Elite Dangerous: Best Fully-Engineered Exploration Ship Build (2024)

Elite Dangerous is, at its core, a game about exploration. One of the grandest experiences Elite Dangerous has to offer is setting out to find unknown worlds, being the first to discover a hidden gem, and then proudly placing a “First Discovered By” label beside it. Commanders that focus on exploration spend their time traveling the cosmos in search of the most beautiful systems, or embarking on expeditions to faraway beacons like Sagittarius A* or Beagle Point. RELATED: Elite Dangerous: Best Ways To Make Money

Others spend months or even years “In the Black”, tens of thousands of light-years away from civilization. That far out, no one but the Fuel Rats would dare attempt the long journey to get them back home in the event of a malfunction. Space is unforgiving, unpredictable, and undeniably vast. Commanders looking to specialize in exploration need a ship that can cover great distances, that’s enjoyable to fly, and that can deal with the unexpected as it arises.

The following is a top-tier ship build for exploring space in Elite Dangerous. It's called The Bubble Buster.

The Bubble Buster

This build excels at getting commanders out of the bubble to visit Guardian and Thargoid sites, make truly incredible discoveries, and jet around in style and comfort. It’s also excellent at traveling great distances inside the bubble. It can get across the bubble in just two jumps or to the nearest Guardian site in six. No sitting next to a star for minutes at a time to refuel either. The Bubble Buster refuels completely in less than twenty seconds. A simple fly-by is all that’s needed to fill it up after each jump.

RELATED: Elite Dangerous Player Goes On 85,000 Light Year Journey Without Key Tool There’s room for customization, but this build should serve most use cases as-is. It’s also surprisingly fast and fun to fly. It’s capable of repairing itself, it has all the tools needed for unexpected encounters, and it even has a self-defense mechanism to get away from pirates.

The following information describes the specific choices in the build and offers some customization options. Check this build out on Coriolis to examine it more closely.

The Ship

The best ship for this build is the Krait Phantom. There are a handful of ships that excel at exploration for one reason or another, but the Krait fits this build perfectly. It's one of the best medium ships available owing to its versatility and impressive Jump Range. It has large internals, a competitive Boost Speed, and most importantly: fancy thrusters.

The Asp Explorer is a fair replacement for this build, but the smaller optional internals mean the ship can either have a large Fuel Scoop or a 4E Corrosion-Resistant Cargo Rack, not both. However, both are essential for this build to be at its best. The other largest slot is taken by the FSD Booster, so there’s no way around it.

RELATED: The Best Sci-Fi Games That Aren't Mass Effect or Star Wars-Related Of course the Anaconda could accommodate this build as well, and it would still have room for Passenger Cabins, a full bar, and a swimming pool. However, long voyages in the Anaconda can be grating because of its glacial handling. Also, some planet surfaces make it impossible to land, and it can only dock at stations with a large landing pad.

Hardpoints

This part is easy. There’s only one hardpoint: a Mining Laser. This can be used to mine asteroid belts for precious synthesizing materials needed out in the black. The mining laser can also be used to activate Guardian Beacons.

There’s a bit of room in the Power Plant to fit more armaments for commanders with a desire for some firepower. Multicannons would do well here, and the Mining Laser can be replaced by a combat laser to keep the ability to activate Guardian Beacons.

Core Internals

The core internals chosen for this build don’t just prioritize keeping things light. Instead, there’s an even spread of priorities designed to keep the ship fun to fly and versatile while maintaining a top-tier Jump Range that rivals some of the best large ships in the game.

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• Lightweight Alloy Hull. It’s the lightest option, so a clear choice. With Heavy Duty and Deep Plating upgrades, pirates will have a tough time breaking through this hull.
• 3A Power Plant with Overcharged and Monstered. This overzealous lawnmower engine is just barely powerful enough to run everything in the rest of the build. It can’t even power the ship until it’s been fully engineered to Grade 5, so use a spare to get to the engineer and then have it shipped there to be upgraded. Upgrading to a 4A is a simpler choice and it provides more options. Doing so only drops the Jump Range by about half a light-year, but whatever else gets upgraded to use that extra power will continue to have an impact. For example: Upgrading to a 4A means the ship can power 5A Thrusters for a huge speed increase, but then the Jump Range drops a total of 2.5 ly.
• 5D Thrusters with Dirty Drive Tuning and Drag Drives. Not a typical choice for explorers, but it makes the ship a lot more fun to fly. When this build is at its best, it sports an impressive 532 m/s Boost Speed.
• 5A FSD with Increased Range and Mass Manager. This combination of upgrades creates the furthest possible Jump Range. With this build fully-engineered, the Frame Shift Drive offers a minimum Jump Range of 63ly.
• 4D Life Support with Lightweight. The Krait’s canopy is unfortunately rather exposed. Thankfully, the seven and a half minutes of emergency oxygen provided by the 4D model should be enough to get away and get repaired in the event of a breach.

  

• 3D Power Distributor with Engine Focused and Super Conduits. This combination keeps the Boost Interval down to 8 seconds but is light enough to maintain a high Jump Range and Boost Speed. A 2A or even 2D can be used instead if they’re fully engineered, but they offer mere tenths of a point increases in Jump Range. Bumping it up to a Stripped Down 5D grants an impressive 4-second Boost Interval while barely lowering Boost Speed, but it requires a larger Power Plant.
• 6D Sensors with Lightweight. Serviceable sensors and only 3.2 tons when they’re fully engineered. These are the best choice for every exploration-focused build.
• 4C Fuel Tank. This is in place of the Class 5 that could fit in this slot. The lower capacity doesn’t get in the way, but it’s best to check the navigation to ensure Primary stars are encountered when needed. Unladen, it can travel 241ly on one tank of fuel. This ship scoops fuel like a champ, but it can get stranded in places like The Abyss where Primary stars are few and far between.

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Utility Mounts

The Krait Phantom has a total of four Utility Mounts. While that may seem pitiful compared to the Anaconda’s eight, four gets the job done well enough. Into these four slots go the following modules:

• 2x Heat Sink Launchers with Lightweight. Heatsinks are vital to the survival of exploring commanders. Two is a bit overkill, and one can be switched out for another type of scanner when the situation calls for it. Having two for long journeys though means less synthesizing is necessary.
• 0D Frame Shift Wake Scanner with Long Range. The D rating keeps the power draw low, but provides a good base for range. With Long Range, the range goes out to 5.5km, which makes farming encoded materials much easier.
• Chaff Launcher. This is the ship’s self-defense mechanism. If a pirate interdicts the commander, they can deploy chaff, take evasive maneuvers, and jump away just as the chaff’s effect wears off.

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Optional Internals

This is where the versatility in The Bubble Buster’s design really shines. The optional internals chosen here should give commanders enough tools in their toolbox to have what they need when they need it no matter the situation.

• 6A Fuel Scoop. This scoop can refill the tank after a few jumps in less time than it takes to do a fly-by of a star. No more waiting just outside the exclusion zone while nervously eyeing the heat gauge. Elite Dangerous is one of the longest PC games to beat so every minute saved counts. On long voyages, the time shaved off of every jump builds up quick. This scoop also makes The Bubble Buster competitive in Buckyball races that permit it.
• 5H Guardian FSD Booster. No surprises here.
• 4G Planetary Vehicle Hangar. The second bay provided by this larger hangar is an important consideration. Being 10,000 light years from the nearest station means losing the one and only SRV around is a serious problem. With a second one, the pressure is significantly less. It also affords the chance to bring a Scarab and a Scorpion just for fun.
• 4E Corrosion Resistant Cargo Rack. This cargo rack can hold limpets until the day it’s finally needed for some Thargoid archaeology. 16 slots works well in the meantime. Any more than that and the ship would be slow when fully-laden.
• 3A Shield Generator with Enhanced Low-Power and Low-Draw. A shield isn’t strictly necessary for this build, but it’s a nice-to-have. The Low-Power and Low-Draw enhancements limit its impact on the Power Plant, but give a respectable 181mj of shield power. It’s enough to absorb an impact with the terrain at high-speed or buy time to escape from a pirate, but it certainly won’t survive a full-on engagement.
• 3A Auto Field-Maintenance Unit. It’s best to have at least one of these along, two for going out into the black. Keep this well protected, but avoid the Shielded enhancement unless the Power Plant is also upgraded.
• 3C Xeno Multi Limpet Controller. This multi controller has a function for Repair, Decontamination, and Research. It’s vital for long voyages into uncharted space since a Research limpet is required to score some truly incredible samples. The Repair function is also handy. This can be switched out for an Operations controller if embarking on a Recon mission.
• 1I Detailed Surface Scanner with Expanded Probe Scanning Radius. The engineering enhancement makes earning Efficiency Bonuses a breeze and saves a lot of time as well. This means that after a long trip out of the bubble, commanders can look forward to coming back to a fatter paycheck.
• 1E Supercruise Assist. This isn’t strictly necessary, and the Surface Scanner can take this slot to make room for another AFMU in the Class 2 slot. However, Supercruise without the assist can be a chore and any commander spending sufficient time in space needs to get up for a cup of coffee every now and again.

There it is: The Bubble Buster. It’s versatile, fast, and can jump incredible distances. The Power Plant is likely to be the most trouble to get engineered, but this build is otherwise pretty forgiving. It doesn’t need to be fully-engineered to work great, but once it is, it’s a satisfying ship to own and to fly.

o7, Commanders.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey is available on PC.

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