How do I calculate ship supply usage?

[MegaTrain]

When looking at individual components, they usually have a "supply usage" value, like engines are 10, cloaking device is 100.

But how does this translate to actual usage? Certainly it's not 10 * 6 engines = 60 plus 100 (cloak)=160 per turn, that seems WAY too little.

Is it 10 * 6 engines * 7 movement = 420 + 100 = 520 per turn. That STILL seems small.

Bottom line: I need to know how many Solar Collectors to put on a scout ship to make it self-sustaining.

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-MegaTrain-
Athlon 1.3 GHz running at 1.6 GHz on an iWill KK266

[Puke]

i believe its 10*movement*turn, not 10*engine*movement*turn. i know my colony ships use about 200 supplies a turn, and i know ships use less when they move less.

[LazarusLong42]

For movement alone, it's #Engines * Supply Cost/Engine (10) * Movement Used, each turn.

So, on a ship with 6 engines, 7 movement, your ship uses 420 supply per turn, and needs 3 SC III's to refill it each turn.

LL/Eric
in Virtuo Design
Read my latest story at Speculon!

(Edit: damned UBB tags)

[This message has been edited by LazarusLong42 (edited 08 October 2001).]

[Baron Munchausen]

It's over-kill to include enough solar collectors to completely replenish movement usage each turn. Very few ships are rushing around at full speed all the time. I've found that two solar panels are enough for even a cruiser if it has decent supply capacity. A few supply storage bins are better than many solar collectors because they're much cheaper. A cloaking device can add quite a bit to your supply usage, though. I tend to hide in storms whenever possible & let the ship "rest" a while. But then I use cloaked ships mainly for recon. If you're going to be using them as some sort of guerrila fighting force then you'd best create a dedicated supply ship with lots of solar panels and fleet this with your fighting ships. The cloak eats quite a bit of space by itself. Combining cloak and supply generation in each ship will use up your space and hardly leave any room for weapons and defenses. The supply ship can just stay out of the way in combat.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 08 October 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Additionally, once you have decent sized ships, forget the solar panels, and use emergency resupply pods.
Your resupply ship should hold more supplies than your regular ships, have the pod, and a repair bay. You can then get 2000 supplies per turn.

With the next patch, your resupply podship will have to be of Battleship size or larger, since it will need to carry a SpaceYard, rather than just a repair bay.

[MegaTrain]

I'd like my ship to be able to roam across the entire universe, tell me if this will work:

Cruiser class
6 of my best engines (10 supply each)
Solar Sail III
Cloaking Device II (100 supply)
4 x Solar Collector III (+600 per turn)
Repair II
Plenty of Armor & Shields
Emergency Supply unit

So at 6 engines x 7 movement x 10 each = 420 resource usage per turn, + 100 (cloak) = 520.

So with 4 collectors @ 150 each, 600 per turn should keep me full as long as I'm in a system with a sun. If not, go as long as I can and then bust an Emergency supply unit and repair it on-board! (I think this Last technique will be eliminated with the next patch)

Only problem I can foresee would be if it calculated 6 Eng x 10 each x 10 movement (includes sail) = 600 + 100 = 700 (too much!)
Can anyone verify whether the sail uses extra resources (I know its not supposed to...)