Fuel tank engineering

[4brkfast]

This is a repost I posted in the wrong section before. Apologies. I'll keep it concise.

The adjectives and nouns I would ask the community for suggestions. But I think I have some cool names and stuff to help describe them.

Right now I have considered three different fuel tank engineering types. The first two are opposites and a third is different entirely with some added random suggestions for the numbers.

'Geometric stacked tanks'
Fuel quantity/efficiency remains the same. Mass is decreased. Useful for something like a Courier fighter or an explorer, retaining fuel but with less mass. Maybe half the mass, retaining quantity.

'Exotic Fuel Compound'
Fuel quantity/efficiency increases. Mass remains the same. Retaining mass, twice the efficiency. Probably best for fighters, especially when considering some of the suggested special effects.

'Solid State Fuel'
Both mass and fuel quantity increases. Fuel Scoops rendered inoperable, you cant use a fuel scoop with this kind. Basically, increasing the 'single-tank' range at the expense of fuel scoops. Useful for ships that do not carry fuel scoops or would benefit from not having one. Traders, pirate ships, whichever type of ship has a specialized roll and is 'permanently' parked somewhere to remain close to it's specialized task, just as an example. Three to five times more mass and quantity.


Possible special effects, besides some common applicable types.

'Extended fuel line'
An additional percentage of fuel increase.

'High Octane Supplement'
A percentage increase in optimal multiplier for thrusters. Considerable increase in burn rate for 3D/Normal space and FSD Supercruise, I.E., two or three times the burn rate of fuel but with an increase in speed for 3D space.


This suggestion begs another suggestion. Fuel leaks. Fuel fires, possible explosions due to this, etc and in turn a reason to add:

'Shielded Tank'

or

'Self Sealing Tanks'



Thanks for reading!

 

[EWanderer]

Usually all Modifications have Drawbacks or should at least. So your first Modification should probably lower Integrity, which isn't a thing for Fueltanks.

The second doesn't make any sense for that matter. As we already have something to spice up jump range, called FSD Injection and those are a one time thing. Upgrading FSD yields the same result + we got Guardian FSD, so I don't think we need even more jump range.

For the Third I could somewhat get behind, compressing the Fuel into a dense solid without the option to refuel on the Fly via Scoop and Increasing the Mass a bit just so you would have more Energy in your ship. The other 2 I would throw out.

For the experimental Effects, nope, the first for already stated reasons, the second is we already have boost to speed up and fuel is not really about making your engines go faster but provide energy to them and they have a maximum capacity for Energy.Also Thrusters are your go-to engineering spot to upgrade your speed.

The tagged on bit would be nice as a separate suggestion with more detail on how you would like to see those things in the game.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Solid state fuel would be interesting.
But engineering a fuel tank isnt going increase or decrease fuel efficiency. That is up to the reactor.
Also as it stands there isnt a way to destroy fuel tanks in the game.

 

[varonica]

Solid state fuel would be interesting.

The problem with solid state boosters is once you put match to them they just keep burning until they fizzle out, or go BANG! I suppose that's a way to get temporary extra speed, but we already have that, but it's no good for our thrusters because how do you pump solid fuel through the pipes?

 

[Lestat]

Op a idea is look in to the old DDF Arcives. Look at some of the Devs ideas.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

The problem with solid state boosters is once you put match to them they just keep burning until they fizzle out, or go BANG! I suppose that's a way to get temporary extra speed, but we already have that, but it's no good for our thrusters because how do you pump solid fuel through the pipes?

ships dont use the fuel you are thinking of in game for thrusters. they use plasma taken from exhaust from the reactor.

Hydrogen fuel -> reactor -> Helium ->Exhaust

the hydrogen cells can degrade or disintegrate but have a higher denisty than gaseous hydrogen scooped from stars.
the reactor would effectively be caniballizing the cells as it used them. but a fuel scoop would be incapable of reconstructing them

Think of solid reactor rods being fed into the reactor one at a time.

Although i will say having hydrogen in a solid state should be prone to heat damage as it is nearly impossible to keep hydrogen in a solid form without the use of liquid nitrogen and putting it under several atmospheres of pressure.