Re: Weird fuel behavior

[Hans Ronne <hronne at comhem dot se>]

>> You have the event log in the saved game file. It looks like this:
>>
>
>Well, sure enough, I saved a game straight after a mine disappeared and
>found in the event log:
>
>(evt 5 unit-starved 2 -3 -1)
>
>which is indeed the turn that the mine disappeared.  But I still think
>something weird is going on here.

First, to clear up some confusion, I assume you are not playing modern.g
("Modern Times") but lhs.g ("Modern Game") since only the latter game has
mines. My previous comments were about modern.g, but most of them apply
also to lhs.g.

>I've never seen a 'supply low' message on a mine.

The critical material for mines is ammo:

(table hp-per-starve
  ((i f b) fuel 1.00)
  ;; Immobilized tanks eventually rust...
  (armor fuel 0.05)
  (ship fuel 0.10)
  (places fuel (0.05 0.05 0.05 0.0))
  (m ammo 0.25)
  )

Now, what this table means is that the mine has a 25% chance each turn of
loosing one hp if it is out of ammo. Since it only has 1 hp (and room for 1
ammo) it is either filled up with ammo and safe, or empty and subject to
random destruction. This may be why you don't see a SupplyLow warning.

>Last couple of things - I've still seen infantry being refuelled when there
>were *no* other units or towns nearby.

I don't know about infantry, but tanks are able to refuel themselves in
this game:

(table base-production
  (ground fuel 1)
  ;; This is not too realistic, but otherwise keeping tanks fueled
  ;; is a major hassle.  This is supposed to be a game, not an
  ;; exercise in logistics (play "empire.g" if you want that).
  (a fuel 2)
  (places fuel (10 20 50 0))
  (places ammo (5 10 20 0))
  )

If you really saw an infantry unit refueling my guess is still that it got
the fuel from a nearby unit.

  And (this may be normal - I haven't
>played enough to know) I find that some of my towns get completely exhausted
>of fuel (usually 1 or 2 towns per game) while the others apparently have
>inexhaustible supplies, their fuel level never dropping from full no matter
>how many bombers I refuel there.

The productivity of a town depends on where it is located:

(table productivity
  ;; Plains are assumed to be settled and have fuel stocks.
  (i (swamp desert mountains) 0)
  ;; It Tis* worthwhile to make players think about logistics
  ;; when operating in the desert.
  (a desert 0)
  (B land (0 100 50 20 20))
  (T land (0 100 50 20 20))
  (@ land (0 100 50 20 20))
  )

Hans