Question about tugging stations

[DoctorDanny (OP)]

I've tugged fuel harvesting stations to three separate gas giants.
At first they worked fine but I noticed they were'nt producing any more fuel.

Turned out they were 'left behind' by their gas giants.
IE they remain on a position on the orbit of the gas giant, but the planet is no longer there.

I've had them in my tug fleet and then ordered that fleet to release them at the gas giant.

Did I do something wrong or could this be a bug?

[Cedras]

Are they set to any standing orders or conditional orders?

[DoctorDanny (OP)]

No.

I have since moved them back to their positions and they seem to stay in place now.
Watching them closely though.

[Cedras]

Maybe they only stay if you use 'move to location' and than 'release Tractor'.  There were some shenanigans with that in VB6.

[DoctorDanny (OP)]

Second time I did move to location while they were still in the fleet.
Then at the planet I detached them and released tractors.

They seem to be staying in place for now.

[TMaekler]

They seem to be staying in place for now.

That can mean both - staying in place "at the planet" or staying in place "where you dropped them"... Though it is clear that they are now moving with the planet. I love that english is so dependent on context 

[DoctorDanny (OP)]

They seem to be staying in place for now.

That can mean both - staying in place "at the planet" or staying in place "where you dropped them"... Though it is clear that they are now moving with the planet. I love that english is so dependent on context 

Not my first language ;-)
But you're right, that wasn't completely unambiguous.
They stick to the planet like they're supposed to.

[liveware]

I have had many very interesting conversations with computer programmers and linguists in my lifetime about the importance of context and the inherit ambiguity of written language.  I find it a truly fascinating problem.

[Father Tim]

Short version is don't use tugs; they're a pain in the ass and quite fiddly with order-of-operations.

- - - - -

Otherwise, make sure you "Move to" the GG, not "Orbit"

Double check which fleet(s) the harvesters are in before, during and after the movements and various orders.

Check your sub-pulse settings.  While fleets will perform any number of orders during a normal increment, they may only do one per sub-pulse in some cases.

[Garfunkel]

Those VB6 issues were supposed to be fixed for C# - Steve specifically made a post about that a while back. It would be useful to try to reproduce the problem.

[skoormit]

Short version is don't use tugs; they're a pain in the ass and quite fiddly with order-of-operations.

I love tugs, especially now that we can build cheaper space stations with the "No Armour" checkbox.

I build a lot of mining platforms.
They don't move more often than every 20 years.
I'd much rather fiddle with tugs than pay for engines on each station.

The only thing to be wary of is that using the "Detach" button for a tractored ship causes problems.
Instead, you need to give the fleet the "Release tractored ships" order at your desired destination.

[Lightning]

I've never released at a location. I have always created an empty fleet where I want it to be so I could name the destination, and released the units into the destination fleet. Have never had an issue with the destination fleet not staying with the orbital body. Though, I have had issues with having fleets move to harvester fleets in orbit of planets & not follow the planet when it orbits.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

I've always used release at location and have yet to have a problem. *knock on wood*

[macks]

Tugs have been extremely versatile for me thus far, they've picked up surrendered ships with damaged components, they've moved massive fuel harvesting stations that are easy to build with industry over shipyards, and they can tug ships back after fuel mishaps. I only have three and they've been working very efficiently for how little time it took to produce them. Size 100 engines and a tractor beam should set you up nicely.