What's the ideal way to deisgn Fuel Tankers?

[Makir (OP)]

Title says it all, never tried to create Fuel Tankers, and I think at one point i'll have to do it

[83athom]

Lots of fuel tanks, armor, CIWS, large and efficient engines, and toss in a fuel harvester or two.

[Erik L]

And check the box in the upper right corner of the design screen to mark it as a tanker. Otherwise it's a ship with a metric crapton of fuel capacity.

[Makir (OP)]

Thanks, but how am I supposed to make thicker armor? I mean, i know there's the research for that, but I mean in designs

[Erik L]

Look on the left side of the screen. Should see Armor, and a number. Change the number.

[Makir (OP)]

Damn, if only I knew sooner, my laser ship only has 1 in Armor Rating...

[Iranon]

My fleet tankers tend to also be jump tenders but have no frills like CIWS or harvesters, and armour only if they are expected to traverse nebulae.
They tend to consist mostly of close to 50% engines, more if I want all the speed I can get on a commercial hull to support decently fast military assets.

[Black]

I am using two types of tankers in my games. Normal version is basically fuel tank with engines. That is enough to transport fuel from harvesters to colonies. For my fleet operations I am using bigger and faster tanker that has also armor and CIWS and it is also equipped with maintenance storage bays to provide spare part for my combat ships.

I roleplay a lot so those basic designs usually have some sensors and the fleet version can be equipped with light shields depending on rules that I impose on myself.

[AbuDhabi]

Damn, if only I knew sooner, my laser ship only has 1 in Armor Rating...

If you make a design copied from that ship and just add some armour, it's not impossible that you can refit it without changing the shipyard class designation. Minor changes can minor enough that the shipyard can handle both the unarmoured and armoured versions.

[Makir (OP)]

Thanks, you all, however I have an important question, how much is the Deployement Time supposed to be?

[Erik L]

Thanks, you all, however I have an important question, how much is the Deployement Time supposed to be?

It is whatever you decide it is.

[Iranon]

Hard to say without knowing details.

For example, 10 months deployment and a year of maintenance life suits me for many ships that are supposed to be capable of extended operations. Maintenance is a little longer because having something blow up is more embarrassing than having a cranky crew, and because I'd like to have a reserve for repairs if I get into a fight at the end of an extended mission.

But if you have many frontier populations while only your homeworld has maintenance facilities, your frontier patrol may want ships that have years of maintenance life but only a month of deployment time or so.

And sometimes it's not a question what you need, but what you can get cheaply. An AMM base using box launchers requires very little crew and engineering spaces to have a mission life of years to decades. The option to dump them anywhere and forget about them is nice to have even if you don't intend to do so.

[AbuDhabi]

I frequently put 120 or 240 months of deployment time on my military ships, especially gravscouts. Simply to avoid getting annoyed when morale starts dropping because operations have extended beyond the anticipated time.

[DIT_grue]

Thanks, you all, however I have an important question, how much is the Deployement Time supposed to be?

For fuel tankers?

• If there are roleplaying considerations, whatever those require. ("All ships of the xkg't*!lh Mageocracy must have a Deployment Time of exactly 11.42 months." "I try to give everything enough Deployment Time to handle their expected missions, even when the game mechanics don't enforce it.")
• If your primary design goal for the class is 'tiny' (usually meaning a support boat to let your fighter wing go further) then either the smallest value the program will register, or as much as you can squeeze in without going over your weight limit (if it needs to react under combat conditions).
• For every other case (so probably 99% or more of the time) you want three months, so it can qualify as commercial.

[AbuDhabi]

For every other case (so probably 99% or more of the time) you want three months, so it can qualify as commercial.

Huh? Since when do commercial ships have to have 3 months deployment times?