Best default & conditional orders for survey/scouts (and design strategy).

[Panpiper (OP)]

I've had fair success with the build/orders of my exploration/survey scouts thus far.  However I find myself having to micromanage them as they reach the end of their designed deployment duration.  I need to manually send them home for shore leave and overhaul.  A related issue is that perhaps oddly, I find that when they have reached the point where their morale is dropping, they still have a good 80% of their fuel reserves left, despite (or perhaps because of) my having given them enough to last the duration of their deployment.  Furthermore, they also seem to usually have most of their maintenance supplies still.  I do build their maintenance to outlast their duration, but I am thinking now this may be a mistake. 

I am noticing that there is a conditional order that could in theory send a ship into overhaul automatically.  However there does not seem to be any realistic way to trigger that other than on the condition of either their fuel or supplies running low. 

What is an optimum way to design scouts so that they will last a long time, many years of exploration, but shortly before they reach the point where their morale starts to drop, they automatically trigger an overhaul order? (Note I am assuming an overhaul also tops off their fuel and maintenance supplies, 'and' gives the crew shore leave. )

Up till now, I gave my 6000 ton scouts a crew duration of six years (72 months) and enough engineering spaces to give it slightly over six years of maintenance life.  I do 'not' give them maintenance storage bays, as extending their maintenance life to the same duration with a maintenance bay is actually heavier than doing so with engineering spaces.  They have their own military jump drive (self only) and two each of grav and geo sensors.  I have been giving them three large fuel storage which can keep their engines going for most of that six years.  Apparently though, they spend most of their time not burning their engines.  It would appear that I could perhaps dump some or much of that fuel, extend their crew and maintenance life out even further (with the space that frees up), then set the orders to trigger an overhaul when the fuel runs low.  Does this seem like a good idea to the more experienced players? (I am still very much the newbie to Aurora. )

By the way, I have found that by setting the primary default order to 'Survey Nearest Planet or Moon' and the secondary default order to 'Survey Nearest Survey Location', I can order a scout into an unexplored jump point and forget about it.  The scout will on it's own do a geo survey of all the planets and moons, and once that is done, will survey all the possible jump points, all on it's own.  The events log (which I have set to display on my system screen) makes it very clear which scouts have run out of something to do, so you know when to order them through a new jump point.  (Note, they do not survey asteroids this way. )

[Michael Sandy]

I divide scouts into three main categories:
1) System scouts.  The job of a system scout is to scout jump points and find out what threats are there.  Optimization concerns are spending the least amount, but finding out as fast as possible what jump points are safe to explore further.  So bare bones fighter jump scouts can be very cheap and effective for that.  Requires reduced sized engineering systems, endurance >60 billion km

2) Fleet scouts/forward observers: These are relatively short ranged, with boosted engines.  Goal is to have them faster than any detected enemies, so they can track and shadow them.  I build variants with 1 HS for sensors and 3 HS for sensors.

3) Fleet sanitization:  These are sensors designed to detect all threats around a fleet as it moves, instead of scouting ahead of a fleet to a known enemy base.  Instead of building small sensors on specialized platforms, this is about building ginormous sensors that you really don't want to have to research again.  Low end fleet sanitization, might involve a 9 HS sensor.  Something you could fit into a fighter pod, and therefore change out as more advanced sensors became available.  High end, over 30 HS, say, are expensive in terms of research and tooling.  Such scouts really aren't expendable, unless you keep a shipyard completely dedicated to building them.  Which is a significant resource commitment.

[Father Tim]

Survey ships do indeed spend most of their time stationary; not burning their engines.  Earning Grav or Geo survey points is done parked.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

AFAIK, an overhaul does not refuel or resupply a ship, it just resets the age clock.  That it counts as shore-leave is entirely coincidental, and if the overhaul finishes first, the clock will start to run up again.  Engineering spaces have the advantage of reducing the failure rate, which can really save MSP.

6kt is rather bulky for a survey ship, and am I reading that right that you combine geo and grav survey into a single design?  Ouch.  It would be more efficient to specialize so you can geosurvey and gravsurvey at the same time.  A small jump tender/tanker combo can save a lot of cost early game while providing support if you accidentally run something out of fuel.

The smallest practical commercial geosurvey ship is 2.5kt due to commercial engine size restrictions.  Practical military designs can be built down to 1k, especially mid-to-late game.  Some people even build 500t survey fighters so they don't have to use shipyards.  Gravsurvey ships must be military, but otherwise follow the same pattern.  A military jump drive can be fitted to a commercial ship and can jump both types, so a high endurance jump tender/tanker combo can further save weight and cost per ship until you get jump efficiency up.  These should be at least as large as your largest surveyor, but not over 3kt due to jump drive limits.  Once you research Jump Efficiency 10 you may want to consider self-jumping surveyors.

This is an old gravsurvey ship from my current game.  It took several of these to survey a system in one run.  In retrospect, a longer endurance 2.5kt - 3kt design might have been better.  Something to test next game.

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RSG Ise 2 class Gravsurvey Ship    1 000 tons     22 Crew     200.4 BP      TCS 20  TH 12  EM 0
1200 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/2/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 18.05 Years     MSP 250    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 22    Max Repair 150 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   

24 EP 50% Ion Drive (1)    Power 24    Fuel Use 0.81%    Signature 12    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 111.1 billion km   (1071 days at full power)

Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This is the latest prototype.  It should survey a single system by itself before needing an overhaul and is self jumping.

Code: [Select]

RSGJ Ise 5 class Gravsurvey Ship    1 000 tons     22 Crew     367.4 BP      TCS 20  TH 6.4  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/5/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 9.1 Years     MSP 253    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 6    5YR 83    Max Repair 300 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 30 months    Spare Berths 0   

J1200(1-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 1200 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
10HS 80 EP 8% Solid Core AM Drive (1)    Power 80    Fuel Use 0.32%    Signature 6.4    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 281.3 billion km   (813 days at full power)

Phased Gravitational Sensors (1)   5 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Garfunkel]

Put in more survey sensors. Even Improved or Advanced Geo/Grav surveys only provide few points per sensor. This is the most common issue with "self-guided" "fire & forget" surveys: due to small amount of survey points generated per hour, the ships spend far more time parked than moving. So double or even triple the amount of sensors and you'll see the fuel going down more in line with deployment time and maintenance supplies.

Unfortunately, the answer to your other question is "no good way". There are too many variables and not enough options to fully automate surveying of multiple systems. Thus, as others stated, it's generally best to optimise your survey efforts into doing one systems as efficiently and as automated as possible, leaving you to micro-manage what happens between systems.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

Put in more survey sensors. Even Improved or Advanced Geo/Grav surveys only provide few points per sensor. This is the most common issue with "self-guided" "fire & forget" surveys: due to small amount of survey points generated per hour, the ships spend far more time parked than moving. So double or even triple the amount of sensors and you'll see the fuel going down more in line with deployment time and maintenance supplies.

Unfortunately, the answer to your other question is "no good way". There are too many variables and not enough options to fully automate surveying of multiple systems. Thus, as others stated, it's generally best to optimise your survey efforts into doing one systems as efficiently and as automated as possible, leaving you to micro-manage what happens between systems.

It also helps to keep in mind that geosurvey and gravsurvey are somewhat different animals.  The number of bodies, the number of points per body, and the distances involved can vary greatly from system to system.  While the distances and points vary, there are always exactly 30 gravsurvey locations in a known configuration.  Also, don't neglect surveying asteroids.  They often have worthwhile mineral deposits, and comets are almost guaranteed to be worth mining.

In fairness, the only way to have enough options to cover every use case would be to support player-side scripting, and Steve is fully justified in NOPEing that.

[Garfunkel]

Yup, agreed.

And that's why I tend to keep Grav and Geo surveys on separate ships. Because GSV always needs lot of fuel going through those 30 locations, which might be REALLY far out in the system. So whether they spend 6, 12 or 24 hours at each survey point is not that important. Whereas a GEV might have to survey 300+ bodies, most of which are clustered fairly close together, and you don't want it to spend six months doing that.

[Titanian]

Problem is though that automated orders only update after an increment, so your automated geosurveys will at maximum do 5 bodies per increment. When usually doing 5-day increments, and taking into account that most bodies are small and near each other (asteroid belts), having one basic geo sensor is more than enough in most cases, as your ship will spend most of the time of the increment waiting for an order update anyway. Planets, for which the survey might take several days with only one sensor, are most often so far away from each other that the biggest part is travel time anyway, so a better sensor won't really help here, too.

[Garfunkel]

I do exclusively 1-day increments with auto-turn on, so it works for me.

[littleWolf]

for survay task in system i use fighter-size  stealth-scouts: 

Pioneer-G - Copy class Fighter-Scout    500 tons     17 Crew     143 BP      TCS 10  TH 4.8  EM 0
2000 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 20.8 Years     MSP 179    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 1    5YR 12    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 25 months    Spare Berths 0   

10 EP IFD eco (2)    Power 10    Fuel Use 7%    Signature 2.4    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 77.1 billion km   (446 days at full power)
Thermal Sensor TH0.2-1 (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

Pioneer-J class Fighter-Scout    500 tons     17 Crew     143 BP      TCS 10  TH 4.8  EM 0
2000 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 20.8 Years     MSP 179    AFR 2%    IFR 0%    1YR 1    5YR 12    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 25 months    Spare Berths 0   

10 EP IFD eco (2)    Power 10    Fuel Use 7%    Signature 2.4    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 77.1 billion km   (446 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH0.2-1 (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

and stealth light carrier for him:

Kresta class Light Carrier    20 000 tons     409 Crew     4078.8 BP      TCS 400  TH 480  EM 0
5000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 4-65     Shields 0-0     Sensors 220/220/0/0     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 0
Maint Life 4.01 Years     MSP 3912    AFR 213%    IFR 3%    1YR 389    5YR 5839    Max Repair 286 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 50 months    Flight Crew Berths 120   
Hangar Deck Capacity 3000 tons     

J20000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 20000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
200 EP IFD s10 silent std (10)    Power 200    Fuel Use 36%    Signature 48    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 3 000 000 Litres    Range 75.0 billion km   (173 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH20-220 (1)     Sensitivity 220     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  220m km
EM Detection Sensor EM20-220 (1)     Sensitivity 220     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  220m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Jump to system, hide near JP, take off  scouts and send him to survay.  If carrier detect incoming missiles or enemy active scanners  - immidiatelly  jump out from system.

[Michael Sandy]

If you have a survey ship in a task force with a +60 survey commander, that has a commander with +survey, has a decent grade and survey officer themselves, they can generate as much as 3 times as many survey points as they would otherwise.  This can significantly reduce the need for higher tech survey equipment.