Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: undercovergeek on February 21, 2024, 05:14:31 PM
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Is it regarded as conventional wisdom to build sorium space stations over gas giants and then a fleet of tankers to take the fuel to a recognised hub?
That been said does the harvester draw ‘raw sorium’ and not fuel and therefore the sorium needs taking to a refinery?
And if that’s the case presumably the harvester can’t be used as a refuelling station?
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I build and use harvesters with refuelling system.
They extract the sorium and produce fuel.
If a ship needs their fuel, it can be taken from them.
When they are full, they go back to the nearest colony to unload, or a tanker is sent to load.
Or if a ship goes out of fuel, somewhere in the system, I can send them to refuel it.
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Like always in Aurora, there are multiple ways to do Sorium harvesting from gas giants depending on your situation.
Firstly, it is possible to make a "gas station" style Fuel Harvesting Station that is literally just a refuelling HUB, lot of fuel tanks and a bunch of Sorium harvesting modules. Once towed to a gas giant, it is left there for good. Now all your ships can use this to top up their tanks as they move through the system or when their conditional order (refuel at a hub/refuel at a colony or hub) kicks in. This requires the least amount of micromanagement and I would recommend doing this for every transit system that has a suitable gas giant as your empire expands if at all feasible. Just remember to tick it as a Tanker in the design screen!
Secondly, a cheaper and more low-tech solution is to build a harvesting ship. It does not need to have a lot of fuel tank capacity because it is moving under its own power. A couple of cheap commercial engines, a couple of harvesting modules - the amount of course depends on your shipyard size - and you can send them to a gas giant that has Sorium. Just make sure they have the conditional order for "unload at nearest colony when full" and set their reserve fuel level at something like 2% or so. You can then leave them on their own. The downside of this system is that you are paying resources and wealth for engines that aren't strictly necessary and you do still need tankers to haul that fuel elsewhere because the ships are not smart about where to unload their fuel.
Thirdly, you can build a fleet of Fuel Harvesting Stations that are towed in place but instead of a refuelling hub, they only have the refuelling system. This is a lot cheaper module than the hub. Combined with the 'tanker' tick box, it allows each FHS to fuel up a single ship at a time. Use tugs to tow them in place and then build a cheap-ass, slow tanker that eternally goes between the FHS-fleet and your nearest important colony or even Earth. It requires some fiddling and math but it is possible to reach an equilibrium where you never get error messages about the FHS getting full or the tanker being unable to fill up. This is a great way to get fuel if a rich gas giant is in an awkward location, someplace where you don't want to send your battle fleets to refuel.
Fourthly, you can and probably should do a combination of all three - building "gas stations" in important transit systems so your ships can top-up as they proceed through your Empire, have a couple of harvesting ships cleaning out gas giants that only have small quantities of Sorium and are out of the way, and finally have a major FHS-fleet that collects the majority of fuel that you need, which is then transported by a separate tanker fleet(s) to your shipbuilding colonies and major Fleet bases. Naturally, in early game you might only need a single harvesting ship but fuel is one of the famous three crunches that players usually experience so it is best to plan this out and execute that plan well before your fuel reserves are depleted.
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Like Garfunkel said build a combination of large hubs and smaller tankers and harvesting ships. But make sure you defend your hubs especially the ones out on the in between systems. They are expensive and so is their uncollected fuel stockpiles.
I like to add a large commercial hanger to my hubs and park a few FACs in them for rapid defense deployment. They wont repair or rearm but that can be handled during peacetime.
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I am using a Harvesting setup like this:
Harvesting Station Fleet
- 1x Refueling Hub Station (with a refueling hub module, few sorium harvesters, and a lot of Fuel tanks like 25-50mil) It is marked as a tanker, its refueling priority is set to 1, and Fuel reserved to 0 (~150k ton).
- quantity depends on gas giant accessibility, Sorium Harvesting station (with a lot of sorium harvesters and some Fuel tanks like 1mil, and also refueling system) It is marked as a tanker, its refueling priority is set to 10, in a fleet window it is set up to "refuel own fleet tankers" (~125k ton or larger).
Sorium harvesters will automatically pump fuel to the Refueling Hub. :)
That way I can easily adjust the fuel produced by just towing Sorium Harvester Station to a desired Fuel Harvester. And I don't need to build huge fuel harvesting stations like 1000k tons and tow it for years to a gas giant in another system.
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I am using a Harvesting setup like this:
Harvesting Station Fleet
- 1x Refueling Hub Station (with a refueling hub module, few sorium harvesters, and a lot of Fuel tanks like 25-50mil) It is marked as a tanker, its refueling priority is set to 1, and Fuel reserved to 0 (~150k ton).
- quantity depends on gas giant accessibility, Sorium Harvesting station (with a lot of sorium harvesters and some Fuel tanks like 1mil, and also refueling system) It is marked as a tanker, its refueling priority is set to 10, in a fleet window it is set up to "refuel own fleet tankers" (~125k ton or larger).
Sorium harvesters will automatically pump fuel to the Refueling Hub. :)
That way I can easily adjust the fuel produced by just towing Sorium Harvester Station to a desired Fuel Harvester. And I don't need to build huge fuel harvesting stations like 1000k tons and tow it for years to a gas giant in another system.
Yeah, I do it the same way. Make sure to adjust the default refueling priority for the refueling hub station, otherwise it won't always work correctly
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Does there have to be refuelling ability at either end of the transaction?
I have some ships orbiting a new colony in Alpha Centauri sent there to avoid some unruly aliens - they now need some fuel - if I send full tankers with the tanker box ticked will they be able to refuel the empty ships which do not have a refuelling hub
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A tanker with a refueling system can refuel any other ship
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A refuelling system only moves fuel from A to B, never from B to A.
A refuelling hub moves fuel from A to B, A to C, A to D, A to E but never the other way around.
So, a tanker cannot both give and take fuel, they can only give. But the recipient does not need anything extra. While this isn't relevant for normal tanker stuff, it becomes important for fuel logistics with harvesting stations.
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An addition regarding refuelling hubs: If you have sorium harvesters big enough to have refuelling hubs so you don't need an extra hub station, remember to also put a normal refuelling system on them in addition to that. If you don't, you wont be able to deposit fuel to colonies, because refuelling hubs can't do that.