Matrix Games Forums

I'm running into several scenarios that are just infuriating, and they're all related to fuel.

1. A fleet has many fuel tankers. They sit around, whether on idle or manual, at a location where the fleet is stopped and has no orders. The fuel tankers refuse to fuel the fleet, no matter how empty it's tanks are and how full the tankers are with caslon. Tankers should be constantly fueling a fleet, when the fleet is idle, unless suggestions in #8 are implemented

2. A fleet has fuel tankers. The fleet is given an order, and then a different order before the first is complete. The tankers continue on to the original destination and ignore all further fleet orders until given manual instruction. Tankers should adjust their orders whenever the fleet takes new orders, even if those orders aren't specifically applicable to the tanker, such as retrofitting.

3. A fleet is in the same system as an enemy, with more than half full tanks, and the enemy is within a very short jump from the fleet. Give the fleet an attack order, and the fleet decides it needs to jump to another system to refuel first. Fleets need a better understanding of local engagement, and need to respond to direct orders better.

4. A fuel tanker in a fleet decides to go off on it's own and restock it's Caslon, when it already has plenty and the fleet its in is being given an order to go do something. Tankers should restock Caslon either when the fleet has no specific orders, when the fleet is nearby a refueling location, or ideally both.

5. A ship needs refueling. A tanker arrives where the ship is, but the ship won't stop for the tanker to refuel it. The ship and the tanker play a slow game of leap frog all the way to wherever the ship is trying to go. ships that are being pursued by tankers should stop and wait until they are refueled.

6. A fleet has ships that are being replaced. The ships try to fly directly to wherever the fleet is, taking on new fleet orders as the fleet takes action, and don't bother to refuel along the way. Bonus points if that fleet's fuel tankers beeline across your empire to those replacement ships (see #5), leaving the bulk of your fleet without fuel support. Ships that are newly constructed should have special orders about how to reach their fleet. They should plan a route that ensures they are fueled the entire way, and they should adjust their special route as the fleet is given new orders. Replacement ships should only leave their special order queue if given a direct manual order.

7. Because fuel tankers arrive at the fleet's destination at some distance from the fleet, they occasionally land right on top of the enemy. Fuel tankers should remain just outside of the destination system to avoid landing on targets. Once the main fleet has arrived and the exact location of targets are known, the tankers can enter the system according to their behavior settings, or the fleet can regroup at the tankers when fuel is needed.

8. When ships in a fleet are in need of fuel and the fleet has a tanker local to the fleet, the ships should go to the tanker instead of the tanker going to the ships. In combination with #7, this would let ships refuel safely away from engagement, as needed, at the safe location where the refueling ships are staged.

We're aware of some of these issues and they are high on our list to address once more critical issues have been resolved. Most seem to be interactions between manual fleet/ship orders, certain policy settings, engagement setting and fuel tankers. Because some require a specific combination of settings, save files are very useful as a rule to see how a situation where the ship/fleet/tanker behavior is bad can be reproduced.

I'll respond below.

dostillevi wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 4:20 am 1. A fleet has many fuel tankers. They sit around, whether on idle or manual, at a location where the fleet is stopped and has no orders. The fuel tankers refuse to fuel the fleet, no matter how empty it's tanks are and how full the tankers are with caslon. Tankers should be constantly fueling a fleet, when the fleet is idle, unless suggestions in #8 are implemented

Automatic tankers should be automatically refueling. If they are on manual they may not unless ordered to do so. I'm not clear on if "whether idle or manual" means they were on manual orders the whole time? If they were on automatic and were not refueling or were on manual and ordered to refuel and did not, a save would be very useful to fix this.

2. A fleet has fuel tankers. The fleet is given an order, and then a different order before the first is complete. The tankers continue on to the original destination and ignore all further fleet orders until given manual instruction. Tankers should adjust their orders whenever the fleet takes new orders, even if those orders aren't specifically applicable to the tanker, such as retrofitting.

This is an issue, for which a reproducible save would be helpful.

3. A fleet is in the same system as an enemy, with more than half full tanks, and the enemy is within a very short jump from the fleet. Give the fleet an attack order, and the fleet decides it needs to jump to another system to refuel first. Fleets need a better understanding of local engagement, and need to respond to direct orders better.

Did you have automatic refueling of manual fleets turned on in your policy settings? Did you use the default attack order (Prepare and Attack) or hold and right click to choose a normal Attack? What was the fleets engagement range setting?

4. A fuel tanker in a fleet decides to go off on it's own and restock it's Caslon, when it already has plenty and the fleet its in is being given an order to go do something. Tankers should restock Caslon either when the fleet has no specific orders, when the fleet is nearby a refueling location, or ideally both.

If it already had plenty of fuel, this could be an issue and a save file would be very helpful to understand why the tanker made that decision.

5. A ship needs refueling. A tanker arrives where the ship is, but the ship won't stop for the tanker to refuel it. The ship and the tanker play a slow game of leap frog all the way to wherever the ship is trying to go. ships that are being pursued by tankers should stop and wait until they are refueled.

A save file showing this would be very helpful. I expect a specific combination of settings and orders and automation is required for this.

6. A fleet has ships that are being replaced. The ships try to fly directly to wherever the fleet is, taking on new fleet orders as the fleet takes action, and don't bother to refuel along the way. Bonus points if that fleet's fuel tankers beeline across your empire to those replacement ships (see #5), leaving the bulk of your fleet without fuel support. Ships that are newly constructed should have special orders about how to reach their fleet. They should plan a route that ensures they are fueled the entire way, and they should adjust their special route as the fleet is given new orders. Replacement ships should only leave their special order queue if given a direct manual order.

We're aware of this and the plan to improve it is that such ships are not actually added to the fleet until they have already reached the fleet's location. Additional save files would always be helpful.

7. Because fuel tankers arrive at the fleet's destination at some distance from the fleet, they occasionally land right on top of the enemy. Fuel tankers should remain just outside of the destination system to avoid landing on targets. Once the main fleet has arrived and the exact location of targets are known, the tankers can enter the system according to their behavior settings, or the fleet can regroup at the tankers when fuel is needed.

We're aware of this and plan to address the fuel tankers jumping first or arriving first or near the enemy as soon as we have time for the next pass on fleet and ship coordination.

8. When ships in a fleet are in need of fuel and the fleet has a tanker local to the fleet, the ships should go to the tanker instead of the tanker going to the ships. In combination with #7, this would let ships refuel safely away from engagement, as needed, at the safe location where the refueling ships are staged.

Agree on this ideally.

Thanks Erik,

Appreciate the replies. I'll go through each and see if I have a save or at least steps to recreate the issue. Good point on policies, I'll check and see if there's an interaction there.

By the way I do play slightly modded, including a custom system names list, some adjustments to resource production parameters, and ship systems tweaks. Please let me know if you're unable to load a save with these changes and I'll try a clean playthrough.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

dostillevi wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 4:20 am 1. A fleet has many fuel tankers. They sit around, whether on idle or manual, at a location where the fleet is stopped and has no orders. The fuel tankers refuse to fuel the fleet, no matter how empty it's tanks are and how full the tankers are with caslon. Tankers should be constantly fueling a fleet, when the fleet is idle, unless suggestions in #8 are implemented

Automatic tankers should be automatically refueling. If they are on manual they may not unless ordered to do so. I'm not clear on if "whether idle or manual" means they were on manual orders the whole time? If they were on automatic and were not refueling or were on manual and ordered to refuel and did not, a save would be very useful to fix this.

Sorry I was upset and typing quickly, I meant automated or manual.

Save: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AMFsun ... sp=sharing

In this save, I have a fleet called Orophont Imperial Fleet that is staging in a system. Originally I had hoped that a separate refueling fleet would alleviate some fueling woes, but that fleet of tankers refused to refuel my other fleet unless I manually assigned tankers to ships, so I merged the refueling fleet into the main fleet. You can see this merged fleet has 4 tankers, but they aren't doing anything. This particular example is a bit of a sub-case of the general issue, since these tankers actually have orders to refuel but aren't moving. I'll look for other saves where the tankers don't have orders, are on automatic, and still aren't refueling.

Also when looking at the fleet in system, there's another bug present. The ships are bouncing around and changing which way they face, periodically. This isn't movement, but some kind of positional glitch that happens even to stationary ships such as these. It seems to happen when fleets are not at a fixed body - either in deep space or in this case, just stationed in space within the system away from any fixed body.

If you give orders for the fleet to move while zoomed in on the fleet, you'll see some of the ships jump around instead of moving smoothly until they move to a fixed body and resume normal visual behavior.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

2. A fleet has fuel tankers. The fleet is given an order, and then a different order before the first is complete. The tankers continue on to the original destination and ignore all further fleet orders until given manual instruction. Tankers should adjust their orders whenever the fleet takes new orders, even if those orders aren't specifically applicable to the tanker, such as retrofitting.

This is an issue, for which a reproducible save would be helpful.

Use the same save as above. Order Orophont Imperial Fleet to blockade the human world Thoorari in the Saldar system. Once the fleet enters hyperspace, order the fleet to go back to where it came from. All ships except for the fuel tankers will accept the new orders, but the tankers will continue on to the original destination and, if I was at war in this save, be blown to bits.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

3. A fleet is in the same system as an enemy, with more than half full tanks, and the enemy is within a very short jump from the fleet. Give the fleet an attack order, and the fleet decides it needs to jump to another system to refuel first. Fleets need a better understanding of local engagement, and need to respond to direct orders better.

Did you have automatic refueling of manual fleets turned on in your policy settings? Did you use the default attack order (Prepare and Attack) or hold and right click to choose a normal Attack? What was the fleets engagement range setting?

Save. Same game as above, and I've progressed into the war. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F-sOPK ... sp=sharing

This is likely a mix with #6. I have a fleet called Assault Fleet that is being replenished with some new ships that are both in construction and en route, with varying levels of fuel. All the ships that are local to the action I'm about to take are fully fueled and sufficient to complete the order.

To reproduce, locate Assault Fleet and order it to attack Baesta 3. It will immediate try to regroup at a nearby fuel mining station, presumably waiting at least for the en-route ships to arrive and fuel.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

4. A fuel tanker in a fleet decides to go off on it's own and restock it's Caslon, when it already has plenty and the fleet its in is being given an order to go do something. Tankers should restock Caslon either when the fleet has no specific orders, when the fleet is nearby a refueling location, or ideally both.

If it already had plenty of fuel, this could be an issue and a save file would be very helpful to understand why the tanker made that decision.

I don't have a save handy with this issue, but I'll keep an eye out. Likely it would come up over the course of the war in the save linked above to Orophont Imperial Fleet.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

5. A ship needs refueling. A tanker arrives where the ship is, but the ship won't stop for the tanker to refuel it. The ship and the tanker play a slow game of leap frog all the way to wherever the ship is trying to go. ships that are being pursued by tankers should stop and wait until they are refueled.

A save file showing this would be very helpful. I expect a specific combination of settings and orders and automation is required for this.

Save: https://drive.google.com/file/d/119Mrr4 ... sp=sharing

Look for the ship Jondus Stalker, which I have intentionally forced to run out of fuel. Before it ran out of fuel, but while it was low, I manually assigned a tanker to refuel it, the Rendevous of Jondus. After assigning the tanker to refuel the Jondus Stalker, I have the Jondus Stalker several manual orders to ensure it ran out of fuel in deep space. From this contrived scenario, the Rendevous of Jondus will repeatedly catch up to the Jondus Stalker and drop from warp to refuel, but the Jondus Stalker won't stop.

I'll try to find an example of this happening more organically, especially with an automated ship.

Erik Rutins wrote: Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:44 pm

6. A fleet has ships that are being replaced. The ships try to fly directly to wherever the fleet is, taking on new fleet orders as the fleet takes action, and don't bother to refuel along the way. Bonus points if that fleet's fuel tankers beeline across your empire to those replacement ships (see #5), leaving the bulk of your fleet without fuel support. Ships that are newly constructed should have special orders about how to reach their fleet. They should plan a route that ensures they are fueled the entire way, and they should adjust their special route as the fleet is given new orders. Replacement ships should only leave their special order queue if given a direct manual order.

We're aware of this and the plan to improve it is that such ships are not actually added to the fleet until they have already reached the fleet's location. Additional save files would always be helpful.

See the save and scenario from #3 for now at least.

I have a better save for issue 3: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FFwrcr ... sp=sharing

In this save, locate fleet ODS Special Forces. The fleet is at Poru 1, and I want it to attack Selea 6 mining station. Whenever I issue the attack order, the fleet decides it needs to refuel at Poru 1 and refuses to move, even though every ship is fully fueled. I even detached a rogue fuel tanker from the fleet because it had gone off to do it's own thing and wasn't quite topped up on fuel, just in case that was the issue. It apparently wasn't.

I would like to add that I also see problems with fuel management in my fleets - and this has been a problem in DW1 as well.

I have a fleet that is dispersed all over my empire, several ships out of fuel, limping halfway across the galaxy to join up with the fleet (instead of getting some gas at the nearest stop), the rest of the fleet stuck waiting for those limping ships, etc.

Any captain in any navy of the world would get courtmartialed (and shot in some navies) if he allowed his vessel to run out of fuel. This is something that old ladies do in their cars, but not starship Captains .

Please, we must have a hardwired logic that makes ships never run out of fuel, unless in a dire emergency:

1.) If a fleet is under manual control and ordered to go somewhere that will make even ONE ship run out of fuel (not enough for inbound+return trip + some combat time, pause the game, pop a warning, offer the option to detach ships with too little fuel from fleet or detach them temporarily to top off and then rejoin the fleet

2.) In automated fleets this needs to happen automatically - plan fuel stops, detach+reattach individual ships to get them refueled or simply improve the tankers to buzz around to top everyone off constantly - except for when in combat.

tl;dr: Running out of fuel should NEVER EVER happen, except when needed for survival off the ship or when directly ordered by the human player.

100% on all the issues raised above.

I would also add that when retrofitting a fleet, it is very good at matching all ships to the design specified in the template, EXCEPT for fuel tankers. They never get retrofitted. You have to individually/manually retrofit the fuel tankers even if a design is specified in the fleet template.

Note also, that all of the above behavior manifests when fleets are in MANUAL mode.

MichaelJ007 wrote: Sun Apr 10, 2022 6:49 am 100% on all the issues raised above.

I would also add that when retrofitting a fleet, it is very good at matching all ships to the design specified in the template, EXCEPT for fuel tankers. They never get retrofitted. You have to individually/manually retrofit the fuel tankers even if a design is specified in the fleet template.

Note also, that all of the above behavior manifests when fleets are in MANUAL mode.

Good one! I've run into this as well.

It seems like using the context menu and selecting "attack" will lead to a regular attack without the refueling problem, but the regular right click default action appears to be "prepare and attack".

I could not see any difference in behavior with or without automatic refueling of manual ships and fleets in policy settings.