dont worry about making scout ships have defensive capabilities, the best defense for scouting vessels is far sight mixed with high speeds. Aim for cheaper replacements and field larger swarms. , slap on the smallest most efficient engines possible and revolve your design around how far you want your scanner to reach. Keep in mind the BP difference 43/83 to your 568. Mind the fuel differences, the 250 frame has less then half your range but I consume 10k liters to your 500k. Also with a boat bay attachment you can extend the range exponentially.
Also another tip would be to construct the largest resolution 1 scanner possible and fit it on a hull, and slap the largest commercial engine on it twice with fuel for range into hundreds of billions, Knowing you possess the largest scanner your race can possess on at least a frame is pretty reassuring, with sensor drones as throwaway range extenders to boot.
Aegis class Intelligence Ship 7,850 tons 200 Crew 1064.25 BP TCS 157 TH 125 EM 0
796 km/s Armour 1-35 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 14 PPV 0
Maint Life 5.73 Years MSP 1186 AFR 35% IFR 0.5% 1YR 61 5YR 917 Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 300 months Spare Berths 0
Commercial Drive 125 v50.25.25 (1) Power 125 Fuel Use 8.84% Signature 125 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 400,000 Litres Range 103.7 billion km (1508 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor MR30-R1 (1) GPS 500 Range 30.0m km MCR 3.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
For the price of 2x the BP cost I have a scanner thats 10x as powerful as your scout vessel's. Its cheaper to build designs to radar up your territory in overlapping networks then to custom tailor ships to serve in multiple roles with any effectiveness. Granted I always build larger ships with backup redundants just in case but their cheap proximity scanners compared to these sector scanners. This way your killing machines can pack every ton with fight.
Thank you for the comment!
It is an interesting comparison to say the least. Rarely you see fighter/large sensor and a multi-purpose scout ship next to each other.
The reason behind the larger Raptor that I use (I have 3 Raptor II's now in service) was that I intended for them to be at least able to do some minimal point defence and make it easier for myself to increase their capabilities in the future (that future is basically coming in the next two years where Raptor III will enter service with three more ships of it's kind. These will have:
- improved military engine (better efficiency and less signature) which will in effect give them higher speed - this is optional as I have a new line of engines coming soon afterwards so maybe I'll withhold that until later (Raptor IIIe)
- new line of active sensor that will give them better range
- new twin turret (as opposed to single turret now] with both higher fire rate and targeting speed. We should get to 12 000 km/s easily, I will also get a new targeting sensor on
Same way the Monitor will be enhanced - better quad turrets, higher targeting speed, better engines and possibly even more fuel to extend their range. Sensor overhaul might wait.
The logic I am following here is to use a type of ship that will continually be upgraded and improved to adapt to current situation. If such thing is no longer possible there will be a new type of ship created to deal with it. I.e. for almost five decade's now I use Lilian class survey ships. They went from a conventional rocket ships to nuclear, their geosurvey sensors were improved, later they got more fuel, more efficient engines, gravitational sensors, EM and TH sensors and now I am preparing the project for Lilian IV class survey craft (they will carry shuttles and I intend to further increase their capabilities in the area of survey and independent travel).
On the other hand I can easily see your logic behind your design. Shuttles are dirt cheap and can reach as far as 18.4 billion (!!!) km. I could also increase that by more efficient engines and it would serve me well as well. And as for Aegis design, I actually consider making this one down the line. Though as was said the cost for the sensor must be incredible and I would say that size 1 is an overkill. On this range (maximum) even a 200 would be good enough to pick anything of interest at a reasonable range.