spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 8, 2011 22:37:14 GMT -5
Once again I'm playing game where I am crawling from one planet to the next, scratching for fuel, running on vapours and luck. I'm flying a teeny tiny little starter ship - what would happen if even a medium size ship tried to pass through? Interplanetary commerce and Faction cohesion would totally break down. This extreme scarcity of water-fuel:
1. Isn't fun. It's just irritating.
2. Does not make any sense, if fuel is just purified water. Ships could synthesise unlimited fuel on any planet with a biosphere or any solar system with water ice in it. Maybe it would take a week. Even if ships for some reason coudn't synthesise unlimited fuel, Star Docks certainly could do so and would do so. It would be the primary purpose of a Star Dock.
3. Still does not make any sense, even if fuel is incredibly special stuff like nanofiltered plutonium-dilithium holocrystals. Fuel availability is essential to space travel and galactic commerce. Therefore, regardless of how rare or expensive it is, fuel will be present at any location that's even remotely worth visiting. This is just down to politics and economics. Factions will ensure fuel is prepositioned. Independent governments will make sure they have adequate fuel stocks, or no one will visit them and they will fall off the economic map. Failing all of that, private traders will arrange for fuel to be prepositioned along the route by bulk tankers in order to execute trade routes. If even that wasn't possible, private Captains would send ships in flotillas that included tanker-ships, to permit en-route refuelling of the flotilla.
The only thing that should constrain fuel availability is the price (assuming we're looking at scenario 3 vs scenario 2, i.e. water-fuel is more like plutonium-dilithium and less like just condensed kettle steam). Quantity of water-fuel should be effectively unlimited in all locations. In remote locations the price could be up 500% or even 2500%, but on anywhere with a Star Dock, you will be able to buy as much as you can carry, always.
Opening up fuel availability and replacing fuel scarcity with high fuel prices just follows the normal basic economic laws of supply and demand. I don't think it will change the the game materially. We will still get to play the "running out of fuel again" mini-game due to fuel tank size constraints. If this Fuel Quest mini-game is less extreme, lasting only until you make it to an Urban Zone, I don't think that's a great loss really is it?
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 9, 2011 0:36:20 GMT -5
More info - in this game I was just playing (only on Demanding), I was clearing out every planet I passed, of all its fuel and rations. And all the neighbouring planets. This was in the Vae Victus, in perfect running order, with +6 extra sails, and a fanatical crew. I could not even retrace my steps, as I left a scorched earth trail (of no fuel) behind me. I raided all the planets anywhere near my path and left them without any fuel or rations as well. No one could've followed my ship. The space lanes were closed for business once I'd passed through. And when I looped back to my starting point, months later, those same planets still had zero fuel and rations, or a few had maybe at most 1 fuel.
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 9, 2011 11:23:19 GMT -5
It sounds like you're really burning fuel fast. How's your Intimidation skill?
Mobile Fueling points with overpriced fuel would be pretty cool.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 9, 2011 11:33:12 GMT -5
I followed the Manual recommendations for fuel efficiency. I had Pilot + Intimidation > Hull size, maintained my Sails, full crew, max morale. I tried increasing Intimidation (and Pilot) to deal with this problem and it had an incredibly small impact on my fuel consumption, less than a few percent improvement, if even that much.
Possibly a lot of characters don't encounter this problem because they quickly get their fuel efficiency down to near 0 per AU right from the outset. Fair enough. But that surely does not reflect the typical NPC Captain and it should not be mandatory for a player Captain, just to survive travel.
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Post by jamobey on Mar 9, 2011 13:29:29 GMT -5
spike, were you playing a captain that looted other ships? I found something similar with metal in a game I was playing, but it seemed like even when metal was not available on any planet, I could still always come across it when looting enemies. I understand that water-fuel is WAY more important as a resource, but I'm just noting that even when planetary resources are scarce there might be an independent scale of availability for looting. Cory, do different resources experience shortages (aside from the "shortage" rumor) over long-term arcs in the game? Spike, is this true for all the games you played, or just with this one captain?
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 9, 2011 14:39:26 GMT -5
Maybe Water-Fuel should just refresh faster in the exchange. (unless there's a shortage)
I just started a game with a Plants surplus at Thulun Prime. 113 plants, and now it's gone, but they've still got a surplus. It seems surpluses should either end when you deplete the stock or restock constantly.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 10, 2011 7:50:25 GMT -5
Agreed that maybe one way to handle this is to amp up the refresh rates on water fuel. I still don't think it's realistic that one tiny ship can clean an entire planet out of water fuel in a single visit. I still think the limiting factor should be ship's fuel storage capacity, not the planet's fuel storage capacity. But upping the refresh would take away a lot of the irritation factor.
No I was not ever looting, I was trying to play a pure trading game (though ended up mostly mission-running and price-scouting). The problem was most severe in this recent game, I think because I was heading more out into Red territory than usual. To be honest, if I stuck to Green routes it probably would not be a problem. Maybe the takeaway is, everyone should stick to Green routes until they develop deadly fuel-management skills. That is in keeping with the in-game story, I guess. But if so, you would expect to see significant economic differences in areas only reachable by Red routes - stronger demand, higher Sell prices (desperate need), lower Buy prices (no one to sell to). And, local governments in these places would have an even more strong incentive to support their economies by making sure plentiful and cheap water fuel was reliably available.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 10, 2011 9:30:14 GMT -5
Sorry I should've made this Poll simpler, it's actually asking 2 questions. The main question is, should fuel be available in limited quantities (like now), or unlimited quantities, and if unlimited, at a fixed price or variable price.
The 2nd question, which is not that important, is if it should be possible to refuel by taking on water in a Wilderness area and partially refining it using onboard ship equipment. And if yes, should this give a risk of system damage (Engines, Sails, etc)
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 10, 2011 11:01:17 GMT -5
Maybe you should be able to do a focused water harvest. Better chance of getting water (and more of it), but you're bypassing all of the plants, metals, and wild clothing (this is a free-range, organic-fed pair of trousers!) you might otherwise find.
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 10, 2011 11:44:26 GMT -5
Yes a focussed water harvest would be good. Should be lower risk. Unlikely to lose 70 out of 72 crew just parking by a lake and sticking a hose out. Probably....
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Post by slayernz on Mar 10, 2011 16:36:01 GMT -5
It's funny - I've never really had a problem with water, even when I stayed in the Vae Victus to go for the Level 10 award thingy. I built up significant stores by buying all the water from urban areas and dumping it at caches very close by. The planets didn't seem to run out of water that quickly and seemed to restock within a short period of time.
It certainly helped that there were some great "explore" options in the wilds close to the urban bases (eg NE of the Steel Song home world). Some of the caches ended up with hundreds of units of water.
What I DID run out of on a regular basis was crew. Given I only had 35 crew to do exploring with the Victus, I regularly lost 30 in one or two "accidents". Even when I upgraded to a larger ship, the most I lost in one exploration was 92% of my total crew (I limped back to port with a crew of 7). If I were a person wanting to sign up with a captain, I'd certainly never want to sign up with an explorer captain!
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 11, 2011 5:54:55 GMT -5
Yep that's pretty much my experience too. If you Explore, you have plenty of water and run out of crew. If you don't Explore, you have enough crew and run out of water.
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Post by slayernz on Mar 11, 2011 6:23:43 GMT -5
We need to find a way to turn crew into water ... hmmm
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 11, 2011 10:57:30 GMT -5
OK maybe I should add that option to the Poll - when things get tough, any whiners among the crew will be thrown into the Hydro - Reducers. 10 crew converts to 1 water?
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jackofools
Initiate
[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Poor decision making skills are no substitute for good humor.
Posts: 13
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Post by jackofools on Mar 11, 2011 11:44:03 GMT -5
We need to find a way to turn crew into water ... hmmm We should have a Dune-like water harvester. Hey, we could do that to the crew of enemy ships. Forget pressing them into service. Press them in a water harvester! Heck, make it an add-on to a ship, I'd pay for that if I was a pirate! It could lead to a whole new combat option: "Demand Surrender, Creepily". "Power down your engines and lower your shields. Your crew's water will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." Or something that is a little less of a rip off. Or not >  |
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