Task Forces, Strike Craft, and other random questions

[ddblackhawk (OP)]

Hello!  I'm about to start designing what I hope to be the backbone of my fleets (Missile Armed Cruisers, with Light to Medium Carriers as a long range reserve) and I was wondering about the bonuses Task Force officers give ships that are assigned to a particular Task Force.   From what I understand the Task Force Officers only give bonuses to ships in the same system, so should I create a Task Force for each Fleet I have?

My current OOB looks like this:

Code: [Select]

HM High Command (the Task Force)
-01st Fleet
--Ships in 1st fleet (currently 2 Escort Task Groups with 6 warships for each Task Group)
--Patrol Squadrons
---Ships in Patrol Squadrons (4 Light Patrol Task Groups of 4 warships each)
-Fighter Command
--Strike Craft Squadrons
-Logistics
--Salvage ships, Colliers, Tankers, Tugs etc.
-Merchant Stuff
--Terra-forming Bases, Freighters, Colonisation ships, etc.
-System Defence
--Various Colonised Systems (currently only Sol)
---PDC's

-HM Survey Command (My survey task force)
--GEV's
--GSV's

Obviously as I only have one fleet at the moment my question isn't a pressing matter, but once I have more than one fleet what would be the best way to handle this?

My second question is regarding Strike Craft (small ships under 500 tons).   I am planning on using missile armed 500 ton bombers to give my fleets a good alpha strike, but as I haven't got much combat experience I was wondering about how effective Gauss cannon turret armed fighters would be against either enemy strike craft or incoming missiles? Are they useful or would I be better off using the space for more PD?

Lastly, I was fighting an NPR - or Precursors, I'm not sure which, though I haven't been able to communicate with them so maybe it's the second - and I noticed that I had a 20 second delay between ordering my ships to open fire on incoming missiles and my ships actually shooting.   Am I right in assuming this is because the grade bonus was very low?  Does this delay with firing, and moving go away?  Also, what does the TF Training % mean and/or do?

Thanks,
ddblackhawk

[Jorgen_CAB]

Your Task-force is a flag staff that you can ship around on a flag-ship or you can station them on a planet. If you want them to board a ship that ship must contain a flag-bridge.

Your Task-force commander and his staff will give your whole fleet some bonuses, such as TF training, Increased logistics, Fighter rearming and launch on carriers, survey mission bonuses, intelligence reports on enemy ships, interrogation efforts on captured enemies, increase the fleets PPV value (the value that keeps people happy because there are ships in the system)

In general you want to have one fleet for every system where you have a population and some form of defence force. If you have the admirals to spare that is. Personally I actually promote officers if I don't have enough using SM controls. But I never demote any officers once they are promoted.

Personally I like to keep my Rear Admirals as system commander ans Vice admirals as fleet commander and higher level admirals are commander of sector capital systems.

Commodores might be assigned to a Task-force if it is very small for some reason, otherwise Commodores are generally Task-group commanders.

You can generally run the game with one single fleet (task-force) if you like. The bonuses are nice but not necessary, task-forces will give you a sense of having a real military organization though. An yes, the commander only give bonuses to ships in the same system.

Gauss armed fighter crafts are good for engaging FAC and other smaller vessels that can't really defend themselves. Don't go near any ships with adequate defences though, they will be destroyed pretty fast. I would only keep a couple of beam fighters on each carrier to use when the opportunity arise.

You should not put turrets on fighter crafts, their tracking is equal to their speed and gauss armed fighter should have as much speed as possible. Just remember to give the a beam fire-control that matches their speed. Fighters are decent support for PD but not as good as a dedicated gauss turret on a ship.

The delay you are experiencing is that you fleet lack fleet training. Once ship are built their crew must perform fleet training. You will experience these delays until the ship has a 100% fleet training. The higher the fleet training and crew grade the less this penalty will be.
You should generally not target enemy missiles by hand. use the PD tools and your ships will engage them automatically without any delays.

[ddblackhawk (OP)]

Thanks for the reply Jorgen =).

I found a planet with lots of minerals, and two of them at 0. 7 or better, but the terraforming / colony cost is x32, how viable would using orbital habitats to house my colonists while I mine the minerals be?  Are orbitals worth using for anything or are they a vanity item?

ddblackhawk

[sublight]

Using Orbital Habitats with mines is viable, but using automines will be cheaper and more effective.

Orbital Habitats may be used to operate Terriforming and/or Maintenance facilities on high colony cost locations, may be included in mega-ships to allow them to be built by industry rather than shipyards, and can be used for providing crew rest locations in uncolonizable systems.


With a little effort you can find practical uses for them, but situations where their use is optimal over ship-component versions of the above are extraordinarily rare.

[ddblackhawk (OP)]

Hmm, so it would probably best for me to just design a minimalist version for now until I have spare minerals.

More questions 

I have been terraforming Mars, the atmosphere is breathable and consists of 0. 49 Nitrogen, 0. 17 Carbon Dioxide, and 0. 2 Oxygen, I am adding Nitrogen up to 0. 6 atm.   The current surface temperature is 13. 25C  will this rise due to greenhouse gas?

Also I have placed a Level 2 Deep Space Tracking Station on Io, how do I know if it's working or not?  I have a level 5 on Earth and when I look at the sensor radius on the map I can see it clearly, but when I look around Io I can't see any blue passive sensor circle thingy.

Lastly do the asteroids laying on planetary orbits also orbit with the planets or do I have to turn on Asteroid orbiting?

ddblackhawk

[Garfunkel]

Planetary Sensor Strength is also increased by the population (abstracted civilian sensors). Since Io has no civilian population, it's strength will be quite a bit less when compared to Earth.

Greenhouse gasses will improve the temperature of a planet.

If they are classed as asteroids in the system window (F9), I would imagine that they need Asteroid orbiting to be toggled on. However, I haven't actually tested this yet, so don't take me to court over it.

One good thing about OH's is that civ liners will never transport colonists to them. Thus, if you want to ensure that civ's don't do their famous death dumps, use OH's to operate on a planet if you want to use planetary terraformers, for example, over orbital terraforming bases. You could even combine both - build a terraforming base that also houses couple of orbital habitats, use industry to build it and then tug it over Venus.

[Bgreman]

Planetary Sensor Strength is also increased by the population (abstracted civilian sensors). Since Io has no civilian population, it's strength will be quite a bit less when compared to Earth.

Unless something has changed drastically, this isn't true (Planetary Sensor Strength is determined only by your planetary sensor tech and the number of DSTS at the population).  Can you link me to where you found this information?

[Steve Walmsley]

Unless something has changed drastically, this isn't true (Planetary Sensor Strength is determined only by your planetary sensor tech and the number of DSTS at the population).  Can you link me to where you found this information?

That's correct. The only factors for Planetary Sensor Strength are planetary sensor tech and the number of DSTS at the population. The size of the population will affect how far it away it can be detected though.

[ddblackhawk (OP)]

Ahh, brilliant, I just need more then to reach the outer system.  =)

[Garfunkel]

I could have sworn they were described like that in the Wiki... but they're not. I have no idea why I thought that was true. 

[Paul M]

I have been terraforming Mars, the atmosphere is breathable and consists of 0. 49 Nitrogen, 0. 17 Carbon Dioxide, and 0. 2 Oxygen, I am adding Nitrogen up to 0. 6 atm.   The current surface temperature is 13. 25C  will this rise due to greenhouse gas?

If you look at the planetary temperature formula it is base*albedo*green_house_factor

For mars you have an albedo of 1 so that is not critical. (or maybe it is higher but my memory is that it is just 1)

Green_House_Factor = 1+(total pressure/10)+(Greenhousepressure) with the total G_H_F capped at 3.  So even a place with 50 atm of CO2 for an atmosphere would only have a G_H_F of 3.

So for your current conditions you have a G_H_F = 1+(0.86/10)+(0.17) = 1.256
If you continue to add N2 to your atmosphere until the total pressure is 1 atm then you will end up with a total G_H_F of 1.27 (not significantly greater than what you have now).
If you want Mars to be warmer you could add another greenhouse gas to the mix (5% water for example) which would give you a G_H_F of 1.32 at 1 atm total pressure.

I'm a bit confused by your 13.25°C surface temperature as the base is 225 K and to get what you say you need a 1.27 modifier which is for 1 atm total pressure not your current 0.86 atm pressure.  I'm fairly sure it would not be healthy to be breathing in 17% CO2...from a bit of googling you are in a lethal concentration range for most humans so far as I can see.  Normal concentration is 0.035%...you have 17%!

Added in Edit:  I really need to check this tonight when I can access my game because the numbers don't seem to be working as they should if my memory of the formula is correct.  I'll double check and re-edit as necessary.  I was looking at my mars and there is something wacky there...225*1*1.022 = 229.95 K and instead I see 228.9 K...so either my memory is wrong or else something is fubar.

Added in Edit 2:  Ok I just looked at my game and one thing is definitly fubar.  That one thing is H20 is apparently not a greenhouse gas...which is rather amusing given it is the most effective of the greenhouse gases (something those websites that try to show that climate change isn't due to us humans emitting CO2 love to bring up).  But the formula above is correct and the values my game reports agree with what I calculate using it (now that I understand that H20 isn't a greenhouse gas) so I don't know why it is 13.25°C and not something lower.

[metalax]

Albedo does increase if you are terraforming a planet which has ice deposits when they melt, though Mars only increases from 1 to 1.015(Actually this could be from 1.01 to 1.02, the terraforming screen lists it as 1.01, the event log when the ice melts lists it as 1.015 and the system information screen lists it as 1.02).

For levels of CO2, 7% is hitting the rapidly lethal range, 4% can safely be breathed for a week with no ill effects, 3% for over a month and 2% pretty much indefinitely(figures are from the wikipedia article but they match what I recall from when I looked this up a few years back). Some people however are more sensitive and start suffering ill effects at 1%. Also note that the tolerable quantity doesn't increase if you increase the total atmospheric pressure, the tolerable partial pressures remain the same.

The games doesn't treat water as a greenhouse gas. The only gasses that are treated as greenhouse gasses, i.e. provide greenhouse pressure, that do not also render the atmosphere unbreathable are CO2 and safe greenhouse gas.

In order to get an earth like atmosphere on Mars I typically use

0.2 Oxygen
0.633 Nitrogen
0.01 Argon
0.02 Carbon Dioxide
0.137 Safe Greenhouse gas

This gives a surface temperature of 14.07 degrees.

Your calc may be off due to the displayed values for albedo and greenhouse factor being rounded while the actual temperature is calculated using the correct values.

edit: and you edited while I was posting