[SE5] What's the best discovering strategy?

[PvK]

Is there no limit to the number of engines on a ship in SE5? How about, put one sensor and as many engines as will fit, and move at insane speeds zooming all over the place?

[StarShadow]

There are limits, but they've been bumped up, the smaller ships can have up to 12 engines.

[Kana]

Currently as can be gleamed from the data files, all ships from the little to the big, all get one move for each engine, so every ship can get 12 engines. It was noted earlier that the limit only refers to engines and not move, so any bonus move may go above 12...

[bearclaw]

PDF said:
IMHO it's rather strange to not even see the biggest planets when entering the system (imagine missing Jupiter

Actually, missing a planet like Jupiter would be easy. Imagine entering a solar system at an orbit of the Pluto. Well, to be fair at Neptune since it's the furthest "planet". Even on a 2 dimentional plane, the area is incomprehensible. In fact, even at that distance, the Sun would look like just the brightest star in the sky. Larger than the rest but still very small.

Look at it this way: From Earth, we are much much closer to Jupiter than Neptune's orbit. Without some prior knowledge of what to look for, and even with a substantial telescope (like Manu Ki or even Hubble) finding Jupiter could take a very long time unless you were very lucky.

Even Venus, our closest planet, is mistaken for a star most of the time.

To quote Carl Sagen: "Space is big. Really big."

[Captain Kwok]

The engine limits are merely x 2 of what they were in SE:IV. Essentially the whole movement system was multiplied by two, with the exception of fighters and drones... the ability description should also state engines rather than movement.

The SE:V Balance Mod returns to a more SE:III like propulsion model with larger ships requiring more engines - although it does make engines 20kT size so you need to only add half as many as in stock.