how are these tankers working ?

[Navy~]

anyone ever managed to place tankers in their fleets, and them doing anything helpful ? Ever f..ing time, they are some place else, every time i need that fuel , they are on the other side of my territory. i know they are mining fuel on their own, should they do that?

I mean, i need a tanker, to carry fuel around and use it when i need it. I dont need a mining station moving around, with the ai of a mining station.

[NoDMoD]

Tankers are automated, they will refuel your ships when needed. For me they work sufficent enough.

[CHOO CHOO]

In my experience, they don't and that's it.

[NoDMoD]

Originally posted by CHOO CHOO:

In my experience, they don't and that's it.

How did you set them up?

I have 2 tankers per fleet and about 4 tankers as single ships.

[CHOO CHOO]

In my current game I have 3 tankers for large fleets and 1 for small ones, plus about 60 free tankers.

None of my fleets are fueled up.

[I Throw Spears.]

I have my fleets and my tankers fully automated. They do their job, if not awkwardly. Kinda funny seeing half a fleet 10 miles off a starbase all waiting for a tanker to fill them all up 1 by 1 lol.

[Sabaithal]

Tankers always seem to move independently, whether in fleets or not. The difference is, while they are in fleets they focus solely on trying to refuel ships in that fleet and nothing else.

They do help, they just don't coordinate very well. Give them fast engines so they can catch up with the military ships and fuel them on the move.

Sometimes I'll spot ships stopping and waiting for fuel tankers after a major battle.

Either way, I've definitely noticed that fleets with even one fuel tanker seem to try and resupply fuel from stations at a considerably reduced tendency. Simply put, they're not as sensitive as to whether or not "we need to resupply fuel BEFORE we head to the designated target area". As a result, things flow a little bit smoother.

[FDru]

As I play massive, massive galaxies I never see tankers do anything useful. They just help to get stranded ships un-stuck occasionally, but it takes so long that sometimes I just delete those ships instead.

[Navy~]

Originally posted by FDru:

As I play massive, massive galaxies I never see tankers do anything useful. They just help to get stranded ships un-stuck occasionally, but it takes so long that sometimes I just delete those ships instead.

yes. well said.

I would prefer if they wont go somewhere to mine fuel, and instead stay with the fleet.

Im in the middle of the war and my fleet left behind its tankers :)) yea.. now i must wait a couple of years for them to come with the fuel. i thought that was the point, for tankers to keep in formation with the fleet and resupply as necesary

[I Throw Spears.]

Originally posted by Navy~:

Originally posted by FDru:

As I play massive, massive galaxies I never see tankers do anything useful. They just help to get stranded ships un-stuck occasionally, but it takes so long that sometimes I just delete those ships instead.

yes. well said.

I would prefer if they wont go somewhere to mine fuel, and instead stay with the fleet.

Im in the middle of the war and my fleet left behind its tankers :)) yea.. now i must wait a couple of years for them to come with the fuel. i thought that was the point, for tankers to keep in formation with the fleet and resupply as necesary

So, they sort of used to do that lol. They were overzealous in fact. The devs toned them down so they wouldnt kamikaze mid battle, since thats pretty much all they used to do. Now they are overtuned the OTHER way, where they lag behind way too much.

[Navy~]

oh yea. now i remember.

[TexasDevil]

I put a tanker is fleet and watched it. It would move around from ship to ship refueling. And since I assigned the fleet to guard a mining station (caslon at gas giant) it would go to the station and refuel when it ran low.

It is working for me.

[Holy Athena]

Originally posted by TexasDevil:

I put a tanker is fleet and watched it. It would move around from ship to ship refueling. And since I assigned the fleet to guard a mining station (caslon at gas giant) it would go to the station and refuel when it ran low.

It is working for me.

lol that's a very small, very controlled situation... now try moving that fleet away from the fuel station and watch as it all breaks and the ships stop functioning...

[CarlVon]

Just playing it now, worked OK for a bit, now they are half way across the map and en-route. They don't work well yet. There must be some very complex issues with making this work.

It has great potential if it is possible to work through all the AI -- which must be VERY challenging.

[Darrenb209]

My experience is that they work, but that they don't work well.

They fall behind a little too far to avoid being destroyed in battle, and when they need to collect more fuel they don't go to either the nearest caslon source or a station to collect it, they seem to pick one either at random or near the home base. Not 100% sure which it is.

[jorgen_cab]

They work to some degree if you are patient and don't keep ordering your fleets around too much. After they enter a location the tankers will join he fleet and refuel the ships if they need it and if the location is relatively secure.

You need to calculate roughly how many tankers you need to fill up about half the fleet in one go and then triple that. This will generally allow your tankers to keep your ships topped up and them go and get more fuel but not all of them leaving at the same time, which might be a problem if you are going on a longer trip. Longer trips might also mean you need more tankers. You should really not rely on tankers going bat to get fuel and come back, unless you intend to stay in one place for a long time away from a fuel station.

The key is to move the fleet in steps and wait for the tankers to do their thing before you move on. Make sure you collect the fleet at a point close to the target so the tankers can fuel them before you go into battle.

I do understand if some people find them difficult to work with, but you will need to be a bit more patient and not move the fleet around before it can assemble and the tankers to catch up, if on a longer voyage. The amount of tankers in a fleet can also be important and should be decided when you go on missions. If you have just one cookie cutter fleet standard you might not get a good result, the current mission should influence the number of tankers you send with your fleets.