Resupply ship

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Was the resupply ship full when they picked the starbase?

Its own fuel was full....GP

[Aeson]

Its own fuel was full

Probably not what Bingling was asking. A fleet will generally prefer to refuel at points which have enough fuel for the fleet under the assumption that the fleet's fuel tanks are completely empty, rather than just checking to ensure that the place that they're going to try to refuel at has sufficient fuel to top off their tanks (either at current levels or after accounting for fuel consumed in traveling to the refueling site); if the resupply ship had too little fuel in its cargo bays at the time that you ordered the fleet to refuel, then the fleet going somewhere else to refuel is expected behavior. Thus, if your fleet contained 10 ships with 500 fuel capacity, and your Resupply ship had less than 5000 fuel of the appropriate type available in its hold at the time you issued the order to refuel the fleet whereas the space station that the fleet decided to refuel at did have at least 5000 fuel of the appropriate type available in its hold, the fleet choosing the space station instead of the resupply ship in spite of the greater proximity of the resupply ship is expected behavior even if the resupply ship did have sufficient fuel in stock to top off the fleet's tanks.

[Bingeling]

What Aeson said. Also, if you happen to know that "But they do not need 5000 fuel, the resupply ship got enough", you can manually target the refuel at the resupply ship and they will refuel there. Which probably requires actually right clicking the resupply ship, and can be annoying to do if there is a fleet sitting on top of it, for instance.

This is also the reason why mining stations rarely can resupply a large fleet unless you have "lots of fuel", actually so much that no one is bothering reserving the mining stations fuel to move it to a spaceport. And unless you "swim in fuel" you are likely to see fleets move a long distance to refuel, especially if you order many large fleets to refuel at once in the same area. Why, because a refueling fleet reserves its full requirement (5000 in the example Aeson gave), until it is done refueling. And reserved fuel is not available when the next fleet gets its refuel order. Even if the first fleet is "almost full" before refueling.

It takes some time to fill the cargo of a resupply ship with fuel. Which means that for instance one ship may not be able to resupply for instance 3 fleets doing travel and fighting, and also means that I prefer to have my resupply ship deployed at all times. Because if they are always deployed, I know they will be full when they take off, and ready to just "deploy and refuel", compared to "deploy, mine (wait), and refuel".

[RemoteLeg]

Of course if you keep two Resupply Ships together you get double the fuel because they can both mine the same gas giant at the same time.

An added bonus is that they can refuel each other, which sounds odd until you find out that Resupply Ships have no way of refueling themselves from the gas they have collected. You'd think they could just run a garden hose from the cargo bay to the gas tank, but I guess that technology is beyond them. [8|]

[Bingeling]

I have never noticed a Resupply Ship being out of fuel or refueling, but maybe that is just mine. I believe they fill their tank while mining?

[btd64]

My resupply ship DID refuel itself. I watched it happen as that was required for my test to work....GP

[Bingeling]

It probably refuels itself while mining, so the issue arises if it is abused by deploying to barren rocks and such.

[RemoteLeg]

[X(] You're right - they DO refuel themselves!
I checked this a year ago and I could not get them to refuel on their own so I just assumed "that was that".
Admittedly I was trying to order them to refuel while they were not deployed and mining, so perhaps that's what I did wrong. I was trying to force them to refuel when all I had to do was wait long enough for them to do it when they were ready.