Does anything other than Ships with weapons , provide PPV value to colonies ?
I have a colony on Luna with currently 6 Military ships each providing 12 PPV ( total 72) for colony defense. Luna has , at present , 89m inhabitants who demand level 55 protection.
I am loath to keep cranking out these vessels to provide protection to Luna ( the max inhabitants can be 890m which will mean an awful number of vessels for protection.).
Besides placing army units on the planet ( I already have 1 Battalion in place showing 20/52 - whatever that means ) what else can i do to save on the number of ships ( which are useless anyway , each having only 2-20cm Plasma carronades.
DavidR
The PPV requirement can only be met by ships with weapons.
That said, they don't have to be good ships.
In fact, they don't even have to be functional.
The population you are providing protection to is not making a thorough assessment of each ship's fighting capability.
The only thing that matters for PPV is the number of weapons--and those weapons don't even have to be able to fire.
A missile launcher without missiles? That works!
An energy weapon without a power plant? That works!
No fire control? Who cares? Show me the guns!
Minimal armor on the thing? So what, as long as it has weapons! Pew-pew!
So, while you can't just ignore providing PPV entirely, you can spend a lot less to provide it by building ships with unfirable weapons.
And if you keep them under 500t, you don't even need a shipyard.
Side bonus: all these little ships give your junior officers something to "command".
Here's a simple example:
PewPew class Populace Protector 339 tons 18 Crew 8.1 BP TCS 7 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 6
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 67% IFR 0.9% 1YR 1 5YR 15 Max Repair 6 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0 days Morale Check Required
10cm C1 Infrared Laser (2) Range 0km TS: 1,250 km/s Power 3-1 RM 10,000 km ROF 15
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a e for auto-assignment purposes
This is just two of the smallest lasers bolted onto a hull, with nothing else (other than the required armor and crew quarters).
The deployment time is .001, because it's meant to always be in a hangar or at a maintenance location.
So, for 8.1BP you get 6 PPV.
Unfortunately, adding a third laser takes the size to 501 tons, which would then require a shipyard to produce.
If you don't mind using a shipyard, then put 6 lasers on this guy and you get 18PPV for 21BP.
That's a slightly better deal, but in my opinion not worth a dedicated yard--in the long run, you don't really need that much PPV.