Deciding on number of docking bays for designs?

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avamk
Posts: 16
Joined: Wed May 27, 2015 11:48 am

Deciding on number of docking bays for designs?

Post by avamk »

Hello,

How does one figure how many docking bays they'd need for a ship/base design? Should the number be based on the type of cargo (i.e. passengers, resources, or something else?), the amount of cargo, cargo transfer speed, etc.?

How do I decide how many docking bays I need in a resort vs spaceport vs mining base or something else? Thank you!!
Aeson
Posts: 786
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:36 pm

RE: Deciding on number of docking bays for designs?

Post by Aeson »

Look at how heavy the 'normal' ship traffic is and make a decision.

Gas mining stations (whether the default role or another type built with the same capability) built over fuel sources, stations with energy to fuel converters, stations with shipyard facilities, and space ports typically see fairly heavy ship traffic (for the fuel mines and the stations with energy to fuel converters, this is especially true during a fuel shortage). Other station types typically do not.

Another consideration is the number of ships you typically have in a fleet. It's handy to have at least that many docking bays on your potential fueling sites (typically gas mining stations over fuel sources, resupply ships, stations with energy to fuel converters, and space ports; fuel mines and spaceports in particular should probably have more because they're quite likely to see a lot of private sector traffic in addition to whatever demands your fleet puts upon them) because it lets the fleet refuel more or less simultaneously, assuming the station has enough available fuel.

Most ship types do not require any docking bays at all. Construction ships want one or two to allow freighters to make up shortages of materials during construction projects, though shortages can also be solved with mining engines and gas extractors on the ship itself. I'm told that ships with cargo bays, a gas extractor, and a docking bay can serve as a mobile refueling point, though unlike resupply ships it will not exclusively mine fuels, so if you wanted to you might be able to outfit one of the military ship roles as a kind of tanker for the others; the number of docking bays you'd want on such a ship would be similar to the number of docking bays you'd want on a resupply ship.
NephilimNexus
Posts: 194
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2014 1:25 pm

RE: Deciding on number of docking bays for designs?

Post by NephilimNexus »

I try to design everything around units of 4, including fleet size. So...

Mining Station: 4
Gas Mine: 8
Small Spaceport: 12
Medium Spaceport: 24
Large Spaceport: 36

Max fleet size: 8 ships.

Note that max fleets size = gas mine docking port # for a very obvious reason.
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