Solving supply issues? |
Ok, in some of my frontier systems... where battle rages just beyond, I have apparently too many ships trying to resupply.
How can I increase my resupply rate? I seem to only be able to resupply one ship per turn. I guess supply depots have limited supplies. How can I boost this?
I've researched resupply, but I can't tell explicity if this actually increases the resupply rate as it doens't seem to offer a newer, more advanced supply depot.
What are my options?
Thanks,
Javaslinger
Are you playing using the Balance Mod?
The Balance Mod significantly increases the starting supply rate of the Resupply Depots.
In a stock game, the starting Resupply Depot generates 1000 for the planet and 500 for all ships in system. In the Balance Mod, it is 5000 for the planet and 1000 for all ships in the system.
I think the Balance Mod numbers are much more reasonable.
When I played my last stock game, it seems like I had to research Starship Support twice before I got a new Resupply Depot. But I don't remember exactly. Hopefully one of the smarter folks who are creating mods can look at the data file and explain this...

Resupply & Balance Mod
You can try researching the cheap Stellar Harnessing tech area and use some solar collectors on supply ships. You should be able to get a couple per freighter and they'll help extend the range of your fleets. They're also particularly helpful in binary/trinary systems.
You can also build a couple resupply depots on a planet to make it a major fueling depot.
In theory the Cargo Storage in BM does provide extra ordnance/supply space - but I think Phoenix-D reported it wasn't working properly.
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Another resupply trick.
If you reseach solar Collectors you can make a satallites with 3 solar Collectors and a supply container. Build 10 above a planet and you are generating some supplies. You have to manualy transfer them to the planet but it does work as a way to generate some supplies at an outpost.

solor satellites
You might even be able to create a separate satellite group and give it repeating orders to dump supplies to the planet. Then you won't have to do it every turn. Anything that makes life slightly less micromanaged is a good thing.
Dragagon
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
-- Robert Heinlein

Resupply Depots Stack
In frontier systems, you can build depots on every colonizable world, they will stack, in stock, to help keep those patriotic fleets on the offensive.
Research in solar collectors will allow you to reap the power of the sun(s) on ships with collectors to decrease the amount of supplies necessary from your ship stores per turn.
Researching larger supply containers is another idea. This will increase your initial pool of supplies.
Emergency Resupply Pods and Repair Modules
It seems like the Emergency Resupply modules are fairly low in the tech tree. Instead of researching Stellar Harnessing, I wonder if it would be easier to put Emergency Resupply Pods on multiple ships in your fleets. You would need to send along a ship with a Repair Module.
In SE5, you can move supplies from ship to ship. This allows you to do some pretty interesting things with supply storage and Resupply Pods. For example, if your entire fleet is down by about 50% supplies, you can transfer supplies from the ships with the Emergency Supply Pods. Then, activate the Emergency Supply Pods to recharge the supplies on that one ship. Then, depending on your Repair capability, those Emergency Supply Pods will be repaired and available for use again soon enough.
I think Resupply Depots are fine
I think that resupply depots are fine the way they are. It would be way too easy if they could resupply huge fleets in no time.
In order to create more efficient resupply colonies build Cargo Containers on the planet along with 3-4 Resupply depots.
Keep in mind that small domed planets are not good at all for resupply purposes. Only large and huge planets can be used efficiently. Build 2 Resupply depots and 2-3 Cargo Containers and you can have a nice resupply planet.
Of course breathable planets are the best.
Re: Solving supply issues?
Each time you get research the supply depot, make sure you go to your construction queue and hit the upgrade button, so that any upgradeable buildings are upgraded. It starts to become a pain later on in the game to be constantly upgrading your ships and buildings, but it helps out a lot. Also, whenever I have a large fleet trying to resupply, I send a few of the supply ships into the adjoining system, so that they resupply faster.




you need to research the one
you need to research the one called "starship support"
I think building additional resupply depots in the system/planet might help as well, but I haven't tried that yet.
Additionally, if you keep researching stellar harnessing (from astrophysics) or resupply you can get components that allow ships to generate their own supply.