Fuel cells on orbital stations needed?

[Kizucha]

Hey there.

I wanted to ask, as the titel say, stations above planets, do they need as many fuel cells as everything in the game? Because i thought about, that the stations can get ressources direct from the planet, right? So i think they dont need freighter to be refillt, right? So... have someone tested it if they run dry some point or are they automaticly filled from the planet at some point?

In forward, thank you for answers. ^-^

[Chris21wen]

Yes.

Reactors use fuel they do not use energy generated by Energy Collectors. Exactly how many you need I do not know but I tend to leave it around 2/3 the energy storage of the base (which is approx. the default setting). If you run out of fuel you have no reactors and stuff will stop working. This is not good in a blockade situation.

I should have added that if you energy collection is greater than your static energy use then you will use no fuel provided you do fire or charge your shields. When you do it's then you need your reactor power.

[HerpInYourDerp]

You just need 1 cell. It'll automatically reload itself from the planetary stores if it runs out.

[RemoteLeg]

If you have no defenses or weapons, you can get away with just one fuel cell provided you have enough energy collectors to cover your static energy needs.

You need more if you have defenses or weapons because they will drain your energy quickly and you will end up in a rapid recharge-refuel-recharge-refuel cycle, which may be fatal in a combat situation.

You're right that you do not need to wait for freighters to bring more fuel - the base sucks it straight from the colony.

[Kizucha]

Okay thank you guy's, so all sayd. Good in safe places and not so good in places that being attacked often.[:)]

[Bingeling]

There is also some protection in a decent fuel cell size if the colony happen to have a fuel shortage during an attack.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

You just need 1 cell. It'll automatically reload itself from the planetary stores if it runs out.

Not all bases are over colonies. I was wondering what happened to these so I've tested it.

I carried out two tests using a simple monitoring station, one with and one without a cargo bay and with no energy corrector. The pic shows the base design with a cargo bay and it's position in a system. The blob to the SW (if there is a SW in space) is a freighter loaded with 600 Caslon, the max load of the freighter. As you can see the base has no fuel yet and there is nothing in the cargo hold. Once the freighter docks fuel tanks are filled up and the remaining fuel is placed in the cargo hold, This was actually the second test.

The first test followed the same set up except the base had no cargo bay. This time the freighter was carrying only 65 Caslon, the fuel cell capacity. The freighter docked and emptied it's tanks but I have no idea where the fuel went. The fuel cell remained empty and with no cargo bay I can only assume it was 'dumped into space'.

Conclusion
Fuel cells are filled up from the cargo bay.

Not tested, but suspected.
As others have pointed out, when over a colony a base will draw from the colony but not direct to fuel cell, it goes through cargo bay. I'll test this next.

Unexpected result
You need a cargo bay to retrofit. I read this before and have always put a cargo bay on all bases but the first monitor station didn't and when it came to retrofit to the Mk 2 with a cargo bay I waited and waited and waited... I scrapped it and built a new one. If waited some more maybe it would have?

An oddity
The Long Range Scanner appeared to work all the time even without any fuel. The scanner required 60 static and without an energy collector I expected it to draw on the reactor to work. But with no fuel the reactor can't (or shouldn't) work. Don't know why or if I made an error but I'll try this again.

[Aeson]

An oddity
The Long Range Scanner appeared to work all the time even without any fuel. The scanner required 60 static and without an energy collector I expected it to draw on the reactor to work. But with no fuel the reactor can't (or shouldn't) work. Don't know why or if I made an error but I'll try this again.

You didn't make an error. Things that only have a static energy requirement continue to function even if the ship or station carrying those things has no ability to power them.

Unexpected result
You need a cargo bay to retrofit. I read this before and have always put a cargo bay on all bases but the first monitor station didn't and when it came to retrofit to the Mk 2 with a cargo bay I waited and waited and waited... I scrapped it and built a new one. If waited some more maybe it would have?

This isn't unexpected; stations retrofit themselves using the resources in their cargo bay. A station that lacks a cargo bay is thus always lacking the resources required for a retrofit and has no ability to hold any resources delivered by a freighter for the retrofit. You might be able to get away with no cargo bay on a station over a colony since the station can draw from the colony's resources, though I'm not sure of that.

Reactors use fuel they do not use energy generated by Energy Collectors. Exactly how many you need I do not know but I tend to leave it around 2/3 the energy storage of the base (which is approx. the default setting). If you run out of fuel you have no reactors and stuff will stop working. This is not good in a blockade situation.

I should have added that if you energy collection is greater than your static energy use then you will use no fuel provided you do fire or charge your shields. When you do it's then you need your reactor power.

This isn't entirely correct. Any energy generated by energy collectors beyond static requirements gets stored in the reactors, and is available to power the weapons and shields. A station with sufficient energy collection can fire its weapons and recharge its shields at maximum rate without requiring any fuel whatsoever. Said station will still however need sufficient reactor space because the way weapons work is that every time they shoot they drain a given amount of energy from storage, and if there is not enough energy in storage (whether due to the station being out of power or due to the storage not being sufficiently large) for all weapons to fire then not all weapons will fire simultaneously.

Also, the number of energy collectors needed on any given station is dependent upon how close to the system center the station is built and upon what kind of system the station was built within, though in general energy collection equal to the power generation target is sufficient for generating that much power in most locations within a system.