Brainstorm This Thruster Fuel

[ZektorSK]

Thruster Fuel:
All thrusters will need fuel to work properly.If there is fuel,they will work at 100%,if there is no fuel they will work on 20% but after 5 minutes,all of your thrusters will turn off.Fuel is going to be craftable,or getable from asteroids,and planets,or buyed in shops.
Depending on the size of ship,and size of all thrusters,max. capacity of fuel will be 1M.There can be bio modules,wich can slow drop rate of fuel.
10 fuel: 100 C
100 fuel: 1000 C
1K fuel= 10 000 C
10K fuel = 100 000 C
100K fuel = 1 000 000 C
1M fuel = 10 000 000 C

 

[NeonSturm]

+1, but I think 80% efficiency/blocks without fuel would be better.

 

[Lecic]

Fuel, if any is ever added, needs to be a late game material to help power larger ships (instead of docked reactors), rather than a constant material that every ship needs. A requirement for everything to be fueled turns the game into a grindfest where you spend all your time collecting fuel.

 

[Byamarro]

Fuel, if any is ever added, needs to be a late game material to help power larger ships (instead of docked reactors), rather than a constant material that every ship needs. A requirement for everything to be fueled turns the game into a grindfest where you spend all your time collecting fuel.

If gaining resources will be more developed then I don't see anything bad in minning.

 

[NeonSturm]

As long as it does not encourage you to leave a lot of wrecked systems around spawn.
It is not that bad if respawning asteroids give a little less than planets but in turn produce infinite of it - this would encourage more medium-sized ships.

 

[Sha3es]

While not a bad idea, to be honest I find the concept to bring some much needed realism to the game. However it raises a few more questions. How will we
1. recover fuel from a abandoned wreck of a ship
2. transfer the fuel between ships
3. manufacture ,with a little prep, or a lot of prep. ( not trying to pick here just trying to stir up thought for the process of fuel creation)
4. Store the fuel, will it require a storage space ?
5. determine what sort of weight will the fuel add to the ship itself

 

[Lecic]

I don't think fuel is something that new players should have to deal with. It implements a higher learning curve for newbies, in a game that's already got a pretty steep one. This is why I think fuel should instead be a system used by larger ships to somewhat bypass the power softcap, similarly to docked reactors.

 

[Byamarro]

I don't think fuel is something that new players should have to deal with. It implements a higher learning curve for newbies, in a game that's already got a pretty steep one. This is why I think fuel should instead be a system used by larger ships to somewhat bypass the power softcap, similarly to docked reactors.

What's hard in statement "You need fuel"?

 

[BrotherLazarus]

What's hard in statement "You need fuel"?

I point you towards several Space Engineers Survival builds for the response to that. "What's that? No uranium asteroids spawned near you? Well. Have fun slowly freezing to death while none of your stuff works, because solar and fusion power don't exist here! Better luck next seed!"

 

[Lecic]

What's hard in statement "You need fuel"?

"You need to mine, refine, and figure out how to manage fuel while also learning the dozens of other complex systems."

There's a reason they're making things like crew and capital ship systems later game, and it's because it makes the game even more complex for a newbie who's flying a little ship they built two minutes ago.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

"You need to mine, refine, and figure out how to manage fuel while also learning the dozens of other complex systems."

There's a reason they're making things like crew and capital ship systems later game, and it's because it makes the game even more complex for a newbie who's flying a little ship they built two minutes ago.

Agreed. I love complexity. When I've reasonably reached a point where I understand how my systems work. I've put.. around a hundred and thirty hours of spare time into Starmade and I still haven't figured all the systems out. I can build reasonable drones, I can build pretty RP ships on a scale that doesn't nuke servers... but working end-game capital craft that are properly functional is still beyond me. Having to juggle all of that right at the start with fuel requirements in a game I take more engineering risks with than SE (while visually dissimilar, they're not entirely different for the purposes of this discussion in terms of mechanics) would deepen the already stiff learning curve.

Something like booster fuel, or a high-end reactor injection for capital craft I can get behind. A finite resource that I need from the first second of play, not so much.

 

[Byamarro]

"You need to mine, refine, and figure out how to manage fuel while also learning the dozens of other complex systems."

There's a reason they're making things like crew and capital ship systems later game, and it's because it makes the game even more complex for a newbie who's flying a little ship they built two minutes ago.

Don't things like "capital ships" or "crew" sound late game? I bet that this is the main reason.
The point is to make learning curve soft but fuel is not the thing that should be late game. Just how nonsense it sounds that fuel is late game.

 

[Lecic]

The point is to make learning curve soft but fuel is not the thing that should be late game. Just how nonsense it sounds that fuel is late game.

Does the idea of stranding newbies in the middle of space sound fun to you? That's what making fuel an early game requirement will do.

 

[Byamarro]

Does the idea of stranding newbies in the middle of space sound fun to you? That's what making fuel an early game requirement will do.

Just:
1. include fuel in startpack
2. make small ships use small amount of fuel but it will grow exponentially as engines grows
There are tons of games with fuel and they're fine. Also there are many ways to lose SM forever (lose cash and die) but other ppl help them.

 

[Lecic]

2. make small ships use small amount of fuel but it will grow exponentially as engines grows

How is that any different from just having fuel be a later game material?

What does adding fuel to early game add to gameplay? I can tell you what it adds to late-game- an operating cost for larger ships. What's the point in an operating cost to early game/small ships?

 

[NeonSturm]

Option : YES
Boosted efficiency : YES (drones, a smaller scout ship supporting a capital, ...)
Requirement : NO

 

[Byamarro]

How is that any different from just having fuel be a later game material?

What does adding fuel to early game add to gameplay? I can tell you what it adds to late-game- an operating cost for larger ships. What's the point in an operating cost to early game/small ships?

Sense

 

[Lecic]

Sense

I think it removes sense, personally. Adding more ways to make the game difficult for newbies doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[BrotherLazarus]

Sense

One word is not an adequate rebuttal.

The thrusters in Starmade clearly operate on a semi-inertialess principle, so adding a forced reaction mass to that not only borks with the universe's consistency, but adds -another- thing you have to refine to the table, which at start can be a gigantic pain already, especially solo. Perhaps an overdriven thruster block that gobbles reaction mass, certainly. But not the stock inertialess drives.

As I pointed out before with my Space Engineers comparison, RNGsus can be cruel and new players will leave when it seems "unfairly balanced", even if that perception of balance is just caused by an issue with hopping into a mostly mined area at start.

Another point to keep in mind is that with yet another required system for newer players to track, they're less likely to be creative and far more likely to stick with the trial and error result of the BattleCube, causing ship deletions by admins and once again new players leaving because of "unfair and unfun" circumstances.

In the long run, a fuel source that makes your late game engines run better as an optional element for things like fast moving corvettes/support craft, but the pitfalls of making it a from-start requirement are just too many to really justify forcing it on the community at large. And part of the reason some of the proposed changes aren't making it in are clearly a result of the developers weighing the extra utility or challenge with the perception of players in the end, and are choosing to implement ideas that will be overall accepted well rather than just forcing us into "Yet Another Dull Survival Sim".

So while I am not opposed to a fully optional fuel element, as yet another contrived artificial difficulty I find it bland, unappetizing, and completely wasteful of dev time that would be better spent working on features already proposed; such as better handling of cargo transferring between ships and motherships or ships and stations.

 

[Kij421]

Yeah, but if this is something theoretically set in a future, high tech universe (we don't have awesome space battleships), wouldn't we be using advanced versions of technology we have today? The Em Drive has just finished another round of peer review and proven to be able to create thrust WITHOUT a propellant (sauce: https://hacked.com/new-nasa-tests-confirm-anomalous-emdrive-thrust/). The only thing you'd need at that point is the reactors to power the drive. (Props to FlyingDebris for reminding me about this drive earlier in the day.)

If you still want to go with a fuel requirement thing, make it so that your power reactors require fuel, not the thrusters themselves. And even then, just like ship cores naturally come with 50,000 power, you could have ship cores naturally come with x amount of fuel for the reactors as well.

But then you'd have to figure out how to refuel the reactors when they run low, and that's just irritating. Personally, I say no to fuel, unless it's an optional or late game thing like Lecic and BrotherLazarus have said.