Issue with harvester ships

[Hungaricus (OP)]

Hello there!

I have a small issue with harvester ships. In my last playtrough in 1.9.3 I built a bunch of harvester stations. Those worked fine with tankers going back and forth between them. But when I tried harvester ships so I can use one design for the hole operation I run into an annoying problem.
I used a standing order to move them to the nearest gas giant with sorium then at 100% fuel they will move to the nearest colony to transfer said fuel. The problem is every time the standing order is lost when they return to the colony ( maybe when they reach the gas giant). This is quite annoying because I have to manually give them standing orders again which is micro I don't want to do.
Any idea what is the issue? Is there a better way?

[davidr]

I had this problem as well - so my solution ( so I was told by others  )  was  :-

When the Harvesters are at the Gas Giant and mining Sorium , set the destination as your planet and the Primary Condition / Conditional Order to Fuel Tanks Full and  Harvester Transfer and Return.

What should then happen is the Fleet should return to base , unload , return to the Gas Giant then commence the cycle again when full ( and so on ).

DavidR

[vorpal+5]

This seems terribly inefficient to have the harvester return back at a not-that-great speed to unload its fuel. While it moves, it does not harvest. This would be as if off shores platforms were also  tankers delivering their own production ...

[Hungaricus (OP)]

Thats good idea I will try it.
Yes it's inefficient for the standard use. But it is much more simple, flexible and safer solution.
Simple because you will only need one kind of ship no stations and tugs to pull them in place.
Flexible because these ships can support your fleet even in far out bases or just follow your fleet. This way your fleet can be much less fuel efficient and you can get away with less fuel storage.
And safer because they can move in a moment notice. If a system is in danger you can flee no need to wait for tugs.

Also my harvesters can move around 1-2000km/s so they waste minimal time.

[vorpal+5]

Yes, I suppose that 'Tactical Harvesters' can be of use indeed.

Hopefully in the future Steve will add all necessary orders for full automation.

[Father Tim]

This seems terribly inefficient to have the harvester return back at a not-that-great speed to unload its fuel. While it moves, it does not harvest. This would be as if off shores platforms were also  tankers delivering their own production ...

No, it would be as if cannery ships would scoop up fish, process and pack it, and every so often return to port to offload the 'finished' product. . . which is exactly what happens.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

This seems terribly inefficient to have the harvester return back at a not-that-great speed to unload its fuel. While it moves, it does not harvest. This would be as if off shores platforms were also  tankers delivering their own production ...

No, it would be as if cannery ships would scoop up fish, process and pack it, and every so often return to port to offload the 'finished' product. . . which is exactly what happens.

Apples and oranges.  Oil platforms sit in one spot at full production for decades and are only moved if the field runs dry or the platform itself needs to be replaced.  Cannery ships can't just sit in one spot catching fish, they must continuously move to find new schools and they must also frequently move between fisheries due to bag and season limits.  Aurora salvage ships are a better match for cannery ships.