What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?

[MarcAFK]

I noticed the grav/geo refit problem a few days ago, try changing one of those ships to two geo sensors and two grav sensors, the refit cost from that ship should be half as much, and 250 is within 20% of 887.5 BP.

[DIT_grue]

Actually, the trick for building geo- and grav-survey ships in the same yard is to create a third class with all the survey sensors either/both of them use, and tool the yard for that.

As Iranon mentioned, the problem is the high cost of the sensors relative to the rest of the ship: refit costs are calculated as the cost of new modules plus a surcharge for any change in ship tonnage, but removing something doesn't cost a thing. So refitting from geo-survey to grav, or vice versa, is way over 20% of the BP cost of either; but going from the hybrid to either of the specialists, all you're paying for is the change in size, which is peanuts by comparison.

[AL]

Now that is nifty - I need to try that sometime, thanks

[MarcAFK]

I'm just going to redirect the discussion about multi design construction to the ships thread where I've already posted a trio of designs that can all be built from the same yard. A few more Multi designs are follow as an edit to this post: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7697.msg81613#msg81613

[83athom]

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Hawke class Geosurvey Ship    8,100 tons     177 Crew     872.5 BP      TCS 162  TH 450  EM 0
2777 km/s    JR 4-50     Armour 1-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/1/0/3     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 0
Maint Life 5.27 Years     MSP 539    AFR 65%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 32    5YR 487    Max Repair 114 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   

J8100(4-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 8100 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 4
150 EP Commercial Ion Drive (3)    Power 150    Fuel Use 11.93%    Signature 150    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 615,000 Litres    Range 114.5 billion km   (477 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH3-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
Geological Survey Sensors (3)   3 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesIn this case the resulting hybrid ship with 3 gravity sensors and 3 geo sensors will allow construction of either grav or geo variants as you stated, I however decided to make an actually functional 8100 ton hybrid with 2 of each, I just won't be building any.

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Geo/Grav hybrid class Gravitational Survey Vessel    8,100 tons     175 Crew     926.5 BP      TCS 162  TH 450  EM 0
2777 km/s    JR 4-50     Armour 1-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 12/1/2/2     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 0
Maint Life 3.84 Years     MSP 429    AFR 87%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 46    5YR 687    Max Repair 114 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   

J8100(4-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 8100 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 4
150 EP Commercial Ion Drive (3)    Power 150    Fuel Use 11.93%    Signature 150    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 520,000 Litres    Range 96.8 billion km   (403 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Intead of doing this to build both, why not just use the hybrid as an all round survey ship? I almost always search all of the possible JPs before I think about looking at the planets, so I could just use the primary order to search the survey points and the secondary to look at the planets/bodies.

[Erik L]

Intead of doing this to build both, why not just use the hybrid as an all round survey ship? I almost always search all of the possible JPs before I think about looking at the planets, so I could just use the primary order to search the survey points and the secondary to look at the planets/bodies.

I personally don't go for the hybrid approach any more. My reasoning: Survey ships are usually one of the first built, so smaller hull = faster build, dedicated grav/geo means less downtime and more coverage.

[83athom]

I personally don't go for the hybrid approach any more. My reasoning: Survey ships are usually one of the first built, so smaller hull = faster build, dedicated grav/geo means less downtime and more coverage.

True. However after, after 1 or 2 batches from each both shipyards go unused for years until I have workable designs that I need to build. So instead of having something like 6 of each for the whole game building more as they are destroyed, I could build more than a dozen hybrid designs. Another benefit of the hybrids over the specialty craft is that if you are missing one on a side you have to move them around, while the hybrids can do both.
Here is my "finished" design;

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J. Edgar class Gravitational Survey Vessel    7 500 tons     118 Crew     931.5 BP      TCS 150  TH 450  EM 0
3000 km/s     Armour 3-34     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/1/2/2     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 0
Maint Life 5.29 Years     MSP 543    AFR 64%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 32    5YR 487    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0   

150EP 25HS CID (3)    Power 150    Fuel Use 9.28%    Signature 150    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1 325 000 Litres    Range 342.7 billion km   (1322 days at full power)

AS-MR15-R100 (50%) (1)     GPS 1400     Range 15.4m km    Resolution 100
THS0.5-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
Geological Survey Sensors (2)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes Note; I am playing with JGs on all JPs

[MarcAFK]

I think when I can get more speed and range at higher tech I'll consider a hybrid design.

[Ostia]

A Hybrid design also means that, at any given point, half of the sensors are useless dead weight.

[Mastik]

19 Oct 2136

  Sent in a small, old, fleet to investigate the Alien presence in the Delta Pavonis system.  1 EW, 2 AMM cruisers, 3-laser destroyers, and 3 point defense destroyers (my anti-ship cruisers couldnt make the jump  ), made contact with a Alien Seydlitz class ship.  At approximately 200m Km all hell broke loose as many volleys of size 4 ASM were soon detected (estimate 500+ total missiles).  I soon found out my AMMs were pretty useless (neglected agility for speed) with about a 20% kill rate.  My point defense ships performed very well and knocked most missiles out.  A few missiles did get through.  Repairs started and the fleet turned to fight.

[Mastik]

19 October 2136  Round II

  Soon discovered a 2nd smaller (8200T) alien craft of the Bayem class nearby, changed course to intercept this ship.  As my fleet approached numerous volleys of size 1 Amms were detected.  My Amms were useless, and point defenses were much less effective against these speedy targets.  Many missiles got through and soon 1 AMM cruiser took a critical hit and was destroyed.  A second AMM cruiser was hit in the engine bay and has slowed to 1km/s.  The chase is on, as my remaining fleet has been sent after the slower Bayem.

[sloanjh]

A Hybrid design also means that, at any given point, half of the sensors are useless dead weight.

Make that "at least half" - all of them are dead weight while it's moving between survey locations, which typically* takes longer if the engines have to pull the useless dead weight

John

CAVEAT - I suppose that if you micromanaged things you could often get a shorter total transit time (i.e. path between all survey locations for all ships) if you had the same ship survey both warp and geo points, but I doubt the gain would overcome the survey time penalty and it would probably take more micro-management since I don't think there's a "survey nearest anything" default command setting.

Might be interesting to run some races in some random systems.  It would be a little tough to score though, since you'd have to take into account differences in cost between the platforms, which is unlikely to be a ratio of small integers.

[Iranon]

Whatever can go on a maintenance-free commercial hull goes there... especially geo sensors as the ship is bound to spend a lot of time in deep space.
Grav survey ships don't have that option. Mine actually tend to be fighters: They're the first to meet interesting new species (small ship causes less alarm) and interesting new missiles (no need to retool for replacements).

[MarcAFK]

One important point that hasn't been mentioned yet is fuel savings, at a minimum you're saving whatever fuel it takes for the ship to reach the system, which is minimal untill you start getting long chains between your fuel/maintenance bases and unexplored space. But at the most extreme end if there was a "Survey nearest whatever" option, or if you perform highly detailed micromanagement you could steer the ship around the system surveying everything in one efficient spiral pass.

[83athom]

or if you perform highly detailed micromanagement you could steer the ship around the system surveying everything in one efficient spiral pass.

If I were to do that, which would be the most efficient (starting on the inside at 1) going from 6 (16,17, 18, or 7) and then what is the most efficient going to the outer shell from there (after middle shell is scouted out). Reason for asking; Not enough primary/secondary orders to do all the surveying I want (survey the SP locations first, then planets/moons, then lastly all the rest of the bodies).