Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => General Discussion => Topic started by: Antonin1957 on September 25, 2024, 06:09:48 PM
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Hello all!
I'm trying to harvest sorium at Saturn. I sent my harvester and left it at Saturn for 30 days. My intention was to then return it to Earth and deposit the sorium there. But there is no indication of how much the ship harvested. And now that I have ordered the ship back to Earth, it has run out of fuel and is drifting in space between Saturn and Jupiter.
How do you know your harvester is actually harvesting when it reaches its destination? During the month it was in Saturn orbit, nothing appeared under the "transported items" tab. Is sorium refined into fuel aboard the ship?
I have read several things about sorium harvesting here on the forum and in the wiki, but I'm still confused. I am looking for a *simple* way to harvest sorium and convert it into fuel. The simplest way possible.
I have copied my harvester design below.
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FH Turbor 002 (Turbor class Fuel Harvester) 77,576 tons 309 Crew 1,342 BP TCS 1,552 TH 480 EM 0
309 km/s Armour 1-162 Shields 0-0 HTK 114 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 0.21 Years MSP 5,010 AFR 48143% IFR 668.7% 1YR 23,742 5YR 356,123 Max Repair 200 MSP
Cargo 25,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 4
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Morale Check Required
Fuel Harvester: 16 modules producing 640,000 litres per annum
Maintenance Modules: 1 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 1,250 tons
Nuclear Pulse Engine EP160.00 (3) Power 480 Fuel Use 63.64% Signature 160 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres Range 1.8 billion km (68 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a i for auto-assignment purposes
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The processed fuel is placed in the fuel tanks so you need to have largely empty fuel tanks or all fuel is wasted. Your harvester will need to be set as a tanker, have a fuel transfer system and then sit in orbit with nearly empty tanks
The cargo shuttles are completely unneeded as is the cargo hold, the maintenace module is confusing unless you have some other reason for it, and that is probably what is making the harvester a military ship. Fuel harvesters should be commercial as that avoids them exploding from maintenance failure
I normally leave a group of harvesters around whichever gas giant has the most available sorium , then send out a tanker from Earth to collect the fuel at intervals when they get full tanks (you get a notification in the logs at 90% capacity)
My latest fuel harvester
Arbalest class Fuel Harvester 100,000 tons 520 Crew 1,954.9 BP TCS 2,000 TH 2,500 EM 0
1250 km/s Armour 1-191 Shields 0-0 HTK 213 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 12 Max Repair 156.3 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Fuel Harvester: 29 modules producing 1,856,000 litres per annum
Freund Turbines Commercial Ion Drive EP625.00 (4) Power 2500.0 Fuel Use 3.35% Signature 625.00 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 5,190,000 Litres Range 278.5 billion km (2578 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 100,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 51 hours
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Fuel Harvester for auto-assignment purposes
Certainly not a perfect design but it works
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Just wanted to add that the maintenance module is unnecessary too. That's for maintaining other ships, it doesn't maintain the ship it's on. Self maintenance is all done by engineering spaces and maintenance supply storage.
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i would recommend marking fuel harvesters as tankers as well
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...the maintenance module is confusing unless you have some other reason for it, and that is probably what is making the harvester a military ship. Fuel harvesters should be commercial as that avoids them exploding from maintenance failure
Maintenance module is not military component. It is likely that the harvester has military engines and that is why it is marked as military vessel.
I personally prefer harvesters as space stations without engines, so I can also build them with construction factories. But that requires tug to move them to the gas giant.
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A harvester station is definetly more efficient, the engines on my harvester are largely wasted space. But it saves me managing tugs which I prefer to avoid so its player laziness putting engines on
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The processed fuel is placed in the fuel tanks so you need to have largely empty fuel tanks or all fuel is wasted.
Wouldnt fuel harvester just desposit the fuel on the planet? I had feeling it counts as additional fuel refineries the same way mining modules count as mines.
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No cannot deposit on the planet, it would need a colony and it is in orbit around a gas giant, so no colony. You can set up a colony on a moon and have them drop fuel off there when full but that requires automatic orders or manual orders and they need to move to that colony
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The processed fuel is placed in the fuel tanks so you need to have largely empty fuel tanks or all fuel is wasted.
Wouldnt fuel harvester just desposit the fuel on the planet? I had feeling it counts as additional fuel refineries the same way mining modules count as mines.
You cannot create colonies on gas giants or superjovians, as they don't have a solid surface. Another option is to have a tanker on constant cycled orders, refueling from the harvesters and then transferring the fuel to a nearby colony.
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A harvester station is definetly more efficient, the engines on my harvester are largely wasted space. But it saves me managing tugs which I prefer to avoid so its player laziness putting engines on
I have not even thought about stations and tugs. At this point, the absolute simplest solution possible is what I'm looking for. :)
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Antonin, to understand if the harvester is working right, you can look at the Ship List tab, in the Naval Organization window.
There, you can see the fuel level stored in the ship(s).
If this value increases after some weeks the harvester is near the gas giant with Sorium, then the harvester is producing fuel and consuming Sorium.
You can also look at the level of Sorium of the planet: if it goes down, it is being used to produce fuel.
A couple of observations about the design of your ship.
1.
To transfer its fuel to a ship, the harvester must have a Refuelling System. You can research larger and large ones as Logistics topics.
2.
As it is a military ship, it has shorter Maint Life and Deployment Time than a commercial one.
Even more, in your design, these parameters are very short.
But, to fill the fuel tanks, this ship needs a bit more than 9 months (= 12*500k/640k).
Instead, those short parameters generate frequent maintenance problems, well in advance of 3 months, and the ship will risk to explode, if not serviced, and the tanks are far from being full.
So, you should keep the harvester a commercial vessel, i.e.: don't use a military engine, don't install neither active sensors nor large passive ones, and install an engineering space.
An example of my harvesting station:
FHS-01 Vasachl Harv St 001 (Vasachl Harv St class Fuel Harvester Station) 30,425 tons 130 Crew 543 BP TCS 608 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-86 Shields 0-0 HTK 64 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 161 Max Repair 30 MSP
Centurion Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months
Fuel Harvester: 10 modules producing 1,200,000 litres per annum
Fuel Capacity 4,000,000 Litres Range N/A
Refuelling Capability: 50,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 80 hours
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Fuel Harvester for auto-assignment purposes
And an example of harvesting ship, jump capable too, so it can follow fleets around, if needed, and with small sensors, just to avoid surprises ;):
FH-12 Gloo Harv 007 (Gloo Harv class Fuel Harvester) 39,161 tons 210 Crew 1,372.1 BP TCS 783 TH 134 EM 0
1430 km/s JR 3-50(C) Armour 1-102 Shields 0-0 HTK 87 Sensors 18/18/0/0 DCR 1-0 PPV 0
MSP 21 Max Repair 280 MSP
Trierarch Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months
Fuel Harvester: 10 modules producing 1,200,000 litres per annum
JC40K Commercial Jump Drive Max Ship Size 40000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Commercial Inertial Fusion Drive EP560.00 (2) Power 1120 Fuel Use 0.86% Signature 67.20 Explosion 4%
Fuel Capacity 3,000,000 Litres Range 1,612.3 billion km (13049 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 200,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 15 hours
EM Sensor EM1.0-18.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 18 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 33.5m km
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-18.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 18 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 33.5m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Fuel Harvester for auto-assignment purposes
I am now prefering ships, because this frees my tankers to support fleets and planets around.
But this is just my personal taste, for the match I am playing now.
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The absolutely simplest design is a harvester ship so you don't need tugs. A commercial engine, harvesting modules and fuel tanks, plus most importantly - a fuel transfer system. Then after you build it, give it default orders to go to gas giant and unload fuel to colony when full. This way the ship will do its job automatically. It is not the most efficient way but it's simple and works.
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The absolutely simplest design is a harvester ship so you don't need tugs. A commercial engine, harvesting modules and fuel tanks, plus most importantly - a fuel transfer system. Then after you build it, give it default orders to go to gas giant and unload fuel to colony when full. This way the ship will do its job automatically. It is not the most efficient way but it's simple and works.
I'm sorry, but I'm still confused. Is a "refueling system" the same thing as a "fuel transfer system"? I have "refuelling system" and "ordnance transfer system" in my list of available components, but I don't see "fuel transfer system."
I have been trying to set up a set of orders that will send the ship to Saturn, have it harvest sorium, bring it back to Earth when its tanks are full and dump all but 20% on Earth, and then return to Saturn to harvest some more. I'm confused about the "fuel transfer system" and the orders.
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Yes, you want a
fuel transfer system refueling system.
As for the orders, you need two conditional orders. One is "On 20% fuel, move to sorium source", the other is "On max fuel, unload fuel to colony". That makes it totally automated and is simplest to set up. Personally, I don't do it that way because:
1. I like to use factories to build my harvesters, so mine don't have engines.
2. Done like this, you don't have control over which colony they unload the fuel at.
I use stationary harvesters and have tankers ferry the fuel back and forth on repeating orders.
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Yes, you want a fuel transfer system.
It's called a Refuelling System.
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Yeah so because the harvesters pick the nearest colony to unload their fuel at, once you have colonies elsewhere in Sol it is best to create a fuel storage colony on Pan, the innermost colony of Saturn. That way they will not go to random colonies to unload. Then once you have a tanker, you can move that fuel to Earth or wherever you need it.
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Yeah so because the harvesters pick the nearest colony to unload their fuel at, once you have colonies elsewhere in Sol it is best to create a fuel storage colony on Pan, the innermost colony of Saturn. That way they will not go to random colonies to unload. Then once you have a tanker, you can move that fuel to Earth or wherever you need it.
The only populated colony I have is Earth. I have 8.8 automated mines on Mercury.
How do you get harvesters to load *some* fuel on Earth, then go to Jupiter or Saturn and harvest sorium, then return to Earth when full, then unload enough sorium to only leave, say, 200,000 L in its tanks, and then return to Jupiter and Saturn? I have been trying to find the right settings in Standing Orders, but with no luck.
How do you set a reserve level of fuel for your harvester? Where is that setting?
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Read up and play with the tanker setting.
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Antonin, you should build harvester/tanker ships with rather large tanks, i.e. 1 million or more litres capacity.
Together with commercial engines, consuming very, very low fuel, you can easily go from Earth to Saturn, or even more distant, with 10% or a bit less fuel left in the tanks when you leave the Earth.
Otherwise, you are producing fuel just to move back and forth the tanker.
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Fuel reserves are set in the class design window for the entire class.
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I generally create a colony on the innermost moon of the gas giant I'm harvesting from. The colony acts as a fuel dump, and stores the fuel harvested by my harvesters. It also, and this is important, has STO's stationed on the surface to deal with any enemies that poke around, along with deep space sensor stations to see the enemies. My harvesters have engines so that I don't have to fiddle with tugs every time I want to move them, so if an enemy is detected they can move to the nearby moon and shelter under the base's STO's. Very important if you've got Spoilers active in your campaign.
Kurt
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Antonin, you should build harvester/tanker ships with rather large tanks, i.e. 1 million or more litres capacity.
Together with commercial engines, consuming very, very low fuel, you can easily go from Earth to Saturn, or even more distant, with 10% or a bit less fuel left in the tanks when you leave the Earth.
Otherwise, you are producing fuel just to move back and forth the tanker.
I created a new harvester design, setting a fuel reserve level of 200,000 L in the class design window. I built a ship, with "Primary Condition/Conditional Order = Harvester Transfer and Return." Then I gave it a movement order "Jupiter--->Move to Location." Then I clicked "Add Move."
I advanced the game 5 days, but the ship is still in Earth orbit, with 2 mil L of fuel in its tank.
I'm still doing *something* wrong, I guess.
My new harvester design:
Gobi class Fuel Harvester 74,522 tons 309 Crew 941.3 BP TCS 1,490 TH 672 EM 0
450 km/s Armour 1-157 Shields 0-0 HTK 113 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 7 Max Repair 50 MSP
Cargo 25,000 Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 6
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Fuel Harvester: 12 modules producing 480,000 litres per annum
Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine EP168.00 (4) Power 672 Fuel Use 2.66% Signature 168 Explosion 3%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 181.1 billion km (4657 days at full power)
Refuelling Capability: 60,000 litres per hour Complete Refuel 33 hours
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a i for auto-assignment purposes
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It is probably returning. it has full fuel tanks so that triggers the return order.
After creating it , give it an order transfer fuel to colony , then send it to jupiter
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Remember to tick the box in class design window that marks it as a tanker.
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Designing and using a harvester.
You will need a ship with Sorium harvesters on it, as well as a reasonably large fuel capacity and a refueling system or whatever it is called. Slap a commercial engine on it and mark it as a tanker in the design window, this will mean they will be built with 10% fuel as a default, that should be enough for it get to your local gas giant and start mining, it will automatically refine Sorium into fuel as it is mined with no additional input from you. leave it alone until the game starts giving you alerts that the fuel is at 90% or more capacity. From there you can either have the harvester move to your location of choice and Unload Fuel, then move back, or have another dedicated tanker move to your harvester and Refuel from the target fleet. The latter option is most efficient as your harvester never stops harvesting.
You can save resources and build the harvesters using construction factories if you build without an engine, this makes a fuel harvesting station. You will then need to use a tug to move it to its location, but the added micro is generally considered worth it in many cases.
You should build many harvesters, they are fairly cheap and you will need lots of them to have a good consistent supply. Some people basically never stop, dedicating a percentage of the CF capacity to building them constantly. This means you will need to constantly be keeping an eye on your messages, which you should be anyway of course, and moving or tugging harvesters to Join the appropriate task group on their mining site of your choice. You don't want multiple task groups of harvesters on the same site, make sure they are all combined in one fleet for ease of fuel pickup.
Keep in mind defense too, in multiplayer games or games with active NPRs and spoilers harvester groups are easy to forget about and similarly easy to blow up, the computer will happily do so at the slightest provocation. Building without engines helps here too to keep the size and emissions down, but if your game has the possibility for raids of any kind, you'll want to consider some sort of reaction force or dedicated escort element nearby.
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Couple of things from my side.
I assign my harvesters fleets to Industrial Commands to give them the production boost from commanders.
When going with the stationary harvesters and fuel shuttle approach, you can further increase efficiency by working out how long the harvester fleet needs to produce enough fuel to fill up your shuttle. Then use the Delay Order setting (in [sec]) to only send out the shuttle when its needed.
I think the latter might be obsolete with changes to refuel commands in the upcoming version.