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Author Topic: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies  (Read 1609 times)

Nick XR

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Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« on: December 01, 2021, 11:21:09 AM »

When you're over cargo capacity, you consume supplies in excess, I like this because it's a self-stabilizing system (since supplies are in cargo, supplies go down fast and you get under the limit).

When you're over fuel capacity, your supply consumption is penalized, but this is not a self righting system because fuel is not stored in cargo.  I propose that when you're over your fuel limit fuel should instead "leak" fuel so this would also be a self-stabilizing system.

This is a minor problem/inconvenience with the current implementation since I salvage a station, see the red text in the lower right, figure it's a "too much cargo" warning (surprise, it's not), then I drive around in space a while and realize my supplies are getting consumed at an insane rate still and it's a "too much fuel" problem.

Feel free to tell me I should actually get some sleep if I can't be bothered to read messages anymore. :o

JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2021, 11:38:25 AM »

I do agree that some sort of better/more obvious warning for going over fuel or supply limits would be nice.  Doesn't need to literally stop play and bring up a window, but should at least magnify/highlight the tiny red tooltip showing player being over some limit.

But as for salvaging and getting too much fuel or cargo in general... player can always just dump cargo pods and stabilize their orbit (or don't if it's just a little cargo, go waste supplies exploring rest of system and then come back after).  The primary issue is the cargo pod stabilization cost, which I guess has a bug in it or just needed balancing, since patch notes (or maybe it was a Twitter post?) list reducing/flattening the growth curve for when a player is stabilizing cargo pods.  Plus, player has to go pick up the cargo pods eventually (roughly 1 cycle, IIRC), but in practice so long as the pods were stabilized, you can sometimes get lucky and still pick them up 2 or 3 cycles later (just sucks remembering where since no map notes function in vanilla, so have to remember where you left stuff, or tediously search each system map and hopefully get lucky, or get that notes mod).

I am a little unclear if unstabilized pods actually despawn following some random period of time after player has left system with the dumped pods, or only after drifting off of the system map (since NPC fleets seem to mostly ignore the pods, few times I've seen them "steal" pods it seem related to some mod interaction, maybe Nex?).  But only really relevant if you are too cheap/poor/lazy to stabilize pods...

So since average player can (and should) just dump excess cargo and fuel (stabilized or not), seems like making the system self righting would just punish newbs... can't have that!
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IonDragonX

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2021, 11:46:30 AM »

When you're over fuel capacity, your supply consumption is penalized, but this is not a self righting system because fuel is not stored in cargo.  I propose that when you're over your fuel limit fuel should instead "leak" fuel so this would also be a self-stabilizing system.
Or just block the AM tanks from ever exceeding max capacity. Ever. Because the fuel is anti-matter! You cannot even attempt to put more anti-matter into a super-specialized tank designed to contain that contradictory paradox.
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Nick XR

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2021, 05:48:36 PM »

I do agree that some sort of better/more obvious warning for going over fuel or supply limits would be nice.  Doesn't need to literally stop play and bring up a window, but should at least magnify/highlight the tiny red tooltip showing player being over some limit.

I think this is a different and very real problem that it's hard to tell with the UI just how low you are on supplies.  "Low" being How many days of supplies does the player have given the projected current repair costs and base burn rate .  This is especially brutal for new players because it's just not obvious until it's too late and it's a real enough problem someone made a mod to help with it.

JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2021, 10:40:59 PM »

I think this is a different and very real problem that it's hard to tell with the UI just how low you are on supplies.  "Low" being How many days of supplies does the player have given the projected current repair costs and base burn rate .  This is especially brutal for new players because it's just not obvious until it's too late and it's a real enough problem someone made a mod to help with it.

I mean, there is always that logistics mod... which now having finished reading the last part of your statement instead of skimming it, I see you actually already referenced:

Logistics Notifications

"10 su/day vs 510 days of supply" title="10 su/day vs 510 days of supply"

Download v1.3.3

This utility mod gives periodic notifications of your fleet's logistics in a format that is directly useful. For supplies, it shows the number of days until your supplies run out. For fuel, it shows the number of lightyears you can travel through hyperspace.

But yes, I agree, such a QoL mod shouldn't be necessary since it should just be in the vanilla game anyway, because any reasonable captain in such a fictionally hypothetical future would have access to such info.
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hydremajor

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2021, 03:36:05 AM »

Kinda wondering why excess fuel isn't "overflowing" into cargo space ?

maybe at a loss of effeciency like each unit of fuel in cargo takes two instead of one
« Last Edit: December 02, 2021, 03:38:10 AM by hydremajor »
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LinWasTaken

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2021, 04:08:07 AM »

When you're over fuel capacity, your supply consumption is penalized, but this is not a self righting system because fuel is not stored in cargo.  I propose that when you're over your fuel limit fuel should instead "leak" fuel so this would also be a self-stabilizing system.

I think this is a great QoL change.
Keeping in mind that fuel is ALOT cheaper then supply it would also effect early game.

JUDGE! slowpersun

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2021, 04:15:22 AM »

Kinda wondering why excess fuel isn't "overflowing" into cargo space ?

maybe at a loss of effeciency like each unit of fuel in cargo takes two instead of one

IonDragonX is entirely correct, it is anti-matter, at least as stated in the game.  I guess the implication is that cramming too much genie into the bottle stresses its containment system, requiring excess maintenance.  But this is definitely not explained anywhere in the game as far as I am aware.  So if you have a better BS lore idea, please, do share it.

But having antimatter overflow into the cargo hold would have explosive results!  Or at least require generating more BS than is worth a dev's time trying to otherwise backstop lore...
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SafariJohn

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2021, 04:40:25 AM »

The fuel isn't straight antimatter - it is antimatter in tiny little pellets. The pellets are transported like a liquid.

Quote
Standard starship fuel on which interstellar civilization relies. Composed of antimatter trapped in fullerene shells mixed in a semi-stable foam with heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Fairly safe.
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IonDragonX

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2021, 05:15:44 AM »

The fuel isn't straight antimatter - it is antimatter in tiny little pellets. The pellets are transported like a liquid.
Quote
Standard starship fuel on which interstellar civilization relies. Composed of antimatter trapped in fullerene shells mixed in a semi-stable foam with heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Fairly safe.
If it was fairly safe like that, it would not turn into orbital bombardments just by dropping it; not without requiring specialized equipment to transform it into a bomb.
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hydremajor

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2021, 05:36:50 AM »

In my example the anti-matter is stored in a special device that takes a lot of room but CAN keep the fuel safe in cargo hold

think jerry cans in a car trunk and thats the overall idea
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IonDragonX

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2021, 05:54:45 AM »

In my example the anti-matter is stored in a special device that takes a lot of room but CAN keep the fuel safe in cargo hold
think jerry cans in a car trunk and thats the overall idea
Which would be fine if all fuel took up cargo capacity and there was no fuel capacity stat at all. There would be no need for tanker ships, either.
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hydremajor

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2021, 06:26:58 AM »

In my example the anti-matter is stored in a special device that takes a lot of room but CAN keep the fuel safe in cargo hold
think jerry cans in a car trunk and thats the overall idea
Which would be fine if all fuel took up cargo capacity and there was no fuel capacity stat at all. There would be no need for tanker ships, either.

As I said it would do that at a reduced efficiency

for example 1 unit of fuel would cost 2 units of cargo to store
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SafariJohn

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Re: Being over fuel capacity should leak fuel, not consume supplies
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2021, 06:28:49 AM »

I like the idea of being over your fuel capacity draining fuel because losing a ton of supplies over it is annoying and as gotten me in trouble.

I think the fuel drain should be pretty slow because otherwise there's no point to going over, given how long we typically spend in real space vs hyper. Yeah, that will probably cause people to keep their fuel a little over max, but there are still speed penalties with that so it should be okay.
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