Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: November 14, 2020, 11:52:21 AM »What nuclear slurpee said.
I designate fighter sized ships that can independently transit a jump point "pinnaces". I first got into using them a lot when I decided that I wanted to make use of fighter factories before box launchers were available, and discovered that I really liked the versatility of them.
I like having 3-5 year endurance on the rock checkers, even if their fuel endurance is significantly less than that, because they spend a lot of time waiting for survey fleets to discover jump points for them to probe, and while their morale is not of critical importance, their engineering life IS. Pinnaces proved useful in that immediately after developing the minimal technology for jump engines, I could start probing. Saves a lot on tooling and a lot on research not having to research an efficiency 4 jump engine, only to have to replace it in a year.
Performance isn't as critical for rock checkers, but having more endurance means somewhat less micromanagement needed to cycle them back for maintenance.
Btw, I STRONGLY recommend having a small survey support carrier with your survey fleets, 1000-2000 hangar tonnage, for scouts, deployable sensor platforms with 1 HS sensors so they can qualify as commercial for maintenance purposes, jump point probes, and maybe a small fast parasite warship for dealing with unarmed enemy scouts. You don't necessarily need to update the engines of the support carrier, but you can update its complement.
I designate fighter sized ships that can independently transit a jump point "pinnaces". I first got into using them a lot when I decided that I wanted to make use of fighter factories before box launchers were available, and discovered that I really liked the versatility of them.
I like having 3-5 year endurance on the rock checkers, even if their fuel endurance is significantly less than that, because they spend a lot of time waiting for survey fleets to discover jump points for them to probe, and while their morale is not of critical importance, their engineering life IS. Pinnaces proved useful in that immediately after developing the minimal technology for jump engines, I could start probing. Saves a lot on tooling and a lot on research not having to research an efficiency 4 jump engine, only to have to replace it in a year.
Performance isn't as critical for rock checkers, but having more endurance means somewhat less micromanagement needed to cycle them back for maintenance.
Btw, I STRONGLY recommend having a small survey support carrier with your survey fleets, 1000-2000 hangar tonnage, for scouts, deployable sensor platforms with 1 HS sensors so they can qualify as commercial for maintenance purposes, jump point probes, and maybe a small fast parasite warship for dealing with unarmed enemy scouts. You don't necessarily need to update the engines of the support carrier, but you can update its complement.