X3 TC CLS Freighters - Can they not refuel at a mine?

[JJRSC]

Hey, I'm trying to complete the Hub plot in TC and I have a handful of ore mines from which I'm trying to get some CLS-2 freighters to deliver ore to the Hub. I've set up the CLS ships fine, as far as I know... checked the waypoints, jumpdrive settings, even the supply settings (have set the 5% thing to 0 I forget what that's called but I imagine anyone who uses CLS a lot knows what I mean) and have the first waypoint for all of these CLS ships being to refuel their jump fuel at the mines before they collect the ore; the mines all have plenty of energy cells... most of them are full at 25,000. For some reason, none of the ships are refueling at the mines. No matter what I do, they don't take any energy cells from the mines stores, instead they fill up on ore and start trudging off for the nearest gate to take the scenic route to the Hub instead of jumping (yes, all the freighters have jumpdrives and the CLS pilots are Cargo Messenger or higher - most are Logisticians - but they all refuse to take on fuel at the mines when docked.)

Each ship only has three waypoints: Refuel, load ore and dump it at the Hub - then return and start over. I can get the freighters to refuel, load the ore and jump to the Hub and back if I do everything manually, but given the massive scale of the Hub plot (and I'm only on the ore part!) I need to find a way to get all of this done automatically. I'm not going to go through the rest of the plot telling each one of my CLS ships exactly what to do each step of the way.

Can anyone tell me why my CLS pilots are behaving this way? It's not just one of them... I have five right now that are supposed to be shuttling ore from my Mines to the Hub and they all refuse to refuel so they cannot jump. Do I need to tell them to refuel someplace else? Or is there yet another CLS command/setting I'm missing? Thanks again.

[Timsup2nothin]

The 'refuel' command will not take a resource, and at a mine e-cells are a resource.

Solution: dock a ship at the mine, any salvaged hulk will do. Rename it 'fuel tank', put CLS on it and give it one waypoint, the mine, load up to 300 e-cells (the load command will take resources). Then set up your haulers to refuel at the fuel tank, load ore at the mine, then dump it at the hub.

EDIT: I put fuel tanks on every station I build. It's a great use for those smallish freighters that bail with very little hull remaining that doesn't require repairing them. They also provide useful storage for those things you know you are going to need someday that otherwise clutter up an otherwise useful corner of some transport ship...not that I've carried microchips around from day one on my favorite salvage freighter or anything. Also a good place to stuff those wares you picked up that it just seems no one will pay a fair price for at the moment so you can sell them later but get the ship they are in back to work.

EDIT again: Perfect example from my current game. Some Paranid Tech Trader just decided to boot a bunch of 200MJ shields out of his cargo bay while passing through The Wall for some reason. Now, I just started this game not too long ago and my available combat vessels currently max out at a Buster Raider, but we all know that there are Centaurs and Magnetars somewhere in my future. We also know that 200MJ shields are sometimes hard to find in Argon space...usually when you need them. So after my dutiful cahoona trader took a minute out of his busy schedule to pick them up I had him stash them in a fuel tank.

[JJRSC]

Awesome. Again I am in your debt. Thank you sir!

[RayF]

Tim,

why not use the 'load' command!??

[Timsup2nothin]

Awesome. Again I am in your debt. Thank you sir!

Forward payment in credits to:

Loch Fiddich Farms, Herron's Nebula, X-Universe.

If you prefer to pay in illegal goods, load them into the storage tank.

[Timsup2nothin]

Tim,

why not use the 'load' command!??

If you use the load command the pilot will not use them for fuel.

[RayF]

Tim,

why not use the 'load' command!??

If you use the load command the pilot will not use them for fuel.

Because i remember doing it in the past, went back to the game and tested my theory.
And it sure works... Give it a try, let me know!

[Timsup2nothin]

Tim,

why not use the 'load' command!??

If you use the load command the pilot will not use them for fuel.

Because i remember doing it in the past, went back to the game and tested my theory.
And it sure works... Give it a try, let me know!

I've been wrong before. I'll check just to check but I'm inclined to take your word for it. As I said, I generally put fuel tanks everywhere anyway, so it's possible I just never tried that. I suspect fuel tanks are my answer to some problems just because I already had them.

Early on I found that sometimes a factory would run out of e-cells, which causes a hopefully brief production stop until some supplier dumps more in. If during that brief interval one of the freighters that counts on fueling there passes through and says 'oh no fuel' it can turn a brief problem into a long term problem. That's what originally started me on the 'fuel tank' plan, because it effectively provides jump fuel first and protects it from being used up by the factory.