Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Mechanics => Topic started by: trabber Shir on December 29, 2020, 07:02:54 PM
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From the wiki "Any ship stationed in a colony with sufficient Maintenance Facilites still requires 25% of its BP cost in MSP per year"
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Installations#Maintenance_Facility
Does that mean it is cheaper to keep a ship in deep space rather than over a colony if their MSP divided by Maint Life in years is greater than 1/4th their build cost? Example:
Halifax class Geosurvey Ship 5,431 tons 69 Crew 416 BP TCS 109 TH 120 EM 0
1104 km/s JR 1-25(C) Armour 1-27 Shields 0-0 HTK 24 Sensors 0/0/0/2 DCR 5 PPV 0
Maint Life 13.78 Years MSP 979 AFR 47% IFR 0.7% 1YR 10 5YR 144 Max Repair 100 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 144 months Morale Check Required
JC6K Commercial Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5500 tons Distance 25k km Squadron Size 1
Commercial Engine EP120.0 - 2Kt - 2.07LPH (Improved Nuclear Pulse) (1) Power 120 Fuel Use 1.73% Signature 120 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 501,000 Litres Range 961.7 billion km (10082 days at full power)
Geological Survey Sensors (2) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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According to that line from the wiki, this ship would cost 104MSP per year while supported by maintenance facilities, but would only use an average of less than 72MSP per year while deployed.
A slight further confusion is with regards to ships at a colony and under a training command. Since they suffer system failures, I assume they do not use MSP from the maintenance facilities. Is that accurate?
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From the wiki "Any ship stationed in a colony with sufficient Maintenance Facilites still requires 25% of its BP cost in MSP per year" http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=C-Installations#Maintenance_Facility
Does that mean it is cheaper to keep a ship in deep space rather than over a colony if their MSP divided by Maint Life in years is greater than 1/4th their build cost?
While the actual math may be slightly more complicated, the short answer is yes. It is possible to design a ship which is cheaper to run around for a few years and then overhaul rather than keeping it in port all the time.
However, in practice one consideration here is that if you are relying on constant overhauls to keep a fleet in good shape (and you will need to overhaul your ships in this case, because the maintenance failure rate increases the longer a ship goes without an overhaul), you will have your ships unavailable for action ~25% of the time, whereas fleets kept idle in port are always ready for action if an emergency comes up. Unless you are suffering from a severe mineral shortage (usually gallicite, it seems), it's probably better to pay a little more for the MSP to keep your ships docked in a port and ready for action.
A slight further confusion is with regards to ships at a colony and under a training command. Since they suffer system failures, I assume they do not use MSP from the maintenance facilities. Is that accurate?
Correct. Ships undergoing fleet training under a TRN command will not be maintained by the planetside facilities, to simulate that they are undergoing intensive maneuvers instead of sitting idle in a spaceport.
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Thank you much
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According to that line from the wiki, this ship would cost 104MSP per year while supported by maintenance facilities, but would only use an average of less than 72MSP per year while deployed.
I'm not quite following, how do you get the 72 MSP number?
While the actual math may be slightly more complicated, the short answer is yes. It is possible to design a ship which is cheaper to run around for a few years and then overhaul rather than keeping it in port all the time.
So my understanding of the maintenance mechanic is that, when not being maintained in orbit, a ship will accumulate it's maintenance clock. When it gets back to port and enters overhaul it'll need to pay back any of the missed maintenance that's on the clock, so overhauling 1 year of maintenance clock will take 4 months (a third of the time), during which time it'll consume 4x the normal maintenance.
So, in case of a 416BP ship, after one year it has effectively 104MSP "on the clock". It enters overhaul and spends another 4 months in there until fully overhauled. During that time MSP drain is 4x regular, so 138.6. 34.6 of these MSP are consumed to maintain the ship for those four months and 104 are used to pay back the maintenance debt over the year.
Important to note here is that ships rewind their clock at 3x time, but pay MSP at 4x normal - because during the time they're in overhaul, they still have their regular upkeep on top of rewinding the clock.
Does that mean it is cheaper to keep a ship in deep space rather than over a colony if their MSP divided by Maint Life in years is greater than 1/4th their build cost?
I believe the confusion stems from this, the maint life of a ship does not have any bearing on it's upkeep cost, it only dictates the likelihood of maintenance failures while not being maintained, and any MSP cost incurred through those is seperate from upkeep aka. the maintenance clock.
...or I could be wrong about all of this and will be learning something new about Aurora today :-)
A slight further confusion is with regards to ships at a colony and under a training command. Since they suffer system failures, I assume they do not use MSP from the maintenance facilities. Is that accurate?
Yes, ships in training don't count for maintenance and shore leave even if in orbit. Ships in training run up their maintenance clock (and crew exhaustion) twice as fast as normal ships in space, so they actually consume double during training, plus maintenance checks.
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While the actual math may be slightly more complicated, the short answer is yes. It is possible to design a ship which is cheaper to run around for a few years and then overhaul rather than keeping it in port all the time.
So my understanding of the maintenance mechanic is that, when not being maintained in orbit, a ship will accumulate it's maintenance clock. When it gets back to port and enters overhaul it'll need to pay back any of the missed maintenance that's on the clock, so overhauling 1 year of maintenance clock will take 4 months (a third of the time), during which time it'll consume 4x the normal maintenance.
So, in case of a 416BP ship, after one year it has effectively 104MSP "on the clock". It enters overhaul and spends another 4 months in there until fully overhauled. During that time MSP drain is 4x regular, so 138.6. 34.6 of these MSP are consumed to maintain the ship for those four months and 104 are used to pay back the maintenance debt over the year.
Important to note here is that ships rewind their clock at 3x time, but pay MSP at 4x normal - because during the time they're in overhaul, they still have their regular upkeep on top of rewinding the clock.
You're right, I neglected the cost of overhauls in my reply. Probably I got it confused with the idea of building a ship with very long maint life and letting it run away from a spaceport until it explodes from a maintenance failure in 10-20 years.
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While the actual math may be slightly more complicated, the short answer is yes. It is possible to design a ship which is cheaper to run around for a few years and then overhaul rather than keeping it in port all the time.
So my understanding of the maintenance mechanic is that, when not being maintained in orbit, a ship will accumulate it's maintenance clock. When it gets back to port and enters overhaul it'll need to pay back any of the missed maintenance that's on the clock, so overhauling 1 year of maintenance clock will take 4 months (a third of the time), during which time it'll consume 4x the normal maintenance.
So, in case of a 416BP ship, after one year it has effectively 104MSP "on the clock". It enters overhaul and spends another 4 months in there until fully overhauled. During that time MSP drain is 4x regular, so 138.6. 34.6 of these MSP are consumed to maintain the ship for those four months and 104 are used to pay back the maintenance debt over the year.
Important to note here is that ships rewind their clock at 3x time, but pay MSP at 4x normal - because during the time they're in overhaul, they still have their regular upkeep on top of rewinding the clock.
You're right, I neglected the cost of overhauls in my reply. Probably I got it confused with the idea of building a ship with very long maint life and letting it run away from a spaceport until it explodes from a maintenance failure in 10-20 years.
Reusable ships are overrated.
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Thanks for all the clarification. Lets see if I can actually work out the cost of ownership if disposable versus cost of overhaul.
Formulas from discussion and Wiki:
Overhaul time = Maintenance clock/3
Overhaul cost in MSP = Overhaul time in years * Class Cost in BP
Maintenance cost in MSP = time at Maintenance Location in years * Class Cost in BP / 4
1 MSP = 0. 1 Duranium + 0. 05 Uridium + 0. 1 Gallicite = 0. 25BP
Derived formulas:
Overhaul cost in BP = (Maintenance clock in years * Class Cost)/12
Maintenance cost in BP = (time at Maintenance Location in years * Class Cost)/16
Conclusion 1: If your deployment time is greater than 12 years, it is cheaper to replace the ship than to overhaul it.
Conclusion 2: If your deployment time is greater than 16 years, it is cheaper to keep it idle in deep space (and replace it when it goes boom) than to keep it idle at a maintenance location.
And, Conclusion 2 is the answer to my original question. . . but I am using Maint Life and Deployment Time interchangeably when I should really be saying "how long the ship is expected to last outside a maintenance location" which is actually really hard and somewhat situational to calculate.
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Thanks for all the clarification. Lets see if I can actually work out the cost of ownership if disposable versus cost of overhaul.
Formulas from discussion and Wiki:
Overhaul time = Maintenance clock/3
Overhaul cost in MSP = Overhaul time in years * Class Cost in BP
Maintenance cost in MSP = time at Maintenance Location in years * Class Cost in BP / 4
1 MSP = 0. 1 Duranium + 0. 05 Uridium + 0. 1 Gallicite = 0. 25BP
Derived formulas:
Overhaul cost in BP = (Maintenance clock in years * Class Cost)/12
Maintenance cost in BP = (time at Maintenance Location in years * Class Cost)/16
Conclusion 1: If your deployment time is greater than 12 years, it is cheaper to replace the ship than to overhaul it.
Conclusion 2: If your deployment time is greater than 16 years, it is cheaper to keep it idle in deep space (and replace it when it goes boom) than to keep it idle at a maintenance location.
And, Conclusion 2 is the answer to my original question. . . but I am using Maint Life and Deployment Time interchangeably when I should really be saying "how long the ship is expected to last outside a maintenance location" which is actually really hard and somewhat situational to calculate.
You completely disregard the opportunity cost if forcing a ship to maintain 10 or more years in space. That is a huge chunk of space dedicated to maintenance and not other systems. That also means armour, engines, fuel, crew and all other stuff you need to support the ship.
Build a ship with 2.5 years maintenance and another with 12 years and see how much weapons and sensors you now miss out on. You will pay a substantial overhead cost in resources for the same amount of mission tonnage in the field.
Here are two example ships...
Sword Type-II class Destroyer 10 000 tons 276 Crew 1 502.5 BP TCS 200 TH 975 EM 0
4875 km/s Armour 6-41 Shields 0-0 HTK 86 Sensors 33/33/0/0 DCR 4 PPV 30
Maint Life 2.25 Years MSP 422 AFR 178% IFR 2.5% 1YR 112 5YR 1 686 Max Repair 162.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons Magazine 426
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
Naval Ion Drive 1000/130 (3) Power 975 Fuel Use 81.75% Signature 325 Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 901 000 Litres Range 19.8 billion km (47 days at full power)
Type-3 Anti-missile Launcher RR-60 (30) Missile Size: 1 Rate of Fire 10
MD-50 ATM Fire-control system Mk-III (5) Range 17.1m km Resolution 1
MX-25 ATM Sensor System Mk-III (1) GPS 11 Range 6.1m km MCR 545.7k km Resolution 1
EM Sensor Type-3 Mk-III (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 45.4m km
Thermal Sensor Type-3 Mk-III (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 45.4m km
ECCM-1 (3) ECM 10
Sword Type-IIb class Destroyer 10 000 tons 296 Crew 1 621.3 BP TCS 200 TH 975 EM 0
4875 km/s Armour 6-41 Shields 0-0 HTK 98 Sensors 33/33/0/0 DCR 19 PPV 16
Maint Life 12.05 Years MSP 1 976 AFR 41% IFR 0.6% 1YR 25 5YR 377 Max Repair 162.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons Magazine 115
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
Naval Ion Drive 1000/130 (3) Power 975 Fuel Use 81.75% Signature 325 Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 906 000 Litres Range 19.9 billion km (47 days at full power)
Type-3 Anti-missile Launcher RR-60 (16) Missile Size: 1 Rate of Fire 10
MD-50 ATM Fire-control system Mk-III (3) Range 17.1m km Resolution 1
MX-25 ATM Sensor System Mk-III (1) GPS 11 Range 6.1m km MCR 545.7k km Resolution 1
EM Sensor Type-3 Mk-III (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 45.4m km
Thermal Sensor Type-3 Mk-III (1) Sensitivity 33 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 45.4m km
ECCM-1 (3) ECM 10
You also have to count the 1976 MSP the type b ship above is using during the 10+ years in service, then you will need to scrap the ship so you regain 25% of the resources while the other ship can be refit with new components and save the waste of scraping it for a much longer time. Refit is both faster and cheaper than building a new one. Ships can often last for several decades before you will feel the urge to scrap them sometimes even centuries.
The same is basically true for survey ships as well as they will become bigger than they otherwise need and you still will want to refit them once in a while with new engines and sensors.
To be honest it is not worth it...
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Additionally, there is one major reason not to let ships run around until they blow up from engine failure, which is crew experience. A crew with 22% grade and 100% fleet training, particularly a warship crew, is a valuable resource. So much so that some players will refit an old ship into a new ship even if the build cost is more than the price of a new ship just to keep the crew.