Greatly reduced fuel price

[BrewerGeorge]

Great change, IMO. Fuels should be dirt cheap, and it should cost the same as the the salable commodity itself. In terms of opportunity cost, gathering fuel with a scoop used to be the most profitable thing a large ship could do, which was absolutely crazy. It was badly, badly broken before; now it's internally consistent. It's not about being easier or harder, it's about being correct or incorrect.

And "Cheap" is relative. Don't underestimate the value of the credit just because players tend to have a lot of them. That 110 Cr for a ton of hydrogen also buys a ton of grain. A ton of grain is enough food to feed a person for a full year.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

...
Same holds true fuel: while I commend the move to let fuel cost the same for all ships, the current prices are just to low.

Our ships' fuel is the most common element in the galaxy and we can gather it for free just be spending a bit of capital on a fuel scoop. My explorer Asp can gather a Ton of fuel every 2 seconds. Supply is effectively infinite and easy to obtain, why should it be expensive?

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Having fuel cost money makes perfect sense, yes. Having it cost a lot more for a big ship than a little one, makes no sense at all, when it was the same stuff.

Fuel was a funny one in the DDF. The original suggestion (which had usage in integer values of fuel) got soundly rejected by the DDF. The final proposal, as I remember it, had different 'grades' of fuel that were more or less efficient. Fill 'er up with cheap fuel, and you didn't go so well. Put more expensive fuel in and the mix got better and so did the performance. Compared to lots of important stuff that has still not appeared, all thet is definitely 'icing on the cake'. What we have now is perfectly adequate, though some form of fuel transfer to help stranded CMDRs would be good.

 

[Dommarraa]

Might be realistic, but is utterly pointless imho. If you can't afford the fuel, you don't have enough money for the ship. I often run at a loss in any ship I own, I have sufficient cash to cover it. At other times I make a healthy profit. Complaints about it are were whiney. Demands to always do any activity at a profit are spurious and whiney.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Having fuel cost money makes perfect sense, yes. Having it cost a lot more for a big ship than a little one, makes no sense at all, when it was the same stuff.

Fuel was a funny one in the DDF. The original suggestion (which had usage in integer values of fuel) got soundly rejected by the DDF. The final proposal, as I remember it, had different 'grades' of fuel that were more or less efficient. Fill 'er up with cheap fuel, and you didn't go so well. Put more expensive fuel in and the mix got better and so did the performance. Compared to lots of important stuff that has still not appeared, all thet is definitely 'icing on the cake'. What we have now is perfectly adequate, though some form of fuel transfer to help stranded CMDRs would be good.

Different grade of fuel might come in when we will scoop gas giants. Currently we just know shop fuel and star fuel (essentially the same).

I start to see your point, and seems there will be positive net value from this change.

 

[Soda Popinski]

Might be realistic, but is utterly pointless imho. If you can't afford the fuel, you don't have enough money for the ship. I often run at a loss in any ship I own, I have sufficient cash to cover it. At other times I make a healthy profit. Complaints about it are were whiney. Demands to always do any activity at a profit are spurious and whiney.

Well that's just making something difficult for the sake of making it difficult. It makes no logical sense. Just make the FSD module degrade faster and need repair more often to keep the costs about the same.

 

[Arubeto]

Great change, IMO. Fuels should be dirt cheap, and it should cost the same as the the salable commodity itself. In terms of opportunity cost, gathering fuel with a scoop used to be the most profitable thing a large ship could do, which was absolutely crazy. It was badly, badly broken before; now it's internally consistent. It's not about being easier or harder, it's about being correct or incorrect.

And "Cheap" is relative. Don't underestimate the value of the credit just because players tend to have a lot of them. That 110 Cr for a ton of hydrogen also buys a ton of grain. A ton of grain is enough food to feed a person for a full year.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -



Our ships' fuel is the most common element in the galaxy and we can gather it for free just be spending a bit of capital on a fuel scoop. My explorer Asp can gather a Ton of fuel every 2 seconds. Supply is effectively infinite and easy to obtain, why should it be expensive?

Hm, your reasoning is very sound and from a lore-wise perspective it makes sense.

I admit I was only looking at this change from a game play perspective, from where it makes buying fuel looking a little irrelevant.

But thinking about it I have to admit you convinced me. Perhaps low fuel prices are indeed not as bad as I thought.

 

[AJ_Impy]

Absolutely delighted. No longer is a fuel scoop a necessity on trade grinds.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Parallel threads

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Great change, IMO. Fuels should be dirt cheap, and it should cost the same as the the salable commodity itself. In terms of opportunity cost, gathering fuel with a scoop used to be the most profitable thing a large ship could do, which was absolutely crazy. It was badly, badly broken before; now it's internally consistent. It's not about being easier or harder, it's about being correct or incorrect.

And "Cheap" is relative. Don't underestimate the value of the credit just because players tend to have a lot of them. That 110 Cr for a ton of hydrogen also buys a ton of grain. A ton of grain is enough food to feed a person for a full year.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -



Our ships' fuel is the most common element in the galaxy and we can gather it for free just be spending a bit of capital on a fuel scoop. My explorer Asp can gather a Ton of fuel every 2 seconds. Supply is effectively infinite and easy to obtain, why should it be expensive?

Fair points well made

 

[Rall]

That's so cheap they might as well go back to free fuel. It no longer plays any significant part in the game.

My fuel was already free, the only differance is now it's not a time sink.

 

[Rall]

Fuel Scoops are still useful for "small" trips(100Ly) on ships with small Fuel Tanks, because no one wants to dock to refuel at that one outpost 1000Ls away.

If your traveling anywhere in a Viper, Clipper or Fe De Lance you'll still be packing a fuel scoop.

On the other side of the coin, the 32ton tank in my Python is now actually usefull. I can take advantage of the ships endurance now, and make long distance trade runs in the fraction of the time.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I guess fuel mechanism just made big ship maintenance tedious. Btw, fuel scoop is not useless, it was never planned to use it as way to deter fuel costs.

 

[Dommarraa]

Well that's just making something difficult for the sake of making it difficult. It makes no logical sense. Just make the FSD module degrade faster and need repair more often to keep the costs about the same.

Yes, it's called a game mechanic. They never "make sence". It was put in to balance the game, tinkering with game mechanics in a response to whining rarely balances the game any better. If the devs genuinely thought it was a worthy rebalance, then I am content. If it was a response to whinging, then less so. We will never know.

 

[zynaps]

It didn't really make any sense before though. It was an arbitrary tax for owning bigger ships. Fuel costs in smaller ships was just as low as it is now.

In fact fuel makes little sense at all in a game like this. I take it that given FDEV's love for semi-realism that our power cores are actually fusion reactors. If so, the amount of fuel we fill up our ships with would last for YEARS.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Yes, it's called a game mechanic. They never "make sence". It was put in to balance the game, tinkering with game mechanics in a response to whining rarely balances the game any better. If the devs genuinely thought it was a worthy rebalance, then I am content. If it was a response to whinging, then less so. We will never know.

Knowing FD, it is more first one than second one. Come on, they didn't cave in on bigger whines. I guess they just felt bigger ships are less utilized as they would like to. These changes are made to make people to choose big ships actually, not to avoid them.

 

[Rall]

In fact fuel makes little sense at all in a game like this. I take it that given FDEV's love for semi-realism that our power cores are actually fusion reactors. If so, the amount of fuel we fill up our ships with would last for YEARS.

I always put this down to the massive energy requirements that are likley required for FTL and Hyper drives.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I always put this down to the massive energy requirements that are likley required for FTL and Hyper drives.

Yeah, fuel are mostly required by FSD, as it warps space, not travels trough it. Regular flight have almost null effect on fuel.

 

[Iskariot]

Fuel costs should be basically the same for all ships, but I do not understand why I only pay 300 credits (2 jumps 14 ly and 8 ly if I remember correctly) where before I paid 40.000 credits (Python). I do not remember fuel being that cheap for any ship, but... that could be my memory. But whatever; it is too cheap. It does not feel right.

Suggestion to the devs:
FD could manipulate fuel prices by adding something like a fuel tax that is larger for bigger ships. All in moderation of course, because I still think paying 40.000 credit for my route was somewhat over the top. But paying a price of perhaps something between 10 and 15.000 credits would be ok for a Python I think.

Suggestion 2:
I feel FD should introduce different fuel types, like we had in Frontier Elite. Larger ships with larger engines might need more expensive processed fuel?
Military fuel might be used for more effective, but also more expensive military engines. And, like in Frontier Elite, military fuel could produce chemical waste.

Scooped fuel should not be of the same quality as processed fuels. Scooped fuel could cause a little bit more wear and tear to the engines. Scooped fuel could diminish the jump distance, or you might need more of it for the same distance (this might be preferable)... etc.

The current prices make fuel completely inconsequential as far as the costs are concerned. This is totally the opposite of what it was before. There must be a middle road.

 

[The man from Del Monte]

Just to clarify, used to be that 1 tonne of fuel in an anaconda cost more than 1 tonne of fuel in an asp which cost more than 1 tonne of fuel in a sidewinder etc.

They have simply made it so that 1 tonne of fuel costs the same in all ships.

 

[specialsymbol]

I used the fuel scope to scope fuel on suns.

Often it didn't work out. Sometimes I didn't find any. Other times it was so small, I couldn't make it out.

But now, to put things into perspective, I stopped scouting for fuel with my fuel scope and instead buy it at the next station.

Because, frankly, it's ridiculous to charge 100.000 credits for something that is worth 5000 at the commodity exchange.