Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: xenoscepter on May 05, 2020, 07:20:41 PM
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--- After a bout of spirited bug hunting on the Discord, I hatched the beautiful idea to create a Container Ship. This is the first draft of it, and I will include the containers in the reply below it. The deployment time is disproportional to the fuel due to almost every container having 200,000 extra fuel for the ship to draw on. This concept is still subject to testing and refinement, and as such should be consider a WIP.
Universal class Freighter 10,000 tons 170 Crew 609.3 BP TCS 200 TH 160 EM 0
800 km/s Armour 1-41 Shields 0-0 HTK 41 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 10 PPV 0
MSP 1,960 Max Repair 100 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2,000 tons Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 30 months Flight Crew Berths 40
Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine EP80.0 (2) Power 160.0 Fuel Use 9.88% Signature 80.0 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 140,000 Litres Range 25.5 billion km (368 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 2 hours
Ordnance Transfer Rate: 40 MSP per hour
Active Search Sensor AS3-R20 (1) GPS 20 Range 3.4m km Resolution 20
Active Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1) GPS 1 Range 1.3m km MCR 137.4k km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor AS10-R500 (1) GPS 500 Range 10m km Resolution 500
Active Search Sensor AS7-R200 (1) GPS 200 Range 7.4m km Resolution 200
Thermal Sensor TH0.2-1.0 (1) Sensitivity 1.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
EM Sensor EM0.2-1.0 (1) Sensitivity 1.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Non-Racial Techs Required:
(From TN Start)
- Maximum Engine Size - 40
- Boat Bay
- Commercial Hangar Bay
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Container Template:
Container Template class Container 30 tons 2 Crew 4.2 BP TCS 1 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 122 AFR 0% IFR 0.0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 2.5 MSP
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
--- This is the basis for every container design, and all containers in this post contain these components. This is a 0.1 Deployment Time, No Armor ship with 1x Engineering Spaces - Tiny, 2x Maintenance Storage Bay - Small and 1x Maintenance Storage Bay - Fighter.
Containers:
--- To build all of these containers from a TN Start requires the Commercial Magazine 100 Tech, the Troop Transport Small Tech and the Fuel Storage - Large Tech.
Cargo Container class Container 1,000 tons 5 Crew 29.1 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 5 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 54.09 Years MSP 2,104 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 1 5YR 21 Max Repair 15 MSP
Cargo 500
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Ammo Container class Container 1,000 tons 10 Crew 49.2 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 26.61 Years MSP 1,507 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 4 5YR 62 Max Repair 25 MSP
Magazine 100
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 175,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Fuel Container class Container 1,000 tons 2 Crew 27.6 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 7 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 12.65 Years MSP 104 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 1 5YR 18 Max Repair 5 MSP
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 950,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Maintenance Container class Container 1,000 tons 8 Crew 57.6 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 7 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 60.46 Years MSP 6,109 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 3 5YR 49 Max Repair 15 MSP
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Troop Container class Container 1,000 tons 14 Crew 42.6 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 5 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 50.48 Years MSP 2,106 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 2 5YR 24 Max Repair 15 MSP
Troop Capacity 500 tons
Shao Xiao Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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Well, that's certainly unorthodox. Being able to build a single class of freighter and have planetary industry build the containers for it is a good way to dodge retooling time.
How well does this work in practice, or were these theoretical designs?
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Great idea! I'm curious how much more micromanagement this approach requires. Going to have to try this for myself, thanks for the idea and i would enjoy hearing from you how well this works out for you.
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Intriguing.
You need a 1kt navy shipyard per container type, and a 10kt commercial shipyard for the Universal.
You are overpaying somewhat per ship, because of the hangar overhead, but you reduce shipyard costs and gain a lot of flexibility.
Also, since the Universal is a commercial vessel, you can leave deployment time at 3 months.
Not sure what I would do with the space that frees up.
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Intriguing.
You need a 1kt navy shipyard per container type, and a 10kt commercial shipyard for the Universal.
You are overpaying somewhat per ship, because of the hangar overhead, but you reduce shipyard costs and gain a lot of flexibility.
Also, since the Universal is a commercial vessel, you can leave deployment time at 3 months.
Not sure what I would do with the space that frees up.
They are no armor, so you build them in industry. :)
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How does this compare to a "space semi"? I kind of think this is thematically cooler and may employ them in some of my games but I'm wondering in terms of efficiency how it would compare to simply dragging them around with a tractor unit.
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Intriguing.
You need a 1kt navy shipyard per container type, and a 10kt commercial shipyard for the Universal.
You are overpaying somewhat per ship, because of the hangar overhead, but you reduce shipyard costs and gain a lot of flexibility.
Also, since the Universal is a commercial vessel, you can leave deployment time at 3 months.
Not sure what I would do with the space that frees up.
They are no armor, so you build them in industry. :)
Duh, of course!
Building these with industry will be very convenient at first, since you avoid the up-front cost of a shipyard.
However, I have found that relying on industry to build a lot of stations over time really hampers my ability to build other needful things with industry.
I'm going to try your container approach in my next playthrough, but I suspect that I will build dedicated yards before I start mass-production.
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Not sure I"m fully grasping the benefit. The carrier can have two modules, so for small mixed load items it seems fine, but how often does that actually come up? Minerals and infrastructure is all I can think. Can't move any installations. Having an underutilized commercial cargo container seems better.
The Troop Carrier Container is a great idea, allows a carrier to "convert" into an ad-hoc troop transport, thus cutting down on the need for specialized internal troop transports. Would still want a dedicated Drop Troop Armoured vessel though.
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I'm doing the same philosophy in my current campaign, it's great so far. I'm no longer building commercial ships anymore, only tugs and station.
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@kenlon
- The design given is still very theoretical, more of a proof of concept than an actually useful ship at the moment. I posted it with the intent of sharing the concept with others.
@skroomit
- I could, but I consider that gamey.
@Pedroig
- It's a proof-of-concept design, ideally a much, much larger hangar would be used. Also, this vessel sports an Ordinance Transfer System, Re-fueling System and Cargo Shuttles. Meaning it goes from Freighter to Collier to Tanker to Supply Ship with the simple swap of container.. or at least it is supposed to. It remains to be tested, and I'm quite sure I'll need to tweak it in the future in light of mechanics.
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@skroomit
- I could, but I consider that gamey.
I don't see how it is gamey to use shipyards to build space stations.
There's an up-front cost to construct the yard and an ongoing cost of workers, and the production rate is much slower than industry.
Unless I misunderstand you?
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I don't see how it is gamey to use shipyards to build space stations.
There's an up-front cost to construct the yard and an ongoing cost of workers, and the production rate is much slower than industry.
Unless I misunderstand you?
on the class design window you can check the no armour box, which makes that design into a space station, meaning you build it with industry. all of these containers are being built with industry.
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That is no freighter... THATS A SPACE TRUCK
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I don't see how it is gamey to use shipyards to build space stations.
There's an up-front cost to construct the yard and an ongoing cost of workers, and the production rate is much slower than industry.
Unless I misunderstand you?
on the class design window you can check the no armour box, which makes that design into a space station, meaning you build it with industry. all of these containers are being built with industry.
Checking the no armour box means you can build it with industry. I don't think the intent is to force you to build it with industry.
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I think xenoscepter's comment about gamey-ness was rather referring to reducing deployment time to a minimum while retaining commercial status.
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Yeah, I view the deployment time thing as a trick. I sue it, for sure and mechanically it would vastly improve the design, but I consider gamey and don't use it too much.
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I can't recall 100% but is the tractor beam a civillian component? IF so then would it not be easier to just make it as a space truck, you could argue it is gaming the system, but then in systems where you are not sure of absolute safety that is potentially a lot of cargo containers just waiting to be blown up.
As an extra idea for space trucks:
Your main engine unit with a tractor beam and reasonable fuel amounts with speed. Then you have various sizes of container along with different types (fuel, cargo, mainenance, etc). But add in a cargo shuttle to each one, that way your trucks can carry the container to a destination and drop it off to return for another job allowing the container to unload itself. This will definitely add huge amounts of micromanagment to things, but for myself it will save days and days of unloading time when counted across all frieghters. I make it a rule that I only have a single cargo system on any ship for each task that ship can carry out (1 cargo shuttle, 1 troop shuttle, and so on). For really massive containers you could potentially save weeks of loading/unloading time that a standard freighter spends not moving.
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@Rich.h
--- A few points of contention.
- If you re-read the design, you'll see that it possess Cargo Shuttles, a Re-fueling System, and an Ordinance Transfer System. This means by swapping containers it can become a tanker, a supply ship or even a collier if needs be. I am still in the process of testing it, but it's not a priority so it may take awhile. I am currently unsure if it can reload a fleet from magazines contained in the hangar via Ordinance Transfer.
- Containers need one full Engineering Space and 3 Months of deployment to become commercial ships and skip Maintenance / Deployment Clock. These Containers are Military Ships. The Freighter may seem to have overblow MSP and Engineering for a commercial ship, but the Commercial Hangar doesn't maintain docked military ships. Making the containers commercial requires more tonnage and 30x the deployment, cutting into payload per container.
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So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.
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@macks
It freezes deployment clock on military ships, but doesn't freeze or reduce maintenance life w/o maintenance facilities and/or modules. So Crew Morale doesn't degrade while inside of a Commercial Hangar. Also, a parasite can refuel from, reload from and repair itself using the mothership w/o the need for cargo shuttles, re-fueling systems, or ordinance transfer systems. Your parasites will use the mothership's MSP instead of their own to cover failures too, so while the maintenance clock for Military ships isn't frozen, they won't consume their own MSP either. They are quite useful for carrier designs, with my favorite so far being the "Attachable Jump Drive". Since Jump Drives are Commercial Components by default, off-loading them to a ship with minimal engines can give your warships some extra strategic mobility. Dock, jump, undock, fight. Better still for surveyors.
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That's clever. How does up-scaling go?
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So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.
One assumes it's intention is similar to that of the commercial magazines, that is not as a viable combat hanger but as a way to move fighters from one colony to another.
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@macks
...So Crew Morale doesn't degrade while inside of a Commercial Hangar. ...
In fact, a military ship in a Commercial Hangar is treated as if at a recreational location. Deployment time will decrease.
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So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.
Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.
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An interesting idea, looking forward to seeing how it woks.
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An interesting idea, looking forward to seeing how it woks.
I redid the containers to waste less space on things they aren't actually for, and came up with these:
Cargo Container class Cargo Ship 644 tons 10 Crew 32.2 BP TCS 13 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 66.64 Years MSP 415 AFR 7% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 3 Max Repair 20 MSP
Cargo 500
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Cryo Container class Cargo Ship 1,000 tons 15 Crew 100.8 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 6 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 17.93 Years MSP 431 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 3 5YR 38 Max Repair 20 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 3,400
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Container class Cargo Ship 1,000 tons 9 Crew 49.8 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 6 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 32.06 Years MSP 415 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 1 5YR 12 Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Fuel Capacity 850,000 Litres Range N/A
Supply Container class Cargo Ship 1,000 tons 17 Crew 81.8 BP TCS 20 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 85.82 Years MSP 7,225 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 2 5YR 29 Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Troop Container class Cargo Ship 949 tons 25 Crew 54.8 BP TCS 19 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 39.69 Years MSP 418 AFR 14% IFR 0.2% 1YR 1 5YR 8 Max Repair 20 MSP
Troop Capacity 800 tons
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days
Most are 1K tons, but the lack of small options to pad out the Cargo and Troop containers led me to leave them as they fell and just use non-round numbers of containers.
These are then loaded into:
Haai class Superfreighter 499,802 tons 4,586 Crew 27,444 BP TCS 9,996 TH 25,000 EM 0
2500 km/s Armour 1-561 Shields 0-0 HTK 849 Sensors 8/6/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 2,034 Max Repair 250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 168,000 tons Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 3,360
Perkowski Engines Limited MegaIon 8Kt EP1000.00 (25) Power 25000 Fuel Use 2.65% Signature 1000 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 7,350,000 Litres Range 99.8 billion km (461 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 60,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 122 hours
Ordnance Transfer Rate: 48 MSP per hour
Assorted Civilian-grade EM Sensors EM1.0-6.0 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Assorted Civilian-gradeThermal Sensors TH1.0-8.0 (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
When fully loaded, a Haai can hold one of:
- 130K cargo
- 571.2k colonists
- 142.8M liters fuel
- 1.213M maintSP
- 141.6K troops
Sounds reasonably good, right? But if you strip out the hangars and simply straight up replace them with the appropriate dedicated modules, you can haul:
- 282K cargo - 110% more.
- 1.11M colonists - 92% more.
- 289M liters fuel - 102% more
- 2.22M maintSP - 83% more.
- 279K troops 97% more.
You lose about half the capacity by containerizing.
I also tried, just for the hell of it, this one, using military hangars:
Military Haai class Superfreighter 499,983 tons 7,615 Crew 41,495.2 BP TCS 10,000 TH 25,000 EM 0
2500 km/s Armour 1-561 Shields 0-0 HTK 2553 Sensors 8/6/0/0 DCR 500 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.83 Years MSP 81,935 AFR 4000% IFR 55.6% 1YR 5,792 5YR 86,886 Max Repair 250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 200,000 tons Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2
Capitaine de frégate Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months Flight Crew Berths 4,000 Morale Check Required
Perkowski Engines Limited MegaIon 8Kt EP1000.00 (25) Power 25000 Fuel Use 2.65% Signature 1000 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 7,350,000 Litres Range 99.8 billion km (461 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 60,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 122 hours
Ordnance Transfer Rate: 48 MSP per hour
Assorted Civilian-grade EM Sensors EM1.0-6.0 (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 19.4m km
Assorted Civilian-gradeThermal Sensors TH1.0-8.0 (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22.4m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I ended up having to put 25Kt of engineering spaces and 7Kt of maintenance storage to get half-decent deployment out of it, leaving me with:
- 153.1K cargo
- 680k colonists
- 170M liters fuel
- 1.445M maintSP
- 168K troops
So how does it work out?
Not very well, I'm afraid. The overhead of Commercial Hangar Decks massing 1600 tons for a 1000 ton capacity, and the additional losses inherent in the container, means that dedicated cargo ships whoop container ships all up and down the lot.
You're also burning way more TN materials on the modular ships. These are the totals without MSP costs for a couple:
Haai + cargo containers: 36,277
Dedicated cargo config: 8,898.9
Haai + cryo containers: 44,839.4
Dedicated cryo config: 20,019.3
The military version is pretty much right out just because of the ludicrous cost of feeding it all the MSP it would need, on top of it's staggering base cost (41,956.2 with no MSP). Though smaller military container ships are a good way to have tankers/colliers/troop transports/supply ships out of a single shipyard.
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So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.
Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.
Based on the description (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103584#msg103584) in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.
They are intended for transport of other commercial vessels, temporary transport of military vessels, reloading of box launchers and for repairing ships. With this in mind, a military ship still has normal maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.
[Emphasis added]
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Based on the description (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103584#msg103584) in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.
I designed containers I made with extended maint times because of this - just remember to overhaul them when you come back to the yards.
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So what DOES the commercial hangar deck do? I want to build a commercial maintenance base to be towed around but that doesn't seem very viable if it doesn't do anything to the military ships retained in it.
Freezes the maintenance clock and provides shore leave (the deployment clock reduces over time).
This makes them very useful for me on my survey carriers.
Based on the description (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103584#msg103584) in the changes thread commercial hangars should not be freezing the maintenance clock.
They are intended for transport of other commercial vessels, temporary transport of military vessels, reloading of box launchers and for repairing ships. With this in mind, a military ship still has normal maintenance requirements while in a civilian hangar.
[Emphasis added]
"Normal maintenance requirements" means what, exactly? I don't think it means that the clock keeps ticking. I think it means that it can still suffer a maintenance failure if in space, and still costs MSP for upkeep if at a maintenance facility.
When in a military hangar, ships don't need any maintenance and don't have any failures, regardless if they are at a maintenance location or not.
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"Normal maintenance requirements" means what, exactly? I don't think it means that the clock keeps ticking. I think it means that it can still suffer a maintenance failure if in space, and still costs MSP for upkeep if at a maintenance facility.
When in a military hangar, ships don't need any maintenance and don't have any failures, regardless if they are at a maintenance location or not.
I would assume (but I haven't tested) "Normal maintenance requirements" means that the maintenance clock on military ships will increase as if they are in open space, in addition to maintenance failures happening as normal.
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It turns out this concept does actually work, just not with the container sizes I originally tested. Since I have discovered that you're not limited to ships of 1K tons in a hangar (which is how I thought it always worked), upping the size of the containers makes everything work much better.
Turns out you're far better off just giving them 3 months of deployment time and having them be civilian, the extra crew requirements are way lower weight/cost than the MSP needed to maintain them. I might redo this with 10K containers, as the larger they are the less wasted mass there is, but it's a tradeoff between carrying capacity and flexibility.
Containers:
Cargo Container class Cargo Ship 4,632 tons 14 Crew 38.7 BP TCS 93 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 0 AFR 926% IFR 12.9% Max Repair 20 MSP
Cargo 4,500
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Cryo Container class Cargo Ship 4,965 tons 33 Crew 316.3 BP TCS 99 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 12 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 0 AFR 992% IFR 13.8% Max Repair 100 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 19,200
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Fuel Container class Cargo Ship 5,000 tons 5 Crew 88.7 BP TCS 100 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 8 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 0 AFR 999% IFR 13.9% Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Fuel Capacity 4,874,000 Litres Range N/A
Supply Container class Cargo Ship 4,998 tons 44 Crew 324.1 BP TCS 100 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 21 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 38,540 AFR 1000% IFR 13.9% Max Repair 20 MSP
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Troop Container class Cargo Ship 4,975 tons 41 Crew 137.3 BP TCS 99 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 10 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 0 AFR 994% IFR 13.8% Max Repair 20 MSP
Troop Capacity 4,800 tons
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Ordinance Container class Cargo Ship 4,980 tons 45 Crew 234.3 BP TCS 100 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 10 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
MSP 0 AFR 995% IFR 13.8% Max Repair 25 MSP
Magazine 800
Capitaine de corvette Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
It's not worthwhile as a wholesale replacement for dedicated Cargo/Colony/Tanker ships because you still lose too much lift capacity to the hangar tax. However, having a modular platform that can cover the less common troop transport, collier and supply ship duties, and be swapped over to standard transport duties when those roles aren't needed is invaluable.
I'm also exploring the possibility of using these modular conveyors as jump tenders for merchant fleets. Storing the drive containers at fleet depots and only breaking them out when there's a need to travel outside the network of jump station. There are some definite limitations on this, since at my current tech level I wouldn't be able to use my modular conveyor design to shuttle my megafreighters around, since the ModCon is based on my standard 100K freighter hull and my megafreighters are 500K., but the idea still has merit.
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Wait you mean that a jump drive in a ship hosted by another ship make the bigger ship jump-able?
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I dunno yet, going to be trying it out in a test game later, but in theory it should work. Since you can jump vessels with a larger tonnage than the jump engine-bearing ship in C#, it should work. Worst case scenario, you have to launch the container holding the jump drive, tractor it, and then jump through.
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Yeah, I was going to say that I'd want a container size closer to 30ktons, to allow a useful load (in particular, a standard cargo bay). Maybe have a smaller size that's a neat fraction of that amount, like 20' and 40' containers IRL, but it's nice to have options that get you the ability to haul full installations. You can also pack terraforming ships into that size if you want.
It's probably worse than dedicated ships tbh, but it's certainly interesting.
Actually, there's one thing you can do with them that might be interesting, if you don't mind the micro - have multiple sets of containers loading and unloading, and then have the ship just haul the one that's finished. That way you don't need to wait around a planet to load or unload, you just need to grab the containers into hangar, and that's instant. Especially for short runs, where cargo handling is 90% of your time, that could theoretically be more efficient.
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Wait you mean that a jump drive in a ship hosted by another ship make the bigger ship jump-able?
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111498#msg111498
As long as the jump drive capability covers the tonnage of the ship you are trying to make the jump.
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Worst case scenario, you have to launch the container holding the jump drive, tractor it, and then jump through.
You don't have to tractor it. A ship without engines can transit a jump point.
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Yeah, I was going to say that I'd want a container size closer to 30ktons, to allow a useful load (in particular, a standard cargo bay). Maybe have a smaller size that's a neat fraction of that amount, like 20' and 40' containers IRL, but it's nice to have options that get you the ability to haul full installations. You can also pack terraforming ships into that size if you want.
Right - I just went to 5K as a proof of concept, mostly, and they fit nicely in my refitted old troop transports. The ideal size for the containers is as large as possible, balanced against your needs as far as flexibility. If you only ever want to be able to carry one thing, then you want to fit your container to be 1x the capacity of your smallest Modular Conveyor, and build larger ones on a multiple of that value. If you want to be able to possibly bring fuel, supply points and missiles in a single ship, then it gets a bit more complicated.
It's probably worse than dedicated ships tbh, but it's certainly interesting.
It is quantifiably worse. Each commercial hangar holds 1K tons and masses 1.6K tons. That means for every 5K of containers you want to carry, you're allocating 8K of displacement.
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Except it takes 1/10th the time and cost to build commercial versus military.
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Except it takes 1/10th the time and cost to build commercial versus military.
That's irrelevant to a comparison between a commercial container ship and a commercial ship that dedicates the same space directly to whatever it's designed to haul, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
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How do you load/unload these? Can you just give a load/unload command and it uses the docked capacity or do you have to launch the container for loading and (more importantly) then dock them again?
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Since hangar-borne vessels are part of the fleet, you just load/unload them like anything else. See my attached screenshot - I have two Wenchow Modular Conveyors mixed in with my standard freighters, and as you can see, each container is holding .04 of a terraforming installation right now.
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Except it takes 1/10th the time and cost to build commercial versus military.
That's irrelevant to a comparison between a commercial container ship and a commercial ship that dedicates the same space directly to whatever it's designed to haul, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
Except a commercial container ship can "contain" military components without becoming military, a commercial ship cannot.
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. . . okay, sure, but what does that have to do with anything? Modular Conveyors like this are objectively worse than dedicated ships at performing the role the dedicated ship is built for. But they are still useful, because they give you flexibility.
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Because many ships spend more time not performing the task they are designed to do and more time in transit. Thus objectively being more efficient use of materials by having them be "paused" while "docked" in the container ship.
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Since I have discovered that you're not limited to ships of 1K tons in a hangar (which is how I thought it always worked), upping the size of the containers makes everything work much better.
1k ton is the traditional size for containers in AuroraVB due to not needing a bridge.
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Because many ships spend more time not performing the task they are designed to do and more time in transit.
This is true.
Thus objectively being more efficient use of materials by having them be "paused" while "docked" in the container ship.
This, however, is rather not, at least for the only application we've been discussing in this thread. Each kiloton allocated to hangars on a container ship only gives you 625 tons of containers, which then incur further loss from the structure and crew requirements of the containers.
Let me give you a real world example. All my light transport ships are built on the same frame. They all displace 100Kt, go at 1000km/s with my current tech, and aim for roughly the same range.
Chungking-C Colony Ship: 77.5Kt of Cryogenic Transport for 310K meat popsicles.
Ghent-B Troop Transport: 75Kt of Troop Transport Bay for 75K in troops carried.
Aberdeen-D Freighter: 75K of Cargo Hold for 75K cargo capacity.
Wenchow Container Ship: 72Kt of Commercial Hangar deck for 45K capacity for containers.
Containers are built as close to 5k as possible.
Cryo loadout: 43.2Kt (9x4.8Kt) of Cryogenic Transport for 172.8K meat popsicles. 55.7% of the dedicated ship.
Troop loadout: 43.2Kt (9x4.8Kt) of Troop Transport bay for 43.2K of troops. 57.6% of the dedicated ship.
Cargo loadout: 40.5Kt (9x4.5Kt) of Cargo Hold for 40.5Kt cargo carried. 54% of the dedicated ship.
In each case, the dedicated ship is much better at doing the one job it can do than the modular conveyor. (The fact that there's no hold smaller than 500t hurts the cargo variant quite a bit.)
And as far as minerals go, in tons of TN mineral per:
Wenchow, hull: 6596.9
Cryo Container: 316.3
Barracks Container: 137.3
Cargo Container: 38.7
Chungking-C: 4391.9
Ghent-B: 3036.9
Aberdeen-D: 1606.9
Wenchow + 9x Cryo Container: 9443.6
Wenchow + 9x Barracks Container: 7832.6
Wenchow + 9x Cargo Container: 6945.2
Wenchow + 9x each: 11027.6
A single Wenchow with the option to carry any of the three loadouts costs you 122% as much minerals as buying one of each dedicated ship.
So, let's look at those numbers a few different ways:
Wenchow Cryo vs Chungking-C:
2.15x cost per hull.
3.86x cost per colonist carried.
Wenchow Barracks vs Ghent-B:
2.28x cost per hull.
3.96x cost per ton of troops.
Wenchow Cargo vs Aberdeen-D:
4.3x cost per hull.
7.9x cost per ton of cargo.
Wenchow + all container loadouts vs Chunking-C+Ghent-B+Aberdeen-D:
1.22x cost of buying all three dedicated ships.
For ship types that are going to be running all the time, like your colonial transports, using Modular Conveyors is very clearly not worth it. For pure cargo hauling, even if it's going to sit idle a decent portion of the time, you're still probably better off building dedicated ships. But covering your needs for troopships/supply ships/colliers, there's clearly a place for Modular Conveyors, as you can meet your peak demand for those types of ship without having to keep a bunch of idle hulls around, or dedicate multiple shipyards to their production.
Purpose built ships give you efficiency. Modular ships give you flexibility. There's room for both in your merchant marine.
1k ton is the traditional size for containers in AuroraVB due to not needing a bridge.
This strikes me as very much a false economy, at least now under C#. (I dunno what particular ship design quirks under VB6 made it make sense to do that.)
The bigger you build your containers, the less efficiency you lose, though you're giving up flexibility. Building out a single container that fills the Modular Conveyor is the most efficient thing you can do, if you a) don't need to ever carry split loads and b) Don't need to ever use ships of a smaller hangar size as container ships.
A 45K Heavy Cargo container, for example, can dedicate 99.17% of it's displacement to cargo holds, compared to 97.15% for the 5K version. It's not going to shift the efficiency numbers in favor of modular over dedicated, but it's something to consider. You also, and I didn't even think about this until now, save a lot on mineral cost for the containers. Again, not enough to make a big dent in the mineral cost per ton of cargo carried, but it's a thing to think about.
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Can you modularise weapons here and create ‘Q Ships’?
Haven’t tried yet, but assume you can put large military sensors on a cargo container and give that feature to a civilian freighter. . . ?
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If it's docked with the mothership, then it can't do anything, and dropping an immobile weapons platform in the middle of a fight might not work out so well.
Though the idea of dropping out a 156.25Kt battlestation from a 500Kt megafreighter (size eyeballed off the assumption of 250Kt devoted to hangars) amuses me greatly. A certain video clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bSEfx6D8mA) comes to mind. . .
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This strikes me as very much a false economy, at least now under C#. (I dunno what particular ship design quirks under VB6 made it make sense to do that.)
The bigger you build your containers, the less efficiency you lose, though you're giving up flexibility. Building out a single container that fills the Modular Conveyor is the most efficient thing you can do, if you a) don't need to ever carry split loads and b) Don't need to ever use ships of a smaller hangar size as container ships.
A 45K Heavy Cargo container, for example, can dedicate 99.17% of it's displacement to cargo holds, compared to 97.15% for the 5K version. It's not going to shift the efficiency numbers in favor of modular over dedicated, but it's something to consider. You also, and I didn't even think about this until now, save a lot on mineral cost for the containers. Again, not enough to make a big dent in the mineral cost per ton of cargo carried, but it's a thing to think about.
The existence of commercial hangars is the significant change in C# as they make commercial modules, and thus commercial modular ships like this, a consideration. VB modular designs were exclusively military. Modular sensor and weapon bays worked in VB and could provide savings in refit and maintenance costs for expensive components. Modular AWACS in particular was attractive just due to shipyard costs. I haven't tried it in C# yet.
Can you modularise weapons here and create ‘Q Ships’?
Haven’t tried yet, but assume you can put large military sensors on a cargo container and give that feature to a civilian freighter. . . ?
I hope so. The ability to have fighters fire out the hangar door was handy in a pinch.
Under current rules the only savings that gives you is that the sensor container doesn't pay upkeep for the engines, which is admittedly a consideration on its own. Commercial hangars don't provide any maintenance support for military parasites so the modules will still need Engineering Bays in that case, but crew deployment time is taken care of.
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Can you modularise weapons here and create ‘Q Ships’?
Haven’t tried yet, but assume you can put large military sensors on a cargo container and give that feature to a civilian freighter. . . ?
In a way yes, in a way no. You can't make space stations military, so they will be "ships" for all considerations. If they go over 1k they will need a bridge. I'm away from Aurora atm, but this is a typical "missile pod" that I put into commercial hangers:
Missile Pod: 5,000 tons
Bridge, 2 Engineering Spaces, 50,000 liters of Fuel size 5 engine range 1 bn km
10 size 30 missile box launchers (2 stage missiles total range 100 bn km, 5 Size 5 finals 25km/s with 9 str warheads)
MFC 110 bn km range)
Put 10 of those in a 100 kT "tender" with fuel, who drops and then bugs out. They are small enough they rarely get targeted at range and BP is only 200-300 usually if they are lost. Granted they have to return all the way to base or actual carrier to reload. But those 500 missiles per tender which get added to the Alpha Strike means it is rare there is any return fire...
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I like this container concept as a way to give my colonies with idle production capacity something useful to work on if I am unable to grow said colonies due to the unrest problem it would cause. For example, if I am nearing the upper limit of a colonies' PPV I could allocate some industrial capacity to building cryotransport containers, some cargo containers, some infrastructure, and maybe some other useful installations. Then I could pick everything up with a single container transport ship and drop it off at a new colony somewhere else. This way I could stabilize my colony growth without necessarily building a new shipyard at each colony that needs stabilization or redirecting dedicated cargo ships or colony ships. In most of my games I find my colony ships spend a lot of time sitting around idle anyways so creating hybrid cargo-cryotransports for colonization purposes is quite appealing. I'd still be using my dedicated cargo ships for heavy lifting, like mineral hauling between established colonies or running automines out to mining colonies, so I'd still reap efficiency benefits from dedicated ships in my 'main' cargo fleets.
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It makes zero sense to build cargo or colonial module to be carried in commercial hangars, first of the commercial hangar is way bigger and very expensive for that purpose. You should use tugs to pull cargo or colony containers. But considering how cheap it is to build a yard with many slipways that can produce both cargo and colony ships it makes very little sense to do this. Both cargo and colony ships should practically never be idle anyway. Keeping some cargo containers around for your general tugs to pull around when you have some specific need can probably be smart, but as a general strategy it makes very little sense.
Using tugs to pull troop, supply, ordnance containers makes a bit more sense as you might not be using them all the time. The problem might be though that when you do need them you will need most if not all of them anyway so the gain might not be as high as you initially thought it would be. But still, using industry instead of a shipyard can sometimes be beneficial, especially when it is types that you will only build in limited numbers.
But using commercial carriers seem extremely inefficient versus using tugs due to the enormous overhead costs.
I only use commercial hangars as repair yards or for maintaining military ships with reloading facilities of box launchers, so they clearly fit well for fleet support vessels or pure repair yards. I quite often have specific fleet support vessels to work with escort flotillas. Fleet support ships to work with carriers for spare fighters and deploying small fast tankers for increased fighter striking ranges etc...
Industry are best utilised into building stations you are NOT building in huge quantities as yards usually can build things more efficiently, especially when you consider that yards can expand themselves once built. That is like a construction factory both producing something and building new factories at the same time. Or stations that are truly super large and building yards for them simply is not practical.
If your general support ships such as troop transports, ordnance and supply freighters are the same size and using the same general components then having one yard for them all is not a huge overhead cost either, the cost will be rather small to be honest. Sure you can use industry to build them in stations format and then use tugs to drag them around, it will be somewhat cheaper over time. It will cost you more officers though if that makes any difference to you, it actually might. But the amount of resources you save on this are so minor in comparison with everything else you build that I don't think it is worth the hassle of using tugs that way.
You still probably want to use dedicated fleet support vessels or assault ships as you want them with armour and CIWS and built for specific needs and with better more powerful engines than your more efficient general logistical support vessels.