Build version: v1.1.6.5 (Beta)
Severity: Medium
Annoyance factor: Medium
Saved game:
Fleets’ tankers retrofit while at war. Even if they have to go very far from their fleet to do so. Not accomplishing their first function which is to refuel their fleet when they’re low on fuel. And the time when it’s the most critical that fleets have enough fuel is while at war.
In my current game, I’m at war with the Ackdarian Empire. GrabFleet 3 (one of my many fleets designed to capture enemy’s mining stations) is near their territory and far from mine. All my attacks and capture fleets are on manual.
While checking my idle fleets, I’ve seen that GrabFleet 3 had no missions, and that one of its ships was relatively low on fuel. Nothing critical, but low on fuel. I then checked to see if its tanker was in the process of refueling that ship. It wasn't. Not only that: it's going far away to retrofit, leaving the fleet without a tanker.
- Tanker leaving the fleet alone.png (838.52 KiB) Viewed 514 times
At this point, the fleet can refuel at a nearby refueling point. But as the war continues, it might at some point need fuel and not have a refueling point nearby. That is what tankers are for. Refueling their fleet should be their highest priority by far, especially while at war.
Of course, it’s possible, from the “Designs” screen, to set the tankers to not automatically retrofit. But that mean micromanaging all the out-of-fleet tankers. This is what I’m going to do in my current game, because right now I only have one out-of-fleet tanker. But in many games, I had way more than that, and micromanaging them would be tedious.
So, in my opinion, a better solution would be the addition of two empire policies (one for fleet tankers, the other for out-of-fleet tankers). These policies would allow to specify when tankers should and shouldn’t retrofit. Their options could be something like:
- Never retrofit while at war
- Ask before retrofitting
- Retrofit as needed.
