Survey Carrier and parasite choices

[smoelf (OP)]

I was recently inspired to try expanding my exploration business by using fighter-sized survey ships and a carrier to ship them to their destinations, but after each was built and worked on a single system I noticed several design flaws. Even if I have a few ideas for what needs to be done, I wanted to get some inspiration from here and perhaps some pointers regarding whether to use 500t og 1000t survey ships, as well as the proper ratio of geo and grav ships. Firstly, my main problems were the following:

1) Geo ships finished way sooner than grav ships.

2) Range of grav ships was extremely underestimated, resulting in them frequently running out of fuel. I then had to move my survey carrier to them to refuel, before they could continue. This led to the third:

3) Underestimated deployment time on grav ship. They spend about a year surveying a system with a 6-month deployment time.

Here are the designs:

Carrier

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Den Røde class Scout Carrier    22 800 tons     388 Crew     2065 BP      TCS 456  TH 720  EM 0
1578 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 2-71     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 31     PPV 0
Maint Life 10.07 Years     MSP 4755    AFR 134%    IFR 1.9%    1YR 85    5YR 1278    Max Repair 385 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Flight Crew Berths 100   
Hangar Deck Capacity 3500 tons     

J23600(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 23600 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
240 EP Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (3)    Power 240    Fuel Use 1.48%    Signature 240    Exp 3%
Fuel Capacity 3 000 000 Litres    Range 1599.3 billion km   (11730 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

Strike Group
5x Geo Spejder Fighter-Scout   Speed: 2412 km/s    Size: 9.95
2x Grav Spejder Fighter-Scout   Speed: 2412 km/s    Size: 9.95

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Geo fighter

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Geo Spejder class Fighter-Scout    498 tons     13 Crew     176.5 BP      TCS 9.95  TH 24  EM 0
2412 km/s     Armour 2-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.35 Years     MSP 55    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 5    5YR 70    Max Repair 150 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   

24 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 24    Fuel Use 10.29%    Signature 24    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 17.6 billion km   (84 days at full power)

Improved Geological Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

Grav fighter

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Grav Spejder class Fighter-Scout    498 tons     13 Crew     176.5 BP      TCS 9.95  TH 24  EM 0
2412 km/s     Armour 2-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.35 Years     MSP 55    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 5    5YR 70    Max Repair 150 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   

24 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 24    Fuel Use 10.29%    Signature 24    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 17.6 billion km   (84 days at full power)

Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


[baconholic]

From my own experience, I found it's better to separate Geo and Grav survey into their own fleet.

Grav survey time and distance are relatively stable, the distance from the star to the furthest survey point almost always lies between 3-10 billion km.

Geo on the other hand can vary greatly, some systems are completely empty and requires no survey, while others can have 500+ objects taking several years to fully survey.

I also build long range Geo survey crafts whose main job is to survey type A and B star systems. Those tend to have planets extremely far away from the main star.

[TCD]

1) I've also found that while I want to grav survey every system, I don't actually want to geo survey everything. Unless I'm in a desperate mineral shortage in my home system what I personally want to do is find minerals in systems with potential colony targets, or sorium on strategic gas giants. That ties in with baconholics separate survey fleets, with more grav survey fleets than geo survey fleets. I disagree about long range survey ships though. Frankly, what's the point? If a body needs a specially designed long range survey ship to get to it's unlikely I'll ever find those minerals useful.

2) I'd also say that for grav surveys the galaxy map has a very useful survey cost option. I see no shame in deciding that a system will be too slow/annoying to survey at my current tech level, and leave it for a later generation of faster and more fuel efficient ships to tackle. Out of fuel spam is a killer to my enjoyment of the game, and life is too short to have to manually plot survey routes to make sure ships have the range to get back to the carrier for refueling.

3) see above, same problem. Leave it and come back!

[Rich.h]

I am going to take a wild guess that you have not made use of conditional orders for your survey craft. You can set them so that once they reach 25/50/75% of their total fuel reserve they return to a colony/tanker to refuel. In addition there are primary order options to either survey all bodies in a system or just the planets/moons etc. This way you can avoid having to wait an age to survey every asteroid out there if you don't wish to.

[smoelf (OP)]

I am going to take a wild guess that you have not made use of conditional orders for your survey craft. You can set them so that once they reach 25/50/75% of their total fuel reserve they return to a colony/tanker to refuel. In addition there are primary order options to either survey all bodies in a system or just the planets/moons etc. This way you can avoid having to wait an age to survey every asteroid out there if you don't wish to.

I did make use of the conditional orders, but probably set the condition too low. I think I set it at 10% first and then increased it to 20 and maybe 30, but the result was the same. Every time they didn't have enough fuel to make it back to the survey ship, so I had to order the survey ship to move to them and refuel them. I might try setting a higher bar for the conditional statement, but I am always a bit averse to setting it too high. You reduce the amount of work they can do before they have to go back and refuel, which is a waste of time and fuel, if they only survey a couple of jump points before going back to refuel.

Regarding the other point, I only surveyed three systems before the trouble began, so I never got to a point where the geological survey took longer than the gravitational survey. I always just survey everything that is in range. But I will keep the more discerning survey orders in mind going forward, so thanks for reminding me of them.

[linkxsc]

Well your fighters are a bit slower than the survey ships i use (usually 6000t) they are stealthier.
I personally wouldnt be about to use fighters for geosurvy as others have said. Since geosurvey usually takes quite a while of some systems.

Might i recommend.

Drop the armor on the fighters. If anything wants them dead, theyre dead. Also theyre slower than fleet ships at that tech so their only safety is not getting detected.
The extra bit of space could be a bit more fuel incase they have to haul it a ways.

Also I might recommend 2 extra scouts. A fighter with a thermal and a fighter with an em sensor.
You do have them on the carrier. But I've had good sucess using a dmall em sensing fighter to slip in close to planets to check for colonies. And the therm one is good for tracking interceptors.


Incase you didnt know if you run your ships at lower speeds, theyll have smaller therm signatures. 24 is pretty low, but if you see that the enemy has ships beelining for you, slow down and trawl away from their colonies cause youre probably being picked up by their DSTS.

[Rich.h]

I would say first ditch the armour as previous stated ships like this will not stand a chance if anything makes them a target. Their survival lies in early passive detection and having a low thermal signature to get out of dodge before trouble starts. Also beef them up to full 1000t survey craft this will give you two benefits, firstly you can make use of some far more efficient engine designs and secondly throw on much larger fuel tanks. that 17bkm range might seem like a lot on paper, but consider that working on a 50% refuel order then you only have 9bkm at most of operational duty each flight, break that down and you would only manage for example a survey of two different grav points on opposite sides of the Sol system before needing to refuel. Ideally you want to try and aim for 30-40bkm or more if possible for small survey craft so they can at least get a good few surveys done before each refuel.