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[Flying Dice]

Yeah, those two are about as far as you can get from the ideal combined functionality. That aside, most situations where maintenance stations could be useful would be just as easily filled by a squadron of freighters hauling around maintenance facilities as with a station & tug setup.

[Kanil]

A maintenance module is 5,000 tons, and supports 200 tons worth of ship. Thus it takes 25,000 tons to maintain a 1,000 ton grav surveyor.

A maintenance facility requires 25,000 tons of cargo space, and only supports 200 tons worth of ship. You'd need 125,000 tons of cargo just to haul the facilities.
It then requires 250,000 workers, which requires 25 cryogenic transports totalling 62,500 more tons. Furthermore, these people will require infrastructure to survive. Assuming a colony cost 2 planet (quite habitable), that's 50 infrastructure or another 125,000 tons of cargo. This even ignores that not all 250,000 of those people will be available for manufacturing jobs.

312,500 tons vs 25,000 is a pretty easy win for the maintenance modules, no?

As for combined functionality, I imagine the ship will have plenty of free time in the ~6 years the scouts go between overhauls to refine plenty of fuel, and moving to a solid body for the overhauls doesn't seem terribly inconvenient, given that sorium is always at gas giants and they almost always have dozens of little moons that can be used.

As noted, it gets a little weird in 5.70 when you have to haul around some people and a bit of infrastructure, but I imagine the whole thing can be self contained on a 125,000 ton commercial vessel and keep several scouts going indefinitely.

[Flying Dice]

The whole 'combined functionality' is more that you're working on the assumption that there will be gas giants with atmospheric Sorium in every system that you need a repair/refit base; fuel harvester modules represent a nontrivial amount of tonnage, not to mention that a combination base will both require more specific conditions to be efficient as well as a larger shipyard to produce.

Also note that a maintenance facility requires 75 tons each of Duranium and Neutronium, giving it a resource:functionality ratio of approximately 1.14 tons of support capacity per ton of mineral. A maintenance module requires 100 tons of Neutronium, giving it a ratio of 2 tons of support capacity per ton of mineral, true, but it must also be noted that:
1. Maintenance facilities can be constructed with industry, and thus don't tie up shipyards.
2. Half of the cost of MFs is represented by Duranium, one of the most widely available minerals. The greater Neutronium cost of the modules during a crunch can damage critical production, as it is used in power plants, magazines, shipyards, ground units, and GFTFs.
3. You also have the mineral cost of the rest of the support base. Since you're apparently going with a self-propelled design, I'll also account for engines and extra fuel in this. I threw together an optimum design using mid-level (Internal Confinement Drive level) tech for a self-propelled survey vessel support base:

Code: [Select]

Collingwood class Maintenance Base    31,050 tons     800 Crew     1620 BP      TCS 621  TH 750  EM 0
1207 km/s     Armour 1-88     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/18/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 33    Max Repair 200 MSP
Maintenance Modules: 5 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 1000 tons

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E0.4 (3)    Power 250    Fuel Use 4%    Signature 250    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 630,000 Litres    Range 912.5 billion km   (8750 days at full power)

CIWS-250 (2x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Thermal Sensor TH1-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
That's fairly bare-bones if you're looking for it to not be useless and die as soon as hostiles find it. The cost is 1620BP and 1620 tons of minerals for 1000 tons of support capacity. The equivalent in MFs would be 750 CP and 750 tons of minerals. So while the base maintenance module is more efficient than the facility, facilities don't require much support beyond a bit of infrastructure and a few colonists, two of the cheapest resources around. Facilities are also less painful to have overrun, not least because they're not always going to be targeted by hostile ships. Also notable is that MFs become progressively more efficient in comparison to bases as the size of ship they support rises; once you're talking about proper cap ships, bases are going to be so large that you'll need a pretty damned impressive shipyard just to build them, all other costs aside.

Personally, I tend to go for tug-moved structures for my maintenance bases and fuel harvesters to, but even then I rarely use bases when it isn't absolutely necessary. Of course if you're already building space stations to house colonists, that's always an opportune time to tack on things like maintenance modules. Situations like that aside, however, you'll rarely have survey ships that both a) manage to survive long enough to need overhauls and b) make it far out enough that one of your colonies isn't practical.


Still, there are as many design philosophies as there are players, neh?

[Kanil]

Situations like that aside, however, you'll rarely have survey ships that both a) manage to survive long enough to need overhauls and b) make it far out enough that one of your colonies isn't practical.


Still, there are as many design philosophies as there are players, neh?

You must play with radically different settings than I, for I still have all the survey ships I started this game with, 30 years on. Some approaching their 5th overhauls now. Hence the appeal of a self-contained ship that can just go to wherever I'm currently mapping with minimum fuss.

[Tarran]

You must play with radically different settings than I,

Settings are only part of the equation. Luck and play style are also big factors.

/minor nitpick

[Kanil]

Thank you for the exceptionally valuable lesson on English.

[Tarran]

...Lesson on English? It wasn't a lesson on language. It was me pointing out that you left 2/3 important factors out of your post. Not related to language at all.

[FritzPL]

Well, if you're not a native English speaker like me, you sometimes have to use wikipedia or translator in these threads. And when you know what a certain word means, and if you see that word every time you play a game, you learn it.

[RedKing]

Situations like that aside, however, you'll rarely have survey ships that both a) manage to survive long enough to need overhauls and b) make it far out enough that one of your colonies isn't practical.


Still, there are as many design philosophies as there are players, neh?

You must play with radically different settings than I, for I still have all the survey ships I started this game with, 30 years on. Some approaching their 5th overhauls now. Hence the appeal of a self-contained ship that can just go to wherever I'm currently mapping with minimum fuss.

I tend to lose most scout ships around 15-25 years into operational life (Precursors, Swarm, strong black holes, etc.). My civilian geosurveyors have a much better life expectancy (because they're not sent into bleeding-edge frontier systems) but then they have no maintenance requirement in the first place. With a maintenance duration of around 3 years (and a fuel supply to match), most scouts go through numerous refits. But in the end they almost always wind up as a little orange X drifting in space. It's just how I roll.

[Felius]

Situations like that aside, however, you'll rarely have survey ships that both a) manage to survive long enough to need overhauls and b) make it far out enough that one of your colonies isn't practical.


Still, there are as many design philosophies as there are players, neh?

You must play with radically different settings than I, for I still have all the survey ships I started this game with, 30 years on. Some approaching their 5th overhauls now. Hence the appeal of a self-contained ship that can just go to wherever I'm currently mapping with minimum fuss.

I tend to lose most scout ships around 15-25 years into operational life (Precursors, Swarm, strong black holes, etc.). My civilian geosurveyors have a much better life expectancy (because they're not sent into bleeding-edge frontier systems) but then they have no maintenance requirement in the first place. With a maintenance duration of around 3 years (and a fuel supply to match), most scouts go through numerous refits. But in the end they almost always wind up as a little orange X drifting in space. It's just how I roll.

I too generally tend to let them be suicidal. That is, I generally discover if a system have precursors or swarm by having a geo or grav surveyor blown up. I find it cheaper than building a proper combat/scout fleet, specially in the beginning of the game.

[darkrider2]

I usually send my survey ships out in groups of three or four that split up in system, would it be better to run them all independently?

[Felius]

I usually send my survey ships out in groups of three or four that split up in system, would it be better to run them all independently?

I find it unnecessary for grav surveying, 30 positions to scan get done fast enough as it is. For geosurveying, it depends on how many bodies the system have and how spread apart they are. I'm not sending 3 geo surveyors to a system with two planets and half dozen asteroids.

[RedKing]

Situations like that aside, however, you'll rarely have survey ships that both a) manage to survive long enough to need overhauls and b) make it far out enough that one of your colonies isn't practical.


Still, there are as many design philosophies as there are players, neh?

You must play with radically different settings than I, for I still have all the survey ships I started this game with, 30 years on. Some approaching their 5th overhauls now. Hence the appeal of a self-contained ship that can just go to wherever I'm currently mapping with minimum fuss.

I tend to lose most scout ships around 15-25 years into operational life (Precursors, Swarm, strong black holes, etc.). My civilian geosurveyors have a much better life expectancy (because they're not sent into bleeding-edge frontier systems) but then they have no maintenance requirement in the first place. With a maintenance duration of around 3 years (and a fuel supply to match), most scouts go through numerous refits. But in the end they almost always wind up as a little orange X drifting in space. It's just how I roll.

I too generally tend to let them be suicidal. That is, I generally discover if a system have precursors or swarm by having a geo or grav surveyor blown up. I find it cheaper than building a proper combat/scout fleet, specially in the beginning of the game.

Yup. Especially since at lower tech levels, you simply can't build a feasible scout ship that is going to outrun the Swarm and/or be able to absorb or shoot down an incoming volley of Precursor ASMs.

I *have* had some success with a new design philosophy where I outfit them with heavily shrouded engines (you can get to 35% signature quite easily) and big ol' sensor arrays (size 5 EM and size 5 thermal). The combination allows me to see many NPR threats (especially the bigger Precursor vessels) before they see me, and take evasive manuevers. Interestingly, mounting an EM or thermal sensor larger than 1 HS appears to qualify a vessel as military. So I only do this for my gravsurvey-jumpscouts.

The 10HS worth of sensors mean i'm sacrificing some speed and range, but then it can't outrun anything even with the extra speed. Better to be a bit slower and much more capable of threat avoidance. Still have problems with the Swarm though. Can spot a Queen tens of millions of km out, but the drones are still murder.

I usually send my survey ships out in groups of three or four that split up in system, would it be better to run them all independently?

It's really a personal choice. I've done a variety of scout frameworks.

1. Independent jumpscouts with geo and grav sensors and lots of fuel. This is my default. A single ship can jump into a new system, survey the most interesting planets, then start hitting the grav points.

2. 3-ship fast gravsurveyers (I've even used FACs for this) on a jump carrier (geosensors optional). Not a bad option as the gravscouts can be built to be cheap and fast (and easily replaceable). Downside is that it's more logistics-intensive and if the jumpcarrier goes poof your gravscouts are screwed.

3. Single large jumpscout cruiser with sensor drones. This is what I'd like to switch over to, but still working out the kinks. Plus, it's not remotely feasible until you get up to a middling tech level.

4. 3-ship squadrons of jump-capable survey ships w/ hyper-engines. Wasteful and inefficient because of all those jump engines, but flexible. You can split up the squadron in a pinch, and if one is destroyed the other two can still try to escape. The hyper-engines are handy for exploring the outermost grav point rings, especially if it's around a large star (assuming the ring falls outside the hyper limit).


You can also do what I tend to do and use jump gravscouts as your real "frontier" explorers, then build jumpgates to systems once you're satisfied they're safe, and use non-jump civilian geosurveyors to catalog every last rock in those systems. Added benefit of not needing jumpdrives on your warships, and/or winding up with two military fleets: a non-jump fleet of patrol craft and monitors for defense "within the Core Systems" and a jump-capable fleet for offensive operations "Beyond the Edge".

[LoSboccacc]

I buold a 1kt small scout with just one engine and one sensor per kind and let them go.

I'm that lazy 

Gate builders on auto expand the empire until they get shot by enemy.

[Flying Dice]

Yep, I also go for the disposable survey ship model. The only time they break 1000 tons is very early on when my JD efficiency tech is utter rubbish; by the time I hit mid-tech they're usually down to 800 tons or so.

Code: [Select]

Galileo class Gravitational Survey Vessel    900 tons     91 Crew     314 BP      TCS 18  TH 32.2  EM 0
5111 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/18/2/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 5.98 Years     MSP 131    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 6    5YR 94    Max Repair 150 MSP

J900(1-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 900 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E3.4 (1)    Power 92.5    Fuel Use 34%    Signature 32.375    Armour 0    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 60,000 Litres    Range 352.9 billion km   (799 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

That's my current design; a good chunk of the tonnage is just from the minimal passive sensors to give me a bit of information on whatever kills them. No point bothering with saving them; earlier ones aren't going to be able to run or fight off enemies, and med-high tech ones can outrun damn near anything. There is also the bit about me playing with all three special enemies on from the start as well as 1000% difficulty mod NPRs; I tend to run across hostile xenos in every third system, and my survey ships are a sort of tripwire system. I notice one of them getting blasted into scrap and earmark a few task groups to go blow the hell out of whatever did it. The only situation where I could see myself caring about survey ships for non-rp reasons would be if I used larger survey vessels with multiple types of each sensor, basic defenses, etc., and those are so damned inefficient that I haven't built them since my first few games.


But yeah, when you've got a few 1kton/24 slipway yards that can easily be retooled from churning out FACs to churning out survey ships, why care about their fates?