1HS Jump Drive - Self-Jump Only

[draanyk (OP)]

What is the purpose of the 1HS jump drive? It is labelled "Self-jump Only", which led me to believe that I could use it on a ship design regardless of ship size, as long as it was only jumping itself, such as in the survey swarm idea mentioned by Redshirt (hxxp: aurora2. pentarch. org/index. php/topic,4977. msg50831. html#msg50831), or in my troop transports.  When I add the drive (which can handle a 1250 ton ship) to my 5000 ton survey ship, I get a design error saying "Jump engine is too small for this design".

Is this something only intended for FACs? Although I'm not sure how that would be useful, it would seem to be better to devote limited FAC hull space to critical components and house it in some jump-capable mothership instead.

[Gyrfalcon]

Tiny stealth scouts for one, especially at extreme efficiency levels where you can make a bigger ship with the technology.

[Person012345]

What is the purpose of the 1HS jump drive? It is labelled "Self-jump Only", which led me to believe that I could use it on a ship design regardless of ship size, as long as it was only jumping itself, such as in the survey swarm idea mentioned by Redshirt (hxxp: aurora2. pentarch. org/index. php/topic,4977. msg50831. html#msg50831), or in my troop transports.  When I add the drive (which can handle a 1250 ton ship) to my 5000 ton survey ship, I get a design error saying "Jump engine is too small for this design".

Is this something only intended for FACs? Although I'm not sure how that would be useful, it would seem to be better to devote limited FAC hull space to critical components and house it in some jump-capable mothership instead.

It says self jump only because any drive under a certain size can't act as a jump tender. Otherwise it follows the same rules. And sure, it's probably a bad idea to put them on FAC, but isn't it nice to have the choice?

[draanyk (OP)]

I understand now, thanks for the responses.  The strategies that are possible in this game have probably ruined me for any other game, much like the unit AI in Hearts of Iron 3 makes managing units in Europa Universalis 3 look tedious by comparison.   

[Redshirt]

I almost never build tiny troop transports. You can't haul along an engineering brigade in anything with less than 5 brigade capacity. I build them mostly as commercial ships, which is actually more economical when you consider the size of the troop transport module. Actually, I've been building them without jump engines, either, lately. If I can't wait 180 days to build a jump gate (or less with some research) then I have no business dropping troops- ground invasions generally take a lot longer than six months anyway, at least if it's a large colony (or a homeworld) that I'm dropping troops on.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It can be convenient to jump the most expendable ship possible through a point to check whats on the far side.  Plus it's relatively easy to stick a couple jump fighters on a carrier compared to bringing along larger more independent ship.