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Very frustrating.

I've yet to be able to conquer an opponent. Why? Their fleets are too large? No, simply because of my ***** fleets AI and fuel issues. My fleets apparently haven't grasped the concept of refueling ships and will prefer to move several sectors to a space station rather than use the refueling ship (which is setup correctly) residing in the same solar system when given an order to refuel. Why?

Also, what's up with fleets being almost impossible to use due to one or more ships CONSTANTLY being out of fuel, dragging the entire fleet down to their slowmo speed? So, refuel your ships, I hear you say. Well, I am. My fleets spend 50% of their total time refueling - and another 40% in transit from one fuel point to another. Basically, the fleets are constantly out of fuel and so are moving from one fuel deposit to another, meaning there's almost NO time to use them for actually useful stuff like, eh, combat. What is going on? Is it because the default AI-made ship designs that I'm using are so terribly bad that players are forced to design their own from scratch, or is the problem something else?

Please help, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game otherwise but the refuel/fleet issues are driving me absolutely nuts!

Well I'm no expert but a few things it could be are:

-If you're playing a race with poor intelligence, their default designs will reflect that. Which could mean they're packed with too much energy sucking components.
-maybe your refueling ships don't have enough fuel to refuel the whole fleet? so the fleet goes to the nearest base that does.
-If you've been heavily developing weapons and other components but neglecting reactors that would cause excessive fuel use.

Some ways of getting around this are putting energy collectors on ships to cover the static energy cost when they're sitting idle in systems.
Or make fleets with more ships, with less fire power, so you distribute weapons/reactor ratios a little better.
Or just remove a bunch of components so they use less energy.
Or add more fuel tanks.

I'm playing as the various insect races which are reasonably intelligent save for perhaps the Gizureans. But anyway, I think I get the gist of what you're saying: You can't really play this properly without designing your own ships.

My problems presumably also have to do with the fact I'm playing with 'basic' level technology setting, meaning everything is just that much weaker. Still, it doesn't seem reasonable that navies have to be refueling all the time.

Just add some more fuel tanks on your designs. Helps a lot and shouldn't be that hard.
Also, make sure re-supply ship has fuel on storage. And to make sure your ships fuel at the re-supply ship, select the fleet and right-click --> Refuel on the re-supply ship.
This game comes with lots of handy automation but some MM is still required if you want to get the most out of your ships.

I always right click --> Refuel on the RS ship too. I haven't trained myself to use the new refuel fleet button and I'm not sure if I completely trust it either. If the RS ship doesn't have enough fuel then your ships will fill up as much as they can leaving some without fuel, but that shouldn't happen if you've given the RS ship enough time to stock up.

yap, adequate in time preparations will deal with fuel issues almost all the time

Well, I'm having trouble refueling at one such refueling vessel. I most probably am missing something.

I managed to order it to "deploy" at a gas giant but once it starts to "deploy", before "filling up" those 30 seconds, it almost immediately starts to "undeploy", so even if I order another ship to refuel at the refuling vessel, it gets over to it but it does NOT refuel... I wonder what I'm doing wrong?

One of you kind gentlemen will surely enlighten me and help me out of my ignorance [:D]

I might be wrong here but RS ships are stupid when it comes to their own fuel...they will still go for a mining station or startport for refueling if they are low on fuel
i did test this once, they will ignore the fuel source near by even if for us it's clear that they have enough fuel left to deploy and get it from there

so how much fuel do your RS ship have before deploying? after it undeploys where is it going? does it say it's going to refuel?

Thanks, Mr. Data. At the moment, I cannot say, but will test your observations and report back. But I think you may have a point here: maybe the RS vessel needs to first refuel itself elsewhere (?) before it can refuel other ships at a "deploy" station. Curious if true. Oh, and another thing: RS can "deploy" at gas giants, gas nebulae and mining stations, am I right?

no, it can only deploy at at gas giants and gas nebulae but not at mining stations
and it does refuel itself first when it is deployed, the problem is it does not consider the gas giants and gas nebulae as a possible fuel source when it's tanks are at 20% even if those are right next to it

Thanks again. I am at a loss as how to make a RS vessel deploy since when I order one to "deploy" at a gas giant, it navigates there and once it starts to "deploy", it does so for about 5 seconds and then it starts to unexpectedly "undeploy". I've tried this at three diferent gas giants and the same thing happens. What am I doing wrong??[&:] Probably not, but could this be a bug introduced in 1.5.0.4?

Well, I tried deploying a new RS vessel that I edited on to the game via the game editor. It is "deployed" and I have been able to refuel a ship finally! The only thing new that I did was change the battle stance of the RS ship to attack only when attacked; I don't know if that matters for deploying but this worked, at least, whereas before (without this change in the battle stance) it did not with other RS ships already in the game...

this is strange indeed, RS should not behave like this....maybe you should post this in the tech support section
did your RS design contain any weapons? were there enemies near by?

I have figured out that no, the battle stance has no effect whatsoever (as it should not).
Onboard weapons, yes, and also fighters, but this should not matter at all.

Once, a RS ship was deployed (automatically) in a gas cloud and came under attack by Kaltors.
It repelled them succesfully, but then proceded to undeploy automatically.

It seems this anomaly has something to do with the given tech level in your Empire, and the fact
that you may have an existing RS ship that you "should not" have because of the tech level.
I don't know how that can be, but perhaps I have changed Empire tech levels, lowering them with the existing
game start-up RS ships remaining...?

For testing purposes, I have been able to deploy an existing RS ship once I had edited the tech level, increasing it.
Also, by default, the deploy missions assigned automatically have apparently been working, which is rather odd.
Why not my own deploy missions?

But I have a feeling that all of this has something to do with tech levels and available ships that can be legitimately built.
Not that I have been able to consistenly understand what's actually going on, but I am definitely nearer the mark! [;)]

good info, mighty emperor, I still think you should post this in the tech support section as it does look as a bug atm
two observations here, not sure how pertinent they are to your case:

1) there is no available ships that can be legitimately built mark at any tech level, as long as you can afford the cost and maintenance you can build as many as you'd like

2) an RS will no fight when it's deployed so if it's armed and detects a danger than this could be the explanation for why it cancels the deploy orders. This would also explain why the auto deployment works as the AI will not deploy it as long as a danger is detected

Once, a RS ship was deployed (automatically) in a gas cloud and came under attack by Kaltors.
It repelled them succesfully, but then proceded to undeploy automatically.

ahh, just saw this....so they can fight when they are deployed, this is the first time anyone has confirmed it, the general knowledge was that they don't

really interesting finding

Fine, I'll do that. Thanks for the pertinent data, Mr. Data!

I am pretty certain (will test again thanks to autosave!) that an auto-deploy RS ship in that gas cloud did indeed
come under attack by Kaltors (not by enemy ships) and while it was deployed, it launched its complement of fighters and succesfully fired its onboard weapons. After klling off the space beasts, it proceeded to undeploy, and I believe it was due to the fact the some onboard ship systems had been damaged; in fact, that's when I tried deploying again several times, but could not do so because an automatic repair order overrided my own orders to deploy (yes, overrided my very own imperial orders! [:o]).

It was most interesting: I observed that the RS ship auto-navigated to a repair base, repaired, and then, without doing anything myself, automatically proceeded with a deploy order to that very same gas cloud it had been atacked by Kaltors before! Just a coinicidence or did the RS ship "remember" my imperial order to deploy at that gas cloud??

Intriguing, to say the least, wouldn't you say, Mr. Data? [:D]

Ahaa, good observations always help. You noticed correctly and indeed this is the designed behavior for all mobile ships (even deployed RS it seems) when they are damaged or without fuel. And it does indeed happen even when set to manual; they will leave their post and ignore your imperial will so that they can repair or refuel....and then return to their former post.

And they indeed overide you for this. I'll jump in the option, I seem to remeber there is one for this case as well.
Will let you know....if I ever get out of it [:D]

Override my own imperial will... INDEED, how arrogant my ship captains are.

I find their lack of faith... disturbing... [:D]

nope, didn't find it.....i think i've confounded the repair option with the refuel one. You can determine at which % of the tanks the ship will refuel but a similar option for repairs does not exist. Given your tests it would be a good ideea to have one for repairing as well.

you are a skilled emperor, those captains should be thrown out at the nearest airlock....good thing the game does not have that option too [:D]