Pavonis Interactive Forums

The issue I have ran into, and that is extremely annoying is that I have late game fusion engines, and my fleet can make it to Jupiter or Saturn in ~7 weeks, give or take. My colonial ships can reach some asteroids even faster. But in order to put a colonial module I need to "prospect" that body, and that seem to be only possible with a probe. The probe, unfortunately will make it to Jupiter in a year, to Saturn in 3 and further into solar system will take even longer.

Now, I can create a local station and build probe from it, but that very, very annoying, mechanics.

So how about this solutions:
-ships with Colonial modules can prospect on their own.
-Add extra module that is a probe/s, and would allow prospecting.
-update probe speed once you have advanced engines, threshold could be 100/300/700/1000/3000/6000 kps exhaust velocity.

It is simply illogical, when you have fast ships, with 1.5+kps but you can`t build fast probes. My colonial ship will reach Pluto in ~0.5 year, and prospector probe will take 9k days or 25+ in game years(both start from Mars).

The Mobile Space Science Lab ship utility module allows prospecting from a space craft.

Thanks, missed that.

2alexey wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:14 am
It is simply illogical, when you have fast ships, with 1.5+kps but you can`t build fast probes. My colonial ship will reach Pluto in ~0.5 year, and prospector probe will take 9k days or 25+ in game years(both start from Mars).

No it isn't.
There are still probes being launched now using old tech - because it is cheap, reliable & there is no need for an unmanned probe to travel as quicklyas a manned vehicle because speed is directly related to cost.
There are 'faster probe' techs, and even better create a colony ship with Orbital & Surface Fusion packs (for Mars & beyond) and the solar equivalent (for Mercury) but be well aware that Mercury is at the bottom of a so-called 'gravity well' (which is a good description whilst being wildly inaccurate in every way) and off you go.
Build an orbital from the packs on the ship, add a depot & you can refuel/restock & off you go again to the next destination.

neilwilkes wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 9:08 am

2alexey wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:14 am
It is simply illogical, when you have fast ships, with 1.5+kps but you can`t build fast probes. My colonial ship will reach Pluto in ~0.5 year, and prospector probe will take 9k days or 25+ in game years(both start from Mars).

No it isn't.
There are still probes being launched now using old tech - because it is cheap, reliable & there is no need for an unmanned probe to travel as quicklyas a manned vehicle because speed is directly related to cost.
There are 'faster probe' techs, and even better create a colony ship with Orbital & Surface Fusion packs (for Mars & beyond) and the solar equivalent (for Mercury) but be well aware that Mercury is at the bottom of a so-called 'gravity well' (which is a good description whilst being wildly inaccurate in every way) and off you go.
Build an orbital from the packs on the ship, add a depot & you can refuel/restock & off you go again to the next destination.

Unfortunately your answer makes no sense. The premise of the complaint is exactly that "old, cheap and reliable" probes are not good enough, but new, expensive fast probe is not available, while it should be.

I disagree that creation of colonial ship is "best", for quite obvious reason that ship is vastly more expensive than just probe, even with new fusion engine for probe, and there is the obvious problem that sites I want are not clustered, thus paying let`s say x10-15-30 of the cost of a regular probe for much faster one is more appealing then building prospecting ship.

For me, the whole point of building a colony ship is that it can keep right on going, as long as your first base or (preferably) orbital also has a depot for refuelling/restocking.
My main point is that nobody at all would put expensive engines & drives on a probe. Period. But of course that is just my opinion.

neilwilkes wrote: ↑Sun Nov 20, 2022 12:16 pm For me, the whole point of building a colony ship is that it can keep right on going, as long as your first base or (preferably) orbital also has a depot for refuelling/restocking.
My main point is that nobody at all would put expensive engines & drives on a probe. Period. But of course that is just my opinion.

I`d say reverse is true. Nobody would build expensive ship(and mid-game ships are super expensive for dv they need) for what an unmanned machine can do well. And again, I have to ask just how expensive a probe would be? Even if you go by in-game
resource costs for ship modules, probe would cost single/low multiple digits of resources, and I`m fine with paying that.

Yes, in theory ship is reusable, but transfer DV and time requirements mean that de-facto colony ships are useless, and you would only use it to survey jupiter/saturn/neptune moons for settling there after you kick aliens out. Exploring outer asteroids/small planets far away is a waste. In particular if you are looking rare metals/fissles.

I don`t actually think it is a huge problem to further add 1-2 faction projects that would up the cost and speed of probes, if player wishes to have those.