Career Mode Fuel Tanks Empty?

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Hi
I've been working on a starting boat for the career mode with advanced vehicles. Of course only small engine is available at start so I made all necessary air, coolant, exhaust and fuel connections. I connected the fuel tank to be practically with the hole pointing downard and connected to the engine "by gravity". When all was in place and boat was correctly floating I started the engine with some throttle in it, but nothing. I started another career in a different base to recreate only the engine, to understand if something was wrong but looking at it, it was showing all green (Fuel 100% , Air 100%, Coolant , Electricity) but after trying to start fuel drops to 0% (in red). I connected as well a fuel gauge meter and also this shows tank is empty.
Am I doing something wrong? Is the connection Fuel Tank > Pipe > Pipe > Engine Inlet correct or I need to place some other piece (again, mounting the tank straight on top of the engine to use gravity feed).

[[DK] Dalle]

Have you made a career mode with limited fuel?
If so, all vehicles starts with empty tanks.

You don't need to consider gravity for fuel tanks. It will suck whatsoever from the tank

If you play on limited fuel: Place a fluid connector on your craft, and connect that to the fuel line, then you can fuel up from the fuel tank

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Originally posted by DK Dalle:

Have you made a career mode with limited fuel?
If so, all vehicles starts with empty tanks.

You don't need to consider gravity for fuel tanks. It will suck whatsoever from the tank

If you play on limited fuel: Place a fluid connector on your craft, and connect that to the fuel line, then you can fuel up from the fuel tank

Hi , yes I set the career with all realistic options (limited fuel, only 1st person everywhere, no fast travel, no teleport, etc)
I thought that the tank would've been empty and I tried to use the fuel line. But, with the first career (the one with the boat spawned in the small dock) I sunk with the connector in the hands and couldn't resurface and died...with the "test career on land" I moved the engine block close to the refuel station but I wasn't able to connect the line to the tank.
Maybe I did something wrong, can the fuel connector attached anywhere on the tank? Or I need to create another junction on the main fuel line with a "T" section?

[Baleur]

Yeah this is one annoying thing, EVERY time you make a change to your ship (lots of trial and error in advanced mode engine design), you gotta re-fuel the ship manually before you can even turn on your engine..

This basically means that, your best bet is to play in creative mode until you got the ship built as you want it, until you know how to make a good engine. THEN play career.
Because i just spent about 8 hours in career getting absolutely nowhere because i had to reload the game after every single test i made (otherwise you gradually drain all the fuel in your starting base, good luck), and had to manually drop the hose, carry the hose, refuel the ship, disconnect the hose, go back in the ship, EVERY TIME i made a single change to the ship....

[soldier6661111]

My solution for my first ship was to create a pipe that had a fluid connector at the top. Release the hose counting to ~7 and grabbing it, then grabbing the one on the ship til they connected(or a well timed drop of the hosed connector).

I don't agree with the other poster. If you know the basics then you simply need to know the following:
-Your engine needs fuel and the ability to be refueled.
-Your engine needs to power your propeller through the top piping(a clutch too I believe)
-Your engine needs to have an air intake.
-Your engine needs a coolant system(looping system isn't recommended)
-You need an exhaust.

-and of course make sure everything is powered through the electricity logic

It's simple, though the first ship will likely be good only on the calm seas, and not very appealing aesthetically.

[eryk500]

You technicaly don't need a clutch to make your boat move (the same way you don't need a gearbox), but you would have to turn off your engine every time you want to stop, and you would need to adjust the engine's throttle to change the speed of you boat, and in advanced mode (to my knowledge) you would need a gearbox to change the dirrection of movement, since the throttle is just treated as a procentage, but only for numbers between 0 & 1.

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Hello, thanks all for the answers, but I saw that if you connect the Fluid connector to a pipe leading to the "hole" of the tank, then you can't use the tank to connect to the engine. If you use a "T" pipe then the tank will not fill. I understood later in the game there are cutoff valves to solve this, but in the meantime to solve it instead of using the game tanks, I did an enclosed space with two fluid ports (one pointing "in" connected to the connector and one pointing "out" conneted to the engine. This is working now, but I need to change the whole boat again for the weight balance!

[dergerch]

I'm jumping onto the same boat (no pun intended): even in advanced mode the vehicles should spawn with a minimal amount of fuel (to do quick tests without the need to refuel first). Alternatively the amount of fuel in each tank could be saved* and recalled on respawn within the same session (e.g: load the vehicle in, fill it up (let's say 100 l), test (use 5 l), return to workbench, change things around, respawn with the remaining 95 litres still in the tanks).

* when there are changes to the tanks it can get tricky though... one possible solution could be to store and recall the contents of tanks on deletion and use it on newly placed tanks with some additional logic (to accomodate smaller tanks when a bigger tank got deleted, etc.).

[soldier6661111]

Originally posted by Ironbostik IT:

Hello, thanks all for the answers, but I saw that if you connect the Fluid connector to a pipe leading to the "hole" of the tank, then you can't use the tank to connect to the engine. If you use a "T" pipe then the tank will not fill. I understood later in the game there are cutoff valves to solve this, but in the meantime to solve it instead of using the game tanks, I did an enclosed space with two fluid ports (one pointing "in" connected to the connector and one pointing "out" conneted to the engine. This is working now, but I need to change the whole boat again for the weight balance!

That's the method I use and without a cutoff valve. It works just fine in my experience.

To be clear. A medium fuel tank(multiple), a pipe on top leading to a fluid connector.

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Originally posted by soldier6661111:

Originally posted by Ironbostik IT:

Hello, thanks all for the answers, but I saw that if you connect the Fluid connector to a pipe leading to the "hole" of the tank, then you can't use the tank to connect to the engine. If you use a "T" pipe then the tank will not fill. I understood later in the game there are cutoff valves to solve this, but in the meantime to solve it instead of using the game tanks, I did an enclosed space with two fluid ports (one pointing "in" connected to the connector and one pointing "out" conneted to the engine. This is working now, but I need to change the whole boat again for the weight balance!

That's the method I use and without a cutoff valve. It works just fine in my experience.

To be clear. A medium fuel tank(multiple), a pipe on top leading to a fluid connector.

And how do you connect it to the engine, then?

[WhiskeyJim68]

I pretty much always have a t-pipe in line with my fuel flow from tank to engine that leads to a deck fluid connector for fueling...it fills my tanks just fine. I do that with custom tanks and the prefabs.

[eryk500]

You don't need anything advanced to hook up you engine (or anything esle for that matter) to your fuel line, unless you want advanced behavior, but it shoud work fine with having nothing special in your fuel line, just connect everything up with one pipe "network".

[okieordie78]

You can use multiple T pipes to connect the everything. You don't need fluid pumps at all. Don't over think how fluid works in this game. As long as the required connections are met, you will be fine. You can use the built in fuel tanks or create you're own fuel tank (I would not recommended at first). I would definately recommened using multiple fuel tanks though, because even a simple engine can burn that fuel over time very quickly. But if you want to refuel (and if you have "limited fuel" checked, you want to refuel) then you need a fluid connector for that too happen.

Also, you can change the build to see the world around you and move the boat around in the build area. This way, you can move the boat to the water and build a tall pipe to where the refuel hose is thus making it easier to fill your boat up in the beginning. Just a thought.

[Ironbostik [IT]]

Thanks Guys,
Then I may have done something wrong then because I created a "simple" system with Medium Fuel Tank, then with a "T Pipe" splitting with one end to a fluid connector on deck and the other to the engine, with no valves and no pumps. When I connect the refueling line at base, fuel quantity of the big tank doesn't go down, meaning no fuel is transferred. For the boat I made I ended up doing a custom tank which actually works even better because I made it as a double bottom to help also stability (that's what is actually real on big ships, not on small boats like the one I made!).

[dergerch]

this may sound stupid - but you did press the "pump to hose" (or something like that) button? Fueling doesn't start automatically when you connect the hose, because you could also pump fuel from the boat to the tank if needed.

[JimmyTheSaltyMelon]

and rremember you will have to refill the tank at your base when u use it all