[Pax]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Without this you only get your colony ships in two turns, and that means you are only getting 5 colony ships the first year, instead of ten. Does this change the equation do you think?

Geoschmo

Okay, let's look at a setup where the Colony ship takes 0.3 years to build ... or 0.2 years on EBuild. Let's assume the ships take ... oh ... does 0.3 years average travel time sound good, this time? Now, picture a rolling EBuild program:

You will plant your first colony in year 0.6, and another every 0.3 years after that. By year 3.0, you have planted 8 colonies, one of which is "just born". You also shuld have one more colony ship just ready to depart the HW; thus you have bult 9 colony ships.

...

OTOH, I will plant my first colony in year 0.5, and every 0.2 years after that until year 1.3 (0.3 years' travel time after the Last Ebuild turn); this totals 5 colonies. For the next 1.0 years, I will build at 25% rate, IOW, I will get in 2.5 turns of building; I'll use that for an Orbital Spaceyard that fits that general cost level. For the next 1.0 years, both the HW and the Orbital Yard will EBuild colony ships. This should be 0.4 turns build time for the BSY, and 0.2 turns for the HW again.

In years 2.2, 2.6, and 3.0, a single colony ship is built. In years 2.4 and 2.8, two colony ships are built. That is 7 more colony ships; of those, 4 will arrive (in years 2.5, 2.7, 2.7, and 2.9, respectively). The others are (2 ships) 1 turn away from their respective destinations, and (the Last ship) just ready to depart. The Last 2 years of Ebuild on the station, I would either (a) turn Ebuld off and let the BSY go idle and recover sooner, or (b) build something that 2 years of BSY Ebuild can just finish, perhaps an early frigate or destroyer.

In total, to your 9 colony ships, 8 of which arrived ... in the same span of time, use of Ebuild has built the other side TWELVE colony ships, 9 of which have arrived.

On top of this, those first 5 colonies have had well more time to become established production centers in their own right.

Alternately, the BSY could build population transports, frigates, or the like, instead of the two colonisers posited above.