Exploration

[tigeriith]

This is intended just as a comment and FYI for players -- I understand generalizations are not always true and there are exceptions.

 

It was suggested in the forum that every ship issuning EXPL orders have an empty drone rack, fighter bay and 25,000 cargo holds as this would handle any potential find. I just ht a case where this was not sufficient.

 

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EXPL: 300

 

Your explorers discovered some Picket Drone(s) here, but there was insufficient room on board Explorer # 300 to hold them all, so some were discarded

 

Your explorers discovered some Picket Drone(s) here; 100 were salvaged and added to the holds of Explorer # 300!

 

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[ShadowKitsune]

<Ouch>

 

On the upside, if you didn't have any Drone Racks at all, you would not have garnered the 100 Picket Drones you did get.

 

-SK

[hobknob]

Well, that is the main reason to run with much larger capacities in your fleets.

 

25,000 cargo is plenty for 1 TWD, but not for 3 or 4. Nor is it enough for 9 Troop berthings .

 

[WKE235]

Well, that is the main reason to run with much larger capacities in your fleets.

 

25,000 cargo is plenty for 1 TWD, but not for 3 or 4. Nor is it enough for 9 Troop berthings .

 

 

I've never found (that I can remember) anything that totaled over 25,000 tons total on an explore hit. So, if you wanted to be safe, you would want 3 drone racks, 3 fighter bays, and lets say 30,000 Cargo Bay. Toss in 30,000 Fuel Tanks as well. That would probably be enough to store any one Explore hit. As long as you have a colony on the planet, you can follow each XEXPL with an XOC to the colony, clearing room for the next hit.

 

Of course this exploration ship is getting pretty big. 3 Drone racks, 3 Fighter racks, 30,000 Cargo, 30,000 Fuel Tank, lets toss in 2 Type A Science labs (or better) and 2 Survey Landers (to boost odds for hits). Top it off with some high end engines (like 100+ MK II Antimatter Engines) and a TWD, bolt on a few weapons here, some shielding there, a touch of armor (no one ever said exploration was safe), more fuel tanks so we can get somewhere with all this weight .. and you get a basic little 200K+ ton exploration cruiser.

[Soerenjev]

Well, that is the main reason to run with much larger capacities in your fleets.

 

25,000 cargo is plenty for 1 TWD, but not for 3 or 4. Nor is it enough for 9 Troop berthings .

 

 

I've never found (that I can remember) anything that totaled over 25,000 tons total on an explore hit. So, if you wanted to be safe, you would want 3 drone racks, 3 fighter bays, and lets say 30,000 Cargo Bay. Toss in 30,000 Fuel Tanks as well. That would probably be enough to store any one Explore hit. As long as you have a colony on the planet, you can follow each XEXPL with an XOC to the colony, clearing room for the next hit.

 

Of course this exploration ship is getting pretty big. 3 Drone racks, 3 Fighter racks, 30,000 Cargo, 30,000 Fuel Tank, lets toss in 2 Type A Science labs (or better) and 2 Survey Landers (to boost odds for hits). Top it off with some high end engines (like 100+ MK II Antimatter Engines) and a TWD, bolt on a few weapons here, some shielding there, a touch of armor (no one ever said exploration was safe), more fuel tanks so we can get somewhere with all this weight .. and you get a basic little 200K+ ton exploration cruiser.

 

What's wrong with a 200k exploration cruiser ?

But you also could send a Freighter and a Tanker along with your exploration ship.

[Lord Uriel]

Well, that is the main reason to run with much larger capacities in your fleets.

 

25,000 cargo is plenty for 1 TWD, but not for 3 or 4. Nor is it enough for 9 Troop berthings .

 

 

I've never found (that I can remember) anything that totaled over 25,000 tons total on an explore hit. So, if you wanted to be safe, you would want 3 drone racks, 3 fighter bays, and lets say 30,000 Cargo Bay. Toss in 30,000 Fuel Tanks as well. That would probably be enough to store any one Explore hit. As long as you have a colony on the planet, you can follow each XEXPL with an XOC to the colony, clearing room for the next hit.

 

Of course this exploration ship is getting pretty big. 3 Drone racks, 3 Fighter racks, 30,000 Cargo, 30,000 Fuel Tank, lets toss in 2 Type A Science labs (or better) and 2 Survey Landers (to boost odds for hits). Top it off with some high end engines (like 100+ MK II Antimatter Engines) and a TWD, bolt on a few weapons here, some shielding there, a touch of armor (no one ever said exploration was safe), more fuel tanks so we can get somewhere with all this weight .. and you get a basic little 200K+ ton exploration cruiser.

I've had a couple of situations where extra tonnage on cargo bays, drone racks, & fighter bays came in handy. Not too many out of 100+ turns, maybe 5.

 

Lord Uriel

[hobknob]

I would agree that most finds will be under the 30k ton range, but that is just for a single exploration attempt. Even without engines you can do 2 of them a turn and setting up a XOC for every EXPL is a big waste of time and orders in my book.

 

The solution is to build bigger ships.

 

[TErnest]

What's wrong with a 200k exploration cruiser ?

But you also could send a Freighter and a Tanker along with your exploration ship.

 

What's wrong? Far too small. I abandoned such limited designs long ago. My most recent explorer design was closing in on 1M tons, with 80 APs. And I am quite certain that many out there use far more advanced Survey Cruiser designs!

 

TErnest

[hobknob]

My main exploration vehicle is 4.4 M tons. It is a bit dated and I am building a new one that will be a bit smaller, better engines and all, but will still be pretty big.

 

[Lord Xaar]

I can help only to think of a line from the incomparable "Spaceballs":

 

"I see your Schwartz is as big as mine...."

 

 

 

-LX

[WKE235]

 

What's wrong with a 200k exploration cruiser ?

But you also could send a Freighter and a Tanker along with your exploration ship.

 

What's wrong? Far too small. I abandoned such limited designs long ago. My most recent explorer design was closing in on 1M tons, with 80 APs. And I am quite certain that many out there use far more advanced Survey Cruiser designs!

 

TErnest

 

80 AP's? Don't you consider that overkill? I remember in various topics long ago (and a few emails) that Pete said the R&D you might get from explore finds is limited, and, drops off quickly after certain point. The intent being so folks would not abuse the exploration system to try and get around the R&D restrictions. So after your total number of Explores on the turn was close to 100 or so, any "hits" after that would produce very little value.

 

Plus, the value of the items you find in explores drop in values the more the world is explored. 80 EXPL's on a world would be enough to send most to being heavily explored, with future finds being resource piles as opposed to items or tech.

[TErnest]

 

What's wrong with a 200k exploration cruiser ?

But you also could send a Freighter and a Tanker along with your exploration ship.

 

What's wrong? Far too small. I abandoned such limited designs long ago. My most recent explorer design was closing in on 1M tons, with 80 APs. And I am quite certain that many out there use far more advanced Survey Cruiser designs!

 

TErnest

 

80 AP's? Don't you consider that overkill? I remember in various topics long ago (and a few emails) that Pete said the R&D you might get from explore finds is limited, and, drops off quickly after certain point. The intent being so folks would not abuse the exploration system to try and get around the R&D restrictions. So after your total number of Explores on the turn was close to 100 or so, any "hits" after that would produce very little value.

 

Plus, the value of the items you find in explores drop in values the more the world is explored. 80 EXPL's on a world would be enough to send most to being heavily explored, with future finds being resource piles as opposed to items or tech.

 

 

WKE,

 

Actually, I do not find 80 APs to be overkill in the least. That particular ship was designed to move over to planets of particular interest and strip them of all archeological finds in a short number of turns, then move on to the next unusual planetary body. At the 80 AP level, it takes six turns or more before finds drop off at a given world to the point where it is clearly time to move on.

 

I have found no detectable decline in the quality or quantity of Exploration finds uncovered in the early part of my turn, as opposed to the latter parts. (And I am very well past the 100 EXPL orders per turn level, thank you.) If anything, the results at the end of my turns are even more juicy and flavorful!

 

The EXPL system is already very well designed to avoid its use as a significant boost to the R&D system, even at my level of exploitation. Research finds are just too random over the spectrum of 1000+ techs. Even now, the vast majority of techs I have found data on have only a single EXPL hit credited to them.

 

In fact, I suspect that your interpretation of Pete's comments may be incorrect. Now, there IS a rather significant fall off on exploration finds on any given world, as the number of hits on that world accumulate. I personally believe that this was what Pete was talking about back then.

 

TErnest

[Prospective]

TErnest,

 

Since it sounds like you have a lot of experience with this. Can you tell me what a unusual planetary body is? How do you pick your targets? Do some planet types have better results than other planet types? How do moons and asteroids compare to "regular" worlds? Do gas giants have decent finds or are they a waste of time? Do larger planets have more find than smaller planets? Or do you just start at the first orbit and work your way to the last orbit before moving on to the next system?

 

When you get tech hits, do you ever get hits on items that you completed research on? Or do you only get hits on tech you have not completed, have never started on or have no knowledge of?

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

WKE,

 

Actually, I do not find 80 APs to be overkill in the least. That particular ship was designed to move over to planets of particular interest and strip them of all archeological finds in a short number of turns, then move on to the next unusual planetary body. At the 80 AP level, it takes six turns or more before finds drop off at a given world to the point where it is clearly time to move on.

 

I have found no detectable decline in the quality or quantity of Exploration finds uncovered in the early part of my turn, as opposed to the latter parts. (And I am very well past the 100 EXPL orders per turn level, thank you.) If anything, the results at the end of my turns are even more juicy and flavorful!

 

The EXPL system is already very well designed to avoid its use as a significant boost to the R&D system, even at my level of exploitation. Research finds are just too random over the spectrum of 1000+ techs. Even now, the vast majority of techs I have found data on have only a single EXPL hit credited to them.

 

In fact, I suspect that your interpretation of Pete's comments may be incorrect. Now, there IS a rather significant fall off on exploration finds on any given world, as the number of hits on that world accumulate. I personally believe that this was what Pete was talking about back then.

 

TErnest

[TErnest]

TErnest,

 

Since it sounds like you have a lot of experience with this. Can you tell me what a unusual planetary body is? How do you pick your targets? Do some planet types have better results than other planet types? How do moons and asteroids compare to "regular" worlds? Do gas giants have decent finds or are they a waste of time? Do larger planets have more find than smaller planets? Or do you just start at the first orbit and work your way to the last orbit before moving on to the next system?

 

When you get tech hits, do you ever get hits on items that you completed research on? Or do you only get hits on tech you have not completed, have never started on or have no knowledge of?

 

Thanks.

 

Prospective,

 

Some of these questions I have analyzed. Others, I have not. I'll share what little I know.

 

* Right now, the sort of worlds I am beginning to target are those within hostile stellar environments. Like, within a solar flare zone, or gravity well, for example. This is because these planets seem to have an elevated chance of producing some of the more exotic EXPL research finds.

 

* I have not compared moons vs. planets, nor looked at planet size. My impression is that asteroids become tapped out faster than planets, but I have not run any numbers to confirm that. Gas giants are pretty much a waste of time, though. It is not impossible to get an EXPL hit on one, but it is exceedingly rare.

 

* I have two methods for EXPLing a system. One is to set up relatively small, low AP ships on every planet in the (usually nearby) system, and just have them slowly work them over for several years, dropping goods at warehouse colonies at each location. The other is to move in a single well equipped, high AP ship into a distant but high priority target, and explore the &*%$@ out of each world, one at a time, dropping goods off at a central sceince colony, in system, for later recovery.

 

* Never recall getting hits on any project I had already completed. Other than that, what techs you get research hits appears to be entirely random. Expect, in equal measure, techs you have on your list of available research targets, things you plan to research in the far future, things you never ever expect to research, things you have never heard of before, and things that leave you scratching your head, saying, "What the heck is that?"

 

TErnest

[Soerenjev]

 

What's wrong with a 200k exploration cruiser ?

But you also could send a Freighter and a Tanker along with your exploration ship.

 

What's wrong? Far too small. I abandoned such limited designs long ago. My most recent explorer design was closing in on 1M tons, with 80 APs. And I am quite certain that many out there use far more advanced Survey Cruiser designs!

 

TErnest

 

 

What kind of engines do you need to get 80 AP'S ?