A-rated power plants, power distrubutors and FSD's and engineered the FSD for increased jump range grade 5. To keep the theme of weight reduction I removed the stock hardpoints and didn't fit any utility mounts.
For the optional internals I removed the shield generators (won't be needing shields), fitted an Auto-Docking computer (simplifies the docking) and filled the remaining slots with fuel tanks.
So now I have an Adder with 36 tonnes of fuel and a therefore a range of 669.1 ly and a Hauler with 28 tonnes of fuel and a range of 1076.5 ly, so with plenty of fuel capacity I don't need fuel scoops.
Yesterday's run to Hutton was in the Adder and I took some data on the run.
It took 83 minutes (I started at 13:57 and arrived at 15:20), the Adder runs in supercruise at 1.16 tonnes of fuel per hour, so this journey used 5% of my fuel reserve. I know i exceeded 1900c, but I wasn't watching when it peaked.
Now I'm running the Hauler, but not the same route. I'm running it from IL Aquarii (Patsayev Station) to Ross 780 (Aristotle Gateway) which is a distance of 0.23 ly and I'll be taking the same data to determine which of these two ships is the more efficient and could therefore travel the furthest in supercruise before needing to refuel.
I've now reached 2001c, with about 15 minutes to go on this journey, and it is steady at that number so I've got to have reached the record supercruise speed, wow!
I'll write up the results in the next log and reveal the ultimate purpose for these runs.
CMDR Kris Afron signing off. Fly safely commanders.