Posted by: Rich.h
« on: November 09, 2016, 04:48:25 AM »Depending on your RP and doctrine I would say that survey craft are far more efficient than drones, but then drones can be much faster if you have enough of them being produced. So that decision would likely come down to both how fast you want to encounter new aliens and how fast you can take advantage of new systems. Personally I always use craft over drones but I tend to adopt a simple method now with new systems as follows. All of this is based around a mothership that has the largest passive sensor suite I can build along with vast fuel reserves and multiple fuel harvesters. Along with survey craft that can do both grav and geo, move quickly and themselves have a small sensor suite on board.
1. Jump into a new system and do nothing but check the passive scans for 3-8 hours.
2. Look at how the system is put together and work out likely points where an NPR could have a homeworld/colony, then ensure to give this a wide berth.
3. Look for the system gas giants and set out to survey the ones furthest away from possible NPR locations and closest to the JP.
4. Sit the mothership above the nearest gas giant with sorium to refuel.
5. Send out the survey craft on auto and conditional orders to complete the system survey while I get on with other things.
I tend to play with large ships so this method is fairly practical for me to use, but it is also very simple and only really requires around 5 minutes tops of micromanagement for every new system I enter. Unless I discover something of interest during the survey then only the initial mothership actions and first launch of the survey craft need my input. The next time I am needed is to dock any survey craft that have run out of places to scan and pick which new JP I am going the head through next.
1. Jump into a new system and do nothing but check the passive scans for 3-8 hours.
2. Look at how the system is put together and work out likely points where an NPR could have a homeworld/colony, then ensure to give this a wide berth.
3. Look for the system gas giants and set out to survey the ones furthest away from possible NPR locations and closest to the JP.
4. Sit the mothership above the nearest gas giant with sorium to refuel.
5. Send out the survey craft on auto and conditional orders to complete the system survey while I get on with other things.
I tend to play with large ships so this method is fairly practical for me to use, but it is also very simple and only really requires around 5 minutes tops of micromanagement for every new system I enter. Unless I discover something of interest during the survey then only the initial mothership actions and first launch of the survey craft need my input. The next time I am needed is to dock any survey craft that have run out of places to scan and pick which new JP I am going the head through next.