Fuel Consumption?

[Mohenjo]

So, I've been wondering how fuel consumption works.

The HUD indicates the fuel use rate per hour. My ship has a fuel tank with a rating, something like 4 or 8 or 16, or what have you.

Is the rate used per hour relative to the rating of the tank?

So, if I have a fuel tank with a rating of 8 and I'm using 1.0 per hour, It would take 8 hours to run out of fuel?

This is what I'm thinking it is, but I wanted to get confirmation.

 

[GTwannabe]

It's tons of fuel per hour AFAIK.

 

[Squid Gumbo]

Just be aware (as I'm sure you are) that your consumption rate changes depending on how many modules you have powered and what you're doing. Obviously a landed ship with its drives disengaged will run less fuel than flying in supercruise, and so on

 

[NW3]

Just be aware (as I'm sure you are) that your consumption rate changes depending on how many modules you have powered and what you're doing. Obviously a landed ship with its drives disengaged will run less fuel than flying in supercruise, and so on

Right. A common explorer technique is to save fuel by turning off unnecessary modules like the Power Distributor and Shields, when in deep space.

 

[Loskene]

Your fuel tank "rating" as you call it is the number of tonnes (metric) of hydrogen the tank can hold, and the fuel consumption meter is measured in tonnes of hydrogen per hour. So yes, you're correct, a ship with an 8 tonne fuel tank burning 1 tonne per hour will run for 8 hours before shutting down. Just to muddy up the waters a bit the fuel scooping HUD displays the hydrogen intake in kilograms per second. So a fuel scoop that can pull in 500kg/s will refill your 8 tonne tank in 16 seconds.

 

[thirstyfish]

So, I've been wondering how fuel consumption works.

The HUD indicates the fuel use rate per hour. My ship has a fuel tank with a rating, something like 4 or 8 or 16, or what have you.

Is the rate used per hour relative to the rating of the tank?

So, if I have a fuel tank with a rating of 8 and I'm using 1.0 per hour, It would take 8 hours to run out of fuel?

This is what I'm thinking it is, but I wanted to get confirmation.

Fuel tank rating has to do with capacity. Calculated by 2^n where n is the rating of your fuel tank.

Rate used is not relative to the tank. You are correct in your thinking.

 

[Mohenjo]

Thanks all, I just wondered, as I tend to leave the game running while I do other things, and I didn't want to come back to a rebuy screen.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

A few notes from me.

The consumption per hour is in tons but the secondary tank (thin line) that runs your modules and draws from your main tank when empty is not always 1 ton of fuel max. In smaller ships the secondary tank can be 0.6T or similar whereas the bigger ships I think it goes up to about 1.6T

As for usage and being afk. Just deactivate all except key modules like life support. Should lower it to 0.05T per hour or something enabling you to sit around for days/weeks.