Survey Group Strategies

[waresky]

Well, having binged on Aurora this spring break and gotten a number of years forward... I'm now less than happy with the "first-in scout" idea.  It worked really well at first, but now it takes too long to juggle them around to where they need to be.

I'm now thinking of designing a new survey vessel that packs both geo and grav sensors, and still has the Drake Survey Drones (but drops the Magellan buoys, as they'll be superfluous).  Since I've recently researched new armor and engines, I hope to keep it at the same size.

I'm also considering just using my existing carrier design to cart specialized survey vessels about, as others have done.

Same as you ive change whole my Survey Doctrine.
Aurora bring us front at 100000 systems to survey,potentially,and this are a HUGE work.
Carriers,Tenders,Tankers,Maintenance vessels,Maintenance hangar...a Scout Fleet become a semi-independent Armada,and need Escort more than first years..because a ScFlt are worth in cost and minerals deployment.


Imagine a 100.000 Stars Universe to Scouting..argh..Time and effort.

[Peewee]

I colonize and strip-mine everything I can before moving on (what? I'm RPing humans, right?) so I have plenty of resources.
I only bother expanding one system away from colonies, (thoroughly surveying everything in the system, asteroids included) unless I can't find any good mineral concentrations nearby.
When it's time to check out the neighbors, I send a group of 10 expensive survey ships (all have fast hyper-capable engines, jump-capable engines, short range low res active search, modest thermal, modest EM, and the best possible grav/geo sensors) out with some default orders. If they get attacked, they rapidly (typically 20,000 km/s) retreat back to base. Then the big guns roll out. All of them (well, almost. I leave behind a PDC or two).

[Rastaman]

Given the unpredictability of exploration, the first people in a new system should be recon, not survey. Such a recon group is fast and/or stealthy and has the best sensors available. They have the best chance to find hostiles without being burdened by an additional industrial mission. If somebody is at home, do first contact/send the navy.

The survey ships can be specialized commercials and don't need sensors or defenses themselves. So the grav survey comes next. It leaves sensor buoys at the JPs for further security. When they're finished, the mineral surveyors start their work, while the others are elsewhere already.  

The use of commercial ships for survey alleviates much of the maintenance and fuel issues. The only military ships are the recon ships, but you'll need recon anyhow as part of your navy structure.

[welchbloke]

Given the unpredictability of exploration, the first people in a new system should be recon, not survey. Such a recon group is fast and/or stealthy and has the best sensors available. They have the best chance to find hostiles without being burdened by an additional industrial mission. If somebody is at home, do first contact/send the navy. .

I agree this how I work with my survey groups.  All the Grav survey groups have a scout ship or two with them to sneak in and have a look.

The survey ships can be specialized commercials and don't need sensors or defenses themselves. So the grav survey comes next. It leaves sensor buoys at the JPs for further security. When they're finished, the mineral surveyors start their work, while the others are elsewhere already.  

The use of commercial ships for survey alleviates much of the maintenance and fuel issues. The only military ships are the recon ships, but you'll need recon anyhow as part of your navy structure.

Except that grav sensors are a military system, so you can only have commercial geo survey ships.

[Rastaman]

Except that grav sensors are a military system, so you can only have commercial geo survey ships.

Makes sense. JPs have strategic value beyond the economy of course.

[Peter Rhodan]

I seem to follow a completely different strategy to everyone else - mind you I always start my games with less than 1000 tech points.
I build masses of small 2000 ton survey ships with 1 grav and 1 geo sensor - and send them out - in my current game I am 14 years - have 24 of the things and have spread my empire about 4 jumps in every direction.
I have lost so many expensive survey ships/squadrons in earlier games I find cheap 2k ton ships are a better option - one runs into a Star Swarm or Precursor or whatever and gets zapped - no big deal.
I refit them progressively with better fuel/engine/jump etc tech as it becomes available. . .
I also look to find suitable colonies - 2-3 jumps out from my home system and ship 10 maintenance and some Refineries to them ASAP and start servicing the Survey ships from these forward colonies. . .

[ZimRathbone]

I tend to use 3 types of 1000 ton ships, all with their own (single use) Jumpdrive
(1) Poineer Scout - big passives nothing else - first into a system (in most cases)
(2) Grav Survey, size 1 passives & Grav survey
(3) Planetary survey - size 1 passives & geo survey

very occasionaly a variant of (3) with Hyperdrive equipped engines (for those far multi star systems - more for the purposes of security than anything else).  I rarely put more than 1 survey unit on a ship, most of the time is spent in transit from 1 survey location to the next, and I try always to have 2+ years fuel & Maint. 

This time around each ship is in its own fleet (apart from 1 group of 5 gravs put together to fast survey a recently discovered NPR junction system that 9 JP  two of which connect to my systems, and which at least 2 NPRs have been using  - I can see that being annexed with high priority), but in previous games I have used dividing fleets (less micro-management, but more time wasted by individual vessels waiting for the rest of the fleet to finish off surveys & reassemble)

Lately I have been following up grav surveys with the Minelayer  - a  small corvette with a single size 24 launcher (25% size) which drops off sensor buoys near each JP to give me warning when someone starts transiting my systems