Survey Group Strategies

[sloanjh]

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.

So THAT's what the red lines mean!  I figured it just meant the jump point was fully exploited (i.e. allowed 2-way traffic), which is indistinguishable from what you said

Thanks,
John

[Kurt (OP)]

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

Wait, are you guys saying that emplacing jump gates means that I can communicate through that warp point, as long as there are gates on each side?  Or is it just that ships (with messages) can transit gates without jump engines?

And I really, really like your idea of putting listening posts, or even missile silos on an asteroid or moon of an otherwise uninhabited area.  Sneaky.  

Kurt

[sloanjh]

Wait, are you guys saying that emplacing jump gates means that I can communicate through that warp point, as long as there are gates on each side?  Or is it just that ships (with messages) can transit gates without jump engines?

Light-speed communications.  I'm pretty sure Steve doesn't have any mechanisms in the game to enforce it (except the red line on the galactic map ), but for role-playing purposes my understanding that the jump gate pair picks up the message in one system and rebroadcasts it in the next one.

This just made me realize that I'm a little confused how the communications work in 1.7.  I've been assuming I could tell the gate to send a directional signal in the next system (rather than just blaring out to everyone in the system), but if no-one owns the gates that doesn't seem quite right.

John

[Steve Walmsley]

Wait, are you guys saying that emplacing jump gates means that I can communicate through that warp point, as long as there are gates on each side?  Or is it just that ships (with messages) can transit gates without jump engines?

Yes, if you have jump gates on either side of a jump point they will relay communication like the old Starfire DSB-cc. If you look at the galactic map (F11), some of the systems are connected with red lines. Any unit or pop can instantly communicate with any other unit or pop in a different system as long as they can trace a route along the red lines. To make things easier, Aurora assumes FTL comms are used.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

This just made me realize that I'm a little confused how the communications work in 1.7.  I've been assuming I could tell the gate to send a directional signal in the next system (rather than just blaring out to everyone in the system), but if no-one owns the gates that doesn't seem quite right.

Your assumption is correct. However, as you say, if no one owns the gates that doesn't seem right. For gameplay purposes I need to gates to allow ships of any race to transit and also to allow communications. I can see two possible explanations but I am open to suggestions.

1) Jump gates broadcast omnidirectionally but there are trillions of 'wavelengths' in the hyperspace comm bands so its pretty much impossible for another race to detect your communications (unless they find out the wavelength - espionage?).

2) Jump gates have to be constructed in a very precise shape to maintain the open jump point. Therefore, its is possible to send a message into the gate at a very specific point and know (from complex maths ) the direction in which the signal will emerge.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The advantage of 1) is that it is simple and you dont need to know the exact location of the message recipient. However, any message would presumably resonate through the entire network (unless I can think of a technobabble reason why only certain gates would pick up the message and pass it on). For 2), that provides much better message security but how do you know the exact location of the recipient if its is a ship on survey duty? Although I guess ships could be sending their position through the network on a regular basis so that others could communicate with them.

Steve

[sloanjh]

This just made me realize that I'm a little confused how the communications work in 1.7.  I've been assuming I could tell the gate to send a directional signal in the next system (rather than just blaring out to everyone in the system), but if no-one owns the gates that doesn't seem quite right.

Your assumption is correct. However, as you say, if no one owns the gates that doesn't seem right. For gameplay purposes I need to gates to allow ships of any race to transit and also to allow communications. I can see two possible explanations but I am open to suggestions.

1) Jump gates broadcast omnidirectionally but there are trillions of 'wavelengths' in the hyperspace comm bands so its pretty much impossible for another race to detect your communications (unless they find out the wavelength - espionage?).

2) Jump gates have to be constructed in a very precise shape to maintain the open jump point. Therefore, its is possible to send a message into the gate at a very specific point and know (from complex maths ) the direction in which the signal will emerge.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The advantage of 1) is that it is simple and you dont need to know the exact location of the message recipient. However, any message would presumably resonate through the entire network (unless I can think of a technobabble reason why only certain gates would pick up the message and pass it on). For 2), that provides much better message security but how do you know the exact location of the recipient if its is a ship on survey duty? Although I guess ships could be sending their position through the network on a regular basis so that others could communicate with them.

Steve

The picture I had in my mind was that a jump gate could be thought of as having an "ICN WP-relay station" (in Starfire terms) associated with it.  Rather than using courier drones to pass between relay stations on either side of the WP, the gate opens a wormhole and radios through (hence the question about WPs where only one side has a gate).  In other words, I pictured in-system communications as being radio/comm laser/other electromagnetic, with the gates doing the equivalent of transferring the message from a receiver station in one system to a transmitter station in the other.  The comm station construction activity and cost is simply buried in the overall cost of the gate.

How about this idea - gates are always "on" (allow transit), but only the building race (or another race that has built/attached its own "com shack" to each side of the gate) can use it for communications?  This solves the technobabble problems of "how do I figure out someone else's protocol for sending a directional signal" and "how do I know where a moving ship is" - there's a facility at the gate that was built by you, so you can give it directions and the moving ship can register its location (and/or query for messages being held in a message buffer).  I don't know that you actually have to put a "comm shack" object into the game - it's probably cheap enough that it can just be role-played.

John

PS - fixed quoting from previous message

[Steve Walmsley]

How about this idea - gates are always "on" (allow transit), but only the building race (or another race that has built/attached its own "com shack" to each side of the gate) can use it for communications?  This solves the technobabble problems of "how do I figure out someone else's protocol for sending a directional signal" and "how do I know where a moving ship is" - there's a facility at the gate that was built by you, so you can give it directions and the moving ship can register its location (and/or query for messages being held in a message buffer).  I don't know that you actually have to put a "comm shack" object into the game - it's probably cheap enough that it can just be role-played.

That would still entail having jump gates owned by a particular race. For gameplay reasons I would prefer them to be usuable by all in all respects, like jump gates in Babylon 5 or Stargates from SG1. One of the reasons is trade but another is that if jump gates are 'owned' and that ownership confers an advantage there is a good reason to go around blowing up other people's jump gates and replacing them with your own. I hope that there may be a 'civilised' area of a galaxy in some campaigns where races are going to interact and conduct commerce without worrying about who built which gate. Of course, the 'barbarians at the gates' may blow them up anyway

It also allows me to introduce 'old' jump gates which races may find as they explore, which they will be able to immediately utilise.

Steve

[sloanjh]

How about this idea - gates are always "on" (allow transit), but only the building race (or another race that has built/attached its own "com shack" to each side of the gate) can use it for communications?  This solves the technobabble problems of "how do I figure out someone else's protocol for sending a directional signal" and "how do I know where a moving ship is" - there's a facility at the gate that was built by you, so you can give it directions and the moving ship can register its location (and/or query for messages being held in a message buffer).  I don't know that you actually have to put a "comm shack" object into the game - it's probably cheap enough that it can just be role-played.

That would still entail having jump gates owned by a particular race. For gameplay reasons I would prefer them to be usuable by all in all respects, like jump gates in Babylon 5 or Stargates from SG1. One of the reasons is trade but another is that if jump gates are 'owned' and that ownership confers an advantage there is a good reason to go around blowing up other people's jump gates and replacing them with your own. I hope that there may be a 'civilised' area of a galaxy in some campaigns where races are going to interact and conduct commerce without worrying about who built which gate. Of course, the 'barbarians at the gates' may blow them up anyway :-)

Thanks,
John

[Steve Walmsley]

Sorry - didn't make myself clear.  Each gate has a list of "owners" (those who have attached com shacks) who can use it for comms.  If com shack is zero cost (in game terms) this doesn't require any code changes.  If com shack is a component that has to be added to the gate (e.g. as a construction task) then each gate needs a list of owners.  I would go with option A

If a com shack is zero cost in game terms and doesn't require any code changes, then every race will add one to every gate and there would no difference in game terms between that and the current situation. Although, a ship would presumably still have to visit each gate to add the com shack, which adds a little micromanagement and some extra code to emplace it and track who can communicate through which gate. Also, can you use other people's com shacks to create longer communication links if they dont want you in their territory placing com shacks? If some type of minor construction task is created, then every race would still likely add a com shack to every gate they find, which adds micromanagement but no real decision-making or advantage, adds an extra layer of code to a few different areas and brings the question of can I destroy other race's com shacks, plus the code required for option A.

I think the com shack may add complexity (and work for me

Steve

[sloanjh]

Sorry - didn't make myself clear.  Each gate has a list of "owners" (those who have attached com shacks) who can use it for comms.  If com shack is zero cost (in game terms) this doesn't require any code changes.  If com shack is a component that has to be added to the gate (e.g. as a construction task) then each gate needs a list of owners.  I would go with option A

If a com shack is zero cost in game terms and doesn't require any code changes, then every race will add one to every gate and there would no difference in game terms between that and the current situation. Although, a ship would presumably still have to visit each gate to add the com shack, which adds a little micromanagement and some extra code to emplace it and track who can communicate through which gate. Also, can you use other people's com shacks to create longer communication links if they dont want you in their territory placing com shacks? If some type of minor construction task is created, then every race would still likely add a com shack to every gate they find, which adds micromanagement but no real decision-making or advantage, adds an extra layer of code to a few different areas and brings the question of can I destroy other race's com shacks, plus the code required for option A.

I think the com shack may add complexity (and work for me

Steve

That's why I suggested zero cost - 'cuz that turns it into technobabble justifying the status quo

[Paul M]

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.  
Kurt

Hi Kurt,

For my campaigns I have used 3 ships:

Seekerrh class science vessels 900T Geosurvey, and Searcher class science vessels 900T Gravsurvey are built first for the home system survey.
Diskoverrhee class deep space survey ships 3200 T Geo/Grav survey ships with jump engines are built for exploration.

I usually make 12 DSSV's and 6 GeoSV and 6 GravSV then make up 4 exploration fleets.
2 have 3 DSSVs, 3 GeoSV and 3 GravSV and 2 have 3 DSSV.

The ones with the mixed classes tend to survey quicker since the 3 DSSV group and the 3 GravSV group can deal with inner and outer survey locations faster but require a lot more micromanagement with regards to fuel since the GSVs have 20K-l tanks and the DSSVs have 100K-l tanks.  I have had to retank the GSVs a couple of times which is usually a more complex then it should be task.  Also even making the non-jump ships subordinate still means I have to give 3x the number of orders.

Couriers no and warship escorts no.

I had on a 3.5 year deployment several jump engine failures so its a good thing to have more than one ship with jump engines in the group.  I don't see it as a problem to have a dual or triple purpose survey ship.  They are more expensive yes but they simplify the logisitics considerably.  Coupled with jump tankers you can sustain a long deployment.

GeoSV vessels are useful but I find they tend to stand around a long time and often aren't of much use anyway as the system has few objects to survey.  What might be good is to have your DSSVs do grav surveys and if the system is crowded just habitable world surveys and a geoSV+jump tanker come in and follow up for a moon survey.

Actually the current situation shows why the TFN had to re-survey systems in the books because there is a big tendancy to just skip over parts of the survey.

Now all my games were very low tech so couriers and warships were not considered useful.  Probes with a DSSV is ugly though when an NPR blows one up or as in one case you need to spend a year on station to get full communciations (for all the good it does you).

But I don't like having the non-jump capable survey ships frankly.  Survey is risky enough to not need to worry about stranding ships.  For escorts again the trouble is that they accumlate a lot of time on their clocks sitting doing nothing as they can't afford to burn fuel training.  As your tech level improves I would look at lightly armed survey jump escorts and dedicated probe ship (with just geosurvey equipment but a large passive array).  I also think that again as time goes on you can look into arming the survey ships somewhat.

The big thing I found was fuel management and large stocks of maintenance spares as a jump engine is 400 you need that extra maintenance bay tech sooner or later I think.

[ShadoCat]

I think the com shack may add complexity (and work for me

Steve, why not assume that communication protocols are built into the gates.  Each gate has a unique address based on several technobabble variables.  You can also register receivers with a gate by pinging it with your receiver.  The only thing is that you have to have visited each gate to know it's code (thus messages aren't propagated through gates you don't know about).  That way, you can send a message to a specific receiver so long as you know about each gate in between.

The "pinging" is so trivial, you can assume that any gate a race knows about has been pinged and made part of the network.  So, no code.  Any gate that shows up for the player can be used for communication.

[Starkiller]

Well, I basically started as suggested in the tutorial, with specialized Geo Survey and Grav Survey squadrons. That became rather cumbersome after I had
reached three transits out from Sol, so I prepared a specialized ship to handle both chores and do it faster. She's big and expensive, but a few of these
squadrons keep the expansion going. Since the squeeze of the jump drive limits their range a bit, I designed a high speed tanker to accompany them on
extended surveys. (Due to Deep Survey Alpha running out of fuel surveying the Epsilon Eridani quadrinary system)

The Hun class survey cruiser (Always loved that TFN design, mine has no armaments though)

Code: [Select]

Hun class Survey Cruiser    12000 tons     1171 Crew     4615.4 BP      TCS 240  TH 515.2  EM 60
6133 km/s    JR 3-200     Armour 1-46     Shields 2-240     Sensors 55/55/14/14     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 384%    IFR: 5.3%    Maintenance Capacity 721 MSP    Max Repair 841 MSP

J12000(3-200) Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 12000 tons    Distance 200k km     Squadron Size 3
Magneto-plasma Drive E6.5 (16)    Power 92    Efficiency 0.65    Signature 32.2    Armour 0    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 69.2 billion km   (130 days at full power)
Gamma R240/12 Shields (1)   Total Fuel Cost  12 Litres per day

Thermal Sensor TH5-55 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (7)   14 Survey Points
Improved Geological Sensors (7)   14 Survey Points
Hospitallier class tanker for LONG range survey operations

Code: [Select]

Hospitallier class Tanker    6100 tons     475 Crew     1545.6 BP      TCS 122  TH 322  EM 0
7540 km/s     Armour 1-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 44/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 297%    IFR: 4.1%    Maintenance Capacity 158 MSP    Max Repair 80 MSP

Magneto-plasma Drive E6.5 (10)    Power 92    Efficiency 0.65    Signature 32.2    Armour 0    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 3,000,000 Litres    Range 1361.7 billion km   (2090 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH4-44 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 44     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  44m km

Now I need to slow my expansion until I colonize some of the real estate behind me.

Eric

[Brian Neumann]

I have actually found that a couple of modules of fuel harvester on my tankers drastically extend the range of the survey ships.  The tanker only moves up when a new gas giant is discovered with sorium.  While 2 modules does not sound like much, over the course of 2-4 years this can double the time the ships are out surveying.  At this point the limiter became the parts to fix the ships as they broke down.

Brian

[Starkiller]

True, but since this is my first campaign, I turned overhauls off. It was too much, trying to get a handle on such a complicated game, and having my
ships break down all the time. Once I get a better idea of how everthing functions, I do want to do another campaign with it turned back on. I like
complicated. I have Space Empires 3, 4, and 5 as well, and each version is more complicated then the last.