Fleet refueling

[yannis333]

My good game developers please STOP 🛑 trying to fix the unfixable you did a lot of work on this matter many times it works as attended sometimes I see the fleet waiting for spaceship tankers to be refueled, most of the time partial with many stranglers behind ,
other times I do it manually using the new option ,again it gets frustrating since the fleet is broken up having stranglers far behind,
And then I'm thinking why not just have the fleet determine the distance according the capacity aboard the fuel tankers, as long as tankers are attached to fleet they be the determining factor of fuel capacity therefore the fleet will be always together no more strugglers across the universe 😁

I think that would simplify the work in programming the fleet as one unit uniting the amount of fuel from tankers and gradually depleting until there is no more , then either the fuel tankers go for refueling to next available station or the fleet moves on their own fuel , treated as fleet without fuel tankers .
For me as gameplay experience either way this option or the perfect refueling by fleet tankers the way you strive to do, the experience is the same but I think my option is easier and more reliable we're not going to miss anything 😜 for example the effects of refueling the outcome is the same , this will help the rest of the game functions work like a clock no delays wait for this to do that and then the author .

[Nightskies]

I must be suffering from a lack of coffee, but the punctuation in this and the other post you made is making them hard to read. So maybe I'm misunderstanding this.

Making the fuel in fuel tankers automatically deposit into the fleet's fuel cells directly would make things easier, but that doesn't match the developer's vision of the game. Logistics is a very prominent part of DW2, requiring a hard contact for resource transfer is a defining aspect of the game. In other words, there is no resource teleportation. So no, tankers will not remotely fill ships outside their reach.

Maybe they could fill multiple at a time that are in reach, but that'd hardly change anything in the big picture.

"And then I'm thinking why not just have the fleet determine the distance according the capacity aboard the fuel tankers"
I think you're asking that the fleet's range be modified by fuel tankers, but just proportionally raising the total fuel in the fleet wouldn't be practical. Filling the fleet takes time. Different ships have different rates of energy use, active and static, and thus different rates of fuel use. But most importantly, fuel tankers aren't reliable. Not like fuel in the tanks are (that is to say, the fuel that is in the warships' fuel cells is reliable). Likewise, a fleet's range isn't affected by the presence of other fuel sources, though it practically does so.

I have to point out too, that 40% fuel range can be really big. A ship with 2 fuel tanks using fusion reactors should easily have over a sector's range. Since this range only matters with regard to automated fleets, adding the range of fuel tankers would also make that range ... really absurd. It would enable automated fleets to assign themselves missions that would take *a long time*. I'd recommend not relying on massive ranges for automated fleets, especially big ones. They'll eat up tons of fuel, sometimes just to go slap a single space slug before going home.

A manual fleet will go wherever you tell it to, fuel or not, and with tankers, they'll be able to refuel and practically have the range that you provide through those tankers or other fuel sources.

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I think fuel tankers will actively go into combat now, but are making the ship they are going to fuel in combat become idle to wait for the tanker. That's really not good. No ships in the fleet should be allowed to idle while its in combat.

As always, tankers continue to be a thorn...

On a positive note, it feels like automated colony ships are working well now. ^_^

[yannis333]

I'm sorry for the grammar I do my best English is my second language and I'm also using speech to text 😁

[Bobucles]

requiring a hard contact for resource transfer is a defining aspect of the game

That part is fine. What is less fine are the fueling ship priorities. They have a nasty habit of running away to refuel at 80% cargo, and will happily watch ships get below 50% tanks and do nothing. The retrofit behavior is also extremely dangerous, fuel ships will abandon their fleet to run away and retrofit.

When a fuel tanker is attached to a fleet, it is effectively escorting the fleet. The fleet depends on the tanker being proactive and not getting distracted by butterflies.

[Ax4711]

How about stop being cheap and just get enough tankers? Minimum one for five ships in the fleet, bingo now there are always some of them around waiting at the star or a neighbouring planet.

[gocdavies]

This should be simple. remove option for single ship selection in fleet, just get fleet option to refuel from tankers. they then move to tanker or tanker moves to fleet and once within 5000 of tanker all ships are refuelled. simple as that.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Ax4711:

How about stop being cheap and just get enough tankers? Minimum one for five ships in the fleet, bingo now there are always some of them around waiting at the star or a neighbouring planet.

Tanker per five ships is the minimal amount, provided you don't want to wait eternity to refuel. And I'd rather get another combat fleet than a fleet of tankers (especially since the best I can expect is them waiting at neighboring something instead of being with the fleet).

[Ax4711]

I guess timing your refits also counts as manually optimizing strategy, at least I design all ships myself. In DW2 manual strategy gives all kinds of rewards necessary for the higher difficulties, you can't ever expect an AI to play perfectly unless it's chess.

[yannis333]

If the results of individual fuel tankers programmed perfectly are equal to the way that I'm describing, why not use the way I'm describing on the post that is more stable and easier programmable locked as one unit .

When you have several fleets working around you don't have the time to look at them closely if they fleet gets refilled correctly or what the fuel tankers are actually doing .

The game overtime slowly progresses from real-time strategy to just strategy game, and you're looking at the big picture not on details like if the fuel tankers actually look like refueling spaceships if they're parked or they're moving .

[Bobucles]

How about stop being cheap and just get enough tankers?

The proper number of tankers for the AI is roughly 50% of the fleet. That gives enough time for a third of them to restock, a third of them to refit, a handful to idle, leaving exactly one tanker actively refueling the entire fleet.

[Nightskies]

I appreciate what you are saying, yannis.

Originally posted by yannis333:

If the results of individual fuel tankers programmed perfectly are equal to the way that I'm describing, why not use the way I'm describing on the post that is more stable and easier programmable locked as one unit ...

What you say is an easier and more efficient way of doing it. Its not just easier for the player, it would be easier to program. I agree with that. I like efficient things too.

But its bypassing the "resources don't teleport" part. That's a hard no. Its just in opposition to the vision of the game. It is a sensible suggestion, it just isn't aligned with the game's mechanics as intended.

I've also suggested similar 'cheats' in opposition to the intended mechanics in order to resolve similar issues, but the dev team worked through it and fixed those other things. They'll probably do the same here. Even though tankers have been a sore point for a long while.

And then there's the other points I brought up in the first response with regard to "why not use the way I'm describing", which I won't repeat, and would ask why these were overlooked.

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I commend you for making constructive advice. Let's try to come up with something that works for the vision of the game and preserves its defining aspects.

Like significantly extending the range of the remote fuel transfer, or enabling the fleet to go to it to refuel from it like a mining station, where the entire fleet can fuel up at the same time.

And while at it, ask that ships that are waiting for a tanker will stop waiting when it or nearby ships are shot at while not stopping the tanker from doing its job.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Originally posted by Ax4711:

you can't ever expect an AI to play perfectly unless it's chess.

Which is why sharing fleet fuel (at least to a degree) is a relatively minor thing, considering amount of compromises this game already does (mining stations working without energy, for one). This is a fairly easy way of improving fleet cohesion without touching any logic the game currently employs (of course, I have a sneaking suspicion that the very concept might go against the grand vision of the game, but I've yet to see dev's stance on this).

[Nightskies]

Mining stations - and all ships and stations, for that matter - always worked that way, they just stopped getting fuel shipments!

None the less, it was a compromise. But have to keep in mind with that case, it was a game-breaking issue they were fixing. Tankers never were game-breaking.

Though I feel sympathy for the continuing trouble tankers give. As I've said with previous 'cheat' fixes, if they were to make fuel tankers teleport Caslon to their fleet as yannis suggests, I wouldn't look twice at the fuel attendant's body left in the corner of the room and would similarly say to any queries, "It was for the greater good, and the sanity of the Distant Gods."

[yannis333]

I have a solution 🤗 all ships need to have emergency reserve fuel for warp drive so they can always arrive to destination in full speed for refueling . 🫡🎖️