Ship design questions

[The Shadow (OP)]

OK, I just figured out that you can put commercial engines on a military craft, and this has made my head explode with the possibilities.  All the weapons and stuff still work, right?  Yet it'll still count as "commercial" for purposes of crossing jump points?  Is there any good reason not to do this for big ships?

The different uses of the word 'commercial' get confusing.  A commercial shipyard can't build anything that's classed as 'military' for maintenance purposes, right?  Even if it's using commercial engines?

Speaking of maintenance, what exactly does the "Maintenance Storage Bay" do?  The blurb when you research it makes it sounds like it's only ever good when you're orbiting a planet - is this true?  When you put it on a ship, it seems to act like a *really big* engineering section (except, I just noticed, they don't bring the actual failure rate down).  Can you use it to help maintain other ships as well?

When the conditional TG orders talk about "supply" being low as opposed to fuel, does that refer to maintenance materials?

On a final random note, does having more than one tractor beam help a tug in any way?  Or is it just the one?

EDIT:  Is gate construction persistent?  Or do you have to start over every time you get interrupted?  I'm wondering if you can use a gate constructor also as a jump tender.

[Venec]

OK, I just figured out that you can put commercial engines on a military craft, and this has made my head explode with the possibilities.  All the weapons and stuff still work, right?  Yet it'll still count as "commercial" for purposes of crossing jump points?  Is there any good reason not to do this for big ships?

Some modules are inherently military in nature (for example weapons), so even if you'd slap commercial engines on ship, having weapons will still reclassify it as military.

The different uses of the word 'commercial' get confusing.  A commercial shipyard can't build anything that's classed as 'military' for maintenance purposes, right?  Even if it's using commercial engines?

Yeah, it can't.

Speaking of maintenance, what exactly does the "Maintenance Storage Bay" do?  The blurb when you research it makes it sounds like it's only ever good when you're orbiting a planet - is this true?  When you put it on a ship, it seems to act like a *really big* engineering section (except, I just noticed, they don't bring the actual failure rate down).  Can you use it to help maintain other ships as well?

They just expand your maintenance supplies storage, no additional features.

When the conditional TG orders talk about "supply" being low as opposed to fuel, does that refer to maintenance materials?

Yes.

[Father Tim]

OK, I just figured out that you can put commercial engines on a military craft, and this has made my head explode with the possibilities.  All the weapons and stuff still work, right?  

Yes.

Yet it'll still count as "commercial" for purposes of crossing jump points?  

Yes.

Is there any good reason not to do this for big ships?

Yes, because it will still count as 'commercial' for purposes of crossing jump points.  In other words, it will be deaf, dumb, and blind for hours after transit, and thus go "BOOM!" if there is anything hostile on the other side.

[The Shadow (OP)]

OK, I just figured out that you can put commercial engines on a military craft, and this has made my head explode with the possibilities.  All the weapons and stuff still work, right?  Yet it'll still count as "commercial" for purposes of crossing jump points?  Is there any good reason not to do this for big ships?

Some modules are inherently military in nature (for example weapons), so even if you'd slap commercial engines on ship, having weapons will still reclassify it as military.

When you say "reclassify as military" do you mean:  1) give it a maintenance clock or 2) need to use military jump drives?

The first is obvious enough, and can be fixed with enough engineering spaces, but if it's the second, well... there goes my dream of having a combination commercial jump tender / jump point guardian.

How about, say, a hangar bay?  Assuming you meant option 2) above, I'm guessing that things like hangar bays are *not* 'inherently military', so you could build a carrier with commercial engines.  Correct?

Speaking of maintenance, what exactly does the "Maintenance Storage Bay" do?  The blurb when you research it makes it sounds like it's only ever good when you're orbiting a planet - is this true?  When you put it on a ship, it seems to act like a *really big* engineering section (except, I just noticed, they don't bring the actual failure rate down).  Can you use it to help maintain other ships as well?

They just expand your maintenance supplies storage, no additional features.

Right, but other ships in your fleet can benefit from those supplies even when you're not near a planet, correct?

Thanks for your other answers!

EDIT:

Yes, because it will still count as 'commercial' for purposes of crossing jump points. In other words, it will be deaf, dumb, and blind for hours after transit, and thus go "BOOM!" if there is anything hostile on the other side.

Just saw this.  Thank you, that explains a lot - I didn't realize commercial jumps did that.

It must be really hard to build big carriers and such until you have higher tech, I'm thinking.

[Venec]

When you say "reclassify as military" do you mean: 1) give it a maintenance clock or 2) need to use military jump drives?

How about, say, a hangar bay? Assuming you meant option 2) above, I'm guessing that things like hangar bays are *not* 'inherently military', so you could build a carrier with commercial engines. Correct?

It's option 1), not sure about 2) since I don't use jump engines (I'm picking fights only on jump gate connected systems

[sandman662]

In a way. Supplies are stored and used only on given ship, but you can transfer specified portion of them to other ships in fleet, either through "equilise maint" button on F12 screen, using interface in "misc" tab on individual ships details screen or add "supply ship" tag on F5 design screen and then issuing orders in F12 window.

On the class design screen, you can click "Supply Ship" in the upper right side of the screen.  Then, I would assume, it will give you a "resupply from supply ship" option in the Task Force - Actions Available window.... if the supply ship is in the same Task Group (or if the two task groups are side by side).

Again, this is an assumption (and I know what that can do)

[Steve Walmsley]

EDIT:  Is gate construction persistent?  Or do you have to start over every time you get interrupted?  I'm wondering if you can use a gate constructor also as a jump tender.

You can't stop and start construction. However, if the construction ship had a jump engine, other ships could use that jump engine to transit without interrupting construction.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

On the class design screen, you can click "Supply Ship" in the upper right side of the screen.  Then, I would assume, it will give you a "resupply from supply ship" option in the Task Force - Actions Available window.... if the supply ship is in the same Task Group (or if the two task groups are side by side).

Again, this is an assumption (and I know what that can do)

Yes, if a ship class is tagged as supply ship that opens up the various supply ship orders. You can also see the supply ship orders for all fleets if you uncheck the "Order Filtering On" checkbox

Steve

[The Shadow (OP)]

EDIT:  Is gate construction persistent?  Or do you have to start over every time you get interrupted?  I'm wondering if you can use a gate constructor also as a jump tender.

You can't stop and start construction. However, if the construction ship had a jump engine, other ships could use that jump engine to transit without interrupting construction.

Huh!  Would that still work if the construction ship was on the other side of the jump point?

[Father Tim]

Yes, no, and maybe.  But I consider it an exploit.

It breaks down like this:  Jump Gate Construction Ships may not move while building a jump gate, but a ship with a jump engine, parked on a jump point, that is used to 'ferry' a task group across the JP, doesn't actually move as far as the computer is concerned.

So if you consider the ship to be using its jump engine to open a temporary path across the jump point for other vessels to travel through, then sure, no problem.

If you, like I, consider the ship mounting the jump engine to exert some sort of field that 'picks up' the other ships - two or however many at a time - and carries them across to the other side of the JP, then no.  It requires the jumpship to move, and jumpgate construction requires the ship not to move.

[sloanjh]

Yes, no, and maybe.  But I consider it an exploit.

It breaks down like this:  Jump Gate Construction Ships may not move while building a jump gate, but a ship with a jump engine, parked on a jump point, that is used to 'ferry' a task group across the JP, doesn't actually move as far as the computer is concerned.

So if you consider the ship to be using its jump engine to open a temporary path across the jump point for other vessels to travel through, then sure, no problem.

If you, like I, consider the ship mounting the jump engine to exert some sort of field that 'picks up' the other ships - two or however many at a time - and carries them across to the other side of the JP, then no.  It requires the jumpship to move, and jumpgate construction requires the ship not to move.

Did you see the official rules change go by from Steve (when he changed the names away from transit/combat transit) that the "standard transit" is now officially opening a wormhole (your #1) rather than picking the ships up and ferrying them (your #2)?

On the other hand, I think I consider it an exploit too, since I would interpret "can't move while building a jump gate" as actually meaning "can't do anything else while building a jump gate", especially since the construction ship is probably moving around the circumference of the new gate while constructing it.

John

[sloanjh]

OK, I just figured out that you can put commercial engines on a military craft, and this has made my head explode with the possibilities.  All the weapons and stuff still work, right?  Yet it'll still count as "commercial" for purposes of crossing jump points?  Is there any good reason not to do this for big ships?

Yes.  The commercial engines are a LOT bigger than military engines, but if the ship has military systems (like hangars), then the ship will need to be built in a military yard.  Big military yards are a LOT more expensive to build than big commercial yards.  In addition, the power/weight ratio for commercial engines is lower than for military engines, meaning that the speed will saturate out (i.e. more engines doesn't significantly increase the speed) at a much lower value.  A while back I tried out commercial engines on a carrier design, but found that it ended up being a LOT bigger (remember the military yards issue) than a very similar design with military engines.  I ended up going with military engines for my military designs, even big honking ones like carriers.

Note that this is not the case for ships which don't mount military systems.  My brigade-level troop tranports are all commercial designs with commercial engines (actually, they're the same hull as my colony ships and luxury liners, I just substitute the payload and tweak the crew).

On a final random note, does having more than one tractor beam help a tug in any way?  Or is it just the one?

No, unless you think it will be going into combat.  In that case it would probably be a good idea to include multiple tractors as backup systems (and some armor too ).

John

[Shadow]

Wait. What was that?

Standard transit appears to be the normal jump the TG with said order carries out, but what's that about opening a wormhole for other ships to use? Is that squadron transit? I've always been confused by the two.

[sloanjh]

Wait. What was that?

Standard transit appears to be the normal jump the TG with said order carries out, but what's that about opening a wormhole for other ships to use? Is that squadron transit? I've always been confused by the two.

Please see this thread viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2256&p=21655&hilit=rationalised#p21655 and the follow-up posts, along with the corresponding FAQ (which probably needs updating - "squadron transit" used to be called "combat transit") then post here again if you still have questions.

John

[Shadow]

Thanks, I understand now.

Yes, the FAQ may need a minor update on terminology, so not to confuse people.