Ulite: Constructing fleet ships
Constructing fleet ships
Fleets are additional ships that can be used either as part of a personal convoy or for independently running two way trade routes. You must construct fleets yourself at your own space station after having researched and constructed a Star Base at the station. Fleets must be sufficiently equipped and crewed in order to fly (later when you get wrap drives on your main ship, you may down grade the engines on your fleet convoy ships to interplanetary drives). Fleet ships can not operate an auto pilot at this time, so independent trade fleets must have enough range to fly between inhabited target systems in one jump - obviously if you are leading a convoy, they can still follow you as usual when you use auto pilot to plot a course.
Initially you'll have a ship design limit of 300t. If you would like to immediately build the biggest ship you can within that limit, pick a Lion or Lanner Mk II hull. The Lanner Mk II has a little less cargo capacity than the Lion, but moves much faster through interplanetary space to make it the ideal option for ferrying bulk loads of cargo between stations in less time. If you don't intend to use it as part of your personal convoy, the Lanner Mk II is the most flexible fleet ship you can get for a long time, due to it's superior speed and range.
Leave the standard items equipped, put a better engine and gun on if you need it. It's possible to build just the hull and then source the other parts from elsewhere, but you get charged market value for the design plus 1M Cr, so there's not much point.
On the other hand, if you are planning to construct all or some of the ship instead of paying for it outright, then I assume it shortens the construction time to keep the design cheap. In this case you might want to consider building the smallest hull you can attach a hyperdrive to and fly it to another station where you can exchange it for a bigger ship.
If the ship has a specific purpose you will want to spend some time deciding exactly what setup to construct. If you have one and only one trade route in mind, pick the biggest hull and engine combination that barely allows you to make the trip in one jump. Currently fleet ships auto-refuel to reach their maximum range capacity, even if the target system doesn't require that much range. So on smaller ships doing short trips, you could lose a significant amount of cargo space to unnecessary fuel.
If you build it wrong, don't despair too much. As long as it can carry a hyperdrive you can fly it to a nearby station and exchange it. Don't "Disassemble for parts" unless you really want to waste the significant construction costs (remember, it's an extra 1M Cr on top of the market value to build a fleet up front). Better to leave it in the station until you decide what can be done with it - if it's really stuck, someone can always tow it with wrap drive if it comes to that.
Once the ship has been constructed you need to dock at the space station, ensuring you bring enough crew with the right skill to pilot it on their own (also bring any additional equipment you may have omitted from the design for quicker construction purposes).
Getting a new fleet ship space worthy:
- Request the ship to join a convoy from the Ship Convoy screen - Exchange crew from the Ship Crew screen (check boxes and click "Exchange")
If you need to add some equipment:
- Sell equipment you'd like to transfer via the Equipment the Market - Switch to the properties page for the fleet from the Player Fleets screen - Click the new yellow "Switch to ship" button (only available when in convoy) - You are now using this ship and can buy the equipment back from the Market - Check Ship Configuration page to make sure everything is in order - Switch to the properties page for the fleet from the Player Fleets screen - Click the new yellow "Switch to ship" button to return to your main ship
Then, even if you didn't add any equipment, always remember to:
- Disband the convoy from the Ship Convoy screen to avoid unintended convoy flights
Now from the fleet's properties screen you can assign it a trade route. Available source/destination systems are any that you have previously visited.
Just worth mentioning, be careful to avoid messing with the assigned source/destination commodities while it has cargo on board. It's better to wait until everything's been offloaded or the fleet will be unable to sell those commodities automatically, even if you switch back to them. Available cargo space could be reduced until you take control of the ship and clear out the cargo manually.
