Battles Need A Lot Of Work A lot

[sbach2o]

I think the concept of having to care for the supply of our ships is fine. But the tools we have at hand for accomplishing this task are inadequate.

There is just nothing below the level of these cumbersome resupply ships that need to be deployed at a fuel source to be effective. The fact that there are two(?) kinds of fuel doesn't make things easier.

One problem with these resupply ships is that they carry not enough fuel for themselves, unless the default design is tweaked accordingly.

But what is really missing, is a class of fuel tanker ship that isn't at all designed to mine fuel, but just carry that stuff around between your refueling sources and your war fleets. Consequently, these ships shouldn't belong to the private sector. Their typical use would be to assign them to fleets (or individual ships) with an order of 'keep these supplied', having access to their own storage should give them an enormous range. With that they would constantly travel between that fleet and the nearest fuel source to do just that.

Tankers left on automation could look on their own for ships in range (state or privately contolled alike) that are low on fuel or stranded and refuel these.

[Okim]

You know, after a couple of days of playing i was able to adapt to manual fleet control and manual refuelling. While i do not use resupply ships at all (they behave strange and always disobey my strict manual orders to deploy preferring to return to the nearest gas station instead) - i use a small support fleet of 3 constructors that travels alongside my fleets and establishes 1 gas mine and some times defence stations once the systems is cleared of all enemy presence. The spare constructors provide a in-field repair support to those ships that were badly damaged.

This is a complex tactic and it only works well when you carefully plan your invasion (picking systems with carson gas as high-priority targets). After such a resupply point is created it is much easier to conduct further invasions into enemy territories as you have already established a good base of operations within his empire.

The only thing that you should take into account is that you need to position your constructors close to your colonies and give constructor orders while remaining there. Your constructors might need to load required materials for your bases and will travel to the nearest space port even if they are already in their construction site`s system.

[Kumppi]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Are you using resupply ships with your fleets? I'm able to launch some pretty deep strikes without a problem when using resupply. One thing about DW though is that it is supposed to be hard to send your fleet across the galaxy and support it. It's easy to defend your own area, harder to plan and support an attack elsewhere.

I love the fuel aspect in the game and would hate to see it go. AI definitely needs some help with it at the moment, but please don't remove it. Perhaps people need to adjust more to the fact that in this game you just can't send your fleets where ever you like without thinking logistics first. Then again I do enjoy WITP AE so perhaps its just me.

[Gertjan]

I agree with all the persons who argue in favour of keeping the fuel/logistics/limited range aspect of the game. However, it needs to be improved to be more manageable and take less micromanagement. Galciv2 indeed had a nice way of circumventing it with a limited range for ships. Although on smaller maps it didnt make a lot of difference.

[Hyfrydle]

I also think the fuel system should stay. Maybe we need a better understanding of how it actually works from the dev's or beta testers. I have come to realise that tactics used in other 4X games don't work in DW.

[elmo3]

FWIW I agree fuel should stay.  If refueling ships would stay on station and refuel themselves (assuming they are at a gas giant) then most of the problems would be solved.

[malkuth74]

1.So far Keep the fuel system.

2. Fix suppliers for they work right (suppliers should not have to run back for fuel when they are making it lol)

3. Make it so that ships that sit at idle don't consume fuel. (this is what brings on the huge amount of micromanagment.

4. Maker sure if Auto AI is on that it does some sort of check and refuels its ships before going on an attack run.

If you address these 4 things I think the system will work a lot better.

(number 2 is the most important, I think that one is what is pissing most of us off, oh and the fact that ships use fuel when idle.)

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

Some good suggestions and discussion here. We will work to improve how fuel/resupply operations are handled to make this. Agree in general with the four points above, though regarding #3 I think there are ways around this now and I'm not sure they should consume no fuel at all.

Regards,

- Erik

[mbar]

Considering the DW universe is open and not constrained by star lanes and a ship can go anywhere, a fuel system needs to stay.

[Wade1000]

-Maybe a very high later technology could be a ship module that produces unlimited fuel thus eliminating the need to refuel. It could be very large and/or expensive. Maybe it could only fit on an bare neccesities large ship or supply ship.

[forsaken1111]

So can resupply ships not deploy to a gas giant which is already being mined? I wanted to strike an enemy territory so I sent a resupply ship to my own system a short distance away and tried to deploy it on a gas giant. The only gas giant there already had a civilian mining station on it. When I told it to deploy, it flew over to the gas giant and sat next to it doing nothing. Eventually (since ships burn fuel even when not moving) it ran out of fuel and the next time I told it to deploy it ran off to a base to refuel. Agh...

[Gertjan]

I think it can actually.

[Hyfrydle]

In my current game it has become impossible to micromanage fleets etc and I'm relying on the automation to fight the war I've found myself in. The enemy ships seem to have a higher shield tech but I have better weapons so the military strength is about equal. I have built and automated numerous resupply ships and they just sit idle doing nothing as far as I can see although I did spot the enemy setting up a forward base in my territory.
 
The battles are very chaotic and as empires grow become difficult to plan. I'm just watching and expanding at the moment waiting to see how things pan out.

[forsaken1111]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
I'm not sure they should consume no fuel at all.

Why? If a ship is at a planet it can orbit the planet. If a ship is in deep space, it doesn't need to expend fuel to fight any gravity well.

I don't really understand what is going on behind the scenes. If you can explain a bit maybe we can suggest ways to tweak it. Like when a ship is idle, do the reactors still consume fuel to produce energy at their fullest? Do they 'spin down' to only produce what is necessary for the non-engine components?

If these ships are anything like our own space shuttle or most sci-fi ships, then the engines should be a huge chunk of the power draw. The closest analogy I can think of would be a naval ship, especially something like a nuclear submarine. They can operate for very long periods without refueling, especially if they keep maneuvering to a minimum.

Are the shields a constant power draw, consuming fuel at all times? Some games have shields which draw minimal power so long as they are already 'full' and only draw large amounts of power when they are recharging, for example.

[tuser]

On the design screen you can see the static energy usage. It's usually pretty low and comes from sensor equipment etc. The ship will use that much energy even if not moving. Now if you take a look at reactor stats you'll see it has an efficiency rating, like "5.71 fuel units per 1000 energy units", with higher tech reactors being more efficient. So the reactor will have to burn a little fuel in order to satisfy the ship's static energy demand, even if idle. And that's where energy collectors come in, by the way. If you want stationary bases/ships to avoid burning any fuel you can use those, but hardly an option for most ships of course.

[Litjan]

Yes, I also think it is "realistic" to use a little fuel while sitting still. Consider it using supplies, like food, spare parts and such.

I have to try if fitting solar panels will stop fuel consumption when stopped. Has anyone tried that?

Can´t the fleet take a constructor along to setup a mining base at a fuel planet? I think I have seen ships refuel at those (instead of supply-ship).

I think once amassed in a fleet, all ships should drain from a common fuel-supply, this would simulate transferring fuel from full to almost empty ships.

Last but not least if would be cool to have the whole fleet be able to "dock" (or connect) to a supply ship (once they actually work) to remain topped of and ready to go - kinda like an aircraft using a ground-power-unit and fuel tanker-truck.

Jan

[Mad Russian]

Maybe a way to tell if your ships have enough fuel on board to get to the destinations you have ordered them to deploy to would be worthwhile. It seems like too many ships are being sent on missions they can't accomplish because they don't have the fuel for it. In a real world situation if that happened heads would roll.

So, I'm wondering if there could be a warning or something added when I issue orders for ships that will take them beyond where they can operate. Let's get rid of the blindly obeying robots in the nav chair and put some rationally thinking beings that can figure out, "Hey, we can't make it there with our current fuel."

Good Hunting.

MR

[Hyfrydle]

Surely the automation should take this into account and only plan missions if they can actually carry them out. When un-automated the range is shown as a circle when a unit is selected.

[marc420]

Some of what could improve fuel in the game involves the UI.

-- Ship range should show the circle at 'point of no return' instead of dry tanks.  Ie, 50% of what's now.

-- When trying to give a ships orders, the AI should let you know if its beyond the point of no return.  Most missions should stay inside of this to avoid having empty ships sitting dead on the map.  Sending a ship beyond this should be a big deal.  Its usually either a suicide mission for the ship, or some sort of hail mary where you send a ship then say 'don't worry, we'll get supplies to you'.  Either way, it should be very noticeable that you are doing this.

(Logic in the code could maybe take a move order's destination and then check it for 'nearest refueling' then ask if the fuel that's expected to be on board the ship when it arrives at its destination is enough to get it back to the 'nearest refueling'. If no, then either block the move or make the player go through a 'are you sure?' box to do it.)

-- Ships should automatically head for refueling base when they reach 'point of no return' fuel levels.  Then they should automatically return to their patrol point or whatever their previous position/mission was.  Captains of naval ships would always break off a mission when fuel levels dictated.  Its hard to imagine that a space ship captain would just let his ship run out of fuel and float dead in space.  When the fuel gage says 'head to port', they'll head for port.
      --  Ideally a 'fleet' would organize itself such that if it was supposed to both 'patrol' or 'escort' something, but also refuel, that it would send back its units on a rotation.  Ie, four destroyers are on patrol.  One at any given time is probably back at base being refueled.  So, if you put a 'fleet' on patrol instead of individual ships, then the commander (and staff) of the fleet is 'managing' the refueling while keeping a force on station.  If you put individual ships on the same mission, then each just refuels when it has to do so.

-- Ships patrolling at a refueling point should be able to manage to keep themselves topped off or close to it.  Its strange to me to go to my home fleet to want to grab some ships to respond, only to find out that they are sitting empty on fuel.  Maybe the game needs a concept of something different than 'patrolling' to stay near a point.  What I want is to keep a fleet ready for action, and if I've done this at a base that can refuel, then I expect they'll be fueled and ready for action when I need them.  If there's a separate 'in port' command for putting ships in such a ready status at a base, then maybe that's what's needed.  But my reserve of big ships 'in port' at a refueling base, but then maybe have some small craft 'patrolling' around it.

-- The 'resupply' ships that set up a base that makes fuel are a good idea.  But the game also needs the concept of 'tankers' or 'oilers' or 'colliers'.  Put them in a fleet, and they automatically keep everyone topped up.  And the game needs a 'tanker' mission/role for ships where ships who need to 'refuel at nearest' can spot the tanker and head for it instead of a base.  The game needs tankers!

By all means keep the fuel system in the game.  But some UI help would be greatly appreciated. 

[Fishman]

I think the problem with the fuel issues stems from the design of your ships. Because I find that ships I didn't design always have massive fuel issues and are constantly out of fuel anytime you stop watching them, but the ships I made function like veritable energizer bunnies and always have predictable fuelling states.