yojimbo

The new Type-8, with its integrated SCO frameshift drive, is capable of getting to Hutton Orbital within less than 30 minutes of arriving at Alpha Centauri's jump point.

However, to do this takes a little thought and some gentle engineering.

And materials. Quite a few materials; for heatsink reloads, and the engineering itself.

General configuration

Mostly, you need your ship fitted with a lot of extra fuel tanks. At maximum speed, overcharged supercruise consumes a staggering 700T per hour, compared to less than 2T/hour in normal supercruise.

Then you probably need lots of heatsinks. While running overcharged, the ship's temperature builds steadily until you start to suffer internal heat damage; firing a heatsink drops the ship temperature down to 0%, and then it builds back up again. The number of heatsinks you need is based on how long it takes you to heat back up, and you need to be prepared to synthesise more.

Heatsink Hot-foot Shuffle

In my original Type-8 build (not quite stock), the ship was rapidly overheating during overcharge. I was getting only 30 seconds between popping one heatsink and the next, measured from when heat got just over 105%, and back up again.

The ship carried 4 heatsink launchers, each holding 3 units. Synthesis of Basic Heatsinks takes 20 seconds. It would be difficult to complete this before the ship started taking heat damage again, and I'd have to be doing a lot of synthesis, without any mistakes or delays. That didn't sound reasonable.

I upgraded to a 5A Power Plant and used Premium heatsinks (i.e. I synthesised the whole load myself rather than using the standard rounds bought via resuppliers), and then I was getting a 50 second cycle for overheating, and a 30 second synthesis time. Combining this with the pre-engineered high capacity Sirius Heatsink Launchers that hold 5 charges, and 4 of them in total fitted to the ship, I now had enough to last for 16 minutes, so 4 complete recharges would give enough coverage for the full flight.

With this setup, I took my first trip to Hutton Orbital, getting there in 27 minutes 30 seconds (recorded with the official Hutton Helper Lite running in EDMC, and verified by the pilot's manual chronometer).

Engineering the Power Plant, G5 Low Emissions FTW!

Lakon ships have long been infamous for overheating though, the Type-6 in particular has a bad reputation for jumping into hyperspace anywhere near a star. The only approach has been to get an A-rated Power Plant and just deal with the difference through heatsinks.

But aftermarket engineering is the route to success here. Hera Tani in Kuwemaki can deliver a reliable Low Emissions modification, and at Grade 5 it really shines (there are a couple of other suppliers who can have a go, but hers is the only workshop in the Bubble delivering G5).

I was now getting 90 seconds between overheat events, which extends protection to 5 x 4 x 90 = 30 minutes, meaning that I don't need to do any synthesis during the flight at all! Much much less stress on the pilot.

The Low Emissions engineering could be stretched further with the Thermal Spread experimental effect, but I didn't apply that. Mostly because I didn't fancy the 250+Ly trip in a ship making just over 20Ly per jump, although refuelling wouldn't have been a problem ...

But that 90-second overheat cycle isn't the only win for this modification, oh no ... if I'm not trying to break a speed record by running at maximum throttle (maxing out just over 4,580c) I can throttle back and cruise at a mere 3,500c, consuming fuel at only (only!) 500T/hour, and be actively cooling the whole time! So much that I can ramp up to max speed, and when the overheat warnings start to blare, just throttle down until things stabilise. So there's no need for a full fit-out of heatsinks on normal journeys, freeing up space for other modules.

Hands on the Stick

With this improved heat build in place, I can now fly all the way there without having to spend time in the synthesis panels, which doesn't sound like much of a problem. However, the SCO FSD doesn't deliver the smoothest ride – not only does speed fluctuate by about 10c, directional control isn't perfect, and the ship's heading bounces around all the time. Being able to keep the ship's nose pointed to the target requires constant feedback, and over such a distance is sure to pay off in terms of total distance and therefore time.

One additional small adjustment to help is to fix the arrival point at Alpha Centauri to get Hutton Orbital in front of you somewhere, so that you can boost immediately in the right direction without having to do lots of slow maneuvering. Entering the system from Sol isn't perfect, but it's the best option of the nearest few systems.

Second run ...

With a better starting position and more time to keep the ship on target, my second run in a Type-8 clocked in at 26 minutes 40 seconds.

I used 275T of fuel and 15 Premium heatsinks, and dropped ship integrity to 36%. I spent just under 250,000 CR to repair the ship afterwards.

This doesn't represent a massive improvement on the previous time, sadly. It was less stressful though.

Can we go faster?

Hutton Orbital is 6,395,831 Ls away from the jump point, which is 1.917 x 10^12 km (call it 'd'). Speed of light in vacuum (known as 'c') is 299792 km/sec, and the max speed here is 4580c. d/4580c = 1396.2 seconds, which is basically 23min 20sec – if we ignore acceleration/deceleration times. So there isn't much room for improvement to be had here, except a quicker drop onto the landing pad.

But it turns out that unlike the normal FSD speed being fixed for all ship types at a maximum of 2001c, the Achilles SCO drive performs differently for each different ship model and FSD grade.

This SCO performance has been analysed in detail by CMDR Osiliran, who currently sits in pole place for the Hutton Run, somewhat appropriately. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/measured-sco-fuel-hour-and-speed-rates.624525/ will help you find out more and access the raw data.

The Type-8 is a safe ship to experiment in, but once you get the feel for this speed run, perhaps you need to try something different? Lets keep our eyes open for the next ships to arrive in the next few months ...