As a result of the ongoing size changes to commercial vessels for v4.1, I have decided to simplify the overall maintenance situation. At the moment (in v4.0) there are 'freighters', 'non-combatants' and 'warships'. Freighters can use Commercial Freight Facilities to instantly reset their clock while non-combatants can conduct faster overhauls than warships. Already in v4.1, Commercial Freight Facilities have been removed and freighters, which currently includes Cargo Ships, Colony Ships and Jump Gate Construction Ships, do not require maintenance as long as they have at least one engineering spaces.
To make this more straightforward and remove some of the more tedious maintenance requirements that do not have a significant effect on game play I have decided to change the maintenance categories to just two types; Commercial Vessels and Military Vessels. Commercial Vessels will not require maintenance as long as they have at least one engineering spaces and can be built in any type of shipyard. Military Vessels will use the same maintenance system as warships do now and can only be built in military shipyards. In addition, the warship rate of clock rewind during overhaul will be increased from 3x real time to 4x real time and the existing non-combatant rate of overhaul (8x real time) will be removed. As most of the non-combatants will be moving into the Commercial Vessel category, the impact of this will only be felt by unarmed survey ships and military-engined support ships.
At the moment, the v4.0 definition of a 'freighter' is based on having five or more cargo holds or at least two cryo transport modules and not having any of the non-freighter systems. In v4.1 the definition will be simpler. Any ship that uses only tech systems from the Commercial list will be classed as a Commercial Vessel. Any ship that uses one or more Military tech systems will be classed as a Military Vessel
Commercial Tech Systems
Active and passive sensors of 1 HS or less
Armour (including thickness > 1 because a commercial vessel may be intended to operate within a nebula)
Bridge
Cargo Handling Systems
Cargo Holds
Commercial Engines
Crew Quarters
Cryogenic Transport Modules
Engineering Spaces (only one is necessary but more could be mounted for repairs)
Fuel Storage (even a LOT of fuel storage as engine type will determine the military usefulness of a tanker)
Geological Survey Instruments
Jump Drives
Jump Gate Construction Module
Mining Modules
Salvage Modules
Sorium Harvesters
Terraforming Modules
Tractor Beams
Military Tech Systems
Active sensors larger than 1 HS.
Beam Weapons
Cloak
Damage Control
ECM / ECCM
Fast Attack Engine
Fighter Engine
Fire Controls
Flag Bridge
Gravitational Survey Instruments
Hangar Bays
Magazine
Maintenance Module
Maintenance Storage Bay
Military Engine
Missile Launchers
Passive Sensors larger than 1 HS
Reactors
Shields
Troop Transport Modules
As many important systems are moving into the Commercial Vessel category from the non-combatant category, I have decided to make the significant increase in the size of cargo holds, construction modules and cryogenic transport modules common to all the major commercial modules (such as Terraforming Modules, Sorium Harvesters, etc.). This will effectively restrict many commercial vessels to jump gates while removing maintenance failures and their requirement for overhauls. In other words, the existing restrictions on their deployment are being replaced by different restrictions that involve far less micromanagement. Maintenance concerns will now be confined to warships, deep space exploration vessels and military-oriented support vessels, which is really where the vast majority of such concerns would arise anyway. Below, I will cover each of the major commercial modules in detail
Fuel Harvesters
Each mine, automated mine or fuel refinery requires 5 cargo holds to transport while presumably disassembled, which is 500 HS. a Sorium Harvester performs the same functions as both so that would require 1000 HS. However, assuming a significant reduction in the mining requirement to deal with just Sorium and assuming conversion of gaseous Sorium to fuel is much easier than mined Sorium, I am going to use 100 HS for the harvester module (currently 10 HS). As I am always going to extend the 'no maintenance' provision to Fuel Harvesters, I will increase their cost from 40 to 60
Below is a comparison between old and new fuel harvester designs from the Commonwealth campaign. The cost of the modules has increased but the maintenance requirement has been reduced massively. However, as with the other large commercial vessels, this is going to need a jump gate so that reduces its flexibility.
Jovian-old class Fuel Harvester Base 10000 tons 812 Crew 1006.6 BP TCS 200
1 km/s Armour 1-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 10
Annual Failure Rate: 80% IFR: 1.1% Maintenance 1629 MSP Max Repair 40 MSP
Fuel Harvester: 16 modules producing 512000 litres per annum
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres Range N/A
Jovian class Fuel Harvester Base 82050 tons 877 Crew 1348 BP TCS 1641
1 km/s Armour 1-168 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1
Maintenance Capacity 10 MSP Max Repair 60 MSP
Fuel Harvester: 16 modules producing 512000 litres per annum
Fuel Capacity 700,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
Mining Modules
The size of this module is increased from 25 HS to 250 HS (half the size of the transport requirement for an automated mine) and the cost increased from 200 BP to 250 BP. Taking into consideration the armour required to enclose the hull, this makes the module slightly more expensive than an automated mine. However, mounted on a ship it has the increased flexibility of being mobile, which in its intended role of moving regularly between asteroids with small amounts of high accessibility minerals, makes it more useful than an automated mine that relies on freighter support. It can also be built in shipyards while automated mines have to be built by construction factories. Depending on the industrial situation this may make it more attractive if the available construction factories have higher priorities. Here is an example mining vessel using the new module
Extractor class Asteroid Miner 70000 tons 658 Crew 1726.2 BP TCS 1400 TH 1000 EM 0
714 km/s Armour 1-151 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maintenance Capacity 15 MSP Max Repair 250 MSP
Asteroid Miner: 5 module(s) producing 80 tons per mineral per annum
Commercial MPD (5) Power 200 Efficiency 0.06 Signature 200 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres Range 21.4 billion km (347 days at full power)
Terraforming Module
This module is increased in size from 50 HS to 500 HS, making it still only one-fifth the size of the transport requirements for the Terraforming Installation (which might make it still a little too small). Cost is increased from 400 to 500 BP to compensate for the removal of the maintenance requirement. This is still less than the 600 BP cost of the Terraforming Installation. although the necessity of armour, etc. will add some cost, and the Terraforming Module does not have any manning requirement. A decision between the Terraforming Module and the Terraforming Installation will likely depend on the availability of shipyards and construction factories. A comparison of the old and new Commonwealth Terraformers is shown below, plus a third design that incorporates an extra terraforming module and drops the per module cost from 712 BP to 670 BP.
Genesis-old class Terraformer 7000 tons 616 Crew 1077.8 BP TCS 140 TH 160 EM 0
1142 km/s Armour 1-32 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 9 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 43% IFR: 0.6% Maintenance Capacity 866 MSP Max Repair 400 MSP
Terraformer: 2 module(s) producing 0.004 atm per annum
E90 Nuclear Pulse Engine (4) Power 40 Efficiency 0.90 Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 28.6 billion km (289 days at full power)
Genesis class Terraformer 61250 tons 636 Crew 1423.4 BP TCS 1225 TH 800 EM 0
653 km/s Armour 1-138 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maintenance Capacity 15 MSP Max Repair 500 MSP
Terraformer: 2 module(s) producing 0.004 atm per annum
Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine (8) Power 100 Efficiency 0.09 Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 32.7 billion km (578 days at full power)
This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
Genesis-3 class Terraformer 89000 tons 886 Crew 2012.6 BP TCS 1780 TH 1000 EM 0
561 km/s Armour 1-177 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maintenance Capacity 14 MSP Max Repair 500 MSP
Terraformer: 3 module(s) producing 0.006 atm per annum
Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine (10) Power 100 Efficiency 0.09 Signature 100 Armour 0 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 22.4 billion km (462 days at full power)
This design is classed as a commercial vessel for maintenance purposes
Salvage Modules
Salvage modules will increase in size from 50 to 200 HS. Costs will remain the same. Their size increase is far less in percentage terms than the other major commercial modules because their task is to salvage wrecks. Although commercial wrecks will be far larger than before, they would be easier to salvage than warships and warship wrecks will remain the same size. A salvage size of 10,000 tons though still seems a lot more reasonable than 2500 tons. The relatively small size of the module compared to some of the others also allows military-engined salvage ships if required, although these would become Military Vessels, not Commercial Vessels, because of the engine type.
Steve