Maintenance failures

[davidr (OP)]

At present my Survey Ships  have regular failures of components that eat into the MSP's on board.

My current vessels  ( at 5000 tons ) each have 1 Engineering Space and 1 Maintenance  Storage Bay for a total of 463 MSP with 100MSP max failure.

If I redesign my ships ( matching the Jump Drive capability ) to have say 4 Engineering Spaces but no Maintenance Storage Bays , giving me now only 346 MSP with 100MSP max , would this give me more reliable vessels with fewer messages regarding component failure and MSP usage?

DavidR

[ptychol]

Yes because your IFR would be smaller.

[davidr (OP)]

ptychol,

Thanks - yes , from 2.7% to 0.7%.

Will redesign and refit my vessels to accommodate the revised number of Engineering Spaces.

DavidR

[Pedroig]

As long as you are at it, make sure your deployment time is at least twice as long as your fuel range on survey ships.  Fuel is not consumed while surveying, only moving, but the deployment clock keeps ticking.  I shoot for an AFR of <25% on Survey vessels.

[kks]

From my experience a mixture of engineering spaces and maintenance storage bays of 1.5:1 to 2:1 gives the longest maintenance life. While engineering spaces reduce the failure rate (more?), storage bays give far more MSP and need less crew so they allow for longer deployment times and maint life for the same amount of hull space consumed. Might be a bit costlier in terms of MSP used, but for my exploration vessels I usuaally find the longer mission times more valuable.

[skoormit]

At present my Survey Ships  have regular failures of components that eat into the MSP's on board.

My current vessels  ( at 5000 tons ) each have 1 Engineering Space and 1 Maintenance  Storage Bay for a total of 463 MSP with 100MSP max failure.

If I redesign my ships ( matching the Jump Drive capability ) to have say 4 Engineering Spaces but no Maintenance Storage Bays , giving me now only 346 MSP with 100MSP max , would this give me more reliable vessels with fewer messages regarding component failure and MSP usage?

DavidR

You should read this post by Alsadius. It is fantastic.

Here's the header for my most recent early-game survey ship design:

Code: [Select]

SurvoB2 class Science Vessel      3,000 tons       78 Crew       412.7 BP       TCS 60    TH 43    EM 0
720 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 20      Sensors 1/0/1/1      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 6.14 Years     MSP 485    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 22    5YR 331    Max Repair 100 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   SCI   
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months    Morale Check Required   

This design has 1 Engineering Space and 1 Maintenance Storage Bay.

When these guys reach the end of their 4-year deployment time, I order them back home for overhaul.
The expected maintenance life of 6+ years means they have enough MSP to handle a long return trip at the end of their tour and/or some bad luck on the DAC rolls.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes... on average any ship that are suppose to be deployed for more than a week should have a total maintenance life of about 2-3 times their intended deployment times.

In general I have found through experimentation that when you design ships you first add maintenance facilities so the maintenance life is about the same or slightly longer than the intended deployment time and then you add some maintenance storage to extend it to about 2-3 times the deployment time. That way you should have all the MSP that you need even if you have some early unlucky failures.

Engineering sections are quite expensive so combining it with some MSP storage can in general be smart, especially on warships. For survey ships on the other hand there is a case for mainly using engineering sections and less MSP storage as that might be cheaper in the long run as you will burn less MSP but pay a slightly larger upfront cost. For warships you will usually not be running them 24/7 so there saving the cost and space can be allot more important. You might also want engineering sections on your survey vessels as well later on, everything to reduce the overall cost on lost MSP will be a benefit in the long run.

So... on survey vessels I usually give enough engineering section to cover roughly 150% of the intended deployment time and top it of with some MSP so the total is about double their intended deployment. For most capital warships I would add engineering section so I cover about the same time as their intended deployment and then add MSP storage to about 2-3 times that. Warships need more MSP for battle damage and might also need it for beam combat, especially bombarding planets.

[skoormit]

For survey ships on the other hand there is a case for mainly using engineering sections and less MSP storage as that might be cheaper in the long run as you will burn less MSP but pay a slightly larger upfront cost.

That's a good point.
Just eyeballing the expected 5-yr MSP use, adding a 2nd eng section to my surveyor and reducing the maintenance storage bay to a small cuts my 5-yr MSP use in half.
That more than pays for itself in one tour.
Of course, that adds some weight. The ship is now 1% heavier, and I'll have to tweak it to keep using my current 3k jump drive.
But for the next generation, I'll take a closer look at optimizing long-term expense.