View source for Talk:Beluga Liner/@comment-6187938-20190524210526

I chose the Beluga for the Distant Worlds 2 expedition. It didn't disappoint. I was tempted to get my Anaconda ready for the trip but with the newly unlocked Beluga internals and how pretty the cockpit is compared to the Anaconda, I chose the Beluga.

Using the Beluga I was able to mine 20,000 tons of Bauxite for the community goal. That placed me third overall.

For the iMU challenge I mined a 64T load of Void Opals and Osmium from a system near Beagle Point and brought them back to Explorer's Anchorage(XA). In addition to exploration equipment(surface scanner, fuel scoop, AFMU, SRV bay, repair limpet controller, shields, Guardian FSD Booster, heat sinks) the challenge required collector limpets, prospector limpets, a cargo bay and a refinery. I required both mining lasers and core mining tools. Even loaded with all of that and an armoured class 6 power plant the Beluga had a 51 LY jump range.(Heavily engineered)

Once I got back to XA, I stripped off the mining equipment and have my jump range just under 60 with a full load of fuel and a dozen limpets.

Exploration Pros and Cons vs Anaconda
Pros
She's a lot prettier inside and out than the Anaconda. I can't overstate enough how much my choice had to do with the thought of spending 4 months looking at the cockpit of the Anaconda. The Beluga is more manueverable in supercruise and in normal space than the Anaconda. That translated into fewer loops of shame when mapping planets. The Beluga's view area is huge compared to the Anaconda. I didn't need the external camera's to catch some of the grand vistas the galaxy has to offer. Also the fuel tank is four times the size of the Anaconda's. That means 10 full range jumps before refueling. Having used Spansh that made the return trip easier.

Cons
The Beluga can't mount a class 7 fuel scoop. Fuel scooping takes a lot longer than it does in an Anaconda. I compensated for this with the larger fuel tank by waiting to scoop only at systems I wanted to scan. I would scan the system while scooping fuel. The other downside is jump range. An Anaconda with the amount of engineering I put into the Beluga would have an 80LY or more jump range. There are few places in the galaxy where a 60 LY jump range wouldn't be enough but they do exist. The Anaconda has one more internal slot than the Beluga, but it's restricted to military internals and is little to no use for exploration. The Anaconda's internals are much bigger than the Beluga's though. Finally the Beluga has a temperature issue. Even with every possible module off, the temperature always climbs above 60 during a jump.

The Beluga makes a decent exploration ship in my opinion. FDev really needs to swap out a class 6 internal for a class 7. That would allow a decent scooping rate as well as allowing it to equip a shield that matches it's hull mass.