Interesting observation about the player base

Absolutely agree that the 'hole' has resulted in an example of something great in the Elite community.
I referred it to a hole as I can see no reason why you would not want a basic fuel scoop in your ship when flying in the year 3300+.akin to driving a car without a fuel cap to the petrol tank.
If you want to buy a bigger fuel scoop, then that is a commander decision.

in my opinion - the default should be a 'limp-home' minimal fuel scoop, hard built into the ship. ....but that is my opinion

Ah, i see. I'd still call that a design decision. You make the choice of whether you want to fit one or not.
 
Never ever heard of that in 4 years of playing, and it certainly didn't happen for me when I ran out of fuel and died in inhabited space before I heard of the Fuel Rats.
It's a thing. The odds of it occurring are about as likely as you find a HGE with the exact conditions you want. ;)
 
But that would essentially remove gameplay that many people appear to be enjoying. Which seems odd as you were just objecting to FD not implementing gameplay in that area... ;)

There is a whole lot of difference between humans doing something wonderful to cater for a gap in the game design and designing the game to not have the issue in the first place.
I would love to know the original design decision behind why fuel scoops were available as optional features. I wonder if it was purely a commander choice between cargo or fuel for one slot.
 
There is a whole lot of difference between humans doing something wonderful to cater for a gap in the game design and designing the game to not have the issue in the first place.
I would love to know the original design decision behind why fuel scoops were available as optional features. I wonder if it was purely a commander choice between cargo or fuel for one slot.

In the original game, they were always optional too - it was one of those items that the budding commander aspired to. Personally, I think they made the correct decision.
 
There is a whole lot of difference between humans doing something wonderful to cater for a gap in the game design and designing the game to not have the issue in the first place.
I would love to know the original design decision behind why fuel scoops were available as optional features. I wonder if it was purely a commander choice between cargo or fuel for one slot.
The design decision was that people could run out of fuel so that others can rescue them using fuel transfer limpets (which were added for that reason). 🤷‍♂️
 
Never ever heard of that in 4 years of playing, and it certainly didn't happen for me when I ran out of fuel and died in inhabited space before I heard of the Fuel Rats.

During Alpha (and maybe early beta) you could request a refuel from the right hand panel, an npc would jump in. The icon vanished in an update.

Current method is outlined in the patch notes below.

Update 2.0(1.5) patch notes dated 15/12/2015:

"- Small chance of spawning rescuer AI when player runs out of fuel in supercruise if in sufficiently populated system, not an anarchy, if player is friendly with controlling faction. Spawned AI acts like a hunter passive, so it will approach the player and then drop out, waiting for the player to follow".
 
During Alpha (and maybe early beta) you could request a refuel from the right hand panel, an npc would jump in. The icon vanished in an update.

Current method is outlined in the patch notes below.

Update 2.0(1.5) patch notes dated 15/12/2015:

"- Small chance of spawning rescuer AI when player runs out of fuel in supercruise if in sufficiently populated system, not an anarchy, if player is friendly with controlling faction. Spawned AI acts like a hunter passive, so it will approach the player and then drop out, waiting for the player to follow".
Before my time I joined just after Engineers dropped for those on other platforms, I was on a Mac at the time, and I was for a limited time the only population of the system when I ran out of fuel and some minutes later expired as my emergency life support failed so wouldn't have been eligible.
 
Probably because there has been nothing of note happening in the game that can be discussed.
  • Galnet - suspended - no news of what is going on the galaxy
  • PowerPlay - doing it's own 5th column thing - people moan - people dont care (enough to force any changes)
  • Fleet carriers - coming soon - Fronter will tell us something soon but wont tell us when
  • Guardians - seems to have stopped - no new locations or activities to more their story forward recently
  • Thargoid star map - nice visuals when activated but seems to be an end point rather than a step in their story.
  • Gankers - no change since last year - Frontier do stuff, they don't tell us what, people complain that it isn't enough
  • Space legs - not coming soon - may or may not be part of the December 2020 update
  • Base building - not coming soon - may or may not be part of the December 202 update
  • Mining nerf - prices now fluctuate much more than before - Not something that is game breaking, just annoying
  • SLF pilot rebuy - a long awaited feature - now there

People could talk about the 70,000 Fuel rescues - but that is a player led initiative to cover an in-game design hole.
People could talk about the 109 Thargoid attacked stations that have been rebuilt by project - IDA but that is a player led initiative - there still doesn't seem a focus or direction of the Thargoid attacks so it seems to be completely RNG as to where they attack next.

Without something coming from Frontier, there is very little to discuss...

meanwhile we sit and wait...
Thank you for bringing me up to date. Imma gonna check back in a year.
 
Never ever heard of that in 4 years of playing, and it certainly didn't happen for me when I ran out of fuel and died in inhabited space before I heard of the Fuel Rats.
Source: https://youtu.be/yDV5iIFqraE?t=245


Looks like when the main fuel tank is drained, these guys start reacting.

I believe, just after launch (or was it before, in BETA🤔), there was a possibility to use a distress beacon, but they removed that again. Not sure why...
 
Last edited:
Due to the current situation, Steam reports online player records. In the meantime (judging from Steamcharts) player activity in Elite didn't increase.

I guess that means Elite players already rarely left their homes before Covid19.

Assuming they're the same players.

I don't pay much attention to Steam charts but, if they've been showing a decline in ED players and then a levelling-off, it might be that different players are offsetting a previous decline.
 
Assuming they're the same players.

I don't pay much attention to Steam charts but, if they've been showing a decline in ED players and then a levelling-off, it might be that different players are offsetting a previous decline.
Possibly, do you have any qualifications regarding steam charts? You'll need to start 3 threads, 250 posts and 5 circular arguments about it for the official Steamcharts Discussion Certificate.

PS
And a PowerPoint presentation.
 
Back
Top Bottom