Fuel Scoop Engineering

[Jappards]

Fuel scoops are an important part of this game for anyone who doesn't want to visit a station every few jumps or travel outside of the bubble. Despite this, the only thing you can do to the module is increase it's integrity.

Blueprints:
Efficiency: Your basic blueprint for those who aren't interested in a trade off and are looking for a general improvement.
Boot sequence: makes your fuel scoop boot up faster in exchange for lower fuel scoop rate and integrity.
Wide scoop: Increase in fuel scoop rate in exchange for a longer boot time and higher mass.

Experimental Effects:
Low Density: Allows you to scoop at gas giants and brown dwarfs. Only class I, II and III gas giants are scoopable.
Tradeoff: small power draw increase, small mass increase.

Ramscoop: Increases the fuel scoop rate depending on your velocity.
Tradeoff: Small integrity decrease, small power draw increase.

High temperature: The higher the temperature of your ship, the more fuel you scoop up.

Heat shielding: lowers the heat gained while the scoop is turned on.
Tradeoff: small mass increase, small power increase

Charged Fuel: Has a chance of temporarily increasing your jump range while scooping. Neutron stars provide an even larger jump boost when supercharged.
Tradeoff: moderate integrity decrease, moderate power draw increase, moderate mass increase.

Starlifting is the process of removing mass from a star and repurposing it. Fuel is not the only thing you can get from a star. Our sun, for example, while composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, it also contains oxygen, carbon and iron. Fuel scooping should have a small chance of giving you the materials the star is made of.

 

[[VR] Goooost]

Blueprint to increase the scoopable range of a star. Experimental effect which lets you vent fuel (which others can potentially scoop.

 

[MK Regular]

A word on increasing the mass of a fuel scoop (or other massless module) in an engineering blueprint:

Engineering blueprints work on the basis of stat multipliers (+10%, -10%, etc...). If a modules has a mass of 0T, it is impossible to increase the mass of the module using a stat multiplier from an engineering blueprint (110% of 0 tons is still 0 tons). Quite a bit of work would need to be done in order for the blueprint to mass to fuel scoops in a balanced manner depending on the size and class of scoop.

That said, I don't think it is impossible to change the mass of a massless module using an engineering blueprint, just that it would be quite difficult. The same problem exists when trying to change a stat of 0 on any modules with an engineering blueprint (i.e. trying to increase the power draw of a module with no power draw, trying to increase/reduce a thermal load of 0, etc...).



What does this mean for the suggested blueprints and secondary effects? For starters, any blueprint or secondary effect that involves a mass increase on the fuel scoop is probably not going to work. However, in most cases this could be compensated for by an increase to power draw or a decrease to integrity or scoop rate. Additionally, the heat shielding secondary would probably be somewhat difficult to implement as it is not the fuel scoop that causes your ship to heat up (it has a thermal load of 0), but your proximity to the star. I'm not going to say it is impossible, as I did not think something like the FSD booster would ever work, but it will probably be somewhat difficult for FDev to add and would probably be bugged for the first few months anyways.



I do like the idea behind the ramscoop and high temp secondaries. These should be entirely doable (see thermal conduit secondary for beam lasers) and would add quite a bit of variety.

I'm not too sure about the low density and charged fuel secondaries though. I suspect FDev already has some gameplay planned for gas giants, so I wouldn't push my luck about asking them to be scoopable yet. I also don't believe that it is physically possible for the materials required for FSD injection to form in stars. Nuclear fusion only releases energy up until the point where an iron atom is formed, after which any additional fusion reactions require additional energy to be consumed rather than released. Effectively, stars cannot form elements heavier than iron during their lifespan, although such elements CAN be formed during supernovae (but this is another topic entirely). This means that the heavier elements required for FSD injection (germanium, cadmium, niobium, arsenic, yttrium and polonium) should not be scoopable from stars.

Other than that add a few vanilla secondary effects (double braced, flow control, etc...) as well as one that straight up boosts scoop rate (possibly at the cost of higher power draw) and you're pretty much set.

 

[m0rl0ck]

Do fuel scoops have mass? How would you calculate the increase?

 

[Para Handy]

Do fuel scoops have mass? How would you calculate the increase?

You can get a G5 Lightweight Fuel Scoop mod for 1 exquisite focus crystal and 2 void opals at Hutton Orbital.

 

[Jappards]

A word on increasing the mass of a fuel scoop (or other massless module) in an engineering blueprint:

Engineering blueprints work on the basis of stat multipliers (+10%, -10%, etc...). If a modules has a mass of 0T, it is impossible to increase the mass of the module using a stat multiplier from an engineering blueprint (110% of 0 tons is still 0 tons). Quite a bit of work would need to be done in order for the blueprint to mass to fuel scoops in a balanced manner depending on the size and class of scoop.

That said, I don't think it is impossible to change the mass of a massless module using an engineering blueprint, just that it would be quite difficult. The same problem exists when trying to change a stat of 0 on any modules with an engineering blueprint (i.e. trying to increase the power draw of a module with no power draw, trying to increase/reduce a thermal load of 0, etc...).

What does this mean for the suggested blueprints and secondary effects? For starters, any blueprint or secondary effect that involves a mass increase on the fuel scoop is probably not going to work. However, in most cases this could be compensated for by an increase to power draw or a decrease to integrity or scoop rate. Additionally, the heat shielding secondary would probably be somewhat difficult to implement as it is not the fuel scoop that causes your ship to heat up (it has a thermal load of 0), but your proximity to the star. I'm not going to say it is impossible, as I did not think something like the FSD booster would ever work, but it will probably be somewhat difficult for FDev to add and would probably be bugged for the first few months anyways.

I do like the idea behind the ramscoop and high temp secondaries. These should be entirely doable (see thermal conduit secondary for beam lasers) and would add quite a bit of variety.

I'm not too sure about the low density and charged fuel secondaries though. I suspect FDev already has some gameplay planned for gas giants, so I wouldn't push my luck about asking them to be scoopable yet. I also don't believe that it is physically possible for the materials required for FSD injection to form in stars. Nuclear fusion only releases energy up until the point where an iron atom is formed, after which any additional fusion reactions require additional energy to be consumed rather than released. Effectively, stars cannot form elements heavier than iron during their lifespan, although such elements CAN be formed during supernovae (but this is another topic entirely). This means that the heavier elements required for FSD injection (germanium, cadmium, niobium, arsenic, yttrium and polonium) should not be scoopable from stars.

Other than that add a few vanilla secondary effects (double braced, flow control, etc...) as well as one that straight up boosts scoop rate (possibly at the cost of higher power draw) and you're pretty much set.

1.) I forgot fuel scoops don't have mass. It's weird that they do not have even a very small amount of it. Even utility slots have mass. Another alternative is adding mass to the fuel scop while it isn't engineered, although not having mass can be adjusted for as you suggested.

2.) I wasn't entirely sure on the heat shielding effect either.

3.) It doesn't have to be a level 3 injection, I was thinking more along the lines of level 1. You raised a good point there. Carbon and vanadium do occur in stars, but germanium can only be found in a branch of older stars near the end of their lifetime. This is not created by nuclear fusion, but by the process of iron nuclei capturing neutrons and those neutrons decaying into protons and electrons. This is a slow process however.

4.)I support vanilla secondary effects and I don't see why all modules capable of being engineered shouldn't have those already. The wide scoop already increases scoop rate, but given the fact they do not have any mass it can use a higher power draw instead.

 

[Old Duck]

AMFUs don't have mass, either. I never understood this. Some people suggest the fuel scoop replaces a section of our hull of equal mass, but then why does it take up so much internal space? Meanwhile, sensors (which are basically antennas) have a ridiculous amount of mass on a ship like the Anaconda, despite being no better than the sensors on a Sidewinder...

My mind is too small to fathom these great mysteries.

 

[Daynen]

I've posted my own ideas on engineering fuel scoops because I feel that scooping could be much more fun, rewarding and dangerous. The first time I scooped fuel I assumed, thanks to my own natural inclination, that you had to orbit the star to scoop fuel. When I found out that you could sit still, I was actually disappointed. When I started seeing scoops big enough to scoop fuel at startling speeds without ever going up in temperature, I was further disheartened. The fact that we can't sell fuel is just the final nail.

That said, I would like blueprints that reward scooping at higher speeds or closer ranges, requiring pilots to risk more. The reward of course could be simply faster scooping, but it could also be in the form of other benefits like higher grade fuel or the like.

Given that scoops, like several modules, don't have mass, it does become quite a trick to add meaningful drawbacks to engineering them. For the "high speed" scoop, reducing the stationary scooping speed seems reasonable. For the "deep dive" scoop, scaling down the fuel gained at longer ranges makes sense. Increased power draw of course is a simple balancing factor as well.