Speaking of fleet sizes I was thinking about something while at work (way more interesting than actually working) and I became curious about how things will scale up to the full size game. Its a nebulous though for sure, and I know will become more clear as the game develops, but as a specific example I thought it would be really awkward (and expensive with fuel) to take a fleet like the ones we build in the game so far and go exploring. It would seem awkward to be a massive fleet of 20 ships randomly jumping to different systems in search of new worlds and new civi... wait, wrong universe, but you get the idea.
I guess the question is: how will the game handle issues like this? Will we have a place, a base if you will, to store ships and supplies that we'll come back to to pick what we want? If so, what will those ships do when at base? Or will be we able to call for ships and supplies to come to us? I'm guessing it will have something to do with the grayed out "outposts" tab in the game right now, but was wondering if someone would be able to clear it up. Will be be able to order around AI fleets loyal to us and have them fly around/between systems like the factions to now?
going by my fleet that i have amassed so far. i will post pics.. but not in this thread as its so large it requires something like 6 screen shots. every ship has its own fuel consumption rate and every ship can carry quite a lot of fuel.. my fleet does not include any tanker ships. of which there are a few in the game you can purchase and see flying around here and there in independent fleets. that being said except for the very start of when i made my character i have not come anywhere close to filling up my fuel supply.. also just purchasing the amount of fuel to fill my supply is ridiculously expensive. personally i dont think its going to be much of a problem. especially if you keep tanker ships in your fleet when it comes to your range.
here are some numbers from my fleet.
818 fleet points.
644 hanger points.
9,615 cargo points.
12,565 fuel points.
16,065 personnel points.
fuel per light year 286 = 43.93 light years at full fuel.
green crew 547 (purchased as many of these for as long as the game had them in the station then switched to regular when the station discontinued them)
regular crew 6386
veteran crew 452 (never purchased any of these or elites)
elite crew 32 (amazingly difficult to get any crew ever trained this high i have lost 1 elite to death ever)
skeleton crew 7025
my fleet is so large that the game idle sits between 1-8%. when i start a new game its in the area of 60% or more.
if anyone is intrested in seeing what my fleet is made of im going to post some screen shots in the general discussion thread.