Freighter woes

[feelotraveller]

I am having a problem with my freighters all trying to grab the same resource. 17 of 22 freighters (early game still) are trying to get steel but they are each only tranporting 50-100 tons. Yes steel stocks are low, but they are not negative anywhere (even after counting rsvd) and are still priced at 0.8. Meanwhile I am running out of Caslon, with two mining bases stopped mining because they are full of it and 3 of my 5 colonies can't build their intial tiny spaceport since none of my freighters are delivering to them. One of them has been waiting over six months now. And for six months the freighters have ignored them and transported minute amounts of steel. (Not to mention the thousand of tons of Yarras Marble just sitting there while everyone demands it.) The situation could be critical since I do not have a source of Carbon Fibre and stocks are getting low... the colony which has been waiting for six months can build the colony ship for the marshy world with this resource but none of my other worlds can.

I have had this problem before with freighters picking up tiny amounts of luxury goods but not to this extent.

Scanning the forum I find that this has been plaguing the game for some time.

See this thread: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=2659868&key=freighter

Are there any (even partial) solutions/workarounds?

And more importantly will this unfortunate dynamic be addressed in the upcoming expansion?

[Bingeling]

Workaround? Well, maybe not very early game.

To serve military ships with caslon/hydrogen, a resupply ship does wonders during time of fuel shortage.
I have found myself in fuel shortages after being a bit too eager in blasting the gas mines of my enemies during war. Once war ends, their freighters come and run my own stores dry (or reserve all fuel you got) [&:]

In this case a resupply ship or two can serve your fleets and military ships just fine, the civilians won't use them, though.

How to have the freighters transport fuel? No clue. I have made the habit of always manually ordering a gas mine at a fuel source each time I found a new colony. Hopefully there is one in the system of the colony, if not one is ordered in a nearby system. Fuel shortages are no fun...

[feelotraveller]

Yes, I do that already. But you need Caslon at your spaceports to build ships! (Not got fusion yet.)

The problem is a more general resource one. Playing the game a bit more in the meantime and I have run out of Polymer and Silicon is getting low. There are plenty of these resources at mining stations/colonies but my freighters have not been picking them up. Nor have they chosen to deliver anything at all to my new colonies (which need like 8-10 resources immediately to build a first tiny spaceport). Reloading the game seemed to help with the freighter transport algorithm (although I may just be imagining this) but my freighters went to collect Osalia and Emeros Crystal those early high demand resources (NOT). Still over 3/4 of my freighters are fighting over the Steel from three mining stations and ignoring the rest of my needs. If 20% of my freighters were collecting and delivering Steel I would be getting as much and other resources could be delivered as well.

[Bingeling]

I have not noticed this kind of trouble, nor have I played the game for a while. Waiting for expansion...

A space port on a new colony usually take an eternity and a half to build. Exceptions are conquered colonies where you dismantled the predecessor (by gunfire). These usually have stores themselves. Also, colonies near other major colonies find materials quite easy (as long as you can trade with the neighbors).

Have you tried investigate what your demand for steel is, and whether you have any build projects drawing excessive amounts? Checking stores/reserved on your colonies should be a good start.

What I end up with is to try build space stations at every colony (small ones) to boost the colony development. These takes ages to build. When I build and retrofit ships I depend on the (larger) space ports of my main colonies, as I would never trust a colony in the middle of nowhere to find all required resources anytime soon. In general I have never payed too much attention to resource levels. I leave constructors on auto, and book extra gas mines.

I have noticed things like my ultra rare (spice) not being distributed to my colonies, and the giant stores on the spice planet being mostly reserved by my allies. I guess other silly situations may happen too.

[tjhkkr]

I have noticed any number of resource troubles when I do not put out enough construction ships for mining and the like...
Every since I have made construction ships an absolute priority, many of the resource issues go away...

The only one I still have repeated trouble with is, yup you guessed it:
Fuel

[Bingeling]

The suggested amount of constructors seem to work quite OK, but maybe build another one early. But indeed, fuel. More fuel bases are always better. Consider keeping some inherited pirate bases if present at a fuel source in a handy location.

Once you are powerful enough to employ large fleets, consider a resupply ship (or more) to fuel them. A large fleet will run your forward space ports dry...

If you have a deep cover agent (or good monitoring network), enjoy watching your enemy's out of fuel fleets hunting for a fuel source. Race ahead and kill the source at their destination (and be a welcoming party for the out of fuel ships that arrive one at a time). While waiting, buy a few more gas mines...

Are you about to upgrade from caslon to hydrogen? Remember to build more gas mines. If bored, book a few more. Did you just conquer a system? Remember to book a gas mine on that caslon/hydrogen source.

Also, after you did blast all the gas mines of your enemy, consider a trade sanction once war ends. Your enemy is usually your closest neighbor, and guess where they will get fuel when they have none of their own? Will this make them pissed at you? It hardly matters, they are out of fuel.

[feelotraveller]

Okay, I've firmly abandoned that game now. I was still waiting for any deliveries to my new colonies 2 years later.

Part of the problem was that I good a really good start. Built plenty of steel mines to cope with the upcoming demand. But the freighter problems shot me down.

I went back and played the start again out of interest. This time I prioritised the colony on the Ketarov world which could build the colony ship for the carbon fibre source. And it worked, sort of. I got that colony ship built. The only colony which ever got any deliveries was this one (the first one I built). I still had massive problems with freighters just getting 62 or 27 or 39 tons of steel at a time. The resources were being produced (and used) but at such an accelerated rate that the freighter AI went bonkers. Least that's what I think now.

The massive demands were being caused by the civilian ships being built. I had mines to cope with this demand. The freighters couldn't deal with it. Argh!

The experience while leaving me quite deflated has convinced me to bump up the difficulty of my starting system. That should avoid the problem for a while at least. Guess I've got to learn not to expand so rapidly, not.

[Bingeling]

My impression of the civilian ship boom, is that it clogs the construction yards, and give sorely needed credits. This is not with a very good home world where credits are needed. And I think the freighter captains are independents, and not too bright. So that matches things quite well. What happens is that the AI suddenly realize it needs more freighters once you double the number of colonies from 1. Suddenly you need quite a lot of civilian ships to transport people and goods. This is not a permanent situation, though, after a while you rarely notice civilian ship building (unless you check your construction yards a lot).

Do you use your construction ships manually? As I said I generally leave them to do their auto stuff apart from ordering extra fuel sources. If you do this manually you should learn to use the expansion planner. Building too many things is probably not a good idea either as a mine takes time and resources to build, which are not spent building something else.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Feelotraveller,

What version of Distant Worlds are you playing?

Regards,

- Erik

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Workaround? Well, maybe not very early game.

To serve military ships with caslon/hydrogen, a resupply ship does wonders during time of fuel shortage.
I have found myself in fuel shortages after being a bit too eager in blasting the gas mines of my enemies during war. Once war ends, their freighters come and run my own stores dry (or reserve all fuel you got) [&:]

In this case a resupply ship or two can serve your fleets and military ships just fine, the civilians won't use them, though.

How to have the freighters transport fuel? No clue. I have made the habit of always manually ordering a gas mine at a fuel source each time I found a new colony. Hopefully there is one in the system of the colony, if not one is ordered in a nearby system. Fuel shortages are no fun...

Set your policy so that you only refuel ships of allies (those that have at least a trade agreement with you). Fixes the fuel problem right up.

[Dab42]

Some things I think about the supply situation after playing for only a week. This could all be wrong.

Always control your constructors manually. Try not to mine too many of the same resources too close together as this seems to tie up your civilian freighters too much (especially if you have contact with and are trading with other empires).

Don't build bases too far from your colonies unless absolutely necessary or for strategic reasons (fuel depots, rare resources). This causes higher fuel usage and logistics problems from having freighters in transit longer to get back to docks.

Upgrade to a large spaceport on your homeworld ASAP to allow for more civilian ships to be built. Don't overbuild military ships right away.

Make sure to have mines of the necessary materials as close as possible to each colony. Each colony should have it's own sources of material close at hand.

Always build a small spaceport at every colony to start with (provided you have close sources of all materials to build it with), a larger one takes a long, long time to build and retrofitting to the next larger base seems to take a lot less time.

I always send out constructors ahead of the colony ship to build mining bases near to the colony.

Fleets suck up large amounts of fuel if patrolling. Let them sit with no orders after refueling at the base they are gaurding, (this may not be true, it may only be my perception).

Don't retrofit military ships unless you need to. If you are not at war and no one is being aggresive towards you, you can wait until tensions rise. This way you can skip over some upgrades. Retrofitting is relatively fast if you are at a starport already.

Leave at least one constructor doing nothing. If you find a damaged ship or base, you will want to send the constructor right away before someone else finds it. It kills you when you find an abandonded fleet and the computer is already there repairing the capital ships when you finally get constructors free. If necessary build constructors to go there. They build fairly quick and you can always scrap them if you end up with too many.

If you find an abandoned mining base too far away from your empire to be useful - claim it so the AI players don't get it and scrap it. It's usually not worth the fuel and freighter time used to maintain it. Exceptions might be a very rare resource or a monitoring base with advanced long range scanners.

Guard your strategic mining and research bases with at least 1 destroyer and 1 frigate to fend off early-game pirate attacks.

Use pen and paper liberally.

[Bingeling]

I have not played for a long time [;)] I am hardly a guru on the game, but I tend to manage just fine.

Automation is as you prefer. I have run constructors on auto apart from giving the odd job manually (just put auto again once you have given your order and it will do whatever it finds useful once your job is completed). I don't have issues apart from fuel issues, and once in a while I lack materials and order a manual mine somewhere. I would not recommend new users to mess with manual exploration and construction, it is better to get control of other areas (the fighting) first. And doing manual exploration is either time consuming or to efficient...

Long distances are generally not good, this also goes for colonies. Of course, you if it is a cluster/ring you may want a new colony as beachhead. Since constructors are on auto you don't need to worry about bases. The AI may build a remote mine, and my main issue with these is that they can be hard to protect against pirates. I sometimes demolish these and build other bases to cover the loss manually.

On new colonies I send a small fleet in advance. I book a mine on a gas source once it is colonized. I can live with the first space port taking an eternity and a half to construct, but you better leave protection in the system while it is built.

A large space port is expensive. If you need more shipyards, make your own modification of the current one with more constructors/shipyards (follow the ratio already there). You don't need more than a medium for a while if you start as a beginning, single colony. And the large one is expensive to maintain (you don't have excellent home world, do you? [:)]. Just make sure you don't remove the shipyards by accident by accepting manual upgrades. In general I can't remember much issues early on.

As for fuel. Make sure you designs have enough energy collectors to cover static energy usage, or they will drain fuel while idle. I think maybe a patch made this default for all races. In general, I have all military ships in fleets. The starting escort and frigates tend to be my only automated ships, and they die soon enough (after doing early fleet work). Once my empire is large and I am filthy rich, I may order 80 frigates and 80 destroyers at once to have some automated pirate protection.

As can be seen in my messy AARs, I tend to use raider and battle fleets (with maybe a larger home fleet). The raiders are typically 4 destroyers. I spread these around my empire to kill pirate raiders and pirate bases on manual orders. Home colony is a nice thing. Battle fleets are maybe 8 cruisers when they become available (and get capitals later), for anti pirate work I may also send a single (or two) ship from these, so I for instance don't need a raider fleet to protect my home grounds while the home fleet sits at the capital. This is in peace time. During war the raiders are... raiders. They hunt mining bases. The battle fleets hunt enemy fleets and settled systems (busting space ports is fun). A good battle fleet is large enough to bust a medium space port and the normal enemy fleets. If the enemy got a giant fleet, combine multiples in larger fleets. In most cases it is more handy to hit multiple targets at once. I wonder how the enemy feels when I dismantle the infrastructure (space port and mining bases) in 3 systems at once

I agree on the retrofit. Compare your current design to the latest. I usually wait until firepower/shields improve. When a good upgrade arrives, I do upgrade all, but not at once in order to have some ships ready. Notice that a fleet given the order to retrofit will head to its home colony. It is useful to keep this updated, and in general pay attention when you do retrofits...

I hate damaged ships and bases, I kill them. I did a few tries with stories to see how that played out, but it would not trigger, and the stupid debris fields annoy me to no end. And they take a long time to kill even with a proper fleet, lots of micro management in attacking everything.

If my frigate, escort, or explorer is damaged in far away lands, I scrap them. A spare constructor is a wasted constructor. If I need a constructor job done real fast, I grab the closest one, and either ignore its order, or queue it to repair whatever it was building (and then set auto afterwards).

Bases you find may be useful but is usually not. If it is a useful fuel source I may let them stay around. For instance, I may have gas mines in a gas cloud. After some pirate busting I inherit a pirate base in the same cloud (different location). If it is useful fuel, why bust it? It works, and it can even defend itself...

And guarding bases early on is indeed necessary, but I tend to do that with fleets. Never trust the AI to run a military ship

(After trying various automation, doing automated military and doing to rest my self remains. That could be interesting and nerve wracking).

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Feelotraveller,

What version of Distant Worlds are you playing?

Regards,

- Erik

Hi Erik,

I am playing what I believe to be the latest version - 1.5.0.8, Return of the Shakturi.

Latest for another little while [8D] anyways, apart from those beta testers [&o].

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: Dab42

(snip)
Use pen and paper liberally.

My choice is pencil and paper, along with a good rubber.

I do everything on manual. Okay, it slows my game down (sometimes a lot) but I reckon the edge is worth it. So I manually give all my constructors orders (queuing works wonders...), design my own ships and bases, etc.

I've found with an excellent home world 12 construction yards is worthwhile from the beginning. First thing I do is to adjust my intial spaceport. With an average start 8 yards is about right. Just getting to grips with harsh and I'm currently leaving the initial 4 yards until I can get my economy cranking. Redesigning the spaceport is important. With a harsh homeworld you've just gotta get rid of the excess baggage. (Sheesh, you mean I can't have 13 troops at the start... oh, fiddle.)

My problems have been with getting the first micro spaceport built (and I mean micro - size 172). Once that's in things start to flow. But if there is any resource shortage that can stall for years. Another recent game saw this happen for years as well since I did not have a source of chromium. My homeworld had about 1000 tons stored but didn't seem to want to part with a measly 10 or 20 tons (hm, energy collectors aren't good sometimes...) so that my colonies could build their first (micro) spaceports.

I don't have the problems with fuel that some people have. I find that energy collectors on my military ships (actually any ships except miners) are a waste of space. Going dual fuel, building large gas mines and using resupply ships for my large fleets seems to make for smooth running. Just got to remember to give that refuel order to backwater fleets every now and then.

I guess that maybe I am observing the freighter flow more closely than many but I have always thought that the war was won through resources and then you go to battle (a la Sun-tzu). Love the many varied resources in the game and find intriguing the fact that the private sector has a mind of its own. Just sometimes it seems to really lose that plot rather than being a bit ditzy. I do not like it when it brings my empire to a grinding halt [:-]. In fact it can be fatal.

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

... (hm, energy collectors aren't good sometimes...) ...

Sorry, I'm shortcircuiting. It's one of the plants on the micro spaceport which needs chromium. Bzzt!