Here are three sets of suggestions that go together, because of common use of a section of the HUD. The main two are fuel management and a colour-coded condition system that includes a suggested remedy for Combat Logging. The third is changes to the lower-right corner to accommodate the main two.
1 Fuel management
=================
I have suggestions for six changes to fuel management. Most are not original to me, and so I would just be adding suggestions on their mechanics.
Fuel A: Improve the fuel reserve system by making two changes to it. Reserve change 1 is to give us an option in Functions to set what percentage of total fuel capacity is designated the reserve. Give us say the ten rates from 1% to 10%, or the five even rates from 2% to 10%. Set the default to whatever it is right now. Reserve change 2 is to give us an option in Functions on what refill policy we set for it. For example, the options could be:
Fuel C: Give us an option in Functions to set what percentage of total fuel capacity is to be vented. Give us say the nine choices from 10% to 90%, or the four from 20% to 80%. Others may want even finer gradation. Venting while close to a station incurs a fine, and venting when in a station is a criminal offence.
Further, tie ability to vent fuel, and ability to retain fuel, to the state of the Cargo Hatch. Therefore, amongst other things, interference from Thargoid cargo has a chance of venting fuel, including when docked, and including venting ALL fuel. Note that leaks in general were mentioned in the original documents many moons ago, so essentially this suggestion is resurrecting that discussion point.
Fuel D: new limpet controller: fuel siphon. What I'd add to this existing suggestion from others is that if a player steals fuel then the thief's criminal state is now hostage to the victim's life until that victim's next refueling event. If the victim goes on life support and dies in it then that makes the the theft a murder and so accordingly the thief gets notoriety and the thief's ship an appropriate bounty.
Fuel E: could we have a full set of numerical statistics on fuel supply and usage rates? Not important, but could be nice to have.
Fuel F: When scooping, instead of there being one bar getting filled, split it into four bars representing 25% of total fuel capacity. Unlike the above, this is purely aesthetic, as it would be much more visually gratifying to see each bar filling one at a time but four times faster when scooping rather than currently seeing the one bar fill up somewhat slowly even using the best scoop one can buy and fit. If someone has set a scooping limit, then the percent that is not to be filled would be say redded out. Scooping would also completely fill the reserve first, another QoL change in its own right.
2 Coloured condition system:
============================
Condition White
Game does a save-point upon any change of condition in or out of the three Alerts (including changing Alert colour).
Insufficient fuel in main tank to jump to a scoopable star (whether or not scoop is possessed) triggers Yellow Alert. Being out of fuel entirely is Red Alert.
When a Yellow Alert condition arises, a task requirement arises in some panel left side for them (most likely Transactions), and the task must be completed in before the real-time timer ticks down to zero, in a similar manner as to how missions have to be completed before a real-time expiry. If the timer drops below 25 minutes, it escalates to a Red Alert, which will happen either at the time when logged in or upon log-in. If a Yellow Alert timer expires during log-out, that puts the ship in Condition Black.
No ability to save-and-exit at all during Orange or Red Alert, since they are both Immediate Threat conditions. Oh yes, that will be fun when people are on life-support, especially explorers in deep space.
Combat events, beginning with interdiction, trigger and maintain Red Alert. The Alert lasts a minimum of two minutes after the end of the last event.
Use of Red Alert to mitigate Combat Logging:
If the game disconnects while in Red Alert then let there be a chance that the ship will go into Condition Black. The chances should be set so that genuine crashes and network problems are not punished while combat logging is, such as by tracking DCs during all colour conditions and doing statistical analysis. A disconnect rate that is disproportionately during Red Alert stages rather than in other colour conditions would suggest combat logging. The downside is that highly intensive combat zones may put more strain in networks so as to raise the likelihood of crashes, but I don't know other than that it is something to consider. Further, someone with total a rate of crashes and disconnects per hour of game time etc that is notably higher than average may be gaming this, so watch for that too. Also, nasty people could commit the real-life offence of interfering with another Commander's internet to make them disconnect on Red Alerts, so this also needs dealing with, say by recording who is also in instance when someone DCs during Red Alert and tracking the total number of such when a given other Commander is in instance. Such data may also be reportable to real-life authorities or ISPs etc as appropriate.
If the Red Alert was non-combat then the chances should be reasonable in line with the situation faced, eg if one crashes while badly overheating in a stellar corona then it is reasonable for there to be a strong chance of Condition Black upon relog. Just think of it as that the Commander was rendered unconscious during a time of crisis and so was unable to resolve it before ship destruction.
If one player disconnects during a PvP situation then that player's ship is replaced by an NPC with the same ship loadout, same damage state, same ranks, same bounties, and as similar a skill as is near as practicable, so that the other player(s) can get the kill and the bounty they are due for their in-game progression. Does not apply to SRVs or SLFs, but does still apply to unmanned un-dismissed ships.
Then, when a player who got disconnected during Red Alert logs back in, they will come back either to:
3 The lower-right panel
=======================
There are things missing from the indicator lights in the lower-right corner, and we don't need the whole text of "Landing Gear" and so on. So, with this and the above on fuel and colour coded conditions in mind, perhaps have the whole panel there look something like this:
Legal status bar
Heat signature / silent running indicator
--------- (divider) ---------- <-- make these wider than the room for actual stats, to make it stand out more
F Usage: #.## t/hr
U
E RSRV: [fill bar]
L MAIN: [fill bar]
--------- (divider) ----------
COND: [Condition colour]
M-LOCK: [number or "Full lock"]
[]LG []HP
[]CS []SL
Put the vertical FUEL into a box so that it acts as a unifying marker.
Similar changes to this section on the HUD on the SRV and SLF could also be made.
1 Fuel management
=================
I have suggestions for six changes to fuel management. Most are not original to me, and so I would just be adding suggestions on their mechanics.
Fuel A: Improve the fuel reserve system by making two changes to it. Reserve change 1 is to give us an option in Functions to set what percentage of total fuel capacity is designated the reserve. Give us say the ten rates from 1% to 10%, or the five even rates from 2% to 10%. Set the default to whatever it is right now. Reserve change 2 is to give us an option in Functions on what refill policy we set for it. For example, the options could be:
- Keep full
- Refill at 75%
- Refill at 50%
- Refill at 25%
- Refill on empty (the current system, and so would be the default until manually changed)
Fuel C: Give us an option in Functions to set what percentage of total fuel capacity is to be vented. Give us say the nine choices from 10% to 90%, or the four from 20% to 80%. Others may want even finer gradation. Venting while close to a station incurs a fine, and venting when in a station is a criminal offence.
Further, tie ability to vent fuel, and ability to retain fuel, to the state of the Cargo Hatch. Therefore, amongst other things, interference from Thargoid cargo has a chance of venting fuel, including when docked, and including venting ALL fuel. Note that leaks in general were mentioned in the original documents many moons ago, so essentially this suggestion is resurrecting that discussion point.
Fuel D: new limpet controller: fuel siphon. What I'd add to this existing suggestion from others is that if a player steals fuel then the thief's criminal state is now hostage to the victim's life until that victim's next refueling event. If the victim goes on life support and dies in it then that makes the the theft a murder and so accordingly the thief gets notoriety and the thief's ship an appropriate bounty.
Fuel E: could we have a full set of numerical statistics on fuel supply and usage rates? Not important, but could be nice to have.
Fuel F: When scooping, instead of there being one bar getting filled, split it into four bars representing 25% of total fuel capacity. Unlike the above, this is purely aesthetic, as it would be much more visually gratifying to see each bar filling one at a time but four times faster when scooping rather than currently seeing the one bar fill up somewhat slowly even using the best scoop one can buy and fit. If someone has set a scooping limit, then the percent that is not to be filled would be say redded out. Scooping would also completely fill the reserve first, another QoL change in its own right.
2 Coloured condition system:
============================
Condition White
- Commander not logged in, exited while not in an alert state
- Docked, or powered and lawfully inside an airy station
- Flying with no major threats (green still includes PROX and IMPACT warnings at low speed)
- Threat of death/destruction 25 minutes or later from now
- Threat of notable damage within the next 25 minutes (does not include warnings that still allow Condition Green)
- Threat of death/destruction within the next 25 minutes
- Commander not logged in, ship destroyed / Commander dead
Game does a save-point upon any change of condition in or out of the three Alerts (including changing Alert colour).
Insufficient fuel in main tank to jump to a scoopable star (whether or not scoop is possessed) triggers Yellow Alert. Being out of fuel entirely is Red Alert.
When a Yellow Alert condition arises, a task requirement arises in some panel left side for them (most likely Transactions), and the task must be completed in before the real-time timer ticks down to zero, in a similar manner as to how missions have to be completed before a real-time expiry. If the timer drops below 25 minutes, it escalates to a Red Alert, which will happen either at the time when logged in or upon log-in. If a Yellow Alert timer expires during log-out, that puts the ship in Condition Black.
No ability to save-and-exit at all during Orange or Red Alert, since they are both Immediate Threat conditions. Oh yes, that will be fun when people are on life-support, especially explorers in deep space.
Combat events, beginning with interdiction, trigger and maintain Red Alert. The Alert lasts a minimum of two minutes after the end of the last event.
Use of Red Alert to mitigate Combat Logging:
If the game disconnects while in Red Alert then let there be a chance that the ship will go into Condition Black. The chances should be set so that genuine crashes and network problems are not punished while combat logging is, such as by tracking DCs during all colour conditions and doing statistical analysis. A disconnect rate that is disproportionately during Red Alert stages rather than in other colour conditions would suggest combat logging. The downside is that highly intensive combat zones may put more strain in networks so as to raise the likelihood of crashes, but I don't know other than that it is something to consider. Further, someone with total a rate of crashes and disconnects per hour of game time etc that is notably higher than average may be gaming this, so watch for that too. Also, nasty people could commit the real-life offence of interfering with another Commander's internet to make them disconnect on Red Alerts, so this also needs dealing with, say by recording who is also in instance when someone DCs during Red Alert and tracking the total number of such when a given other Commander is in instance. Such data may also be reportable to real-life authorities or ISPs etc as appropriate.
If the Red Alert was non-combat then the chances should be reasonable in line with the situation faced, eg if one crashes while badly overheating in a stellar corona then it is reasonable for there to be a strong chance of Condition Black upon relog. Just think of it as that the Commander was rendered unconscious during a time of crisis and so was unable to resolve it before ship destruction.
If one player disconnects during a PvP situation then that player's ship is replaced by an NPC with the same ship loadout, same damage state, same ranks, same bounties, and as similar a skill as is near as practicable, so that the other player(s) can get the kill and the bounty they are due for their in-game progression. Does not apply to SRVs or SLFs, but does still apply to unmanned un-dismissed ships.
Then, when a player who got disconnected during Red Alert logs back in, they will come back either to:
- a ship that is in the condition it was in at time of disconnect, and also get a mission-critical message that lets them know that some random stranger helped them while the player seemed to have been knocked out cold, and that they may not be so lucky next time
- or a destruction screen, telling them they were destroyed by so and so or by such and such condition, and then get taken to the rebuy screen
3 The lower-right panel
=======================
There are things missing from the indicator lights in the lower-right corner, and we don't need the whole text of "Landing Gear" and so on. So, with this and the above on fuel and colour coded conditions in mind, perhaps have the whole panel there look something like this:
Legal status bar
Heat signature / silent running indicator
--------- (divider) ---------- <-- make these wider than the room for actual stats, to make it stand out more
F Usage: #.## t/hr
U
E RSRV: [fill bar]
L MAIN: [fill bar]
--------- (divider) ----------
COND: [Condition colour]
M-LOCK: [number or "Full lock"]
[]LG []HP
[]CS []SL
Put the vertical FUEL into a box so that it acts as a unifying marker.
Similar changes to this section on the HUD on the SRV and SLF could also be made.