Ship/Shipyard size VS tech level, costs

[C4lv1n (OP)]

I just started a new game (yes again, the seventh since I've started keeping track) and I decided to give myself 5 shipyards to start. 1 was Naval, the other 4 Commercial. I changed one of them via space master to Naval. One is a 7Kt ship yard, the other is a 40Kt ship yard. Both have three slipways.

Obviously there's a bit of a size difference, the previously commercial shipyard can make quite large ships, but could this cause problems for me? So here's my questions:

1. Does a large shipyard cost more to run? (people, resources, etc) besides the regular increase in cost when building a larger ship.

2. Is there any reason you wouldn't build a large ship at a low tech level? Does it end up costing too much to be cost effective?

3. Should you increase ship size with tech level? Or sould you do the oposite, ie: get the same amount of firepower, defense, etc into smaller  and smaller ships?

4. Pie?


EDIT:: Another question, Is there any reason putting geosurvey sensors on a terraformer wouldn't work? If you could have both modules operating at the same time you could leave the dedicated survey ships free to take care of asteroids and smaller, non-terraformable planetoids.

[Sloshmonger]

1. Does a large shipyard cost more to run? (people, resources, etc) besides the regular increase in cost when building a larger ship.

2. Is there any reason you wouldn't build a large ship at a low tech level? Does it end up costing too much to be cost effective?

3. Should you increase ship size with tech level? Or sould you do the oposite, ie: get the same amount of firepower, defense, etc into smaller  and smaller ships?

4. Pie?

1) Shipyards "cost" more in population needed to run it.  I believe it's 1m per shipyard, plus .1m per 1000 ton capicity for naval, and .01m for civilian.  Capacity is the total of (Slips) x (Size), so a 1000 ton miltary shipyard with 3 slipways is 3000 ton capacity, or 1.3m workers.  But my math could be very wrong


2)  The main considerations you have are resources, time, and effectiveness.  Shipbuilding is dependent on the tech under Construction & Production.  A larger ship will take longer than a smaller ship, all things being equal.  Also, is it more efficient for your navy to have 3 10,000 ton ships, or one 30,000 ship.  It depends on your strategies, and what that ship is: if it's a carrier, then having a huge one is a benefit, but having three smaller ones allows 3 things to happen at once.

3)  Personal choice.  For myself, I look at a particular size of a ship and say it should have some particular role: smaller ships in my navy are more likely to be either anti-missile or anti-gunboat, larger ships are the heavy hitters who go in and slug it out and take down defenses.  You might decide that you want a small, fast swarm of ships.  So each increase in tech level will be able to either give you bigger ships for the same speed, or let you pack more oomph into a smaller ship.

4) 3.14152....

[Gilferedir]

I'm also pretty new to the game so I've been starting new games when I learn something new, that generally changes the way I want to proceed.  I also have a seriously bad habit of starting new games in 4x games when I have a change of heart in how I want to proceed with my strategy.  Anyways as far as your questions I might have a few cents to add for a few:

1) No idea, but I don't think labor costs are anything to worry about when you first start out. 

2)After many new starts like yourself, I've come to realize that in the beginning building any smaller commercial ships seems pointless, and for myself it seems like when I would make a smaller ship I would just end up needing more.  So I would say try to start off with the biggest ships you can get your hands on that can still move fairly fast with your lower tech level.   How is see it is this:  When starting off with smaller ships, everything else takes longer to do (transporting precious mines to resource rich bodies).    When these trivial tasks start taking too long, it significantly reduces your production, and if your starting Earth resources are bad you can run into problems early if it takes you months just to move 40 or 50 mines to say Titan (Titan always seems to have good resources in my games so far). 

I guess a lot of this depends on how your using, or if your using, your starting tech points and/or your OB points.  I like to build as big as possible for my commercial classes, then use my OB to get a few to start off with.   This sets me up just fine until I'm able to produce these monsters (at least what I think as monsters) at my home base.   

3) Like Slashmonger says, so much of this game is personal choice that you can really do whatever you want.   I like to build asteroid miners, while I've seen most people prefer to just concentrate on automated mines and move them from place to place.   And remember, building new classes is free, so there really isn't any reason to not have a class for any and every situation you can think of. 

4)Again, it's all just personal choice.   For me there are just too many different choices with either to pick just one.  Some kinds of pie are awesome, and some kinds of cake are awesome, pick just one and your more than likely going to miss out on something delicious.

Here are some of the classes I started my last game with, and I am loving them so far.   For techs I try to start with Improved Cargo Handling, Improved Geo Survey Sensors, and Ion Engines. 

Code: [Select]

Peridot class Geosurvey Ship    1,400 tons     128 Crew     430 BP      TCS 28  TH 126  EM 0
4500 km/s     Armour 1-11     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/4     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 15%    IFR: 0.2%    Maint Capacity 192 MSP    Max Repair 150 MSP    Est Time: 3.54 Years

Ion Engine E7.7 (2)    Power 63    Fuel Use 77%    Signature 63    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 83.5 billion km   (214 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR5-R100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 5.0m km    Resolution 100
Improved Geological Sensors (2)   4 Survey Points Per Hour

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Topaz class Gravsurvey Ship    1,400 tons     128 Crew     330 BP      TCS 28  TH 126  EM 0
4500 km/s     Armour 1-11     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 15%    IFR: 0.2%    Maint Capacity 147 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP    Est Time: 3.84 Years

Ion Engine E7.7 (2)    Power 63    Fuel Use 77%    Signature 63    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 83.5 billion km   (214 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR5-R100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 5.0m km    Resolution 100
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Emerald class Freighter    32,750 tons     208 Crew     471 BP      TCS 655  TH 788  EM 0
1203 km/s     Armour 1-91     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 9 MSP    Max Repair 40 MSP
Cargo 25000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 30   

Ion Engine E0.77 (5)    Power 157.5    Fuel Use 7.7%    Signature 157.5    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 35.7 billion km   (343 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR5-R100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 5.0m km    Resolution 100
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Ruby class Frigate    62,050 tons     318 Crew     719.5 BP      TCS 1241  TH 1260  EM 0
1015 km/s     Armour 1-139     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 7 MSP    Max Repair 40 MSP
Cargo 50000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 40   

Ion Engine E0.77 (8)    Power 157.5    Fuel Use 7.7%    Signature 157.5    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 18.8 billion km   (214 days at full power)
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Pickaxe class Asteroid Miner    58,000 tons     1168 Crew     1638.5 BP      TCS 1160  TH 788  EM 0
679 km/s     Armour 1-133     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 18 MSP    Max Repair 120 MSP
Asteroid Miner: 10 module(s) producing 160 tons per mineral per annum

Ion Engine E0.77 (5)    Power 157.5    Fuel Use 7.7%    Signature 157.5    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 20.1 billion km   (343 days at full power)
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Garnet class Science Vessel    850 tons     78 Crew     127 BP      TCS 17  TH 126  EM 0
7411 km/s     Armour 1-7     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 5%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 93 MSP    Max Repair 32 MSP    Est Time: 9.53 Years

Ion Engine E7.7 (2)    Power 63    Fuel Use 77%    Signature 63    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 137.5 billion km   (214 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR5-R100 (1)     GPS 1000     Range 5.0m km    Resolution 100
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Jade class Luxury Liner    13,250 tons     478 Crew     590 BP      TCS 265  TH 315  EM 0
1188 km/s     Armour 1-49     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 28 MSP    Max Repair 40 MSP
Passengers 1000   

Ion Engine E0.77 (2)    Power 157.5    Fuel Use 7.7%    Signature 157.5    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 88.2 billion km   (858 days at full power)
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Opal class Colony Ship    30,050 tons     218 Crew     1301 BP      TCS 601  TH 472  EM 0
785 km/s     Armour 1-86     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 27 MSP    Max Repair 40 MSP
Colonists 100000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 20   

Ion Engine E0.77 (3)    Power 157.5    Fuel Use 7.7%    Signature 157.5    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 38.9 billion km   (573 days at full power)


[Thiosk]

You'll probably find yourself moving through developmental phases as you build in the game.  Theres no one strategy that works from the dawn of civilization to the end of time.

For example, early on I was absolutely limited in production capacity, so I couldn't build mines fast enough to satisfy the demand for minerals.  When I realized how to build asteroid miners, this solved the problem: I could use both the shipyard capacity and the industrial capacity to build mines.  I built the biggest ones I could and slapped them on near earth asteroids to fling in the ore.  Eventually, I found this retardedly duranium-rich asteroid in a neighboring system (had a million+ duranium) so as I stopped being so capacity limited, I eventually just moved all the miners there and set up a delivery route to bring the duranium home.

Later, I became corundium-limited for building mines, but by then I had enough capacity that I could do something else for a while while I slowly increased corundium output.  I used this opportunity to work on fleets, and research facilities, and other things I neglected while I got enough corundium stockpiled to keep fabricating mines.

Now I run on nearly pure automining, with about 6000 operating automines scattered variously, mostly concentrated on three heavy mining worlds, and much of my production is ship-defense related.  It has to be, because I'm now population limited-- not enough people to keep everyone busy if I continued expanding my industrial base.  About half a billion folks now live more than 3 jumps from Sol.

Throughout my game, I was steadily increasing my shipyard sizes and slipways, until I noticed I had a labor crash.  My shipyards-- and i don't have that many of them-- require well over 100 million workers to keep running.  I'm population limited, and it will be about another 5 years before I start tugging a few of them out to the up and coming new sector capitol.


Also, blueberry-rhubarb pie would be lovely today.  Its just a rhubarb sort of day, and blueberries are tasty to boot.

[Erik L]

Also, blueberry-rhubarb pie would be lovely today.  Its just a rhubarb sort of day, and blueberries are tasty to boot.

One does not sully blueberries with rhubarb. Rhubarb is only paired with strawberries.

[Panopticon]

One does not sully blueberries with rhubarb. Rhubarb is only paired with strawberries.

This is in fact entirely correct.

[Thiosk]

Boundaries are meant to be shattered.

With tarts.

[C4lv1n (OP)]

image

Boundaries are meant to be shattered.

With tarts.

DIE HERETIC!

Also I have another question for you guys (I'll add it to the first post too)

Is there any reason putting geosurvey sensors on a terraformer wouldn't work? If you could have both modules operating at the same time you could leave the dedicated survey ships free to take care of asteroids and smaller, non-terraformable planetoids.

[Gilferedir]

Bodies only need to be surveyed once with a ship, after that the only way to possibly find any more resources is to drop a geological team on the surface after you place a colony there (the colony doesn't need to have a population).  So putting geological sensors on a terraformer (weird, spell check says terraformer is spelled wrong) wouldn't really do anything after the initial ship survey.  You could still survey a body if you had one installed on the terraforming ship but it wouldn't serve much purpose since the terraformer would probably be spending many many years in orbit to terraform to your liking.  

In my current game I have only one geo survey ship going with a sensor rating of 4 and I have already surveyed every body in Sol, small and large, before I even had people living on Mars.

[Cassaralla]

Yeah, geosurvey on a terraformer will have very limited use.  Geosurvey on an asteroid miner, however, can be a good idea.

[Peter Rhodan]

Now there's an interesting idea...
doesn't really go with my exploration strategy this game but next game... hmmm

[Thiosk]

My asteroid miners are usually to slow and lumbering for viable surveying duties.  I prefer a survey package attached to enormous engines for that duty.

[randal7]

2. Is there any reason you wouldn't build a large ship at a low tech level? Does it end up costing too much to be cost effective?

Make sure you don't exceed your maintenance capacity. I forget what starting capacity is, but it's way less than 40k tons.