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LRS on ships - 4/26/2015 7:20:54 PM   
Kingah


Posts: 98
Joined: 8/17/2013
From: Teeka
Status: offline 		Had this brilliant idea of having a ship with a long range scanner onboard in my border control fleet.
However, once I had designed a ship (which had minimal weapons to conserve power) that was equiped with a LRS, it didn't seem like the scanner was active. It didn't show the scanning range when I had that toggled on and I couldn't see any foreign ships passing around it.

Do long range scanners not work on ships, or am I doing something wrong?

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RE: LRS on ships - 4/26/2015 7:32:53 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		They are power hungry, so be sure that you got enough power. They add to the static power usage.

Last time I tried it there was a display bug where the scanning circle did not show when the ship was moving. It did however show bases within the invisible scanning circle.


(in reply to Kingah)
Post #: 2
RE: LRS on ships - 7/9/2015 10:39:10 AM   
NephilimNexus

 

Posts: 194
Joined: 9/2/2014
Status: offline 		It works, but only when you are not moving. Which means AI controlled scouts will never, ever use it. But manually controlled ships certainly will. Try it on Construction Ships as they spend a lot of time sitting in place. You'll always be able to spot any potential incoming threats long before they get close enough to attack.

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 3
RE: LRS on ships - 7/9/2015 10:26:11 PM   
RiftHick

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 2/23/2015
Status: offline 		If you are in need of mobile LRS like if you are trying to find a pirate system or something then it's just better to use the exploration ships for this task as after the fist 20 or so years they are basically worthless and it's easier and cheaper to build a few of them with LRS to look for your target or to snoop on the edge of a another empires territory than to have a construction ship do the same things.

(in reply to NephilimNexus)
Post #: 4
RE: LRS on ships - 8/12/2015 11:31:47 PM   
NephilimNexus

 

Posts: 194
Joined: 9/2/2014
Status: offline 		Actually, the best way to root out enemy bases is to put LRS on your mining stations. Especially the ones that you want to put in nebulas.

If it's pirates you're hunting, remember that AI pirates always start off in the outtermost fringes of the map. Though honestly they should be the least of your concern, since AI pirates never do research, never upgrade their ships, and never expand beyond their first planet. They build bases and backup space ports over gas sources but that's it. They never build spaceports over planets and they never try to conquer more than the one planet where their criminal network is. By ten years into the game they're a laughing stock.

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RE: LRS on ships - 8/13/2015 7:28:55 AM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		Pirates have not "always" started at the fringes of the map in my games. Maybe they do if you play pirate, or put pirates as distant. They do put bases in a usually empty systems, though. And in a mature galaxy those are only likely to be found at the fringes of the map, or areas ravaged by silvermist.

And absolute time measures like "10 years into the game" is a bit risky when the galaxy setup is very flexible. I have used far more than 10 years to "get out of the system" as an empire.

(in reply to NephilimNexus)
Post #: 6
RE: LRS on ships - 8/23/2015 7:51:22 PM   
Serenitis

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 8/23/2015
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: NephilimNexus

It works, but only when you are not moving.


An LRS on ships always works. It's just the overlay which doesn't get displayed when the ship is moving. (I'm pretty sure the overlay used to get updated 'on the fly' in one of the previous versions, but something must have changed.)

The amount of power they use though makes any ship you put them on very twitchy unless you have a stack of energy collectors to feed it and confine the ships to systems.
If you want mobile scanners in deep space put an LRS on a resupply ship, fill it's hold with fuel then send it wherever and it will sit there for years.

(in reply to NephilimNexus)
Post #: 7
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 5:19:28 PM   
Uncle Lumpy


Posts: 158
Joined: 7/1/2005
Status: offline 		Finally, a practical use for resupply ships!
Seriously, I've been placing LRS on my construction ships. I usually have 6-8 of them in my game by the time I've researched LRS (and never more than 12). Construction ships spend a fair amount of time in one place while they build a mine. They do change locations to move to the site of the next project, but they are scattered all over my empire, usually near the edges. Naturally I also place LRS on my Spaceports. I find this combination will give me a decent picture of what's out there.

< Message edited by Uncle Lumpy -- 8/24/2015 6:57:06 PM >

(in reply to Serenitis)
Post #: 8
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 5:39:47 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		If you have not had practical uses for resupply ships, you probably circumvent the fuel issues by running huge fuel cells that remove that part of the game...

Resupply ships and the need to use them is one thing that makes the game fun for me.

(in reply to Uncle Lumpy)
Post #: 9
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 6:12:11 PM   
Uncle Lumpy


Posts: 158
Joined: 7/1/2005
Status: offline 		Yeah, I was going with mass quantities of fuel cells. Then you, Bingeling, I think, posted the difficulty/problem of trying to fuel several fleets at once. Made sense. So now, less fuel cells and more gas mines further out with mass docks. I have and do use resupply ships when I have to. I just have fun building a gas mine/fuel spot near the edge of an enemy empire and patrolling it with a small fleet of cuisers. Once combat begins, a gas mine that close to their boarder will draw their fleets into an ambush time after time.

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 10
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 6:22:45 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		I have not utilized the forward gas mine much, in part due to using AI designs. I would prefer to create a star base design for a well defended "mine" with a long range scanner.

Resupply ships can be good fun. Attack an enemy capital system with poor fuel capacity on your ships. Struggle with strong planetary defenses and lots of enemy ships that makes your ship go dry due to all the combat burning through the fuel. Park the resupply ship on the enemy's prime fuel source inside the enemy capital system, and enjoy all the combat with little to no hassle to refuel the combatants.

Keep in mind the many ways to play the game. I usually use quite a lot of automation and do not play very fast games. If you are more of a "blitz" player, they could be too slow for you.

Using a mine with the significant purpose to bait the enemy into coming there to die, is a bit more gamey than I like to play.

As for the hassles of multiple fleets, I believe a resupply ship should be able to keep two decent fleets going, but not if they appear empty at the same time. If I use much more than two fleets at a significant distance from an otherwise good fuel source, I would probably use more than one resupply ship. If harassing an enemy with some size, parking resupply ships at different corners of the battle area can be a good thing too.

(in reply to Uncle Lumpy)
Post #: 11
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 6:31:09 PM   
Serenitis

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 8/23/2015
Status: offline 		Resupply ships are fun, and make awesome infinite range scouts, pirate hunters, and 'proactive' salvagers.
If you fit them with construction bays you can use them to repair ships you capture in-situ, even each other if you deploy them in pairs (if you haven't slogged down the damage control tree yet).

You can put LRS on freighters to pretty much blanket your empire in sensor coverage at zero cost to you (besides your cargo ships having about half the effective range you'd expect).
Constructors are another decent place to put them, but not my preference as I prefer speed, endurance and wing of fighters. Honestly, fighter bays are probably the single most useful component you can add to constructors.
LRS on 'normal' state ships are at best a stopgap until you can get something more suitable, as they are either confined to systems where they're vulnerable or they're constantly returning to refuel and thus not being where you need them.

Ports are always a good place for LRS, along with mining stations for complete coverage (again, abuse of the huge private treasury).

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 12
RE: LRS on ships - 8/24/2015 7:03:28 PM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		I don't mess with designs much, and have not tried it, but I figure that LRS on freighters could put a dent in the fuel supply of both you and your trade partners.

(in reply to Serenitis)
Post #: 13
RE: LRS on ships - 8/28/2015 9:36:49 PM   
Serenitis

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 8/23/2015
Status: offline 		To be fair, if you did put a scanner on every freighter you'd probably gimp yourself pretty hard as above.
If you pick one class and give that an LRS and leave the others alone it seems to not have too much of a negative effect if you're a modest little empire. The last time I did this I picked the large frieghter and swapped out 9 cargo bays for the scanner, but started to notice the private sector was not keeping up with my expansion.

The thing with putting LRS on private ships and stations is that there's so many of them you can eventually bury the civilians in upkeep costs and prevent them from building/refitting anything.
It can give you amazing coverage even inside other empires, but it's also kind of a trap.

tl;dr - if you want/need a mobile LRS, hands down the best platform for it is a resupply ship. And you don't even need a lot of tech to use it effectively.

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 14
RE: LRS on ships - 8/29/2015 7:03:53 AM   
Bingeling

 

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline 		I would consider using exploration ships for LRS. I believe resupply ships count as military ships and will offend other empires if they sit inside their territory. The exploration ships won't.

The exploration ship should also be cheaper to make, not requiring any extra components.

And it will probably instantly die if attacked during war (it won't be fast), but I doubt a single resupply ship would do much in that situation either if deployed somewhat offensively.

(in reply to Serenitis)
Post #: 15
RE: LRS on ships - 8/29/2015 9:10:31 AM   
Serenitis

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 8/23/2015
Status: offline 		The thing is... Empires don't consider anything outside of systems to be thier territory, so you can park a ship in space somewhere and it will be ignored entirely. You don't even get angry diplo messages like if you park armed ships in claimed systems.
Same for bases - in deep space you can build whatever you like wherever you like with complete impunity. This is probably something of an oversight for the AI.

Exploration ships are most definitely the cheapest and quickest means of getting a scanner into the field. The downside being they are effectively limited to being deployed in systems, and have a severely degraded range from the scanner burning fuel in transit.
I'd consider them a temporary measure only for when you can't afford the time and expense of building and fuelling a supply ship but need a scanner right now.
But everyone has preferences and none of them are 'wrong' if they work the way you want them to.

As for being armed - If your ship is sat in deep space the AI will never find it so it doesn't matter if it's armed or not, but if it's sat in a system then it will get harassed eventually. In that case the best defence is not being there, either by fitting scouts with the Kaldos drive and jamming the red button down as soon as anything looks at you funny, or deploying scanners in space and entirely circumventing the issue.

Also, ships only count as 'military' if they have weapons. If you arm scouts and constructors and send them into another empire's system you'll get lots of angry messages.
I can't remember if supply ships require weapons or not though.... I'm pretty sure they don't, but I've never really paid it much attention because I always arm them (for a different and entirely more entertaining role - they still get scanners though).

(in reply to Bingeling)
Post #: 16
RE: LRS on ships - 8/29/2015 12:39:33 PM   
HerpInYourDerp

 

Posts: 118
Joined: 5/7/2015
Status: offline 		The AI never revists an empty system unless chasing ships or other combat/military prompts. And parking a LRS deep into hostile territory is one of the main goals.

(in reply to Serenitis)
Post #: 17
RE: LRS on ships - 8/29/2015 7:09:31 PM   
Serenitis

 

Posts: 54
Joined: 8/23/2015
Status: offline 		And it certainly is nice when you see a solitary star surrounded by busy enemy systems which are all close enough to be inside a rather small radius. But this is something you take advantage of if present, not rely upon as a basis for information gathering strategy.
And I think I might have an idea about the directions we're coming from here....

My games are usually played in sparse galaxies, no more than 400 stars. And very spread out 15x15 sectors and set to irregular so it looks like a small part of something much bigger, and feels like space should: Empty and very very big.

And I imagine the proponents of LRS scouts are more familiar with playing on either a smaller, or much more populous map where stellar distances are far smaller and neighbouring stars much more common.
Different environment - Different solution to the same problem.


(in reply to HerpInYourDerp)
Post #: 18
RE: LRS on ships - 12/24/2015 2:32:24 PM   
Guardian54

 

Posts: 56
Joined: 12/6/2015
Status: offline 		Overlay doesn't work.

However if you put the LRS or later ULRS on freighters, as long as your civvie economy can take the maintenance costs, you have all your turf permanently under watch.

(in reply to Serenitis)
Post #: 19
RE: LRS on ships - 3/6/2016 1:50:03 PM   
NephilimNexus

 

Posts: 194
Joined: 9/2/2014
Status: offline 		If you can afford the space and massive fuel expense, putting LRS on Exploration ships is both obvious and amazingly effective. You'll be spotting abandoned depots, abandoned ships and everything else long before the AI even gets off the ground.

(in reply to Guardian54)
Post #: 20
RE: LRS on ships - 5/12/2016 3:12:51 PM   
Emperor0Akim


Posts: 45
Joined: 4/19/2016
From: Germany
Status: offline 		Yes, that is what I do, as soon as the Shipsize allows it.
And I just noticed as a fact in my current game.

The overlay of the LRS does not show when the Ship is moving. But the LRS still works.
My Scout flew by the Teekan Region and detected about 12 Scouts of them around its location.

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Maxim 1.: Pillage, Then Burn !

(in reply to NephilimNexus)
Post #: 21
RE: LRS on ships - 7/6/2016 2:39:46 PM   
Damiac

 

Posts: 73
Joined: 6/14/2016
Status: offline 		I like to have a capital ship design with an lrs, fleet targetting, and fleet ecm that I assign 1 of teach each fleet. It's great to go out to bust one pirate base, and find more targets to bust on the way.

I also put them on my mining bases... but I feel a bit bad about it. Those civilians just have too much money...

(in reply to Emperor0Akim)
Post #: 22
RE: LRS on ships - 3/22/2019 9:26:57 PM   
liveware

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 3/22/2019
Status: offline 		I have experimented a bit with LRS on my large freighters. I found that the freighters provided excellent sensor coverage throughout my empire as well as my trading partners, however I think that they are best reserved for what I would consider 'very large' freighters of size at least 500. Smaller than that and I don't think the freighter is large enough to serve as both a sensor platform and a heavy cargo hauler.

But I suppose it comes down to personal preference...

(in reply to Damiac)
Post #: 23
RE: LRS on ships - 3/22/2019 10:33:40 PM   
Hattori Hanzo


Posts: 734
Joined: 3/21/2011
From: Okinawa
Status: offline 		usually I mount the LRS on special little Escorts lightly armed to:

1) guard my borders;
2) act as a sentinel on newly discovered interesting planet that I wish to colonize just in case a colony ship of another race arrive before my colonization ship.

mmmhhh.. never tried to mount LRS on freighters..

it seem to me a little bit a "gamey tactic", but nonetheless I would like to try it.

(in reply to liveware)
Post #: 24
RE: LRS on ships - 9/26/2019 6:49:03 PM   
sneo24

 

Posts: 17
Joined: 11/4/2018
Status: offline 		Hi, nice post, as have been said, a ship with a LRS doesn't scan the region when moving.
But; if you were stationary and begin to move, the "light" disc around the ship dissapears, but it keeps detecting things for a while.

I tried first the monitoring stations, but there are reasons to not use them
- i tried to upgrade them when the bigger LRS comes available, but unsucesfully, their upgrade priority seems to be far far away in time.
- Sectors priority changes, new colonies expand area of influence and a static station remains behind the lines.
- Static stations are easy targets.

Then i use my obsolete 'science vessels' for nefarious purposes. Barebone explorer with ecollector, LRS, not to fast hyperengine (it will remain stationary) but with the fastest hyper initiation, stealth when it comes available but mainly for roleplay reasons. When necessary i move them, when not they stay there.

I use the LRS in every spaceport, but not in any other station, i tried that but it gets redundant. The monitoring station can seal gaps in the coverage but if you already have a Explorer in their territory, no station is necessary

The posture it must be "evade at enemy sight", when at war i some times get attacked in systems too close to the enemy colonies.

(in reply to Hattori Hanzo)
Post #: 25
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