Survey Vessels

[Michael Sandy]

Another question:
How do you organize your survey fleets?  Go for concentrated survey efforts with all the survey ships in one fleet?

Lots of small survey ships that can disperse, go to the waypoints, and survey, or larger, more capable survey ships that can complete each waypoint faster?

I am at a loss as to how to do a mathematical comparison of the relative advantages.

By having a large number of small survey ships the ratio of survey cost to jump engine cost is good, but there are other considerations.  Smaller ships spend more on armor.  With the same payload/engine ratio, smaller ships will therefore be slower.

Trying to figure out how to quantify the problem:
Assuming a certain ratio of engines/survey instruments, the amount of time spent travelling from waypoint to waypoint will be the same whether dealing with one ship or multiple ships.

So what kind of ratio of time spent on waypoints to travelling should one shoot for?  Do multiple ships spend a larger percentage of time travelling?

Compare, I dunno, one ship with 24 survey instruments and three with 8.
One ship flies to a waypoint, spends a third of the time the others do, then flies to the next.  The three survey group gets three times the flight time covered at once, for the same amount of idle survey instrument time.

Of course, with more than three survey ships the total distance travel does increase.

Sheer wild-ass guessing, two survey ships are definitely better than one, three is somewhat better, and beyond six it gets more inefficient.

[wildfire142 (OP)]

uptil now used fleets of six plus jump tender, now trying fleets of six all jump cabable, just scattering them down system lines, jump in survey everything move on then come back for supplies every now and again.

[Michael Sandy]

Compared to the costs of researching the 4-ship or 100,000 km capability, the cost of researching the jump drive itself is fairly low.

And for the size ship involved it is the difference between a size 42 jump engine that costs 441 BP and a size 32 jump engine that costs 256 BP.

And the research project cost for the small jump engine is 1200 RP.

Hmmm.  Running the numbers, I found something weird:
Comparing the size 15, size 20 and size 30 jump engines, the ratio of Sorium to Duranium was all over the map.

The prototype Jump Engine lists at 50 tons Sorium, 50 tons Duranium.  However, with any researched version of the jump engine, the ratio is 4 to 1, Sorium to Duranium, or 80 tons Sorium, 20 tons Duranium.

Also checking the costs, I find that Jump Engines below size 20 actually make up only a small amount of a Jump Cruiser's cost.

[Michael Sandy]

Can people report back with their experiences with various survey designs?

Which is better, 2-3 larger survey vessels with survey commanders or a host of 6 smaller survey vessels?

What are good sizes for survey vessels, and what is the best balance of speed and survey instruments?

[Brian Neumann]

The 50hs survey ships that I have been trying out seem to work quite nicely.  They have 4 engines, and 3 survey instruments.  Depending on the level of armor that has been researched they have anywhere from 2 to 7 engineering units so they can stay out a long time.  
I also have been using power boosted engines on non combat ships.  It can make a major difference in their speed once the power boost is over 10%.

Survey 50 class Cruiser    2500 tons     255 Crew     831 BP      Signature 50-288
5760 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/6/0     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 1400  
Ion Engine PB-20 AR-0 (4)    Armour 0    Exp 20%

Advanced Gravitational Sensors (3)   6 Survey Points

The Jump ships for survey operations tend to be larger.  Sized for the smallest jump engine (usually a 60, sometimes a 75).  They also have one survey instrument so they can be given the same default order of surveying locations without constantly going back to change the default after splitting the fleet.

[Michael Sandy]

Interesting idea.  Building not necessarily for efficiency for ease of management.

I suppose the same factor results in the Survey ships staying out longer, using up more supply, rather than coming home to be overhauled?  Ease of management?

[wildfire142 (OP)]

have been trying out some survey vessels with 5 engineering spaces which allows them to stay out until they need an overhaul after 2-3 years so getting more productively out of them, less time spent moving to pick up supplies and more time on station.

[Michael Sandy]

So for survey vessels, have Supply approximately 60-70% of the build cost?

Steve said supply could be stored in Cargo Holds as well.  So an Atlas Jump Cruiser could have 4000 supply in those holds.  As Cargo Holds are significantly cheaper than Engineering sections, all you would need would be a standard order that whenever the Survey fleet is all together (as they would be when probing a new system), they draw supply from the Jump Cruiser.

Of course, that could be tedious bookkeeping if it could not be automated.

[wildfire142 (OP)]

Missed the point that supply could be stored in cargo holds, can you draw supplies from your own cargo holds to resupply yourself I wonder?

[Michael Sandy]

Missed the point that supply could be stored in cargo holds, can you draw supplies from your own cargo holds to resupply yourself I wonder?

Dunno.  Probably not for things like Damage Control.  And it would take unloading time, as anything having to do with the Cargo Hold does.

I started to say, "When you start getting 10,000 BP ships, perhaps they will have a Cargo Hold for longer endurance".  But if you are building a 10,000 BP ship you probably have a much higher BP/HS ratio, so paying more for the Engineering systems is worth it, as that affects how much Damage Control you can do, too.  Plus, the extra HtK is worth it, along with not having to worry about a lucky shot dumping 2000 Supply points into space.

[Brian Neumann]

Interesting idea.  Building not necessarily for efficiency for ease of management.

I suppose the same factor results in the Survey ships staying out longer, using up more supply, rather than coming home to be overhauled?  Ease of management?

Actually the idea was that they would be able to go out farther from their primary base and still get a worthwhile bit of survey done.  If it takes three months to reach the current border or explored space and then they start surveying, they would already have gone through over half of what 1 engineering space can carry.  It also allows them to be used in an emergency to supply combat units.

I have noted that with the power boost these ships tend to be almost twice as fast as the warships are.

Brian

[Erik L]

Here's the designs I use (mostly).

Essex XSGe class Cruiser    5950 tons     530 Crew     1415 BP      Signature 119-250
2100 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/12     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 2200  
Nuclear Thermal Engine PB-0 AR-0 (10)    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Advanced Geological Sensors (6)   12 Survey Points

Essex XSGr class Cruiser    5950 tons     530 Crew     1415 BP      Signature 119-250
2100 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/12/0     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 2200  
Nuclear Thermal Engine PB-0 AR-0 (10)    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Advanced Gravitational Sensors (6)   12 Survey Points

And the jump cruiser that escorts them.

Lexington JC class Cruiser    7450 tons     710 Crew     1363 BP      Signature 149-225
1510 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1     Shields 0-0     Sensors 0/0/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 4200  
Nuclear Thermal Engine PB-0 AR-0 (9)    Armour 0    Exp 5%