Fuel tanks as an optional module should have an off switch

[Hyoscine]

About half the modules in my somewhat anaemic explorer are powered down at any given time, it feels like an oversight that I can't shut down an extra fuel tank. How cool it would be if you could explore without a diminished jump range, and turn on the spare from the module tab when you want to traverse a series of unscoopable stars... It would be a relatively easy change to implement, in keeping with current ship functionality, that would add a little variety and excitement to exploration.

~edit for clarity~

What I mean by a powered down fuel tank is one that you can't fill by scooping, and isn't factored into plotting routes.

 

[Arsen Cross]

you can control how much fuel you put in your tank by limiting how much you scoop. Do several jumps to empty your tanks to the desired level and if neccessary toggle your due scoop off once the desired fuel level is reached so you can exit the stars corona without going over it. Problem solved. A fuel tank wouldn’t be powered on and off anyways. It’s either full or not and powering off a fuel tank wouldn’t save you any weight as it’d need to be empty to save weight so no matter what you’d need to replace the empty space.

 

[Winterwalker]

I can see where you're coming from. I'd could +1 that.

It's fluff (really) right? @Arsen Cross is right (really) can be done other ways. But say you could (alternatively) depower your landing gear, to save some residual heat. Like the fuel tank it's only ever going to be a drawback, something you ALWAYS forget to turn back on again!! But it's more things to fiddle around with too, to set your ship up how you like it for long journeys or in having to prepare your ship for landing. So not daft at all really and you certainly wouldn't be first to suggest adding ability to dump fuel to the suggestion either.

Trying to think of some more now.

+1

 

[Hyoscine]

you can control how much fuel you put in your tank by limiting how much you scoop. Do several jumps to empty your tanks to the desired level and if neccessary toggle your due scoop off once the desired fuel level is reached so you can exit the stars corona without going over it. Problem solved. A fuel tank wouldn’t be powered on and off anyways. It’s either full or not and powering off a fuel tank wouldn’t save you any weight as it’d need to be empty to save weight so no matter what you’d need to replace the empty space.

I feel like you're not really seeing my point. This isn't about making one-off jumps with slightly more range, it's about being able to reach points of interest in fewer jumps, whilst still being able to explore fuel-sparse bits of the galaxy. Of course you can scoop less, or even carry a plasma slug weapon to drain fuel, but neither of those things can be taken into account when plotting a hundred jump route.

The powering off of a full fuel tank seems like a non-issue to me. Pretty easy to imagine an integral pump that requires a negligible amount of power, especially as our ships are pressurizing the fuel they collect. The fuel is still in your tank with it powered down, you just won't take on more unless you'd like to.

 

[Spacerschoice-00]

Jump range is affected by weight of ship.
So if your tank is powered off and still full, no increased jump range.

I don't see the benefit or need for this.

 

[Factabulous]

It's a niche thing to do for niche applications - I'm fine with that niche having to do a bit more - all adds to their immersion

 

[Hyoscine]

Jump range is affected by weight of ship.
So if your tank is powered off and still full, no increased jump range.

I don't see the benefit or need for this.

The point is to switch off the tank before it fills. My reply to Arsen was just pointing out that being able to switch off a full tank needn't be a problem.

 

[Brrokk]

Not filling up while scooping isn't the same effect. I think the route plotter assumes your tanks are all full when deciding the maximum jump to allow in a plotted route. Switching off a tank would be useful if the route plotter was aware of the increased jump range.

 

[Ytterium]

jettisoning a tank alternatively could be interesting

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

Real life jets have the ability to shut off the fuel intake to the central tank to save fuel efficiency. The OPs request is actually not unreasonable.

 

[Maolagin]

Not filling up while scooping isn't the same effect. I think the route plotter assumes your tanks are all full when deciding the maximum jump to allow in a plotted route. Switching off a tank would be useful if the route plotter was aware of the increased jump range.

^this is I think the key piece. It's simple enough to not scoop your tanks to full, but equipping extra tanks is actively discouraged by its effect on the route plotter. It means you either fly routes that take more jumps than they need to, or you use external tools to manually plot each jump.

That said, I think the right answer here probably isn't to special case fuel tanks, but to change the slider in the route plotter settings to either add or subtract mass from the default setting of "current amount of cargo, full fuel tank".

 

[Arsen Cross]

I feel like you're not really seeing my point. This isn't about making one-off jumps with slightly more range, it's about being able to reach points of interest in fewer jumps, whilst still being able to explore fuel-sparse bits of the galaxy. Of course you can scoop less, or even carry a plasma slug weapon to drain fuel, but neither of those things can be taken into account when plotting a hundred jump route.

The powering off of a full fuel tank seems like a non-issue to me. Pretty easy to imagine an integral pump that requires a negligible amount of power, especially as our ships are pressurizing the fuel they collect. The fuel is still in your tank with it powered down, you just won't take on more unless you'd like to.

I am, but unless I’m severely mistaken the route plotter accounts for your current fuel level when plotting the route so the onus would be on you to ensure that you do not overfill the tank from the desired level. I will agree though that adding fuel tanks equipped to your optional slots to the modules tab and allowing us to turn them off to prevent their refuel would be nice. My post however was mostly just that you can accomplish what you want already - it’s just going to require you to put in consistent repetitive effort or time your scooping dives accordingly.

The route plotter will automatically recalculate your route when you open the map based on your current weight, fuel included. I’ve been running plasma slug weapons quite a bit lately and have recently removed my fuel scoop from my primarily bubble python in favor of a pair of two extra 64 ton fuel tanks and route plotting very much changes based on my fuel level and if the trip is long I start going then as my fuel level reduces if I want to try and shave a couple jumps off just open the map again and recalculate the route.

^this is I think the key piece. It's simple enough to not scoop your tanks to full, but equipping extra tanks is actively discouraged by its effect on the route plotter. It means you either fly routes that take more jumps than they need to, or you use external tools to manually plot each jump.

That said, I think the right answer here probably isn't to special case fuel tanks, but to change the slider in the route plotter settings to either add or subtract mass from the default setting of "current amount of cargo, full fuel tank".

Yeah plotting based on a target fuel level like we can do with cargo would be great.


kind of on topic but separate… I want the ability to vent fuel into space directly with no extra modules and I also want the ability to synthesize cargo containers with h-fuel taken from our tank. If we could then use those cargo canisters from our inventory to add the fuel to our tank it could add an interesting option outside of fuel transfer limpets to resupply a ship out of fuel without removing the niche fuel transfer limpets provide for bringing a ship back online that is totally out of fuel and immobile.

 

[Winterwalker]

kind of on topic but separate… I want the ability to vent fuel into space directly with no extra modules and I also want the ability to synthesize cargo containers with h-fuel taken from our tank. If we could then use those cargo canisters from our inventory to add the fuel to our tank it could add an interesting option outside of fuel transfer limpets to resupply a ship out of fuel without removing the niche fuel transfer limpets provide for bringing a ship back online that is totally out of fuel and immobile.

Again it's a nice variant, which also comes into it's own if Frontier were to set up to allow us to supercruise between systems. That might seem a nuts thing to go .. in fact it probably IS a nuts thing to do, certainly around the bubble. But apart from the fact you know some people would do it for kicks, in the galaxy core, stars aren't as far apart. And, if it was allowed in the bubble there might be some fun to be had from supercruising into permit locked systems you don't own a permit for. Then for example - even though you might not get clearance to dock, anywhere in a permit system, unless maybe you saw a man in a base somewhere - without an ID issued by the nav-beacon perhaps no bounties could be issued against you, you could buy commodities for 0 credits or all sorts oddities like that. Obviously a long way off but I really like the idea of turning your ship into a hydrogen tanker.

 

[Jose-Juan Kenobi]

I understand the idea behind it, but claiming is easy to implement is far fetched unless you are familiar with the code. Even then, when it comes to complex software, nothing is ever easy, not to mention prioritization of their bugs and features on their backlogs.

In terms of QOL or even nice to have, IMO this falls very low. And personally don't think is easy to implement at all.

 

[Hyoscine]

I understand the idea behind it, but claiming is easy to implement is far fetched unless you are familiar with the code. Even then, when it comes to complex software, nothing is ever easy, not to mention prioritization of their bugs and features on their backlogs.

In terms of QOL or even nice to have, IMO this falls very low. And personally don't think is easy to implement at all.

I said relatively easy, and I stand by it. The fuel tank is currently a function that sums every tank you have installed. Changing this to a total of every tank with an added argument from a new on/off variable is as trivial as programming gets.

 

[Jose-Juan Kenobi]

I said relatively easy, and I stand by it. The fuel tank is currently a function that sums every tank you have installed. Changing this to a total of every tank with an added argument from a new on/off variable is as trivial as programming gets.

lol

 

[Hyoscine]

lol

Thanks for chiming in.

 

[Maolagin]

unless I’m severely mistaken the route plotter accounts for your current fuel level when plotting the route so the onus would be on you to ensure that you do not overfill the tank from the desired level

It does not, at least not the way you're suggesting. The easiest way to demonstrate this is, on a partial tank, plot a route to a system that is inside your current range, but outside your fully-fueled range. In most cases the router will plot that as two jumps, even though you could make it in one.

Unless something has changed recently (which it might, the Odyssey router clearly had some code changes under the hood) the only place that the router accounts for your current fuel level is when it picks fuel stars on your path and tries (with mixed results) to have you refuel before running dry.

 

[Jmanis]

,... it's about being able to reach points of interest in fewer jumps...

OT, but this is everything wrong with exploration, in a single sentence.

On topic, because of the above, I'd rather FD steer the overall implementation of exploration away from this model, rather than lean into it with this sort of change.

 

[Arsen Cross]

I said relatively easy, and I stand by it. The fuel tank is currently a function that sums every tank you have installed. Changing this to a total of every tank with an added argument from a new on/off variable is as trivial as programming gets.

If only it were that simple. As it stands now the total of your fuel tank is a single pool, one sum that has its value added to like any other stat by the addition of the additional fuel tank. Just like Hull reinforcements or shield boosters.

this would require one of two approaches that I can think of just off the bat:

1. you separate and break up the fuel tank stat into multiple properties per fuel tank and make it so when fuel scooping it fills each tank in their outfitting order and checking if each tank is ‘online’ before filling it up.

2. Alternatively you keep the single stat and any time the fuel scoop is active constanty compare the current fuel level to the sum of the online fuel tanks and stop when the fue level is equal to or exceeds that level.

in addition to either of those methods - both of which require touching other elements of the game - which depending on their original implementations can have their own knock on effects when altered - you will also have to add a bee UI element/custom tag specific to fuel tanks in the modules interface to indicate you are closing the valves for that tank instead of taking it ‘offline’ since offlining a fuel tank makes absolutely no sense at all. Ui alterations are not always quick and easy.

It does not, at least not the way you're suggesting. The easiest way to demonstrate this is, on a partial tank, plot a route to a system that is inside your current range, but outside your fully-fueled range. In most cases the router will plot that as two jumps, even though you could make it in one.

Unless something has changed recently (which it might, the Odyssey router clearly had some code changes under the hood) the only place that the router accounts for your current fuel level is when it picks fuel stars on your path and tries (with mixed results) to have you refuel before running dry.

thanks for the heads up. I’ll have to jump in game tonight and experiment and see what my experience is just to cement the knowledge in lol.