My Current Games Only Fielded Ship, the Waylander-Class Science Vessel.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

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Waylander class Science Vessel    3,000 tons     76 Crew     537 BP      TCS 60  TH 120  EM 0
2000 km/s     Armour 2-18     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/1/1     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 0
Maint Life 21.05 Years     MSP 1559    AFR 14%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 7    5YR 101    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Spare Berths 20   

Royal Driveyard SPWE/NP-30LP0D7/1D25-T150 "Explorer" (4)    Power 30    Fuel Use 118.61%    Signature 30    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 550,000 Litres    Range 27.8 billion km   (161 days at full power)

Pioneer Electronics MR5-R100 Experimental GravScope (1)     GPS 1000     Range 5.0m km    Resolution 100
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
 - Currently the only class of ship I have fielded, there are three in the class, The Outlander, the Farlander, and the namesake of the class, the Waylander herself. They are designed to carry four Survey Teams if needs be, and can conduct both Geological Surveys and Gravitational Surveys. They are powered by a quartet of 1.25x Power Boosted 150-Ton Nuclear-Pulse Engines utilizing 0.7 Litres per Hour Fuel Consumption Tech to help keep the thirst manageable. Deployment Time exceeds the crafts Fuel Reserves by just under a month, so as to minimize the impact that the Survey Teams would have on it; Mind you I don't know if that's a thing, but I factored it in anyway on the off chance that it is. A 10-Rated Active Grav Sensor Tech is married to a 5-Rated EM Sensor Tech to produce the (very) humble Pioneer Electronics MR5-R100 Experimental GravScope which serves as the craft's "eyes". A massive Maintenance Life and Damage Control ensure that any hit the Waylander survives won't put it out of action; and likewise if it ends up stranded (on account of my newness) I have plenty of time to pony up a rescue... even if the crew inside are corpses by the time I do, at least I'll have the ship and the means to give them a proper burial (that being the bodies).

That's the Waylander-Class, and as always, feedback is welcome.

[Father Tim]

A fine first ship.

Survey ships spend a lot of time sitting still, surveying, so five-and-a-half months' fuel is likely more than enough.  I like to put jump engines on mine, and 5-6 years intended deployment time so they can just survey away for ages beofre coming back.  (I use any old ship in the right place at the right time to deliver geological teams to colonies.)

[Michael Sandy]

Have you considered building fighters to shuttle survey teams around?  It would be more efficient.  Build a fighter with 2 engines of size 1, don't bother with engineering systems until you get reduced sized engineering spaces, and just have it go out and back, and then park in a Boat Bay if you don't have hangar tech yet.

Putting everything on one ship means you have a lot of idle space all the time.  You will always have idle geosurvey sensors when you are grav surveying, and vice versa.  You want speed on a survey shuttle, not loiter capability.

I have a lot of fighters that are nothing but an engine, fuel tank, and 0.1 HS active sensor for very cheap scouting.  You can fit a lot of them in a survey support carrier.

If you split off the geosurvey role from the grav survey role, you can build the geosurvey ships as commercial ships, which means you don't worry about maintenance life.

I do support having a small res 1 sensor on geosurvey ships, so they can do things like spot ruins and troop outposts.

[MarcAFK]

Extra maintenance is good, but your ship can survive 15 hits on its most expencive component, or 47 times its fuel capacity. Even accounting for time spent sitting still surveying, you could save some room by reducing maintenence. I would add more fuel :p

[Cavgunner]

This is a solid, easy to build early-tech exploration ship.  No real qualms about the design, I would only suggest that it would have much longer legs if it replaced those four tiny thrusters with 2 bigger ones of an equal total size.