Ships of my current Survey method

[boggo2300 (OP)]

Still pretty low tech, as I'm only 19 years in to the game.  Unfortunately since hangar decks are a military only system, my jump tender has to be military, and therefore I've spent a huge amount of time/resources getting a 65000 ton military shipyard, but I just  like the  concept....

Code: [Select]

Outreach class Survey Tender    63050 tons     1486 Crew     3025.4 BP      TCS 1261  TH 2000  EM 0
1586 km/s    JR 2-50(C)     Armour 2-141     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/5/0/0     Damage Control Rating 70     PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 1590%    IFR: 22.1%    Maintenance Capacity 600 MSP    Max Repair 576 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons     Magazine 324    

Norton JC66K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 66000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 2
Cummins Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 (20)    Power 100    Fuel Use 9%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 1,500,000 Litres    Range 475.8 billion km   (3472 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (4x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Type 1 Size 1 Anti-Missile Launcher (4)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
SMA-1 Anti-Missile Fire Control FC42-R1 (4)     Range 1.3m km    Resolution 1
AMM-1a Axe Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (324)  Speed: 6,600 km/s   End: 2.5m    Range: 1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 44 / 26 / 13

SAS-1 Active Search Sensor S10-R40 (1)     GPS 400     Range 4.0m km    Resolution 40
STS-1 Thermal Sensor TH1-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
SES-1 EM Detection Sensor EM1-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km

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 maintenance purposes

Carrying either 5 Vosper Ia or 5 Vosper Ib depending on mission

Code: [Select]

Vosper Ia Survey Craft class Geological Survey Vessel    1000 tons     86 Crew     229.8 BP      TCS 20  TH 80  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/6/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 8%    IFR: 0.1%    Maintenance Capacity 144 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

Pratt & Whitney GB Nuclear Pulse Engine E90 (1)    Power 80    Fuel Use 900%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 60.0 billion km   (173 days at full power)

GAS-1 Active Search Sensor S10.5-R20 (1)     GPS 210     Range 2.1m km    Resolution 20
GTS-1 Thermal Sensor TH0.5-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
GES-1 EM Detection Sensor EM0.5-5.5 (1)     Sensitivity 5.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5.5m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes


Code: [Select]

Vosper Ib Survey Craft class Gravitational Survey Vessel    1000 tons     86 Crew     229.8 BP      TCS 20  TH 80  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/6/1/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 8%    IFR: 0.1%    Maintenance Capacity 144 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

Pratt & Whitney GB Nuclear Pulse Engine E90 (1)    Power 80    Fuel Use 900%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 60.0 billion km   (173 days at full power)

GAS-1 Active Search Sensor S10.5-R20 (1)     GPS 210     Range 2.1m km    Resolution 20
GTS-1 Thermal Sensor TH0.5-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
GES-1 EM Detection Sensor EM0.5-5.5 (1)     Sensitivity 5.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5.5m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

Thoughts? critique? guidance?

Maybe the Damage Control on the Outreach isn't such a good idea?

Matt

[Beersatron]

I would add add a pile more engineering stations to the tender to increase the available maintenance supplies and decrease the annual failure rate. That should give you a longer deployment life. And with the tender set to a tanker and supply ship your survey vessels can easily restock from it.

You don't appear to have any kind of long range search sensor which could be an issue if you jump into a system with probable aliens. I like having an ASS that reaches a little over 100m km, that way I get at least some warning and might be able to run away. I don't run the ASS on my survey vessels all the time though - no point in advertising were you are to EM sensors.

My own design philosophy is for a 10k ton vessel that does at least 4k km/s, has about 4 points of armor, maybe even a CIWS. It also has a 10k Ton Jump Drive, plenty of fuel and supplies for at least 6 months deployment.

There are certain caveats here though, if I was to properly roleplay it, I wouldn't necessarily need the armor and CIWS because I might not believe the universe is full of evil NPRs and I wouldn't know that a nebula severely restricts ship movement and that more armor means faster speed in the nebula.

What I can also do with a 10k Ton Jump Drive equipped survey vessel is use it a jump ship for a squadron of 10k Ton destroyers. That way I can cram more combat power into the destroyer, don't need to design a specific Jump Destroyer and then also don't need to use up a shipyard to build another class.

It is a good concept though, and with some more research into engines you could have a really good long range, long deployment setup.

[lastverb]

i like the idea of hangar-launched survey ships, but:

Annual Failure Rate: 1590%

isn't it going to explode right after leaving shipyard? its really not time-efficient to go for new MSPs every month(if u r lucky), having failure rate over 100% is far from good

Norton JC66K Commercial Jump Drive

does commercial jd work with military vessel? or it just checks the normal engine type not vessel type?

[waresky]

I like the "Tender" concept.
because remember me Traveller system.
So it's good.
others have point at u,the different lack,maintenance and Long range Sensor for spotting hostile.
Good work for those idea!

[boggo2300 (OP)]

yeah, the failure rate scares me, but the thing has 30 engineering bays, it is set as a tanker/supply ship, thats the issue with large military vessels, the number of engineering stations they need is frightening!!  

good point about the search sensor, I don't actually have a long range one, I might look into one, and since we've not encountered any NPR's, and havent even found any ruins, we're a pacifistic bunch, who don't believe in BEM's unfriendly or otherwise

I'm rejigging the tender design to see if I can get the failure rate down, My original plan was to make it a commercial hull, but the damn hangars got in the way.

Commercial JD only works with commercial engines, it doesnt care if you're a military or commercial design (thankfully! a military JD that size would bankrupt me!)

I'll report back!

Matt

[boggo2300 (OP)]

OK, the revised Outreach, the 21mil km range sensor is the best i've currently got, though I could work on a 20 hs version to get 100mil.  this version also has 104 Engineering spaces (I basically filled the hull to both my shipyard and jump drive limits

Code: [Select]

Outreach class Survey Tender    66000 tons     2236 Crew     3743.6 BP      TCS 1320  TH 2000  EM 0
1515 km/s    JR 2-50(C)     Armour 1-145     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/5/0/0     Damage Control Rating 104     PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 335%    IFR: 4.7%    Maintenance Capacity 3687 MSP    Max Repair 576 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons     Magazine 324    

Norton JC66K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 66000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 2
Cummins Nuclear Pulse Engine E0.9 (20)    Power 100    Fuel Use 9%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 1,500,000 Litres    Range 454.5 billion km   (3472 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (4x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Type 1 Size 1 Anti-Missile Launcher (4)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
SMA-1 Anti-Missile Fire Control FC42-R1 (4)     Range 1.3m km    Resolution 1
AMM-1a Axe Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (324)  Speed: 6,600 km/s   End: 2.5m    Range: 1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 44 / 26 / 13

SAS-2 Active Search Sensor S105-R20 (1)     GPS 2100     Range 21.0m km    Resolution 20
STS-1 Thermal Sensor TH1-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
SES-1 EM Detection Sensor EM1-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km

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 maintenance purposes


[waresky]

Yeah,if anyone play in "RolePlayingMode" ON,no actual Earth Nations,am think,will build any ships with a HUGE LongRange sensor or heavy Weapons onboard.
Because arent any motivation for to do this posture.

So sometimes me too,build understrenghten ships.Depend on situations.

[Hawkeye]

Code: [Select]

Testbed class Survey Support    25000 tons     1873 Crew     6396.76 BP      TCS 500  TH 924  EM 0
3696 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-76     Shields 0-0     Sensors 8/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 20     PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 250%    IFR: 3.5%    Maintenance Capacity 5198 MSP    Max Repair 2500 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons     Magazine 327    

J25000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 25000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
MTU Typ 84 Plasmatriebwerk (Mil) (22)    Power 84    Fuel Use 77%    Signature 42    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 187.0 billion km   (585 days at full power)

Krupp ARS-54 (4x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Mauser Wespennest-S ARR Werfer (4)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Telefunken Typ 3,1/0 Raketenleitsystem (4)     Range 3.2m km    Resolution 1
ARR-1 Typ Wespe III (327)  Speed: 32,000 km/s   End: 1.3m    Range: 2.6m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 277 / 166 / 83

Bosch Typ 3,1/0 Radarsystem (1)     GPS 315     Range 3.2m km    Resolution 1
Bosch Typ 147/100 Radarsystem (1)     GPS 14700     Range 147.0m km    Resolution 100
Siemens Typ 8 Wärmesensor (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km
Siemens Typ 8 EM Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

This one is basicly the same as yours, albeit with higher tech, but I tried to install similar components as you have. The main difference is, I am using military engines. This lowers the mass to 25.000t, which, in turn, allows me to keep Engineering spaces down at 20 (for support of the survey squadron, I put two Maintenance Storage Bays in)
I put in a resolution 1 active, so the AMMS can lock on to something and two more engines, in order to use the military jumpdrive to full capacity.

The main drawback is the jump engine, which requires 25.000 point to research - outch!!!




I then tried to optimize the design. Up the passives, but cut back on the actives (the shuttles are the eyes and anouncing the presense of the carrier is not a good idea anyway), settle for less speed (this one is sitting on a jumppoint/in deep space most of the time anyway) and drop the AMMs.

Code: [Select]

Testbed class Survey Support    17500 tons     1218 Crew     3428.68 BP      TCS 350  TH 462  EM 0
2640 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-60     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/24/0/0     Damage Control Rating 25     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 98%    IFR: 1.4%    Maintenance Capacity 4061 MSP    Max Repair 1225 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons     Magazine 250    

J17500(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 17500 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
MTU Typ 84 Plasmatriebwerk (Mil) (11)    Power 84    Fuel Use 77%    Signature 42    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 1,500,000 Litres    Range 200.4 billion km   (878 days at full power)

Krupp ARS-54 (3x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Bosch Typ 50/80 Radarsystem (1)     GPS 5040     Range 50.4m km    Resolution 80
Siemens Typ 24 Wärmesensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
Siemens Typ 24 EM-Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
I left some magazin space in, so this ship can fulfill a secondary role as a carrier, supporting some FACs or missile fighters.

While this design lacks some capabilities of the first one, the main bonus is the jumpdrive, which will "only" cost 12.250 researchpoints.


I belive, your example shows, that military vessles (i.e. ships that need engineering to keep them from falling apart) are not realy feasible above, say, 25 to 30k tons.

6.000t ship with 3% of mass as engineering space  -->  70% failure rate
9.000t ship with 4.5% of mass as engineering space -->  81% failure rate
12.000t ship with 5.5% of mass as enigneering space -->  88% failure rate
14.850t ship with 6.5% of mass as engineering space -->  88% failure rate
20.000t ship with 7.5% of mass as engineering space -->  106% failure rate
30.000t ship with 8.5% of mass as engineering space --> 150% failure rate
40.000t ship with 10% of mass as engineering space -->  160% failure rate

[Andrew]

I belive, your example shows, that military vessles (i.e. ships that need engineering to keep them from falling apart) are not realy feasible above, say, 25 to 30k tons.

6.000t ship with 3% of mass as engineering space  -->  70% failure rate
9.000t ship with 4.5% of mass as engineering space -->  81% failure rate
12.000t ship with 5.5% of mass as enigneering space -->  88% failure rate
14.850t ship with 6.5% of mass as engineering space -->  88% failure rate
20.000t ship with 7.5% of mass as engineering space -->  106% failure rate
30.000t ship with 8.5% of mass as engineering space --> 150% failure rate
40.000t ship with 10% of mass as engineering space -->  160% failure rate

I disagree, I use large 40k ton battleships and while they have a failure rate of 457% this is not a problem as they are capable of repairing all the systems which fail due to maintenance failure. The Exception would be that the Jump version is not capable of repairing the jump engine if that fails but I always allocate 2 of them to a fleet .
These ships regualry operate for several years between overhauls without sufferring any failures which they cannot make good from internal resources.

[boggo2300 (OP)]

Since my cruiser design is usually 8000 ton, the failure percent on this has me scared (I usually strive for 10% or below)  but, I'm hoping the massive amount of on-board spares will help out (I've had to build maint spares for the last year to be able to fully stock my build of these things

Matt

[sloanjh]

I belive, your example shows, that military vessles (i.e. ships that need engineering to keep them from falling apart) are not realy feasible above, say, 25 to 30k tons.

6.000t ship with 3% of mass as engineering space  -->  70% failure rate
9.000t ship with 4.5% of mass as engineering space -->  81% failure rate
12.000t ship with 5.5% of mass as enigneering space -->  88% failure rate
14.850t ship with 6.5% of mass as engineering space -->  88% failure rate
20.000t ship with 7.5% of mass as engineering space -->  106% failure rate
30.000t ship with 8.5% of mass as engineering space --> 150% failure rate
40.000t ship with 10% of mass as engineering space -->  160% failure rate

I disagree, I use large 40k ton battleships and while they have a failure rate of 457% this is not a problem as they are capable of repairing all the systems which fail due to maintenance failure. The Exception would be that the Jump version is not capable of repairing the jump engine if that fails but I always allocate 2 of them to a fleet .
These ships regualry operate for several years between overhauls without sufferring any failures which they cannot make good from internal resources.

I think Andrew's right - I remember we had a similar conversation when Steve put in the current breakdown rules.  My recollection is that you should pretend the 30kT ship is 5 * 6kT ships, and use that as the baseline for comparison,  The reason is that a breakdown on a 30kT ship costs the same as one on a 6kT ship.  In your example above, with your 5*6kT ships you can expect 5*70% = 3.5 failures per year.    With your 30kT ship, you can expect 1.5 failures per year, which is a lower rate of using up spares (this makes sense, since you devoted more mass to engineering).  If 3%*6kT holds enough supplies for 2 failures, then the 6kT ships will use up their spares in about 3 years and will be at 1 failure/ship (the point below which they risk system damage) after 1.5 years.  The 30kT ship, on the other hand, will have supplies for almost 30 failures, which will take almost 20 years, plus the time to be down to the 1 failure level will be almost the same.  Again, this makes sense, since you put almost 3 times as much engineering on board the 30kT ship.

So I guess the message is that one should look at (maint supplies)/(failure rate) as a rough metric for the survival time of the ship.

John

[Hawkeye]

I have to admit I have never build anything above 15k tons, the larger ones in my example have only been thrown together in the ship design window to get the numbers, so I have no real experience with large ships.
That being said, I also have not realy thought the thing through from that angle, thanks for lighting me up  

I might have to reconsider my design philosophy (which currently is/was: smaller is better)
On the other hand, I have to look realy hard at what the advantages/disatvantages of large BBs vs. more numberous CA/CL are

[Andrew]

I have to admit I have never build anything above 15k tons, the larger ones in my example have only been thrown together in the ship design window to get the numbers, so I have no real experience with large ships.
That being said, I also have not realy thought the thing through from that angle, thanks for lighting me up  

I might have to reconsider my design philosophy (which currently is/was: smaller is better)
On the other hand, I have to look realy hard at what the advantages/disatvantages of large BBs vs. more numberous CA/CL are

It is not certain that they are better.
The plus side is that the large ships fill several roles in my fleet each has antimissile defenses, offensive missiles and Beam weapons so filling the role of 3 lighter cruisers . I also find that with a large ship I am able to fit much heavier armour than I can to cruisers 12 on the BB 5 on the CA , this makes killing one of the BB hard  and until you kill it it has full funcitonailty while against cruisers you would get a kill of one of the ships faster losing a portion of the capability sooner. I find that killing one of my BB with missiles is almost impossible they have very heavy active defenses so few missiles get through the light shields abosrb most of those and even then it takes multiple missile hits on the same location to breach the armour.
The main down side is that they are slow and expensive to build so if one does get killed it hurts more, the Jump engine for them is also a big pain to design.

[waresky]

Guys.
If BB's -Class exist r sure a motivation: Main Core administrations Task Groups or Fleet Groups.Saving Admiralty and HQ Commanders from a battleline.
A BB tend to massive defence to CORE group.
Cruisers r warhorses.

All that.

So sayd "many Cruisers r better than few BB" r a little false,a some of misunderstanding the REAL BB's role inside a Fleet.

All that again.
And in a REAl BIG Empire,can exist a "Cruisers" who have 100.000 tons-mass..remember what has mean months ago,Steve: "Class are unique definition".

ive Light Cruisers-Class in 10.000 tons,Heavy Cruiser 25.000
But many here,have BB with SAME tonnage:)..

If an Empire have strenght,resources and economic,can build easily Dreadnought on 300.000 tons and up.

[boggo2300 (OP)]

OK, had my first couple of runs with the new designs, and I'm very happy!  these things work well, and FAST! 3 systems on the trot, without a breakdown on the motherships!!

Though I think when I have time to research a military jump drive, I will convert the motherships to the new design as suggested, much smaller much more managable!

I've also recently finished researchin ION engines, so that should be a nice boost to the system as well!

Thanks for the constructive critisism guys, helped a lot

Matt