Bit of a dumb question from a DW Veteran but...

[WoodMan]

How on Earth do you refuel using a Resupplyship?

I've never felt the need to use these ships before, ever. But in my current game I have decided to use one. So here is the situation:

Two of my Construction Ships are a very long way from my Empire reparing wrecks at a weapons testing site. I built my Resupply Ship and had it deploy at a Gas Giant near my home system. Then, chock full with Caslon I sent it off to the two Construction Ships.

It arrives (finally) at the weapons testing site, with the Caslon still onboard. I tell the Construction Ship to refuel a my Resupply Ship. The Construction Ship moves over to the Resupply Ship, but when it reaches it, its mission changes to "Refuel a Uuvuu Minor 1" a colony of mine absolutely miles away.

So how do I get the Construction Ships to actually refuel at this thing?

[feelotraveller]

Is the Resupply ship deployed?

[WoodMan]

No, it can't deploy, the option not available at this location. So it has to be deployed at a gas giant to let ships refuel? lol, that raises a new issue if its the case, I need to pair it up with an Explorer...

[Spacecadet]

You can deploy them at either a Gas planet or a Gas cloud (of the fuel type used).

Generally I'll have to have the ship/ships selected and do a 'right-click refuel at' on the deployed Resupply ship.

I'm not sure if 'refuel at nearest' will include Resupply ships as a refuel point - they used to not, but that may have changed.

[feelotraveller]

Having a Resource Profiler on a Resupply ship can be useful at times.

[DasTactic]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

I've never felt the need to use these ships before, ever.

Wow! I can't ever remember playing a game where I didn't have one to support a distant attack. I love how many different ways this game can be played.

[onomastikon]

ORIGINAL: Spacecadet

I'm not sure if 'refuel at nearest' will include Resupply ships as a refuel point - they used to not, but that may have changed.

I have had incredibly poor results with this. I have seen it happen once (i.e.: click "refuel at nearest" gets the ships to refuel at a deployed resupply ship), while 99 other times the same command issued in a functionally identical situation sends the ships off to the nethermost reaches of hell searching for fuel.

[J HG T]

I've used "refuel at nearest" command and it has worked well from what I remember. Still, all instances of this were in distant space, away from my main empire, and the resupply ship had cargo-holds full of fuel.
My random guess is that, when using "refuel at nearest" command, fleet checks if the resupply ship has enough fuel for the whole fleet. If not, then the fleet picks next place with enough fuel.
Most of the time I manually command my fleets to refuel at resupply ships, so I haven't run into this problem.

BTW, if you still don't know, you can deploy the resupply ship on any planet/asteroid to act as refuelling point (CTRL + right-click --> deploy). I do this sometimes when situation is urgent and there's no gas planets/nebulaes nerby, but the resupply ships has enough fuel for its fleet.

[MisterBenn]

I've not had a great deal of problems with resupply ships supporting an attack fleet, only sometimes a large fleet will take a long time to refuel all ships and perhaps the fleet will abort the order before all ships have taken fuel.

Regarding Resupply Ship uses, once that first phase of expansion is over (you've colonised the initial close planets, met your neighbours, accumulated some spare wealth and your expansion now depends on colonisation science and exploration) I like to produce a small number of Resupply Ships based on the galaxy size, equip them with fighter bays / long range scanners / resource profilers, and spread them out to the farthest corners of my empire's reach and deploy them. They extend the scout range of the empire and the scouts will make great use of them and the turnaround for resupply is amazing. You meet people quicker, find planets quicker and find more than your share of the special discoveries out there. The fighter bays mean you can get some of the benefits of tech upgrades without recalling them, and they cope well versus pirates.

[Bingeling]

Exploration ships does well in a crowded galaxy, since they refuel at foreign locations. But the idea to have them as a moving fuel frontier is a good one. Both at regions of activity where you lack your own colonies, or to support activity around fresh colonies.

And as was shown in the Hive video AAR, they are cute to deploy at target locations in wars, even if I don't think I saw them actually used. Battling a major colony defense can drain fuel bad, and it is handy to have the refuel stop just across the system...

[MasterChief]

Wow great thread... I didn't know I could deploy on a non-gas planet with a resupply ship! I also hadn't thought of using resupply ships for extending the range of exploration. I've only used them for offensive campaigns! Y'all are awesome

[shinobu]

ORIGINAL: J HG T

BTW, if you still don't know, you can deploy the resupply ship on any planet/asteroid to act as refuelling point (CTRL + right-click --> deploy).

Just to reiterate what J HG T said, to refuel at a resupply ship you have to deploy it, but you can deploy it on ANY planet or asteroid- it does NOT have to be a gas planet.

[WoodMan]

Great, thanks guys! I managed to use my Resupply Ship to refuel the Construction Ships. They had to fly to a nearby gas cloud where it was deployed. If they could have refueled at it in the weapons testing zone that would have been handy, seeing as the hyperblock is in effect [:D]