I wanted to play around with max technology, but wanted the AI to have the same toys as I did, so I made research rate a bit ridiculous and had everything done in a couple years.
I now have these for survey ships:
SS Quest 001 (Quest class Survey Ship) 6,000 tons 172 Crew 9,341.5 BP TCS 1 TH 41 EM 0
34502 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 6-29 Shields 0-0 HTK 58 Sensors 75/75/5/5 DCR 14 PPV 0
Maint Life 9.22 Years MSP 13,867 AFR 20% IFR 0.3% 1YR 294 5YR 4,403 Max Repair 3726.0000 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months Morale Check Required
J6250(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 6250 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
HS023 P090 F010 T001 Photonic Drive EP2070.00 (2) Power 4140.0 Fuel Use 5.07% Signature 20.7000 Explosion 9%
Fuel Capacity 816,000 Litres Range 483.2 billion km (162 days at full power)
EM Sensor EM1.0-75.0 (1) Sensitivity 75.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 68.5m km
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-75.0 (1) Sensitivity 75.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 68.5m km
Phased Gravitational Sensors (1) 5 Survey Points Per Hour
Phased Geological Sensors (1) 5 Survey Points Per Hour
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 0.500% of normal
ECM 100
Class design window:
https://prnt.sc/swwg9cOnly thing I'm missing is the ELINT module, because this ship isn't going to be hanging our near hostiles, it just wants to know about them before they know about it, and then run like hell if detected.
I join the tasks of geo, grav, and jump tender into one for the purpose of reducing my own micro - even at lower tech, my survey ships generally carry both sensors, and once feasible, the jump drive too. Fewer ships to manage as the unexplored fringes increase exponentially. Fewer yards spent on surveying since its often difficult to impossible to multipurpose one design at lower tech levels to get tender, grav, and geo out of it without resorting to the gamey build a design with everything, tool for that, make sub designs with one of the two sensors replaced, and build those as the separate surveyors.
Less resources dumped into the task since there are savings in armor, fuel tanks, fuel usage, engines, and science departments by combining hulls versus split. Same cost in geo/grav sensors either way. Ditto for the tenders. If the jump drives are survey ship sized, then I need one tender for every system anyways, might as well just continue with one ship per system and embed the drive. If its warship sized(since surveyors are often smaller - especially mine), I'm spending more than I need to, because surveyors enter every system, warships go where there's a fight or important planets or positions to defend, I need only enough such tenders to extend a couple lines of travel, not
all lines of travel as surveyors would.
There's value to an independent surveyor that needs no assistance to completely finish a system, which is also the sole vessel placed at risk if it blunders into hostiles.
The stealth I lumped in because, well, at this tech level, its hardly expensive in comparison, and greatly increases the chance the surveyor sees them first and can run away without being shot at, so I don't have to worry about its replacement to finish the job - less micro. If I lose one, I'll evaluate whether it needs a larger thermal to have the warning it needs to survive or not, and if that's worth throwing in.
Maintenance life is a bit overkill, done to push down the yearly MSP costs, a little more spent up front to spend a lot less over its lifetime.
Sometimes the kitchen sink is better than a hose and bucket, even if they both get the job done.