Share your little design tricks!

[bean]

On the other hand, if missile range is your limiting factor, slower missiles of the same range actually means you can start shooting sooner, and thus get more missiles out overall. 

[83athom]

Then less missiles would hit because either hit chance is to low or they were slow enough to be taken out by anti-missile fire.

[bean]

Then less missiles would hit because either hit chance is to low or they were slow enough to be taken out by anti-missile fire.

Neither point is true.  First, I should clarify that I was talking about AMMs, not regular missiles, so the issue of AMM fire is largely moot.  Second, Iranon demonstrated (and I subsequently confirmed, both mathematically and in-game) that there is an optimum speed for AMMs, and it's certainly slower than I was building my AMMs.  I cut speed about 40%, and got 10-ish percent improvement in hit chance. 
The math behind this is fairly simple.  I have two missiles with similar hit chances, one with a speed of 140,000 km/s and the other with 100,000 km/s, and both having a range of 14 mkm.  Obviously, it takes Missile 1 100 seconds to reach max range and Missile 2 140 seconds.  Assume my limiting factors are missile range and number of launchers/launch cycles, not magazine space or fire control.  For the first missile, I can begin engaging when the enemy missile hits 19 mkm (380 seconds out), while the second lets me start at 21 mkm (420 seconds out.)

[Drgong]

Some might disagree - but I learned to love to build a single survey vessel class, putting a Geo and Grav sensor on it.  The flexibility makes it much simpler to just survey out a system.   That and I can pump them out constantly and have a easy to manage survey fleet that only gets upgraded (Sometimes) with new engine technology, as I scrap out older designs with my fuel efficient designs, those surplus engines end up in the survey fleet.   

Most games my survey fleet consists of two classes - A jump scout with a jump drive and some passive sensors that does the first look inside systems, and then the grav-Geo scanning ships.   

[Steve Walmsley]

Some might disagree - but I learned to love to build a single survey vessel class, putting a Geo and Grav sensor on it.  The flexibility makes it much simpler to just survey out a system.   That and I can pump them out constantly and have a easy to manage survey fleet that only gets upgraded (Sometimes) with new engine technology, as I scrap out older designs with my fuel efficient designs, those surplus engines end up in the survey fleet.   

Most games my survey fleet consists of two classes - A jump scout with a jump drive and some passive sensors that does the first look inside systems, and then the grav-Geo scanning ships.

I've long been a fan of having specialised grav and geo survey ships. However, with so many races in my current campaign I decided to experiment and I have been pretty happy with the flexibility of the joint geo/grav designs.

[Anarade Relle]

These days I put commercial engines on grav survey ships. I used to use regular military engines favouring fuel efficiency over speed but after a certain point I find it's just easier to cut down on the number of foreward fuel depots I have to set up to support exploration efforts.

Slower ships, but whenever a hostile NPR or spoilers found my grav ships they died. So it's not like survivability has been effected.

[iceball3]

These days I put commercial engines on grav survey ships. I used to use regular military engines favouring fuel efficiency over speed but after a certain point I find it's just easier to cut down on the number of foreward fuel depots I have to set up to support exploration efforts.

Slower ships, but whenever a hostile NPR or spoilers found my grav ships they died. So it's not like survivability has been effected.

Another idea to help preserve the maintenance cost of your exploration survey fleet: put the military jump drives on your commercial geological ships instead. Or at least have a commercial geo ship that accepts it. Makes it a lot easier to deal with maintenance, as that's tonnage that doesn't need to be maintained due to being a commercial component on a commercial ship. Before you ask, yes, military jump drives are commercial components, and can transit both commercial and military vessels.

[Rich.h]

Another idea to help preserve the maintenance cost of your exploration survey fleet: put the military jump drives on your commercial geological ships instead. Or at least have a commercial geo ship that accepts it. Makes it a lot easier to deal with maintenance, as that's tonnage that doesn't need to be maintained due to being a commercial component on a commercial ship. Before you ask, yes, military jump drives are commercial components, and can transit both commercial and military vessels.

If you are aiming for efficiency in maintenance for survey vessels I always feel it works best to use survey carriers. You have a main vessel that has a long deployment life and plenty of MSP, then design survey work craft that have little else other than a high efficiency commercial drive, and the required sensor type. The survey craft never suffer any failures due to only being out a few months or so, and the carrier can be designed to go for a good few years with no issues and have enough MSP to solve any possible problems. In addition you get to survey systems fast and with a few clicks using subordinate TG's.

[iceball3]

If you are aiming for efficiency in maintenance for survey vessels I always feel it works best to use survey carriers. You have a main vessel that has a long deployment life and plenty of MSP, then design survey work craft that have little else other than a high efficiency commercial drive, and the required sensor type. The survey craft never suffer any failures due to only being out a few months or so, and the carrier can be designed to go for a good few years with no issues and have enough MSP to solve any possible problems. In addition you get to survey systems fast and with a few clicks using subordinate TG's.

Though, it's worth noting that putting a jump drive on any military design incurs extra cost due to maintenance, it may be negligible due to the lack of mass-production of said vessel.
Though, in that vein, it reminds me of an idea I played around with, the hangar vessel as you mentioned, but rather than make gravity survey ships at all, make "Gravity Sensor Modules", which are designed essentially like so.

Code: [Select]

Tone class Sensor Platform    282 tons     2 Crew     104 BP      TCS 5.64  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/1/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 56%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 47    5YR 705    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 2   


Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

The reason being for this is that you can load them in to the hangars of the vessel and:
-They won't contribute to the maintenance cost via their huge-expense sensors.
-They will contribute to the task group's gravity survey capabilities and speed.
-They are easier to build, in the sense that you shift the cost of one of the most expensive components of a ship into fighter factories.

The only particular downsides I see is potential problems with nested-parasite management, and decreased flexibility in the sense that you can't split the task group to scan multiple points simultaneously, though you will be able to use more efficient engines, at least.
That said, in general, I tend to avoid putting jump engines on military designs unless they're specifically designed as some form of assault craft.

[Anarade Relle]

Another idea to help preserve the maintenance cost of your exploration survey fleet: put the military jump drives on your commercial geological ships instead. Or at least have a commercial geo ship that accepts it. Makes it a lot easier to deal with maintenance, as that's tonnage that doesn't need to be maintained due to being a commercial component on a commercial ship. Before you ask, yes, military jump drives are commercial components, and can transit both commercial and military vessels.

That's pretty damn amazing! I'll have to try that! Thanks.