How to automate a fuel harvester?

[Micro102 (OP)]

So I made a fuel harvester, it has 5 million fuel capacity, I set it's minimum fuel to 1 million, and have tried both the "Harvester Transfer" and "Transfer fuel to colony" commands, but in both cases it only unloads about 5% of it's fuel and goes back to the gas giant.

Anyone know what i might be doing wrong?

[Shodan13]

You have to set the minimum fuel under misc tab in the class design window.

[Micro102 (OP)]

Yes It's set to 1 million.

Also forgot to mention I'm still in 1.8. If that means anything.

[liveware]

Here's what I do:

1. Build a fuel harvester. Make sure it has enough reserve fuel to make it to the harvest location. Also make sure its designated as a tanker and has a sorium harvester.

2. Order the ship to a gas giant (must be a gas giant) with sorium present.

3. Set up the following standing conditional order: if fuel tank is full, harvester transfer and return.

Harvester should now slowly fill up with sorium, and when full, drop it off at the nearest, then return to the sorium deposit it was at when it got full. Works well for me at least.

[Micro102 (OP)]

Yeah I've done all of that. I'm just going to chalk this up to a bug, start a new game with the updates, and hope I don't encounter it again.

[Black]

Yeah I've done all of that. I'm just going to chalk this up to a bug, start a new game with the updates, and hope I don't encounter it again.

Does the drop location have Refuelling Capability? Your colony needs space port or Refuelling Station to accept fuel.

[Micro102 (OP)]

Yeah I've done all of that. I'm just going to chalk this up to a bug, start a new game with the updates, and hope I don't encounter it again.

Does the drop location have Refuelling Capability? Your colony needs space port or Refuelling Station to accept fuel.

Indeed, it was Earth. And it managed to unload a tiny amount so there was SOME capability.

[Black]

In what format did you put the Minimum Fuel? Was it 1000000 without any commas or periods? Do you have decimal separator set to period?

[Micro102 (OP)]

Yes it was actually! No commas or periods. Do I need those?

[Father Tim]

Yes it was actually! No commas or periods. Do I need those?

No, you need to avoid those and all the headaches that come with them.

[Micro102 (OP)]

O well, old game was deleted. Nothing that can be tried now. If I still have the problem I'll be back.

[consiefe]

I tend to use 2x ultra large and 1x very large fuel storage on my tankers. I set up min fuel to 1m, no commas or periods. This way tanker uses 1x very large fuel storage and uses two others for shipment. I order it to refuel from stationary tankers and transfer fuel to colony. I always create an order template out of this and whenever I see x harvester is %90 full I use it. Thus the process becomes semi-automated.

[Micro102 (OP)]

I'm back with the latest version, same problem. Doubt it's the same bug over 2 versions that no one else is experiencing, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. Can someone who has successfully gotten their harvester to automate tell me how they did it? Otherwise I'm just going to have to resort to space stations.

[davidr]

I made a fleet of 6 Fuel Harvesters each with 25 Fuel harvester Modules , Engines and a Refuelling System , flagged as a Tanker. The Harvester design  had a minimum fuel flagged as 100000 and the Fleet was sent to Jupiter ( I used move then Picket )  Once there they began to mine and load fuel into their tanks. When I noticed this was happening I set the Primary Condition/Conditional Order to "Fuel Tanks Full" and " Harvester Transfer and Return" .

The Harvesters filled up ( not all equal amounts due to Ship Captain Bonuses not being equal ) and when
one ship had 100% fuel the fleet moved back to Earth , transferred fuel to the Colony approximately up to their reserved amount and then returned to Jupiter to commence the cycle again ( all ships in the fleet showing a small fuel figure in red ) . It worked for me and the fleet was then on auto pilot until I decided to suspend the mining and rest the Harvesters for a while.

Trust this helos.

DavidR

[consiefe]

I'm back with the latest version, same problem. Doubt it's the same bug over 2 versions that no one else is experiencing, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong. Can someone who has successfully gotten their harvester to automate tell me how they did it? Otherwise I'm just going to have to resort to space stations.

Before my current game, I used mobile harvesters. I used harvester transfer and return command and it was not a tricky thing. Harvesters got fuel from Saturn and with standing (conditional) order, they came back to Earth and dumped their fuel to colony then turned back to Saturn to get more without any interference from me.