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[FooF]

The jump from Cruisers to Capitals in fuel usage is pretty steep right now, though it's been that way for awhile. I believe the intent is keep Capitals "at home" until needed rather than flying around willy-nilly with them. After all, you don't take a modern carrier, with its massive logistical cost, just out for a spin. That said, the jump from Cruiser to Capital is disproportionately high relative to the other jumps, on average over 3x higher. Frigates and Destroyers are fine, IMO, but Cruisers feel disproportionately cheap relative to Frigates/Destroyers and Capitals seem disproportionately expensive relative to everything else.

My suggestion is to have a flat +1 Fuel/ly added to Cruisers, with a few exceptions, and have a -2 Fuel/ly deducted from Capitals, with a few exceptions. Low-tech ships already have a fuel premium on them, so these would remain.

I believe the Falcon and Apogee should retain their 3 fuel/ly rating as one is a light cruiser and the other is an exploration ship likely geared for efficiency. For the Capitals, the two battlecruisers (Conquest and Odyssey) would go down to 7 fuel/ly while the average capital is reduced to 8 fuel/ly and the two fuel hogs (Onslaught and Legion) would go down to 12 fuel/ly (remaining 50% less fuel efficient compared to other capitals). This makes the "average" cruiser twice that of a destroyer and the "average" capital twice that of a cruiser. Because of a few low-tech fuel hogs, the curve for fuel usage would be much smoother, rather than the extreme jump on the high end.

The new curve would look something like (current fuel costs in parenthesis):
Mercury/Hermes: 0.5 (0.5)
Most Frigates: 1 (1)
Most Destroyers: 2 (2)
Enforcer: 3 (3)
Falcon/Apogee: 3 (3)
Most Cruisers: 4 (3)
Mora: 5 (4)
Dominator: 6 (5)
Battlecruisers: 7 (10)
Most Capitals: 8 (10)
Tug: 10 (10)
Onslaught/Legion: 12 (15)

Overall, I would estimate that fuel usage would go up slightly in the mid-game, due to cruisers costing more, but even out by end-game. Carrying a capital around with you would sting a little less but you still wouldn't want to go on a survey mission with one. Of course, capitals having such high fuel costs may be an intentional money sink in the end-game, which there are too few of.

[TaLaR]

Fuel usage is the only reason I seriously consider mostly Cruiser and smaller ships fleet over Capital spam. While Capitals are in fact enormous fuel hogs, that may be a necessary balancing factor.

Onslaught might need a reduction though, it's not the ultimate Capital anymore. And 50% fuel inefficiency matters more than 20% lower supply cost vs Paragon.

[Megas]

With those changes, I would probably spam capitals at endgame.  Currently, I bring two combat capitals (plus Atlas and Prometheus) and most of the rest of my ships are cruisers.

If Onslaught gets a reduction, so should Legion.

[FooF]

Trip-report after changing ship_data.csv to match proposed changes:

I had an end-game save with the following REDACTED-hunting fleet (I did not have the Nav 2 Fuel perk):

Paragon
Onslaught
Legion
Dominator
Mora
Eagle XIV
Heron
Colossus
2 Buffalo
4 Phaeton
3 Dram

Under current system:
73 fuel/light year
996 Fuel to Corvus (from where I was at time of save)
-14 light years away
-19 days

Under proposed system:
70 fuel/light year
955 Fuel

So...it was pretty much a wash, but that was what I was expecting. It was an overall fuel drop of ~5%.

If you went "all capital" at end-game, you'd see closer to a 20% drop in fuel costs but at that point, supplies and CR use would be the primary limiting factor. If you only ever used Cruisers, fuel prices would increase by about 20% (but would still be far cheaper than going all capitals). Overall, it would have no effect on Frigate/Destroyer fleet fuel efficiency, a slight bump up when you add a cruiser or two, and slight bump down if you add a capital. It would all even out, for the most part.

As far as Onslaught/Legion goes, there's a trend among the low-tech "bruisers" to have above-average fuel costs. Enforcer, Dominator, Onslaught, and Legion all have 50% more fuel cost relative to the "average" in their class. I retained this in the proposed changes. I think it's part of the balance of the low CR-use/supplies to recover that low-tech enjoys versus the other ships.