Supply ship frustration

[Zygon]

Okay, not frustration, more confusion.

I've read they can let ships dock and refuel if their cargobay is full, even if they aren't deployed at a gas giant.

I can deploy it and ships refuel just fine. But if I try to dock/refuel without it being deployed (despite the cargo being full of the right type of gas for the ship trying to refuel) it doesn't work. I right-click on the resupply ship while having the ship needing fuel selected. I manually order it to refuel at the supply ship and it shows the order and moves over to the ship. However, once there it just hovers over it and doesn't bother docking. I've even had empty ships move over the supply ship as ordered, hover for a moment, then warp away to the next nearest fuel spot.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Bingeling]

You need to deploy it to have ships refuel at it.

What may be possible is to dock at a planet/star which is not a fuel source.

[Zygon]

I read in another thread that they could even refuel while moving, I'll assume that's wrong then and I'll make note of always having it deployed for use, thanks.

Is there a way to handle cargo myself, as in choosing what goes in or dumping it? It's loading both Caslon and hydrogen. Although it has enough Caslon for my ships right now the hydrogen is taking up valuable Caslon room. I'm concerned it might not always fill 50/50 and as my ships dock and take on Caslon, it may eventually be full of hydrogen and have no room for Caslon.

[Bingeling]

From what I have seen, it tries to balance the loads. What I do is park ships at pure caslon sources (that is no hydrogen) when filling them up.

I have noticed that a ship full of caslon will balance out the load if parked on a mixed or pure hydrogen source.

[Zygon]

Thank you.

At the risk of de-railing my own thread I wonder if you can answer a question regarding planets.

As I understand it, one of the advantages of having a space port is the extra docking and bases around a planet share the cargo somehow.

To build a space port you have to have construction and manufacturing. To save space, I'd like to build a basic base with some defenses and lots of docking. Will that perform the same function, allowing many ships to dock at the planet, even though it isn't actually a space port?

[Bingeling]

If you see a thread on the main forum, the latest tip is to have very few spaceports. Build star bases of a suitable size instead, with just docking, recreation, and medical (and maybe some weapons and stuff).

The main advantage of spaceport is the recreation and medical facilities. They boost population happiness. It helps population growth, and any bonus in happiness means you can tax a bit harder.

Docking bays are nice, but in shadows not so important anymore. A colony got 20(?) bays in shadows, while it was only 3 before that. But planet bays are slower (in throughput) than bays in space. Also, a colony without a spaceport should not see massive traffic, since the main hubs (with spaceport) will gather the most resources apart from what is needed of luxuries.

If I start a new game, I think I would make my default star bases somewhat like small spaceports without construction and research stuff. Maybe much smaller once the area is somewhat quiet.

[ReadeB]

There are several threads on spaceports around.

The consensus is to keep a few large spaceports and use other types of defenses for other colonies.

The reasoning is based on the way the AI treats spaceports vs other types of bases.

[Zygon]

Thanks. That makes sense, space ports get expensive.

Just to clarify then, if I build a regular base like a small defense base or something, ships that have business with the planet it orbits will dock at it and utilize it's faster docking bays rather than all lining up for the slow ones on the planet itself?

[Bingeling]

That should work, yes. Previously I have seen ships dock at defensive bases to refuel, when both spaceport and planet is present (but they could possibly have docking queues).

The easiest thing is to build it and see what happens

[Zygon]

Thanks.

I'll stop with the questions for now, I appreciate your help.

[Handbanana]

This is an old thread - I know, but I just have to thank you Zygon for asking all these questions on your threads! It's solved a lot of newbie frustration for me. There should be a Noob - FAQ stickythread with all these noob questions asked and answered in qoutes!