Can we increase fuel costs?

Well, clean water is everywhere, but sending it through my pipe costs money....

Nope. Clean water isn't everywhere. Fresh water is. But it still requires some processing, typically boiling and filtering, before it is clean water for human consumption. The process of acquiring fuel in Elite Dangerous is laughably simple by comparison. In the face of competition from pilots being able to provide their own fuel, it doesn't make any sense for fuel providers on stations to make their product less desirable by jacking the price up.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
The logic in this sentence doesn't even remotely support the conclusion.
Fuel is practically free, but spurious reasoning about pumping means the price should be jacked up.
Wha?

Because the cost of running facilities must be covered and one of the ways to achieve that is to increase the cost of commodity/service the facilities are used for.
 
Because the cost of running facilities must be covered and one of the ways to achieve that is to increase the cost of commodity/service the facilities are used for.

Which is an arbitrary rationale at best. But if you want to use that reasoning, the cost of running facilities is already covered by the costs charged for repairs and fuel. Therefore, any increase is unnecessary.
 
Nope. Clean water isn't everywhere. Fresh water is. But it still requires some processing, typically boiling and filtering, before it is clean water for human consumption.

...I'm pretty sure water safe for human consumption falls from the sky every now and then...

And isn't all that water exploding from the ground safe for consumption too? I mean, if you get a pipe down there a good ways..


But if you want to use that reasoning, the cost of running facilities is already covered by the costs charged for repairs and fuel. Therefore, any increase is unnecessary.
Aren't the proceeds from repairs going towards paying for the materials and maintenance of the tools used in the repair? I don't know what ships are made out of, but titanium costs a thousand per ton before its cut/shaped etc etc.
 
Nope. Clean water isn't everywhere. Fresh water is. But it still requires some processing, typically boiling and filtering, before it is clean water for human consumption. The process of acquiring fuel in Elite Dangerous is laughably simple by comparison. In the face of competition from pilots being able to provide their own fuel, it doesn't make any sense for fuel providers on stations to make their product less desirable by jacking the price up.

And the Hydrogen that is everywhere is in a convenient liquid form ready to fuel up out ships.




And once again the Cost of Hydrogen Fuel to refuel is less that the cost to buy it by the ton on the commodities markets.
50% less in a lot of cases
How does that make sense?
I will shut up as soon as someone can explain to me any reason that makes sense




It would be like in the water example 1000 one litre bottles of water costing 50% of the cost of 1 ton of Fresh water bulk before it was even put into the bottles
 
Last edited:
It would be like in the water example 1000 one litre bottles of water costing 50% of the cost of 1 ton of Fresh water bulk before it was even put into the bottles
Well to be fair... If I was gonna put out a fire, I'd pay double for that ton because a thousand liter bottles won't help me. Liter sized water balloons though? Give me a sec to finish my beer and let's do this like gentlemen.
 
Last edited:
Instead of raising fuel prices, some kind of taxi (payed) for getting back all those ships stored around the galaxy would be nice. About fuel prices I don't realy care.
 
There's no real justification of raising the cost anything.

If people want an explanation of how stations afford stuff, you simply write into the background fluff that the costs of everything you buy and sell on a station already incorporate a 10% tax which goes to the station by default.

Bam - running costs covered and no need to change anything.

So if there is going to be a change in fuel costs up, let there be a legitimate game mechanic reason for doing so. Is it to make scooping more desirable? Fair enough. Although the offset of that is that it makes the game less enjoyable, simply by compelling players into the exciting mechanic of watching a fuel bar increase. Wooooo, watching bars increase. How thrilling.
 
Well to be fair... If I was gonna put out a fire, I'd pay double for that ton because a thousand liter bottles won't help me. Liter sized water balloons though? Give me a sec to finish my beer and let's do this like gentlemen.

Heh

But Yeah overall I don't get the resistance to the idea on increase fuel costs to match the price as per the commodities market.
I don't see how added grind is an argument against on average and additional 50Cr per ton or an extra 1280 Cr for a type 9 if you needed to completely refill it.

There is two threads on this so what I posted in the other thread.

Cost to Refuel 339 Cr vs 658 CR for the same 7 tonnes of hydrogen fuel at the commodities market?
We are not talking about a big difference, but just so it makes sense.

Just refilled a Lakon Type 6
Needed ~7 tons to refuel
(need just under half a tank of a 16 ton tank and round up to the nearest ton; used the refuel 10% at a time to judge)
Cost to Refuel 339 Cr
Cost of 7 tones of Hydrogen Fuel at Commodities Market (94CR per ton buy price HIGH supply) 658 CR for the 7 tonnes
Station Faction Neutral


Even if Hydrogen is Plentiful why is it cheaper to buy fuel at the pump than it is to buy wholesale.
In fact paying 51% of the price





Test 2
Just refilled a Lakon Type 6
Needed ~8 tons to refuel
(tank of a 16 ton tank and round up to the nearest ton; used the refuel 10% at a time to judge)
Cost to Refuel 392 Cr
Cost of 7 tones of Hydrogen Fuel at Commodities Market (116CR per ton buy price MEDIUM supply) 928 CR for the 8 tonnes
Station Faction Neutral

Refueling costs 42% of the market price

It would be just as off putting of Copper was 1,000Cr a ton, Polymers 1,000 Cr a ton, Semi Conductors 1,000 CR per ton and computer components made up from Copper semi conductors and polymers at 200 CR a ton
 
Last edited:
There's no real justification of raising the cost anything.

If people want an explanation of how stations afford stuff, you simply write into the background fluff that the costs of everything you buy and sell on a station already incorporate a 10% tax which goes to the station by default.

Bam - running costs covered and no need to change anything.

So if there is going to be a change in fuel costs up, let there be a legitimate game mechanic reason for doing so. Is it to make scooping more desirable? Fair enough. Although the offset of that is that it makes the game less enjoyable, simply by compelling players into the exciting mechanic of watching a fuel bar increase. Wooooo, watching bars increase. How thrilling.
...Some stations have no commodities section. Or contacts. Or anything but repair and refuel.
 
Last edited:
The disparity between the cost of hydrogen fuel on the market and the cost of refuelling at a station doesn't make a great deal of sense. I'm pretty sure the use of some explainium can handwave the problem away though.

Tbh - it bothers me less than the wholly unrealistic amounts of precious metals we can buy from stations.

- - - Updated - - -

...Some stations have no commodities section. Or contacts. Or anything but repair and refuel.

I'd see a justification for those stations having higher prices than other stations then. That would make sense.
 
You want a real game mechanic reason? It's so dirt cheap it's negligible. If it's that negligible, it may as well not exist. That doesn't really make a lot of sense, so make it less ignorable.

"Hum, my destination is 300ly away. It would probably be more profitable if I dropped a rack for a scoop instead."
Meaningful game decisions.
 
The disparity between the cost of hydrogen fuel on the market and the cost of refuelling at a station doesn't make a great deal of sense. I'm pretty sure the use of some explainium can handwave the problem away though.

Tbh - it bothers me less than the wholly unrealistic amounts of precious metals we can buy from stations.

- - - Updated - - -



I'd see a justification for those stations having higher prices than other stations then. That would make sense.

Redefines precious metal doesn't it.
Pristine Metallic belts with a hundred or so Lunar masses* so a Type 9 (with the new collector drones) can go in a collect 1/3 of all the Gold mined on earth in one year, in 1 trip, 10 such ships would take 50 trips each to meet all gold mines to date for humanity
And that doesn't even need 1 part per billion of gold to be in the belt with a hundred lunar masses

* a neat stat on the system map no one ever seems to point out in mining guides.
 
Last edited:

Frankfort

F
Because the cost of running facilities must be covered and one of the ways to achieve that is to increase the cost of commodity/service the facilities are used for.

Now that extra fuel tanks are availble fuel drones and fuel scoops it could possible to collect fuel and sell it to the spacestations in the same way mining does .
As the spacestations sell fuel but dont get resuplied .
 
Now that extra fuel tanks are availble fuel drones and fuel scoops it could possible to collect fuel and sell it to the spacestations in the same way mining does .
As the spacestations sell fuel but dont get resuplied .

Good idea, espcially on those stations that orbit T-Tauri and Brown Dwarf stars and other unscoopbales, only if they increase the cost of fuel to refuel, otherwise you could refuel, then sell it on the commodities market for a 50% profit, repeat ad infinitum ad nauseum
 
Last edited:
Gameplay designed for 15 year olds, and average age of ED player is 35-40?

Unnecessary swipe against an age demographic and play preference aside, if anything reducing the grinding helps those of us in the 25-60 range with jobs, possibly kids and other responisbilities most people will have less time to play and less tendency to grind.

Back to the topic. I agree with putting fuel prices in line with the commodity market plus a mark up. It shouldn't change based on ship size, just tank size. After all, the smaller ships use less fuel to jump so the scaling in cost already exists.

Repairs have possibly been reduced a touch too much but before it meant that certain combat capable ships were not viable to run a profit in combat which ended up in hours of trade grinding.

Also worth remembering that for many of us who have played for a fair while we'll have a different view on the value of money when we have multi-millions in credits and assets. For those starting in their first few weeks the kind of profits we can make in an hour are what dreams are made of.
 
Personally, I think fuel should be astronomical (pun fully intended) in price. Storing pure Hydrogen is fraught with all sorts of danger, so it would make economic sense to use price to offset the tremendous safety measures needed for it's storage.

It would also have the follow-on effect of making Fuel Scoops a realistic option for non-Explorers. So now people will have a choice to make: do I take yet another SCB, and pay thousands (millions?) in refuel costs? Or do I take a Fuel Scoop?

Choices like this are what will drive variety in ships and encounters. Otherwise everyone gravitates to the same small number of configurations.

"Hum, my destination is 300ly away. It would probably be more profitable if I dropped a rack for a scoop instead."
Meaningful game decisions.

Exactly.
 
Last edited:
. Storing pure Hydrogen is fraught with all sorts of danger, so it would make economic sense to use price to offset the tremendous safety measures needed for it's storage..

No, no it isn't. Really it isn't.
Significant progress has made on the development of hydrogen fuelled cars, with a key part being the development of fuel storage in a sufficiently safe and lightweight way. That is something that is happening now. Not 1000 years into the future.
 
I wouldn't mind fuel being bumped up overall, but the reason people were complaining initially was that fuel was inexplicably more expensive in the same quantity for a bigger ship. The Clipper's refuel costs were, forgive the pun, astronomical compared to the same amount in smaller ships, even though it's seemingly the same fuel mixture.
 
Back
Top Bottom