Fuel Scoops Enhancer

[Commander McLane]

Mabelala Institute of Technology (MIT), the leading research facility in the southeast corner of Galaxy 3, announces a major breakthrough in scooping technology: The Fuel Scoops Enhancer!

The Fuel Scoops Enhancer allows you to recharge your fuel tanks during normal space-flight, on your way from the witchpoint beacon to the planet, without the deviation to the sun.

How does it work? As we all know the Quirium that powers the jumpdrives of every spacecraft is made from high energy native hydrogen plasma. Fuel scoops harvest this plasma and by a catalytic reaction transform it into the highly stable and storable Quirium. The plasma exists only at solar temperatures and can be harvested only very close to a sun.

But recently a team working at a Solar Research Station orbiting the sun of Esaesge discovered that continuously very tiny amounts of a half-stable intermediate plasma form are created in a sun's plasma belt. These particles are then carried away from the sun in the continuous particle stream known as the solar wind.

The Fuel Scoops Enhancer is a device that, when connected to a ship's fuel scoop, is capable of collecting, condensing and converting this thin particle stream into Quirium, adding to your ship's fuel.

There are, however, a few drawbacks: As the particle density in the solar wind is very, very thin, the recharge rate is very poor. Using your fuel injectors will burn the Quirium about three times faster than the Fuel Scoops Enhancer can refill your tanks. In interstellar space the device will not work at all. And finally as the technology is still new it is not particularly cheap. Your Fuel Scoops Enhancer will come with a price tag of 4850 credits if you are not lucky enough to be awarded with it.

MIT is proud to announce that this breakthrough was made possible by the joint work of scientists from many planets in the southeast corner of Galaxy 3. Special thanks go to everybody who has contributed to the research work by sponsoring a MIT-student through our INVEST IN KNOWLEDGE--SPONSOR A STUDENT program / Partnership for Development in Galaxy 3.

=======

The Fuel Scoops Enhancer, the Mabelala Institute of Technology (MIT), the Partnership for Development in Galaxy 3 and a lot of other stuff, together with a bunch of interdependent storylines, will come to you in Equilibrium.oxp.

[TGHC]

This sounds like a very very expensive item, as much as 100,000 credits!

[Commander McLane]

So you think it would be too cheap? I've tried to somehow balance it with the other equipment items, most of which are quite cheap IMO. I mean, for every new Jameson of course even 525cr sounds like a big deal of money, but as you are advancing money is not an issue anymore that would prevent you from buying anything. Of course I could easily make it more expensive, perhaps having in mind that the naval shield enhancer costs 47500cr and the naval energy unit--if you can buy it--150000cr (EDIT: Oops, misremembered, it's 50000cr only). So would this item be more in that league?

I should point out that its recharge rate is really not that high, so you would spend an awful lot of time flying around and filling your tanks to the limit. In any case heading directly to the sun and skimming there would be much faster. But the fuel scoops enhancer comes in handy when you get into a fight with exhausted tanks, because after firing the first few rounds you could hit the witchdrive-key and get at least a bit out of the danger zone.

But anyhow, I'd like to get more opinions on that. And as Equilibrium.oxp still is far from release there are no last words on anything yet.

[Killer Wolf]

The Fuel Scoops Enhancer allows you to recharge your fuel tanks during normal space-flight

In interstellar space the device will not work at all

?
:-\

[Commander McLane]

The Fuel Scoops Enhancer allows you to recharge your fuel tanks during normal space-flight

In interstellar space the device will not work at all

?
:-\

That is easily explained. The Fuel Scoops Enhancer collects the very, very tiny amounts of Quirium constantly carried away from the sun in the particle stream of the solar wind. Within a solar system, outside the sun's corona, that solar wind already is very thin, but the device can just manage to extract something. In interstellar space however, far away from any sun (that's what other people may refer to as thargoidspace or witchspace, although I think it is better to say that witchspace is only the tunnel leading to another place in space) the particle density is so low that there is nothing to collect at all, therefore: not working.

In other terms: The device works while you're in a system, but not when you have misjumped. So if you have done a misjump, run away from some thargoids and are low on fuel, you're still stuck, Commander. Fuel Scoops Enhancer won't bring you back.

Okay?

[Killer Wolf]

got you. my misinterpretation of the word "interstellar".

if it *doesn't* work in witchspace tho, i can't really see the point of it over normal scoops - Witchspace is EXACTLY the place where you'd need a non-coronal scooper.

[Magus Zeal]

Right, but for realism's sake, there's no source of the particles necessary to make the fuel -- so it doesn't work. Besides, you could abuse it then to mis-jump between long jumps and refuel before continuing (thus limiting the number of times you'd have to head to a station or sun to refuel).

[Commander McLane]

if it *doesn't* work in witchspace tho, i can't really see the point of it over normal scoops - Witchspace is EXACTLY the place where you'd need a non-coronal scooper.

Yes, BUT -- nobody said life is easy

[Arexack_Heretic]

Make sure it is only available AFTER the Nova mission,
and
only if scoop is fitted.
(to prevent ships not able to have scoops to fit this item.)


Witchspace plasma convertor:

With the Thargoid invasion, many ships are destroyed in witchspace, releasing their fuel. 'Witchspace is only a tiny dimension and these exotics gradually build up over time. (Although Q-fuel has a short halflife even in extra-dimesional space).
Collecting quirrium from space needs a massive increase in fieldstrength, requiring substantial upgrading of the 'scoop' mag-net (R) as well as draining the ships-energybanks when in use. To prevent burning out the coils, the mechanism has a automated cut-off.

-works only in WS, converting ambient plasma to fuel.
-incompatible with Fuelscoop enhancer.
(checkEQ: EQfuelenhancer=Y: not allowed)
-requires energy to function.
(like ECM; push key get 0.1LY fuel, lose energy)
-Produces heat.

[Commander McLane]

@ Arexack:

I don't think I can prevent ships with no fuel scoops fitted from buying the item (or do you know how to influence what is displayed on the equipment screen other than by setting the TL?), but for using it you also need fuel scoops installed. The script is checking for both when IN_FLIGHT. Does that serve your need? And on the equipment screen it is clearly marked as an extra that has to be connected to your fuel scoops, so only a fool would spoil his money on buying it as long as he hasn't got scoops.

BTW: Unfortunately there is no information on equipment.plist yet available in the wiki. I really would like to know if there are more possibilities than available_to_all, in order to influence the availability of an item. I tried available_to_player, but obviously that isn't defined, so it didn't work. But it would be cool to have a bit in the definition of an equipment item that would make its availability depend on any condition. I just have no information about whether that is indeed possible or not. Is there somebody out there who would know an answer to that and could possibly write an article for the wiki on equipment.plist?

The NOVA mission bit is trickier, because NOVA takes place in Galaxy 4, and Equilibrium is placed in Galaxy 3. Of course I could move Equilibrium to Galaxy 4 and make it available only after completion of NOVA, but due to the very nature of NOVA the player in many cases won't be in Galaxy 4 anymore after finishing it. (I myself didn't want to leave the Galaxy and figured a workaround without the Fuel Scoops Enhancer, using Commies.oxp.) And also there are Deposed and Lovecats already, whereas Galaxy 3 is not yet populated with missions.

Anyway, I haven't tested it yet, but I believe the recharge rate of the Fuel Scoops Enhancer is too low to be of any help in NOVA. And... just got it: I can make the device not working as long as Nova is running, similar to what LittleBear does with the cloaking device in Assassins. The player would get a screen message that very, very, very, very unfortunately just in this critical moment the device broke. And due to some problems with spare parts delivery it will be fixed only after completing NOVA. Would that do the trick for you?

Re Witchspace Plasma Convertor:
I guess I could probably do something like this, but actually ... how shall I put this ... I don't want to! I don't want to help players out of interstellar space (which I prefer over witchspace) so easily. And besides, very often (if you have the OXP installed) you just can dock with a Behemoth and are happily even taken to the next system without having to pay or do anything. There is, however, also a programmer's twitch in your suggestion. I have no idea whether it is possible in an OXP to define a new keystroke, assign a key to an action, query whether that key is pressed and than run the action. I would very much like to have that (obviously it would be very helpful for designing new equipment items), but I just guess it's not possible right now. But again, anybody, can you confirm this guess or else tell me how it works?

[Arexack_Heretic]

yes, there is "portable between ships"
other than available to all.

you can set it to available to all : No. or just remove it.
Only ships that have the item specifically listed in their shipinfo (NPC, ie fuelscoops) or shipyard (player ie advanced spacescanner) can have it.

I know there is no listing for:
<key>HasEquipment</key>
<array>
<string>EQ_CUSTOM_EQUIPMENT C</string>
</array>
(With C as chance 0-1, number of items can be multiple by multiple entries.)
All NPC equipment availabilities are hardcoded. hasScoop, hasInjector, etc.
So I propose this listing for anyone who can code.

You'd have to ask Winston and Dajt about the key-binding as well as implementing above mentioned option.

Disabling the device when NOVA is triggered would work fine....
however...IIRC the Nova mission is triggered just after docking, not when entering the system. this could still leave the player with a full tank when docking. breaking the mission. a workaround would be to leak the tanks.
Insert in your script a marker that monitors the nova mission status, when activated, bleed the tanks.

WSFC:
Another drawback would be the powerfull magnetic fields attracting Thargoids. (You'll never be alone in WS again!)

[Killer Wolf]

"The player would get a screen message that very, very, very, very unfortunately just in this critical moment the device broke"

dearie me! doesn't work in Witchspace and now this! i gotta tell you, your sales pitch suuuuucks!! :-D

[Commander McLane]

@ Arexack: I'm not quite sure I've understood everything in your post, but anyway, I seem to have understood that there are no other commands possible in equipment.plist than the two mentioned: available_to_all and portable. So you can't give conditions. Putting it in shipdata.plist or shipyard.plist is no real option, because I simply can't change ALL shipdatas or shipyard.plists in my OXP. That means it has to be available_to_all and will be available for everybody at any station with the correct TL, but still it will be only usable together with scoops.


SPOILER --- SPOILER --- SPOILER


Re NOVA: The mission is triggered on EXITING_WITCHSPACE, after having performed a couple of jumps, and starts with a fuel leak, so you arrive at the station with no fuel, and can buy none, because the mission briefing ends with launchFromStation. That's how it works. So a de-activated Fuel Scoops Enhancer is exactly what is needed to keep NOVA as it was intended.

[Arexack_Heretic]

Yeah you got the idea.

I think it might be quite easy for a coder to include a check for fuelscoop, as Giles usually was pretty quick with these sort of additions.

I agree.

--


IIRC a fuel leak is permanent untill you dock,
(Could be that the leak only lasts untill fuel is empty)
so just make sure, that these conditions are met:

1) scoopingrate<drainrate and
2) scoopingrate is too low to acquire enough fuel for a jump before the sun goes nova.

If these conditions are met, no messing around with nova is required.

If 2 is not met, a fueldrain needs to be introduced just after launch.

If 1 is not met, only a complete disabling of the device will do.

[Commander McLane]

Already done it--and no messing at all required in NOVA (I wouldn't do anything that would need a change in the app/exe. That would be really user-unfriendly.)

Fuel leak is defined as: drain tanks until empty, seal tanks (see methods.plist in the wiki). So as soon as the tanks are empty they can be filled again. Haven't actually tested that, just relying on the wiki. Anyway, it was quite easy to put a condition into my script that removes the whole device when IN_FLIGHT and nova is 2HRS_TO_ZERO, shows a commsMessage informing the player and sets a flag. Only in condition NOVA_HERO and DOCKED and the flag is set you get a message screen with someone from MIT apologizing for the inconvenience and replacing the device free of charge (actually awarding it again), as it's still under warranty. Clearing the flag again, and that's it. No traces left, player continues with his game as if nothing has happened (apart from a sun having gone nova of course). If the player hasn't accepted the nova mission there is no need to bother as he will be dead anyway. Voilà.

As far as checking for the fuelscoops is concerned, I want a general solution. I'd like the general possibility included to have conditions (other than TL) attached to equipment, so that an OXP'er can have the availability of an item depend on anything he wants.

Unfortunately myself I am no coder. Anyway I've put this wish of mine also in another thread. Perhaps somebody has already answered to it. I haven't checked yet.