Tankers and Fleet behavior

[RhinoDad]

Think I must be missing something.

Tanker placed into fleet. Fleet Role (Attack, Defense, Manual), ships (Auto Patrol, Manual), Tanker (Manual, Auto) Refueling (Manual, Auto) Tried all of above combinations all with the same result.

My experience with fleets in game is they are not fleets in any sense as would be used in a Navy, at most it is a very loose grouping of ships which make little attempt to remain together or even follow fleet destination orders. A manual fleet ordered to go to a location will have a some of the ships head there while some remain. The order given to fleet to move is not propagated to all the ships in fleet. Destination order will only be propagated to some of the ships in fleet. Without manually cycling through each ship in fleet and manually ordering it to same destination as fleet, many will not go. On the way some will just drop out. If one does not perform constant manual housekeeping the ships of the fleet will slowly end up scattered about. A tanker in a fleet will 100% of the time remain behind at location fleet departed from and never make an attempt to join the fleet, unless it was manually given destination order; nor will it make any attempt to refuel fleet ships. Does not matter that tanker was located in the same location as the fleet flagship or even all the other ships in the fleet when destination was given.

Seems the only use of putting a ship into a fleet:
• Manual fleet - if they all are located at the same location then they may benefit from fleet level rules of engagement. With any fleet movement orders also needing to be given to each ship in fleet manually
• Auto Fleet (Auto-Patrol, Auto-Escort, etc.) – Will form a reserve that ships will be drawn from to be sent on missions. Although they will slowly scatter about they will eventually make their way back to their base.

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It is something like having the U.S. 6th fleet, which used to be stationed in the Mediterranean, being ordered to the Black sea and having some of the ships head off to Hawaii, others to the U.S. East Coast, while some just hung out at Naples, Italy; whilst some actually proceed to the Black Sea.

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Tankers in fleet seem to serve no purpose except to provide one more ship to manually give a destination order to that upon its arrival will do nothing except provide a target. Any action in the tanker role must be performed manually. Outside of having a source of fuel that one can manually use seems to offer no purpose or reason to be included in fleet. The same result as not being included in a fleet and manually ordered to same location..

• Along the way if some of the ships need refueling, they will not stop to refuel but will just continue on leaving the ship to make its own way, depending on refuel Automation, towards fuel somewhere or continuing on in slow mode towards destination.
• If set a location somewhere en-route so that the ships can be refueled then tanker will just sit there in a group of ships even though some of the ships are extremely low on fuel. The tanker must manually be ordered to fuel each of the ships. Then once again the fleet, then each ship must be cycled through and given orders to the new location.
• In Auto fleets ships will be sent on missions for which they have insufficient fuel. Not sure if this is because the program sees the tanker at home base as a source of fuel. But ships will drop out of fuel as they head to where they were sent or on return even though a tanker was a part of the fleet and ships had every opportunity to refuel. Does not seem to matter what the setting is for refueling if auto the ship will just slow boat off to some base for refuel even though a tanker is right there.
• If the tanker is manually ordered to same destination then it will travel there but will make no attempt to refuel other ships and one will have to manually chase around the other ships at location in order to transfer fuel.

This was a reply included in another unrelated question.

“Naturally, some combinations work better. Attack Fleet Template for example include Tankers, which is pretty helpful given Attack Automation means they are more likely to go deep into enemy terrain. “

Seems somehow some have had some success with tankers under AI fleets to be useful and not need constant manual direction.

I find tankers not in fleets on Auto to do some refueling of ships and then after cargo runs out to just sit and do nothing. Sometimes though rarely they are stranded off in space trying to make it bake to refuel, but not to load fuel cargo. One must perform regular housekeeping on them to make sure they are sent to reload fuel cargo.

The game seems to act as if the tanker is coded as the active agent rather than as an asset with a refueling capability. Which would be a very difficult code to write and have it execute as envisioned.

Well hopefully someone knows how to get tankers to at minimum automatically refuel nearby ships and fleets act like a fleet and all head to a destination fleet ordered to go to without manually having to give first the fleet then each ship individually in the fleet. Game running on install just before Aurora patch.

[zgrssd]

I am really confused about how you see fleets.
Fleets do everything to stay together. They even slow down on a Repair, Refuel or Retrofit run to make sure the last ship can do it. Even what that is stupid from a strategic point of view.

The exceptions are Tankers. They are only semi in the fleet. They need that freedom so they can go fetch more Fuel, Retrofit - and most importantly refuel your ships once they are sitting idle anywhere!

[CommerceRaider]

I've been dealing with the same problems. Tankers are strange. I've had them tag along with some fleets, but not others. I'm pretty sure those that did were Attack template fleets. I've witnessed some occasions where they will fuel some ships in fleet, and others where they refuse to participate with fleet maneuvers. Not much input as of yet.

As far as fleets being spread out... Observation 1: I use right-click "Attack x n x" too much. I should be more patient and use "Prepare and attack x n x."

The "Attack" option is a flash message deal, best speed and engage immediately. The "Prepare and attack" lets them stop on the way or probably head to a fuel point on the way. My quick test the 2 ships in the fleet are half fuel, first option "Capture station" their target is outside of fuel range but they are bypassing a colony with fuel. When I place them on "Prepare and capture" additional text appears behind their mission in the fleet panel that reads they will stop and refuel at that colony first.

This will save me some headache!

Now... if after carefully assigning many post war fleets to new home bases I can remember to change advisor settings would be great. Nothing like them all being assigned to the furthest point in the empire immediately after un-pausing.Eh, 1st colony problems.

[RhinoDad]

I am really confused about how you see fleets.
Fleets do everything to stay together. They even slow down on a Repair, Refuel or Retrofit run to make sure the last ship can do it. Even what that is stupid from a strategic point of view.

Say all manual fleet of 10 ships a few each of Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates; plus 1 tanker; all just sitting at home planet with no orders full fuel and cargo. Mouse is put over a moon a few systems away, right click and choose “move to x”. Tanker will not move and if look at order line it will be blank. Probably 7 of the ships will move and have “move to x” on order line. The other 3 will move but order line will be blank. If the route is not a straight line as often it is not and goes to a star then turns to another then turns again to the destination. Those 3 ships will slowly peal from the fleet and just stop where the fleet route turned or will reroute and turn into off into a nebula run out of fuel. They will not necessarily or usually break off all together.

If the 7 ships get where they were going then fight a battle. The 3 will be in two different places the tanker will never have moved. Now manually order the fleet to fuel from the location or you wait till you manually order a nearby tanker to move to the planet then refuel your fleet. Then you lather rinse repeat and send them off to another location. Problem is now only 5 make the trip and you have an additional 2 ships randomly about plus the original 3. Fleet is down to 5 ships and 5 are scattered about.

If the fleet starts larger and you do not go in and manually order ships to join up they will just slowly work their way down to a few ships. You can run game at 4x for ½ hour plus and ships will make no effort to join up or move towards flagship.

The way to avoid this is to give the fleet orders, then one at a time cycle through the ships in fleet and order it to “Move to x”, and verify that the order line says, “Move to x”. Then all the ships and tanker will move to the destination. They will be strung out and arrive at slightly different times but will all make the move.

• Around tech level 3 in weapons, hyper drives, etc. I gathered some transports and a few ships, for possible protection, and ordered them to another system. The fleet broke into two groups, transports and ships. They each charted different routes with the ships heading straight through a nebula and the transports sun to sun around it. The transports made it and the ships ran out of fuel and needed a manual rescue. Supposedly attached tanker never moved.

• Created fleet with ships located about my territory. Ordered the fleet to move to a planet which none of the fleet ships were at. None were even in the same system. The flagship and one other ship made it the rest just sat at the planet they started at never moving.

The exceptions are Tankers. They are only semi in the fleet. They need that freedom so they can go fetch more Fuel, Retrofit - and most importantly refuel your ships once they are sitting idle anywhere!

Have not had tankers fetch more cargo fuel. When set to auto fuel they will go fill there tanks. On auto they will from time to time move out to fill a ship but once their fuel cargo is gone they just sit until you order them to “load Fuel” or “mine fuel”. After loading fuel cargo they will start all over again.

As other person has mentioned even if a tanker sitting at a planet/moon starts filling ships generally it will only fill some and not fill a couple others even though fuel cargo is over 50%. You will have to choose that ship individually and order it to fuel at a mine, base at planet/moon or same tanker in order to fill it. Unfortunately, the ships that will not be filled are usually the ones with much lower fuel levels.

[frankycl]

Have not had tankers fetch more cargo fuel. When set to auto fuel they will go fill there tanks. On auto they will from time to time move out to fill a ship but once their fuel cargo is gone they just sit until you order them to “load Fuel” or “mine fuel”. After loading fuel cargo they will start all over again.

As other person has mentioned even if a tanker sitting at a planet/moon starts filling ships generally it will only fill some and not fill a couple others even though fuel cargo is over 50%. You will have to choose that ship individually and order it to fuel at a mine, base at planet/moon or same tanker in order to fill it. Unfortunately, the ships that will not be filled are usually the ones with much lower fuel levels.

Hm - what game-version are you playing - and did you also experience this with a completely new game

[RhinoDad]

Have not had tankers fetch more cargo fuel. When set to auto fuel they will go fill there tanks. On auto they will from time to time move out to fill a ship but once their fuel cargo is gone they just sit until you order them to “load Fuel” or “mine fuel”. After loading fuel cargo they will start all over again.

As other person has mentioned even if a tanker sitting at a planet/moon starts filling ships generally it will only fill some and not fill a couple others even though fuel cargo is over 50%. You will have to choose that ship individually and order it to fuel at a mine, base at planet/moon or same tanker in order to fill it. Unfortunately, the ships that will not be filled are usually the ones with much lower fuel levels.

Hm - what game-version are you playing - and did you also experience this with a completely new game

It was off a Matrix download. Version number on startup screen was version number just before Aurora upgrade.

Was just one, try to figure out what I am doing, game. That way could keep changing the settings that I was not sure about and see what happened and let things run longer, with no input, than I might otherwise to see how program behaved. And get an overall feel of the game.

Would it be correct to assume that the tanker behavior referenced would be a tanker not in fleet on Auto?
Also do tankers perform better in manual fleet with the tanker set on auto. (Saw that in one video, but have seen conflicting info this way)

[frankycl]

It was off a Matrix download. Version number on startup screen was version number just before Aurora upgrade.

Hm, sounds like you're not on the Beta-branch, right ?

If that's the case and you used a "version number just before Aurora upgrade", you should defenitely start a new game ! There were a ton of changes since the last update before Aurora - so, it's very likely that you are experiencing different things than anybody with the Aurora-update, or even the new Beta.
(older saves work, but have many things that are NOT up-to-date to how the game works with newer versions !)

[zgrssd]

The primary download version is Aurora:
[PC] Update v1.1.0.9 Mar 02, 2023

The Public Beta is on 1.1.1.1
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=393286

[frankycl]

The primary download version is Aurora:
[PC] Update v1.1.0.9 Mar 02, 2023

The Public Beta is on 1.1.1.1
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=393286

Yes, but when you had bought the game on MatrixGames you can't use the Beta-branch (just noticed, since I bought then game for my son there).

(Also: current Beta is now 1.1.2.2, already. )

[zgrssd]

The primary download version is Aurora:
[PC] Update v1.1.0.9 Mar 02, 2023

The Public Beta is on 1.1.1.1
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=393286

Yes, but when you had bought the game on MatrixGames you can't use the Beta-branch (just noticed, since I bought then game for my son there).

(Also: current Beta is now 1.1.2.2, already. )

The Matrix store includes a Steam key right on the page:
https://www.matrixgames.com/member/mypage
That one will Auto-Update. And in Steam it is a simple toggle to enable Betas.

If you don't like Steam, you can get the GOG version of most Matrix Games. Which by now does have a Update manager (GOG Galaxy) or two.

Also the 1.1.2.0 version came as download literally the same minute I wrote that post. In fact, I announced it in the chat before they did it officially.

[frankycl]

The Matrix store includes a Steam key right on the page:
https://www.matrixgames.com/member/mypage
That one will Auto-Update. And in Steam it is a simple toggle to enable Betas.

If you don't like Steam, you can get the GOG version of most Matrix Games. Which by now does have a Update manager (GOG Galaxy) or two.

Also the 1.1.2.0 version came as download literally the same minute I wrote that post. In fact, I announced it in the chat before they did it officially.

Oh my, zgrssd - we're not in a "who gives the best/fastest info"-contest, or are we ?

Look, I already have the game on GOG - and I can do everything with it (including Betas), etc. - but the guy from above ( RhinoDad) said that he used the game version before Aurora and that it was a Matrix-download. Therefore I assumed that he didn't want / wasn't able to use the Steam-version / Beta-Branch as well, but when you only want to use the offline Matrix-version, you can't use the Beta-branch as well (like I said, I already know these things, because I gifted my son with a Matrix-version a few days ago). Do you understand now ?

[U235]

Started a new game after the last update. Tankers assigned to the fleet have empty Caslon cargo and seem not to want to stock them. Their own fuel supply is fine.

[U235]

Tanker assigned to fleet. Cargo bone dry for years even after the fleet refuels.

Fleet tanker.JPG (44.74 KiB) Viewed 801 times

[zgrssd]

Tanker assigned to fleet. Cargo bone dry for years even after the fleet refuels.Fleet tanker.JPG

That Tanker is on manual.
They need to be on Auto to do stuff automatically!

[U235]

[/quote]
That Tanker is on manual.
They need to be on Auto to do stuff automatically!
[/quote]

Yeah, I had just it change from auto, plenty of others on auto. But, to update I've finally seen tankers take on fuel cargo. It took an awful long time to happen with the half dozen tanker I have, on auto or manual. I would think topping off tankers would be a high priority. Seems okay now, though.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you keep ordering your fleets around or they never stand still then tankers have issues.

In order for tankers to do their job the fleet need to stay still in one place for long enough so they can do their job.

This has been my experience with making good use of tankers or not.

Whenever I station a patrol squadron in a system with no fuel resource I just attach a tanker... they never have to go and refuel anywhere else if I pay attention and not just send them out over and over without time to refuel in between missions.

There might still be some logic that needs to be put into fleets and tankers and how they cooperate. For example if the fleet is low in fuel it need to calculate if it can get to the closes fuel point or if they need to stop and wait for the fleet tankers. There need to be some breaking points here. I also think that prepare and attack should always have the fleet gather and refuel from tankers and then do the final approach to the target for example. The tankers could then fly away and restock and come back if needed. Preferably the system the attack fleet stop in should be where there is a fuel source so the tankers just stay in the system and harvest new Caslon. But that is obviously not always possible, but the AI should try to stop in such systems if possible before the attack.

Perhaps there should also be an order for manual control of move to location and refuel from tankers order. This only show of for fleets that has tankers added. If the tanker is empty the tanker will have to go and get fuel first so the order would then take quite some time, but the player will have to pay attention.

Another logic I'm not sure is in there is that fleets should generally take fuel from one tanker at a time or that tankers can transfer Caslon between themself. This in order that some can run off and replenish while others follow the fleet.

So I think there are some things that can be added to the tanker logic at some point, but they do work if you know what you are doing.

If fleets are on full auto they also seem to do OK, so I think the biggest problem is players that uses a mix and then don't understand how they work.

[AKicebear]

Perhaps there should also be an order for manual control of move to location and refuel from tankers order. This only show of for fleets that has tankers added. If the tanker is empty the tanker will have to go and get fuel first so the order would then take quite some time, but the player will have to pay attention.

Your whole post is excellent, and matches my experience, but I especially wanted to emphasize this point. If this order was possible for manual fleets, and their info box reflected this status, I think it would reduce most player complaints. One of the biggest problems with tanker behavior is player impatience due to lack of information on if a fleet is waiting for a tanker, and how long (or range) that tanker will take.

[U235]

I've had fleets sit idle for many game years with an available tanker, and no ships were refueled. The moment the fleet stops, such as waiting to queue up for repairs or upgrades, the tankers should begin refueling IMO. I don't want to give the wrong info, so I'll have to watch it more closely and observe exactly what is happening. It's definitely not about impatience on my part, as I often park fleets while waiting for one or more tech advances to become available for upgrades.

Apparently in space, not only can no one hear you scream, but they also never heard of 'inflight refueling' as was normal way back in the mid-20th century to the present with both military aircraft and warships. Maybe this is too complicated to code or would impact the game balance in some unforeseen way, so I give it a pass. Might be a nice research item in the future though.

[zgrssd]

I've had fleets sit idle for many game years with an available tanker, and no ships were refueled. The moment the fleet stops, such as waiting to queue up for repairs or upgrades, the tankers should begin refueling IMO. I don't want to give the wrong info, so I'll have to watch it more closely and observe exactly what is happening. It's definitely not about impatience on my part, as I often park fleets while waiting for one or more tech advances to become available for upgrades.

Apparently in space, not only can no one hear you scream, but they also never heard of 'inflight refueling' as was normal way back in the mid-20th century to the present with both military aircraft and warships. Maybe this is too complicated to code or would impact the game balance in some unforeseen way, so I give it a pass. Might be a nice research item in the future though.

Currently ships can have only one order. And getting the "waiting for Tanker" order removes all other orders. So that only happens for ships on Auto or in a fleet

I had a idea to fix it. But it will take some time to implement, if it is even feasible.

[U235]

Currently ships can have only one order. And getting the "waiting for Tanker" order removes all other orders. So that only happens for ships on Auto or in a fleet

I had a idea to fix it. But it will take some time to implement, if it is even feasible.

That's unfortunate considering repairing (and refueling, which is places the refueling effort on the station or mine), as well as upgrading the fleet, switches Auto to Manual. I can live with it though.