Resupplying ships?

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Keego7237:
Is there a way to resupply ships without taking them back to a planet?

1) Supplies are like water, they seek the 'lowest' point. So, if you fleet your ships together and make a supply ship that is mostly supply storage bins you will be able to keep your combat ships 'topped off'. The supplies in the ship with the highest capacity will go down first. If you make several supply ships you can rotate them and keep your fleet supplied in a 'conventional' fashion.

2) As pointed out, fleet your ships with a base. This is a great way to keep an operating squadron on a warp point or some other advanced location without having to return for resupply after a few combats or scouting missions. Fortunately the 'bright idea' to disallow this in a patch has been modified. Apparently it was considered 'unfair' because the AI wasn't smart enough to do it. Well, don't dare teach the AI to do it, too, just remove the option from the game! Deh!

3) Research Stellar harnessing and put Solar Panels on your ships, or many solar panels on one ship and have it act as a supply generator for a fleet. This is good for long-range missions but it takes a fairly large number of (expensive) solar panels to replenish fleets that get into combat frequently or are moving at high speeds for more than a few turns.

4) Research the Quantum Reactor. Just one ship with one of these in a fleet acts as a base and refills all supplies every turn. It is a late-game tech, though. Fairly expensive to reach.

[ May 26, 2002, 15:35: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Skulky]

Don't send your supply ships back to base if you can help it, takes way too long if you have really brought an entire 20-30 ship fleet out there (wherever that may be) instead just bring along a colony ship and build an advance base. Plus by the time you use up 3-4 cruisers/bcruisers of supplies you should have accomplished your mission.
The logic behind this is that if you send back your supply ships and rotate them then you will have little supplys cause they will use them all up getting there.