Resupply via tankers?

krisarthur · #1 November 21st, 2000, 07:15 PM

My colony ships are often running out of supplies as I give them about 2500 with an emergency pod. How can go around the systems and refuel/resupply these puppies? Can I do that with another SHIP as I am not near resupply depots to resupply? What are the specs/exact components you use for your resupply ship?

Psitticine · #2 November 21st, 2000, 07:57 PM

If you group ships into a fleet, their supplies are pooled and divided evenly between ships at the end of the turn (or maybe at the beginning of the next turn - I can't recall right now.)

I think it'd be nice to have a Shares Supply With All Ships In Sector option for a fleet so you wouldn't have to do that - just move the fleet into place and let the transfer be automated. It'd be especially nice when you are, like me, using warp point stations for refuelling.

As for what to use in a supply ship, well,it depends a lot on your tech. Supply modules are nice for basics. Emergency supply pods are also useful. Solar collectors are a personal favorite, and the almighty Quantum Reactor can solve all your supply problems for good.

I usually have a support ship flying in the same fleet as my combat ships. It'll have repair bays, extra supply capacity and/or solar collectors, and possibly an emergency pod or two. In combat, it wisely pulls back out of the way so I don't need to group/ungroup it continuously as the battles rage.

LintMan · #3 November 21st, 2000, 08:07 PM

Here's a couple solutions to increase your supply on a ship in general:
- If you research Stellar Harnessing, you can build Solar panels then regenerate your supply a bit each turn in a system with a sun, so it's harder to run out.
- If you tech up the cargo tech tree (not too expensive), the supply bays get pretty sizeable.
- If you tech up the resupply tech tree enough (expensive!), you can get the quantum reactor and have infinite supply.

But if you really need long range and can't afford (or wait for) the quantum reactor tech, you can make a tanker ship. Just take any hull (a transport one is good, and you can use the cargo space to carry extra population) and fill it with as many supply bays as you can fit. Then create a fleet with your tanker and colony ship in it, and they will share their supplies and have a very long range. The problem then is that when you make your colony, your tanker is now way out there and will take a while to get back to where it is needed (if it has the fuel to do so, that is!).

I prefer to use the free 20K or so of free space on a colony ship to put in a cargo bay to carry more population - a level 1 cargo will let a colony ship carry 34M people instead of just 4M. I tend not to need longer range for colony ships, since I usually will colonize the closer systems first to create resupply bases as stepping stones outward.

G-top · #4 November 21st, 2000, 11:19 PM

If you use a quantum reactor on a tanker will that resupply all ships in the fleet? Or do you need to have some supply cargo on the ship working with the reactor?

LintMan · #5 November 21st, 2000, 11:27 PM

The one reactor will resupply the whole fleet, from what I've seen. You just need to be careful your enemy doesn't cripple you by taking that one ship out!

Arralen · #6 November 22nd, 2000, 03:20 PM

quote:
Originally posted by LintMan:
I prefer to use the free 20K or so of free space on a colony ship to put in a cargo bay to carry more population - a level 1 cargo will let a colony ship carry 34M people instead of just 4M.

Does this work in the Full Version again?

I did so with SE3, and was heavily disappointed to find out that with the 0.99 demo the additional pop is lost ?!

Arralen

rdouglass · #7 November 22nd, 2000, 04:02 PM

One downfall about having a "Supply Tanker" - they don't resupply your attack ships in combat. Long, close combat can really eat up your supplies quickly in combat. For now that issue is kinda' irrelevant since there doesn't seem to be a firing penalty if you have no supplies, but I think that will soon be fixed (and hence will become relevant) with upcoming patches. Think of having a DN with several WMG's in combat and no supplies to fire more than 2 shots 'cause there out of supplies!!! Remember ships only get 500 supply storage points per engine so even baseships only have 1000 points supply without any other components (that is if I remember right).

I use the tanker concept early in the game (I always start my games low tech), but as my ships / techs get better, I start putting some supply feature(s) on all my ships as well as including tankers in a fleet. I feel (at least in larger ships) the range advantage of sticking a solar collector III is far better than the 20Kt of weapon / cargo I can put on it. Then once I get to Quantum Reactors, I'm usually making nothing but DN's and Base's so 20Kt (for QR's) is nothing for space. The only downfall is that they're pricey, but to be able to have fleets OR ships cruising wherever they want to go indefinitely (of course including a repair ship in all fleets) has some major advantages.

LintMan · #8 November 22nd, 2000, 06:51 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Arralen:
Does this work in the Full Version again?

I did so with SE3, and was heavily disappointed to find out that with the 0.99 demo the additional pop is lost ?!

It works fine for me, but I'm pretty sure it also worked for me in the .99 demo.

Psitticine · #9 November 22nd, 2000, 08:54 PM

For what it's worth, it's worked for me in 0.56, 0.99, and 1.02.