Gunboat survey vessels

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

I was looking over some of the early survey designs and was wondering about the utility of building them with gunboat engines.

They would of course need a jump capable tender, but if a race has plenty of fuel and refining capability, it might be an interesting tactic.

I was thinking of one internal bay on the tender, and tractors for towing additional FACs.

The racial theory would be that building the geosurvey boats small would reduce the number of personnel lost (no bridge) in the event of a hostile encounter.  Plus, the peacetime use of FACs for surveys would build up the number of potential carrier ships in time of war.  And the slips designed for survey boats could be quickly converted into armed FACs.

The deployment strategy would be that any colony that could support a maintainence facility would have a scout FAC attached to it.

[Brian Neumann]

You could put a gunboat engine on a survey vessel.  The biggest problem that I can see is the increased fuel use,  As gunboat engines use fuel 10 times faster than a regular engine keeping them in fuel would be hard.  As you can build something the size of a gunboat without using the gunboat engine, I think that would be my choise.  Here is a sample of an early survey ship built on a gunboat frame.

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Geo-Survey class Geosurvey Ship    1000 tons     103 Crew     281.4 BP      TCS 20  TH 57  EM 0
2850 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 4%    IFR: 0.1%    Maintenance Capacity 352 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

Ion Engine E6.3 econ (1)    Power 57    Efficiency 0.63    Signature 57    Armour 0    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 142.9 billion km   (580 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points

This design is classed as a non-combatant for maintenance purposes
For such early tech it is actually a fairly good survey vessel.  It has one great drawback in not having any active sensors or em sensors.  For a survey squadron, I would probably want a scout with regular engines along as well to check out any planets in system.

Brian

[Charlie Beeler]

I sort of went that direction with the Federation.  But stuck with a fullsized engine for the endurance.  It was actually the base concept I used for my Spruance scout sloops.

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Essex B class Survey Ship    1000 tons     97 Crew     269 BP      TCS 20  TH 40  EM 0
2000 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 5%    IFR: 0.1%    Maintenance Capacity 252 MSP    Max Repair 100 MSP

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 (civ) (1)    Power 40    Efficiency 0.90    Signature 40    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 75,000 Litres    Range 150.0 billion km   (868 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points

This design is classed as a non-combatant for maintenance purposes

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

I was thinking it might be interesting to have a race that wanted to reign in the possible independence of survey ships by making them dependent on a mother ship for fuel.

For surveying the first few systems close to the home system, I think that the gunboat engine might have some advantages, assuming the race in question was limited by resources Other than fuel.  In terms of surveying accomplished per month for the same amount of build points, the gunboat engined survey boats would have an advantage.  Also, if they did run into a nasty, they would have more chance of running away and ditching pursuit instead of leading them to the entrance to the system.

[Erik L]

Now imagine the Civilian survey vessels... They are designed on the same as the "Military" designs...  

[James Patten]

I prefer to use gunboat survey vessels, using a carrier equipped with jump engines to do the heavy lifting.  Add a decent size tanker to the fleet and you've got a survey force that is most times superior to single survey craft.

My current game's survey craft have speeds of around 9000 kms and endurance of around 45 days in a 700 ton ship.  This makes most surveys relatively simple and fairly quick.

Drawbacks are when you have a very large system, either in terms of lots of planets/asteroids, large distances between grav survey points, or orbiting stars that are waaay out there.  Then you've got to carefully juggle fuel consumption and plan on how you can rescue ships stranded many days travel out.  Usually I send another survey ship out to the stranded ship, feed it enough fuel to get somewhere(but not enough to strand the rescue ship, if it's that far out), return to the mother ship and repeat as necessary.  

This is a frequent occurance in early designs, with the Nuclear Pulse Engines and the next generation engine.  Later techs allow me to get out and back nearly always.

Some planets that are too far out I leave until I get Hyperdrive tech down in size, then I may build a stand-alone survey craft for those hard to reach places.

[waresky]

"One-purpouse Multi-role" ships r only Utopistic.
nebula,Giants Systems,too many JP to Syrvey or too many Bodyes..

ive some ships for various Efforts.
Tender Survey with Hangar for 5 of them,then fast Survey onboard,and tanker on supplementary
Scout-Courier
Science Survey Armored Cruiser,Jumper,armed,stand-alone ship.For troubles systems
Simple Geo and Grav survey (standard) in 5 pack but with an Jumper Tender togheter.

etc.etc..

[waresky]

I was thinking it might be interesting to have a race that wanted to reign in the possible independence of survey ships by making them dependent on a mother ship for fuel.

For surveying the first few systems close to the home system, I think that the gunboat engine might have some advantages, assuming the race in question was limited by resources Other than fuel.  In terms of surveying accomplished per month for the same amount of build points, the gunboat engined survey boats would have an advantage.  Also, if they did run into a nasty, they would have more chance of running away and ditching pursuit instead of leading them to the entrance to the system.

Dear friend--
Ive lost an CG and "nasty" come very fast..or u have an VERY fastest ship than a missiles (from a planets for EG) or u lost ship everytime u encounter nasty:)

When nasty comes..neverone r ready to flee.Sure that.
War experience tell me that.

So better u build a cheap survey..long run,good fuel consumer.Better sensor array.