Large ships in PDC's

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Can you build PDC's with lots of hangar space and land ships in them, and thereby cutting out maintenance mineral costs?  Do you still need maintenance facilities on the planet?

Think remote outpost with a good population for recreation but little to no mineral resources.

[MarcAFK]

Yes, this works exactly as you would think, however, PDC based hangers can't repair ships, but I'm pretty sure maintenance clock will go down so you could get away with having insufficient maintenance facilities. But you would need a hell of a lot of hanger space.

[Bremen]

I've done it before, though it's really only cost effective if you're planning on storing your ships for a long time (like 30+ years)

On the other hand, since higher tech stuff is more expensive for the same size, I suppose the better your tech the more cost effective it becomes.

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Mothball on the Homeworld for old ships might be a good use.

[linkxsc]

Since I usually build a lot of fighters (and by extension storage for them), and because I like my ships in the 5000-20k range. Its often not too hard to have a few docks for various ships. (Plus you can rp that they are space docks or something)

[TT]

I do this all of the time and I'm pretty sure it winds back the maintenance clock and I know it allows repairs using maintenance from the damaged ship.  It will even repair armor. 

[83athom]

However, doing this can get really expensive as said earlier. Also each can give off a lot of emissions that can be detected, so not the best option for semi-stealthed bases, but perfect for frontline colonies.

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Expensive in what way?  If the ships aren't consuming minerals for maintenance and they are just sitting in the PDC...whats the cost?

[rcj33]

Vendarite 

[MarcAFK]

I do this all of the time and I'm pretty sure it winds back the maintenance clock and I know it allows repairs using maintenance from the damaged ship.  It will even repair armor. 

[SteelChicken (OP)]

Vendarite 

Am I missing something?  I thought PDC's and things in them consumed nothing?

[linkxsc]

Am I missing something?  I thought PDC's and things in them consumed nothing?

Dont remember if this is fact off the top of my head, but I think vendarite is 1 of the most used minerals in hangar bays.

[MarcAFK]

You'll save Vendarite anyway from gauss cannon and hanger maintenance.

[Bremen]

You'll save Vendarite anyway from gauss cannon and hanger maintenance.

In the long run, yes, but you still have to pay for the hangar first. And it can take a long time to recover your costs and start running a profit.

[TT]

I've always done this to save on maintenance costs but I never really checked to see if the cost of building the PDC outweighs the maintenance costs you save and how fast you recoup those mineral expenses with the savings in maintenance cost.   So I just checked.  While this can hardly be considered a thorough evaluation I took the maintenance costs of one of my 3000 Ton jump ships and compared that to the building cost of a PDC with 3000 tons of hangar space, a maintenance store and nothing else but the crew. 

It turns out that my 3000 ton jump ship uses 25. 3 elements of minerals in maintenance a year and my PDC costs 350 minerals to build.  It is true that you don't recoup the construction costs, but the maintenance savings pays back your resource construction costs in less than 14 years.   You do spend alot more in Vendarite (225 of the 350 mineral total for my PDC) than you would in maintenance but, at least for me, the resource savings and repair facilities are worth putting my military ships in PDC hangars.