Traveling long distances & refuelling

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Traveling long distances & refuelling

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Traveling long distances & refuelling - 12/21/2016 1:21:09 AM

nomaddelta

Posts: 5
Joined: 12/8/2016
Status: offline

hi guys! Been playing for a little while and trying to get a handle on how to move ships/fleets over long distances where one or more refuel stops will be required along the way...

What I was hoping would happen is that I tell my fleet sitting in my home system "move here" to a system that's on the other side of the galaxy, and they would AI-autopilot themselves over there, stopping at appropriate refuel points along the way, and hopefully giving me some kind of message if it's not actually *possible* to get there with currently available refuel points.

Instead what seems to happen is that the ship or entire fleet tries to fly directly to the far-away point in a straight line and just runs out of fuel and becomes lost forever because there isn't a way to 'rescue' ships that have run out of fuel in deep space.

Am I missing something here?

How do you handle moving your fleets and ships around where they're needed and refueling along the way?

Thanks!

--nomad_delta

Post #: 1

RE: Traveling long distances & refuelling - 12/21/2016 5:43:51 AM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

If you do not have anything between - resupply ships. There is a guide around (guide to guides).

If you have a good connection, find a suitable space port within range. Order "refuel at..." (control right click) to refuel at that specific spaceport. This is most easily done when zoomed way out, so that you see the spaceport marker. When you have done so, find the next suitable spaceport and queue an order to refuel there. That way you queue refuel orders all across the galaxy.

Be aware that a large fleet running across the galaxy like this will sniff out any signs of a fuel shortage.

When queuing specific refuel locations, spaceports are what works easily. If you are to use mines or resupply ships, I find that I usually have to zoom close enough to actually click them (which may be hard if there is traffic there). And "default mines" are not really large enough to refuel a large battle fleet anyways.

(in reply to nomaddelta)

Post #: 2

RE: Traveling long distances & refuelling - 12/21/2016 3:23:23 PM

RemoteLeg

Posts: 153
Joined: 4/21/2015
From: Canada
Status: offline

I've found that image scaling can help when you're trying to click on a resupply ship/mine when there's lots of traffic. It makes the ship icons bigger.

- go into the design screen for the resupply ship or gas mine you want to make bigger
- look in the top left corner
- change "Image Scaling" from None to Absolute
- change the value from 100 to anything up to 1000

Now the icons for all ships of this design are bigger and easier to see in a crowd.

Ignore the warning message that says you can't change the design because you already have ships built. In this particular case you're allowed to change the image scaling.

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< Message edited by RemoteLeg -- 12/21/2016 3:27:21 PM >

_____________________________

See my Distant Worlds tutorial videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLK2bfr2o2ZkW3OcP3kd-ypVVfLtaT9Y81

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 3

RE: Traveling long distances & refuelling - 12/21/2016 5:55:41 PM

nomaddelta

Posts: 5
Joined: 12/8/2016
Status: offline

Good tips, I'll try these out. It sounds like there's no auto-refueling-autopilot for fleets like I was hoping for. Rather, one needs to manually design a flight-path by queuing a string of "refuel here, then refuel here, next refuel at this place, and then refuel over here" commands to the destination. I hadn't thought to queue the refuel commands and was having trouble because I'd order the first move/hop but by the time my ships actually got there I'd kinda forget where they were going. Especially difficult to keep track if you have a lot of ships/fleets moving around at the same time.

I guess this is something I hope they improve in DW-2. I'd really like to be able to just select a fleet and give them a single command like "go patrol this far-away system that will require 4 separate refuel stops to reach" and have the fleet AI just figure out how to get there on its own. Having to micromanage the kinda stuff doesn't add any strategy or fun to the game, it just adds tedium.

Another thing I think would be helpful: we should be able to build a dedicated "fuel depot" station and specify what type of fuel (and how much) it should try to keep in stock. There's not already a way to do that, is there? If I understand correctly I could build a spaceport/starbase with cargo containers but it will just try to stock an even supply of all materials, no?

Anyway, thanks for the tips guys, much appreciated. :)

--nomad_delta

(in reply to RemoteLeg)

Post #: 4

RE: Traveling long distances & refuelling - 12/21/2016 6:46:44 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 5186
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

You can build a star base (or mine I guess), with no commerce center and mining tools, and it should not be used as anything but a refueling stop. Add the commerce center and freighters could go there to pick up cargo. The challenge would be to find well positioned source of single resource (clouds work). If it has multiples, it should jettison other stuff if you keep using caslon for instance, to have an even supply of all kinds.

When it comes to long moves like you describe, it is in general a problem that the AI is very single minded when on a mission. If it has a move order it will move (until out of fuel I guess), when an emergency fuel order is picked up. But that should mean it forgets the move order.

Similarly, have a ship/fleet on refuel order and say 30% fuel. While docking the spaceport they are heading in to refuel at is attacked. The ships will keep docking for fuel, with energy/fuel in store, while the spaceport is attacked.

I doubt it is useful for moves, but you have the "move to leader" behavior of fleets. If the fleet leader sits at the destination, you can tell individual ships (or multi select them) to refuel. They will refuel, and when done so, park outside the refueling stop and think "what to do?" and figure out it should move to leader.

Very useful when a couple of ships are out of fuel, when doing invasions, when sending single fleet members to investigate marked locations or pick up alien ships, when single fleet members are out of fuel, or when sending 2-3 fleet members to attack each of the enemy mines in the area.

As long as the fleet leader sits around, they will all end up there unless killed/disabled.

(in reply to nomaddelta)

Post #: 5