Fuel Rats: a shoutout to their unsung heroes + an excellent new magazine article

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
I just wanted to give a massive shoutout to the Fuel Rats who are doing work above and beyond their usual exceptional standards at the moment.

For those unaware, the Epic Game Store free giveaway has brought hundreds (if not thousands) of inexperienced new commanders to the game who are running out of fuel in record numbers right now.

Consequently the Fuel Rats are now breaking their all-time rescue records on an almost daily basis (we're talking somewhere around 500 recues a day and fast approaching 100,000 rescues in total).

As a lapsed Fuel Rat myself I've been back in their IRC channels recently, reminding myself of the standard operating procedures so that I can once again jump back into the fray.

The constant activity in that IRC is terrifying! A new case pops up (sometimes English, often Russian or Spanish it seems), rats call the jumps, the dispatcher (who's already handling 5, 6 or more other cases (including at least one case Red where the client is low on Oxygen and close to death) briefs the client, adds the case to the list, assigns the rats and monitors the case's progress - and while all that's happening, another case pops up, a case red is rescued, another case red is lost, another case pops up, and another one! And this is all happening constantly, right now, and (afaik) 24hrs a day!

So I want to give a special shoutout to the often unsung heroes of the Fuel Rats - not the rats themselves who are dealing with one case at a time (flying out to them and delivering the fuel), but to the dispatchers who are coordinating all this within IRC and multitasking at a rate that frankly I was completely unable to keep up with.

If you're interested in seeing statistics of the Fuel Rats ongoing rescue rate then there's a really neat graphical representation over here:

Grafana

grafana.fuelrats.com grafana.fuelrats.com

Also, while I'm talking about the Fuel Rats, I just wanted to showcase a new magazine article that's popped up on fanbyte. It's centered on the Fuel Rats but also talks about Elite: Dangerous in general. A really good read when you have a spare moment.

Meet the Fuel Rats, the Players Making Elite: Dangerous a Little Safer
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
In at the deep end! To be honest I'm not sure ... I expect they'd like all the help they can get, on the other hand, they seemed VERY busy.
 

Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
Alec Turner said:
I just wanted to give a massive shoutout to the Fuel Rats who are doing work above and beyond their usual exceptional standards at the moment.

For those unaware, the Epic Game Store free giveaway has brought hundreds (if not thousands) of inexperienced new commanders to the game who are running out of fuel in record numbers right now.

Consequently the Fuel Rats are now breaking their all-time rescue records on an almost daily basis (we're talking somewhere around 500 recues a day and fast approaching 100,000 rescues in total).

As a lapsed Fuel Rat myself I've been back in their IRC channels recently, reminding myself of the standard operating procedures so that I can once again jump back into the fray.

The constant activity in that IRC is terrifying! A new case pops up (sometimes English, often Russian or Spanish it seems), rats call the jumps, the dispatcher (who's already handling 5, 6 or more other cases (including at least one case Red where the client is low on Oxygen and close to death) briefs the client, adds the case to the list, assigns the rats and monitors the case's progress - and while all that's happening, another case pops up, a case red is rescued, another case red is lost, another case pops up, and another one! And this is all happening constantly, right now, and (afaik) 24hrs a day!

So I want to give a special shoutout to the often unsung heroes of the Fuel Rats - not the rats themselves who are dealing with one case at a time (flying out to them and delivering the fuel), but to the dispatchers who are coordinating all this within IRC and multitasking at a rate that frankly I was completely unable to keep up with.

If you're interested in seeing statistics of the Fuel Rats ongoing rescue rate then there's a really neat graphical representation over here:

Grafana

grafana.fuelrats.com grafana.fuelrats.com

Also, while I'm talking about the Fuel Rats, I just wanted to showcase a new magazine article that's popped up on fanbyte. It's centered on the Fuel Rats but also talks about Elite: Dangerous in general. A really good read when you have a spare moment.

Meet the Fuel Rats, the Players Making Elite: Dangerous a Little Safer
Click to expand...

I recently joined the Fuel Rats about 4 months ago, an excellent community and you're right the dispatch controllers do an amazing job, been very busy past few days, but we still attend all shouts!

its the reason we have the standard operating procedure to make sense of the madness in the IRC Dispatch room!

Nothing better than successfully completing your first rescue!
 

Ferry_25

F
I love the rats. They saved me two times. First when I absolutely didn't know what I was doing and trying to scoop a brown dwarf. Second time my game crashed while scooping and respawned me 30 ls away from the star in cruise speed. I didn't have enough juice to jump into SC. So it was either fly for 3 months or call the rats.
 

Vetinari

V
Calling the Rats is something that should be avoided at all costs and yet is such an integral part of the game and must be experienced once....I never advise new players about Fuel Scoops but at the same time I cant tell people to run out of fuel just for the experience even though I want to.

Fuel Rats have saved me once, theyve also done at least 99,999 other rescues, awesome work Well Done and TY All Rats past and present :)
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
I suspect that's why this sudden flood of new players is coming with such a large amount of calls. It's not that these Epic Game Store folks are less fuel aware than previous floods of new commanders, it's simply that more of them are aware of the Fuel Rats because the game's been out a long time now and more people will have heard about the Fuel Rats in the general gaming press.
 

Uvelius Sång

Uvelius Sång
Not to forget the active Overseers. They are spending hours upon hours to drill Rats and Seers and ensure a high success rate (and less suffocating clients) ... and they are pretty much invisible.

About traffic, I am also stunned that so many clients find their way to us. Would be interesting where most get their info from ...
 

Florenus

Florenus
Uvelius Sång said:
About traffic, I am also stunned that so many clients find their way to us. Would be interesting where most get their info from ...
Click to expand...
I think every review or article about Elite I've seen in last few years mentioned Fuel Rats as an example of great community and kind of adventures one might expect from the game.
I think Fuel Rats became almost synonymous with Elite.
 

Thomas Wagner

T
IMHO what they are doing is wonderful. Its a fantastic service!

BUT

i would NEVER call them. Not even in my engineered Corvette fully loaded with Void Opals. If i do something stupid i have to accept the consequences. Especially in a videogame.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom