Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: November 02, 2006, 07:48:25 PM »There are basically three choices for strategic mobility:
1) A Jump Cruiser that travels with the convoy. Disadvantage, all ships are limited to the slowest speed. As tech advances, there will be a wide range of ship speeds. And cost efficient freighter designs have fewer engines than cost efficient colony ships.
2) Jump Gates. Allows anything through, no maintenance. Disadvantage, very expensive and takes a long time to deploy.
3) Jump cruisers deployed to warp points, instead of travelling in convoy. Like Jump Gates allow economic development ships to travel at their best speed.
So build a bunch of Jump Gate cruisers with cargo holds to fill out the volume required, a few engines to get them deployed, and deploy them for long periods at various warp points.
For example:
5000 tons 210 Crew 385 BP Signature 100-120
1200 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 9/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 25000 Supply 200
Ion Engine (2) Armour 0 Exp 5%
Passive Sensor S3-9 (1) Strength 9 Detect Signature 10: 0.9m km Detect Signature 100: 9m km
or
5000 tons 265 Crew 472 BP Signature 100-240
2400 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 20000 Supply 600
Ion Engine (4) Armour 0 Exp 5%
or perhaps:
5000 tons 260 Crew 446 BP Signature 100-180
1800 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 9/3/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 20000 Supply 400
Ion Engine (3) Armour 0 Exp 5%
Passive Sensor S3-9 (1) Strength 9 Detect Signature 10: 0.9m km Detect Signature 100: 9m km
Active Sensor S3-3 (1) Strength 3 Detect Size 10: 0.3m km Detect Size 100: 3m km
For economic expansion purposes, these are all good designs. The more freighters and colony ships using a particular route, the greater the advantage to having them go at their best speed instead of in convoys.
The advantage of a Jump Gate is that larger ships can use it, and therefore one can build larger ships to use it.
So by building a Jump Gate route instead of a fixed Jump Cruiser route you can build size 180 HS freighters to carry two factories. But you need an awful lot of larger ships to give a Jump Gate route a cost advantage over Jump Cruisers.
Comparing 2400 bp for a two-way gate, +1 year construction, and tying up 5 freighters as well, vs less than 500 for establishing a Jump Cruiser on the route, that is a pretty significant cost advantage. And that means some 1900 BP and minerals that could be invested in something that would pay off a lot sooner than 36 years.
1) A Jump Cruiser that travels with the convoy. Disadvantage, all ships are limited to the slowest speed. As tech advances, there will be a wide range of ship speeds. And cost efficient freighter designs have fewer engines than cost efficient colony ships.
2) Jump Gates. Allows anything through, no maintenance. Disadvantage, very expensive and takes a long time to deploy.
3) Jump cruisers deployed to warp points, instead of travelling in convoy. Like Jump Gates allow economic development ships to travel at their best speed.
So build a bunch of Jump Gate cruisers with cargo holds to fill out the volume required, a few engines to get them deployed, and deploy them for long periods at various warp points.
For example:
5000 tons 210 Crew 385 BP Signature 100-120
1200 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 9/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 25000 Supply 200
Ion Engine (2) Armour 0 Exp 5%
Passive Sensor S3-9 (1) Strength 9 Detect Signature 10: 0.9m km Detect Signature 100: 9m km
or
5000 tons 265 Crew 472 BP Signature 100-240
2400 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 20000 Supply 600
Ion Engine (4) Armour 0 Exp 5%
or perhaps:
5000 tons 260 Crew 446 BP Signature 100-180
1800 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1 Shields 0-0 Sensors 9/3/0/0 Damage Control 0-0
Cargo 20000 Supply 400
Ion Engine (3) Armour 0 Exp 5%
Passive Sensor S3-9 (1) Strength 9 Detect Signature 10: 0.9m km Detect Signature 100: 9m km
Active Sensor S3-3 (1) Strength 3 Detect Size 10: 0.3m km Detect Size 100: 3m km
For economic expansion purposes, these are all good designs. The more freighters and colony ships using a particular route, the greater the advantage to having them go at their best speed instead of in convoys.
The advantage of a Jump Gate is that larger ships can use it, and therefore one can build larger ships to use it.
So by building a Jump Gate route instead of a fixed Jump Cruiser route you can build size 180 HS freighters to carry two factories. But you need an awful lot of larger ships to give a Jump Gate route a cost advantage over Jump Cruisers.
Comparing 2400 bp for a two-way gate, +1 year construction, and tying up 5 freighters as well, vs less than 500 for establishing a Jump Cruiser on the route, that is a pretty significant cost advantage. And that means some 1900 BP and minerals that could be invested in something that would pay off a lot sooner than 36 years.