solar collectors and fleet supply

Is the resupply ship in the fleet? I think it needs to be in the fleet to share out any resources it doesn't need to fill its own hull.

Also be aware that solar collectors are naff even at high levels so you will need hundreds of them to resupply a fleet in one turn when there are only 2 stars.

I would suggest going and checking the maths, how much are generating and how much do you need to resupply the fleet, then work out how many turns, it is oftenly a depressingly long time.

To make up for this resupply depots now distribute supplies to any ships in the solar system (again at a low rate) I tend to build half a dozen resupply depots in frontline systems and try and have a minimum of 7k per turn resupply. (That works well for how big my front line fleets are, and enough to rapidly resupply my attack fleets).

it would be better to use quantum reactors as the output of solar collectors is very variable being dependant on the stars and the distance the collector is from them. I would also suggest that all these techs are supplemental to supply rather than replacing it. It’s also very wise to research cargo tech as it greatly increases the capacity of supply and ordinance components

Is solar collector supply collection affected by the distance from the star? It would be "realistic", I suppose, but I don't think I've seen that mentioned anywhere... (admitedly, I spend more time modding than playing...)
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I haven't witnessed that, or read anything about it.... My problem with quatum reactors is that they are down a tech tree I have no real early game intrest in researching as I don't use emergancy ordinance or supplies.

I like solar collectors because the tech tree leads to solar sails which give a rather nice speed boost, as far as I am concerned speed is king.

If there are 2+ stars, Solar Collecters beat Quantam Reactors. From memory the Collector maxs out at 200*star & the reactors at 290. But neither will supply an entire fleet from just one ship. I use 2 or 3(usually the reactors as I like playing on ancient maps and using empty systems as my frontiers) per ship, to keep them supplied when just moving about the place, and 8 or so on a defence base so it replaces it's supplies after combat reasonably. But at the end of the day, you do just need to have a good supply storage on your ships. The reactors just help with keeping up with basic day to day supplies. Not a chance of keeping up with intense combat.