Regarding Fuel Tankers

[MichaelJ007]

I have fuel tankers with remote fueling module, cargo bays, and topped to the gills with caslon.

They are following ships that are crawling through hyperspace with 0 fuel. But unable to refuel them. The tanker can hyperspace much faster than the out of fuel ship so is constantly leapfrogging it, but unable to refuel the target ship.

What am I missing?

[Emperor0Akim]

That sometimes you are smarter than the automation and need to tell your minions what to do

[Pocus]

From Aristotle:

... concerning the two rows of bodies, each row being composed of an equal number of bodies of equal size, passing each other on a race-course as they proceed with equal velocity in opposite directions, the one row originally occupying the space between the goal and the middle point of the course and the other that between the middle point and the starting-post. This...involves the conclusion that half a given time is equal to double that time.


Stop your stranded ship, have the tanker refuel it.

[Emperor0Akim]

No this turtle will outrun the arrow !

[MichaelJ007]

That sometimes you are smarter than the automation and need to tell your minions what to do

Yeah. This is exactly what I did. But after doing it for 5 or 6 ships, i basically said stuff it.

[deMangler]

That'll be those pesky Asymptote tankers....

[AKicebear]

If you manually tell your fleet to sit still in an area without targets, then attached fuel tankers will top everyone off. Then you can switch back to auto.

On full auto the fleet is either looking for a new target in range or going back home to refill.

[Almora]

That sometimes you are smarter than the automation and need to tell your minions what to do

Yeah. This is exactly what I did. But after doing it for 5 or 6 ships, i basically said stuff it.

Fuel tankers are a bit broken rn, but unfortunately so is a lot of the game on certain systems, so I don't think we'll get a fix for a while. I am wondering what conditions cause a tanker to feel another ship or not

[Psycho78]

Is there any point in having tankers in a fleet? I thought that would be smart, but they don't seem to do their job. In fact last time I played a found one of my fleet tankers way across the galaxy instead of being with the fleet.

[Miravlix]

This is type of game where you can play it horrible wrong and cry about it or learn how to play it just right.

Now it might not work the way you want it, but it sure is unfair to say it doesn't work at all.

Unfleeted tankers tend to flag the target so it get a waiting for refueling moodlet (Works great for scouts), but automation of fleets messes with it.

Fleeted tankers require the fleet to be at rest, so again automation = bad.

When you really learn the game you will find that 99.9% of automation is not as good as us humans can do it, if us humans could deal with the complexity of a big empire that is, but since we can't... Learn how the automation REALLY works, not how you want it to work, then get the best out of it.

I'm trying to get the automation of troop transports to deliver high quality troops to all my planets, but unfortunately the planets automation is garrison AND creation of armies, not either/or, so I can't fill all my planets with 155 strength infantry by using automated troop transports, but other times you do find complex automation that can be a blessing.

[dostillevi]

This is type of game where you can play it horrible wrong and cry about it or learn how to play it just right.

Now it might not work the way you want it, but it sure is unfair to say it doesn't work at all.

Unfleeted tankers tend to flag the target so it get a waiting for refueling moodlet (Works great for scouts), but automation of fleets messes with it.

Fleeted tankers require the fleet to be at rest, so again automation = bad.

When you really learn the game you will find that 99.9% of automation is not as good as us humans can do it, if us humans could deal with the complexity of a big empire that is, but since we can't... Learn how the automation REALLY works, not how you want it to work, then get the best out of it.

I'm trying to get the automation of troop transports to deliver high quality troops to all my planets, but unfortunately the planets automation is garrison AND creation of armies, not either/or, so I can't fill all my planets with 155 strength infantry by using automated troop transports, but other times you do find complex automation that can be a blessing.

The whole point of giving feedback here is to *improve* the AI. Simply telling OP to "git gud" when their fundamental point is valid doesn't feel very helpful. Yes, manual can generally be done better, but the game is heavily designed around automation. How, for example, is the AI supposed to refuel it's own ships when this happens? The receiving ship should stop moving when a tanker is on it's way. It's that simple.

[MichaelJ007]

The whole point of giving feedback here is to *improve* the AI. Simply telling OP to "git gud" when their fundamental point is valid doesn't feel very helpful. Yes, manual can generally be done better, but the game is heavily designed around automation. How, for example, is the AI supposed to refuel it's own ships when this happens? The receiving ship should stop moving when a tanker is on it's way. It's that simple.

Thanks. This.

My first expectation was that stopped fleets should be auto topped off by tankers, and quite happy for the tankers to go refill after that.

My second 'expectation' was that ships in hyperspace running out of fuel would STOP, and wait for a tanker. Then proceed. But having the fleet crawl in hyperspace where it cannot be refueled without manual intervention is bad design.

Of course, if there was a tech that allowed for 'hyperspace refueling' (which I have no idea if there is one), then that would solve the problem.

But expecting ANYONE to manually scour the galaxy for 'turtles' to manually stop and refuel them is bad, and describing this is 'getting gud' is just insanity.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

It's going to take a bit for Elliot and crew to polish the AI to perfection now that they have an engine that allows them to use the full resources of a modern computer. In the meantime mixing in some manual play with the AI management will do wonders for certain things like attacking targets and refueling from tankers. But overall the AI seems to be doing rather well at least on the private sector and for general fleet stuff like hunting down space creatures and pirates. Letting the AI fully manage an all out war though is a bit beyond its ability but you can certainly let the AI help out as you manually control battle fleets.

[Psycho78]

I'm sure the devs want tankers to refuel ships that are creeping along, it's just a matter of working on it, and getting it to work.

[Setax]

Fuel tankers included in the fleet are a major pain in the butt. I constantly find them empty, not going with the fleet when I give them manual orders so I realize that halfway through the galaxy my fleet ran out of fuel, the tankers are still where they were before I give them the order and obviously when I tell them to refuel I find out they have no fuel on them whatsoever. Doing this with one fleet is not good but doing them with all??? That is just a real game breaker man.

[WiZz]

It's going to take a bit for Elliot and crew to polish the AI to perfection now that they have an engine that allows them to use the full resources of a modern computer.

Sorry, but this engine can't even load fully a modern low-middle-end GPU and causes massive fps drops in middle/late game. Let's hope FOR NOW...

[SirHoraceHarkness]

It's going to take a bit for Elliot and crew to polish the AI to perfection now that they have an engine that allows them to use the full resources of a modern computer.

Sorry, but this engine can't even load fully a modern low-middle-end GPU and causes massive fps drops in middle/late game. Let's hope FOR NOW...

What are your specs? As of the last couple of patches all performance issues sans galaxy overlays are gone and no more ctd as tested on some late game saves that would ctd shortly after loading them up.

[ogredpowell]

What AI settings would allow the fleeted tanker to refuel the fleet?

(im seeing the arguments back and for tha nd have seen the same thing....but was wondering if there was a solution)

[Miravlix]

Fleet tankers work if you don't use automated fleets or you don't overload automated fleets with jobs, so they idle.

Full automation does allow for fleets to idle so the AI has no problem, but a player can overload the system and prevent fleets from getting idle time for tanker refueling. I thought that was clear from my first post and that was why I talked about learning the system to make it work.

What we really need is for player actions not be able to mess up the automation, like telling a ship waiting for a tanker to go refuel, resulting in the tanker chasing that ship forever(?). Well, I do want to tell the ship what to do, so maybe cancel the refuel operation.

I prefer to use fleet with tankers on manual, because that makes them work well.

One thing though is that automated tankers should refuel fleets not ships, needing 20 seperate tankers to refuel my 20 escorts fleet is less than ideal.

[ogredpowell]

It is clear now. Thank you!