Gas station design

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Antarian
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Gas station design

Post by Antarian »

Can someone tell me how to greatly increase the amount of fuel a gas station can extract and have on hand? I tried increasing the fuel tanks but that did nothing. There should be a special 'storage tanks' component for this. Does it use cargo?
"If there are gods, they do not care, and justice always goes to the strong. But remember this: All that is done before the naked stars is remembered" Klingon proverb.
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pycco
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RE: Gas station design

Post by pycco »

first there are a a few factors here, freighters, back orders, distance. in early game i use a simply and cheap design. in late game i use a bigger design. imo 4 extractors and 10 med cargo 3 docking bays is best in early. 7 extractors and 20 med. cargo, 7 docking bays, late game. if its a military refueling station i use more extractors and docking bays and defenses. if your using more than 1 design of same type make sure auto retrofit is off.
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: Gas station design

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

You have to remember there are limits on Mining Extractions. More extractors work up to a point.

I cannot remember the Gas Mining limits off the top of my head, but...

Regular mining has a cap of 10 units. A single standard Mining Engine can extract 3 units. But that 3 becomes modified by Quality of the Resource, Tech of the Miner, and Racial Bonus.

SO: 3 x (%Qual) x (%Racial)

In General any resource site worth 80% or better will be fully utilized be 4 Mining Engines. 7 Engines would be overkill on better quality resources and allow resources of 47% quality to cap out production.
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Shark7
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Shark7 »

Antarian, if you are looking simply for a station to act as a refueling post, try this design that I use:

Star Base (not mining station)

*NO COMMERCE MODULE - without this, your freighters should not be coming to pick up the fuel and it will always have fuel cargo available for refueling
3 x gas extractor
20 x cargo bay
6 to 10 fuel cells

Weapons and armor to your liking (I make mine into mini fortresses)

You will have to build these manually, I usually build in gas clouds with caslon or hydrogen only (to make sure only fuel is on board).

It is a little extra work, but once I start building these I have far fewer fuel shortage issues, since the frieghters (and other empires) won't be hauling my fuel off from these stations.

Edit: Also, the more docking bays you have, the faster you can fuel a fleet. I usually put 12 docks on my design.
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: Gas station design

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

Valid point.
Mining Caslon and Helium when all you are using is Hydrogen for example just clogs the system up.
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ehsumrell1
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RE: Gas station design

Post by ehsumrell1 »

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Antarian, if you are looking simply for a station to act as a refueling post, try this design that I use:

Star Base (not mining station)

*NO COMMERCE MODULE - without this, your freighters should not be coming to pick up the fuel and it will always have fuel cargo available for refueling
3 x gas extractor
20 x cargo bay
6 to 10 fuel cells

Weapons and armor to your liking (I make mine into mini fortresses)

You will have to build these manually, I usually build in gas clouds with caslon or hydrogen only (to make sure only fuel is on board).

It is a little extra work, but once I start building these I have far fewer fuel shortage issues, since the frieghters (and other empires) won't be hauling my fuel off from these stations.

Edit: Also, the more docking bays you have, the faster you can fuel a fleet. I usually put 12 docks on my design.

+1
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Spidey
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Spidey »

What's with all those fuel cells? I could be wrong, but i don't think they help refueling visiting ships. I've always thought of fuel cells more like batteries. They get recharged by units of hydrogen or caslon, but you can't convert the stored energy back into units of hydrogen or caslon. Have I misunderstood their function completely?
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Shark7
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: Spidey

What's with all those fuel cells? I could be wrong, but i don't think they help refueling visiting ships. I've always thought of fuel cells more like batteries. They get recharged by units of hydrogen or caslon, but you can't convert the stored energy back into units of hydrogen or caslon. Have I misunderstood their function completely?

Once they get full, the station never runs out. My little 'Fleet Depots' as I call them have a lot of guns and shields, which means lots of reactors to power them in battle. I have never lost one to a non-shakturi fleet so far. And I don't have to keep an attendant fleet around protecting them all the time.

Remember: If brute force doesn't get the job done, you aren't using enough. [;)]

Bear in mind that I tend to overbuild everything. My ships have redundant systems, for example, I have at least 2 repair bots on each ship design, up to 4 on some of them. Do you gain anything from the stack...no. What I gain is if one gets knocked out, I still have 1 or more working. Obviously, the more important the ship or station, the more redundant systems I tend to add. Much cheaper to repair and maintain then to be constantly rebuilding.
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Ralzakark
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Ralzakark »

@Antarian, yes, mined gas is stored in Cargo modules.
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Loose Cannon
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Loose Cannon »

And how much Cargo capacity do you need? My second mining station upgrades only have 5000 cargo storage but all but one of my gas mining stations have 18,000 units of gas in cargo.[&:] And the one that doesn't? it was built on a steel/gold Barren Rock moon by mistake. With 2 luxury extractors 9mo mining engines)it has mined a little steel and gold.
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Antarian
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Antarian »

Thanks Unicorn! Finally somebody reads my question and answers it!

As for the other suggestions, thanks guys, but I already figured out to turn my mines into fortresses. The pesky pirate attacks (which become RI-DONKEYLOUS in the late game) are more than enough reason. I actually lost a game to pirates when I first started playing because they nuked all my mines before I had a chance to defend.

My mines regularly come equipped with multiple fighter bays ( fighters are ideal also for dealing with Ardillus attacks) beam and heavy torp weapons, lots of shielding and armour. I also build frontier monitor mines with long range sensors on my borders.

Somebody in the thread said though that when a gas station is full it never runs out? Really? So a 20 ship fleet sucking fumes shows up, and gases up all month, and the level doesn't drop an ounce? Now that's kinda fake..
"If there are gods, they do not care, and justice always goes to the strong. But remember this: All that is done before the naked stars is remembered" Klingon proverb.
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Shark7
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: Antarian

Thanks Unicorn! Finally somebody reads my question and answers it!

As for the other suggestions, thanks guys, but I already figured out to turn my mines into fortresses. The pesky pirate attacks (which become RI-DONKEYLOUS in the late game) are more than enough reason. I actually lost a game to pirates when I first started playing because they nuked all my mines before I had a chance to defend.

My mines regularly come equipped with multiple fighter bays ( fighters are ideal also for dealing with Ardillus attacks) beam and heavy torp weapons, lots of shielding and armour. I also build frontier monitor mines with long range sensors on my borders.

Somebody in the thread said though that when a gas station is full it never runs out? Really? So a 20 ship fleet sucking fumes shows up, and gases up all month, and the level doesn't drop an ounce? Now that's kinda fake..

No, what I meant was that since I have so many fuel tanks, the station itself won't run dry if it gets into heavy combat. If your entire fleet shows up to refuel, it will suck the station dry, no doubt. However, with so many fuel tanks, you shouldn't have the station burn up all its fuel through defending itself. Fleets fuel out of cargo bays first, and then I believe they will take from the stations fuel tanks as well (though I'm not 100% sure on that one, since I don't actually sit and watch it happen...that would be as interesting as watching paint dry, LOL).

And I thought I answered the cargo question by specifying putting so many cargo base on the gas station design. Guess I should have answered with a plain 'yes'.
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Antarian
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Antarian »

Thanks for the clarification! I never even thought of stations running dry, how do they refuel?
"If there are gods, they do not care, and justice always goes to the strong. But remember this: All that is done before the naked stars is remembered" Klingon proverb.
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Shark7
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RE: Gas station design

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: Antarian

Thanks for the clarification! I never even thought of stations running dry, how do they refuel?

They'll fill their tanks as they mine. I believe they fill their gas tanks first, then the cargo bays. However, during combat, you can burn through it faster than you can mine it.

For stations with no gas mining capabilities, you'll see freighters running back and forth carrying fuel to them. Which means it is also a good idea to have more than 1 tank on those stations.
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