Fwurg

[Brend]

Chriz and I discovered that the recent military rules retrofit forgot to address the issue of Survey Fleets.

We identified the following problem areas:

• Movement of Survey Fleets
• The combat effectiveness of Survey Fleets
• The importance of military scanning (which directly impacts Passive Hyperspace Monitoring)

We propose to address these issues as follows.

Movement of Survey Fleets

Survey Fleets have a movement of 1.0 per turn, appropriately adjusted for use of hyperspace lanes. (This equals the movement mechanic of military fleets.)

The combat effectiveness of Survey Fleets

Survey Fleets are non-combatants. They have no combat capability. If engaged, they are destroyed (unless, of course, they take a move action out of the sector immediately, in which case they escape as all fleets would).

(Take note: if you have a military fleet in the patrolling the same sector, the engage counts to trigger a combat, even if the survey fleet escapes!)

The importance of military scanning

With the new delay on fleet readiness changing from Inactive to Defensive, the importance of scanning is much improved. Because of this, the current Passive Hyperspace Monitoring technology is very cheap.

Chriz and I discussed this to some length, and we came up with the following solution: The technology stays, but instead of directly offering a +1 scanning range, they enable the construction of a special project.

Passive Hyperspace Monitoring

By passively monitoring all hyperspace fluctuations actual arrival predictions can be imporved significantly.

This technology unlocks the X special project to upgrade Survey Fleets, and enables further developments in the field of hyperspace scanning.

(2000 / 4 ; Prerequisites: High-Level Sensor Fusion)

Passive Hyperspace Scanning Array

By significantly recalibrating the hyperspace sensor arrays of a survey fleet, fluctuations in hyperspace can be picked up and analysed.

A Survey Fleet with this upgrade increases their Scanning range with +1, allowing them to detect incoming fleets earlier and with higher accuracy. However, using the improved scanning array requires a lot of maintenance, resulting in a 30 upkeep in every turn the increased scanning range is active.

OOC: This adds the 'Activate/Deactivate Passive Hyperspace Scanning' action to your upgraded Survey fleet. Note it on your turn report, and update the fleet's wiki page to reflect the scanning range and upkeep cost accordingly.

(500 , 200 , 150 ; prerequisites: Passive Hyperspace Monitoring)

The cost seems high, but has been determined in a clear way: Let us assume that every military fleet you have is accompanied by a survey fleet with 2 scanning. This way, you can put your fleet outside of your sector, moving there completely inactive. This will save you (100 × (distance in trade factor) ) per , because your fleet can be activated to Defensive before the enemy arrives. So having the scanning upkeep at 30 per offers significant cost benefits (for example, a fleet of factor 1.0 away would save 70 per ).

So, while the investment of a Survey Fleet for military scanning is high, and the cost per is at least 30 you can save large amounts of tax by investing in this.

Thoughts?

@Gerben: Hehe, sorry. :P

[Gerben]

Me likes this, this fits better with the current developments and bring it more in balance with the military side of Intelligence gathering.

[Mercury]

I have limited skill in the military rules, but what I read here all sounds very reasonable. Our primary scanning player, Gerben, agrees so I'm all good with this.

[Brend]

Very well. Unless there are objections, I will put these changes live in the weekend.

[Brend]

It has been done!

See Passive Hyperspace Monitoring and Passive Hyperspace Scanning Array.

[Elmer]

Noes, now it will be more expensive to have a decent scanning perimeter. :)