FUEL - Glorious fuel

[John Sheridan]

Based on this excellent first post at: http://star-made.org/content/starmades-main-problem

I'm extending it a little further, and while already discussed, am relaying it again.

Ships should require FUEL.

Read this post Thoroughly before replying!

Fuel can come in the following ways:

• Solar panel blocks (the more in a Square 2D grouping the more energy output)
• Actual Various kinds of Fuel "items/blocks" that you must "place into" the ship via a "Fuel Input block".

Now, at the moment Power Tank cells are like batteries. And they would stay that way.

What changes is:

You add fuel to your ship via a "Fuel Input" block. You press R on it, and it opens up an inventory similar to factory inputs or plex storage, where you drag and drop your fuel items, and upon dropping, they convert into an appropriate amount of "energy items".

You can have as many or as few Fuel Input blocks as you like, they are just access points to dump in fuel into your ship. No "fuel tank" blocks required. The fuel in energy item form just magically exists in your ship.

Solar Panel blocks on the ship would generate these "energy items" as above, and keep incrementing what you have in your ship's fuel tank. Goes without saying, solar is far less effective than pouring in fuel manually you made/found via your expeditions, which might be petrol/gas, or a sci fi material thats awesome. L1-L5 blocks, Hulls... whatever.

Now, as you fly your ship, shoot weapons, open doors etc, it eats away your regular Power everyone knows about.

EXCEPT, right now, power cells are these magic infinite energy sources that recharge your Power Tanks / themselves without assistance.

In this fuel based adjustment they would ONLY charge up (however fast they already do that etc) by CONSUMING energy items. Those things that get made the second you drop fuel into your ships fuel input block / or solar power.

What this means is, your ship needs fuel, or it will literally float dead in space. Solar panels will prevent anyone truly being marooned, but they would be made quite inefficient and be one astronaut pistol shot away from destroyable, and you'd need your entire ship covered in them to be decently powered.

This idea of requiring fuel brings in another strategy item to the game, limited energy, and the struggle to get it.

As a bonus, I imagine giant motherships won't be too popular due to fuel requirements, and will be in limited supply as they should be... rather than the current "lets all have one".

 

[MrFURB]

This is rather well thought out, and I\'m all for having more strategy in the game. The problem still exists, though, that not everyone has the same idea of what the game is meant to be. Having things such as fuel, air, life support systems and more survival-type mechanics sets a rather firm precedent that Starmade is going to appeal strongly to very specific groups of people depending on how they are implimented.

I\'d rather see mechanics like this be serverside configuration options with a decent amount of variables to tweak so people who are looking for a \'just build or hang out with friends\' experience are not alienated from the whole game.

How will you present the fuel system to new people?

How will you represent it on the HUD/UI?

How will it affect using ship cores as basic transportation?

 

[John Sheridan]

I guess ship cores can produce small amounts of their own fuel, to keep them as simple transport

Hud wise, just a digital number of energy cells / items in your ship.

The fuel system, like every part of Starmade, will require learning / basic tutorial page

 

[marcus87]

Ship cores do not need energie to move so they would not need fuel either.

Regardless I like the idea a lot. A resource that is constantly diminished and has to be restocked is the first step to an economy.

Your solar panels could be the regular give infinite power, but much less efficient than the power cells now. The then to be used power cells convert fuel to power. And I would not mind fuel tanks at all. They could work like the power tanks to. Just some sci fi teck magic like quantum compressing, so you can have the increasing storage capacity. I like ship design and now I quickly come to a point where I just fill every part of the ship with random shield and power blocks. I would love more components that have to be placed strategically to make a good ship.

just imagine solar power plants that use energie to produce fuel, than actual tanker which bring the fuel to your fleet. We could have neutral corporations, or factions, that focus on producing fuel.

pleas make that happen :D

 

[Imperial_Gold]

Now this is a good Idea. Now if these fuel input blocks could be connected to thrusters, this would allow backup thrusters to kick in when the main thrusters fail for what ever reason.

 

[FlyingDebris]

With your idea, people won\'t get their multi-million dollar battleships stranded between shops.

 

[Syzygy]

Read it thoroughly. No, don\'t add this. Make it as a mod if you want it. Adds a fun strategy to the game, but decreases the fun overall to have to worry about it.

 

[Apples]

Whilemost people ignore power drain beams, they can suck life out of any. Exposed power block/energy cell. The problem is that solar panels would all be these fuel creation blocks, and would have to be exposed. Perhaps the most important thing you forget are Pulse Propulsion drives (making a turret pushyou really fast with pulsars) you dont these would be a work around?

I am very much so against fuel, but you need to understand that we DONT HAVE infinate energy, i can say this because 1% of infinity is still infinity so no matter how small an amount we pull put of these cells, we can run out. Are you saying our thrusters use INFINITE fuel to travel. FINITE distance?

yes, and since i proved that the exhisting power isnt infinite than in a way we already have fuel, and further creation would be uneccesary.

It isnt like we dont have to worry about long journeys, we need large well shielded ships in order to avoid being taken out by pirates. Fuel for ships seems like an absolutely horrid idea, while astronaut fuel may work, ship fuel wont.

 

[wolfboyft]

Fuel = bad.

Unless its hyperspace fuel... that makes sense.

StarMade has been my infinite power haven.

This must never change.

 

[Qweesdy]

Hi.

I don\'t just think the game should have fuel; I think the game *requires* fuel and that without fuel (or something like it) it will be impossible to have sane game balance.

Fuel is the disadvantage that big ships need. It will make smaller ships (with less fuel consumption and lower running costs) useful.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

I like the idea of making tanker ships useful as support vessels above just being extenal power generators.

It should be pointed out that, like KSP, Starmade has a game mode option, which at the moment only says \'Sandbox\'. In Sandbox, I can see fuel being unneccesary. If there were an \'Economy\' mode, however, fuel would be an awesome addition. The fuel system could make ships into something akin to diesel-electric locomotives. Insert fuel, generators use fuel to make electricity, electricity is used to power to ship\'s systems.

As for it being a way to make balance between small and large ships, it\'s not as simple as \'penalise the mothships for being powerful\'. There\'s a reason why jet aircraft get put on aircraft carriers - the aircraft carrier, while requiring more fuel, can run for longer periods of time. I\'m not saying small ships should run out of fuel quickly, but big ships shouldn\'t be forced to stop at every shop they pass just to stay operational just because they\'re big.

 

[MichaelSeph]

No petrol guys here, away with the stinking rich type :P

 

[-Moose-]

Fuel for basic travel adds a survival element, which doesn\'t fit into Starmade. While this isn\'t bad for many games, Starmade isn\'t a survival game, it\'s a sandbox/arcade game. Such a mechanic limits exploration and takes the game away from building and fighting to finding the nearest pump. Honestly that makes the game far less fun. That\'s not including the extra tediousness of having to get out of your ship and slip in some more fuel every few minutes. Adding fuel as you proposed is simply not fun and I don\'t see myself enjoying it.


I see two phases to this fuel system, when you first begin the game, fuel will be frustrating because there\'s no way you can produce nor buy it. Second phase is once you get a station, you can create an unlimited amount of fuel by hooking up a million solar panels to your homebase and fuel ceases to become a survival mechanic but rather a tedious step for ship travel. Again, I don\'t see it being very fun.



However, I do support fuel being used for warp travel only. Such a system doesn\'t interfere with building or fighting. Nor does it hamper exploring very much.

 

[Florrible]

Fuel would be a nice addition, but thrusters should only require minimal or none at all. Maybe make them optional, to increase the energy regen for some time(which would reduce te amount of fuel you have). Else, using it only for hyperspace/FTL would also be a good idea.

 

[John Sheridan]

A fair point above about not making fuel a boring requirement - which would happen if everyone make a solar panel farm out of their space station.....

...UNLESS.... your faction protected home base is disabled from placing energy generation, and ONLY non home-bases will let you add those blocks. NOW, that stops the element of infinite fuel generation with no risk - now it becomes scary as shit and you want to fly 100 sectors away or steal the station (can blow up faction modules if I am not mistaken on non home bases?). Wouldn\'t call this boring.

Starmade should have survival elements, that would make it more fun. It just has to be done carefully to not be too extreme, or too \"thin\".

Also I see no difficulty for scehama to add in a config line FUEL_REQUIRED = true / false. If false, power cells recharge without the use of fuel.

 

[BeefBacon]

Why not keep the current power setup and put fuel on top?

If solar power is free fuel then the current power blocks should be a step up from that - extremely expensive, moderately efficient sources of infinite power. Users of big ships can choose to either have massive aounts of solar panels, use fuel or invest huge amounts of money in getting safe, infinite energy.

 

[John Sheridan]

Explain how one keeps the current power setup and \"puts fuel on top\"? I dont think you have thought that out very well

 

[RedDwarfIV]

John, did you read his post all the way through? He explained that perfectly well. The power generator block would be kept but raised in price, whilst solar panels and fuel were cheaper alternatives.

Also, who says fuel couldn\'t be bought from shops?

Also, moose, I think you ignored my point about the Launcher having a game mode option on it, and how currently there is only a Sandbox game mode. If there were also an Economy mode, then fuel would be a great addition for it.

 

[Izikiel]

Hm, while this would be a little irritating, there are some elements of it that are appealing. For instance, wouldn\'t fuel explode? That would make it necessary to create a protected reactor, and provide another target besides the core. Definitely entertaining to watch a huge capital ship have internal explosions because you hit the fuel cells.

It would also restrict those huge ships, but it would also make having a carrier necessary for fighters, as they wouldn\'t have the fuel tanks for long trips.

I think it should be implemented, but not yet. There are other features that would need to be put in first (such as a survival game mode).

 

[Trollerbobman]

This would be better with a new gamemode, something called \"Survival mode\" somes to mind.