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[Paul]

Oxygen is over 30% of the total atmosphere. Add some Nitrogen or something to make it drop below 30.

[forsaken1111]

yeah when oxygen is over 30% of the atmosphere it's toxic to humans. Add some nitrogen, or better yet some greenhouse gas to bring the temperature up.

[MrWiggles]

you can build ships with incapable jumpdrives, it just cant jump, other ship functions are fine.

I built sixteen of them without knowing.

[forsaken1111]

also, I haven't yet read through the whole thread so I don't know if this has been discussed. How do you guys generally do:

1. Survey Ships

I was thinking of just having separate jump-capable ships with either geo or grav survey but I have been tempted to come up with a jump carrier design with parasites, so you have a large mothership with bays and 3-5 of the smallest survey vessels I could create.

2. Asteroid Mining

I don't even know where to start. Is there a good way to automate asteroid mining? I certainly dont want to do it manually. Do I need cargo space on the asteroid miner? What's a good number of mining modules? Should I have a dedicated miner ship and then a cargo vessel? Should the asteroid miner have a ship-to-ship tractor and drag along a big immobile cargo rig and then have normal cargo ships pick up from there?

3. Fuel Refining

I was thinking of tugging big immobile (no engines) fuel refineries into orbit around every gas giant I find and have them refine fuel until their stores are full. Set them as tankers so any ship needing fuel will automatically fly over and suck some fuel out. Has anyone tried this? Other alternative would be to have smaller refinery ships flying back and forth, dropping fuel on a planet or a moon nearby. I like the idea of establishing static commercial fuel bases around every gas giant I find.



Also, I'm annoyed that I cannot colonize the moon. Is this true? I read that if the planet's gravity is wrong there is no way to ever establish any sort of colony. I suppose I could drop some military PDC complexes on the moon and call it a military base.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Being unable to colonize a low-gravity environment is just wrong. High-gravity I can understand, but if you have spaceships and space stations where people live, low gravity should not be a problem for a colony.

[forsaken1111]

Being unable to colonize a low-gravity environment is just wrong. High-gravity I can understand, but if you have spaceships and space stations where people live, low gravity should not be a problem for a colony.

Agreed. Hell I should be able to make asteroid colonies if I -want- to. There's no medical reason you can't that I am aware of. The medical problems come once you try to reenter a normal gravity environment.

Then again I'm no expert.

[Micro102]

I'm not sure how that jump survey team would work out, if you can fit those survey ships into the carrier and get a jump engine on it i don't see why it wouldn't work, but the cost is going to be much higher and i don't think it's worth it. Just build a jump survey ship. They can carry 2 other ships with them.

I fine asteroid miners very unuseful as right now their "mine nearest asteroid command" doesn't work. So it's better to have a cargo ship pull around automated mines then haul the minerals back.

Do gas giants have unlimited fuel sources?

I too, will make the moon a military base 



I'm getting weird time increments with no explanation even in SM mode. I thought it was the NPR getting events but it happens way too much.


EDIT: low gravity can lead to a loss of bone mass, people living their whole lives their will suffer illnesses if they ever move to earth. But you could always adjust your races gravity resistance right?

[Paul]

1. Having a jump capable mothership with small scout ships would work, but I always just find it easier to make a jump capable sensor ship and small geosurvey and gravsurvey vessels to come with him. He flys in, checks the system for enemy threats with long range thermal, EM, and active sensors - then returns to the jump point to act as a gateway for the survey vessels to enter.

2. Asteroid mining ships work just like automated mines, except they only function on asteroids. The minerals are placed upon the asteroid itself. You have to create a "colony" there to mine it, but no people will be brought there and you can delete it later. You can either let the minerals build up and haul them off using a cargo ship, or drop off a mass driver and have it send the minerals to a colony in the system (which also needs a mass driver to "catch" the minerals). I don't build mining ships, since I find it easier to just build automated mines and drag them around with my cargo vessels after they've mined a place out.

3. I've tried it, but I've never really had a Sorium shortage to the point that I needed to do it. It works, though.

4. You can colonize anything in your gravity range, which can be adjusted at the start of the game or in SM mode in the race details screen. Go into SM mode (Ctrl-S) then the race details screen (Ctrl-F2) and you can edit the Ideal Gravity and Maximum Deviation numbers under the Environmental Tolerances section. Setting the Maximum Deviation to 1.00 will let you colonize anything from 0 to 2 gravity (which means every single planet or moon in Sol).

The funny thing is, if you make your gravity deviation 1, it's easier to colonize Mars and its two moons than it is to colonize Earth's moon, since Earth's moon is set to a significantly lower base temperature.

[forsaken1111]

I'm not sure how that jump survey team would work out, if you can fit those survey ships into the carrier and get a jump engine on it i don't see why it wouldn't work, but the cost is going to be much higher and i don't think it's worth it. Just build a jump survey ship. They can carry 2 other ships with them.

The benefit would be from the 'mothership' being chock full of fuel and engineering spaces and spares, and possibly having a fuel refinery onboard. Do you know if there is a tech which lets you build maintenance bays on a ship so you can overhaul ships away from your colonies? It would be cool to build a 'fleet maintenance yard' in orbit around a distant planet or in another system as a staging point.

I fine asteroid miners very unuseful as right now their "mine nearest asteroid command" doesn't work. So it's better to have a cargo ship pull around automated mines then haul the minerals back.

Oh, in that case I'll just have freighters haul out some automated mines and a mass driver and have them blast the minerals homeward.

Do gas giants have unlimited fuel sources?

I don't think anything in this game is unlimited, but some gas giants (uranus in my game) will have huge sorium deposits (1.8 million, accessibility of 0.9 in this case) which you refine to fuel.

I too, will make the moon a military base 

Yes!

EDIT: low gravity can lead to a loss of bone mass, people living their whole lives their will suffer illnesses if they ever move to earth. But you could always adjust your races gravity resistance right?

Hm, yeah I will just adjust my gravity tolerance to include zero. You still need to ship in a shitload of infrastructure to support a population on an airless world. I can imagine that they rotate colonists in and out regularly, enforce strict exercise regimens, and perhaps use spinning hab modules for long term residents. That said, I wish we could build orbital population centers like trade stations or simply orbital living areas. I think it would be neat to have small research stations at the large lagrange points and get a small bonus to jump drive research due to the lack of gravitational interference or something.

[forsaken1111]

2. Asteroid mining ships work just like automated mines, except they only function on asteroids. The minerals are placed upon the asteroid itself. You have to create a "colony" there to mine it, but no people will be brought there and you can delete it later. You can either let the minerals build up and haul them off using a cargo ship, or drop off a mass driver and have it send the minerals to a colony in the system (which also needs a mass driver to "catch" the minerals). I don't build mining ships, since I find it easier to just build automated mines and drag them around with my cargo vessels after they've mined a place out.

Oh I didn't know it dropped them on the asteroid, I figured it mined to its own or its fleet's cargo like salvaging. Good to know, that makes it easier to decide.

3. I've tried it, but I've never really had a Sorium shortage to the point that I needed to do it. It works, though.

Well the real idea here is to place them in systems I don't have easy access to fuel in, like a system I am surveying or about to colonize or even one I don't want to colonize but sees heavy traffic, maybe it has something better on the other side.

[MrWiggles]

I'm not sure how that jump survey team would work out, if you can fit those survey ships into the carrier and get a jump engine on it i don't see why it wouldn't work, but the cost is going to be much higher and i don't think it's worth it. Just build a jump survey ship. They can carry 2 other ships with them.

The benefit would be from the 'mothership' being chock full of fuel and engineering spaces and spares, and possibly having a fuel refinery onboard. Do you know if there is a tech which lets you build maintenance bays on a ship so you can overhaul ships away from your colonies? It would be cool to build a 'fleet maintenance yard' in orbit around a distant planet or in another system as a staging point.

Maintenance facility need a population. You can research maintenance modules for ships but they function as mobile maintenance installations. They just expand the maintenance tonnage of a population.

[Greiger]

That survey carrier idea sounds genius... I wonder if it would work.  A large carrier loaded only with small fighter size survey ships.  Survey an entire system in 30 days...

Of course it would likely be ludicrously expensive.

EDIT:  Seems feasible.  Barely.  It would require micromanagement though, from what I see they can't go far enough for all ships launched from one location to hit all survey points and make it back.

Spoiler: Prototype design (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Grimeling class Micro Gravsurvey Ship    492.5 tons     46 Crew     205.5 BP      TCS 9.85  TH 60  EM 0
6091 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 7%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 65 MSP    Max Repair 150 MSP    Est Time: 2.86 Years

FTR Internal Confinement Fusion Drive M-60 (1)    Power 60    Fuel Use 6000%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 140,000 Litres    Range 8.5 billion km   (16 days at full power)

Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a fighter for production and combat purposes

Might work better with access to better fuel economy and engine tech than I have.

[Areyar]

you can build ships with incapable jumpdrives, it just cant jump, other ship functions are fine.

I built sixteen of them without knowing.

You'd have to finalize the class by slating it in a shipyard though, you cannot lock it in the design window.

---
 I tried low gravity tolerance for a race, Rockrats I called them, it leads to all system bodies within temperature tolerance and non-toxic to be cyan (which is 2-4 IIRC). Quite annoying for finding nice planets in Galactic view. etc.

[Paul]

The survey carrier idea does work. Just stick one military drive on a ship with the survey components and presto, a small survey vessel. Then set it to be a parasite and load parasites and bam you have a ship onboard.

If you give a ship enough hangar bays you can make any size parasites I believe.

And you don't need a population for maintenance modules - you can just hit the "add colony" button on some asteroid, put your maintenance ships in orbit, and drop down some minerals on the rock and they will maintain ships up to the max size (which depends on how many maintenance modules you have in orbit).

[MrWiggles]

That survey carrier idea sounds genius... I wonder if it would work.  A large carrier loaded only with small fighter size survey ships.  Survey an entire system in 30 days...

Of course it would likely be ludicrously expensive.

EDIT:  Seems feasible.  Barely.  It would require micromanagement though, from what I see they can't go far enough for all ships launched from one location to hit all survey points and make it back.

Spoiler: Prototype design (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Grimeling class Micro Gravsurvey Ship    492.5 tons     46 Crew     205.5 BP      TCS 9.85  TH 60  EM 0
6091 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 7%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 65 MSP    Max Repair 150 MSP    Est Time: 2.86 Years

FTR Internal Confinement Fusion Drive M-60 (1)    Power 60    Fuel Use 6000%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 140,000 Litres    Range 8.5 billion km   (16 days at full power)

Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a fighter for production and combat purposes

Might work better with access to better fuel economy and engine tech than I have.

http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1844

Its been done.