Building a space port in hostile territory

[Gregorovitch55]

I'm at war with the Shaktyr and you can see the situation in the screenshot - I am blue top right and they are maroon at the bottom. My question relates to the Virgissu system which is pretty much center picture roughly halfway between my core and theirs - my colours, you probably can't read the text.

I want to build a star base here so I can service my fleets to set about dismantling their core systems. The Shaktyr have other ideas (and full marks to the AI here, it obviously knows the significance of this space port) - they have succeeded in destroying my partially built LSP's three times so far even though I have had two fleets of upwards of 30 powerful ships protecting them. I have destroyed the bulk of their fleets each time, but they bee-line for the space port and retreat after they've destroyed it (I'm nor sure what they use to do that, however).

How might I protect this space port during construction?

[fenrislokison]

quick ideas:
- maybe a resupply ship if you just need fuel

- try with a small starport design with shields and armor and upgrade it gradually

- use hyperdeny on your ships to prevent enemy ships to retreat, it will decrease their attacks frequency, giving you more time for the starport.

- try to build small defensive bases first, maybe they'll draw fire away from the starport-in-building

[Guedez]

Can't you build a ship with those 'area hyperdeny' things?
So you can move it with your fleets while the spaceport is being constructed, that way they will take a lot longer to reach the construction and break it.
Also, lots of 0 firepower ships with tractor beams, although they might run instead of doing their job of pushing people away from the space port.

Also, if the first idea works, can you test if you can use it to destroy enemy ships by sitting on a trade route? (forcefully pulling traders and whatnot out of the hyperthing outside of the systems premisses, so the defense will either take a lot, or not be able to get there in time at all, or not even try to get there)

[Gregorovitch55]

Thanks for the suggestions

The combination of building a defense platform first (which is relatively fast) and then a small space port worked a treat.

Two other related questions:

1. Is a space port out of commission whilst is is being upgraded or can you still refuel and repair there?
2. I have a resupply ship now, but it seems very difficult to refuel it for the first time. Is there some special requirement to get the resupply ship fueled up for the first time?

[Aeson]

1. Is a space port out of commission whilst is is being upgraded or can you still refuel and repair there?

Space ports remain fully operational while being refitted unless some of the components are removed during the refit. Unless the design you're refitting the station to has fewer docking bays and construction yards, you need not worry about losing refueling and repair capability.

2. I have a resupply ship now, but it seems very difficult to refuel it for the first time. Is there some special requirement to get the resupply ship fueled up for the first time?

Refuel in what way? Filling the Resupply Ship's fuel tanks can be done in the same way as with any other ship - dock at a planet or station with available fuel and load up. Since Resupply Ships are generally very large vessels and so might have an abnormally large number of fuel cells, it may be the case that your refueling points just don't have enough fuel available to feed it. Filling up the cargo bays to provide fuel to other ships requires that you deploy the resupply ship over a gas source, preferably one which only contains the fuel gas that your fleet uses (if the source has non-fuel gases, that's probably fine as I believe resupply ships will only extract fuel gases), and will take a variable amount of time depending on how many gas extractors and cargo bays your resupply ship carries.

[Gregorovitch55]

No, it's fueling it for the first time so I can hyperjump it to where I want it to deploy. I think you're right the problem is it's got too many fuel cells to fill up so there is never enough fuel at the local refueling point to reserve fuel there (which presumably means it just sits there waiting until there is, i.e. never).

Any ideas on what to do to get round this? Will the ship refuel itself if I get it to deploy at a local gas giant?

[Bingeling]

I think resupply ships refuel themselves when mining. You can always find a refueling spot with some unreserved fuel and force it to "refuel at..." by right (ctrl-right) clicking it. That ought to make it grab whatever is free, even if not enough to fill its tanks fully.

[Gregorovitch55]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I think resupply ships refuel themselves when mining. You can always find a refueling spot with some unreserved fuel and force it to "refuel at..." by right (ctrl-right) clicking it. That ought to make it grab whatever is free, even if not enough to fill its tanks fully.

The p[r0oblem I've got is it just won't refuel at the system it was built at - it's been sitting there for about an hour with "refuel at ..." mission. I am absolutely desperate.

[fenrislokison]

i'm 99% sure the resupply ship will refuel itself once deployed.

but i have a slight doubt on what you said... you put a lot of fuel cells on the resupply ship, but fuel available for other ships to refuel on comes from cargo bays, not the fuel cells of the resupply ship. So you have to put a lot of cargo bays, not fuel cells.

And if for your refueling issue, 3 solutions:
- either identify a planet you own with enough fuel and manually sent the resupply ship there
- or sent the resupply ship to its final destination without fuel: it will take twice the time, but it will go anyways, especially if you use a gas cloud as deploying location (the gas will not drift as a planet can do)
- or sent the resupply ship to the closest gas cloud of its current position.

One thing to remember about resupply ships is that it's not possible to jettison cargo, so it's best if you deploy them at locations with only one type of gas, caslon or hydrogen depending on your reactors. Else, the resupply ship will fill itself with other types of gas and will end up being useless.

[pasty11]

The whole point of the resupply ship is that it has a gas mining component, therefore it mines gas and fills up with fuel waiting to resupply your fleet, this is why you have to deploy one on a relevant gas giant that has the relevant fuel.

If your supply ship has enough fuel to reach a relevant planet, I would just manually deploy it. Select ship, right click on planet.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Gregorovitch55

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I think resupply ships refuel themselves when mining. You can always find a refueling spot with some unreserved fuel and force it to "refuel at..." by right (ctrl-right) clicking it. That ought to make it grab whatever is free, even if not enough to fill its tanks fully.

The p[r0oblem I've got is it just won't refuel at the system it was built at - it's been sitting there for about an hour with "refuel at ..." mission. I am absolutely desperate.

Maybe it is not able to catch up with its refuel target? Colonies that are moon can be nasty that way. Deploy it at something. And try to have more fuel when you build stuff in the future [:D]