Conventional Start in 6.21

[Paul M]

How many engineering spaces do you have on your ships?  Also you should look at the maximum cost for a repair and the amount of spares and make sure your ships have at least that many.  Sounds like your game has been blessed by more good luck than I have been having.

[RottenBanana (OP)]

I tried terraforming the planet and I think I'm killing them. Oops! I usually put around 40, but they break down more than once a year. I tried improving damage control and stacking about 100 on a missile frigate and I now have a fail rate of over 100.

[clement]

Damage control is for repairing components that are damaged/destroyed during combat. Engineering Spaces are for the day to day maintenance of the ship and to prevent and repair regular failures.

Notice the ship header information for a ship from Steve's current fiction story:
Warrior class Heavy Cruiser    12,800 tons     378 Crew     2399 BP      TCS 256  TH 1280  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 8-48     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 11     PPV 60
Maint Life 4.53 Years     MSP 1289    AFR 119%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 102    5YR 1531    Max Repair 160 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0

The yellow row shows that the ship should be able to operate for about 4.5 years based on the amount of maintenance supplies it is carrying. It has 1289 Maintenance Supplies, the most expensive component takes 160 Maintenance Supplies to repair. If you have fewer maintenance supplies than the Max Repair value then you will be unable to repair that item. If that item is a Jump Drive, or other mission critical system the ship is effectively non-functional.

The other numbers on that row are:
AFR - Annual Failure Rate, Likelihood of a failure in a year
IFR - Incremental Failure Rate, This is how much the failure rate increases as the ship goes more time without an overhaul and away from maintenance facilities. The failures happen more frequently the longer a ship is out of an overhaul.
1YR - Number of maintenance supplies to maintain the ship for 1 year
5YR - Number of maintenance supplies to maintain the ship for 5 years

clement

[Brian Neumann]

Damage control is for repairing components that are damaged/destroyed during combat. Engineering Spaces are for the day to day maintenance of the ship and to prevent and repair regular failures.

The other numbers on that row are:
AFR - Annual Failure Rate, Likelihood of a failure in a year
IFR - Incremental Failure Rate, This is how much the failure rate increases as the ship goes more time without an overhaul and away from maintenance facilities. The failures happen more frequently the longer a ship is out of an overhaul.
1YR - Number of maintenance supplies to maintain the ship for 1 year
5YR - Number of maintenance supplies to maintain the ship for 5 years

clement

Clement has most of the stuff correct.  Damage control is a measure of how fast a ship is going to repair damage in a combat scale.  Each time that it successfully repairs a system it does use mainenance supplies equal to twice the amount it would normally take.  If you don't have the mainenance supplies on board then you can't fix anything with the damage control.

The second is the IFR (incremental failure rate).  This is the chance that in any 5 day construction cycle a component will fail on the ship.  This is the base failure rate, and every year that a ship is not overhauled the rate doubles (can't remember if is arithmetic or geometric).  This is why there is such a huge difference between the supplies needed to keep a ship going on the first year of service vs the amount for 5 years of service.  Also note that these are average amounts so it is possible for a ship to use more or less in a single year based on the specific components that fail.

Brian

[metalax]

Also note that if you have a carrier with a large enough hangar to fit your damaged ship into, it can be repaired using the carriers damage control rating and maintainance supplies. This lets you build smaller ships/fast attack craft without worrying about their capability to repair battle damage.

[RottenBanana (OP)]

I meant to say 100 engineering spaces, but my problem still persists.

@clement and Brian: Ah thanks, that clears things up a bit. I didn't realize that the more a ship was in service without an overhaul, the more maintenance it would require. I've been trying meet the protection requested by my new colony by using missile ships, but it seems that PDCs are more viable in terms of upkeep. Fortunately, there haven't been any signs of hostile NPRs and I'm pretty sure I only created 1 at the start, which ended up being my shipless ally.

[Garfunkel]

That's not the NPR from game creation. There are three kinds of aliens you can encounter in-game:

1. Spoilers. 'nuff said.

2. NPR(s), who "mirror" yourself. Except they had an TN-start even if you had an conventional start. The NPR will be exploring and growing so when you encounter it, it should already have an star empire going on.

3. "Minor" aliens, that are activated only when someone visits their homesystem. During game creation, you set the percentage - 30% being default - of live happening on a suitable planet. This means that the first time a player or an NPR or spoiler comes across a Terrestial world, there's a 30% of chance of an alien race getting created. These aliens are always one planet-bound to begin with but they can expand beyond their homeworld and -system. Some might be technologically backwards, so they are no threat - others might be fairly advanced.

If you kept the "create random aliens as NPR" toggle on, then once these "minor" aliens have been activated, they behave exactly like NPRs and you cannot mess with them through SM. So it's entirely possible that while you turtle for 50 years in Sol, the NPR activates a dozen "minor" aliens plus maybe some spoilers and many of these then proceed to explore and thus activate more.

At least, such is my understand of how the system works.

I always do conventional starts. If your economy is running smoothly - the first hurdle - then it's time to build a military. You don't want to get caught with your pants down. Create an ideal task force, decide what sort of ships it needs, then jot down what components such ships needs and then go researching. I have an Excel-spreadsheet for that, where I turn components bold as they are researched. This way when I actually design the ships, I won't be missing a powerplant or that my Beam Fire Control is too small for my beam weapons et cetera. It's also good idea to jot down a basic, common speed for your task force, ie "all ships must go at least 3000 km/sec or faster".

Finally, as others have stated, you cannot overhaul your ships too often. Build at least three task groups - one will be in overhaul, second will be doing taskforce training and third can actually go on missions.

[RottenBanana (OP)]

Hmm, that's more of an incentive to begin producing more defenses. My current missile design strategy is to determine what range I want to be firing at (in this case it's around 100m km), design an active sensor and fire control with that range, and design a missile that can actually hit something at that range. My biggest issue with military is that I've only had one hostile encounter on a different save and I have no idea what a basic fleet would look like. I figured I'd start with missile frigates accompanied by colliers and some beam PD ships.

Also, will the minor race eventually begin to explore and produce ships or will it remain as a conventional race forever?

[Garfunkel]

Also, will the minor race eventually begin to explore and produce ships or will it remain as a conventional race forever?

Eventually it will. It's also possible that a Duranium crash prevents this.

In the Fiction forum, in one of the AAR/LPs, the human player conquered an alien race and their planet had zero duranium left.

[Execrated1]

I've been told conventional NPRs stay such, but don't quote me on that. As for fleet make-up I'd suggest reading some AARs. They helped me a lot in understanding the military aspect. Just don't use mine, for role-playing purposes I've intentionally designed ships that will probably be decimated on their first combat mission. The most efficient route is to specialize every ship, so you'll an ASM design, an AMM design, a PD design and so on. I don't like to do that just because it feels wrong to me, but that's just personal preference.

[Garfunkel]

They should get moving, eventually but who has the patience for that? Plus, it's good practice for your GU's! 

[RottenBanana (OP)]

Eventually it will. It's also possible that a Duranium crash prevents this.

The planet has the starting homeworld resources, but it doesn't seem like they're mining it.

I've been told conventional NPRs stay such, but don't quote me on that. As for fleet make-up I'd suggest reading some AARs. They helped me a lot in understanding the military aspect. Just don't use mine, for role-playing purposes I've intentionally designed ships that will probably be decimated on their first combat mission. The most efficient route is to specialize every ship, so you'll an ASM design, an AMM design, a PD design and so on. I don't like to do that just because it feels wrong to me, but that's just personal preference.

I've been reading a couple and they've been quite helpful. Should I stick primarily to beam and missile tech since I've already started down that path?

[Erik L]

I've been reading a couple and they've been quite helpful. Should I stick primarily to beam and missile tech since I've already started down that path?

If you concentrate your research efforts, they pay off quicker. Once you have multiple worlds with multiple research facilities, you can branch out into areas you neglected at the beginning. Just remember a low-tech weapon will look like crap compared to another high-tech weapon.

[RottenBanana (OP)]

If you concentrate your research efforts, they pay off quicker. Once you have multiple worlds with multiple research facilities, you can branch out into areas you neglected at the beginning. Just remember a low-tech weapon will look like crap compared to another high-tech weapon.

Sounds like I'm going to be conquering this race. Would firing missiles at their homeworld harm the colony I've started on it?

[Garfunkel]

Possibly. Collateral damage is always a risk. More than that, there will be radiation and atmospheric dust that hinder all colonies on the planet.