Exploration (and other) Ships Continually Running Out of Fuel

[actrade]

Title says it. The AI needs some work here as these ships on automated should refuel before allowing themselves to completely run empty and be forced to 1/3rd normal speed. Also, assigning a tanker with a fleet is currently useless as the tanker will run ahead of the fleet (which has since run out of fuel) and arrives at the location where combat is occurring while the rest of the fleet is out of fuel and well behind. The whole refueling system needs work TBH. I don't understand how something like this could make it out of beta testing?

[Scotias]

I've seen that the dev is aware of issues with the tankers, it's being worked on. Not sure about the rest though.

[Omena]

This depends on what the explorer is doing. If it is actively exploring a system, it should not go back to re-fuel (a return trip with no fuel takes 3X longer, but having a re-fuel trip means that you have to make at least three trips and you also have to take in docking times). Also, a lot of exploration time is taken up by surveys, which are not dependent on fuel.

If exploration ships would make sure they don't run out of fuel, it would make long-range exploration a pain (constant re-fueling trips) and would block exploration for targets beyond 50% fuel range. You probably don't want that.

[mordachai]

AGREE!!!

Came here to say "the fuel system is a cluster-!@#$"

I would up the minimum casalon for all worlds that have it to a min. of say 19%, never lower.

And reduce the fuel consumption of ships rapidly after the very early game. Everything gets stuck on fuel consumption no matter the design choices - they're not different enough in the aggregate to matter at all to how the game flows. Everyone is forever out of fuel, and the Automation cannot manage to get fuel anywhere worth a damn.

Partly that might be that every mining station and other location hoards waaaay too much of it early on when it's not in abundance. That might help smooth out the econ - to centralize storage of it better, at planets / spacestations.

but overall - the fuel system is very rocky until later in the game, which isn't much "fun" in my opinion.

Would love to see an option for relative abundance of fuel in game setup. There are bound to be folks who rush to tell me it's *too abundant* (lol) - and they should be able to select scarcity that appeals to them as well.

[Teflon007]

I think a lot of the frustration could be solved if the ship designer algorithm is optimized. The ship designer doesn't put nearly enough priority on storage cells on any of the designs to the point where I have committed to, in all games, to managing exploration ship and colony ship design to ensure range. Each game I have to take off some small weapon mount, for a ship class that immediately runs away from danger, to put on more storage cells for more range. Then I have to either redesign manually after any researched component or fight the auto designer because it constantly strips off the additional storage cells I added on the previous design. Frustrating indeed.

[MichaelJ007]

There are bound to be folks who rush to tell me it's *too abundant* (lol)

LOL. Not quite going to be that guy. There is a LOT of Caslon in the game, and you end up sitting on Millions of it. Its getting it to be used efficiently that is the problem. The algorithms that manage minimum/maximum stock and priority for shipment can probably be tweaked. I always seem to have tons of Caslon, just not where I need it.

- The fuel usage requirements do drop off rapidly with tech, and better engines/drives.
- It helps a LOT making sure your ships have decent range (fuel cells).
- You have to PLAN to refuel fleets, rather than just moving them all over the place. Even parking them in space with 'do not engage' orders while the tankers do their thing.
- Make sure Stations and Docks have adequate cargo space.
- Avoid moving through nebulae like the PLAGUE ... not only do they slow everything down, they massively suck fuel out of your ships.

The fuel tanker problems are REAL, but some of it also due to pathing and waypoint logic. That is all on the priority list afaik. Not worth repeating the myriad issues here. But in general, fleets/Ships should have pathing waypoint logic that allows them to refuel at a station, or wait in place for a tanker, before resuming their mission. For fleets this also means not losing fleet cohesion, and distinguishing between combat/support/detached.

[mordachai]

...I always seem to have tons of Caslon, just not where I need it.

yeah, your points as well taken. I do see a lot of pathing problems - not just "why did they path there" -- that's one whole discussion... but also "why did that fleet send 1/2 the ships that are out of fuel 1/2 way across my empire rather than fuel up first somewhere within range of those ships / the whole fleet / most of the fleet? Or - why not split off those ships to do an extra fuel stop and then catch up to the main group when they can? But "strand them nowhere without fuel" is definitely a problem that keeps happening.

And of course... tankers never "seem" to come help. Better not to need them at all except for the case of stragglers who had to "escape from here" ended up too low on fuel to make it someplace to refuel on their own.

I do see a strong need for the levels that are maintained to be situational - and early game -- centralize it! Or maybe always centralize it until that's satisfied, and ONLY THEN start keeping a local balance...?

Would be nice (wish-list) for fleets to strong-arm fuel from enemies more. I mean - I can force them to take over a base, but they stupidly blow it up instead of taking all of the fuel first! (Or why blow it up at all? just because not in my territory seems like not a good reason to blow 10's of K of fuel to atoms...)

As to

I think a lot of the frustration could be solved if the ship designer algorithm is optimized. The ship designer doesn't put nearly enough priority on storage cells on any of the designs...

I sometimes tweak these - but as Humans, Akdarians, and Zennox I'm reasonably happy with the base designs when it comes to fuel cells (I prefer 2 / class typically). But having more way to influence the ship designer algo would be nice (such as relative sliders for prioritizing range / speed / weapons / defense, class of weapons, etc.).

But more intelligence / options here would certainly be nice!

[EsoEs]

I would love it if you could manually specify stockpiles across all of your mining stations at 1 time, rather than 1 by 1 as it is now. Its been mentioned that the amount of fuel these things call for is absurd, but just as absurd is the proscribed fix (manually telling each station how much fuel to demand).

Alternatively, just rebalance how much resources the mining bases are demanding by default and maybe make it so freighters are more efficient.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

I would love it if you could manually specify stockpiles across all of your mining stations at 1 time, rather than 1 by 1 as it is now. Its been mentioned that the amount of fuel these things call for is absurd, but just as absurd is the proscribed fix (manually telling each station how much fuel to demand).

Alternatively, just rebalance how much resources the mining bases are demanding by default and maybe make it so freighters are more efficient.

This!

The game's resource management automation underestimates the empire's mining capabilities by a lot.

We need higher thresholds, the ability to manage single resources without clicking through 15 different buttons in Policies and Automation, and possibly a way to set default stockpile values and refueling thresholds through the ship designer.

[Litjan]

the ability to manage single resources without clicking through 15 different buttons in Policies and Automation, and possibly a way to set default stockpile values and refueling thresholds through the ship designer.

I loathe micromanaging things like this - if someone is into it, yes - but really:

Managing fuel levels of stations and ships is not something that a ruler of an empire should need to worry about.

Ships should NEVER run out of fuel, unless on a direct clear emergency order to do so (think Doolittle´s raid on Tokyo). Even escaping from a stronger foe only needs a minuscle jump. Even if the refueling station the ship is currently planning its refueling on gets destroyed, the ship needs to change plans to go somewhere else immediately.

As others have said before, ship and fleet automation should prevent this from happening at all times. Ships that can´t make the required trip (and back!) need to refuse going, develop initiative to refuel (at an intermediate stop), abort the mission when they reach bingo fuel and simply never get stuck somewhere in mid-space limping along. Just no.