What do you use transport ships for?

[Grandpa Kim]

Fyron, Undertakr, that's what I like about this game: so many ways to do the same thing and its almost impossible to figure out which is best. But here's a question for Undertakr: How much population do you need on each of your 10 planets to match production on my 15 planets each with less than 100 million population? Make it two: What population do you need to reduce planetary ship yard build time to less than 5 turns?

Back to the original question. When it comes to transports, I will use different hulls and configurations depending not only on usage, but tech level, pop growth rate, warp point position, economy etc, ad nauseum. I am only now beginning to develop some standard designs, certainly not all. About the only one I've used for a long time is a pop transport made from the small transport hull. And it can (and does) double as a transport for anything.
MaCready, I use transport hulls to transport anything. Now, 50% of the space must be used for some sort of cargo bay. That includes the cargo bay, satellite bay, mine layer, drone launcher, fighter bay and the colony components. Many mods have a small amount of cargo capacity in other components, notably the supply storage. This allows you to use transports as refuellers.

Kim

[Fyron]

What population do you need to reduce planetary ship yard build time to less than 5 turns?

HI and construction aptitude don't affect construction on planets with no SY, so any race would need 2000 pop to be able to build a SY in 4 turns on a planet (that's a build rate of 2600). I'd sure like to see the colony ship that can transport 2000 people, and the empire that could support a number of these monsters.

[ September 29, 2002, 09:22: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Taera]

Hate to go offtopic but... i've had an interesting idea come to me - anyone ever thought of designing a SYS of about DN or BB size, putting a SY on it and filling the rest with CARGO MODULES. Then once you come to a planet design a colonizer with 1 engine and colonize. Transport sme population from the ship to the planet, resupply and move to next planet...

[Gryphin]

Taera,
Actully that is on topic. An interesting idea. The only down side would be the Cost in resourses and lost produciton of all of those people.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by capnq:
Emergency build cuts a shipyard to 4 turns without needing any other bonuses.

Yeah, but that results in a lot of lost construction when the planet goes off of EB. You still get more overall with more "smaller" colonies than you would with fewer "larger" colonies doing EB.

Originally posted by Taera:
Hate to go offtopic but... i've had an interesting idea come to me - anyone ever thought of designing a SYS of about DN or BB size, putting a SY on it and filling the rest with CARGO MODULES. Then once you come to a planet design a colonizer with 1 engine and colonize. Transport sme population from the ship to the planet, resupply and move to next planet...

I used to do that all the time in SE3. By the time I get such large ships in SE4, there usually isn't anything left to colonize.

I have started doing something similar in Proportions games though. I send out SYS and a few Pop transports. The SYS build Colony ships, and the Pop transports drop off the pop. Then, they ferry pop from worlds that have grown to 2 mil to new, empty worlds. This is most effective, because colony ships only get to move 2 in Proportions, whereas SYS and Transports can move much more quickly.

[ September 29, 2002, 20:05: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[tesco samoa]

I use transports for automating micromanagement.

Example.

1 system 7 unit building planets. 4 planets building fighters, 2 planets building wp's 1 building troops.

I have 4 transports on repeat orders picking up the units from these planets and dropping them off at a staging area. WHich is set to a way point ( Man I would love 100 waypoints )

At this way point I have a few transports delivering WP's to front line colonies. A few more delivering fighters to fleet staging areas. And a few transports delivering troops to staging areas.

I also build pop transports. And use them.

As the game ages... I have more and more transports...

Because I like to leave repeat orders on... It ends up speeding up those epic 2 to 3 hour turns when you hit the 100 to 200 turn range. Also Helps you remember what your overall stag is.

Remeber think Lazy each turn and automate your empire where possible.

The transport helps out in this ....

[capnq]

Emergency build cuts a shipyard to 4 turns without needing any other bonuses.

[Wardad]

I use them as general purpose trucks. I build them real cheap in the early game when build turns and resources are very valuable. So I could have more cheaper models and send them in different directions. I figure I can refit them later.
SAT launcher 1 only cost 100 minerals, takes up 30kt of space and stores 80kt cargo. Cargo pods cost 200, take up 20kt, and stores 150kt. A small transport needs 150kt of componant space dedicated for storage. So 5 SAT launchers are much cheaper then 8 cargo pods.

other:

Originally posted by Pax:
I use transports for larger colony ships. If I'm playing a Max-Tech start game (solo ofc), I tend to go the expensive but low-brainpower route, and use a Large Transport hull to mount all THREE colony module types. Saves counting up how many gas, ice, or rock colonisers you need, etc, etc.

This won't save me brain power when my empire has several different races breathing different atmospheres.

Originally posted by Pax:
And even a Medium Transport can haul slightly more population (just over 100M, say), with many more supply bays, for a much longer net range.

True.
But, I do like the efficency of the one engine design. Fuel consupmtion is sectors moved multiplied by the number of engines.
A far reaching colony ship can be built with one good engine (with movement bonuses), plus solar collector, plus solar sail (movement bonus), and cargo 3.

Originally posted by Undertkar:
No matter what anyone says, two things win this game, expansion and minerals. If you can do both better than the rest of the people in the game, you have a huge advantage.

A ships armor or shield defences offer no more protection than an athletic supporter with a cup. So being able to hit and not getting hit in return is critical.

CAN YOU SAY OUCH!!! Read the story of THE RACE THAT COULD NOT SHOOT STRAIT.
My PBW race had Negative attack and Negative defense racial bonuses. I did not design the race, I was just the replacement player. I took it from 10th place to 1st place, but then War happened.
At one warp point the enemy jump in with a large fleet. They were at point blank range for my large and fully trained fleet. My ships open fired and missed some 80% of the shots. His ships returned fire and decimated my fleet.
You see, he was fully trained, had better ECM armor, better ECM, better combat sensors and better racial attack and defense Ratings. I would have needed a fleet at least 5 times larger to win the battle.
The enemy had quite a lead in research in this high research cost game. He could also afford large fleets because he had reduce maintenance costs.

[ September 30, 2002, 23:57: Message edited by: Wardad ]