Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: Omnivore on November 03, 2012, 11:55:49 AM
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Post your oddest, ugliest, duckling designs here. Odd but functional or just plain weird enough to do the job.
I'll start off with this tiny 'carrier' that actually turns out to be rather handy at times:
Trapdoor class Light Carrier
Trapdoor class Light Carrier 500 tons 9 Crew 61.5 BP TCS 10 TH 10 EM 0
1000 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 23.94 Years MSP 38 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months Flight Crew Berths 1
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons
10 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (1) Power 10 Fuel Use 138.35% Signature 10 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 5.2 billion km (60 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
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Out of interest, what do you put in that carrier?
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Until I get some better tech, this is sitting in that spot:
Spider class Light Fighter
Spider class Light Fighter 250 tons 1 Crew 36.5 BP TCS 5 TH 28 EM 0
5600 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1.5
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 3 5YR 38 Max Repair 9 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 9
14 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (2) Power 14 Fuel Use 320.86% Signature 14 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 1.1 billion km (55 hours at full power)
Gauss Cannon R3-25 (1x3) Range 30,000km TS: 5600 km/s Accuracy Modifier 25% RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 24-1500 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1) GPS 2 Range 120k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
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I think we'll be seeing a lot of odd-duck fighter designs with the new engines.
Cribin Fawr class Scout Fighter 500 tons 14 Crew 142.5 BP TCS 10 TH 5 EM 0
500 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 11.01 Years MSP 89 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 20 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months Spare Berths 5
Fighter Thermal (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 89.1% Signature 5 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 80,000 Litres Range 32.3 billion km (748 days at full power)
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1) 1 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
I built a half dozen of these guys to survey Sol. Partly because I wanted to use my fighter factories for something, and partly because I didn't want to retool any of my shipyards.
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So it's kind of a cheap, fighter-factory produced long endurance pod for a fighter? How do you tend to use them? I could see them as kinda-useful to drop at a point just a little shy of a jump point, or to put a fighter garrison over a world you just colonized, but it seems like a proper carrier would be better for both. Maybe not cheaper, though.
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So it's kind of a cheap, fighter-factory produced long endurance pod for a fighter? How do you tend to use them?
Pretty much exactly that, a cheap way of forward basing small numbers of low endurance, high performance, 250 ton fighters. In the long run I'll probably use carriers, but that is an extra ship design that ties up the yards (as sublight noted with his survey fighter) and I'd still be left with the long term basing problem the Trapdoor solves. I currently use small squadrons of the Trapdoor/Spider combo along with a Trapdoor variant sensor platform to back up my warp point minefields. Unlike the mines, the Trapdoor/Spider defenses can be redeployed further forward at need, more or less cutting down on the number of mines I need to use.
Come to think of it, my minelayer design is a bit of an odd duck itself since it is a combination minelayer/tanker/supply(/collier?) ship that I use to extend the range of the Trapdoors on the way to and from jump points I'm defending.
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I've never really made one of these before, so I suppose it qualifies, though its not by any means a stopgap design.
Martel V class Drop Carrier 20,000 tons 421 Crew 3858.5 BP TCS 400 TH 4800 EM 1800
12000 km/s Armour 3-65 Shields 60-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 20 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.92 Years MSP 2412 AFR 160% IFR 2.2% 1YR 418 5YR 6268 Max Repair 600 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 52
Hangar Deck Capacity 2000 tons Troop Capacity: 2 Battalions
Military 1200 EP Internal Fusion Drive (4) Power 1200 Fuel Use 82.67% Signature 1200 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,425,000 Litres Range 15.5 billion km (14 days at full power)
Epsilon R300/15 Shields (20) Total Fuel Cost 300 Litres per day
ECM 30
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
It carries two of these:
Hammer V class Dropship 1,000 tons 26 Crew 375.5 BP TCS 20 TH 57.6 EM 0
12000 km/s Armour 3-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.14 Years MSP 59 AFR 32% IFR 0.4% 1YR 17 5YR 258 Max Repair 120 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Spare Berths 4
Drop Capacity: 1 Battalion Cargo Handling Multiplier 10
FTR 120 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 120 Fuel Use 763.84% Signature 28.8 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 75,000 Litres Range 1.8 billion km (40 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I can't remember if a cargo handler is needed, if it isn't I'll dump it. Anyway the plan is for my fleet proper to batter down an enemy ship until it slows to where it can be captured.
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I believe that the cargo handling modules only help the troop bays, not the drop bays.
Although speaking off odd-duck... I got tired of wasting shipyards producing endless tiny survey ships that take forever to get the job done, and so designed a pair of 500 ton survey fighters, each with a single sensor on it, and this carrier (based off an escort carrier I already had designed) to lead a task force strong enough to at least fight its way out of a bad situation. I've been breaking up my original run of Missile Destroyers, Generalist Destroyers, and Escort Carriers to provide them with a basic escort. They actually seem to get systems surveyed quicker, and have the advantage of being usable as fighter transports to ferry garrisons about.
Carrack class Survey Command Ship 10,000 tons 173 Crew 1143.6 BP TCS 200 TH 300 EM 0
2000 km/s JR 4-100 Armour 4-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 10 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.5 Years MSP 715 AFR 80% IFR 1.1% 1YR 57 5YR 858 Max Repair 107 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months Flight Crew Berths 21
Hangar Deck Capacity 2000 tons
General Electric M200 Mod 1 Slipstream Drive Max Ship Size 10000 tons Distance 100k km Squadron Size 4
General Electric CV2000 Magnetoplasma Drive (2) Power 200 Fuel Use 7.96% Signature 150 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 452.3 billion km (2617 days at full power)
TN/SPS-01 Area Search Sensor (1) GPS 8400 Range 117.6m km Resolution 100
Strike Group
2x C-4 Prospector Survey Craft Speed: 2400 km/s Size: 10
2x C-5 Astronaut Survey Craft Speed: 2400 km/s Size: 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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They help dropbays(or rather help load from troopbays), but it uses the ones on the troopship carrier, not the ones on the dropship, so no need there.
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Gentlemen, BEHOLD! The Hamster class is the galaxy's smallest spacefaring emergency rescue vehicle, capable of extricating stranded crews from any situation (except hostile fire). How do we fit all that life-saving functionality into a 500-ton, early-TN tech chassis? We have no idea!
Hamster class Tanker 500 tons 6 Crew 76. 4 BP TCS 10 TH 7. 5 EM 0
1000 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 96 AFR 2% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 1
Cryogenic Berths 200
9. 6 EP Ion Drive (1) Power 9. 6 Fuel Use 6. 94% Signature 7. 2 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 185,000 Litres Range 959. 7 billion km (11107 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes.
I haven't actually built any yet, partially because I'm a bit worried about what "Maintenance Life 0 years" means.
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quick question, why's it class 'tanker' secondly. You can easily get maint life in one of those things, just drop the engine size a little bit but boost it up, and drop the fuel capacity. Then plonk in a small engineering bay.
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Gentlemen, BEHOLD! The Hamster class is the galaxy's smallest spacefaring emergency rescue vehicle, capable of extricating stranded crews from any situation (except hostile fire). How do we fit all that life-saving functionality into a 500-ton, early-TN tech chassis? We have no idea!
Hamster class Tanker 500 tons 6 Crew 76. 4 BP TCS 10 TH 7. 5 EM 0
1000 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 96 AFR 2% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 1
Cryogenic Berths 200
9. 6 EP Ion Drive (1) Power 9. 6 Fuel Use 6. 94% Signature 7. 2 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 185,000 Litres Range 959. 7 billion km (11107 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes.
I haven't actually built any yet, partially because I'm a bit worried about what "Maintenance Life 0 years" means.
I think you have run into one of the bugs that seems to have cropped up with the move to 6.0 in that sometimes the maitainance life of a class is stuck at zero even though you have engineering spaces present on the ship. I haven't seen any way of fixing it short of creating a new design and giving it the same components.
I'd seriously drop some of that fuel to improve speed, unless the class is supposed to serve as a dual role tanker and rescue ship. Up the power on the engines, perhaps not to the same level as on combat fighters but if it is serving as a rescue ship, it needs to be able to reach lifepods before their lifesupport fails.
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I haven't actually built any yet, partially because I'm a bit worried about what "Maintenance Life 0 years" means.
is a rounding notification that signifies that your ship has, for all practical proposes, a maintenance life of infinity. It seems to be displayed when either the true maintenance life exceeds 100 years or when the IFR% rounds to zero (less than 3.5% AFR), although I could be wrong.
The only other time I've seen or heard of 0 maintenance life is when the ship/fighter has 0 MSP.
Edit: Here is a link to to a 5.6 design that also had 0 maintnance life in a good way.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4647.0.html (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4647.0.html)
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One thing I'm noticing from all these carriers and fighters is that they have enough fuel for up to 5 years, but only have the berthing for 12-24 month deployment. If your deployment time is large, then the only thing to worry about is a top up from a tanker every couple of months.
@gidoran and @sublight
I'd like to know just how much micromanagement is involved when dealing with fighter survey/carriers.
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If you stay deployed for too long, you just lose morale.
If you run out of fuel, it's a much more pressing situation
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One thing I'm noticing from all these carriers and fighters is that they have enough fuel for up to 5 years, but only have the berthing for 12-24 month deployment. If your deployment time is large, then the only thing to worry about is a top up from a tanker every couple of months.
Also, you have to remember that the carrier will refuel its fighters every time they return. And fighters burn fuel like there is no tomorrow :)
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I'd guess doing a fighter/carrier survey of a system would take slightly less micromanagement than conducting a single fighter-bomber attack run with an equivalent number of squadrons.
I didn't have hanger tech at the time, so I scraped all of my fighters to recover their grav-survey sensors once they finished Sol. For my Sol survey I gave each fighter survey orders and a conditional refueling order when it was built then forgot about it until the no-remaining survey location errors started coming in.
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Also you could have a colony somewhere that could "fix" the deployment issue without having any fuel there. As well the Carriers have to be able to refuel their fighter squadrons.
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My oddest design:
BSPDC-1 class Planetary Defence Centre 6,950 tons 1324 Crew 463.4 BP TCS 139 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-32 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 128
15cm C1 Plasma Carronade (32) Range 60,000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 6-1 RM 1 ROF 30 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PDC Fire Control S00.2 37.5-10000 (2) Max Range: 75,000 km TS: 10000 km/s 60 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Solid-core Anti-matter Power Plant Technology PB-1-16 (2) Total Power Output 32 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 3 sections
The point of the design was to get the most PPV for my buck. The population of a planet I'd captured were restless, so I built some of these.
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That's actually kind of brilliant, byron. And I love the solid-core antimatter power plant juxtaposed against the capacitor recharge rate of 1. It's like when they rebuilt Fort William Henry as a tourist attraction in the 1950's, complete with live fire cannon demonstrations. You just need a gift shop module for the school kids who show up on field trips. :D
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That's actually kind of brilliant, byron. And I love the solid-core antimatter power plant juxtaposed against the capacitor recharge rate of 1. It's like when they rebuilt Fort William Henry as a tourist attraction in the 1950's, complete with live fire cannon demonstrations. You just need a gift shop module for the school kids who show up on field trips. :D
The power plant was my standard size 1. The recharge rate was to get the cheapest possible carronades. After all, the civilians who come out to tour it just want to see a lot of big guns. They don't care how fast they fire.
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The power plant was my standard size 1. The recharge rate was to get the cheapest possible carronades. After all, the civilians who come out to tour it just want to see a lot of big guns. They don't care how fast they fire.
Just to refresh my understanding, non-meson weapons generally degrade substantially in atmosphere, yes?
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Just to refresh my understanding, non-meson weapons generally degrade substantially in atmosphere, yes?
Yep. Doesn't matter to the population, though. I know the design is totally ineffective in combat. But it fulfills its intended role nicely. Said role, of course, is to provide PPV at the cheapest possible price. The costs involved are ludicrously skewed. For example, the two fire controls cost just about as much as the carronades.
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Yep. Doesn't matter to the population, though. I know the design is totally ineffective in combat. But it fulfills its intended role nicely. Said role, of course, is to provide PPV at the cheapest possible price. The costs involved are ludicrously skewed. For example, the two fire controls cost just about as much as the carronades.
Thought so, just checking. I usually create Hangar PDC's and dump obsolete fighters in them.
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Thought so, just checking. I usually create Hangar PDC's and dump obsolete fighters in them.
I actually did the math on this, and I'm pretty sure that so long as you don't actually care about the effectiveness of the platform, this is the cheapest way. Plus, it was fairly early in the game, so I didn't have a lot of obsolete fighters laying around.
Edit:
I checked your plan, and mine still wins. Here are the two alternatives (both in 6.2, while the earlier version was from 5.5):
BSPDC-1 class Planetary Defence Centre 7,500 tons 282 Crew 433.6 BP TCS 150 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-34 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 136
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Brewster Plasma Carronade, 15 cm, Mk1 Mod0 (34) Range 60,000km TS: 12500 km/s Power 6-1 RM 1 ROF 30 6 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Raytheon FWG-501 (1) Max Range: 75,000 km TS: 12500 km/s 87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0
Westinghouse RASC-2 (1) Total Power Output 2 Armour 0 Exp 20%
Westinghouse RASC-16 (2) Total Power Output 32 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 3 sections
BSPDC-2 class Planetary Defence Centre 6,600 tons 95 Crew 669.5 BP TCS 132 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-31 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 2
Hangar Deck Capacity 6000 tons
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 3 sections
Even if the fighters are "free", the cost for the storage space for them is greater than the cost of the carronade design.
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I like the idea of geosurveys being conducted by small craft dispatched from a larger science vessel. It's probably not the most efficient way to do things, but it's fun: when I arrive at a large gas giant with many many moons, my aurora class science vessel disgorges a half dozen of these:
Seer class Survey Corvette 500 tons 13 Crew 313.5 BP TCS 10 TH 82 EM 0
8200 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 24/1/0/2 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 10.26 Years MSP 196 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 3 5YR 51 Max Repair 150 MSP
UN-MC Fighter Engine (1) Power 82.5 Fuel Use 7200% Signature 82.5 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 5 billion km (7 days at full power)
U.N. Second Generation Naval Scanner (1) GPS 48 Range 11.5m km Resolution 1
Improved Geological Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
It's also useful to dispatch 1 or 2 toward an interesting planet while en route to a gravitational survey point.
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I actually did the math on this, and I'm pretty sure that so long as you don't actually care about the effectiveness of the platform, this is the cheapest way. Plus, it was fairly early in the game, so I didn't have a lot of obsolete fighters laying around.
Edit:
I checked your plan, and mine still wins. Here are the two alternatives (both in 6.2, while the earlier version was from 5.5):
Even if the fighters are "free", the cost for the storage space for them is greater than the cost of the carronade design.
Your BSPDC-1 provides 136 PPV for 433.6 BP, or 0.314 PPV/BP. Good, but I think we can do better.
PDD Dummy x24 1 class 1,500 tons 4 Crew 36.6 BP TCS 30 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-11 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 24
Intended Deployment Time: 0.0001 months Spare Berths 103
Magazine 24
ICBM Silo (1) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 43200
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 1 sections
Components
ICBM Silo x1
Conventional Armour x5.8
Crew Quarters - Tiny x1
11.85x Duranium
0.75x Mercassium
This design provides 0.656 PPV/BP, or slightly more than twice as cost efficient. It also doesn't require any Tritanium or research in its construction. This means it is available at turn 0 even on Conventional start. I am not sure about the consequences of not having a Bridge, but it is buildable. The ~4 minute deployment time should prove entertaining too. ;)
But I still think we can do better.
PDD Dummy x768 1 class 41,100 tons 107 Crew 875 BP TCS 822 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-106 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 768
Intended Deployment Time: 0.0001 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 768
ICBM Silo (32) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 43200
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 17 sections
Component Summary
ICBM Silo x32
Conventional Armour x53
Crew Quarters - Tiny x1
106.25x Duranium
0.75x Mercassium
This design provides 0.878 PPV/BP, while only costing more Duranium.
I am currently building a 240 point unit to test it.
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Well, my most recent game is me mucking about with a conventional start, so I thought it worthwhile to pass on what's the culmination of years of research and design efforts to facilitate my exploration of neighboring systems, instead of years of efforts to expand any of my slipways past 1000 tons. I'm going to have to do something about that though. this thing can't even get to more than two of sol's JPs. Maybe a tanker fighter should be next.
Beyonder-I class Jump Tender 1 000 tons 36 Crew 71 BP TCS 20 TH 8 EM 0
400 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 6.61 Years MSP 44 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 26 Max Repair 33 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Spare Berths 4
Lorentz-I Mil3k Jumpdrive Max Ship Size 3000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Corona-I NPE Scoutfighter Engine (1) Power 8 Fuel Use 99% Signature 8 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 20 000 Litres Range 3.6 billion km (105 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This is my first time really messing with conventional starts, and I am doomed if another NPR trips over me right now. I've only recently gotten defenses more potent than the missile bases you start with, and it's 2043.
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Well, my most recent game is me mucking about with a conventional start, so I thought it worthwhile to pass on what's the culmination of years of research and design efforts to facilitate my exploration of neighboring systems, instead of years of efforts to expand any of my slipways past 1000 tons.
I tend to start with civilian designs for my geo and grav survey ships. Civilian shipyards start at 10000 tons and it's easy enough to make a civilian survey ship with two scanners, a jump drive, and plenty of fuel, that's under 5000 tons. (Grav survey ships are marked "military" for maintenance purposes, and they will have breakdowns, but otherwise they function the same as geo survey ships. They can use civilian jump drives and I think you can make them at the civilian shipyard, too.) Civilian survey ships are also far more fuel efficient and can have very long ranges even with nuke-thermal technology.
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grav ships, being marked military, have to use military jumpdrives on their hulls and all compenents suffer from military failure rates, even stuff that would normally be civilian drives. Sadly. Though that might not still be true. last time I really mucked with that was 5.x.
Honestly, I've had a lot of luck with dippy 1kton survey ship designs. They're dirt cheap, have a failure rate of basically zero with any engineering spaces at all, can still get excellent range if you make a small engine tuned for efficiency, and their thermal and active scanning cross sections are so small that they can just waltz right through occupied systems without being spotted. And to top it all off, with a couple ranks in jump efficiency I can cram a jumpdrive on top of all that. Problem is, that's 15k or so research in jumpdrive efficiency that I really can't spare from the rush to noncrud engine and missile tech levels, thus the stopgap.
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grav ships, being marked military, have to use military jumpdrives on their hulls and all compenents suffer from military failure rates, even stuff that would normally be civilian drives. Sadly. Though that might not still be true. last time I really mucked with that was 5.x.
I can confirm that they do not have to use military jumpdrives. They do suffer maintenance issues, but when you're building a 4500-ton ship it isn't as costly, relatively speaking, to add extra maintenance supplies and crew quarters to make it suitable for a 5-year deployment. The difference between 4500 and 5000 is much less than between 1000 and 1500, say.
I assume there's a design flaw with the program. Perhaps Steve intended grav ships to be commercial ships like geo ships are, and they shouldn't be having maintenance issues. Or he intended them to be military and the game simply allows me to break the rule. Either way I think geology and gravimetric ships are meant to come down on the same side of the fence, so I'm designing mine to be basically identical whichever way I make them. That tends to be simple commercial designs in the early game, military designs with sensors and stuff in the later game.
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Fun Trivia: Only military engine components require military jump drives. Any military ship design that happen to use civilian engines is free to use commercial jump drives.
Of course, that doesn't help anyone trying to design a 1,000 ton grav survey craft.
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XL Space Habitat I class Orbital Habitat 5,014,050 tons 610 Crew 6808 BP TCS 100281 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-2609 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 1 Max Repair 10 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 0
Habitation Capacity 1,000,000
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range N/A
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
I built that thing not thinking about the problem with towing it. My strongest tug pulls it at single digit speeds. The most powerful engine I had built up to this point was a 400 power commercial engine. I am now researching a 1400 power engine for the ship just to tug this thing.
Right now the only tugs I have are my old Salvager class salvage ships that only have 3 200 power engines. Adequate so far for my needs, until the above behemoth station.
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I assume there's a design flaw with the program. Perhaps Steve intended grav ships to be commercial ships like geo ships are, and they shouldn't be having maintenance issues. Or he intended them to be military and the game simply allows me to break the rule. Either way I think geology and gravimetric ships are meant to come down on the same side of the fence, so I'm designing mine to be basically identical whichever way I make them. That tends to be simple commercial designs in the early game, military designs with sensors and stuff in the later game.
Actually no. Geo are supposed to be civilian and grav are supposed to be military.
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Actually no. Geo are supposed to be civilian and grav are supposed to be military.
So, am I cheating by having grav ships use civilian jumpdrives? Or is it as sublight said, the rule about military jumpdrives only applies to ships with military engines?
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So, am I cheating by having grav ships use civilian jumpdrives? Or is it as sublight said, the rule about military jumpdrives only applies to ships with military engines?
sublight is correct, military jump drives are only required for military engines.
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Grav sensors are supposed to flag the ship as military.
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Grav sensors are supposed to flag the ship as military.
So it's an unenforced rule, and I'm "cheating" by using civilian jumpdrives.
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So it's an unenforced rule, and I'm "cheating" by using civilian jumpdrives.
No. The Grav Sensor forces the ship to fall under the military maintence rules. Whether you use commercial or military engines are up to you. But the engine choice dictates what jump engine type is used.
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Your BSPDC-1 provides 136 PPV for 433.6 BP, or 0.314 PPV/BP. Good, but I think we can do better.
PDD Dummy x24 1 class 1,500 tons 4 Crew 36.6 BP TCS 30 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-11 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 24
Intended Deployment Time: 0.0001 months Spare Berths 103
Magazine 24
ICBM Silo (1) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 43200
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 1 sections
Components
ICBM Silo x1
Conventional Armour x5.8
Crew Quarters - Tiny x1
11.85x Duranium
0.75x Mercassium
This design provides 0.656 PPV/BP, or slightly more than twice as cost efficient. It also doesn't require any Tritanium or research in its construction. This means it is available at turn 0 even on Conventional start. I am not sure about the consequences of not having a Bridge, but it is buildable. The ~4 minute deployment time should prove entertaining too. ;)
I'm going to have to flag this one for being illegal on two fronts. First, it has no bridge and it's over 1000 tons. Second, it has no fire control. If it is buildable, that's only due to the way PDCs are built. Nice try, but not quite. And your other effort suffers the same problem. However, using ICBM silos is a good idea. A legal (lockable) 32-ICBM PDC built in the same game as my previous efforts is:
BSPDC-3 class Planetary Defence Centre 38,750 tons 108 Crew 883.9 BP TCS 775 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 5-102 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 768
Intended Deployment Time: 0.0001 months Spare Berths 107
Magazine 768
ICBM Silo (32) Missile Size 24 Rate of Fire 43200
Hughes FPG-501 (1) Range 8.5m km Resolution 50
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 16 sections This comes in at .8688 PPV/BP, which is very nearly what you managed. (The total cost of my added components was 11 BP, which is negligible at this scale.) So I will concede that this is the best way to go about this. Although fitting it with a better fire control wouldn't be terribly expensive, and would result in a platform that is not totally ineffective if you fill it with outdated missiles. This does, of course, assume that the deployment time is possible. A quick check shows that going to .25 month (enough to make sure there aren't any problems) costs 40 BP, which is bad for efficiency, but still leaves it well ahead of my design.
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When you are going to only transport commanders or teams you can just as well do it fast.
Griffin IV class Shuttle 90 tons 2 Crew 28 BP TCS 1.8 TH 12 EM 0
13333 km/s Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 39.86 Years MSP 19 AFR 0% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 18 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 0
Rice & Black 24 EP Fighter Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 24 Fuel Use 136.41% Signature 12 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 29.3 billion km (25 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
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I see all these real ship designs and I raise you my civilian blueprint class:
BP: C255000 class Blueprint 251,450 tons 9420 Crew 97193.2 BP TCS 5029 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-354 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/940 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 242 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 2
Tractor Beam
Geological Survey Sensors (940) 940 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
It can build any 250,000 ton civilian ship using this blueprint on day 1, the shipyard never has to be retooled.
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It can build any 250,000 ton civilian ship using this blueprint on day 1, the shipyard never has to be retooled.
How often do you build 250kt ships?
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How often do you build 250kt ships?
All my civilian ships are 250kt platforms that gets tugged around, just need to scrap/upgrade the tug when new engine tech comes around.
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Well, I have some little ducklings too.
This is my training fighter design:
F/T-1 class Training Fighter 85 tons 2 Crew 11.8 BP TCS 1.7 TH 2 EM 0
1176 km/s Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 49.41 Years MSP 9 AFR 0% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 125 months Spare Berths 0
ENG-L mk.1 (1) Power 2.5 Fuel Use 14% Signature 2.5 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 75.6 billion km (744 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
And this is more ugly cheap thing for begging start - training orbital can cabin:
satcab class Satellite 7 tons 1 Crew 1 BP TCS 0.14 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 1% IFR 0% 1YR 0 5YR 0 Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 3
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
And I used the same "cans" later as an anchor, ejected from large military ships, to fix TG with training task, when I want them at their exact permanent position (planet orbit or guarded JP).
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That satcab is sleazy as hell. Especially if someone (not me) decided it was the cheapest way to have a long duration sensor platform on a jump point.
But it got me thinking, if you want a ship type to conduct first contact, a cheap long endurance fighter that can support a diplomacy team while the launching ship stays back at the jump point might be the way to go.
Especially if, with no military systems, it shouldn't require any maintenance. Of course, that would mean no engines.
I really enjoy the idea of hangars being standard on fleet units and survey fleet, so that a fleet built for peacetime exploration can quickly transition to becoming a battlefleet, without needing much refit, just a different fighter load out. I love the RP potential of the survey fleet coming back for vengeance, "You shot down our peaceful survey shuttle, now see its brethren armed and out for your hide!"
I also like Larry Niven's stories of peaceful humans, going out into the galaxy, and having to turn tech into military purposes. Perhaps meson weaponry developed as a way of getting emergency power to isolated areas. Precision is important in that, so yeah, the whole planet has a bunch of point defense PDCs called "emergency power narrowcast units" or some such euphemism.