[Outdated]Some explanation of Jumpdrive, Cloaking and Survey module.

[bormos3]

I've been testing those jump drives, cloaks and realized there is something obviously wrong with balancing here.

1) There is only one ship that can have mounted CAU8, Jump drive and Survey - Liberty Carrier (JD II or III + Surv Mk2 + Cau8 = 900+600+300 = 1800 cargo), even so u need to drop fuel to space from other ship and tractor it to make survey or jump since u have only 200 space left. Such configuration is unsuitable at all.

2) Surveys - since power requirements is only 100k it seems it could be used on gun boats, but 600-800 space makes it impossible and of course u need another 600-800 units of space for fuel (1000sec on mk3 is either a bug or a nice joke so i'm not even count this one).

Mk2 with tractor trick and no CAU - ~650+ cargo, only 3 cruisers/destroyers under the limit.
Mk1 with tractor trick and no CAU - ~850+ cargo, only 3 cruisers/destroyers over the limit.
Mk2 and no CAU - 1200-1400+ cargo, only BS.
Mk1 and no CAU - 1400-1600+ cargo, only BS.
Mk2 with tractor trick and CAU8 - ~950+, Obviously only for BC/LC+
Mk1 with tractor trick and CAU8 - ~1150+, BS's only
Mk2 and CAU8 - 1800+ , only 3 BS's.
Mk1 and CAU8 - 2000+ cargo, there is 2 bs with 1,4k but since Mox is perishable its out of stake.

So either u have a proper bs or u need some cap with transport next to it for creating a remote surveys, its as hard as it can be. Imagine 100k power, seems it could be used with simple gun boat+freighter if not this ridiculous storage limit for something that only drops you a few alphanums for the price of only few hundred M.

3) Jump Drives

Won't do such comparison since its obvious nobody will use it normally for anything smaller than BS since there is no point, even if u put somehow this 900 units crap, there is no space for any good armor and also you need huller... jump from base to remote point doable, other way not so much.

4) Cloaks
Seems to have the same usage as jump drives ... showing up next to enemy from nowhere and to be honest id take it instead of jump drive, but no CM instead? ... so no defense against missiles and no shield on cloaking... thats quite offensive setup.
Using on transports? Well id rather use safe routes than waste such precious space on the device and fuel ... well u could us it on barge.. but hey it doesn't have CM slot


Btw usage of survey described in first post isn't that obvious, either i was naive or couldn't understand it well thought you could make a survey of remote location from other location. But it seems to be as simple as possible you type /survey and it makes some kind of hash of current location with some random distance to it. Based on "technology level" random distance is shorter or longer, obviously its time limited so some date stamp is scrambled within the hash. Wouldn't be surprised if the format was x-y-z-yy-mm-dd scrambled where x,y,z is cords yy,mm,dd date of the survey being outdated

I completely agree with everything you said here....these devices just take too much cargo space/fuel....although I do have a question....can someone else survey the location for you and then send you the coordinates? If this is possible then it would be a lot easier to make jumps

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