Size of your ships...
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2022 6:07 pm
I find that the original explorer ship is the only regular explorer that I need, larger variants just are too expensive and building more is better instead. The reason being the vast majority of time the explorers are spent surveying and even this class get enough range anyway.
I only use the other explorer classes as spy ships and scouts, where the size and range is allot more important. They also will house more and larger sensor equipment.
I also assume the AI will just build more expensive explorers for no good reasons which is a shame. The AI don't need extra expenses for no good reason.
I also find some other ships to be unnecessarily expensive in their larger versions, such as constructors for example. Why do they need to be bigger, the already can get insane range and do what they need to do as is. Passenger ships can also be another thing. Passenger ships don't need more range than to reach your resorts and they certainly don't need more passenger compartments than your stations have, which seem to settle around four maybe five compartments maximum. A medium Passenger ship can usually do this.
Some civilian ships will be better such as Mining ships... the more cargo space the more efficient they are... range on them is secondary... you don't even want them to travel too far off either. Even fuel tankers you might not want them to be huge, sometimes more is just better than bigger, you want them in more places rather than bringing more fuel. For fuel tankers I want small ones roaming around on their own while dedicated larger ones in my bigger fleets.
If you use small escorts for patrol duty (I do for role-play purposes only)... you want them as small and cheap as possible. The standard escort you get at the start of the game works the entire game for this, I never design any other escorts as that just mess up the upgrade of my escort patrols. Micromanage hundreds of escorts will be quite daunting otherwise.
When it comes to combat ships it generally is better to have big ships rather than small ones, but numbers matter in this game too... a small ship can easily hold up a much bigger ship for a long time, this is both tactically and strategically important. A small squadron of three frigates is generally better than a cruiser at what they do, scattered area control, mainly as they can pin a more powerful force for longer than a single more powerful ship. Three frigates usually also have more firepower than a single cruiser... but in a fleet situation the bigger ships can support each other and become overall more powerful than the smaller ships as they survive more concentrated fire to escape if needed.
Anyway... just building the larger hull variants is not always the best choice... sometimes it will just come down to some specific needs. But some ships are actually better in bulk rather than quality. Especially when you take maintenance into consideration.
What are other peoples thoughts on this?
I only use the other explorer classes as spy ships and scouts, where the size and range is allot more important. They also will house more and larger sensor equipment.
I also assume the AI will just build more expensive explorers for no good reasons which is a shame. The AI don't need extra expenses for no good reason.
I also find some other ships to be unnecessarily expensive in their larger versions, such as constructors for example. Why do they need to be bigger, the already can get insane range and do what they need to do as is. Passenger ships can also be another thing. Passenger ships don't need more range than to reach your resorts and they certainly don't need more passenger compartments than your stations have, which seem to settle around four maybe five compartments maximum. A medium Passenger ship can usually do this.
Some civilian ships will be better such as Mining ships... the more cargo space the more efficient they are... range on them is secondary... you don't even want them to travel too far off either. Even fuel tankers you might not want them to be huge, sometimes more is just better than bigger, you want them in more places rather than bringing more fuel. For fuel tankers I want small ones roaming around on their own while dedicated larger ones in my bigger fleets.
If you use small escorts for patrol duty (I do for role-play purposes only)... you want them as small and cheap as possible. The standard escort you get at the start of the game works the entire game for this, I never design any other escorts as that just mess up the upgrade of my escort patrols. Micromanage hundreds of escorts will be quite daunting otherwise.
When it comes to combat ships it generally is better to have big ships rather than small ones, but numbers matter in this game too... a small ship can easily hold up a much bigger ship for a long time, this is both tactically and strategically important. A small squadron of three frigates is generally better than a cruiser at what they do, scattered area control, mainly as they can pin a more powerful force for longer than a single more powerful ship. Three frigates usually also have more firepower than a single cruiser... but in a fleet situation the bigger ships can support each other and become overall more powerful than the smaller ships as they survive more concentrated fire to escape if needed.
Anyway... just building the larger hull variants is not always the best choice... sometimes it will just come down to some specific needs. But some ships are actually better in bulk rather than quality. Especially when you take maintenance into consideration.
What are other peoples thoughts on this?
), but maybe bigger construction ships that have more cargo bays are necessary to construct monitoring stations in one trip (without having to go get more resources to finish the build).