Author Topic: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.  (Read 1774 times)

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Offline xenoscepter (OP)

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Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« on: March 11, 2019, 05:53:52 PM »
So I constructed several space stations with Geological Sensors, then gave them the command to conduct a Geological Survey.

However, it seems they are not carrying them out. Is it common for only Mars to have minerals? I sent one to Luna, Mars and Venus; but only one turned up anything.

Likewise my Fuel Harvester Stations turned up fine, but my Asteroid Miners did not. Is this an error in the Asteroid Miner? I attached an Orbital Habitat as well, could that be the problem?

So, how do Asteroid Miners and Geological Sensors work? Is there any way to check if an Orbital Geological Survey has been carried out on a body? If so, how?

NOTE: My Sorium Harvesters worked fine, and had no Orbital Habitats.

Also, do bodies without minerals display "0" for their value or "-"?
Thanks in advance... and Cheers!
 

Offline Kurt

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2019, 06:18:34 PM »
So I constructed several space stations with Geological Sensors, then gave them the command to conduct a Geological Survey.

However, it seems they are not carrying them out. Is it common for only Mars to have minerals? I sent one to Luna, Mars and Venus; but only one turned up anything.

Wow, lots to unpack here.  It is generally not a good idea to give immobile stations geo-sensors, because they will only be able to survey the body they orbit.  Geo-sensors only work when the ship carrying them is in orbit (range 0) of the body it is surveying, so a station with sensors will not be able to survey the rest of the system.  I'm not sure how you sent stations to other planets, given it has a speed of 1 and would take forever to get there. 

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Likewise my Fuel Harvester Stations turned up fine, but my Asteroid Miners did not. Is this an error in the Asteroid Miner? I attached an Orbital Habitat as well, could that be the problem?
Fuel harvesters must orbit a gas giant that has been geo-surveyed and has sorium on it.  Once in orbit over the gas giant, they will automatically begin filling their fuel tanks at a rate based on your racial fuel refining tech and the number of modules on the harvester. 

Asteroid miners work a little different.  The asteroid mining modules must be in orbit over an asteroid that has been geo-surveyed and has resources you want to mine.  That body must also have a colony for your race on it.  To do this, go to the system view and select the asteroid or comet you want to mine and then push the "Add Colony" button.  Once there is a colony in place and you have the ship or base with the asteroid mines in place in orbit mined resources will begin appearing on the colony and can be found on the "mining/maintenance" tab on the Population and Production screen. 

Orbital habitats won't help you asteroid mining operation and will only slow down or immobilize your ships/bases with asteroid mining modules on them. 

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So, how do Asteroid Miners and Geological Sensors work? Is there any way to check if an Orbital Geological Survey has been carried out on a body? If so, how?

NOTE: My Sorium Harvesters worked fine, and had no Orbital Habitats.

Also, do bodies without minerals display "0" for their value or "-"?
Thanks in advance... and Cheers!

You can see if a geo survey has been done on the "system generation and display" screen.  The column on the far left will have an "S" for bodies with no resources, and an "M" for bodies with resources.  If it is blank then the body hasn't been surveyed yet. 

Bodies that have been surveyed will display differently on the Mining/Maintenance tab of the "Population and Production" screen.  If it hasn't been surveyed yet then it will show a "No Survey" in the quantity row.  If it has been surveyed then it will either show an amount in the quantity row or a "-" indicating that there is nothing there. 

For reference, here are my fuel refinery and asteroid miner designs from my current campaign:
Code: [Select]
Exxon-Mobile r1 class Fuel Harvester    72,250 tons     319 Crew     1672.5 BP      TCS 1445  TH 1200  EM 0
830 km/s     Armour 1-154     Shields 0-0     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 14    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0   
Fuel Harvester: 23 modules producing 1840000 litres per annum

Cox-Glover Commercial MP Drive (3)    Power 400    Fuel Use 5.3%    Signature 400    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5,250,000 Litres    Range 246.7 billion km   (3439 days at full power)

Basic Thermal Sensor Mk V (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
Basic EM Sensor Mk IV (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Code: [Select]
Hobo class Asteroid Miner    58,000 tons     564 Crew     1867 BP      TCS 1160  TH 400  EM 0
344 km/s     Armour 1-133     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/5/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 20    Max Repair 120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   
Asteroid Miner: 10 module(s) producing 200 tons per mineral per annum

Cox-Glover Commercial NP Engine (2)    Power 200    Fuel Use 7.07%    Signature 200    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 10.9 billion km   (368 days at full power)

Basic Thermal Sensor Mk II (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Basic EM Detection Sensor  (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
 
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Offline xenoscepter (OP)

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2019, 07:01:33 PM »
Yeah, I noticed that putting Geo-Sensors on Space Stations was a bad idea when my Mercassium ran out. As for how I got them there; I used a Tug. I intended to leave them in orbit pretty much forever. Between the two of them, there was a million people; one station was a Terraformer, the other a Fuel Depot and Listening Station with nominal Active Sensors and a small passive sensor of each type.

The Fuel Harvester Bases also were tugged, with a single Sorium Harvester and four regular Fuel Storage modules. I don't remember if I gave them sensors or not, but I don't think that I did. There were three of 'em, the Jupiter, the Io and the Ganymede with another six planned; three for Saturn, three for Neptune... let the civvies deal with Uranus as I'm not even sure if Neptune and Uranus are Gas Giants.

[Insert Obligatory Fart Jokes Here]

[Insert Obligatory Uranus Jokes Here]

Sadly, with my Mercassium depleted and my Duranium soon to follow, and with the Alaska-Class Asteroid Miner not working out; I decided to scrap the game and just go again, since I'm still learning. So that unfortunately means I can't submit the designs I was using for review.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2019, 11:47:42 PM »
You should make your survey units mobile.  You have a lot of bodies in the solar system to survey, there's no need to build a survey vehicle for each one.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2019, 12:02:33 AM »

. . . Geo-sensors only work when the ship carrying them is in orbit (range 0) of the body it is surveying, so a station with sensors will not be able to survey the rest of the system. . .


Except not, because VB6 Aurora features both an 'Orbit At' and a 'Move To' command, and pretty much none of the "orbital" installations work with the 'Orbit At' command, even "Orbit at 0 km".

So you need to be sure to issue "Move To" commands to any sort of survey, refining, terraforming, etc. platforms -- or at least to their tugs.
 

Offline Resident Evil

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2019, 04:04:36 PM »
I dunno if this will help, but here's my 1st Gen Geo survey ship design...

Code: [Select]
Jaguar Mk III class Survey Ship    3,800 tons     82 Crew     460.6 BP      TCS 76  TH 100  EM 0
1315 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
MSP 152    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Spare Berths 0   

J4500(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 4500 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
100 EP Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 100    Fuel Use 11.93%    Signature 100    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 198.4 billion km   (1746 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I used then in squads of 4, and used the conditional order for them.

First of all, you give the group the order to jump into the system to be surveyed by the "Transit and divide fleet order" (Second down when you've selected a jump gate.

Then, before they jump, select the second tab from the left from the left on the task group screen, entitled "Special Orders / Organisation".  On the left of that tab are two options entitled "Default Orders - Primary" and "Default orders - Secondary"

Select from the drop down for "Default Orders Primary" the option "Survey nearest body" and for "Default Orders - secondary" select the option "Move to Entry jump point"

I find this the easiest way to do it. The fleet jumps into the system and divides into individual units who then trundle off on their own and start surveying the system bodies (asteroids, planets and moons), and when they are finished, they all return to the entry jump point where they gather , making it easy to recombine the fleet using the 'absorb' and 'join' commands.

Under the conditional order A there are options to supposedly get the fleet to recombine on their own - but I have never got that to work at all - so just ignore those options.

Hope that helps some.

ZG
 
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Offline xenoscepter (OP)

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #6 on: March 22, 2019, 09:51:10 PM »
Well, I figured out the problem was that I had already surveyed those bodies. There is a check box on Display2, or Minerals; one of the tabs on the F3 menu. Anyways, it reads "Show Surveyed" or something like that, and it solved my issues.

I've been rolling with Commercial Survey Ships for a Geo Survey-only craft, and a Military ship for a Geo + Grav Survey craft when I want to use both. I use the Conditional Commands set to "When at 50% Fuel" / "Refuel at Colony" for my Commercial Ships, and add "When at 50% Fuel" / "Begin Overhaul" on my Military Ships, since Overhaul takes awhile it let's the crew go on shore leave and refills the morale... and resets the maintenance clock, too.

I use the orders, "Survey nearest Planet or Moon" and then have "Survey Nearest Body" as the secondary order. I manage Jump Point Surveys manually, along with Jumps. I go to survey points three at a time, before refueling, and six at a time before Overhaul. It's a pain, but when I find a Jump Point, I manually jump through it, then RTB and continue surveying. Lather, rinse and repeat until no unsurveyed Jump Survey Locations exist. You can use the "Exclude Surveyed Locations" check box in the Orders Menu to make manually ordering the Jump Point Surveys far easier.

I set up a forward Orbital Habitat w/ Maintenance Modules before conducting surveys in a new system, usually with a dedicated Jump-Capable Carrier, using hangars and parasites to conduct the actual Geo Surveys. Tonnage wise, it's cheaper not to use hangars, but a 2x Hangar or 4x Hangar Ship with enough berths for it's flight crews and 20 persons worth of Survey Teams (one for each, Geo, Xeno, Diplo, Spy), makes a nice carrier later on. And thus far I've found Fighters are easier to upgrade than larger ships. Plus the Carrier can serve in other ways when Geo Surveys aren't needed.
 

Offline Panopticon

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Re: Geological Sensors on Immobile Station.
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2019, 01:33:12 AM »
That's a lot more micromanaging than I am willing to put up with, I just set my ships the default orders to survey whatever they are built for and then ignore them until they either find something cool, run into aliens, or finish, then I find a new place to go.

RP wise the carrier survey base thing being repurposed into a combat vessel in extremis is pretty cool though I have to admit.