Vathorian Maps - December Y16NE

[SteveAlt (OP)]

As the map is too large to show at once, I have split it into five overlapping sections

North-west section of the Empire

Northern section of the Empire, including the Remscheld system

Eastern section

South-west section

Southern section

Steve

[James Patten]

How is it you've managed to explore 90-something systems in only 17 years?  Are your ships particularly fast, or do you do a gravitational survey and only do a geological survey if things look promising?

Also something else I'm curious about is the fact that you seem to have very few mining colonies.  I routinely start out by placing mining colonies in my home system so that when the homeworld runs out of minerals there are minerals coming in so we can continue to work.

[SteveAlt (OP)]

How is it you've managed to explore 90-something systems in only 17 years?  Are your ships particularly fast, or do you do a gravitational survey and only do a geological survey if things look promising?

I have eleven gravitational survey ships at the moment, all equipped with ion engines. Each one has 3 gravitational sensors. I have them grouped into three fleets. I also created survey task forces and each fleet has a command ship with an admiral and survey officer, which provides a useful boost to the survey rate. I run my four geological survey ships solo and independent of the grav survey ships.

Also something else I'm curious about is the fact that you seem to have very few mining colonies.  I routinely start out by placing mining colonies in my home system so that when the homeworld runs out of minerals there are minerals coming in so we can continue to work.

I am going for the Soviet "One Big Factory" approach . The two colonies in Munchen produce everything but Sorium between them. I still need to increase my mining operations though because they won't be able to replicate the homeworld production.

Steve

[James Patten]

Do the multiple survey sensors increase their range?  I've never gone beyond Improved sensors, but I find that the time to survey a system is more dependent on the speed of ships than the quality of the sensors.

I also created survey task forces and each fleet has a command ship with an admiral and survey officer...

Task force as opposed to a task group?  So your task force has one task group in it?

My survey groups currently consist of a mothership with surveying parasites.  Will outfitting the mothership with a flag bridge do what you talked about above?

[SteveAlt (OP)]

Do the multiple survey sensors increase their range?  I've never gone beyond Improved sensors, but I find that the time to survey a system is more dependent on the speed of ships than the quality of the sensors.

You can add multiple sensors to a ship and you get the total survey points from the sensors. The survey ship below has three gravitational sensors so it gets three survey points.

Code: [Select]

Hessen II class Gravsurvey Ship    3750 tons     368 Crew     690.6 BP      TCS 75  TH 360  EM 0
4800 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/0/3/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Replacement Parts 5    

J375 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 3750 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Reichenbach RE-7 Ion Drive (6)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.70    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 210,000 Litres    Range 144.0 billion km   (347 days at full power)

S4/20 Active Search Sensor  (1)     GPS 400     Range 4.0m km    Resolution 20
Gravitational Survey Sensors (3)   3 Survey Points

I also created survey task forces and each fleet has a command ship with an admiral and survey officer...

Task force as opposed to a task group?  So your task force has one task group in it?

My survey groups currently consist of a mothership with surveying parasites.  Will outfitting the mothership with a flag bridge do what you talked about above?

This is the command ship class, which had a flag bridge for the Task Force commander and his staff. When I enter a system, I give the survey task group an order to divide into single ships and set the default order to survey nearest survey location. The individual survey ships go off and survey automatically but because they are in the same system as the command ship, they all get the task force bonuses. The two survey task forces I have set up generate bonuses of 39% and 37%. I need to set up another one for my third survey fleet. They also provide logistic bonuses so your survey ships will use fewer spares.

The mothership plus survey parasites is a good idea and they would all benefit from a task force commander based in a flag brige on the mothership, assuming they were in the same system as the mothership.

Code: [Select]

Odin class Survey Command Ship    5000 tons     486 Crew     987.4 BP      TCS 100  TH 480  EM 0
4800 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-26     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/5/3/0     Damage Control 0-0     PPV 0
Flag Bridge    Replacement Parts 5    

J510 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 5100 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Reichenbach RE-7 Ion Drive (8)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.70    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 330,000 Litres    Range 169.7 billion km   (409 days at full power)

S40/80 Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 4000     Range 40.0m km    Resolution 80
T1 Thermal Sensor  (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
E1 Electromagnetic Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (3)   3 Survey Points
Steve