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Posted by: joeclark77
« on: November 05, 2014, 12:04:52 PM »

I tend to like having a colony on one of the moons of the gas giant where fuel can be offloaded.  That way if enemy ships are about to destroy my fuel harvesters, I can at least save the fuel.  So essentially, I design a ship like an immobile sorium harvesting platform, but with one civilian engine.  I still tow them into place, but allow them to move under their own power to dump the fuel and return to the gas giant.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: October 14, 2014, 10:47:02 AM »

I simply put Sorium Harvesters on all my commercial ships (Grav Survey ships included in here), and most of my larger military ships (cruisers up have 1, Carriers/Battleships up have 2+). 

Edit: no more on my battleships as it messes up the officer assignment (but I still have them on my carriers)
Posted by: DasColonel
« on: September 21, 2014, 11:04:50 AM »

Thanks worked like a charm. :)
Posted by: Haji
« on: September 21, 2014, 08:51:11 AM »

During the design process you have to tick the "tanker" box in the upper right corner. This will make the ship start with 10% fuel and give additional orders the ship can perform, such as "unload 90% to a colony".

Edit: Just in case it isn't obvious, you can check the box any time you want, even after you have built the ships.
Posted by: DasColonel
« on: September 21, 2014, 07:30:40 AM »

How do you offload the fuel in a sorium harvester ship prior to going to gas giant to begin harvesting?
Posted by: SteelChicken
« on: July 01, 2014, 11:51:02 AM »

Well, that was a long time ago :)
Posted by: Erik L
« on: July 01, 2014, 11:10:08 AM »

Quote from: SteelChicken on July 01, 2014, 10:36:42 AM
Just click the checkbox for 'tanker' in the design screen and you dont need to unload fuel when they launch. 

I believe at the time of that post (2009) the tanker option did not do that.
Posted by: SteelChicken
« on: July 01, 2014, 10:36:42 AM »

Quote from: Erik Luken on August 23, 2009, 01:27:03 PM
You have surveyed the gas giant so you know there is Sorium present, yes?

Other than that, your ship needs a harvester, fuel tanks (make sure they are not full), and engines.

I usually build mine with around 500k capacity, then offload 90% of the fuel when they launch. Then send them to the gas giant and let them fill up.

Just click the checkbox for 'tanker' in the design screen and you dont need to unload fuel when they launch. 
Posted by: Rich.h
« on: July 01, 2014, 04:32:43 AM »

I tend to go for the massive style refineries for my empire. I give them just enough engines to achieve 300kms or so. No specialised engine just the biggest commercial product I have at the time. Generally the technology is fairly old and never updated for these ships. I like to be able to hold as many million tons of fuel as I can and aim to be able to produce around 20% of storage capacity per year.

In my current game I had an abundance of all resources except sorium on planets. This meant I went even bigger than usual and made all my refineries as orbital habitats. This allowed me to churn them out much faster than I would do normally at a shipyard. I think the current design is one which will probably remain unless I ever get monstrous warships above the 400k mark. Currently my refinery design sits just over 550k. The most efficient method of use for these is to have them lumber over towards a sorium source then have tankers that work on a circuit of all refineries and offloading the fuel to specific colonies.

This method is for me also the easiest to maintain once it has started. None of the vessels involved ever require shore leave or maintenance, and they are using a self sustaining order. My only gripe is not being able to recycle all the planet bound refineries as they now all lie dormant.

Fuel logistics can be a real head ache full of micromanagement and I think the smoother you can make the process the better. As with many things BIG is the way to go for efficiency in this situation and keeping the number of different designs to a minimum in the process helps with simplicity.
Posted by: JacenHan
« on: June 30, 2014, 10:44:46 PM »

My sorium harvesters have some limited engine capacity so that I can order them around  without messing with tugs. Whenever they fill up, I give them an order to drop off 90% of their fuel at Earth, which usually takes 10-15 days, depending on alignment.

Code: [Select]
Jovian class Fuel Harvester    60,000 tons     275 Crew     1506.8 BP      TCS 1200  TH 900  EM 0
750 km/s     Armour 1-136     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 16    Max Repair 75 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0   
Fuel Harvester: 19 modules producing 532000 litres per annum

Joachin Systems C300 Ion Drive (3)    Power 300    Fuel Use 7.07%    Signature 300    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,680,000 Litres    Range 113.7 billion km   (1754 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Posted by: DuraniumCowboy
« on: June 30, 2014, 09:07:45 PM »

I use platforms for my sorium harvesting.  I simply put a task group around every lucrative, well located gas giant and then keep adding more of these as I produce them.  A task group of 10 or so of these has a decent production rate.  I just send a tanker a few times a year to off load their fuel.

Code: [Select]
Cloud Scoop Mk I class Space Station    38 200 tons     150 Crew     724.8 BP      TCS 764  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-101     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 12    Max Repair 30 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   
Fuel Harvester: 14 modules producing 448000 litres per annum

Fuel Capacity 2 000 000 Litres    Range N/A

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
Posted by: Barkhorn
« on: June 30, 2014, 07:54:32 PM »

Harvesters dont have an "Unload to tanker" order, but you can still have to tanker load from them.  It achieves the same thing, I think.

I think the real problem with small harvesters is how slow they produce.
Posted by: Erik L
« on: June 30, 2014, 04:17:20 PM »

Quote from: drmzsz7 on June 30, 2014, 02:51:25 PM
has anyone ever tried going small harvesters accompanied by a larger tanker?

I think you'd have a lot of micromanagement there. I do not believe that harvesters have an "unload at nearest tanker" order. So you'd need to manually move the fuel from harvester to tanker.
Posted by: drmzsz7
« on: June 30, 2014, 02:51:25 PM »

has anyone ever tried going small harvesters accompanied by a larger tanker?
Posted by: Laurence
« on: August 29, 2009, 07:11:46 PM »

Quote from: "Erik Luken"
I tend to use sorium harvesters as forward refuel depots to support survey operations.

Oooh, clever.  I'm going to try that.