How do you keep fleets from running out of fuel?

[[1stA]Zap Rowsdower]

I'm in the late game I think. Yet one thing I keep noticing is whenever it comes time for a war, my main fleets are almost always sat somewhere with no fuel. The fleet's fuel tankers will either be sat nearby full of caslon but not fueling, going around in circles on the other side of the galaxy or will fuel a destroyer then jump away to mine more caslon despite still having 5000+ caslon in the hold still.

I don't have a caslon shortage. Mining tech is maxed out. This seems to happen whether I have the fleet as manual or not. Whether I have the tankers manual or not.

[jorgen_cab]

I think you need to provide a save becasue my fleets seem to be able to be fueled, especially if they have tankers and are sitting idle.

[Bethencourt]

What amount of fuel cells do you give to your ships? I try to give them 300 units of fuel storage and then I give to the mining stations some remote fuel transfer devices,three, and extra small mining engines,two, and create several fuel tankers. This way I have a decent fleet autonomy, a network of fuel stations, and means to move it arround. Also I put several remote fuel transfer devices in space stations.

[Sedmeister]

I'm just starting out playing this game.

What should your warship to tanker ratio be (give or take)?

Also, do you attach tankers to fleet or leave them separate on full auto?

[starbuck310]

Its still broken. In my game the AI has only made 7 fuel mining ships. Hundreds of locations and 300K cash flow so loads of money. Some fuel in freighters nearly completed the tech tree. Ive played the game for 500+ hours. Its been a constant problem. Tankers work when your stopped. Some get stuck endlessly mining.

[jorgen_cab]

Originally posted by starbuck310:

Its still broken. In my game the AI has only made 7 fuel mining ships. Hundreds of locations and 300K cash flow so loads of money. Some fuel in freighters nearly completed the tech tree. Ive played the game for 500+ hours. Its been a constant problem. Tankers work when your stopped. Some get stuck endlessly mining.

You should be very careful calling it broken before you investigated if it is something you did they don't build tankers. I have studied the AI quite extensively and the AI seem to build a fair number of tankers otherwise, so there is a good chance you have done something that made the AI build fewer tankers.

I know that AI can occationaly have fuel issues and the developers will need to continue working on how the AI deal with fuel issues. But I don't think it is broken as regular AI empires seem to do quite fine in general in this regard. When it does not work for players it is generally also the player that do something that breaks it.

[starbuck310]

The tankers are only going to a few locations as well. Freighters carrying some. Have zillions of freighters so why not fuel tankers. AI built designs. I have looked extensively can’t find a reason and it’s not the first time. And with the many threads and questions on the same subject I don’t think I’m alone. And why as the supreme leader don’t I control a few tankers when I can wipe out entire planets 🤣

[Bethencourt]

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

I'm just starting out playing this game.

What should your warship to tanker ratio be (give or take)?

Also, do you attach tankers to fleet or leave them separate on full auto?

If I attach a fuel tanker to the fleet I put the fuel tanker on automatic although the fleet is manual. I think this way it works, but not sure sometimes.

[jorgen_cab]

Originally posted by starbuck310:

The tankers are only going to a few locations as well. Freighters carrying some. Have zillions of freighters so why not fuel tankers. AI built designs. I have looked extensively can’t find a reason and it’s not the first time. And with the many threads and questions on the same subject I don’t think I’m alone. And why as the supreme leader don’t I control a few tankers when I can wipe out entire planets 🤣

You can both biuld and control tankers to your hearts content if you wish so what do you mean?

You don't need allot of fuel tankers and they are state assets and not civilian. They are mostly useful for fleets as well and not meant to haul around fuel as a freighter for stations and colonies, that is the use of freighters.

[starbuck310]

I absolutely know all about state tankers after 500 hours 😉 I was referring to civilian. Go resources, mining ships, fuel resources. See how many ships/miners mining hauling you have. You can also see where they off load. Strangely when you look under construction resources some freighters there are transferring fuel.

My fleets have state tankers. They are also the ones I was referring to as ‘stuck’ with some 6K -7K onboard they continue to mine fuel. Then refit then mine fuel ⛽️ continuously. Not refit is under manual control. And they don’t refit they just fly to station back to mine fuel. Endlessly.

It’s the private freighters and and private fuel miners that fill up your planet or space station. It’s certainly not the state tankers as I understand the system. Hence my confusion as to why I have only 7 dedicated miners mining and hauling fuel when I sprawl god like across the entire universe in my late game? Strange.

To get the stuck state tankers going I retired them bought new ones. That fixed that issue

[Nightskies]

If they're in a refit loop, you created that accidentally...

Probably. Check your obsolete fuel ship designs and see what their upgrade path is. I'll bet there's a loop.

So: "Fuel Barge v4" -> "Fleet Tanker v2" -> "Latest Design" (Fuel Barge v4)

The loop would be cut if you made a new design and started building that.

[Polly Agstrom]

Maybe you disabled auto-refueling of your fleets. Check automation.

[Deadbridge]

In classic DWU you acctually had 1-2 fleets in reserve at home filling up their fuel in "standard ways". When needed you replaced the fleet with low fuel (sending it to reefuel) with a caslon filled, reeinforced and repaired fleet at home.

Then also: make your fleet less fueldependent (enery collectors) when of combat will make your fleet hold position way longer than if you drain caslon by only hovering on a spot.

[jorgen_cab]

Originally posted by starbuck310:

I absolutely know all about state tankers after 500 hours 😉 I was referring to civilian. Go resources, mining ships, fuel resources. See how many ships/miners mining hauling you have. You can also see where they off load. Strangely when you look under construction resources some freighters there are transferring fuel.

My fleets have state tankers. They are also the ones I was referring to as ‘stuck’ with some 6K -7K onboard they continue to mine fuel. Then refit then mine fuel ⛽️ continuously. Not refit is under manual control. And they don’t refit they just fly to station back to mine fuel. Endlessly.

It’s the private freighters and and private fuel miners that fill up your planet or space station. It’s certainly not the state tankers as I understand the system. Hence my confusion as to why I have only 7 dedicated miners mining and hauling fuel when I sprawl god like across the entire universe in my late game? Strange.

To get the stuck state tankers going I retired them bought new ones. That fixed that issue

The problem is that I have looked at many saves from people that had fuel issues and I managed to fix them all quite promptly as it mostly is the error of the person playing that lead the game into these issues. There are many things that can lead to players having issues with resources.

That is why I rarely believe when people say it is broken. I'm happy to take a look at any game that you have these issues with and see what the root casue is.

[Nightskies]

^ same also goes for the economy in general

[LordZon]

The fuel AI is very broken. You will spend most of the end game struggling to get fleets to do what you want because they are empty of fuel. Its really sad. This would be a more enjoyable game if the AI could handle fuel correctly.