Author Topic: Free will and Sorium Harvesters  (Read 2256 times)

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Offline Resident Evil (OP)

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Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« on: May 22, 2019, 01:18:46 PM »
Hi.

I have a small sorium harvesting fleet which I want to harvest from Jupiter. So I, obviously, send them to Jupiter and give them the orders 'Move to Gas Giant with sorium' and the conditional 'Tanks full unload at colony'.

Obviously I am rather simple minded, and to me it would seem obvious that they would start harvesting Sorium from Jupiter (and yes, Jupiter has 6 mil+ of Sorium, accessibility 0.7).  But ooohhhh no, my Fleet have other idea's and instead decide to head to Uranus to harvest Sorium (500k Sorium at accessibility 0.9)

See attached screenshot.

So, is this normal, will they always head to the highest accessibility rather than the nearest source. The reason it's annoying is I have colonies on Io and Europa, plus missile defenses, etc etc already at Europa, so my Miners would be nice and safe at Jupiter. At Uranus I have nothing, and no incentive to put or build anything there either.

Is there a way round this or do I just have to live with it??

Thanks

RE
« Last Edit: May 22, 2019, 02:11:20 PM by Resident Evil »
 

Offline xenoscepter

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2019, 01:24:04 PM »
That's weird...

I use the Move To command, then just leave them in orbit. They start harvesting automatically.

Then again I have never used a Sorium Harvester that wasn't an engine-less Space Station.
 

Offline Resident Evil (OP)

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2019, 01:29:35 PM »
It is weird isn't it.

I think I'll just have to live with it - I'd prefer they harvested Jupiter, but they seem to have other ideas :o
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2019, 03:54:26 PM »
I think they do choose the closest Acc 0.9 or better (maybe Acc 0.8 or better) gas giant.

And you get around it by ordering them to 'Move to Jupiter' not 'Move to [unspecified] gas giant'.
 

Offline Resident Evil (OP)

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #4 on: May 22, 2019, 04:01:30 PM »
But....

I've moved them to Jupiter. I want to use the Default & Conditional orders for them, I don't want to manage them unloading at the colony, and there are no Default or Conditional orders for moving to a particular site - they are all generic orders.

RE
 

Offline xenoscepter

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #5 on: May 22, 2019, 04:26:08 PM »
This is why I use Space Stations for my Sorium Harvesters.

I'll have a Jupiter-Class Fuel Harvester Base and set up my tankers to use the Cycle Orders by ticking the checkbox.

The tankers will have the orders:

Move to Jupiter
Refuel from Tankers
Move to Earth
Unload Fuel to 90%

then they will repeat this endlessly.

There is a Delay Order thingy, but I haven't messed with it.

If you use this method don't forget to make your Sorium Harvester a Tanker in the Class Design window!

Sorium Harvester / Tankers are cheaper, but as I understand it they are micromanagement hell. I'd say use the Move to Jupiter command, leave 'em there for like, 3 years or so, then use Move to Earth , Unload 90% Fuel to Colony and Move to Jupiter. Should work fairly well, although it depends on your design specs.

Or build some tankers and use the fuel tanks on your Hybrid Harvester / Tankers as buffer space, then use my setup above.

In the future, though, Space Stations rock for Fuel Harvesters. Just remember that with engine-less stations you need to tug them into place.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2019, 12:09:26 AM »
With that order set you are likely to get to a point where the tankers unload fuel and then do not have enough fuel to get back to Jupiter.  There is no 'wait until full' command, so if you assign too many tankers you will run the place dry, and the tankers will still unload 90% of whatever fuel they are carrying.
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2019, 12:19:48 AM »
Which is fine, as far as I'm concerned.  If my tanker on the circle route runs out of fuel, it's time to adjust its orders.  If my fuel harvesters complain about being full, it's time to adjust the tanker's orders.  (If both, it's time to 'Equalize Fuel' for my harvesters.)  I am sufficiently skilled at setting up cycling orders that we're talking about something that happens two or three times a century.
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2019, 01:17:37 AM »
The solution to that is to lower the speed of your tankers a bit so when they arrive theres enough fuel for them.
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Offline Rich.h

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2019, 11:16:35 AM »
The solution to that is to lower the speed of your tankers a bit so when they arrive theres enough fuel for them.

As above, Sorium harvesters on ships using default commands look for the highest acc rating. This leaves one of two options, if you still want a fire and forget ship then you need to SM and alter the ratings, so your first choice is highest. Second option as has been discussed is to use a static station/ship and shuttle the fuel. the only way to avoid then interrupts due to a lack of fuel on the station is to set the shuttles with a very low speed amount. Anything else from these will give you interrupts of one form or another.

I believe the default unload 90% order also picks the nearest colony to the sorium source at the time of the tanks being full so this has potential for many problems also. I generally do my fuel harvesting one of two ways.

1. A station in orbit doing the harvesting of sorium with huge tanks for storage. Small slow shuttles that take the fuel to a fuel dump colony (always the innermost moon of the gas giant). Finally fuel tankers that come from various points in the empire to collect fuel and unload back at their respective home bases (on an endless cycle order)

2. A station in orbit as per above. Fuel tankers that operate as above but this time refuel directly from the station and remove the fuel dump moon colony, again on endless cycle orders.

Both methods work well enough, both involve some working out speed settings of ships to ensure there is always plenty of fuel left in the station tanks or colony dump stores. I tend to start with #1 then switch to #2 when I start spanning multiple systems and want fuel to move faster around as I will have multiple versions of #2 set up.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2019, 11:26:43 AM by Rich.h »
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2019, 12:44:35 PM »
I generally build a "fuel station" in every system that has suitable gas giants. That way I don't have to transport large quantities of fuel between systems and just having a single-engine, slow & small tanker unloading the harvester-stations to a nearby planet/moon is sufficient. In Sol, you generally want something slightly more complicated so that fuel gets to Earth regularly.

But yes, this is not a bug but rather a feature because of the Accessibility.
 
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Offline TMaekler

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2019, 03:37:27 AM »
Yes, at the moment the easiest way to have as less micro with fuel harvesting as possible is to set it up that way:

a) build an engineless fuel harvester with appropriate amount of fuel storage
b) Tug it/them to the desired planet (there they will begin harvesting)
c) set up a cycling fuel transport with adjusted speed so it regularily refuel at that harvesting site and dumps it whereevery you want to have it

You have to do some math so it fits, but thats easily done. Worst you get are messages that the harvesters are getting full early on before the fuel transport arrives. But unless all of them go full that's ok.
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Free will and Sorium Harvesters
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2019, 03:55:24 PM »
The solution to that is to lower the speed of your tankers a bit so when they arrive theres enough fuel for them.

As above, Sorium harvesters on ships using default commands look for the highest acc rating. This leaves one of two options, if you still want a fire and forget ship then you need to SM and alter the ratings, so your first choice is highest. Second option as has been discussed is to use a static station/ship and shuttle the fuel. the only way to avoid then interrupts due to a lack of fuel on the station is to set the shuttles with a very low speed amount. Anything else from these will give you interrupts of one form or another.

I believe the default unload 90% order also picks the nearest colony to the sorium source at the time of the tanks being full so this has potential for many problems also. I generally do my fuel harvesting one of two ways.

1. A station in orbit doing the harvesting of sorium with huge tanks for storage. Small slow shuttles that take the fuel to a fuel dump colony (always the innermost moon of the gas giant). Finally fuel tankers that come from various points in the empire to collect fuel and unload back at their respective home bases (on an endless cycle order)

2. A station in orbit as per above. Fuel tankers that operate as above but this time refuel directly from the station and remove the fuel dump moon colony, again on endless cycle orders.

Both methods work well enough, both involve some working out speed settings of ships to ensure there is always plenty of fuel left in the station tanks or colony dump stores. I tend to start with #1 then switch to #2 when I start spanning multiple systems and want fuel to move faster around as I will have multiple versions of #2 set up.
I should have quoted Father Tim in that post, I was specifically referring to his use of Cyclic orders.
" Why is this godforsaken hellhole worth dying for? "
". . .  We know nothing about them, their language, their history or what they look like.  But we can assume this.  They stand for everything we don't stand for.  Also they told me you guys look like dorks. "
"Stop exploding, you cowards.  "