Food has a key distinction from supplies: you won't find edible food in a 100 year old wreck, or even a 10 year old wreck. I suspect food doesn't survive an exploding ship very well either. There's also differences in price and where it's produced, but that's less important.
Aha, that's a very good point, as far as what makes it different. I'm not sure that's a good thing, though - part of the design is that you can find more stuff to keep you going if your run is at least moderately successful. It's not a hard timer but a reserve you can refill by doing well, so you're not forced to go back until you've gotten a good haul. Or failed miserably, I suppose.
Whoops! I didn't mean to imply you can't find
any food while salvaging. Just not enough to keep going perpetually, except maybe for the smallest fleets. Scuttling should probably turn up a little bit of food, too, (looted from the crew's quarters
) just to be safe.
I'd like fuel, and running out of it, to be something you're almost always concerned about.
I think my point of view is that being concerned about running out of fuel is fun, but being almost always concerned about fuel is not.
picking up a new ship when you're out on the fringes factoring into fuel costs is imo a good thing. Just, more things to worry about, more corners to try to cut if you want to get back with that nice new ship, and so on.
I feel this suggestion gives the player almost exactly the same concerns, except the game is up-front about it instead of "Ha! So close to getting back. Enjoy the wait!"
If fuel costs were so fixed that range was always memorized and never messed up, that would almost by definition mean that it wasn't an interesting mechanic. Which I think is what you're getting at with the bathwater etc.
You are correct, I definitely don't want easy perfect play. In fact, "perfect" play being impossible is a-ok by me. I don't think I'd even mind some hyperspace terrains eating fuel when most don't so long as they were (generally) an optional risk-reward type thing.
in this case, a well-known, fixed range
The entire point of the analogy was that, in regards to the player's memory, the range is
not fixed and is
not well-known. If you stopped me randomly while I was playing and asked me how far I could fly in hyper from my current spot — I couldn't tell you. I would
have to consult the fuel range UI. If you asked me how much adding or removing some random ship would change my range, I couldn't tell you without sitting down and running the numbers.
Got a bit ranty there, sorry. Maybe we should do a poll on how frequently people use the fuel range indicator.
Suggestion: Remove the color fill on the fuel range UI because it hurts a bit to look at. I think the two circles are good enough.
Another Suggestion: Explicitly call out in-game how far across the squares are on the map. I think that would help with off-hand estimation of fuel use and travel time.
My end goal is to convince one of us the other's argument is right regarding fuel. I don't know whether that will be you or me!
If we could leave ships Mothballed in stable orbits
I did not realize that wasn't possible when I started this thread. I had assumed it could be done because it seemed like one of those no-brainer things once the game got derelicts and cargo pods.
I strongly suspect 1 unit of cargo is actually 100 tons rather than 1 ton of material, for what it's worth.
That sounds much more accurate. I'd say units are also a measure of volume, though that's probably not enough to properly justify 1 unit of food = 1 ton of food. Might be enough to *** it, though, if needed.
Fuel and supplies are all we need we don’t need a third resource to keep track of
Then please just say that next time instead of dancing around the issue. Personally, I don't think it would be a big deal because food goes down slowly and the consumption rate never spikes like it can for supplies.