Best way to organize a survey fleet?

[Zook (OP)]

Can someone please describe the most painless way to automate surveying? I guess that should be in the wiki. Also, *I* need it.

[Erik L]

I make seperate grav and geo survey fleets. Five survey ships in each. Each ship is jump capable, usually around the 3000-4000 ton range. Then enter a system and let the orders take over.

If you really want to expedite the geo survey, split them into seperate ships...

[o_O]

I make jump capable survey ships with grav and geo survey equipment and send them out on 2-3 year missions with orders to automatically geosurvey then grav survey. 

[Turmoil]

If you mean you are fresh to the game, use the Default Orders.  Design one ship for geo survey (I usually put 3-5 survey sensors per ship) and one for grav, then build fleets with 1 or 2 of the same in each fleet.  Default 'Survey next 5 system bodies' for the geo ships and 'survey next three system locations' for the grav ships.  Remember to give them refuel conditional orders as well, or you might find them dead in the water (so to speak) before you can get tankers out to them. . .

Also, I like to complete one system survey then move on to the next.  Putting them in a squadron together then splitting it into individual ships after the jump works pretty good.

[ShadowLop]

-snip-
Putting them in a squadron together then splitting it into individual ships after the jump works pretty good.

But like Humpty, it's annoying to put them back together again when they're done with the system, especially if you have lots of ships (now individual fleets), since there's no "Put fragmented fleet back toegether at" command (that I could find) that would order all the original fleet fragments to recombine in any location.

This means you need to go to each and every ship and give them "join x" commands one by one.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

you can sort of do that. you can default-order ships to move to a superior fleet when they're done.   but it still spams you with idle messages soooooooo...

I find individual survey ships the most painless method. That leaves you with one the to order around per system per survey type.  Then you can just order them through the next jumpgate when they finish a system.   

It's slower at doing individual systems, but shouldn't be much (if at all) slower overall. 

I don't bother with refuel conditionals; I've found them more trouble than they are worth, and there often isn't fuel close enough. I just make sure to put enough gas in my ships that 10% gets you a long way.  In the worst case I can send out a tanker. 

[Zook (OP)]

I dimly remember someone describing a painless process, using fleet organization magic, but I can't find it.

[Hawkeye]

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4977.msg50831.html#msg50831

Perhaps this is what you remember?

[SteelChicken]

Ive tried various methods, one scout tender with a jump drive and multiple scouts with dividing fleets, etc.    I've also tried separate geo and jump point designs, and so far, one ship that does it all (jump drive, geo and jump survey) with a long deploy time seems to work the best (less micromanagement).     One design of ship to manage, and I just build a bunch and send them on their way.    I have them do geo surveys then jump surveys with default orders.    If its a big system, I send in multiple ships.   Auto-refuel etc.   

[Jorgen_CAB]

I take the simple rout with one shiptype that get both grav and geosurvey sensors, about three of them each. I also put commersial jump capable engines on them and enough supplies and engineer sections to last them about six to seven years. They get more than enough fuel as well. Once they are finished they are simply scraped depending on new technology.
I start with two ships in the early game and expand their numbers depending on my expansion needs.

[Erik L]

The issue I have with a combine survey ship is that it takes twice as long to survey a system. If it takes 30 days to grav survey and 60 to geo, with separate ships, I can have grav surveyed a second system while the geo finishes in the first. This also gives me an idea of what directions I want to send my geo fleet in and any potential sites for bottleneck fleet bases.

Note Numbers above are fictional.

[Redshirt]

I did that when playing a game with nebulas on; one ship with both grav and geo, and lots of armor. It very successfully surveyed the nebula systems I found.

I've also tried using small, cheap ships in a group that divides when it reaches the system. Each has a one-ship jump engine, so I can immediately explore any new jump points I find.

And, just for fun, I built some FGC (Fast Grav Craft) plus a carrier. Each FGC weighted in at 1000 tonnes, and was basically grav sensors stuck on an FAC engine. The carrier had the jump engine and enough hanger space to carry ten FGC's. It worked surprisingly well and took less micromanagement than I expected. Basic operating procedure, go in-system, move to the center, select "Survey next three locations" and "return to entry jump point" for your primary and secondary. Launch the parasites, then select the mothership and divide the fleet into single ships. Reset the mothership's primary to "return to entry jump point", and wait. The system gets surveyed fast. When all the parasites echo they can't find a survey point, you can just go to the fleet menu, click assemble, and click recover parasites. The only challenge is making sure your mothership has enough fuel. I usually equalized fuel between the FGC's and the mothership after recovery then headed on to the next system. I could get two or three systems done before refueling.

[Nathan_]

What I do:
Build 4 survey ships with their respective sensor, and a jump drive. Grav are military, Geo are civilian.
Conditional orders: automatically survey next item, refuel if below 30%

order to system, transit and divide fleet.

when done:

Order to next system/ order to refuel and go to next system, copy orders to subordinate fleets.

If I want to recombine ships:

Order to specific point, copy orders to subordinate fleets. When they are all there issue incorporate subfleets at location order.

all of the above is fairly painless for me.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

And, just for fun, I built some FGC (Fast Grav Craft) plus a carrier. Each FGC weighted in at 1000 tonnes, and was basically grav sensors stuck on an FAC engine. The carrier had the jump engine and enough hanger space to carry ten FGC's. It worked surprisingly well and took less micromanagement than I expected

I experimented with similar strategies my last game, because I hated resigning myself to losing survey ships every time they ran into spoilers. I didn't think it reflected the kind of navy I had going. The trick with parasite survey FACs is just using regular ship engines instead of FAC engines.   Fuel is the big limit on surveying anyway.   In 5.7 fuel will seemingly be even more limited, but on the other hand you will also be limited by deployment timers. 

Right now my survey designs have such a long mission life that it's not much of an issue to bring them all the way to the homeworld for fuel, maintenance, and often retrofit.  I'm wondering if in 5.7 that forward survey bases will be more necessary. 

[Redshirt]

You're pretty much always going to lose your survey ships at one point or another. I was at one point considering sending a small defense fleet in-system with the survey craft to escort them. Then I remembered about black holes... It would really suck to jump into a class 10 or higher black hole and lose an entire fleet instead of what's essentially a scout craft with bonus features.