The Caspian Explorer – jump ranges

December, 3311 (2025)

The Zorgon Peterson shipyards have released the Caspian Explorer, and it's now time to have a quick look at the max jump ranges, to see how it measures up against the other long-range contenders (See the May 3311 article, https://read.yjmbo.net/yojimbo/update-elite-dangerous-max-jump-ranges)

Base model

The stock ship, coming in at 180 million credits (which is cheaper than I was led to understand, perhaps I'm getting a location-based discount via Sirius Corporation), brings E-rated core modules with a very small 6E shield; there are no other notable internals or utilities. This model can make 21.83 Ly max jumps.

Stellar model

On arrival, the Stellar edition comes very well-appointed, with a range of specialised equipment such as the MkII Hull (which allows for a 75° descent angle at final approach, instead of the usual 60°), the MkII Thrusters and a MkII SCO Frame Shift Drive, as well as a full internal loadout of a Taipan fighter, two SRVs, shields and both Repair and Research limpets. The Supercruise Overcharge feature will generate speeds of ~2900c, which is useful but not particularly notable.

Despite all this, it can achieve 40.59 Ly max jumps.

Distance-built model

From my other articles on jump ranges, I have a standard lightweight build that removes all optional modules, picks the lightest core modules (even when they under-power the ship as a result) and engineers them for even more savings. This isn't really a build I'd recommend flying for long stretches, especially for something that it likely to use jet cone boosting.

I don't have access to the Lightweight Life Support yet, but this module makes less than 1Ly difference.

This build gives me an 84.46–91.89 Ly jump range.

Engineering notes

Due to all my previous experiments, I was out of components and needed to restock. I've been trying out the “ED Odyssey Materials Helper” (see https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/elite-dangerous-odyssey-materials-helper.610816/ for details) – and I'm impressed that there's a portable Linux version in their standard release set, which works well for me.

And there's a conflict between the ship models now – the Stellar edition starts you off well, and you can engineer it's modules – but these will keep their 'free' status and cannot be transferred to any other ship, or even be stored.

This isn't a problem for the (currently) unique MkII modules, as they cannot be used in other ships. But the distance build uses multiple D rated modules to get weight advantage, so you might be better off using the base model and not the Stellar, when looking for maximum jump range. I'll engineer the Stellar for actual use when these tests are completed.

Neutron Star – Jackson's Lighthouse

The traditional “jumping-off” point within the Bubble, Jackson's Lighthouse is one of the few nearby neutron stars, and offers great fuel for the new MkII FSD.

When supercharged here, the Stellar gets a 243.55 Ly max (unladen) jump. This is a 6x multiplier on the standard range – much better than the 4x that the previous drives generated.

The Distance build (refuelled 12.18 Ly away) takes that 6x multiplier and turns my 84.46 into 506.46–551.35 Ly.

White Dwarf – Lawd 27

This is a local white dwarf star, and a supercharge on the Stellar here provides a 3x multiplier, for a 121.78 Ly max jump. Another significant improvement over the previous 1.25x – oddly a more effective increase than for neutron stars.

The Distance build was refuelled 9.11Ly away from Lawd 27, and my 84.46Ly range went to 253.39–275.67 Ly.

EDSY

Theory-crafting the couple of options I didn't apply to my ship on EDSY gives me 84.97–92.50 Ly range, and the 6x from a neutron boost gives it 509.82–555 Ly in one jump.

This of course beats the max jump from a Mandalay, 91.24Ly * 4 is 365.96 Ly (remembering that the Mandalay doesn't have access to a MkII FSD).

EDSY's numbers sometimes looked like they were ~0.01Ly different from mine, but this is probably a rounding error somewhere; it might also be caused by small fuel-usage differences.

Conclusion

The Caspian Explorer in a maximised build can make 92.5 Ly normal jumps, which is just slightly further than the Mandalay and Anaconda. But it's ability to unlock higher efficiencies from white dwarf and neutron star jet cones will make a huge difference on long-distance journeys, unlocking up to 555 Ly per neutron boost – at the cost of regular repairs to the damage this causes, of course, and keeping a good eye on fuel reserves.

Long distance work

The Galaxy Plotter from Spansh (https://spansh.co.uk/exact-plotter) can read an EDSY description of this ship, and on the default settings returns a sequence of 46 jumps between Jackson's Lighthouse and Colonia, including refuelling 3 times. This should take less than an hour, but now depends on the fuel scoop speed, which is a going to take about 3 minutes to fill the ship.

But there's a time tradeoff to make – seeing as many of those jumps are less than 550 Ly, I could take extra fuel tanks and remove the refuelling requirement at the cost of a shorter jump. Taking two extra 6C Fuel tanks doubles my capacity and drops jump to 78.28Ly, which results in a 469.68 Ly range. Asking Spansh to ignore opportunistic refuelling, we get 48 jumps and 1 refuelling stop, which will be double the time of the previous one, 7 minutes or so.

On a much longer journey, I expect this balancing act to give more benefits. Additionally, Spansh will probably benefit from allowing White Dwarf stars to be added to the routing mix for ships with the MkII FSD, as the benefit they get is finally worth the time spent getting into the jet cones.