Fuel Use

[GrandpaTrout]

The new fuel using features for Unstable Space are designed to limit the players exploration of new star systems. And give the player a few more worries as a long distance trader. As you know from the design document, all player ships and wingmen now have limited fuel capacities. This gives them a limited number of jumps they can make before refueling.

Something that we have never talked about is how far should player ships be able to go before they need to refuel? How many jumps? How many days of operation should a ship be able to support before it needs to tank back up?

We might want to have different classes of ships have different answers. For instance, a SNRV might have only 1 or 2 jumps capacity. But a long distance freighter would have 4 or more. The longest run in Middle States is about 12 systems.

A 2 system capcity lets a ship jump into a system, and jump back home. No military ship should have less than 2. But we might want to give Patcoms less fuel than corvettes (one reason a corvette might be a preferred ship) and both of those might have less fuel than a tug.

Our current feature set supports having ships with different fuel capacities. So a player might purchase an extended range vessel with extra fuel. Do we want more wingman choices? Where would these extended fuel wingmen hang out?

Another set of related issues is what stations support refueling? Do we want all stations to allow the player to refuel? Or should it be limited to only a few types of stations? For instance, we might only want the player to refuel at Waystations (where most ships fuel), police and navy depots, and pirate bases. This would make life more interesting for a player who has made some factions angry. And it is important to sort out, because we might have to add/change the stations that are placed in each system.

Also note the player can hire large capacity tanker ships. A pirate or long distance freighter might hire one to allow raids or cargo hauls into hostile space.

Opinions? Feelings on how tough life should be for our players?

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