A small guide for mass shedding shipbuilders
By CMDR “Q” Ryanmarc
Chief Engineer, The Fatherhood
Some Elite Dangerous ships are capable of running combat fittings while keeping their Laden Mass at or below the Thruster Minimum Mass. These ships all have something in common, namely a Thruster that is unusually large and powerful relative to their hull mass.
Why do this? Because you are literally getting every last bit of thrust that those thrusters have to offer. That means better straight ahead speed but also better performance from maneuvering thrusters. In the best case scenario you can achieve this while also maintaining a normal weapon array, good shields, a strong hull complete with module reinforcement, and even normal sized core modules. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Your goal should be to get the Laden Mass to be equal to the Minimum Thruster Mass. A Laden Mass below the Minimum gives no further benefit, so you can consider that as extra mass space to fill. Being over the Minimum will cause decreased thruster performance. Sometimes it’s better to take a slight hit to your thruster performance if it allows for a ship that’s more combat capable.
In many cases you’ll have to downsize modules to achieve these low masses. This can limit you to low Power Distributor draw/Efficient or Lightweight engineered weapons depending on the setup. Nevertheless, you can be surprisingly strong to go with your newfound speed.
Important Terms
Hull Mass
The mass of the ship’s hull, natch. Doesn’t include anything else that is attached or stored on that hull. Think of a car frame.
Laden Mass
The total mass of the ship’s hull, all modules (core/optional/utility), a full tank of fuel, and all cargo holds full of cargo.
Unladen Mass
The total mass of the ship’s hull and all modules (core/optional/utility). Doesn’t include fuel or cargo.
Thruster Minimum Mass – If the Laden Mass of a ship is less than or equal to this value, then you are getting the maximum thrust Multiplier (essentially thruster performance) available from this particular thruster. Thrust Multiplier performance then decreases gradually as your Laden Mass rises until you reach Optimal Mass.
Thruster Optimal Mass – If the Laden Mass is equal to this value you are getting the “Optimal Multiplier” performance from your thrusters. Consider this the sweet spot for ships that are not being deliberately lightweighted and/or can’t realistically achieve the minimum. Thrust performance then continues to decrease as your Laden Mass rises, and usually the decrease is more drastic between Optimal and Maximum.
Thruster Maximum Mass – If the Laden Mass is greater than this value then the ship can no longer move, except in some extreme cases with engineering shenanigans. This is why undersizing thrusters comes with a severe penalty, and overloading a ship with cargo beyond its Maximum Mass results in a ship that might not be able to take off.
Module Specific Guidance
Hull Armor
In the majority of cases you’ll want to keep your hull Lightweight Alloy, engineering with Heavy Duty/Deep Plating (or Layered Plating to prop up the Explosive resistance) which will keep the mass from this module at zero. The hull integrity benefit from the Hull Armor actually pales in comparison to what can be achieved with Hull Reinforcement Modules. Reactive Surface Composite with Heavy Duty/Deep Plating gives a large mass penalty and should be avoided. Reactive hull with Lightweight/Deep Plating decreases the mass penalty and can be considered as a middle ground (with good resistances and very reasonable integrity boost) if your ship is lacking hull integrity from other sources.
Power Plant
This is a common place to undersize. Choose the smallest A grade power plant that fits your power needs, and make this choice once all other modules are selected. Each class downgrade halves the mass of the power plant. Engineering will obviously help a smaller power plant to give sufficient power for your build, plus the usual thermal benefits (or penalties as the case may be). Remember that extra power is wasted!
Thrusters
Dirty Drive thruster engineering is the preferred choice in 99.99% of cases. This gives the best thruster performance but does lower the Minimal and Optimal Thruster Mass. The experimental “Drive Distributors” can be added to get back some of that minimal/optimal mass loss, but it will generally provide worse performance compared to the “Drag Drives” experimental, so it’s not used for regular thrusters. Drive Distributors is a good experimental choice for Enhanced Performance Thrusters, as it increases the Minimal (and Optimal) Mass value and gives better performance in extreme low mass situations. Since the purpose of lightweighting a combat ship is to get the best performance possible from the Thruster module, downsizing this module is not recommended. For smaller ships with class 2 and 3 thrusters, Enhanced Performance Thrusters are an option, but their Minimum Thruster Mass is even lower than regular Thrusters, meaning that they are more mass sensitive.
Frameshift Drive
As combat ships are generally deployed in the system in which they are meant to be used, this is one module that can essentially be “deleted” for significant mass savings. Install a 2D FSD, engineer it with a single grade of Faster Boot Sequence, and choose the Stripped Down experimental. Your jump range will be a small decimal, but you can still Supercruise all you want. If you have the mass space you can choose a full sized Faster Boot Sequence/Stripped Down FSD, or even a FSDv1 with Faster Boot already baked in. In those cases you can make the FSD power priority 5 and shut it off when the hardpoints are deployed, which essentially gives you free power to play with, and/or another reason to downsize the Power Plant.
Supercruise Overcharge FSDs cannot be undersized, but their grading and therefore their features are not the same as regular FSD. The D grade FSD has low mass just like many other modules, but it provides the same Optimal Mass as grades B and C. This means that a fully engineered D grade SCO FSD with Mass Manager will provide almost 90% of the jump range of an equivalent A grade SCO at only 40% of the mass. Of course, SCO FSDs have the baseline 10 second Boot Sequence which makes them less practical to shut them off via power priorities. So, if you need power rather than mass, the SCO FSD might not work for your lightweighting needs.
Life Support
This is an obvious source of mass savings. Choose a D grade version, use grade 5 Lightweight engineering and don’t think about it too much.
Power Distributor
This module is the heaviest one class for class. Like the power plant it halves its mass with every class you decrease it. For a combat ship the biggest worry from a smaller Power Distributor is slower refilling of WEP, such that you run out of WEP energy sooner. This also means more heat generated by the weapons. You can compensate for this by choosing weapons that naturally require less WEP energy (multicannons, cannons, frags) and/or engineering those weapons Efficient. If you’re running a biweave shield pay attention to the SYS regeneration as well, as you can cause enough uncompensated SYS drain that your SYS capacitor will bottom out, drastically slowing shield regeneration and recovery. A rule of thumb is that your PD can be one size class less than your shield but no smaller.
Sensors
D grade module, Grade 5 Lightweight engineering is the obvious choice. That being said, Grade 5 Long Range engineering on a D grade module might still fit in your build and give a nice benefit to ship visibility in a res site or CZ. A-grade sensors are heavy and require a large amount of power. They will likely prevent you from downsizing your power plant, so they aren’t recommended.
Fuel Tank
Decreasing the tank size will save mass, as long as you don’t need it to jump to other systems.
Shield Generator
Smaller shield generators do save mass, but you lose shield strength and shield regeneration from biweaves. Shields have a similar Optimal/Maximum mass calculation as Thrusters, but they are based solely on the Hull Mass…so sometimes the loss of shielding is not so bad from a smaller size. I strongly recommend the Lo Draw experimental which decreases power and distributor use by 20%…not a small amount, and one that can let you downsize your power plant AND your power distributor by one class (number) without significant penalties.
Shield Cell Banks
They are heavy, require a lot of power as well as a means to decrease their heat generation, and are generally not recommended for a lightweight build. Downsizing them defeats the purpose of having them, as the amount of shield regenerated becomes smaller.
Hull Reinforcement Packages
Engineering them Grade 5 Heavy Duty/Deep Plating creates the most OP module in the game, since you get raw armor (integrity) plus resistances to all common resistable damage types…and they all stack. Downsizing them decreases their mass (which does get increased by Heavy Duty engineering) and does cost you some integrity and a bit of resistance, but even when smaller than usual you can stack them and get ridiculous hull integrity values with good resistances in the 30-40% range…and this is without an engineered Reactive Surface Composite Hull! Incidentally…DON’T Lightweight your Hull Reinforcements! It makes the resistances negative and decreases the integrity given. If you need mass back, downsize a heavy duty HRP instead.
Module Reinforcement Packages
Two of these are recommended for good module protection in case your shields drop. They can be downsized by a class (number) to halve their mass. Fortunately the resistance percentage is a constant and has nothing to do with the module class (number).
Guardian Shield Reinforcement Packages
They use up mass and power, but can often provide more raw shields than a 0E Shield Booster with Heavy Duty/Super Capacitors. They can be undersized with the usual mass/power benefit and performance downgrade.
Weapons
While Lightweight engineering is an option, it has significant downsides. The module integrity drops to the point where a single hit or 2-3 episodes of overheating can destroy the weapon. There is a benefit for power and distributor draw but no damage bonus, unlike Efficient engineering. Consider this for extremely lightweight ships like the Imperial Courier that get the majority of their mass from the modules as opposed to the hull if you’re looking to maximize the benefit from Enhanced Performance Thrusters. In general, weapons with lower power and distributor draw (multicannons, cannons, frag cannons) are easiest to install on undersized ships because they indirectly reduce the sizes of your power plant and power distributor. Undersizing a weapon reduces its armor piercing and makes it less effective against larger ship hulls, so it’s generally not recommended…but the Cytoscrambler (Power Play burst laser from Archon Delaine) provides large beam-level damage against shields (NOT the hull) for small laser level distributor draw. Putting one of these on a large hardpoint is an interesting way to save yourself a lot of mass and power while using a great anti-shield weapon.
Shield Boosters
The 0E Shield Booster is one of the great underrated modules of this game. Resistance Augmented engineering applies at full effect regardless of the shield booster class, so you save a great deal of mass and power by applying it to 0E boosters. For Heavy Duty/Super Capacitor engineering, changing from a 0A to an 0E booster costs you 23.2% of the shield bonus (in MJ)…but this value is based on the ship’s base shield value and is significantly smaller than it appears. In exchange, you save 12 tons of mass (85% off of the 0A) and 1.25 MW of power (83% off of the 0A) which is an ENORMOUS savings. Your shields will be smaller but will recover and regenerate faster.
Heat Sink Launcher/Chaff Launcher
Assuming you have the materials for synthesis, choose lightweight engineering and synth refills rather than choosing Ammo Capacity. This will save power and 2.4 tons of mass.
Ship Specific Guidance
There are specific ships in Elite Dangerous that do especially well with lightweighting techniques, and there are others that are too mass-laden for lightweighting to make any difference. Any ship not mentioned here is likely not a good candidate.
The “Svelte Six”:
Alliance Chieftain, Dolphin, Krait Mk II, Krait Phantom, Orca, Vulture – These ships have a Laden Mass that remains below the Minimum Thruster Mass (with grade 5 Dirty Drive engineering) when you add full sized Core Modules, a shield in the largest Optional Module Slot, and full sized weapons in all hardpoints. This gives a great deal of flexibility when adding modules for the Optional Slots, especially if you’re willing to downsize the power plant and/or power distributor.
The “Strippable Seven”:
Hauler, Sidewinder, Adder, Python, Imperial Clipper, Eagle, Imperial Courier, Imperial Eagle – These ships have a slightly negative mass differential (Laden Mass > Minimum Thruster Mass) but can be made quite light with the above techniques. Thanks to module size/mass limitations and/or thruster limitations you have to compromise on some things, typically the usual PP and PD downsizing.
The “Amazing Anaconda”:
In spite of a hypothetically negative mass differential, the Anaconda can be lightweighted to a surprising degree. This is primarily due to a hull mass that is disproportionately small compared to other ships of its general class and size. The core modules can lose a LOT of mass given that they start at a high class number and lose half of their mass each time you decrease the class of each module by one. A Conda that boosts 405 m/s is easily achievable as long as your weapons aren’t power hogs.
The “Slenderizing Six”:
Alliance Challenger, Fer-De-Lance, Type-6 Transport, Federal Assault Ship, Viper, Mamba – You can apply lightweighting to these ships, but there will be a lot of mass cutting in the majority of modules, likely including a “deleted” FSD, drastically undersized core and optional modules, and even lightweighted or undersized weapons. This is the point where the undersizing is doable but starts to lose its charms.
The “Impractical Unmentionables”:
Any ship not mentioned above has serious problems when applying mass reduction techniques. This is either due to a hull mass that’s proportionately high relative to its thrusters or a thruster curve that doesn’t allow you to reach the Minimum Thruster Mass. If you want to try then you can get some benefit, but it likely won’t be all the way to the Minimum.
The “Tubby Type-10”:
The Battle Cow gets a special mention. If you could somehow attach thrusters to a completely empty Type-10 hull, you would already be 255 tons OVER the minimum mass. If you attach core modules, a shield, and weapons in all hardpoints, you’re 859 tons OVER the minimum mass. This ship is thicc.
Step-By-Step Instructions
- Pick your ship on Coriolis.
- Choose your weapons. Lower draw weapons like MCs, cannons and frags are best, but see what you can fit.
- Add the shield of your choice with the lo draw experimental.
- Fill the utility slots with as many 0E Shield Boosters as you choose, and engineer them Resistance Augmented/Super Capacitors.
- Then fill all of the core modules except for the power plant. See how small you can make the A grade power distributor (with Charge Enhanced/Super Conduit engineering) before Time To Drain becomes unacceptably low.
- It’s time to fill out your optional slots with a combination of Hull Reinforcements, Module Reinforcements and Guardian Shield Reinforcement packages. This becomes a game of “Mass Math” as you add and subtract mass by resizing these modules, trying to end up at or below the Thruster Minimum Mass while gaining respectable levels of shield and hull for your chosen ship. Remember that a HD Hull Reinforcement will always have more mass at any given size class compared to the same size class Module or Guardian Shield Reinforcement, so you might want to concentrate your HRPs in the smaller optional slots. You’ll be spending the least mass on them.
- Now, choose your power plant. Look for the smallest armored power plant that fits your modules minus the cargo hatch, the FSD, and any other non-combat optional modules. They will be assigned power priority 5 and will shut down in combat situations. Don’t be afraid to pick the Monstered experimental, as the mass penalty is small and usually doesn’t make or break your setup.
- Time for “Mass Math” Part II…The Revenge! You may find yourself with spare power, spare mass, or even the opposite of each. Can you make one of your 0E Shield Boosters Heavy Duty? Can you rearrange your HRPs, MRPs, and GSRPs into a different configuration that fits your power and mass needs better? Do you need to “delete” your FSD rather than just turning it off? Can your shield be downsized without too much loss of MJ or regen? Remember…your goal is to have the Laden Mass = Minimum Thruster Mass. Being under the Minimum gives no bonuses at all, so spend that mass!
- When all is said and done, do you need to peel away mass or power from potentially undesirable sources like weapons and shield boosters? Do you need to use the Stripped Down experimental? Some ships may require these steps.
Profit! You’re a lightweight ship! Zoom!