A terrible, awful, not very good Survey Ship

[skoormit]

Interesting points. The AFR is not the stat I was paying attention to. Estimated maintenance life is. If the ship can't make 4 years, then its 42 month deployment isn't going to happen. That being said, I think I see where you are coming from. I made this weird ship...

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Africa class Survey Craft (P)      996 tons       20 Crew       140.9 BP       TCS 20    TH 50    EM 0
2511 km/s      Armour 1-8       Shields 0-0       HTK 7      Sensors 0/0/0/1      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 4.60 Years     MSP 53    AFR 13%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 4    5YR 61    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP50.00 (1)    Power 50.0    Fuel Use 6.07%    Signature 50.00    Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 297.8 billion km (1372 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per HourBTW, that's a 40% power 10 HS engine, which is about 50% of the size of the ship.

It's a little slower, slightly shorter range, and only has half the deployment time.  However, I see one major flaw in the design. It has 53 MSP, but a max repair of 100. If that 100 component goes out, it has to RTB to fix it. Still, it only has a 13% chance of failure on a given year, and only a 2 year deployment. That 100 MSP component is the main sensor. Everything else it could repair no less than 5 times.

This ship uses a lot more fuel than mine, by far! But I do see the size benefit of such a tiny ship. That said, there is the issue that I usually end up in a fuel crunch in my first war.

It occurs to me that you have said a lot about what you don't like about other people's designs, but you have not posted one yourself. Perhaps you should post your tiny survey craft?

Just for chuckles, copy this ship, and replace the engine with a much smaller 80% engine.
How much smaller? Let's see:
(40% power * 10HS engine) / (10HS payload + 10HS engine) = (80% power * XHS engine) / (10HS payload + XHS engine)
4/20 = .8X/(10+x)
2 + .2X = .8X
2/.6 = X
x = 3.33

So, an 80%, 3.33HS  engine would give you the same ship speed if you don't change anything else on the ship, but your range will be a lot worse.
Then again, the range you have on the ship above is...rather enormous.
Some back of napkin math (297.8 * (0.1 / 0.57) * (20 / 13.33)) tells me that you'll still have a range of 78.3Bkm with that same amount of fuel.

Try it?

[skoormit]

As it stands, my Meech class survey craft weren't even long enough range to survey one system. I could only hit about 4% of the system until I designed a ship with literally trillions of km in range.

I am so confused.
Your Meech class has 316.6 Bkm range.
That's enough range to run a dozen laps around the outer ring of survey locations on most systems.
What am I missing?

[Aloriel]

Geological survey.

[skoormit]

Geological survey.

Was there a very distant binary star?

[Aloriel]

Nah, just extremely distant planets and a huge asteroid field at about 3 billion km. The furthest planet is over 300 billion from the star. I needed all that range to keep working on the asteroids without massive amounts of time wasted returning to base for overhaul/fuel.

[Aloriel]

Just for chuckles, copy this ship, and replace the engine with a much smaller 80% engine.
How much smaller? Let's see:
(40% power * 10HS engine) / (10HS payload + 10HS engine) = (80% power * XHS engine) / (10HS payload + XHS engine)
4/20 = .8X/(10+x)
2 + .2X = .8X
2/.6 = X
x = 3.33

So, an 80%, 3.33HS  engine would give you the same ship speed if you don't change anything else on the ship, but your range will be a lot worse.
Then again, the range you have on the ship above is...rather enormous.
Some back of napkin math (297.8 * (0.1 / 0.57) * (20 / 13.33)) tells me that you'll still have a range of 78.3Bkm with that same amount of fuel.

Try it?

Since I can't do 3.33, I did 3.3 HS. End result is weird. Vastly shorter range, but also not much gain in speed?

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Africa - Copy class Survey Craft (P)      646 tons       24 Crew       149.7 BP       TCS 13    TH 33    EM 0
2555 km/s      Armour 1-6       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/1      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 19.76 Years     MSP 188    AFR 3%    IFR 0.0%    1YR 1    5YR 14    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP33.00 (1)    Power 33.0    Fuel Use 59.79%    Signature 33.00    Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 54,000 Litres    Range 25.2 billion km (114 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

[skoormit]

Nah, just extremely distant planets and a huge asteroid field at about 3 billion km. The furthest planet is over 300 billion from the star. I needed all that range to keep working on the asteroids without massive amounts of time wasted returning to base for overhaul/fuel.

Fair enough. That's a special case. Sounds like that system had a very heavy star. Those are rather rare.

When I've encountered those, I just build a few tankers to send along with one of the surveyors. The tankers peel off as they empty.

[skoormit]

Just for chuckles, copy this ship, and replace the engine with a much smaller 80% engine.
How much smaller? Let's see:
(40% power * 10HS engine) / (10HS payload + 10HS engine) = (80% power * XHS engine) / (10HS payload + XHS engine)
4/20 = .8X/(10+x)
2 + .2X = .8X
2/.6 = X
x = 3.33

So, an 80%, 3.33HS  engine would give you the same ship speed if you don't change anything else on the ship, but your range will be a lot worse.
Then again, the range you have on the ship above is...rather enormous.
Some back of napkin math (297.8 * (0.1 / 0.57) * (20 / 13.33)) tells me that you'll still have a range of 78.3Bkm with that same amount of fuel.

Try it?

Since I can't do 3.33, I did 3.3 HS. End result is weird. Vastly shorter range, but also not much gain in speed?

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Africa - Copy class Survey Craft (P)      646 tons       24 Crew       149.7 BP       TCS 13    TH 33    EM 0
2555 km/s      Armour 1-6       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/1      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 19.76 Years     MSP 188    AFR 3%    IFR 0.0%    1YR 1    5YR 14    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP33.00 (1)    Power 33.0    Fuel Use 59.79%    Signature 33.00    Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 54,000 Litres    Range 25.2 billion km (114 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

Not trying to gain speed. Trying to save cost and reduce size at the same time. Speed should stay (roughly) the same.

Now cut the eng spaces by half, and add maintenance supply spaces if needed to get back up to 100+ MSP.

[Aloriel]

Tweaked it a bunch to try to get it under 500. Probably requires a smaller engine.

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Africa - Copy class Survey Craft (P)      584 tons       17 Crew       136.8 BP       TCS 12    TH 33    EM 0
2825 km/s      Armour 1-6       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/1/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 10.12 Years     MSP 123    AFR 5%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 2    5YR 33    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP33.00 (1)    Power 33.0    Fuel Use 59.79%    Signature 33.00    Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 25.8 billion km (105 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per HourAlso, realized this is a grav surveyor, not a geo surveyor. Not enough range for a geo.

EDIT:
Now *this* is a geo survey version. It's way slower, but 10 years deployment and similar range to my Meech class....

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Africa - Copy class Survey Craft (P)      500 tons       13 Crew       131.7 BP       TCS 10    TH 5    EM 0
500 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/1      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 10.37 Years     MSP 191    AFR 8%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 3    5YR 48    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP5.00 (1)    Power 5.0    Fuel Use 2.40%    Signature 5.00    Explosion 2%
Fuel Capacity 22,000 Litres    Range 330 billion km (7638 days at full power)

Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

[skoormit]

Tweaked it a bunch to try to get it under 500. Probably requires a smaller engine.

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Africa - Copy class Survey Craft (P)      584 tons       17 Crew       136.8 BP       TCS 12    TH 33    EM 0
2825 km/s      Armour 1-6       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/1/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 10.12 Years     MSP 123    AFR 5%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 2    5YR 33    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP33.00 (1)    Power 33.0    Fuel Use 59.79%    Signature 33.00    Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 25.8 billion km (105 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per HourAlso, realized this is a grav surveyor, not a geo surveyor. Not enough range for a geo.

Now we're getting somewhere.
This one is a lot smaller and a little bit cheaper than the 996kt version above.
The price, of course, is fuel consumption.
To follow this doctrine of smaller, more powerful engines, you have to invest a bit more in fuel production and distribution.
Fortunately, sorium harvesters and tanker ships are pretty cheap.
It's fun for me, but it's not the right play style for everyone.

[Aloriel]

So, my final(?) design is this:

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Acacia class Gravitational Survey Vessel (P)      500 tons       12 Crew       123.6 BP       TCS 10    TH 18    EM 0
1753 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/1/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 5.27 Years     MSP 115    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 7    5YR 104    Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP17.50 (1)    Power 17.5    Fuel Use 55.00%    Signature 17.50    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 69,000 Litres    Range 45.2 billion km (298 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a Survey Ship for auto-assignment purposesYou'll notice that I've adjusted it to a 12 month deployment, and that it is a bit slower with a much higher AFR. This is because I am creating a carrier for it and a similarly designed geo survey "fighter". The carrier will ideally be an entirely commercial ship. It'll launch these survey... uhh... shuttles? on arrival in the system. It'll carry enough fuel and MSP for them to remain in supply for years at a time. It can even get to the outer reaches of a system and then launch the geo survey shuttles, thus solving my problem of the huge systems.

My only question is, do I need a commercial damage control, and does that rewind deployment time?

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Agamemnon class Scout Carrier      12,297 tons       166 Crew       723.5 BP       TCS 246    TH 500    EM 0
2033 km/s      Armour 1-47       Shields 0-0       HTK 39      Sensors 6/0/0/0      DCR 14      PPV 0
MSP 5,514    Max Repair 100 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2,000 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Flight Crew Berths 40   

Commercial Ion Drive  EP500.00 (1)    Power 500    Fuel Use 1.92%    Signature 500    Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 1,524.8 billion km (8680 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1.0-6.0 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

Strike Group
1x Acacia Gravitational Survey Vessel   Speed: 1753 km/s    Size: 9.98
3x Chestnut Geological Survey Vessel   Speed: 1753 km/s    Size: 9.98

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a b for auto-assignment purposes

[skoormit]

You'll notice that I've adjusted it to a 12 month deployment, and that it is a bit slower with a much higher AFR. This is because I am creating a carrier for it and a similarly designed geo survey "fighter". The carrier will ideally be an entirely commercial ship. It'll launch these survey... uhh... shuttles? on arrival in the system. It'll carry enough fuel and MSP for them to remain in supply for years at a time. It can even get to the outer reaches of a system and then launch the geo survey shuttles, thus solving my problem of the huge systems.

My only question is, do I need a commercial damage control, and does that rewind deployment time?

The Commercial Hangar Deck is a commercial component, but it does not stop the maintenance clock of docked ships.

The other Hangar Deck and the smaller Boat Bays are military components. They stop the maintenance clock of docked ships, but you will have to consider the maintenance of the carrier itself.

Hangars are beneficial mainly for long distance transport of small, short-range, fuel-thirsty ships.
They do not usually provide a significant reduction in maintenance costs.

Keep in mind also that the AFR displayed for a ship design applies to the first year of service, and then increases each subsequent year.
The AFR for the Nth year of service is just the base AFR * N.
This is why the 5YR MSP usage estimate shown in the design text is 15 times the 1YR estimate (1+2+3+4+5=15).
I design my surveyors for 2 year deployments, because the 3rd year costs as much MSP as the first two years combined, and then it gets more expensive from there.

For a thorough discussion of additional nuances of the maintenance rules, check out this legendary post by Alsadius.

And no, you don't want a damage control component. Those only reduce the time needed to repair components damaged in battle. They do not apply to components that suffer maintenance failures.

[Michael Sandy]

I go with 800 ton Grav survey boats.  Effectiveness of a survey ship is a balance of its speed, endurance and the cost of the payload.  Since the cost of the survey sensor is fixed, the rest of the boat isn't going to add that much to the cost of the ship until you have much better engine tech.

If I am feeling extravagant, I push the size up a little bit, and give them a 1 HS sensor system.  I have a survey support carrier, not to transport them long distance, but to repair anything out in the field, and to house the scouts and jump point probe pinnaces.  I also drop monitor satellites on both sides of all jump points.  Not really great sensors, just enough to detect anything close enough to transit.  Most of the warning is from the enemy blowing them up.

Part of efficiency in survey operations is that if a system doesn't need to go all over the system, it shouldn't.  So the jump tender should always be a commercial ship that helps the survey fleet transit.  It doesn't even need to stick around at the entrance, although you could have an RP that it doesn't leave while there are ships in the system.

I am a big believer that solo survey ships are a horrible idea.  You always wants something else in the system out of range of the enemy who can report the destruction of your survey ship, because that is information that you HAVE to know as fast as possible.

And a survey fleet simply has no chance of fighting off anything except an enemy scout.  In the event of combat, any military systems should be aimed at simply getting more detailed information about the enemy capacity.

That can include recon missiles.  Missiles with no warhead, that don't travel very fast, but have a very long range.  They won't have a targeting system that can hit an enemy, but can go to a waypoint on the enemy path that would give an idea as to what the enemy will use to shoot down missiles with.  Recon missiles are also useful for probing fleets that are orbiting a body.

If you want your survey fleet to be able to take out enemy survey ships and scouts, adding a beam fighter or two on the support carrier is reasonable.  There is then a bit of a conflict between making a long endurance fighter for that or a high performance one.  Long endurance means you can also use them as commerce raiders, going after slow and dispersed commercial ships.

The big thing you lose with a slower, long endurance fighter is the great reduction in their ability to contribute to point defense.

[Michael Sandy]

With respect to having enough engineering to repair the grav sensor, I am kind of torn.  There is a significant cost to having enough engineering to repair the grav sensor.  And you get a rather over engineered ship which is going to have life support issues long before the engineering.  RP wise, I am okay with a ship that can lose the grav sensor but repair anything else.  If the sensor dies, they just come home.  There is going to be 4-6 grav boats in a survey fleet in any case.  A sensor failure just means the system survey takes a bit longer.

I always keep my survey boats below 1000 tons, because it is easy to retool a 1000 ton shipyard that has many building slips.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have many different ways to deploy survey vessels, everything from small survey boats with carriers to support them to large multi-purpose science ships that can do both.

In general I find that military drives is more efficient, especially on larger survey vessels with four to six survey modules on them. As I play with 5-10% survey speed then a single survey module might see a ship spend all its time on like a single body at times, this also makes range and speed less important in general. A range of around 100-150 billion km are generally good enough for most surveyors.

I also role-play some limitation in deployment times. I figure that more than four maybe five years on a larger ship probably is the upper limit for what most humans would like to endure under normal circumstances, you probably could find some willing to deploy longer but that seem unrealistic when you deploy these ships in the dozens or more. Smaller ships gets less deployment time, the smaller the ship and crew the less likely they are to be deployed a log time.

Those who are later multi-purpose ships get both an engineering and science compartments as well to make them even more efficient, later ships also get more range as they survey faster.

In general the cost of the survey modules tend to be so much of the total cost of the ships that using commercial engines seem wasteful as that make the ships so much bigger for no good reason. It entirely depends on the range and speeds I want with the ships. Unless research cost is an issue for engines and jump engines I usually stick with military engines.

Using small survey ships usually also means I have less experienced commanders on them as well, that is why I tend to avoid smaller survey ships in favour of larger ships. Multi-purpose ones also can do both grav survey and survey planets (and perhaps moons) and leave the rest for dedicated geological survey ships to survey asteroids and comets. I generally like to find out what planets I can colonize and/or have good mineral deposits. So in general the ships survey planets and moons first (some only survey planets) and then switch to survey gravity locations. Once a ship find a JP I usually send that ship to explore it and it automatically start surveying the planets in that system.

As I often play with 5% survey rate it is not unusually for me to have several dozens of large survey ships surveying at the same time, each deployed for about four years.