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[Salmeuk]

Out of time for tonight, have fun in spess!

These images are really awesome. The style reminds me of the ships from Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

[EuchreJack]

How difficult would it be to make a 'fighter' of 500.1 tons. and yes I know that fighters stop being fighters at 500 tons and thus would lose the ability to be made in fighter factories. or would the ability to better maintain them not be a big enough trade off?

Well, "fighter" is described as something that can made in a fighter factory and use fighter-specific items.  So at 500.1 tons, it's just not a fighter.  We generally call them Gunboats, Fast Attack Craft (FAC), or Small Craft if they are over 500 tons but not more than 1000 tons.  The primary distinction between these ships and larger ships is that they don't require a Bridge.

True fighters generally shouldn't have issues with maintenance: They should be on Carriers most of the time and therefore not racking up a lot of wear and tear.  They're designed relatively flimsy and they can't be retrofitted, therefore you don't actually want them to last 10+ years.

Since the smallest military shipyard can make a minimum of 1000 tons, I generally consider it wasteful to build them much below 1000 tons unless I'm building them to fit in a specific carrier design.  An example: Say you have fighters of 300 tons for whatever reason.  So you might also design an 800 ton Gunship and stack them as 4 fighters, 1 gunship per 2000 tons of Carrier capacity.

My girlfriend saw me playing this and said "Another one of those games? Why don't you play anything good, with graphics?"

My wife said, yet another spreadsheet in space?

Ask her "I thought you valued imagination?"   
Then show her Dorsidwarf's pictures and ask if they help.

[Graknorke]

Take up EVE online and play the spreadsheet management game.

[coleslaw35]

Gaaaaaaah, I'm so bothered! My five day turns are literally taking about two and a half minutes to complete! I really don't want to have to start another game just because of the slow turns, but it looks like I may have to! The ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE friendly fleet from the People's Republic of Zuckerman is certainly not helping either! uuuuuuuugh!

[Erkki]

Now ready are 8 cruisers of 4 heavily armored, 36 destroyers and 5 corvettes, most of them built them so that they can be refitted "easily" ( = can be done a couple of times cheaper than building a ships) and most of them are in fact fully up to date.

All the Federation now lacks is an enemy. 

[Dramegno]

from what I have seen in a few screens couldn't you stage a rebellion by first granting a colony freedom then giving the colony lots of other colonies then declare them enemies then have fun?

[RAM]

Gaaaaaaah, I'm so bothered! My five day turns are literally taking about two and a half minutes to complete! I really don't want to have to start another game just because of the slow turns, but it looks like I may have to! The ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE friendly fleet from the People's Republic of Zuckerman is certainly not helping either! uuuuuuuugh!

It is probablytemporary, you could likely set it to autskip turns and then walk away for an hour, you might get slaughtered in the meantime, but meh...

[LoSboccacc]

question: I heard that every ship has a smallest size free sensor within, is that true? how does it work? can I rely on it for final defensive fire?

[Rince Wind]

No, it is only smallest size passive sensors. For final defensive you'd need actives.

[Metalax]

Also note, you will only get final defensive fire if the incoming missile is detected by your actives before it makes it's final interception move. So against a fast enough missile and with a poor enough active sensor, it is entirely possible for a missile to completely cross your detection range in it's final 5 second interval approach, causing your PD not to fire. CIWS is an exception to this as it will always fire, even if a missile is otherwise undetected.

[iceball3]

Also note, you will only get final defensive fire if the incoming missile is detected by your actives before it makes it's final interception move. So against a fast enough missile and with a poor enough active sensor, it is entirely possible for a missile to completely cross your detection range in it's final 5 second interval approach, causing your PD not to fire. CIWS is an exception to this as it will always fire, even if a missile is otherwise undetected.

Well shoot, I didn't know that part! I'll keep that in mind.

question: I heard that every ship has a smallest size free sensor within, is that true? how does it work? can I rely on it for final defensive fire?

But yeah, as stated, the sensors are passives only, and they have a strength of 1. What this means is that installing any power 1 sensors to your vessels are completely redundant, so making extra-tiny passives usually isn't a concern, early game.
However, it is worth noting that all size 1 sensors are Commercial designs, and at low tech have a sensor strength of 5 or more, so they could be added to civilian sensors to multiply their sensing range by a mild amount.

[Dorsidwarf]

Speedwell transport, IE the one mentioned when I did a turn-by-turn of the First Contact Incident as killing an alien cruiser by being rammed.

[Man of Paper]

Made first contact. Got exploded. Is it a good idea to create a sacrificial sensor ship? I don't like that my first Ayyy contact ever is hostile.

In other news, when I posted what she said she asked why and what I thought would be said. I let her know that I was probably going to be told to leave her, so I found it very funny  (also inevitable) when I saw it. Bay12 never fails to deliver.

[Sirus]

What's a good guideline for setting intended deployment times? Roughly the length of time fuel will last? Twice as much? Three times?

Also, what's the process for resetting a ship's deployment time, after they start to go over and morale begins to drop?

[Culise]

What's a good guideline for setting intended deployment times? Roughly the length of time fuel will last? Twice as much? Three times?

Also, what's the process for resetting a ship's deployment time, after they start to go over and morale begins to drop?

I know it's a bit of a cop-out, but it depends on how much moving the ship will do.  For two examples, a gravsurvey ship can be expected to spend the vast majority of its active deployment moving since survey locations require relatively little in the way of survey points, while a geosurvey ship can be expected to spend much more time parked over planets and other large bodies that require multiple hundreds of survey points to scan.  The former will thus require much more fuel than the latter over the course of their deployment times.  Military ships can be expected, likewise, to spend much more time maneuvering, but may also be operating with a fuel tanker in the case of large fleet operations.  So, basically, it depends.  I usually start by specifying a deployment time, scaling the fuel capacity to within 20% or so of it, then if I expect the ship to spend a lot of time parked or reliant on external fuel storage, scale down the fuel back down from there.  Otherwise, I just look at extra fuel capacity as being a cushion for maneuvering.  If your ship goes over on crew deployment time, your crew gets a bit unhappy.  If your ship goes over its expected maintenance life, it's still all probabilistic if you get a bad breakdown or not, but it's only a matter of repairing from MSP (assuming, of course, you packed enough).  If you run out of fuel in the middle of combat (because you took an unlucky hit to the fuel tanks or because you just ran dry), you're in a bit of a pickle. 

As for resetting a ship's deployment time, simply park it in the same location as either a colony with a sufficiently large population (10,000) or a ship with a recreation module.  It will go on shore leave, which will lower its deployment time to zero.  No extra orders are needed; all you need to do is have the ship moved there.  Shore leave, unlike overhauls, can also be interrupted at any time to give the ship new orders.