Flinders Class Survey Cruiser

[Maharava (OP)]

This vessel is the first iteration of a new breed of Deep Space Survey Cruisers. The Flinders class, named after an Australian explorer, sport enough weaonry and defensive systems to survive brief firefights, with high-powered engines to hopefully evade long engagements. It sports low-signature drives to help escape detection, and boasts both a Geo Survey and a Sorium Harvester in case of low fuel

(Hopefully I'm not forgetting somtheing on this ship...)

Flinders MK I class Cruiser    11,100 tons     794 Crew     1624 BP      TCS 222  TH 129.5  EM 120
1666 km/s     Armour 1-44     Shields 4-300     Sensors 11/11/1/1     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 45.6
Maint Life 6.48 Years     MSP 2503    AFR 179%    IFR 2.5%    1YR 103    5YR 1542    Max Repair 150 MSP
Fuel Harvester: 1 modules producing 28000 litres per annum

MILI Internal Confinement Fusion Drive QUIET (4)    Power 92.5    Fuel Use 42.5%    Signature 32.375    Armour 0    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 19.1 billion km   (132 days at full power)
Gamma Shields MK I (2)   Total Fuel Cost  20 Litres per day

10cm C1 Ultraviolet Laser Small Size (4)    Range 64,000km     TS: 6250 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 4    ROF 15        3 3 3 3 2 2 0 0 0 0
Particle Beam MK I (2)    Range 60,000km     TS: 6250 km/s     Power 5-3    ROF 10        2 2 2 2 2 2 0 0 0 0
Quad Meson Cannon MK I Turret (1x4)    Range 64,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 24-12     RM 9    ROF 10        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
High Power Microwave MK I (2)    Range 64,000km     TS: 6250 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 9    ROF 10        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control MK II (4)    Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 12500 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Reactor Size 5 MK I (1)     Total Power Output 50    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Thermal Sensor TH1-11 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11m km
EM Detection Sensor MK II (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11m km
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

Version 5.54

[Nightstar]

Quite cool. However, trying to stick everything on one ship rarely turns out well. You can only do one of: geosurvey, gravsurvey, or collect fuel, at a time. Splitting this into three ships (maybe four for the combat ship) would let you do everything at once.

You definitely want to switch out your sorium harvester for fuel. The limiting factor on this ship isn't range, it's maint life. Put the harvesters on a separate ship (without maint life), or just refuel from refineries.
Speaking of range, 20 B km is pretty low.
Check the left side of your ship design window. There should be 'reactor power' and 'power required' fields. It looks like you have far too much power to me.
It's not actually that fast for internal confinement drives. It's what, 10% drive? Most people use more. I don't claim to be any good at 5.x drive design though.
Ideally, your fire controls should be specialized for their weapons.
Turrets are almost always used at max fire control speed for a 4x speed FC.
No jumpdrive. You're limited to using tenders, or a gate network.
A single layer of armor and four shield isn't going to block more than a shot or two.
The mix of weapons is odd. That tech level of particle beam has no business being used when you have ultraviolet lasers. Full size lasers would beat it at every point. Mixing armor damage weapons and mesons/microwaves is also a bit odd. Only good purposes are dropping shields, and ranges your other weapons can't reach. I suggest a fire control capable of the lasers' full range, if you keep them.
You don't actually have an active sensor to paint your targets with -- you can't shoot anything.

I could dig up some of my 6.21 survey ship designs for comparison if you're interested.

[metalax]

Strip off the fuel harvester module, it will take you almost 2 years to refill you tanks, whereas you could simply add sufficient fuel to match your maintenance life at around a fifth of the space taken.
The speed seems very, very low for internal confinement drives.
Your weapons mix really doesn't make sense as Nightstar has explained. I'd suggest removing them all, put your lasers into dual turrets and use them to fill the same tonnage. Design a fire-control to take advantage of the lasers range, considering you have a decent base tracking speed a 4x range, 2x speed fire-control would probably serve you well. Put one fire-control for each pair of turrets.

As an example, here is the earliest generation of exploration vessel I typically send out to fulfil a similar role, finding jump points and survey gas giants/potential colonies.

Code: [Select]

Pathfinder class Science Vessel    10,000 tons     265 Crew     1381 BP      TCS 200  TH 200  EM 90
1000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 3-41     Shields 3-300     Sensors 88/88/1/1     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 14.74
Maint Life 3.05 Years     MSP 690    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 111    5YR 1669    Max Repair 286 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   

J10000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 10000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Commercial S-50 x0.50 Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 200    Fuel Use 6.19%    Signature 200    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 255,000 Litres    Range 74.2 billion km   (858 days at full power)
Alpha R300/168 Shields (3)   Total Fuel Cost  21 Litres per hour  (504 per day)

Twin Gauss Cannon S-3 RoF-3 R-3 Turret (2x6)    Range 24,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 12-12000 (2)    Max Range: 24,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     58 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor S-05 R-001 Ms6-1.25 (1)     GPS 105     Range 11.6m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH-08-88 (1)     Sensitivity 88     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  88m km
EM Detection Sensor EM-08-88 (1)     Sensitivity 88     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  88m km
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

[Maharava (OP)]

I actually noticed the range about a month after I launched it and immediately recalled and refitted. I can't believe I missed that XD
Thanks for the advice on the Sorium Scoop. As for the weapons, the mix is mainly for RP purposes - It's a ship designed for 'almost any eventuality' and isn't really meant to get in a fight. I'll look at redsigning a smaller reactor too.
As for engine power, I'm not sure why it's so slow (never had Internal Confinement before). It's a low signature one (like 35% Thermal or something) and aimed at fuel economy, maybe that's why it's slow? Maybe it's just cos it's 5.x, I'm not sure. I'll look into it.
Once again I failed miserably with Fire Controls XD I need to pay more attention to them and my weapons. Oh well, half the fun is learning!
Thanks both of you, I'll see about redesigning a Flinders MK II

[metalax]

Thermal reduction doesn't reduce the power of the engines only their signature. It's so slow because you are using such a small percentage of the tonnage as engines. You are using around 9% in your engines compared to 25% in my example.

[chrislocke2000]

It looks like you have no active sensors on that ship so won't be able to use any of the weapons?

Also I'd expect any deep survey ship to have its own jump engine.

As other have said, the fuel harvestor is killing your ship performance and would be far better replaced with just bigger tanks.

[SteelChicken]

You will soon find trying to make a ship be all roles (combat, scout, fuel refinery) is counter-productive.

As others have mentioned:
1) ditch the sorium harvester
2) add more fuel range
3) put on bigger engines
4) reduce weaponry
5) add active senseors

[Jorgen_CAB]

When I build bigger science ships I usually put the Gravitational sensors on the ship and Geological sensors on small 500 ton shuttles.

If you want to keep the harvester module then create a station with it and keep it in a hangar instead. Now you can go to a gas giant and deploy the harvester and go off and survey the system.

[Starmantle]

When I build bigger science ships I usually put the Gravitational sensors on the ship and Geological sensors on small 500 ton shuttles. 

If you want to keep the harvester module then create a station with it and keep it in a hangar instead.  Now you can go to a gas giant and deploy the harvester and go off and survey the system.

This might be tedious, but I love the feel of it.   'Almost tempted to stick a geology team on that cute little shuttle.   

But yeah - even at an early level I'd want way more grav survey points than the above designs.   It's a ship with so much character, but then it's just take ages to explore a single system.   

But for roleplay purposes, it's great.   

[Jorgen_CAB]

I generally go full role-play in all my games.

At the start when humanity are blissfully ignorant about the dangers of space I send out unarmored and simple deep space science vessels to conduct surveys of unexplored systems.

Once a hostile race have been encountered I usually go with a more cautious and realistic approach. Such as having large self protected cruisers (20k+ tons) conducting deep space exploration as well as having military ships scout new systems if my resources permits that. I usually like to play a deeply civilized human society so preserving the life of my crew is number one priority, so no cheap inexpensive survey ships will run around and survey on their own without first securing a system with proper scouts and probes.

There will usually be a large gap in my exploration efforts from when my first enemy contact is encountered until exploration on a bigger scale can start again, usually many years if not decades depending on circumstances.

[joeclark77]

If you want weapons for roleplay reasons, I'd think about maybe going with microwaves only and optimizing the ship design for them.    The idea being that you can try to blind your attackers and run away.  Of course you also need some speed for that.  Either that or employ PD-only weapons like turreted gauss cannons or lasers.  Neither strategy is highly likely to actually save the ship, but at least it won't be a useless mix of random stuff.  If you actually want to be able to wage a real battle with this ship, why not give it a fighter wing?  Especially if you're going to have it carry around a sorium base and a bunch of geo-survey shuttles, the idea of a survey-mothership isn't bad at all.  Instead of employing shipboard active sensors, create a sensor-fighter and send them out on regular patrols with the fighting squads.

[doomsought]

I'd add some more geo/grav survey sensors for a ship of that size.  My 6000 ton scouts have as much survey capability.