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Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 14, 2019, 11:26:43 AM »

Quote from: Michael Sandy on December 14, 2019, 12:05:36 AM
If all you want is a bare bones EM and TH sensor, you can make a fighter with zero systems at all, nothing but crew endurance.  I have Long Watches, which are 15 ton fighters with 50 year crew endurance.  It isn't necessary, 3 months would be enough for a commercial ship/station, but it was cheesy enough I wanted there to be some cost to it.

In role-play spirit I usually consider commercial stations at 3 moths deployment to receive worker and replacement crew once in a while. I even create small shuttle craft and set them to automated movement between stations and populated colonies to represent this. These small shuttles are carrying replacement crew and supplies.

This usually make sense to me that it would work like that, this is also how I imagine that most commercial vessels to work, they will replace their crews once in a while when they are at populated colonies.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: December 14, 2019, 12:05:36 AM »

If all you want is a bare bones EM and TH sensor, you can make a fighter with zero systems at all, nothing but crew endurance.  I have Long Watches, which are 15 ton fighters with 50 year crew endurance.  It isn't necessary, 3 months would be enough for a commercial ship/station, but it was cheesy enough I wanted there to be some cost to it.
Posted by: Tree
« on: December 13, 2019, 11:11:42 AM »

Quote from: Cinnius on December 13, 2019, 10:38:10 AM
Quote from: Michael Sandy link=topic=10534. msg117334#msg117334 date=1575845249
    Watchtower class Early Warning Craft    125 tons     7 Crew     43 BP      TCS 2. 5  TH 0  EM 0
    1 km/s     Armour 1-2     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
    MSP 215    Max Repair 28 MSP
    Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

    Active Search Sensor MR11-R1 (1)     GPS 28     Range 11. 2m km    MCR 1. 2m km    Resolution 1

    This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I have little knowledge of the game so sorry for the dumb question.  Why only 3 months deployment time? for a long term watchtower is not required a much long deployment time?

It's a commercial vessel. They do lose morale too if they're deployed longer than planned, but morale doesn't always affect their performance. IIRC for commercial ships it'll only slow down geological survey and combat response time. By setting it to only 3 months instead of 12 or 60 or 120, you save up some tonnage.
Posted by: Cinnius
« on: December 13, 2019, 10:38:10 AM »

Quote from: Michael Sandy link=topic=10534. msg117334#msg117334 date=1575845249
    Watchtower class Early Warning Craft    125 tons     7 Crew     43 BP      TCS 2. 5  TH 0  EM 0
    1 km/s     Armour 1-2     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
    MSP 215    Max Repair 28 MSP
    Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

    Active Search Sensor MR11-R1 (1)     GPS 28     Range 11. 2m km    MCR 1. 2m km    Resolution 1

    This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I have little knowledge of the game so sorry for the dumb question.  Why only 3 months deployment time? for a long term watchtower is not required a much long deployment time?
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 12, 2019, 05:29:02 PM »

Quote from: Garfunkel on December 12, 2019, 12:48:35 PM
I just checked it out in my AS21/EM11/TH11 tech level game and a sensor platform with all 3 combined needs 21 Uridium. Or maybe it was 26. I should've written it down. That's peanuts. Unless the Uridium requirements skyrocket with higher tech levels, the mineral requirement will not be an issue, especially since they won't need maintenance so it's a one off cost.

I am worried though that they will cause a massive flood of "crew morale dropped" messages once they run out of the 3 month deployment time. We will see if that makes them unusable in the long run.

It is 43 Uridium for all three at that level... 11+11+21

A transport ship with a standard Cargo module have a construction cost of 350-400 roughly depending on engine technology and type. Some commercial ships probably are more expensive some cheaper.

I'm not saying it is a huge cost but still a significant cost in comparison with the ships overall cost.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 12, 2019, 05:19:43 PM »

Quote from: Michael Sandy on December 12, 2019, 02:05:45 PM
I don't see Uridium expenditures on sensors ever being something that strains an economy.  Fire controls, maybe, but not sensors.  Because you don't need that many sensors in a fleet, like you do need fire controls.  You need sensors for each Jump Point, and colony world and operational battlefleet, but only the last is ever going to be that expensive.

And as fire controls do get more expensive, a simple way of dealing with a shortage would be to simply have a larger ratio of weapons to fire controls.

In C# you are likely to spread them out a bit more though, but at a smaller scale of course. But Supplies are going to be 20% of the cost in Uridium so it probably will be an increase in general.

We should perhaps also consider Financial Centres as they cost Uridium unless that was changed... they seem to have become more important in C# as well. I can certainly see Uridium be a sensitive resource in the future.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: December 12, 2019, 02:05:45 PM »

I don't see Uridium expenditures on sensors ever being something that strains an economy.  Fire controls, maybe, but not sensors.  Because you don't need that many sensors in a fleet, like you do need fire controls.  You need sensors for each Jump Point, and colony world and operational battlefleet, but only the last is ever going to be that expensive.

And as fire controls do get more expensive, a simple way of dealing with a shortage would be to simply have a larger ratio of weapons to fire controls.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: December 12, 2019, 12:48:35 PM »

I just checked it out in my AS21/EM11/TH11 tech level game and a sensor platform with all 3 combined needs 21 Uridium. Or maybe it was 26. I should've written it down. That's peanuts. Unless the Uridium requirements skyrocket with higher tech levels, the mineral requirement will not be an issue, especially since they won't need maintenance so it's a one off cost.

I am worried though that they will cause a massive flood of "crew morale dropped" messages once they run out of the 3 month deployment time. We will see if that makes them unusable in the long run.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 11, 2019, 02:19:46 PM »

Not sure how much it will impact the need for Uridium yet but 20% of all supplies now need Uridium as well, so the demand for Uridium probably have increased a bit as you now need it for civilian ships and supplies in a way you did not need to use it before.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: December 11, 2019, 12:47:22 PM »

Good point. I've never had any problems with Uridium shortages, but the cost might be an issue especially as the amount of JPs that need surveillance grows.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 10, 2019, 03:09:13 PM »

Quote from: Garfunkel on December 10, 2019, 02:32:06 PM
Yes, my bad. I meant what is the largest sensor that is still classified as civilian. Thanks for confirming. In C# I will definitely be building these recon satellites with 150 tons of sensors on them and dropping them at JPs, as well as putting them on all/most civilian ships.

Just be aware that sensors are really expensive, I intend for most civilian sensors to be much smaller than 50 ton. A 0.5 sensor are not half as bad as a 1 HS sensor in C#.

Full size sensors could end up to be 10% or more of the ships total cost even if they are so small and they use up a really strategically valuable resource in Uridium. I will definitely have at least some sensors on them but not as large as 50 ton per sensors, that seems expensive for a mere transport ship for example.
Posted by: Garfunkel
« on: December 10, 2019, 02:32:06 PM »

Yes, my bad. I meant what is the largest sensor that is still classified as civilian. Thanks for confirming. In C# I will definitely be building these recon satellites with 150 tons of sensors on them and dropping them at JPs, as well as putting them on all/most civilian ships.
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: December 09, 2019, 06:50:02 PM »

Quote from: Michael Sandy on December 09, 2019, 05:54:38 PM
It can also be useful to have a deliberately noisy, Res 500 sensor ship, whose job is to be detectable on EM as far as possible, while having a small target profile.  Such can bait out an enemy, kite them, potentially buy time for a response fleet.  And you can always turn it off.  Res 500 sensors are still useful for hunting civilian shipping too.

Or. . . you can turn on your ship's Transponder.  It won't help you detect civilians, but they should have their own transponders turned on.  And you don't have to build any sort of special ship to do it with, either.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: December 09, 2019, 05:54:38 PM »

So you could have a 1 HS thermal, 1 HS EM and 1 HS active sensor and it would still be commercial (if it otherwise qualified to be commercial).

Normally I am a fan of splitting up the package into separate fighters, but in this case you have the fixed cost of the engineering system, so it would be cheaper to have a 3 sensor early warning satellite than 3 1-sensor satellites.

Something to keep in mind is that you can only turn active sensors on and off on a ship basis.  So if you have multiple active sensors, they are either all on or all off.  So it is often a good idea to have your really noisy anti-ship sensor on a different platform from your always on anti-missile sensor.

It can also be useful to have a deliberately noisy, Res 500 sensor ship, whose job is to be detectable on EM as far as possible, while having a small target profile.  Such can bait out an enemy, kite them, potentially buy time for a response fleet.  And you can always turn it off.  Res 500 sensors are still useful for hunting civilian shipping too.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: December 09, 2019, 04:56:07 PM »

Quote from: Father Tim on December 09, 2019, 04:04:42 PM
Quote from: Garfunkel on December 09, 2019, 11:54:10 AM
What is the smallest size AS/TH/EM that is still classified as civilian? Was it 1 HS/50 tons?

And did Steve change it for C#?

You mean, largest sensor that is civilian?  Still 50 tons' displacement.

Quote from: Steve Walmsley on June 14, 2019, 06:14:57 AM
Quote from: Father Tim on June 13, 2019, 02:31:49 PM
Last I checked 1 HS or less sensors were civilian systems, and a ship with no sensors received strength-1 passives.

Yes, that's correct for VB6. There are no inherent passive sensors in C#.

Was that not what the question was... ;)

He said smallest but I'm sure he meant what size is the biggest sensor for crafts to be classed as commercial, they can obviously be smaller and there have never been a limit on that other than what you can build.