Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

have a couple of times seen an problem with manual placed/ordered fleets or ships and fueltanker that are on Auto ...
I have the fleet/ships on manual as "I" will say where he is going ...
This dont work if you have Fueltanker on Auto .... then the manual odered ships become an "wait for fueltanker" state ... deorganize the whole fleet and is simpy a mess ....
I dont need that my manual controled ships get suddenly again an auto command ... this make the whole point of manual control obsolete ....
The "smart" solution would be that i get an advice like "fueltanker XY like to refuel ship ZZ" ....
Then i would ,in an optimal world, become an hint where is the fueltanker on the map .. where is my ship ... and which route have the fueltanker planed .... then "I" can decide if i allow the refueling in the actual place (the ship then get the "wait for fueltanker" state) or say the fueltanker musst folow my ship to his destination (if i think this works) or i cancel the advice and refuel my ship manual ....

mhhh ... hope it is understandable (english not my first language..)

Regards

Fuel tankers have a lot of problems. Unfortunately, there's no comfortable way to use them.

sounds like the problem is the "wait for tanker" order.

and instead if the ship would just function normally and instead the tanker would "move to" the ship that needs fuel and then "escort" the ship while it refuels...
a change to something around that could prevent the stopping of the ship while the tanker is on the way?

I just built some fuel tankers because the advisor suggested doing so.

So what is the optimal way people are finding to use them?

Stick them in the fleet?

Have them meet up somewhere?

Not use them at all?

Yeah, I've had problems with fuel tankers even when a fleet is set to AI control.

For example, I sent my small fleet to a system to kill a space monster, which used up most of their fuel. But they had a fuel tanker with them which had more than enough fuel. But they didn't refuel. They were on automatic, so they just tried to fly back to the nearest base, running out of fuel along the way.

The tanker didn't even try to refuel them, until I manually told the fleet to stop moving. Then, once the stragglers all caught up, the tanker automatically refueled them. Then, I had to put the fleet on auto again (because otherwise, it would have sat there forever with no indication that it was idle!).

In another case, I had a construction ship run out of fuel on the way back. My independent fuel tanker (this one was not in a fleet) did nothing. So I manually ordered it to refuel the construction ship. But that never happened, because the ship (on AI) wasn't smart enough to stop when the tanker got close and let the tanker refuel it. Again, I had to do it all on manual.

Finally, I sent a fuel tanker to refuel another construction ship, which still had some fuel, so I sent it to meet the refueler halfway. Well, that was a mistake. Heh, heh. For some reason, two ships trying to join up doesn't work at all. Eventually, I had to go in manually and stop the construction ship from moving. Then it could get refueled, and I could set it back on auto again.

So this is possible, but it's awkward. It has to be done manually, but Distant Worlds 2 seems to want to force us to let the AI handle everything. (Don't get me started about how awkward it is to try to run exploration ships manually! They don't work manually and they don't work very well when the AI runs them, either.)

I'm having a lot of fun with the game, nonetheless. But I liked the UI of the previous game _much_ better.