Question on fuel?

Urbanski101 · Sep 17, 2014

Is the fuel indicator on the ship working properly or is it bugged?

Reason I ask is when flying my Cobra and jump to a new system say 6ly away - after docking and going to buy some more fuel it says 83% or something similar. Surely if my jump range is 8ly and I use up 6ly I should be down to around 25% fuel.

It's not a big issue as I always buy fuel every time I dock but it would be good to know if it working as intended or if it's bugged.

Cheers

Mooncusser · Sep 17, 2014

Jump range and fuel use aren't necessarily the same thing.

I think you are assuming that the limiting factor in a hyperspace jump is your fuel capacity. However, the real limiting factor is your engine's ability to push the mass of your Cobra that far that fast. You have enough fuel in your tank for three or four jumps with most ships the way things are working now.

I'm not sure how they are calculating fuel use exactly right now. I think FD originally noted that they were going to use 1 ton of fuel per 1 light year of travel distance - but this clearly isn't the case in the beta to date.

Tinman · Sep 17, 2014

Urbanski101 said:
Is the fuel indicator on the ship working properly or is it bugged?

Reason I ask is when flying my Cobra and jump to a new system say 6ly away - after docking and going to buy some more fuel it says 83% or something similar. Surely if my jump range is 8ly and I use up 6ly I should be down to around 25% fuel.

It's not a big issue as I always buy fuel every time I dock but it would be good to know if it working as intended or if it's bugged.

Cheers

Your jumprange is decided by how powerful your Frame Shift Drive is (vs how much mass), not by the amount of fuel in your tank. Unless you are starting to run low that is...

gapper4 · Sep 17, 2014

Tinman said:
Your jumprange is decided by how powerful your Frame Shift Drive is (vs how much mass), not by the amount of fuel in your tank. Unless you are starting to run low that is...

Out of curiosity, what happens if you run out of fuel ? Can you self-destruct or are you just stuck there, unable to move ?

Mephane · Sep 17, 2014

gapper4 said:
Out of curiosity, what happens if you run out of fuel ? Can you self-destruct or are you just stuck there, unable to move ?

You get the choice between self-destruct and distress call.

Urbanski101 · Sep 17, 2014

That does explain a lot thanks

Ttaskmaster · Sep 17, 2014

gapper4 said:
Out of curiosity, what happens if you run out of fuel ? Can you self-destruct or are you just stuck there, unable to move ?

I've only done this once and through simply playing with stuff in the cockpit (I had not actually run out of fuel), but IIRC, you can head to your right display and, under Functions, switch on the Distress Beacon.

In a few seconds, you get a dialogue box explaining that a kind passer-by has responded and offers to tow you to a nearby station, for a few hundred Creds. You can either accept and be rescued, or decline and die of boredom in space...

I don't know if other players can see the beacon and come blow you up for S&Gs, though....

:S

Mooncusser · Sep 17, 2014

I thought the original plan was that you wouldn't be allowed to hyperdrive into a system unless you would have some modest amount of fuel in reserve when you arrived. Not sure if this is true, though. I think the idea was to avoid situations where you couldn't get straight to a station or to a gas giant (fuel scoop) on fumes.

On the distress signal, again, I thought the plan was for any player to be able to see it - but right now it might not function as ultimately intended. I think the gating factor here is that they need to be able to add the "walking around" functionality, and the ability to trade cargo / refuel between ships in space.

Eventually you will have to make the choice to flick on the distress signal and hope the player that arrives is nice and refuels you - or just punch the self destruct button and lose everything.

Machival · Sep 17, 2014

Mooncusser said:
I thought the original plan was that you wouldn't be allowed to hyperdrive into a system unless you would have some modest amount of fuel in reserve when you arrived. Not sure if this is true, though. I think the idea was to avoid situations where you couldn't get straight to a station or to a gas giant (fuel scoop) on fumes.

On the distress signal, again, I thought the plan was for any player to be able to see it - but right now it might not function as ultimately intended. I think the gating factor here is that they need to be able to add the "walking around" functionality, and the ability to trade cargo / refuel between ships in space.

Nah, IVA isn't necessary for refueling. Chances are that all we'll have to do to refuel another ship is to approach it, have both ships extend/open some sort of fuel exchange port or cable, and then dock the ships together. We'll probably see player to player refueling once all the supercruise features (such as player interdictions) come online.