Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: RawCode on January 10, 2019, 04:28:10 AM
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Well, we have few "dedicated" ships, purely civilian, with only one real goal - providing cargo\fuel capacity.
In case of fuel capacity, fuel consumption is significant factor, not as significant as move speed, still.
Drum carry 300 fuel with max burn of 9 and 1 fuel per ly, this is 300eff
Phaeton carry 600 fuel, with same burn, and 2 fuel per ly, this is same 300eff
Prometheus carry 2500 fuel, with miserable burn of 6 and 10 fuel per ly, this is 250eff (2500\10)
IRL this works in absolute reverse, giant freightliner is much more effective compared to smaller vehicles, and carry a lot more cargo for it's own mass compared to smaller trucks and civilian cars.
Also it's not that slow compared to smaller cars and perfectly keep 110kmh on freeway, just like everyone else.
Basically, only phaeton worth anything as long as you not hit maximum number of ships, as it get 100 bonus from HRS and completely equal to drum in eff.
For cargo, main factor is supply consumption (fuel consumption also important, but in such case on Colossus worth it):
Buffalo 300 cargo and 3 supply 100 eff
Tarsus 300 cargo and 3 supply and 80 crew 100eff
Colossus 900 cargo and 6 supply and 200 crew 150eff
Atlas 2000 cargo and 10 supply and miserable burn level 50eff
As result, best ship colossus, as it provide 50% more cargo capacity per supply cost and additional 200 crew.
As result, getting largest and most costly ship in line, is not upgrade, not ever close, in case of atlas it's major significant jump backward.
Is this by design? or probably have some logic behind? probably this is reason of domain downfall?
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So, Colossus and Phaetons it is... And here I was poaching caravans for any Atlas I could get my hands on.
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By the time you're using an Atlas you're also using other capitals, so your burn speed is limited. At this point, only the supplies consumed matter, and for both fuel and cargo, the biggest ships can transport the most per supplies used.
Also, on civilian ships, not sure about you, but I always install augmented drive field, and efficiency overhaul.
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Sometimes, Augmented Engines or even Militarized Subsystems are not always necessary on smaller ships.
I try to put Efficiency Overhaul on everything, though.
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biggest ships carry most per ship slot, but not ever close per supply and fuel point.
they need atleast double buff to cargo to be competitive with lesser ships.
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I don't really see the problem here. First off, tankers and supply ships all have extremely high efficiency and so one being a bit less efficient than another doesn't really matter since their own fuel/supply consumption is largely irrelevant when compared to that of the rest of the fleet. Second, for smaller fleets you're absolutely right. You do want Drams, Phaetons and Buffalos but not because of the efficiency - because of the speed. A small fleet needs to be able to run from larger engagements and you simply aren't going to be able to do that very well with a Prometheus or Atlas. Once your fleet grows in size though and the ship limit becomes a concern, you need more dense forms of fuel/cargo storage which is where the larger freighters really shine. I don't think it was ever meant to be a case of linear upgrades but rather about trade-offs that encourage experimentation.
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I might as well ask this on this thread:
Do you ever use civilian ships for bonuses like ECM rating and such? Like deploying them in a corner and leaving them here just for the bonus? I absolutely never deploy them but maybe there's a niche strat making use of that.
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I don't really see the problem here. First off, tankers and supply ships all have extremely high efficiency and so one being a bit less efficient than another doesn't really matter since their own fuel/supply consumption is largely irrelevant when compared to that of the rest of the fleet. Second, for smaller fleets you're absolutely right. You do want Drams, Phaetons and Buffalos but not because of the efficiency - because of the speed. A small fleet needs to be able to run from larger engagements and you simply aren't going to be able to do that very well with a Prometheus or Atlas. Once your fleet grows in size though and the ship limit becomes a concern, you need more dense forms of fuel/cargo storage which is where the larger freighters really shine. I don't think it was ever meant to be a case of linear upgrades but rather about trade-offs that encourage experimentation.
you missed entire point of thread.
when you have access to all ships at same time, there are NO REASONS to pick inferior ships at all.
there are absolutely no reasons to use drums when you can have phaetons.
no reasons to use buffalo when you have tarsus
no reason to use prometheus or atlast as long as you not hit fleet size limit, because there are no tradeoffs, they strictly inferior compared to smaller ships.
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This isn't actually true. There is a reason to use the Atlas and Prometheus - ship slots. They are both more slot efficient, for slightly less cargo/fuel efficiency.
The Tarsus and the Buffalo are perfectly balanced, possibly the most tightly balanced of any two ships of the same size and type. The Tarsus is better at running away, the Buffalo (red) comes with shielded cargo holds. They are otherwise interchangeable - it's purely which side-grade you prefer.
The Dram vs the Phaeton comes down to stealthyness. The Dram can be made stealthier than the Phaeton but are less slot efficient. Although the Phaeton could stand to be a burn level slower or the Dram a burn faster, because going a ship size up and not losing burn, on a ship of the exact same type and role, is kinda weird.
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Atlas 2000 cargo and 10 supply and miserable burn level 50eff
2000/10=200 not 50
Also fuel is anti-matter. For the most part its about containment package. "Tankers" = "specialized cargo ships".
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Do you ever use civilian ships for bonuses like ECM rating and such? Like deploying them in a corner and leaving them here just for the bonus? I absolutely never deploy them but maybe there's a niche strat making use of that.
You are not allowed to set rally points deep in the corner like in previous releases. Attempts to do so are forced at least one big square away from the border. That puts a damper on hiding ships far from the action and easy retreat, at least in normal fleet battles.
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I don't think biggest freighters and tankers having best efficiency would be an issue at all. They also come with big speed and visibility issues, which are major factors until the very late game, so even if they were better at everything bar those two stats, they still wouldn't be universally the best choice. I am not sure if colossus having better fuel efficiency and atlas having better supply efficiency was unintentional.
That said, fuel inefficiency is relatively unimportant. If you're exploring, you're going to have an issue not getting more fuel than you can hold. If you're fighting, then you're most likely near a fuel source anyway, so high fuel usage shouldn't be that limiting.
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You calculated efficiency on the Atlas wrong.
At different stages of the game different things matter. Early game freighters need to run away and be fast. Late game freighters want efficiency.
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I don't really see the problem here. First off, tankers and supply ships all have extremely high efficiency and so one being a bit less efficient than another doesn't really matter since their own fuel/supply consumption is largely irrelevant when compared to that of the rest of the fleet. Second, for smaller fleets you're absolutely right. You do want Drams, Phaetons and Buffalos but not because of the efficiency - because of the speed. A small fleet needs to be able to run from larger engagements and you simply aren't going to be able to do that very well with a Prometheus or Atlas. Once your fleet grows in size though and the ship limit becomes a concern, you need more dense forms of fuel/cargo storage which is where the larger freighters really shine. I don't think it was ever meant to be a case of linear upgrades but rather about trade-offs that encourage experimentation.
you missed entire point of thread.
when you have access to all ships at same time, there are NO REASONS to pick inferior ships at all.
there are absolutely no reasons to use drums when you can have phaetons.
no reasons to use buffalo when you have tarsus
no reason to use prometheus or atlast as long as you not hit fleet size limit, because there are no tradeoffs, they strictly inferior compared to smaller ships.
1.You can always quite easily hit that low fleet limit of 30 by the mid-game so it's an issue.
2.As mentioned, your Atlas efficiency is incorrect. Should be 200.
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I kind of think that there should be a bit more tiering in terms of how far out you can venture without resupply, so personally dropping the fuel efficiency of the tankers and the supply efficiency of the freighters would make me happy. Going all the way out to the edge of the sector should require investment in specialized exploration ships or a fleet that is weak in combat, it shouldn't be something that a dram with a couple of militarized freighters can manage.
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you missed entire point of thread.
when you have access to all ships at same time, there are NO REASONS to pick inferior ships at all.
there are absolutely no reasons to use drums when you can have phaetons.
no reasons to use buffalo when you have tarsus
no reason to use prometheus or atlast as long as you not hit fleet size limit, because there are no tradeoffs, they strictly inferior compared to smaller ships.
Again, I disagree. It depends on what point in the game you are at and what it is you are going for. A Dram is not straight up inferior to a Prometheus or vice versa because it depends on your fleet composition, point in the game, and goals. If you're late in the game and want a large battle fleet, the Prometheus is clearly the better option because it gives you 2.5k fuel and only eats up 1 ship slot. If you're very early in the game, the Dram is probably better. If you're just out exploring with a modest fleet, the Phaeton might be the best option. It just depends on what you are doing but it's simply wrong to say that a Prometheus or Atlas are inferior considering just how many smaller ships you need to equal their carrying capacity.
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The prometheus and Atlas are absolutely inferior options, particularly because I can much more easily attain good d-mods for the colossus or phaeton due to its availability to bring down its supply cost to a fraction of base. The fact that I don't need to take militarized subsystems or augmented engines also means I can throw on things like expanded fuel/cargo, survey scanners, high resolution sensors, or whatever else that might be useful.
Currently in the game, taking the bigger+slower ships results in a compounding issue of higher fuel and supply consumption and slower speed, which means you'll probably want to take tug boats which also consume a fair amount of fuel and supplies, only the latter of which can be mitigated.
If the prometheus and atlas are going to be slow then they need some benefit other than just fleet size limit, particularly when that's an arbitrary limit I can just edit a text file to get past,
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Just so it's clear, Speed does not influence fuel consumption - that is entirely based on distance travelled, regardless of burn speed. Having a slower fleet does not increase fuel consumption.
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Atlas 50% less efficient then basic options, it's just typo, 200 is 50% less then 300.
Issue with burn speed is:
If you want to get burn 8 with prometheus, you need hullmods or tugs, tugs consume additional supplies and fuel.
Just flying around with burn 6 result in getting anywhere significantly slower, this does not cost additional fuel directly, but it do cost additional supplies, as traveling goes slower.
At same time, getting burn 9 with phaetons is "free" and you can install expanded fuel tanks and efficiency overhaul for ever better cost per unit of cargo results.
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Prometheus is for when you want to drag 4 capitals across the sector to a remnant system. The fleet caps mean drams literally can't do that. If you want to use a fleet of 20ish ships with capital, you need prometheus to have any decent fuel range and space to salvage more ships, and you also probably could care less about supplies in the late game so efficiency doesn't matter anymore. They are two ships for two different parts of the game, they never are competing for the same spots in my fleet. Choosing the exact moment to transition is the only question, and that's mostly a question of when do you want to sacrifice burn speed for fleet size and strength.
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kay, after 4 capitals you have 26 fleet points left...
4 capitals and 26 phaetons (drum is strictly inferior to phaeton) can perfectly travel around just fine.
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Atlas 50% less efficient then basic options, it's just typo, 200 is 50% less then 300.
No.
You're clearly taking the cargo ship's total cargo capacity and dividing them by their maintenance rate (supplies/month) and calling that number significant in determining the ship's value, with larger numbers being more valuable. If the ship's cargo bay was purely made of supplies, the number would be reflective of the number of months that ship could fly around before it ran out of supplies. So a larger number is clearly better.
By your own numbers and your own criteria, (which can be verified via wiki or in-game)
Buffalo is 100
Tarsus is 100
Colossus is 150
Atlas is 200
200>150, and 200>100
Conclusion: By your own criteria of measuring efficiency, Atlas is the most efficient of the Cargo Hauling options. Not least.
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kay, after 4 capitals you have 26 fleet points left...
4 capitals and 26 phaetons (drum is strictly inferior to phaeton) can perfectly travel around just fine.
Now you are just being a pain for the sake of contrariness.
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drams are just straight up better than phaetons
theyre better armed and much faster with the same efficiencies and more OP budget
also really have a hard time justifying destroyer freighters
shepherds are decent in every way, and then i go straight for the Colossus which carries 3x as much as a destroyer
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Maintenance efficiency is an extremely poor metric for comparing freighters of all things. Fuel efficiency is waaay more important, and is what I use to judge the best haulers for my fleet. 1 Atlas and 1 Prometheus are enough to supply a mid-size fleet for exploring pretty much the entire sector, and that's before the cargo expansion hullmods.
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In the end unless you change 30 ship limit in config you are forced to use larger ships, even if Drams for fuel and Buffalos for cargo would have been perfect otherwise.
I just prefer to set it to more reasonable value of 60 though (high enough that I can forget about ship limit).
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kay, after 4 capitals you have 26 fleet points left...
4 capitals and 26 phaetons (drum is strictly inferior to phaeton) can perfectly travel around just fine.
Prometheus is for when you want to drag 4 capitals across the sector to a remnant system. The fleet caps mean drams literally can't do that. If you want to use a fleet of 20ish ships with capital...
Literally the next sentence established what anyone who has played the late game knows, that end game fleets typically have 20+ ships with multiple capitals consuming hundreds of fuel per light year. You typically have 10 or fewer fleet slots available for logistics ships and you also want fleet slots available for salvaging new ships and cargo haulers. In this case you have 3-4 slots at most available for fuel tankers.
Think about it this way, there are 4 factors that IMO affect which tanker you will buy:
price, supply efficiency, fleet slot efficiency and burn speed.
For the beginning of the game, drams are cheap and fast meaning you can actually afford them and have more money left over for combat ships, and you can run away from all the threats in the game easily. These are your main concerns in the early game.
In the mid game, phaetons are more supply efficient, and more fleet slot efficient than the dram which are the new major concerns in the mid game. Supplies are a very large concern in the middle of the game when you don't really have an income, and fleet slot efficiency starts to be important as you are expanding your fleet with lots of destroyers and some cruisers, approaching the fleet cap. Burn speed is still important to avoid the largest fleets but less important now.
In the late game, supplies, price and burn are all totally irrelevant. You have insane amounts of money from colonies so you can buy however many supplies you want and however many ships you want, and there are no threats outside of stations so burn speed is just convenience. The only real concern is fleet slot efficiency. At this point in the game, you likely have 2 or 3 full fleets of additional ships sitting in storage. You want to bring large fleets to deal with stations and raids and that means you are left with a small number of slots to supply a large number of fuel intensive ships. Prometheus is the only choice in the situation.
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it's only choice solely for arbitrary fleet size limit of 30 ships and lack of any automated logistics.
you run industry that much stronger then industry of local factions, that were in sector for ages, but unable to issue fetch quest for someone else.