Fuel Harvesters

[davidr (OP)]

In C# can the fuel in Fuel Harvesters be equalized between vessels as it can be in Aurora VB6. I cannot see the "equalize fuel" button in C# so I assume there is some other method of achieving the same end.

Can anyone advise.

DavidR

[SpaceMarine]

Please watch both of these videos, they go over exactly this subject.

[Father Tim]

In C# can the fuel in Fuel Harvesters be equalized between vessels as it can be in Aurora VB6. I cannot see the "equalize fuel" button in C# so I assume there is some other method of achieving the same end.

Can anyone advise.

DavidR

It cannot.  The "Equalize Fuel" button is not yet implemented for C# Aurora, so the closest one can get is to manually edit the amount of fuel on board in SpaceMaster.

It is also nigh-impossible to manage the fuel levels of multiple tankers in the same fleet.  Aurora manages 'refuel from any tanker' pretty well, but not 'refuel from whichever tanker has the most fuel'.

[davidr (OP)]

Father Tim ,

I really need the equalise fuel facility for my Fuel Harvesters. They are independent powered vessels which commute between the Gas Giant and the Colony when full of fuel. If I add vessels to the Harvester Fleet their Fuel levels are at different percentages and therefore I need the equalise fuel facility ( as in VB6 ) so that all vessels in the fleet can return to the colony at the same time with 100% fuel onboard. At present , as you state it is impossible to carry this out and is a micromanage nightmare.

I do hope Steve will be able to add this facility in the not too distant future.

DavidR

[SpaceMarine]

I have made some corrections and improvements to the fuel harvesting video above its labeled V2 so feel free to go look at that, it should touch on the subject much better, also if that is the case just tell all your tankers or fuel harvesters to refuel then transfer all fuel to earth and they will then be at their minimum

[davidr (OP)]

Spacemarine,

Thanks ,

However whatever I try with orders and conditional orders I cannot get my powered Fuel Harvesters to automatically move to the Gas Giant , wait until full , unload up to their minimum level back at Earth and then return to the Gas Giant

I Have tried to cycle orders and all the various combination of conditional orders but these orders seem to clear as soon as the vessel reaches Earth and unloads. Nothing at present seems to work for me with commuting FH vessels.


DavidR

[Father Tim]

Father Tim ,

I really need the equalise fuel facility for my Fuel Harvesters. They are independent powered vessels which commute between the Gas Giant and the Colony when full of fuel. If I add vessels to the Harvester Fleet their Fuel levels are at different percentages and therefore I need the equalise fuel facility ( as in VB6 ) so that all vessels in the fleet can return to the colony at the same time with 100% fuel onboard. At present , as you state it is impossible to carry this out and is a micromanage nightmare.

I do hope Steve will be able to add this facility in the not too distant future.

DavidR

Option 1:  Each time you add a vessel to the fleet, force the entire fleet to unload fuel (down to minimum) at the nearest colony.  This will synchronize the whole fleet's tanks.

Option 2:  Have each tanker in a separate fleet, using its own conditionals to "unload 90%" when full.

Option 3:  Have new-built harvesters fill their tanks to full before leaving the shipyards.  This will have them only harvest small amount of fuel until the whole fleet goes through an "unload 90%" cycle.

Option 4:  Manually edit each newly-arrived harvester to steal half the fuel from a long-service harvester.  This will waste less capacity.

Option 5:  Similar to 2 above, but with four or five harvesters per fleet, to reduce the number of fleets you're dealing with.   This is trading efficiency for micro-management.

[davidr (OP)]

Father Tim,

I have used both your option 2)  and option 5 )

However I do use option 1)  when adding a newly built Harvester to the existing Harvester Fleet. This causes something very odd ( in my game at least ). I add the newly built Harvester to the fleet when it arrives at Earth ( all vessels then showing 9% fuel ). I then send them in 1 combined fleet to Jupiter to mine Sorium ( Jupiter at 1.0 accessibility ).

However the vessels ( identical builds ) for some weird reason in my game , do not fill up their storage tanks at the same rate. So I can have vessels in the same fleet with say 90% , 86% , 85% fuel onboard and when  I get the warning that a vessel is over 90% full this usually only refers to only 1 ship. I  use the conditional order that when fuel tanks are at 100% full then unload fuel at Earth up to the designated minimum. However this invariably means that I have to keep watching and waiting until the final vessel reaches 100% before I can send the whole fleet to Earth. 

The vessels never max out their fuel at the same time.

I wonder if anyone else has seen this?


DavidR 

[Kaiser]

Because they may have different commander with different mining bonus. So 1 ship with a commander having mining 20% is faster that the one having a commander 10% mining or nothing at all.

[davidr (OP)]

Kaiser,

Many thanks,

Of course  - I did not think about Commander bonuses. Now how to circumvent that. I have Automated Assignments on so I presume even if I removed all the Commanders from the FH vessels , the AI would replace them. I do not want to be bothered with manual Assignments for all the Vessels - I have enough to do with manually applying the Admin Commands.

DavidR

[Father Tim]

Option 6:  Build a giant structural shell that contains a refuelling hub and endless fuel tanks and deploy it with the harvester fleet.  Have all your harvesters unload to the shell, and your other ships fuel from the shell.

[skoormit]

Option 6:  Build a giant structural shell that contains a refuelling hub and endless fuel tanks and deploy it with the harvester fleet.  Have all your harvesters unload to the shell, and your other ships fuel from the shell.

How do you make the harvesters unload to the shell?

[Father Tim]

Option 6:  Build a giant structural shell that contains a refuelling hub and endless fuel tanks and deploy it with the harvester fleet.  Have all your harvesters unload to the shell, and your other ships fuel from the shell.

How do you make the harvesters unload to the shell?

It has to have the Refuelling Hub component to have the orders available, and it might not be possible with conditionals.  You may need to manually order the unloading every few years.

[davidr (OP)]

Father Tim ,

Thanks but that option is not really suitable for myself - I do not cheat by using SM to magically construct massive installations or vessels

1) A refuelling Hub is 100,000 tons to be placed in a vessel which also requires other components

2) Shipyards commence at 10,000 tons and each 10,000 ton increase can take at least 18 months to complete so with other ancillaries required it would take a minimum of say 20 - 25 years years to build a large enough shipyard

[Garfunkel]

Why don't you use a tanker to siphon off the fuel off your harvesters? Then you don't need to worry about percentages and automation. Make the tanker slow enough and/or small enough that it can keep running forever (with the cycle orders box ticked) between Earth and the harvesters.