Isn't that determined by the FSD in combination with total mass, rather than the fuel tank?
Why isn't fuel stored as hydrogen fuel in your cargo?
- Thread starter TheStonefox
- Start date
Yes that holds true in real life, you just pull over, grab the canisters and then just pour into the gas tank. But i dare you to do that in ED where we can't leave our ships (yet), we cant even get up from our chair !!!. Hence the "magics" part.
The bigger question is whether or not the hydrogen fuel is being used in an ion engine or in a chemical rocket.
If it's as an ion engine, which is what I would expect, then the amount of fuel is not as important as the amount of power you're able to pump into the engine. Simply put, an ion engine's primary thrust comes from an ion striking a magnetised plate, as a posed to a chemical rocket where thrust is generated by particles being expelled out of a nozzle.
That, therefore, would mean a ship with a 6 ton fuel tank could potentially travel further than a ship (of equal mass) with a 16 ton fuel tank if the first ship's power supply is able to rout more power to the engines than the second. The more power used, the greater the magnetic strength of the magnetised plate, the greater the pull on the ions, the greater the thrust generated.
If it's as an ion engine, which is what I would expect, then the amount of fuel is not as important as the amount of power you're able to pump into the engine. Simply put, an ion engine's primary thrust comes from an ion striking a magnetised plate, as a posed to a chemical rocket where thrust is generated by particles being expelled out of a nozzle.
That, therefore, would mean a ship with a 6 ton fuel tank could potentially travel further than a ship (of equal mass) with a 16 ton fuel tank if the first ship's power supply is able to rout more power to the engines than the second. The more power used, the greater the magnetic strength of the magnetised plate, the greater the pull on the ions, the greater the thrust generated.
While I gett that, it would be nice to equip extra fuel and ammo bays if you so wanted. Sacrificing internal slots for more fuel/more ammo while, obviously, also aadding weight.
That is exactly the same thing as saying cargo bay size should determine total jump range. You could sacrifice internal slots to carry more racks then stock them full of cargo, thus getting more jump range.
Harbinger
Volunteer Moderator
A bigger fuel scoop is a must but I'd suggest sticking with the best fuel tank available because the fuel tank has no mass, only the fuel contained within it has mass. Just aim to half/quarter fill your tank rather than setting a hard limit by buying a smaller tank. This still allows the flexibility to fully refuel when in regions of space that may be sparse when it comes to scoopable stars.
Wanted to customise a Hauler a couple of nights ago, and thought I would move the fuel tank from a class 2 to a class 1 slot (the route I had was short enough). It let me buy a class 1 tank for the class 2 slot. It did not let me swap the class 1 tank anywhere else. I also could not buy a class 3 tank to put in an empty class 3 slot.
If I am allowed to purchase a smaller tank, what is the reasoning behind not allowing me to switch that smaller tank to a different slot? I completely get the "one fuel tank per ship" limitation, what I would like to be able to do is choose which slot (and thus what sized tank) to put it in; using a class 3 slot for more jumps before refueling (and a heavier ship) but sacrificing 8 or more tonnes cargo space to do it sounds like the same tradeoffs we do when choosing what size shields / cargo / scanners etc. to put in.
Is the tank slot fixed on each ship that only that slot can be used for a fuel tank, and that slot can only be used for a fuel tank?
A bigger fuel scoop is a must but I'd suggest sticking with the best fuel tank available because the fuel tank has no mass, only the fuel contained within it has mass. Just aim to half/quarter fill your tank rather than setting a hard limit by buying a smaller tank. This still allows the flexibility to fully refuel when in regions of space that may be sparse when it comes to scoopable stars.
That's true, but in practice the system-to-system time is very important since you make hundreds of jumps. Having to manually fiddle with fuel levels just takes time, and there is the variability in jump range depending on fuel level which muddles the waters. It is much easier to have a smaller fuel tank, because other than the galaxy fringes, there's always a star nearby to refuel at, especially near the core.
Harbinger
Volunteer Moderator
NumptyScrub, The fuel tank is a critical component which has a maximum size like the frame shift drive, power plant, scanner, thrusters etc. It's not something that can be swapped out to an internal compartment. The fuel tank that comes fitted as standard on a vessel is always the biggest tank that vessel can handle, you can only downgrade it to lower sized tanks as Andargor and myself are discussing the pros and cons of.
Last edited:
Like The other Elite games did?
I don't see your point here. That is what we have been saying: weight determines range, and not fuel amount, except in some rare cases (fringes of the galaxy with good stars few and far between). So why not allow fuel in cargo? And allow us to sell it?
EDIT: or have the fuel tank be an internal compartment?
Last edited:
That doesn't make sense to me. I thought jump range was dependent on FSD drive and total mass. Your extra ammo/fuel would mass something regardless of where it happens to be stored. So putting 20t of fuel in there instead of a 20t system would have zero impact on jump range surely, it would merely change what's stored where? Unless you're saying fuel and ammo doesn't have any mass?
If I took a strong rope and bolted 100t of cannisters to my hull (how cool would that be?!) I would expect my jump range to decrease by whatever factor that 100t would imply. If I wanted to replace my cargo bay with an "ammo bay" why shouldn't I be able to do that? An ammo bay might have it's own inherent mass (e.g the gear to load/transfer ammo) plus the mass of any ammo you stuff in it.
Add an extra fuel bay the same way. The "fuel bay" masses two tonnes, plus the mass of any fuel you stuff in it. So a fuel bay, like a cargo bay, would scale with category.
- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -
Also.. when we talk "jump range" are we talking range per jump, or total range for multiple jumps?
A fuel bay would decrease the former, while increasing the latter.
Come to think of it I think one of the ships in star citizen has an autoloader built into it for fast-loading missiles. I'd like to think elite's big, complicated, mostly automated ships could have an autoloader module installed in an internal compartment in order to store extra ammo. It's not nice to run out of bullets and have to back out of a war zone, so at the risk of increasing your ship's rebuy cost slightly and a boot full of ammo's worth of credits, why not? Can't see it hurting anyone unless people regularly get into stalemates that come down to who runs dry first. It's usually who runs out of shield cells first.
I like all these ideas, I don't see the problem with carrying the extra ammo or fuel,, Good fuel scoops can fill the tank in seconds any way.
Plus I think it's a great idea that you could make some money scooping fuel.
Scooping carries its own dangers.
It sounds a lot better and more interesting than the current mining gameplay. :S
Plus I think it's a great idea that you could make some money scooping fuel.
Scooping carries its own dangers.
It sounds a lot better and more interesting than the current mining gameplay. :S
I would prefer to have discrete bays like a secondary fuel bunker or ammo bay then to have additional resources stored in a general purpose cargo rack. This would mean ship could be more specialized (Fighters having more ammo, Explorers more fuel, haulers more cargo).
Think of those tanker trucks you see on the road. Their gas tanks are not connected to the big tank of gasoline they're pulling.
I've quite excited to see this.
I've quite excited to see this.
But with the sacrifice of one internal compartment (which translates to sacrificing a small amount of cargo), you can currently have unlimited jump range, since you get a fuel scoop...
I prefer it this way. The Frontier approach just makes cargo space too important. Was the same with shield generators etc. You can put all sorts of stuff on a big empty ship but you can't just turn it in to a destroyer or aircraft carrier. It's not too much of a stretch to believe that fuel has to go in a fuel tank and you can't just get a can of hyperdrive fuel and tip it in the tank. If you fit a dedicated refuelling system that would be another matter, and I do think that will be a good addition.
I like how the fuel works in ED, but it would be good to have a tanker module that acts as a secondary fuel tank and from which you could refuel other ships. There's a lot of untapped gameplay potential at the moment due to a lack of interdependency between players/ships. I'm hoping a lot of this kind of thing will be developed once the wings stuff is in.