Assuming I have a fleet of warships that will leave support ships behind if they get into a fight, while the support ships retreat, what should I bring in that fleet? There are a few things that are obvious to me like extra fuel and missile ammo (if using missiles). But what else might there be that is less obvious? And what degrees of such support would be optimal? Would say maintenance modules be useful?
Is it possible to build a slow and exceedingly large civilian baseship (mobile Starbase) to say, park at a strategic point where one might wish to station a war fleet and have it contain everything necessary to allow that war fleet to stay there indefinitely? If so, what should it contain to do the job? Can anything be added to allow it to also repair warships as well?
I support my Cruiser and Destroyer Squadrons with Logistic Squadrons (LogiRon). My standard LogiRon consists of the following:
- 1x Support Vessel with Squadron size 4 jump drive, Maintenance storage, Cargo Shuttle Bays (To transfer maintenance to fleet), a 1,000 ton hanger, and 2x small cryogenic bays. The hanger carries a FAC designed to pick up lifepods from both sides after the battle so that I can rescue my crews and capture enemy crews for intelligence. The Cryogenic bays are so that the ship doesn't get overcrowded from picking up lots of lifepods.
- 2x Fast Tankers: What it says on the tin.
- 1x Collier: Carries missile reloads for the fleet.
All of my fleet support ships have some armor and shields, so that they won't instantly die if targeted. They are 30,000 ton military vessels, compared to my 24,000 ton cruisers and 12,000 ton destroyers. I am considering making my Fleet logistics ships bigger though. Also, these ships are designed to keep up with the fleet, being only 1,000 km/s slower than my standard fleet speed. For bulk logistic needs I use much slower civilian ships.
On the topic of building a Basestar or a ship with maintenance modules, I wouldn't bother giving such things engines, I would just use Tugs to pull stations to where I need them. Stations are made by checking the "no armor" option in the ship design menu, which allows them to be built using normal factories as long as you don't put military components on, but they can't have engines.
A fleet base capable of keeping a military fleet fully ready needs the following, and I would recommend separating each of these functions into their own station design so that if you need more of one area (maintenance capacity, fuel, etc) you don't have to build all the other components as well.
- Refuelling Station: Obviously needs fuel storage, can have sorium harvesters if you plan to park it in orbit of a gas giant with sorium. Needs a Fuel hub component, which is 100,000 tons but allows any number of stationary ships to be refueled at the hub.
- Maintenance Station: Should have maintenance modules, large amounts of MSP storage, and at least one cargo shuttle bay. I recommend having multiple maintenance stations in a fleet instead of trying to build one huge station that can maintain everything. It also is used to resupply the MSP on ships. I usually use stations with 25 to 50 maintenance modules and 10 to 25 large maintenance storage modules.
- Ammo Station: Should have lots of commercial magazines, and an ordnance transfer hub. If it is full of missiles and an enemy hits it, it will go up like a firework.
- Recreational station: Should have a Recreational module, which will allow ship crews at the station to relax, aka reducing deployment time like if they were at a colony.