Why isn't fuel stored as hydrogen fuel in your cargo?

[TheStonefox]

In Frontier, you'd have to buy hydrogen (or military) fuel from the market and for each tonne you held would mean your tanks were "that" full.

Why did they not make ED this way? It would have been better in my opinion to have to purchase hydrogen fuel canisters that take up cargo space.

Reasons are:

1: If you run out of fuel someone can bring you more cargo of hydrogen fuel to keep you going
2: When you use 1t of fuel the hydrogen fuel could turn to a fuel canister, which could be filled up by fuel scooping. You could also buy fuel canisters and go fuel scooping then sell the hydrogen fuel back to a station (another way of making money)

If cargo room is an issue then just increase the number of cargo space, in frontier, something like an imperial trader had about 500t of cargo space so it worked just fine as a mechanic.

Discuss...

 

[Poy]

That would make sense, and when scooping hydrogen fuel it would go in priority in your fuel tank THEN in your cargo hold.

 

[Mike Evans]

We didn't want cargo bay size to determine the maximum range of a ship. Giving fuel to stranded ships is something we have another idea for anyway.

 

[TheStonefox]

It could also pave the way again for Military grade hyper drives

We already have biowaste as a product. Radioactive waste could come back!

For each tonne of military fuel you use it becomes 1t of radioactive waste.

But military drives are smaller and jump further so it's about the trade off! (probably can't scoop military fuel either?)

They had some awesome mechanics in Frontier, I dunno why they didn't bring them over to ED

 

[StayFrosty]

We didn't want cargo bay size to determine the maximum range of a ship. Giving fuel to stranded ships is something we have another idea for anyway.

I can only concur, that would make large trading ships the best ships for exploring.

And that wouldn't make much sense.

 

[TheStonefox]

We didn't want cargo bay size to determine the maximum range of a ship. Giving fuel to stranded ships is something we have another idea for anyway.

It worked well in Frontier though, it would also have meant you could fuel scoop for a living

I'm interested to see your plans for helping out stranded ships though! I'm sure it will be good

 

[TheStonefox]

We didn't want cargo bay size to determine the maximum range of a ship. Giving fuel to stranded ships is something we have another idea for anyway.

FYI Mike, as I have your attention I also had an idea about assassination missions, I'd really appreciate some insight from the design team to see if it's something that would be considered

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=89574

(cheeky cross post I know )

 

[Andargor]

We didn't want cargo bay size to determine the maximum range of a ship. Giving fuel to stranded ships is something we have another idea for anyway.

What about allowing fuel trading and determine the price of fuel that way? I'd like to have a tanker, of sorts...

EDIT: And having just come back from a 60,000 LY trip, my issue was much more FSD than fuel, range-wise. I don't know what having a bigger tank would have changed, except a few less stops.

 

[TriumphANT]

In Frontier, you'd have to buy hydrogen (or military) fuel from the market and for each tonne you held would mean your tanks were "that" full.

Why did they not make ED this way? It would have been better in my opinion to have to purchase hydrogen fuel canisters that take up cargo space.

Reasons are:

1: If you run out of fuel someone can bring you more cargo of hydrogen fuel to keep you going
2: When you use 1t of fuel the hydrogen fuel could turn to a fuel canister, which could be filled up by fuel scooping. You could also buy fuel canisters and go fuel scooping then sell the hydrogen fuel back to a station (another way of making money)

If cargo room is an issue then just increase the number of cargo space, in frontier, something like an imperial trader had about 500t of cargo space so it worked just fine as a mechanic.

Discuss...

IRL a petrol tanker cannot refill itself from the tanker safely if it runs out of petrol. It has a petrol tank, and a huge tanker of petrol "cargo". Sorry, it ain't gonna work. You cannot syphon in zero G.

 

[TheStonefox]

IRL a petrol tanker cannot refill itself from the tanker safely if it runs out of petrol. It has a petrol tank, and a huge tanker of petrol "cargo". Sorry, it ain't gonna work. You cannot syphon in zero G.

Hey...this is the future! We can have hoverboards and power laces!

 

[Morbad]

A fuel tank and a cargo hold aren't the same thing. Fuel tank is likely a reinforced pressure vessel with fixed and armored fuel lines going to it. Retrofitting cargo space to serve as a fuel tank, while not implausible, is probably a major and largely permanent modification to the ship.

IRL a petrol tanker cannot refill itself from the tanker safely if it runs out of petrol.

If it's hauling fuel it's engine can burn it can, it just takes a lot of work.

 

[Harbinger]

EDIT: And having just come back from a 60,000 LY trip, my issue was much more FSD than fuel, range-wise. I don't know what having a bigger tank would have changed, except a few less stops.

Optimising your jump range is all about the quality of your FSD and reducing your mass as much as you possibly can with the rest of your loadout. If you carried additional fuel as a cargo you would be decreasing your jump range due to the extra mass. This would equate to many more jumps being required on such a huge voyage so the time saved scooping would easily be cancelled out by your newly reduced jump range.

 

[TheStonefox]

A fuel tank and a cargo hold aren't the same thing. Fuel tank is likely a reinforced pressure vessel with fixed and armored fuel lines going to it. Retrofitting cargo space to serve as a fuel tank, while not implausible, is probably a major and largely permanent modification to the ship.

The "Fuel Canisters" that contained the hydrogen fuel would be the thing that was reinforced (maybe like fuel cells in cars?!) these would go into a special grid in your cargo hold (maybe an internal mount that would limit the number of fuel cells a cargo hold can take?)

Hey....I'm just the ideas guy, I invented a time machine, you just work out the details of how it works!

 

[tristancliffe]

I think of it as the difference between crude oil (cheap per gallon) and diesel oil (relationship expensive per gallon). The hydrogen fuel cargo is pre-treatment, and can't be used as ship fuel. That justifies it in my head.

 

[Tequila]

....military grade jump drives.... Yes please....!!!! More range !!!!

 

[garym]

That was a noob mistake I made when I started playing. I bought lots of hydrogen fuel for my cargo hold as I thought it would be needed to fill up the tank during flight.

 

[Andargor]

Jump range is all about the FSD and reducing your mass as much as you possibly can with the rest of your loadout. If you carried additional fuel as a cargo you would be decreasing your jump range due to the extra mass. This would equate to many more jumps being required on such a huge voyage so the time saved scooping would easily be cancelled out by your newly reduced jump range.

Exactly, hence I don't understand why fuel is seen as a limiting factor. On my next trip I'll take a bigger fuel scoop and a smaller tank. *boggles*

 

[Shovy365]

In Frontier, you'd have to buy hydrogen (or military) fuel from the market and for each tonne you held would mean your tanks were "that" full.

Why did they not make ED this way? It would have been better in my opinion to have to purchase hydrogen fuel canisters that take up cargo space.

Reasons are:

1: If you run out of fuel someone can bring you more cargo of hydrogen fuel to keep you going
2: When you use 1t of fuel the hydrogen fuel could turn to a fuel canister, which could be filled up by fuel scooping. You could also buy fuel canisters and go fuel scooping then sell the hydrogen fuel back to a station (another way of making money)

If cargo room is an issue then just increase the number of cargo space, in frontier, something like an imperial trader had about 500t of cargo space so it worked just fine as a mechanic.

Discuss...

Let me answer this in real life terms for you. When you go to a gas station to refuel your car, do you buy the fuel in canisters, place them in the trunk of your car and then that fuel is used to power the engine because .... magics? No. The fuel goes in the fuel tank which is then pumped into the engine to run the thing, so the trunk of your car is used to carry stuff. In real life there's fuel tanks, same as ED. In real life we have trunks in our cars, in ED we have cargo space. Not the same thing, not the same function.

True it could be said that we could carry some extra fuel cans in our cargo spaces so we could jump around more, but that would just add weight to the ship so we'd actualy jump less. That's why we have fuel scoops, essentialy unlimited range as long as you dont do like 10 jumps without scooping and suddenly realise you're running on fumes with both reservoir and main tank empty, but that would be your fault for getting to that point, not Frontier's

 

[Captain Breton]

....military grade jump drives.... Yes please....!!!! More range !!!!

Don't you remember all those "BAN THE MILITARY DRIVE" charity adverts on the Bulletin Boards in Frontier?
They totally succeeded, why the Military Drive is no longer commercially attainable (and we've got to suffer these newer tech Frame-shift drives)

 

[schuesseled]

I can only concur, that would make large trading ships the best ships for exploring.

And that wouldn't make much sense.

Kinda makes perfect sense, but whatever its a game.

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Let me answer this in real life terms for you. When you go to a gas station to refuel your car, do you buy the fuel in canisters, place them in the trunk of your car and then that fuel is used to power the engine because .... magics?

Because when you run out you fill up the tank from said canisters. Why would it have to be magical.