Survey Group Strategies

[Kurt (OP)]

I am interested in what others are thinking in this area.

It seems to me that survey groups have three more-or-less necessary roles that must be filled, and several other "optional" roles:
1.  Jump capability
2.  Geo survey capability
3.  Grav survey capability
the optionals are:
4.  Courier
5.  warship escort

My question is, how do people usually fill these roles in their survey squadrons?  Has anyone ever tried to build a multi-role survey/jump ship?  Theoretically, one ship could fill all three of the main roles.  

My standard survey squadrons are generally composed of one jump ship, that is usually configured to do either geo or grav survey as well, and one to two each of grav and geo survey ships.  No escort, no courier.  I have not been satisfied with this lately, though.  It always seems like either the grav survey ships are waiting, or the geo survey ships are waiting.  

Also, while equipping the jump ship with survey instruments increases their utility, it also increases the risk that if there is something hunting the survey squadron, it will get all of them by default if it gets the jump ship.  While the jump ship can be used as a courier, if it has survey instruments they are wasted, and if it is the only jump ship with the group, then while it is gone running back to base to report, the rest of the group is stranded.  

I have played around with deploying seperate geo and grav survey groups, which seems to be more efficient once you've surveyed the systems adjacent to your home system, but I'm not sure it is the best way to do things, and it does impose a higher overhead in that it requires more jump ships

As for the 'optional' roles, a military escort fills an obvious need, but most of the time you can get away without one, as long as you are willing to take a risk.

The courier, though, is a role that has been bothering me more and more.  After all, no information can get back to base unless there is a jump capable ship to carry it.  This means either sending the squadron jump ship back alone, sending the entire group back, or building a small jump-capable ship to act as a courier.  Unfortunately, a purpose-built courier is not only difficult, but dubious as well.  Without higher jump engine efficiencies, small jump drives are problematic, and even if they weren't, is it a good idea to include a ship with the squadron that is too small to allow other ships to transit along with it?  The alternative, though, is just including a second full-size jump ship and letting it act as courier and "warp-point guard", which is a waste of a full-sized jump-ship with survey instruments.  

I am going to have to think about this situation for a while.  Trying to fill all of the roles could end up meaning a huge survey squadron with limited survey capability.  

Kurt

[Erik L]

I build (mostly) specialized survey ships, either geo or grav and stick them in their own fleets. That way, once one survey is done, they move on to the next without having to wait on the other half. Each ship also mounts a jump drive.

These ships usually mass around 6000 tons. Without the jump drive, and a dedicated tender, I could get them down to the 4000 ton range.

My reasoning behind the jump drive is my survey fleets have been jumped by Precursors too often. Usually the first ship to go is the jump tender. This way, one ship should be able (hopefully) to escape.

The only time I've used them as couriers is if they were in for a refit/resupply and their outbound leg takes them through the system I need an officer on.

[Kurt (OP)]

I build (mostly) specialized survey ships, either geo or grav and stick them in their own fleets. That way, once one survey is done, they move on to the next without having to wait on the other half. Each ship also mounts a jump drive.

These ships usually mass around 6000 tons. Without the jump drive, and a dedicated tender, I could get them down to the 4000 ton range.

My reasoning behind the jump drive is my survey fleets have been jumped by Precursors too often. Usually the first ship to go is the jump tender. This way, one ship should be able (hopefully) to escape.

The only time I've used them as couriers is if they were in for a refit/resupply and their outbound leg takes them through the system I need an officer on.

Hmmm...so each ship has its own jump drive, huh?  That would certainly deal with the problems associated with just having one ship acting as a jump tender, but it is a lot of duplication, and, I suspect, a lot more expensive.  You are correct, though, it reduces wait times to nothing.  

The more I think about it, though, the more I think a survey fleet should have either a courier, or at least have a jump capble ship check in periodically.  After all, my survey fleets usually have enough fuel and spares to operate for several years away from base.  In game terms that is easily do-able, however, in reality, having a significant force out of touch for that amount of time is untenable.  After all, what if the one jump ship in the squadron suffered a mechanical casualty in their jump drive and was unable to repair it (or was attacked and destroyed).  If they had ventured into previously unexplored territory, weren't expected back for years, and never reported their position and survey results, then they are all screwed <G>.  

In your case, where it sounds like all of your ships are equipped with jump engines, the odds of them all failing or being destroyed is much less, however, with no courier they can't report their survey results or current location back to base without detaching a survey ship.  

In more practical terms, lets say a grav survey ship surveys several systems down a chain, then encounters and is destroyed by a precursor or NPR.  While you, as the spacemaster, know what happened, in reality, because your ship never checked in with base, your race would not only not have any idea what happened to the ship, they wouldn't even know the results of any surveys it performed.  The chain would be unknown to the home base.  The race should lose all data gained by that survey ship, and shouldn't go looking for it until long after it should have checked in, with was probably left vague.

If there was a courier that was left at the warp point, it would be essentially undetectable, and so would be able to escape if anything happened.  It would also be able to report back the results of any survey without forcing the survey unit to return each time, wasting valuable survey resources.  

Kurt

[sloanjh]

I've been operating in a mode that sounds similar to Eric's:

1)  My warp survey ships are all jump-capable (6000 tons at efficiency 4).

2)  My geo-survey ships are NOT jump-capable.  The come in two flavors depending on whether they're hyper-capable or not.  The hyper-capable ones mass 6000 tons and are somewhat slower than the jump ships (5333 vs. 6000).  The non-hyper capable ones are significantly smaller and faster (~3000 tons at 7500 km/s).

3)  All survey ships (warp and geo) have size-5, strength-3 (15 sensor points) passive sensors.  This is so they know if they're in a "first contact" situation.

4)  I have "picket" (non-jump capable) ships as well, which are essentially just 2 engines and the same 15 sensor point passives (~1400 tons).  Their job is to monitor the "near" side of a WP waiting for BEMs (or Precursors if I've discovered them down the chain) to come through - they sit with engines down at the detection radius for a strength ~400 contact.  Hopefully there's a jump-capable ship on the same side of the next WP up the chain so they can get a message up-chain when something does come through.  They also now have a small (size-1 strength 2) grav-pulse detector (since they're lying doggo, there's actually a chance someone might be looking for them with actives).

5)  I recently started creating "courier" ships.  I'd like for them to be a picket with a jump drive, but the minimum drive size is 15, so I go ahead and make them big enough to handle my geo-survey ships (since I buy up to 4x drives).  These have passives but no grav-pulse detector (wasn't worth the performance trade-off).  Their role is to lie doggo at the entry point to a picketed system in case the pickets detect something coming in.

My survey SOP is to never have a lone ship surveying the system, and to always have a jump ship available.  If it's a geo-probe, I position a jump-ship at the WP (it might survey some nearby survey positions if they're far away from the inner system).  If it's a WP survey with 2 ships I'll either have one at the WP and one surveying or both surveying (assuming if one gets into trouble the other will be able to escape).  In this case I like to have more ships in-system.  Essentially the only ships I ever leave out of contact with a jump ship are pickets in low-risk systems (i.e. no known precursors down the chain they're picketing).

Best,
John

[Michael Sandy]

My theory of Survey fleets is that budget requirements dominate early designs.

Jump tenders have size 15 jump drives, survey ships have 2 survey sensors and either size 5 sensors, or size 2 sensors and an extra engineering system, on the grounds that more expensive ships should have more maintenance supplies.

I figure that until there is a lot of space-born industry and important resources coming in, there won't be much political support for getting into a war just to protect a claim to uninhabited rocks.  So early exploration fleets will be as armed as the Apollo program ships were.

I want small jump tenders so I can have a _lot_ of them, so they can probe many warp points as they are discovered.

How intense a scout program I would develop depends on Uridium supplies.

My philosophy is generally develop missile technology first.  The highest resource concentration is the homeworld, after all.  The expectation would generally be that a race just leaving its homeworld would either encounter civilizations that had not yet left their home systems, or those who had left for a significantly greater time.  The odds of two races encountering each other that had _both_ discovered warp points within the last decade or so would be seen as statistically insignificant.

Therefore, if aliens were encountered, if they were confined to a home system, our guys would have time to build up before a conflict, and if they weren't confined to a home system, our philosophy would make conquering us sufficiently expensive that the aliens would be more likely to just impose onerous terms restricting our expansion.

Naturally, a decade or two into our expansion, philosophies would change.  Our space forces would have more confidence in themselves, their would be industrial/political interests involved in claiming and protecting various spots, requiring fleet presences their beyond mere unarmed scouts.

Once Precursors are encountered, theories about likely alien races would shift.  The prospect of encountering races that gave up on expansion because of the hazards of Precursor encounters would be more plausible.  Races that decided to ration their limited resources and not expand their economies to the limit.  Those races would likely be more aggressive in protecting their few extra solar mining outposts.  And be more aggressive about following up unarmed alien explorers.

[Erik L]

2)  My geo-survey ships are NOT jump-capable.  The come in two flavors depending on whether they're hyper-capable or not.  The hyper-capable ones mass 6000 tons and are somewhat slower than the jump ships (5333 vs. 6000).  The non-hyper capable ones are significantly smaller and faster (~3000 tons at 7500 km/s).

3)  All survey ships (warp and geo) have size-5, strength-3 (15 sensor points) passive sensors.  This is so they know if they're in a "first contact" situation.

That is a bit more advanced than my survey ships start at. I've been toying with adding one of my fleet scouts to the survey fleets. The scouts have best sensors of all types available.

[Steve Walmsley]

I have tried a few different approaches to this but my current strategy is to build specialised grav or geo survey ships that all include their own jump engines. While this is more expensive it does provide much greater flexibility. I also tend to build one or more fast jump-capable couriers that can double as long range scout ships.

I am very happy though that there doesn't seem to be a 'best' strategy

Steve

[Kurt (OP)]

I have tried a few different approaches to this but my current strategy is to build specialised grav or geo survey ships that all include their own jump engines. While this is more expensive it does provide much greater flexibility. I also tend to build one or more fast jump-capable couriers that can double as long range scout ships.

I am very happy though that there doesn't seem to be a 'best' strategy

Steve

I have been playing around with jump-capable survey ships since reading Erik's reply to my initial message.  I'm very happy with the flexibility this strategy brings, but I'm still concerned about the communications issue.  I think that this is just something that I'm going to have to factor in as a risk for survey groups.  

The part that concerns me is that generally, in my universes at least, my survey groups go out for an undefined amount of time, usually based on how long they can continue to work before running out of spares or fuel.  During this time they generally don't check back in with the home base, unless they make a major re-deployment to another warp chain.  This means that the home base would have no idea that they are missing, if they got into trouble, until they were at least a year or more overdue.  The alternatives are either checking in periodically, and wasting fuel, time, and spares, or including a scout/courier that can return and check in regularly to let the home base know nothing is wrong.  

Kurt

[Steve Walmsley]

I have been playing around with jump-capable survey ships since reading Erik's reply to my initial message.  I'm very happy with the flexibility this strategy brings, but I'm still concerned about the communications issue.  I think that this is just something that I'm going to have to factor in as a risk for survey groups.  

The part that concerns me is that generally, in my universes at least, my survey groups go out for an undefined amount of time, usually based on how long they can continue to work before running out of spares or fuel.  During this time they generally don't check back in with the home base, unless they make a major re-deployment to another warp chain.  This means that the home base would have no idea that they are missing, if they got into trouble, until they were at least a year or more overdue.  The alternatives are either checking in periodically, and wasting fuel, time, and spares, or including a scout/courier that can return and check in regularly to let the home base know nothing is wrong.  

This is very similar to the age of sail when ships could be out of contact with home for years at a time. Captains and fleet commanders had a lot of responsibility and might even get their nation into a war that no one at home knew about for several months. Of course, the communication aspect of Aurora is not built into the game system anywhere apart from my own rule that only jump gates allow communication. There are a few alternatives to the current system that I have considered.

1) Allow all ships to remain in communication through some type of technobabble long range comm system

2) Have a new tech line for 'hypercom' communication systems, with both ground-based and ship-based systems. These permit instant communication between any two pops/ships equipped with the system over any distance. This would be a very large system initially but would reduce in size as technology improved. This might also not appear for ships until a while after it appeared for pops.

3) Some type of jump-capable drone, similar to Starfire courier drones. The problem here would be explaining why these drones could jump but the minimum size for a ship's jump drive is 15 HS and also why you couldn't put a warhead on them, so this is probably not a realistic option.

4) Mini-jump gates that don't allow ships to pass through them but do allow communications.

Steve

[Erik L]

I have been playing around with jump-capable survey ships since reading Erik's reply to my initial message.  I'm very happy with the flexibility this strategy brings, but I'm still concerned about the communications issue.  I think that this is just something that I'm going to have to factor in as a risk for survey groups.  

The part that concerns me is that generally, in my universes at least, my survey groups go out for an undefined amount of time, usually based on how long they can continue to work before running out of spares or fuel.  During this time they generally don't check back in with the home base, unless they make a major re-deployment to another warp chain.  This means that the home base would have no idea that they are missing, if they got into trouble, until they were at least a year or more overdue.  The alternatives are either checking in periodically, and wasting fuel, time, and spares, or including a scout/courier that can return and check in regularly to let the home base know nothing is wrong.  

This is very similar to the age of sail when ships could be out of contact with home for years at a time. Captains and fleet commanders had a lot of responsibility and might even get their nation into a war that no one at home knew about for several months. Of course, the communication aspect of Aurora is not built into the game system anywhere apart from my own rule that only jump gates allow communication. There are a few alternatives to the current system that I have considered.

1) Allow all ships to remain in communication through some type of technobabble long range comm system

2) Have a new tech line for 'hypercom' communication systems, with both ground-based and ship-based systems. These permit instant communication between any two pops/ships equipped with the system over any distance. This would be a very large system initially but would reduce in size as technology improved. This might also not appear for ships until a while after it appeared for pops.

3) Some type of jump-capable drone, similar to Starfire courier drones. The problem here would be explaining why these drones could jump but the minimum size for a ship's jump drive is 15 HS and also why you couldn't put a warhead on them, so this is probably not a realistic option.

4) Mini-jump gates that don't allow ships to pass through them but do allow communications.

Steve

I vote for Option 2.

[Kurt (OP)]

1) Allow all ships to remain in communication through some type of technobabble long range comm system

2) Have a new tech line for 'hypercom' communication systems, with both ground-based and ship-based systems. These permit instant communication between any two pops/ships equipped with the system over any distance. This would be a very large system initially but would reduce in size as technology improved. This might also not appear for ships until a while after it appeared for pops.

3) Some type of jump-capable drone, similar to Starfire courier drones. The problem here would be explaining why these drones could jump but the minimum size for a ship's jump drive is 15 HS and also why you couldn't put a warhead on them, so this is probably not a realistic option.

4) Mini-jump gates that don't allow ships to pass through them but do allow communications.

Steve

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this situation, I'm just noting that lack of communications is a problem that must be accounted for in your deployments.  In fact, I like the situation as it is, and wouldn't want to see anything like a "hyper-com" until very late in the game.  

Kurt

[Erik L]

1) Allow all ships to remain in communication through some type of technobabble long range comm system

2) Have a new tech line for 'hypercom' communication systems, with both ground-based and ship-based systems. These permit instant communication between any two pops/ships equipped with the system over any distance. This would be a very large system initially but would reduce in size as technology improved. This might also not appear for ships until a while after it appeared for pops.

3) Some type of jump-capable drone, similar to Starfire courier drones. The problem here would be explaining why these drones could jump but the minimum size for a ship's jump drive is 15 HS and also why you couldn't put a warhead on them, so this is probably not a realistic option.

4) Mini-jump gates that don't allow ships to pass through them but do allow communications.

Steve

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this situation, I'm just noting that lack of communications is a problem that must be accounted for in your deployments.  In fact, I like the situation as it is, and wouldn't want to see anything like a "hyper-com" until very late in the game.  

Kurt

Maybe in addition to size, early versions take longer over distance, i.e. 1 jump = 1 month time and scale it down as the technology progresses.

[sloanjh]

1) Allow all ships to remain in communication through some type of technobabble long range comm system

2) Have a new tech line for 'hypercom' communication systems, with both ground-based and ship-based systems. These permit instant communication between any two pops/ships equipped with the system over any distance. This would be a very large system initially but would reduce in size as technology improved. This might also not appear for ships until a while after it appeared for pops.

3) Some type of jump-capable drone, similar to Starfire courier drones. The problem here would be explaining why these drones could jump but the minimum size for a ship's jump drive is 15 HS and also why you couldn't put a warhead on them, so this is probably not a realistic option.

4) Mini-jump gates that don't allow ships to pass through them but do allow communications.

Steve

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this situation, I'm just noting that lack of communications is a problem that must be accounted for in your deployments.  In fact, I like the situation as it is, and wouldn't want to see anything like a "hyper-com" until very late in the game.  

Kurt

I agree with Kurt - the jump-gate network already acts as a very expensive long-range communication system.  If you feel this is an issue that needs to be addressed, I actually like this option:

3a) Cut minimum jump-drive size to 10 (or even 5) HS.  

(surprise surprise ) This would allow one to build low-cost "message sloops" that would still have to carry the message between systems or be deployed as a chain of pickets.

Another idea:  ooops - that was your #4.  I really like this one, since it's a low-maintenance version of the chain of pickets, with a lot less bookkeeping.

This brings up a couple of questions about jump gates:
A)  If I've got a jump gate on only one side of a WP, which way(s) does the communications link run?  I've been thinking it's "from the gate side to the other side"
B)  Do the jump gates report when something transits them?  In other words, do I need to stick a picket next to them to see bad guys go through?
C)  Do the jump gates have sensors?  This is pretty much the same as the last question - if I were building one, I'd have a set of passives on each side so I knew what was in the neighborhood.

Thanks,
John

[sloanjh]

I have been playing around with jump-capable survey ships since reading Erik's reply to my initial message.  I'm very happy with the flexibility this strategy brings, but I'm still concerned about the communications issue.  I think that this is just something that I'm going to have to factor in as a risk for survey groups.  

The part that concerns me is that generally, in my universes at least, my survey groups go out for an undefined amount of time, usually based on how long they can continue to work before running out of spares or fuel.  During this time they generally don't check back in with the home base, unless they make a major re-deployment to another warp chain.  This means that the home base would have no idea that they are missing, if they got into trouble, until they were at least a year or more overdue.  The alternatives are either checking in periodically, and wasting fuel, time, and spares, or including a scout/courier that can return and check in regularly to let the home base know nothing is wrong.  

This is very similar to the age of sail when ships could be out of contact with home for years at a time. Captains and fleet commanders had a lot of responsibility and might even get their nation into a war that no one at home knew about for several months.
Steve

My jump ships are doing a lot of running home to "report in" (and refuel) - much more than would happen in an optimal planned economy.  I'm role-playing the fact that home base would want to know what was going on, and would design SOP to avoid a "missing, presumed lost" situation.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

This brings up a couple of questions about jump gates:
A)  If I've got a jump gate on only one side of a WP, which way(s) does the communications link run?  I've been thinking it's "from the gate side to the other side"
B)  Do the jump gates report when something transits them?  In other words, do I need to stick a picket next to them to see bad guys go through?
C)  Do the jump gates have sensors?  This is pretty much the same as the last question - if I were building one, I'd have a set of passives on each side so I knew what was in the neighborhood.

Jump gates only allow communication when there is one of each side of a jump point. If you look at the galactic map (F11), the communication links are in red rather than green. Jump gates have no sensors and as of v1.7 can be used by anyone. As there is no longer 'ownership' of jump gates after they have been built, that wouldn't fit in with sensor reports.

What I usually do is try and find some convenient asteroids or comets and seed them with deep space tracking stations to keep an eye on traffic within my empire. Three or four DSTS on an asteroid provide good coverage and are very difficult for an opponent to detect. Even then, you could add a few missile silos in case anyone gets too curious

Steve