Fuel Tankers

[Arachnyd]

What is the purpose of fuel tankers outside of fleets? The AI keeps asking me to build some...

Arach

[Nightskies]

Here's a snapshot of an early-mid-game empire's freighter distribution that are handling Caslon deliveries, and the indicated flow of Caslon. I am providing this to help get a sense of the movement of Caslon.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3175442057

Fuel tankers are part Caslon freighter, part Caslon miner, and part refueling ship. They will refuel ships outside of fleets that have run out of fuel- though they'll also serve fleets. Think of them as a more liquid supply of your Caslon.

Ships can end up distant from fuel supplies, and if they run out of fuel, this is where a fuel tanker comes in. In this empire, a distant ship could end up moving very slowly for a long time on Skip drives.

Additionally, fleets may have individual ships run low on fuel, and instead of moving the whole fleet to refuel, it can have an individual fuel ship come to spot-fill those ships. This happens a lot with automated fleet creation and ship assignment to fleets.

It isn't necessary, but it does help grease the wheels of the empire a bit.

[TheMac]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3175561044

[SgtScum]

I think the AI builds waaaay more fuel tankers than it uses and they tend to just float around doing nothing. They ~do~ get used when needed but you simply don't need as many as the AI thinks it does. It's ok though as they are cheap to build and maintain by design so having more doesn't really hurt you especially mid to late game.

[Arachnyd]

Thanks for the responses :-)

Arach