Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: December 16, 2006, 02:27:05 PM »Because fuel consumption can now be tracked it is possible to calculate fairly quickly what percentage of time a survey ship is surveying, and what percentages of time moving.
I need to keep better track, but so far it seems that Grav Survey ships spend more time surveying, and Geo survey ships spend more time travelling.
Surveying styles can change over the game.
At the start of the game, all surveying assets are concentrated in one system. This can be inefficient. After the initial warp point survey, one option is to scatter survey assets through all the systems adjacent to the homeworld. With several geo survey ships in one system you have to keep an eye on it so you don't have two or more geo survey ships going to the same planet moon group and then travelling again to both survey another planet moon group. It would be more efficient if one survey ship surveys one planet moon group while another surveyed a planet moon group on the other side of the system or in another system. Less duplication of travel distance.
But as survey fleets get further from the homeworld, they would get more separated in distance, so this scattered survey strategy would require more jump tenders than a more concentrated approach.
Also, while the scattered survey fleet is more economically efficient, it is horrible from military efficiency standpoint, as even putting decent sensors on each scattered survey ship will be expensive. From a military standpoint, you would want at least two ships in any system that you have _any_ ships in, so that the distant one can detect and hopefully report back if something happens to the other one.
As engines get more powerful and more expensive, I expect survey ship sizes to creep up. The key to survey ship efficiency is optimizing the ratio of time spent travelling to time spent surveying. Not sure what the best ratio is, yet.
I need to keep better track, but so far it seems that Grav Survey ships spend more time surveying, and Geo survey ships spend more time travelling.
Surveying styles can change over the game.
At the start of the game, all surveying assets are concentrated in one system. This can be inefficient. After the initial warp point survey, one option is to scatter survey assets through all the systems adjacent to the homeworld. With several geo survey ships in one system you have to keep an eye on it so you don't have two or more geo survey ships going to the same planet moon group and then travelling again to both survey another planet moon group. It would be more efficient if one survey ship surveys one planet moon group while another surveyed a planet moon group on the other side of the system or in another system. Less duplication of travel distance.
But as survey fleets get further from the homeworld, they would get more separated in distance, so this scattered survey strategy would require more jump tenders than a more concentrated approach.
Also, while the scattered survey fleet is more economically efficient, it is horrible from military efficiency standpoint, as even putting decent sensors on each scattered survey ship will be expensive. From a military standpoint, you would want at least two ships in any system that you have _any_ ships in, so that the distant one can detect and hopefully report back if something happens to the other one.
As engines get more powerful and more expensive, I expect survey ship sizes to creep up. The key to survey ship efficiency is optimizing the ratio of time spent travelling to time spent surveying. Not sure what the best ratio is, yet.