Ramilies Starfort: Become a Starswarm yourself!

[Vandermeer (OP)]

Technological Spoilers ahead! Don't read beyond this point if you haven't seen Aurora through and through, and care about not knowing the contents from others.

I said there was going to be another design that was interesting outside of the Warhammer 40k universe, and well, here it is!

Ramilies Starfort




So the basic idea is to have a structure so massive that it can provide a whole fleet on its own with supplies, ordnance, and even repairs(!). A thing that really has it all and is completly autonomous, including capacity to refine its own fuel, build new maintenance and ammunition, and even build and colonize outposts if needed. As an actual mobile fleet fortress, it eliminates the need for colonies, as you have one just behind the frontline, essentially turning your race into a starswarm aswell. I had the idea long ago, and now I only 'massage' it into the Warhammer franchise, because this is the theme of my current game.

But how to accomplish such a feat? Many problems are to be overcome as clearly in the game you are not meant to having mobile construction yards. In the end, it is only possible because of a fake-out.

Modular design
The first thing you stumble across is that if you want to be able to repair your fleet anywhere, you only have two options - either towing an actuall shipyard around, or having hangars large enough to house every other military vessel in your fleet. Shipyards are smaller I think (was it 1/10th of maximum build size, or *10?), but are useless midflight, while hangars have the incredible advantage of sparing you the maintenance costs of everything stored inside, and fixing stuff fast and free of cost! Of course you will have to maintain the hangars now instead, but ships that basically only contain hangars are very cheap in comparison.
So that is where you start out - with the hangar size that is (ideally) exactly large enough to store your biggest ship or even more. Now, hangars are military components, which turn any ship into maintenance hungry military design. That wouldn't have to be much trouble if you give it ridiculously many engineering sections, but if you want real instead of only near autonomy, you would have to be able to overhaul not only any ship that you send along, but also the fortress itself! A maintenance module is 5000 tons in size, and only supports 200 tons in return, so if the fort would become military in nature, it would be completly impossible to maintain.(game rule: no military craft can ever maintain itself)
There is only one logical conclusion to this dilemma, and that is to seperate the fortress into parts, or modules if you will. If you have one really big commercial part, and a comparably small military one, you can install just so many maintenance modules that the military component can be hold together. Game wise, of course every of those sections is actually just a ship on its own, and this is why I call it a fake-out. You just assume they belong together into one single super structure, even though they are technically a fleet with differently jobbed (massive) ships. If they are always kept in the same task group however, the difference is not that big.

Operational Strategy
The second problem appearing is, that being able to maintain with modules doesn't save you from still needing to provide the ressources to do so. You can carry those around of course, but my tests have shown that you can only ever work with maintenance capacity when you are in orbit of a planet and the ressources are on the ground. There is no way around this, so you will actually need to make stops at planets you come across, which is no problem, because the way to replenish fuel and ressource reserves is making occasional breaks anyway. My fortress will be used as super(/indefinitly) deep space survey vessel, so the procedure upon coming to a new system is to send out the survey scouts, and move the big structure into orbit of a suitable planet where it drops automated mines, ressources, and construction and ornance factories to do the minimal resupply and maintenance duty that came up during the short flight. It doesn't even need to be rich planet, just medium-accessable and preferably many kinds of ressources represented. If more time is needed, you can even just pick a rich one you came across, and send the scouts or fighting craft into surrounding systems ahead ~ there is no loss here as the fortress itself is not meant for fighting.
That brings me to another problem which is more a strategic note: The fortress can fight, actually it kicks ass^^, but you must avoid it whenever you can. Since at least one module will be commercial, which is also the biggest one, this means that this module can never be repaired ever should the armor get scratches (...and since shields are tabu...). You can give the fortress ridiculous long range fighting powers with normal weapons, clouds of fightercraft, and long range missiles alike, but should there be any risk of actual engagement - retreat. There possibly is a way to prevent the massive commericial modules from being targeted first on many occasions I think. You could install much more expensive engines with thermal reduction until the thermal signature of the commercial parts fall under the EM signature of the basilika shields. Upon entering a system with enemies who have EM sensors (which is atleast every really populated system), the basilika would probably first attract all fire. No way is foolproof though, so "keep the distance" is in the end the only possible strategy for any independant construct in Aurora, and you should always send other scouting craft before entering an unknow jump point, so that you can be sure it wont catch attention of beam ships (the rest is of no concern ).

Why towing is the real thing
Now, to become a little more concrete, technically it is the wisest way to really just have hangars with the maximum ship size of your fleet as capacity, as you can just add more of those modules if you want more total storage. This would set the size that your maintenance facilites have to able to maintain, and you'd want to keep those as small as possible. However, since I looked into Warhammer lore on this occassion, I have to keep close to some design rules, in this case a maximum allowed number of modules. The original seperates into 4+1 sections like this:

As you can see the docks can be considered to be the smaller side arms, while the huge quadrants make excellent representations of the commercial modules. The basilika is the commando and military center, which is why I decided to make it the module that concentrates all the actual fighting power of the fortress, as well as the military parts that could not be fitted on the rest (mainly the fleets deep ammunition reserve). To save on maintenance cost and optimize the usable tonnage ratio, I decided to have all the engines only on the commercial parts (engines are expensive, and I would only use commercial anyway), so the military modules only get towed by the other ones. This shrinks the needed total dock size down and thus also allows for smaller commercial modules.(Remember: Commercial module size is determined through the needed maximum hangar size you need to maintain. ~~ A 2500 tons engine on the military module would need the maintaining commercial counterpart to have at least (*25=)62500 tons of corresponding upkeep space, while the same engine placed on the commercial craft instead would only be, well, 2500 tons.) Thus you tow.
Also, since I want every commercial part to have exactly one military part attached to it (don't waste engines), this gives me a total of 4 commercial to 4 military ones, so 3 docks after substracting the basilika. Those 3 docks need to be able to provide my whole fleet.
...(All the optimization schemes, but then I accidently built everything 1.5 the size of what was actually needed {size of ~4 battleships}. This happened because I built up my shipyard sizes on terra many many years before doing the actual design, where I hadn't thought it all through, but already planned.)


Enough theory lessons, here come the plans:

Labor Section

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Ramilies - Labor Section class Starfort    150,000,000 tons     953785 Crew     6721993 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 19125000  EM 0
6375 km/s     Armour 12-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 0
MSP 224    Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 11    
Cargo 30250000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 48400    Tractor Beam    
Jump Gate Construction Ship: 20 days
Recreational Facilities
Maintenance Modules: 15000 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 3000000 tons

1250 EP Commercial Photonic Drive (15300)    Power 1250    Fuel Use 0.16%    Signature 1250    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,080,700,000 Litres    Range 1560.5 billion km   (2833 days at full power)

CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
The only time in Aurora history where the standard "Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes" description is actually accurate.^^
This section also carries the ressources and half of the mines on board. Sadly I had to divert cargo jobs between the sections because it turns out there is a 'maximum before bug-out' capacity for cargo holds (~1770 holds), ruining my idea for having an entire quadrant dedicated to material storage only.
If you add the 3 million tons extra weight of the towed module to this one, it reduces its speed to exactly 6250. Math strikes yet again!

Habitation Grid

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Ramilies - Habitation Grid class Starfort    150,000,000 tons     214280 Crew     3099580 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 19125000  EM 0
6375 km/s     Armour 12-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 13     PPV 0
MSP 168    Max Repair 156.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    
Cargo 8000000    Habitation Capacity 20,000,000    Passengers 30000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 12800    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities

1250 EP Commercial Photonic Drive (15300)    Power 1250    Fuel Use 0.16%    Signature 1250    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,104,600,000 Litres    Range 1578.5 billion km   (2865 days at full power)

CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for crib purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
It is advisable to have as much orbital habitats in this section as possible since you cannot divert this job - only the largest habitats counts for some reason. My actual maximum would have been a little higher, but I prefered a round number, and could not make it to the 25m.
For gimmick it has some luxurary quarters, which represent the officers living space. Prevents around 800 missiles from getting through every turn, just like every other module on the list.

Btw.: 12 layers armor is close to the maximum that is allowed in Aurora. Only 14 would be possible before bug-out, but there is no (beam) weapon that penetrates around these numbers, so I left it like this.(12 exactly prevents strength 32 beams from getting through)

Logistic Section

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Ramilies - Logistic Section class Starfort    150,000,000 tons     646395 Crew     4871863 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 19125000  EM 0
6375 km/s     Armour 12-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/50     Damage Control Rating 26     PPV 0
MSP 528    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 10    
Cargo 44250000    Cryogenic Berths 30000000    Passengers 482500    Cargo Handling Multiplier 120000    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 15330 modules producing 2146200000 litres per annum
Terraformer: 456 module(s) producing 3.648 atm per annum

1250 EP Commercial Photonic Drive (15300)    Power 1250    Fuel Use 0.16%    Signature 1250    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,141,700,000 Litres    Range 1606.3 billion km   (2916 days at full power)

CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Phased Geological Sensors (10)   50 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for colonization and resupply purposes
This section includes all the funtionality to make the exploitation of ressources on the way possible. It refines enough fuel to get up to full by itself in just a year, so around 3.5 years should the fleet run completly dry.(though given the engine efficiency [power factor 0.25], it is unlikely to ever lose more than 10%, even on long range journeys)
Planets that are viable get either run by 400 factories if colonization is not possible, or terraformed by this one at an instant to make space for the 30 million ground workers, so that the full 1000 factories of the fortress can go online (400 construction, 600 ordnance). I could have put more terraforming modules on, but you have to be cautious not to mess up your minimum terraforming increments. This setup allows to exactly terraform 0.05atm per 5 day interval, which is just enough in both sensitivity and speed.

Dock Section

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Ramilies - Dock Section class Starfort    3,000,000 tons     53448 Crew     354078.5 BP      TCS 60000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 12-1852     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5168     PPV 0
Maint Life 10.02 Years     MSP 1781221    AFR 13932%    IFR 193.5%    1YR 32268    5YR 484013    Max Repair 600 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Flight Crew Berths 42026    
Hangar Deck Capacity 1600000 tons    

Fuel Capacity 275,000,000 Litres    Range N/A

CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
ECM 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Ohhh, well, I guess the standard description also works for this one, so make that two times.
As main docking area it only needs enough fuel storage to supply your largest craft in one sweep. However, for comfort or in case I have multiple ships landing at once, I added quite a bit more. This design also doubles as the main storage for maintenance supply in the fleet, as maintenance storage bays are military modules.

I thought about putting minimal weapons and shields on these ones, but really, the weapons are not needed, and the shields only potentially distract from the EM signature that the basilika is supposed to emit to catch attention. Mind you, this section has no signature whatsoever otherwise.

The Basilika

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Ramilies - Basilika class Starfort    3,000,000 tons     102371 Crew     2429679.5 BP      TCS 60000  TH 0  EM 1980000
1 km/s     Armour 12-1852     Shields 66000-300     Sensors 3750/3750/50/0     Damage Control Rating 10689     PPV 12816.72
Maint Life 5.82 Years     MSP 5411313    AFR 6735%    IFR 93.5%    1YR 271827    5YR 4077401    Max Repair 15642 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Flight Crew Berths 6002    
Flag Bridge    Hangar Deck Capacity 160000 tons     Cryo Drop Capacity: 126 Battalions    Magazine 238062    Cargo Handling Multiplier 2520    

Fuel Capacity 180,000,000 Litres    Range N/A
Void Shields (4400)   Total Fuel Cost  66,000 Litres per hour  (1,584,000 per day)

Sunsear Laser Battery (4xcal 6-r5-720k-6.25e) (60x4)    Range 720,000km     TS: 100000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 12    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Stygies Pattern Broadside (4xcal 65a-r15-7800k-25e) (24x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 260-100     RM 12    ROF 15        65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65 65
Mars Pattern Broadside (4xcal 24a-r5-2880k-25e) (48x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 96-100     RM 12    ROF 5        24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
Ryza Pattern Nova Cannon (cal 2598-r520-311.76m) (16)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 2598-25     RM 12    ROF 520        2598 2598 2598 2598 2598 2598 2598 2598 2598 2598
Hecutor Pattern Broadside (4xcal 168a-r35-20.16m-25e) (24x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 672-100     RM 12    ROF 35        168 168 168 168 168 168 168 168 168 168
Titanforge Lance (cal 50-r25-1200k-25e) (60)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 125-25    ROF 25        50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Starbreaker Lance (cal 9-r5-1200k-25e) (60)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 22-25    ROF 5        9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
R1008/C25 High Power Microwave (4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 168-25     RM 1008    ROF 35        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
R144/C25 High Power Microwave (4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 144    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Stygies Pattern Bombardment Array (4xcal 16-r10-1440k-25e) (60x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 48-25     RM 9    ROF 10        16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 14
Stygies Pattern Bombardment Battery (4xcal 20-r15-1800k-20e) (20x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 60-20     RM 9    ROF 15        20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 18
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100k (5)    Max Range: 1,400,000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Auxiliary Plasma Bank (PB1-5ex) (45)     Total Power Output 18000    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Fortis Pattern Torpedo Tubes (9)    Missile Size 50    Rate of Fire 125
Fortis Pattern Missile Launcher (1)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 30
Missile Tactical rated 60.75m res1 (1)     Range 60.8m km    Resolution 1
Missile Tactical rated 5.122g res10 (1)     Range 5,122.9m km    Resolution 10
Vortex Torpedo (1760)  Speed: 240,000 km/s   End: 68m    Range: 979.7m km   WH: 450    Size: 50    TH: 1440/864/432
Tactical Vortex Torpedo (900)  Speed: 120,000 km/s   End: 705.6m    Range: 5080.7m km   WH: 450    Size: 50    TH: 1360/816/408
Vortex Missile (3250)  Speed: 250,000 km/s   End: 4.1m    Range: 61.2m km   WH: 36    Size: 12    TH: 1833/1100/550
High Yield Magma Bomb (11010)  Speed: 297,000 km/s   End: 2.4m    Range: 42.8m km   WH: 55    Size: 6    TH: 1683/1009/504

X-470 Ultimo Array (11.691g-R3) (1)     GPS 27000     Range 11,691.3m km    Resolution 3
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
Phased Gravitational Sensors (10)   50 Survey Points Per Hour

Compact ECCM-10 (7)         ECM 100

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for central fleet command purposes
Lots of things here. First, since I could not fit any weapons on the official "quadrants" of the fortress, I decided to unify it all in the basilika. What I forgot to calculate in was that without engines I would have even more space than usual for weapons, so I ended up giving it +25% in every regard except torpedoes and shields. The still magnificient rest went to massive ammunition storage, which makes up exactly 20% of the total size.(so 594k tons of silvester supplies^^) I also added a nova cannon of twice the dimensions (= 8 times the power) of the usual ones installed on Lunar Cruisers, which is completly out of canon. (if you don't know what I am speaking of, look over there: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6721.0.html)
The only section with Flag Bridge, and it does actually carry the Fleet Headquarters around. I mean, what vessel would be better than the races only massive mobile fortress, right?
Troop capacity is not the best I could have done, which is currently space for either 6 full divisions, or what I use - 4 divisions and 8 construction crews. I will probably redesign later so that a couple of weapons get traded for troop space, but for now the thing is already built... .
Also carries two squadrons of 80 interceptors each, and two squadrons of 40 bombers. Quite overkill, but the numbers are what the original data demands, and I didn't want to manage 8 wings of each type individualy, so I unified them into larger formations.

The Basilika is the only vessel of the imperium outside of PDCs to use the Tactical Torpedoes, which is a variant of the original ones - 5 times the range, but only half the speed. As such it allows the fortress to basically aid as artillery for any fighting fleet in a system, which can deploy pinpoint strikes on up to 5 billion kilometers when needed.


---
One module is missing here, and that is the dedicated storage module, where I am still not sure what to deploy instead. Right now the storage space is actually fully functional though, with 3300 holds total, seperating into 2000 for automated mines, 400 for construction factories and 600 for ornance. This leaves 300 holds aka. 3.75 million tons for ressources, which is 375k tons in every aspect for the 10 main ressources (tritanium and sorium are not needed so much, so they count as 1 together) - enough to feed the fortress for 7+ years without even resupplying (but also counted as if not rebuilding ammunition or MSP).
In total with all modules except the last one and a dock, the result looks like this:


Right now the design is causing an error in the task group window though. I don't even have a clue towards what is causing this. The labor section was the first thing to be built, which was fine, but every other module that came afterwards popped an error window, making it up to five before I could use the screen. After adding fighters and escorts, the error window number is now up to 100+, which I can skip by holding enter pressed. Still annoying though. I guess one should keep the fortress a little smaller than that to prevent this. Planned was 2 million for military and 100 for the commercial sections anyway.
This is the error:



Btw.: The game where I built this was not cheated through SM mode in any way. I just started out with 10 billion people, which brings science forward fast, and allows you to see those immense ressource planets with low accessability as a valid and reliable source of income. I generate all my ressources only on those 0.1 accessability worlds, where I have at least 1000 automines on each. Altogether they made me insanely rich, the only limiting factor being Gallicite which is really short all the time after rising engine tech, even though I focused on exploiting Gallicite planets long ago. Each of the quadrants here costs about 2.4 million of that, and currently I again don't have enough for the last one.
In conjunction with the actual "shipbuilding speed" thread in the forum: funny to know that building each of those massive 150mt sections took exactly 30 days to build in the shipyard, while a simple FAC bomber of 1kt takes 3 months, and elevated military craft like a 10kt Thunderhawk or a Cobra destroyer take over 2 years... . Strange. I know the formula from the wiki, but from what that is reading it should still make larger ships slower to build. There is alot of dampening, but still slower with bigger size.



So that is it up until here. It worked quite well with Warhammer since the orignal Ramilies Starfort is also so big that it must be targeted in sections rather than being one single ship. But even so I made a Wh40k fortress, the principle can be applied to everything if you want to go full Starswarm. If something is unclear on functionality, or you see something wrong, I am open for discussion.

[DTF]

Wow.  Just wow.
Nothing more to add other than:

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Terraformer: 456 module(s) producing 3.648 atm per annumAm I the only one thinking of the 'mega maid' from Space Balls when reading this?
With this you don't need any ground units on the ship.  Just remove all the oxygen in 5 days to destroy a populated planet.

[hunter james]

looks great man

[Vandermeer (OP)]

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Terraformer: 456 module(s) producing 3.648 atm per annumAm I the only one thinking of the 'mega maid' from Space Balls when reading this?
With this you don't need any ground units on the ship.  Just remove all the oxygen in 5 days to destroy a populated planet.

Ooh, I didn't even think of that use. I fear though that it will only radically decimate populations, but never really eradicate them. I had an enslaved race in my current game (some lizard people), on whose planet I set up an additional human colony. After I exploited their remaining research facilities for quite some time, I decided there was a need for change in politics and made the world more habitable to their human masters (who had only lived in the domes so far). The world eventually became hostile to them, and their population shrank from 5 billion to mere 200 million. However... those survived. There is a function in the game that lets endangered or overpopulating occupants build some infrastructure automatically (maybe they just staple corpses so high until they form airtight shelters [/morbid]), so a fraction will always find some spacesuits or whatever and survive. The lizards had actually built themselves around 2 million infrastructure units for free.
But it is definitly some nice evil thing to do. If someone should really angry me (e.g. by scratching the fortress' hull)....

[alex_brunius]

If you terraform by adding some toxic gases instead of just removing oxygen you can make it even more hostile (col cost 3) and thus have the infrastructure save less inhabitants. It also should require less amounts I think so viable with less modules.

The wiki does not specify what gases apply though, so some experimentation may be needed:

"If there are toxic gases in the atmosphere then the colony cost will be 2.0 for some gases and 3.0 for others."

[Vandermeer (OP)]

If you terraform by adding some toxic gases instead of just removing oxygen you can make it even more hostile (col cost 3) and thus have the infrastructure save less inhabitants. It also should require less amounts I think so viable with less modules.

The wiki does not specify what gases apply though, so some experimentation may be needed:

"If there are toxic gases in the atmosphere then the colony cost will be 2.0 for some gases and 3.0 for others."

That is even more evil.°,,° I will call the maneuver "Exterminatus". But what do you mean with the colony cost, an additional factor of 2 and 3? Does the basis colony cost get multiplied based on if there are toxic gases around?


---
On another note, I just had an epiphany on what I could use for the last module. A real shipyard!       .... ("hangar? shipyard? ..why not both?" \(OoO)/ )
This would make autonomy complete, as even the fortress could be repaired, so you don't have to fear battle anymore and can boldly engage enemies who dare not to flee. For this to be possible you would need the last module to be mainly a tug for the actual shipyard structure, depending on how massive it really is. Testing the probabilities I went to the wiki and found this:

For the purposes of movement (and detection) a shipyard is twice the size of its capacity. So a shipyard with two 6000 ton capacity slipways will be 24,000 tons. If you break the tractor link while in orbit of a pop, the shipyard will then be added to the shipyard list for that population.

Huh, so nothing 1/10th or *10, actually it is *2. Well, the shipyard will be 300m tons then, which is ok. Currently every quadrant runs with 25.5% dedicated to engines, so I could get that to immense 75% no problem and then still have my 6250 km/s. (a hazzle is the fuel here though, which would give me only 3rd of the range as I cannot by game limitation add more gas storage into a module)
The real problem I am facing now is how to operate such a beast. Wiki says 1 million + 1 million people per 100 tons. In mistrust due to wiki date I better made sure by testing and found that commercials only need +1 million per 10 tons, which I expected. So a commercial shipyard of 150mt size would need 1.5 billion people to work it, while a military one needs f-ing 15 billion. Screw that I say. Even the 1.5 billion is way out of my league. I would need another 50 quadrants with full cryogenic capacity to get that online, which nobody can afford.
However, you actually don't need a shipyard to be fully online, or not? I cannot be sure, but even though I had constant worker shortage (despite my Terra housing >20 billion people by now), I never really felt an impact on shipbuilding speed, only construction and research. I have to test that when I have time - I will tow some shipyard to unpopulated venus with a 25m orbital habitat and then build a bomber or something, and see how long it takes. If it works fine, well, I guess it is some sort of exploit then, since it should logically not work as good. But I guess I will do it, even if it doesn't work. I mean, I would only ever use it in emergencies anyway, when some module receives damage, so I could take my time then.(base working cycle for a new module is only 30 days anyway) The worst factor would be *30 - not too bad. I will roll with that.

There is one main problem now though, that does only apply to me personally for using this warhammer template for the starswarm "mothership"/fortress. Since I am not building this super costly 150mt military shipyard, I will need two now. The economical 150mt commercial, and then another 3 million tons military one, so I can repair the docks and the basilika too. I only have one quadrant left for towing space though, or else I will break the lore hard. This is no problem in theory everywhere else, but here I have got to get creative. I will see what I do.
Another thing that could cross the calculation is if repairs get to costly. I am not sure how they are calculated, but usually mere armor damage was always really cheap, yet if a ships interns were damaged it could get quite expensive. Pretty sure you can get around it by fixing the intern stuff on board before dock repairs though, like I usually do.

[Erik L]

Do you have asteroid mining facilities on board?

[Vandermeer (OP)]

I planned only to prey on planet sized asteroids so far.^^ However, I might deploy some since I am suspicious that maybe the luxurary crew quarters are causing this error window, since that was a component which the completly bug free labor section didn't have (..and the error is called "PopulateShips"...). So there might be some refit in order, revolting officers getting degraded to mere miners and such.
The thing is that in this very megalomanic game I didn't find much use for asteroids so far. Most of the richer ones still only have around 50-70kt in their most abundant sector, which is not worth all the micromanagement click fests and menues loading you would have to do to get them. At least not if your empire is counting storages in millions.(I would love to use them much more, if only the automation would work as well as with the fuel harvesters. I would start strip mining every dusty cloud I come across)
I have some asteroid miners still for those super rare 100k+ ones, one of which I found in Sol even.

Now thinking about it, it may be quite viable to have those on the fortress too, since she doesn't need to count in millions anymore, so the few easy accessable minerals might just look attractive again.(then asteroid mining is also 5 times as effective) Is that how the original Starswarm gets around too? Come to think of it, I only ever encountered them in systems with asteroids... hmmm.

[Brian Neumann]

Are you aware that having an orbital habitat in a ship design makes it buildable by the planets industry.  I think you may be able to repair it as well this way.  In either case there is a provision for using maintenance supplies to repair armor, so in theory you could self repair everything if you have enough supplies.  It might take a bit to make all of those maintenance supplies of course, but it is still doable.

Brian

[MarcAFK]

Just some testing, In my Tier 1 testgame I designed an 8 million ton orbital habitat, which takes 4 and a half years to build.

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Orbital Habitat class Orbital Habitat    7,907,450 tons     3510 Crew     18117.5 BP      TCS 158149  TH 12700  EM 0
80 km/s     Armour 2-3535     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 1    Max Repair 20.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1    
Habitation Capacity 1,500,000    

100 EP Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine (127)    Power 100    Fuel Use 5.06%    Signature 100    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 11,250,000 Litres    Range 5.0 billion km   (729 days at full power)

CIWS-50 (6x2)    Range 1000 km     TS: 5000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposesI can scrap this ship with a 5kton shipyard, in 20 days, ABR looks like 79,000. (this is just wrong)
Recovered components= 30x Orbital habitat, 127x 100EP commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine, 6x CIWS-50, 11,250,000 Fuel.
New construction from the industry page now takes 2 years and 3 months.
Construction cost is approx:
8k Duranium
5 corbomite
700 Boronide
800 Mercassium
2000 Sorium
Savings are :
1575 Duranium
1475 Boronide
2959 Mercassium
30 vendarite
30 Uridium
2540 Gallicite.
So not exactly the best way of repairing a damaged Habitat, you also can't install damage control, and there doesn't seem to be a way of repairing a habitat short of having a shipyard with enough capacity.
The only option is SM mode really.
Edit: I should point out that building new labor section with the 400 factories you have using build tech 70 would take 240 years.

[DTF]

It's difficult for me to even grasp the idea of such huge 'ships', but the way I see it, including the ability to repair armor is just not doable. Using maintenance supplies to repair internal damage seems obvious, considering you can make those supplies anywhere you want and more importantly, when you need them. Dragging around a massive shipyard the entire time just to be safe is... amibitious, for the lack of better words. It's like strapping a second rocket to a rocket in case the first one breaks down - but then the first rocket would have to be even bigger to carry the second one, and in turn the second rocket would have to be bigger too to justify its existence as a backup, and so on.

Sure, you want to achieve full autonomy, but is that even doable? Perpetuum mobile and all that?

[Vandermeer (OP)]

Are you aware that having an orbital habitat in a ship design makes it buildable by the planets industry.  I think you may be able to repair it as well this way.  In either case there is a provision for using maintenance supplies to repair armor, so in theory you could self repair everything if you have enough supplies.  It might take a bit to make all of those maintenance supplies of course, but it is still doable.

Brian

I saw that with the orbital habitat, but there is no repair option except in the way that Marc described (which is too expensive and crazy). But how do you use normal maintenance supplies to fix armor? If it worked it would solve everything, but so far I only got popups saying "armor can only fixed in shipyards" when trying. Yet I think I only every tried it on military ships.
Oh, you mean that orbital habitats (and maybe PDCs) can fix armor? That would make sense - they cannot be repaired any other way. Huh. Well, if somebody can confirm this, then I will only need a military yard then (also useful for replenishing fleet and FAC loses), and the total module count problem would be solved.
Seems to be kind of an exploit then though. If you install a single 250kt orbital habitat anywhere, then it enables it to repair its armor? Even on military ships? (well it's quite the size, but still)

Edit: I should point out that building new labor section with the 400 factories you have using build tech 70 would take 240 years.

Thanks, yeah, not doing that.

So not exactly the best way of repairing a damaged Habitat, you also can't install damage control, and there doesn't seem to be a way of repairing a habitat short of having a shipyard with enough capacity.
The only option is SM mode really.

I won't use the SM, because that is like admitting failure in the design mission, but you seem to contradict the habitat armor repair thing. What is true, what is not?


I came to test shipyard building speeds, and must say I was wrong. Lacking colonists does impact ship build speed just as much. Not only that, but also orbital habitats don't count towards the labor pool in this regard, so I would only have 30m workers instead of 50m.

It's difficult for me to even grasp the idea of such huge 'ships', but the way I see it, including the ability to repair armor is just not doable. Using maintenance supplies to repair internal damage seems obvious, considering you can make those supplies anywhere you want and more importantly, when you need them. Dragging around a massive shipyard the entire time just to be safe is... amibitious, for the lack of better words. It's like strapping a second rocket to a rocket in case the first one breaks down - but then the first rocket would have to be even bigger to carry the second one, and in turn the second rocket would have to be bigger too to justify its existence as a backup, and so on.

Sure, you want to achieve full autonomy, but is that even doable? Perpetuum mobile and all that?

It is not a perpetuum mobile as much as earth is a perpetuum mobile itself. What is earth other than a giant spaceship without engines between the stars, that build itself up over time. ...A long time, of many years, but still by itself. It seems that with sufficient size and infrastructure anything can rebuild itself eventually.(and why shouldn't it? there is no logical reason to prevent this)
A ship with a shipyard in its tow line would be exactly the same thing. It cannot really build itself a spare copy of itself at an instant, as it would also need to accumulate the massive ressource pool for that. It is in theory possible if it takes the years to build up the industry at a remote place and such, but it would be quite complicated.
This is not different with the fortress as it will not be able to build itself anew - not even a quadrant. It could, but again you would need to found a real settlement and then work the years until you got those 2.1 million tons gallicite amongst other things. Other than that, the shipyard only represents its ability to perform maintenance tasks on itself and eventually build much smaller ships such as freighters. I don't see why this should be irrational at this point, as the fortress is basically a flying city, a megacity, so why by logic shouldn't it be able to do basic colony duties and fix some holes in its hull by its own?

Not to mention that many scifi franchises give out similar abilities on much smaller sized ships, so it really shouldn't be an idea this hard to imagine. In Star Trek every ships essenitally carries around all the knowledge of humanity (spaceWikipedia) along with detailed engineering plans, and can assemble nearly every structure with its replicators given enough time and energy ressource.(and yes, they can also fix their own hull) This means that every ship could in theory rebuild the human race, along with setting up a colony which will eventually build new vessels of its own size or even bigger. For example, Voyager built itself a refinery when they recognized they were too far away from any shipyard (and overhaul), and through the series constantly put their ship together even after having the vessel nearly completly wrecked.
Even in Wh40k there are factory ships called Bastion class, which are massive, but yes, they build ships, and they maintain themselves to complete autonomy in the void.

It's difficult for me to even grasp the idea of such huge 'ships', but the way I see it, including the ability to repair armor is just not doable.

Difficult to grasp.. I really don't understand. This is everywhere in scifi!

[MarcAFK]

I did some more calculation, you could essentially double your factories every 1.5 years, after 7.5 years the build time for your habitat would only be 7.5 years, but the population requirement would still be a huge problem. Now factoring in construction brigades is a different story , theyre basically automated factories requiring no population to run, moving brigades however is more expensive than moving factories. The resource requirements are still obscene though.
Edit: With 400 construction factories at full technology you can make a ground unit training facility every month, then after 15 months waiting for the first to train you can make a ground unit a month, 15 months later you can make 2 per month, then 3 per month, after a while the extra production from the construction brigades starts to add up and you get higher production, but this takes over a decade to start accelerating appreciably, it seems you need to spend almost 20 years building training facilities at a cost of over a million duranium and neutronium, plus a few hundred K each for the brigades. Then another 10 years to make the Starfort.
But I think if you also factor in population growth and split production between more factories and training facilities you might manage to make a fort in under 25 years.

[Vandermeer (OP)]

Ok, I came back to this after a very long time. Sadly I lost the other game, yet not to Auroras fault, but because I needed to set up my computer anew.
This time I kept my initial empire even smaller, not daring to venture out more than the first five systems, or better, not further than the point I found a sufficient source of Gallicite. I found around 30mtons at 0.3 accessibility along with other riches, so that was when I stopped exploring. Over time I set up 10000 Automines on this one and a couple more thousand scattered around on other viable spots, and then waited for technological progress and growing supplies. Since my new game was themed after the Stargate Universe, and I was taking the role of the ancient egypt Goa'uld Rah, I decided to make my new mothership to be like the one we saw from Apophis in the series. ..Mainly because it looked cool though. I am pretty sure it wasn't actually all this capable. Also I said that the ship was updated with the technology of the ancients, because otherwise I couldn't have used all the max. tech stuff.
I didn't explore so much, but did still find around 6 ruins already. However the only technology they yielded were the inaccessible plasma torpedo base techs, so no advanced lasers or compressed fuel cells this time.

Long story short, here is the plan:


From the last time I learned some lessons on how to adjust the designs to prevent the game inherent errors and inconveniences like for example that with the dissatisfying auto-fire if both missiles and beams are present. The circumvention makes things quite a bit more complicated, but at least not technically impossible. I also decided to add quite a few more modules as you can see, which leads to that this time I carry indeed full shipyards around, so the whole fortress can repair itself, which makes it ultimately self-sufficient and also finally battle fit.


Full detail on those modules:

Labor Sector:

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Mothership Labor Sector class Support Vessel    150,000,000 tons     988635 Crew     9996606 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2754000  EM 0
7650 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 12     PPV 0
MSP 500    Max Repair 250 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 1    
Cargo 11250000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 18000    Tractor Beam    
Jump Gate Construction Ship: 20 days
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 33 modules producing 4620000 litres per annum
Maintenance Modules: 15000 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 3000000 tons

1000 EP Flow Photonic Drive (22950)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 0.09%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 1,784,710,000 Litres    Range 2379.6 billion km   (3600 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Not much different to the last time, except that I now use more space for engines, and that those engines are more fuel efficient. Since I was not limited this time by the canonic "only four modules" rule that came with the Ramilies, I knew I could just always add storage or harvest capacity when I needed more, so individually maxed usable space per module was not that important anymore. By this I upped the range of the fortress by about 25% on same fuel, and still managed to improve the speed by 20% to 7500km/s.(2.5% light speed)

Habitation Grid:

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Mothership Habitation Grid class Recreational Ship    150,000,000 tons     237270 Crew     7865781 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2754000  EM 0
7650 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 50     PPV 0
MSP 1639    Max Repair 390.625 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 244    
Cargo 25000    Habitation Capacity 20,000,000    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 288 modules producing 40320000 litres per annum

1250 EP Redox Photonic Drive (18360)    Power 1250    Fuel Use 0.16%    Signature 150    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 1,920,860,000 Litres    Range 1440.6 billion km   (2179 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Oh, multiple orbital habitats now work fine in the new Aurora version btw. . I still decided against having more, because I really didn't need so much workers in the end. Also the issue that shipyards can only be operated by ground workers -not habitats- may still be around, so I place my bet on ground crew once again.
The additional fuel harvesters here are just there to fill the blanks. Though this module does also consume more fuel than the other ones.

Ecological Sector:

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Mothership Ecological Sector class Support Vessel    150,000,000 tons     465760 Crew     7457645 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2754000  EM 0
7650 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/100     Damage Control Rating 59     PPV 0
MSP 1833    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 91    
Cargo 38250000    Passengers 31750    Cargo Handling Multiplier 61200    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 15330 modules producing 2146200000 litres per annum
Terraformer: 450 module(s) producing 3.6 atm per annum

1000 EP Flow Photonic Drive (22950)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 0.09%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 1,996,000,000 Litres    Range 2661.3 billion km   (4026 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Phased Geological Sensors (20)   100 Survey Points Per Hour
Pretty much the same that formerly was the "Logistic Section". I corrected the slight error coming from that Auroras years have 360 days instead of 364.24, so the terraformers are slightly downsized. More sensors too.

Logistic Section:

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Mothership Logistic Section class Support Vessel    150,000,000 tons     500618 Crew     7391435 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2705400  EM 0
7515 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 10     PPV 0
MSP 323    Max Repair 250 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 655    
Cargo 41000000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 65600    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 15330 modules producing 2146200000 litres per annum
Asteroid Miner: 1908 module(s) producing 133560 tons per mineral per annum

1000 EP Flow Photonic Drive (22545)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 0.09%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,143,750,000 Litres    Range 2858.3 billion km   (4402 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
The new Logistic Section is only responsible for harvest, storage and a bit of astro-mining. With the three logistic modules and two others, I get 5 of 8 modules to be able to refill their tank from 0 in one year by themselves, meaning the whole fortress will need around 1.5 years after complete dry-out (which will never happen anyway, but on paper..).  Each one has the engine capacity to carry 300kt and then fly the benchmark of 7500km/s, so they carry two different 300kt 'turrets' and a 3 slipway 50kt military shipyard (which therefore also weights 300kt).

Slave Hold Sector:

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Mothership Slave Hold Sector class Support Vessel    150,000,000 tons     444828 Crew     7638241 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2808000  EM 0
7800 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 0
MSP 971    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 2    
Cargo 41000000    Cryogenic Berths 30000000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 65600    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 15330 modules producing 2146200000 litres per annum
Salvager: 12 module(s) capable of salvaging 30000 tons per day

1000 EP Flow Photonic Drive (23400)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 0.09%    Signature 120    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,146,200,000 Litres    Range 2861.6 billion km   (4246 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Haha, this is new. So since I am playing the great enslaver race Goa'uld this time -at the start of their career between the ancient stars no less-, I decided to make the cryogenic quarter a much needed slave hold. Though it would have been feasible, I did not fill this with humans from earth already, but let the fortress fly with the prison empty, or better 'to be filled up'. I didn't encounter a NPR race in this game yet, but the first one I find...
Otherwise this module is now responsible for eventual salvage instead of the Labor Module, though I have found that an accompanying freighter is much more practical for flying around the system for such busy work. (Mothership must be lazy and parkin' in some orbit)

Engine Core:

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Mothership Engine Core class Fleet Tug    150,000,000 tons     696043 Crew     34070925 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 2700000  EM 0
22500 km/s     Armour 13-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 0
MSP 781    Max Repair 731.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    
Cargo 32000000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 51200    Tractor Beam    
Recreational Facilities

1500 EP Ascetic Photonic Reactor (45000)    Power 1500    Fuel Use 0.25%    Signature 60    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 2,145,000,000 Litres    Range 1029.6 billion km   (529 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
The heart of the mothership is supposedly just a huge reactor core, towing around and supplying the whole thing. ..Well, in reality it 'only' tows around a 300mt weight shipyard, but that is close enough I guess. Due to 75% of the thing being dedicated to engines, and also some of higher power grade, this section has quite a shorter range, which means I will have to shuffle around fuel eventually more often to this. ..Makes sense for the reactor.
The "engine" here was a special module I researched for only this purpose. It has more thermal dampening than the other parts so that even this colossus' thermal signature falls under the EM emission that the Pyramids' shields would generate. Because that which had only been a ambitious fantasy the last time, I actually realized here by giving the modules appropriate dampening in the hopes that an activated shield would distract beam attackers to target the shields instead of the actual damage taking civil sectors. This upped costs so much that I basically spent another 100 years even after maxing out and developing all the technology, just to get enough Gallicite. Last time I spent 2.4 million for each module, and even then I had problems. This time, even the 'lighter' modules cost around 5.75m, while the huge Engine Core here clocks in at engulfing 32.9mt Gallicite alone! (please kind aliens, don't blow this up, yes?^^) The total cost factor of 74.4m tons Gallicite (don't even bother about other ressources - lategame is only about this, even without thermal dampening) forced me to explore quite a bit more of my surroundings before taking of. I found some 6m and 12m deposits, but nothing really good for long, until finally there was a 68m one at 0.2acc, which I happily overwhelmed with 20k automines to finally get this done. ..It still took forever, and that just to have this trick, that might not even work if the enemy doesn't have EM sensors.... *sigh* Never was resource wasted so hard on just a single trick. I could have had this at probably 1/8th of the cost without it. ..8 fortresses, or 1 that might or might not distract beam ships, who don't come close due to extreme counter-fire anyway?

Ancients Pillar:

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Mothership Ancients Pillar class Missile Turret    300,000 tons     8674 Crew     114451.5 BP      TCS 6000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 100-399     Shields 0-0     Sensors 3750/3750/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1218     PPV 72
Maint Life 12.42 Years     MSP 290339    AFR 591%    IFR 8.2%    1YR 3476    5YR 52146    Max Repair 9000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    
Magazine 50463    


Gravity Shield (50x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Size 12 Seeker Hatch (6)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 30
Seeker Tactical rated 65.6m-res8 (1)     Range 63.6m km    Resolution 8
Ancients Seeker Drone (4200)  Speed: 250,000 km/s   End: 4.2m    Range: 63m km   WH: 36    Size: 12    TH: 1416/850/425

Ancients Redundant Sensor Orbs rated 3b-res2 (1)     GPS 5760     Range 3,054.7m km    Resolution 2
Ancients Sensor Suite rated 30.187b-res20 (1)     GPS 180000     Range 30,186.9m km    Resolution 20
Ancients Missile Scanner rated 6.75b-res1 (1)     GPS 9000     Range 6,750.0m km    MCR 735.1m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km

Compact ECCM-10 (1)         ECM 100
Modeled after the Ancients' defense base in the arctic I wanted a turret that does the same. Launch massive amounts of those seeker drones, but mainly to counter small craft and the FACs of the swarm. The missiles have been tested to one shot such a swarm fighter without them having any chance to avoid it. The series' drone swarm weapons were the prototype of a highest tech size 1 missile spam in scifi I think, yet here my missiles are size 12 (mainly to accommodate full ecm and an efficient engine and sensors). I think of them as being a small salvo instead of just one, so that is how I sneak my way out.
Since it only fires once every 30 seconds, which would not be enough against a probable attacking force of 240 facs (which I witnessed), I installed 6 instead which are first fired manually -one every five seconds-, after which you can set them on auto fire mode to have one seeker drone(-salvo) delivered every 5 seconds without the annoying click click targeting burden which I hopefully never have to do again.
Though I also tested fighters against the swarm with their "attack different targets" setting, which worked very good to. Some backup plan, yes?

Ancients Las-Nexus:

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Mothership Ancients Las-Nexus class Missile Defence Turret    300,000 tons     11650 Crew     441441.5 BP      TCS 6000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 100-399     Shields 0-0     Sensors 3750/3750/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1141     PPV 2332.2
Maint Life 11.37 Years     MSP 1049552    AFR 630%    IFR 8.8%    1YR 14891    5YR 223372    Max Repair 10500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    


Tac Defense Network cal.4x6-5r-720k (60x4)    Range 720,000km     TS: 100000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 12    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Phalanx Turret cal.4x24-5r-2.88m (30x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 96-100     RM 12    ROF 5        24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
Gravity Shield (50x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100kps (1)    Max Range: 1,400,000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Vacuum Energy Power Plant PB-1 (12)     Total Power Output 4800    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Ancients Redundant Sensor Orbs rated 3b-res2 (1)     GPS 5760     Range 3,054.7m km    Resolution 2
Ancients Sensor Suite rated 30.187b-res20 (1)     GPS 180000     Range 30,186.9m km    Resolution 20
Ancients Missile Scanner rated 6.75b-res1 (1)     GPS 9000     Range 6,750.0m km    MCR 735.1m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km

Compact ECCM-10 (1)         ECM 100
Since the central pyramid has both, missile and beam weapons, that also meant that I could never set it on auto fire without not only having my precious fire control setup being destroyed, but also having the stupid AI waste size 32 torpedoes on incoming size 1 missiles... . So I made this dedicated beam turret that only has one fire control anyway, and all the point-defense to annul a whole chinese new years festival in only 5 seconds.^^
Trivia: "Tac"s are actual Goa'uld weapons that were shown in only one episode. Those are sort of grenade like orbs that just get scattered around an area like mines, and automatically target anything with heat emission coming through with exploding laser beams. I thought that is a good concept for a more short ranged point defense weapon and assumed the main ships have those now scattered over the hull. Why not?
The Phalanx is an invention though. Supposed to be a Ja'far operated staff cannon quad turrets for close combat ship to ship fire and point defense alike.

Dockspace Module:

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Mothership Dockspace class Dock    3,000,000 tons     58236 Crew     378885.5 BP      TCS 60000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 13-1852     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4998     PPV 0
Maint Life 5.02 Years     MSP 394508    AFR 14406%    IFR 200.1%    1YR 26075    5YR 391128    Max Repair 600 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Flight Crew Berths 44413    
Hangar Deck Capacity 2200000 tons    


Gravity Shield (30x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
ECM 100
I really stretched the maximum feasible hangar percentage here. I wanted this to have enough space for a Ha'tak (which are 2.2mt size in my game), as well as having enough fuel and maintenance, maybe even ammunition to supply such a thing. Well, having 73% already dedicated to hangar, and definitely having to include extra flight berths too, left little, actually exactly no space for anything else. Even the maintenance live span of this module is underachieving compared to the other military ones the mothership has. Note for the future: Never do more than around 60% hangar dedication for any carrier-thing. Just impractical.

Mothership Pyramid:

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Mothership Pyramid class Command Ship    3,000,000 tons     100815 Crew     2771569 BP      TCS 60000  TH 0  EM 3600000
1 km/s     Armour 24-1852     Shields 120000-300     Sensors 3750/3750/0/0     Damage Control Rating 9247     PPV 14134.2
Maint Life 9.06 Years     MSP 5340210    AFR 7785%    IFR 108.1%    1YR 117135    5YR 1757022    Max Repair 10500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    
Flag Bridge    Cryo Drop Capacity: 215 Battalions    Magazine 128000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 8600    

Fuel Capacity 360,000,000 Litres    Range N/A
Ancients Shields (8000)   Total Fuel Cost  120,000 Litres per hour  (2,880,000 per day)

Phalanx Turret cal.4x24-5r-2.88m (120x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 96-100     RM 12    ROF 5        24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24 24
Tac Defense Network cal.4x6-5r-720k (60x4)    Range 720,000km     TS: 100000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 12    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Gold Pyramidion cal.377-80r-45.24m (1)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 377-25     RM 12    ROF 75        377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377 377
Staff Cannon cal.50-25r-1200k (200)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 125-25    ROF 25        50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Staff Cannon cal.9-5r-1200k (200)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 22-25    ROF 5        9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Ancients Transphase Cannon cal.24-5r-1.44m (20)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 144    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Ion Cannon cal.24-5r-1.44m (5)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 144    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Gravity Shield (50x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100kps (6)    Max Range: 1,400,000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Vacuum Energy Power Plant PB-1 (70)     Total Power Output 28000    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 32 Ancients Torpedo Launcher (40)    Missile Size 32    Rate of Fire 80
Torpedo Tactical rated 5b-res17 (4)     Range 5,009.6m km    Resolution 17
Ancients Tactical Torpedo (2000)  Speed: 140,600 km/s   End: 598.7m    Range: 5050.9m km   WH: 225    Size: 32    TH: 1359/815/407
Ancients Assault Torpedo (2000)  Speed: 281,200 km/s   End: 60.5m    Range: 1020.5m km   WH: 225    Size: 32    TH: 1499/899/449

Ancients Missile Scanner rated 6.75b-res1 (1)     GPS 9000     Range 6,750.0m km    MCR 735.1m km    Resolution 1
Ancients Sensor Suite rated 30.187b-res20 (1)     GPS 180000     Range 30,186.9m km    Resolution 20
Ancients Redundant Sensor Orbs rated 3b-res2 (3)     GPS 5760     Range 3,054.7m km    Resolution 2
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km

Compact ECCM-10 (10)         ECM 100
Though of the same size as the former Basilika, this time the central module is vastly more powerful, because I delegated the fighter and ammunition bays to another section. Shields are twice as strong, SO much long range particle firing power. Then also 4x10 torpedo launchers instead of just 9 (albeit size 32 instead of 50 here). The Tactical Torpedoes only work for ranges up to 2.15 billion btw., no matter what the display says. They are actually outdated through this, but I didn't want to abandon the huge ammunition storage that I had already built when I discovered the games range limitation.
The Redundant Sensor Orbs are only 40% the size, yet still same cost as the others. They are supposed to be backup sensors if the enemy should use Ion Cannons, as they have 90% resistance against emp. I think of them as being scattered little sensor arrays that peek out everywhere around the hull, which makes it really difficult to destroy all of them. At max. tech level, even their reduced output is quite enough to see missiles 30m kilometers away, so considering only close combat can ever bring me in the situation of using them, I guess I am pretty safe then too. (This is my response to the swarm actually blinding one of my technologically and by mass vastly more advanced battlecruisers in another game, rendering it completely useless for minutes, so it had to fall back for a while. Such shaming, but never again.)

Mothership Perimeter:

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Mothership Perimeter class Dock    3,000,000 tons     101572 Crew     624017 BP      TCS 60000  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 16-1852     Shields 0-0     Sensors 3750/3750/100/0     Damage Control Rating 15260     PPV 1840
Maint Life 8.27 Years     MSP 1983525    AFR 4719%    IFR 65.5%    1YR 51554    5YR 773305    Max Repair 10500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Flight Crew Berths 29709    
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000000 tons     Magazine 125438    

Fuel Capacity 200,000,000 Litres    Range N/A

Gravity Shield (50x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Orb.-Bomb. Platform cal.4x20-15r-1.8m (20x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 60-20     RM 9    ROF 15        20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 18
Orb.-Bomb. Platform cal.4x16-10r-1.44m (80x4)    Range 1,400,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 48-25     RM 9    ROF 10        16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 14
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100kps (1)    Max Range: 1,400,000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Vacuum Energy Power Plant PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 2400    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Naquadah Bomb Sluice (5)    Missile Size 100    Rate of Fire 250
Bomb Guidance CPU rated 2.25m-res1 (1)     Range 2.3m km    Resolution 1
Naquadah Bomb (750)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 11.3m    Range: 20.4m km   WH: 567    Size: 100    TH: 100/60/30
Plasma Charge (4200)  Speed: 250,000 km/s   End: 0.1m    Range: 1.7m km   WH: 171    Size: 12    TH: 1666/1000/500

Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
Phased Gravitational Sensors (20)   100 Survey Points Per Hour

Compact ECCM-10 (2)         ECM 100
So this is the hangar for all the actually useful little craft of the mothership, and secondly also a bombardment platform should I find a npr. The 720 fighters are currently organized as 4x60 and 4x120 fighters, though the later has been proven too large, so I will probably halve that for 12x60 fighters. The Al'kesh fly in wings of 3, and the scout force is organized in fighter-drones for in system survey, and 20kt stealth survey vessels that may fly ahead.
The Naquadah Bombs are again a thing that was actually present on original Goa'uld motherships. Naquadah is Sorium in this game, but ok.^^ They were used for ground bombardment only, which is why I pretty much only put warhead strength on it (they get dropped from orbit on population). What the number above doesn't show is that through radiation damage, it actually does over 14k per piece, not just 567.


So that have been all the fortress modules. Now the Logistics:
Current cargo layout gives me 5000 automines, for at least 350kt/a per present resource on a planet (opposed to around min. 400kt/a on a asteroid), 1000 construction and ordnance factories, 400 for fighters, 100 tracking stations and also 420 cargo bays dedicated to Ground Force Facilities, which results in 21 of those - enough to train a full division at once. This leaves 1900 holds for minerals, aka 23.75 million tons.

Mineral planning is divided into 4m Duranium, 1m Neutronium, 750k Corbomite, 1.25m Tritanium, 2.5m Boronide Ore, 750k Mercassium, 1m Vendarite, 250k Sorium(/Naquadah), 3.75m Uridium and 1.5m Gallicite. This still leaves nearly 6 million tons space free. The planning includes supplies to maintain the whole fortress for 60 years without mining, and enough extra resource to rebuild 4 million maintenance units, 2000 Seeker Drones (Salvos), 1000 Assault Torpedoes, 1000 Tactical Torpedoes, 500 Naquadah Bombs, 2000 Plasma Charges, and also 240 Gliders(=4 Wings) and 3 Al'kesh(=1 Wing).
The fortress consumes 219kt/a in maintenance, so even with 0.1 accessibility deposits and no governor, it should be able to stay self sufficient 'in the desert'.

Manpower includes 7 geological teams, 4 xenological teams, 7 battalions of boarding marines(*cough* I mean Ja'far troops), 1 division of construction crew and 5 divisions of 1:1 marines and heavy assault forces.(4 divisions for war, 1 division to protect the construction crew on ruin planets)


Details on support craft:

Deathglider:

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Death Glider class Fighter    500 tons     22 Crew     2119.5 BP      TCS 10  TH 5.9  EM 450
59000 km/s     Armour 4-5     Shields 15-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3
Maint Life 12.12 Years     MSP 795    AFR 6%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 10    5YR 150    Max Repair 600 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 3    

295 EP Fighter Photonic Drive (2)    Power 295    Fuel Use 147.98%    Signature 2.95    Exp 29%
Fuel Capacity 70,000 Litres    Range 17.0 billion km   (3 days at full power)
Ancients Shields (1)   Total Fuel Cost  15 Litres per hour  (360 per day)

Glider Staff Cannon Pair cal.6-5r-60k (1)    Range 60,000km     TS: 59000 km/s     Power 6-6.25     RM 1    ROF 5        6 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Glider HUD rated 87.5k-50kps (1)    Max Range: 175,000 km   TS: 50000 km/s     94 89 83 77 71 66 60 54 49 43
Zero Point Module PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 8    Armour 0    Exp 5%

ECM 100
Much superior to what I built for the old fortress. I had to recognize that reduced size Lasers are actually more efficient than Railguns on later tech levels. No cloaking device here, but their near zero thermal dampening and still blazing speed make them so swiftly silent already, that they can sneak attack every enemy no problem that doesn't have active sensors on. For those who do have active coverage though, they can activate a 15 point shield against 5 minutes before arrival. This would blow their cover normally, but if they are already caught... . Defensive is actually their biggest strength, with 4 armor layers, the shield, and then also a full ecm instead of just a fighter sized one. In mass and with their speed they are basically untouchable against anything that is more than one tech tech level behind.
They don't need eccm due to firing at point-blank range by the way. I saw targeting chances of over 200% from my better pilots, so that is fine.^^

Al'Kesh:

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Al'Kesh class Long Range Bomber    30,000 tons     1011 Crew     72606 BP      TCS 3  TH 150  EM 9000
25000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 7-86     Shields 300-300     Sensors 3750/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 118.64
Maint Life 2.72 Years     MSP 45379    AFR 240%    IFR 3.3%    1YR 8778    5YR 131672    Max Repair 10500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1    
Magazine 618    

J30000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 30000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
5000 EP Shielded Photonic Drive (3)    Power 5000    Fuel Use 5%    Signature 50    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,305,000 Litres    Range 156.6 billion km   (72 days at full power)
Ancients Shields (20)   Total Fuel Cost  300 Litres per hour  (7,200 per day)

Tac Defense Network cal.4x6-5r-720k (2x4)    Range 720,000km     TS: 100000 km/s     Power 24-25     RM 12    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Staff Cannon cal.9-5r-1200k (2)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 22-25    ROF 5        9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9
Staff Cannon cal.50-25r-1200k (2)    Range 1,200,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 125-25    ROF 25        50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50
Gravity Shield (1x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Beam Tactical rated 700k-100kps (1)    Max Range: 1,400,000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     99 99 98 97 96 96 95 94 94 93
Zero Point Module PB-1 (36)     Total Power Output 144    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Open Zero Point Module PB-1.5 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 35%

Size 12 Seeker Hatch (2)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 30
Bomb Guidance CPU rated 2.25m-res1 (1)     Range 2.3m km    Resolution 1
Plasma Charge (50)  Speed: 250,000 km/s   End: 0.1m    Range: 1.7m km   WH: 171    Size: 12    TH: 1666/1000/500

Ancients Redundant Sensor Orbs rated 3b-res2 (1)     GPS 5760     Range 3,054.7m km    Resolution 2
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 0.5% of normal

Compact ECCM-10 (2)         ECM 100
They employ the opposite tactic as the Gliders. Instead of going point blank, these are designed to stay at 1-1.7m kilometers range (1.2m optimum) and use their long range beam and bombing power to devastate an enemy without receiving counter fire (thus they also have very limited defenses for their size). For a military ship they are not actually really fast, but I needed to balance out their thermal signature as they also employ stealth tactic (hopefully they cannot be seen at 1.2m, though I doubt that). As they are, their tactic only works fully on the usually vastly more underdeveloped remnants, swarm and npr. Invaders will likely see through their stealth and then also able to catch them. Should that happen, I will update the design to meet the new requirements (which I can do anywhere, because I carry the shipyards around )
One of the few ships in the fleet that can fly ahead through jump points. As such they will be the main answer to any subordinate (non npr) threat that advancing stealth scouts may discover ahead of the fortress in the next targeted system.


Transport:

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Transport class Shuttle    5,000 tons     75 Crew     3145 BP      TCS 100  TH 25  EM 0
25000 km/s     Armour 1-26     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 0
MSP 2752    Max Repair 2500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 600 months    Spare Berths 0    

2500 EP Stealth Photonic Drive (1)    Power 2500    Fuel Use 0.88%    Signature 25    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,185,000 Litres    Range 4847.7 billion km   (2244 days at full power)

Phased Geological Sensors (1)   5 Survey Points Per Hour
Is actually just a crew transport, not a resource one. The mothership houses 3 of those to ferry around geological or xeno teams, which I forgot to include in the picture on top. Insane range and basically indefinite deployment time.

Geo Probe:

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Geo Probe class Geological Survey Vessel    500 tons     16 Crew     695.5 BP      TCS 10  TH 1.9  EM 0
19000 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 22.9 Years     MSP 869    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 3    5YR 48    Max Repair 361 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months    Spare Berths 0    

190 EP Shuttle Photonic Drive (1)    Power 190    Fuel Use 8.62%    Signature 1.9    Exp 9%
Fuel Capacity 55,000 Litres    Range 229.7 billion km   (139 days at full power)

Phased Geological Sensors (1)   5 Survey Points Per Hour
The purpose of those should be clear. They are supposed to be unmanned drones in my mind. Never had a maintenance failure on them, and only one huge asteroid crowded system pushed their fuel capacity over the limit so far.
The Grav Probes are just the same with a grav sensor instead of geo of course.

Optolith:

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Optolith Ia class Survey Ship    20,000 tons     528 Crew     15987 BP      TCS 2  TH 75  EM 0
18750 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 4-65     Shields 0-0     Sensors 3750/1/20/20     Damage Control Rating 32     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.07 Years     MSP 16237    AFR 98%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 1569    5YR 23534    Max Repair 3750 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0    

J20000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 20000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
2500 EP Stealth Photonic Drive (3)    Power 2500    Fuel Use 0.88%    Signature 25    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 1022.7 billion km   (631 days at full power)

Gravity Shield (2x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
Phased Gravitational Sensors (4)   20 Survey Points Per Hour
Phased Geological Sensors (4)   20 Survey Points Per Hour
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 0.5% of normal

ECM 100
"Ia" stands for "Isis Age", the hypothetical age where Goa'uld had deciphered the Ancients' technology and incorporated it into their designs. These fast stealth scouts have two purposes. Surveying a system ahead and snooping for eventual presence of...

Since they are really stealthy and still have maximum size thermal sensor on board, they have been proven to be quite effective in finding out enemy positions without alarming them.(This worked perfectly even on much earlier tech grades already) Thus they became my standards inter-system survey craft in any game since my last one.

Aquarii Project:

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Aquarii Project class Science Vessel    30,000 tons     950 Crew     13455.5 BP      TCS 3  TH 60  EM 0
10000 km/s     Armour 1-86     Shields 0-0     Sensors 3750/1/0/20     Damage Control Rating 133     PPV 0
Maint Life 12.47 Years     MSP 37273    AFR 54%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 443    5YR 6648    Max Repair 3750 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 216 months    Spare Berths -1    

2000 EP Traveller Photonic Drive (3)    Power 2000    Fuel Use 0.51%    Signature 20    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 4,500,000 Litres    Range 5294.1 billion km   (6127 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH50-3750 (1)     Sensitivity 3750     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  3750m km
Phased Geological Sensors (4)   20 Survey Points Per Hour
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 0.5% of normal

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Aquarii was a system that had a secondary star in 2500b orbiting distance. Since the core planets had been rich, I decided to make a dedicated ultra long range scout design just to survey those distant planets too. It wasn't worth it, and the ship crawled back into the docks, nearly drained of all supplies after the 18 years generation trip. Then it spent around 5 years in overhaul (overhaul should really cap at the point where building a new ship would be faster imho...), and I decided I would take it along in case I find such a system again. It has even slightly better stealth as the Optolith and full passive sensor capacity too, which means it can double as a slower stealth scout when needed.


Ok, this has to be it. I could list the Ha'tak too that I take along, but there is nothing noteworthy, and I don't actually plan to use it anymore (waste of resource to have another mothership role ship around, when there is a better and longer lasting one around). Maybe in the unlikely case of extreme war, but until then it only rests in the dock as honors to the great service it had done in the long lasting search for new gallicite deposits, some ruins and the weapon and fighter testing field studies.

I had my fortress operational for a short time by now, and there is quite a bit to say on how such a partitioned mothership actually works. I will post those later, as I spent too much time here already, but one thing ahead: To prevent this problem with a fleet having more than 2.15 billion fuel, which is easy to come across if you notice that every single module scratches on this border, I now leave the fortress with each module separated in its own task group. All sectors, except the Engine Core then get assigned to the Engine Core as their superior formation, which means I can copy each order from the Core to those subordinate modules. I also set them up to defend the Core (not really necessary nor particularly useful). Looks like this:

Many problems sprout from having the mothership fly separated like this though. For example all the craft in the hangars are also considered subordinate, which means as soon as I start those ships or still have them out, I cannot give the fortress this unison command without all the support craft doing the same thing too. Also I need to set up every colony manually before using commands like 'unload minerals' or 'unload all installation', or else this will happen:

...I got around 50 colonies on the same planet with the minerals being divided among 10 or so.
More on problems and operation strategy later.

[hunter james]

This design looks awsome. You are very dedicated to getting these huge ships in.