Is there really any use for the flagship?

Absolutely there is.  You know those Starship Graveyard anomalies that give +4 to hit points?   When you research Medium Hulls, you can upgrade the Survey ship to have weapons.  It will keep those hit point bonuses.

That and in the expansions, anomalies regenerate, so they'll be around all game long.

I always upgrade the flagship to a warship eventually.  You can make better survey ships using just small hulls once you get enough miniaturization.

Sentient species taste better...

Yes, but in less time than it takes to research all that, you can work your way up the engine tech tree to give yourself a +2 to your speed, and you have your quick ship. Also, while you are busy researching, your flagship is snapping up anomalies.

I've noticed that some of the anomaly upgrades don't appear to have an effect on the cargo hulls, but I've yet to decide whether it's better to make a genuinely fast cargo ship surveyor, or to pump out tiny survey vessels.

With my current games using the +2 speed bonus I lean towards the latter, but you can make an argument either way.

Jonnan

lol I just pump out genuinely fast cargo ship surveyors  

I prefer them fast in immense/gigantic map sizes, otherwise since the automatic survey engine isn't very good, you end up with ships that take way too much turn to get to their destination ... and other races flagship might just survey one or another in that time ...

Given the lack of interest the AI's put into anomalies, I can see either one as an option - if they put out more survey vessels, the higher speed would be a bigger factor, but then, if they put out more survey vessels, I would be more concerned about potentially running into uber-ships that had been surveying forever too and would care more about survey vessels that took advantage of the hitpoint bonuses and experience upgrades too.

As it happens, they seem to care less about the theoretical sciences, so pfft on 'em - we geeks will rule the universe either way!!!!

Jonnan

Cargo hull + 2x impulse drive + survey module = 200BC, 6 speed in TA, 7 thanks to Impulse's speed boost.

Small hull + impulse drive + survey module = 135BC, 4 speed in TA, 5 thanks to Impulse's speed boost.

Tiny hull (!) + ion drive + survey module = 90BC, 3 speed in TA, 4 thanks to Impulse's speed boost.

None have range, but as a survey ship is about the only instance where it actually proves necessary, you might want to factor that in as well.

Drop cost by 20 on cargo to take up more space by using ions instead if miniaturization is sufficient (basic will do, but no range components will fit then).  Drop cost by 10 on small to replace impulse drive with two ions, if miniaturization allows (basic leaves you room for range components, otherwise you're one short).

As Jonnan says, you can make an argument either way.  Personally, I'd rather have 3 small survey ships than 2 cargo survey ships.  Net speed is almost the same, with more of an edge going to small as more speed bonuses are stacked on.  But the three smalls can go in three different directions-eventually one of the cargos will have to double back to pick up an anomaly my smalls have already gotten.

Don't forget build time, either-as I certainly hope you're not rush buying them.  My first (additional) survey ship is out in 2/3 the time of yours, which is a marginal headstart even assuming equal industry output.

Tiny actually has both of them beat if you run it by the numbers, but they have too little space and hp to begin with to be worthwhile for a later upgrade.

TA does change things somewhat with its hp modules and the capability to add them to cargo hulls in particular, but I personally haven't found them overly worthwhile.

Also, I'm running with a +2 speed bonus, which seems (to me) to be more advantageous on several small ships than on a few large ones, particularly in combination with building the "Eyes of the Universe" item. So you can pop in 5 life support units on, get the same speed everyone elses flagship gets, and get much better cartographic mapping out of it than with the equivalent investment in the larger cargo vessels.

Jonnan

I see what you both mean, these are good arguments

Jonnan001 => that's right with a +2 speed bonus you further reduce the % difference in speed between ships

Sole Soul => I theorically agree IF you setup manually your surveyors to start surveying in different locations

as I know it, (even with few numbers of survey ships) a lot of times, I get a lot of survey ships going to exactly the same sector(even if they are not in the same starting sector ...), not very efficient but I find it too much overhead to manually send the survey ships to other parts of the galaxy, more so since a few surveyed anomalies later, the same exact issue comes up again. And you have to factor in the innate ability of auto-survey to know the exact parsecs where anomalies are ... which makes manually searching for them, totally inefficient, and a total waste of your time as a leader

so for me, speed is an absolute critical issue for survey ships, now ... if the auto-survey ships were coordinating their efforts it would be another matter ...

Then you agree. 

I don't auto-survey for the first 20 turns plus anyway.  I'll let it find the anomalies for me, but I do the piloting myself.

You'll notice that while tinies are even more efficient than smalls, I don't use them (often), primarily because the survey ships in question are intended to become fighters later on.

I used to run +2 speed, but lately I've been finding I no longer have the points for it.  These days it's more so +1 speed/+20 research/+SecretWeaponOfDoom.  It's a shame that I don't have three more points...but I don't.  Then again, it's not like there's anything else I'd throw those points into, although I've been considering it recently with TA's increase to base 2 speed.

I also like the versatility of cargo hulls with slowest tech rate. That is : it's easier to convert a cargo hull to a constructor for quick grabbing that resource you just spotted, or to a trade ship for quick diplo bonuses to that aggressive neighbour you just found

when you got less miniaturization... because of the slow tech rate, these points can become important, but it really depends on which parameters you chose for your sandbox game

I put the flagship on auto-survey right away and forget about it for a while.  After I've built a few basic survey ships and all the initial anomolies have been found, I put it on auto-explore because it has better sensor range.  Once I have eyes of the universe, I usually delete the flagship since the survey/scout ships I've built do the job more efficiently.  So, it's very useful to me at turn 1, but depreciates as the game progresses. I have yet to find another use for the flagship as stated in the OP, but it's still an important asset in the very beginning of the game.