Right, that's sort of what I was referring to when talking about distress calls. I don't know about guaranteeing a refueling fleet, though. The feel of that doesn't mesh with how I see the Sector - that kind of safety net implies a level of organization well beyond what's there. Maybe deep in Hegemony space; certainly not while exploring somewhere. A fuel "delivery" via a pirate fleet coming in weapons hot seems more in character. As does an eventual "game over" screen if noone answers your call.
As to gradually getting fuel for free... it's a possibility, but that sounds pretty tricky to get right in terms of the OP cost. I'm also not sure that I like the idea of an exploration fleet being self-sufficient in fuel. To me, that could well kill the feel of exploration by eliminating one of the major risks.
I'm totally fine with that- taking your chances on who, exactly, answers the call would be very entertaining.
For example, placing a call to lure in Pirates would be very amusing, if we were allowed to do so at will; it'd be even funnier if a friendly showed up and said something like, "Hey, you guys already have plenty of fuel... why am I here, exactly?" and if a military fleet answered the call (they usually shouldn't, imo, unless there's nobody else around) and the player has fuel, then they should be pretty suspicious, perhaps even knock down player rep a bit. After all, that kind of behavior is what a
pirate would do, and it would feel appropriate to the setting.
If the AI also obeyed the same rules (or roughly, given the consequences) then players could answer emergency hails and do fuel deliveries. Which leads into a whole 'nother topic, communications, but that's something for Suggestions.
On the fuel mod, I think that it doesn't need to give
much fuel per day to be balanced yet useful. Depends on how much fuel is used per day per ship. Right now, it's all over the place, which is a particular area where the balance probably doesn't need that much fuzz.
Like others have pointed out, it was one of the most popular pieces of ship equipment in EV for very good reasons- running out of fuel was frequently un-Fun. There's nothing fun at all about slowly drifting around, powerless to change our destination; it's the kind of game event that needs adequate warning (I'd give it an audio cue, not just text splash) and when it happens, we should have some options.
Also, if the AI has to obey the fuel rules, it needs a good way to get out of a hole occasionally, otherwise players can manipulate enemy fleets to waste their fuel while chasing them and strand them in Hyperspace, amongst other exploits. Right now, endlessly kiting enemy fleets to ram them into other fleets and thereby weaken them is just a minor toy- add the ability to strand them or even send them into a sun to be "crispy critters" gives things a very different dynamic.
Yeah, definitely considering something like that, though maybe not quite to that extent. It's difficult to get something like that to look good alongside things that also show up in normal space, and that ideally also needs to serve as a combat background.
Maybe tone the real-world objects with special values- planets get thrown to a contrasting color, say, yellows, ships to greens?
From a visual-design standpoint, I figure that if mouse-over to tell you that you're pointing at a Desert world is still working, people can work out what to do even if given a little less explicit information. I feel like the current glowy outlines are a bit thick and if the planets orbit, potentially very distracting, where a cleaner depiction of where the gravity wells are that distracts less from the experience might be helpful.
If nothing else, I'd go for a cooler palette on the big purple glow- tone it down some and push it further into blue. It's good how it works as a clear signal that we're reaching a destination, but it's so bright and showy that it is distracting- the eye gets dragged to the bright edges, rather than the planets- and it will make it hard to make out fleets flying over it, imo. A little adjustment there may nail it.