Fuel and the lack thereof

[Rekker]

Evening all.

I discovered one evening, after outrunning some particularly violent pirates that I had run out of fuel.
I can't remember as far back as the Acorn version but didn't running out of fuel meant you just stopped?

In my case I lost use of the witchdrive fuel injectors but managed to get to the station at full thrust!?

Is this right?

(not complaining if it is but it removes some of the fear out of the long jumps)

[Cody]

Main ship drives operate without the need for fuel, unlike the injectors and hyperspace drive.

[Rekker]

Ah, thank you!

[Tricky]

In Frontier if you ran out of fuel you couldn't use thrusters.

[Disembodied]

In Frontier if you ran out of fuel you couldn't use thrusters.

Which was essentially a death sentence, although the game didn't actually have the decency to kill you itself. That was a particularly duff piece of game design: if a game is going to kill you, it should kill you, and not make you linger helplessly until you're forced to quit and restart.

[Fatleaf]

In Frontier if you ran out of fuel you couldn't use thrusters.

Which was essentially a death sentence, although the game didn't actually have the decency to kill you itself. That was a particularly duff piece of game design: if a game is going to kill you, it should kill you, and not make you linger helplessly until you're forced to quit and restart.

Just like this game does when you get a missjump with not enough fuel to make it to the nearest system...

[Cody]

At least there is an  OXP that provides a solution to that problem (which does require some skill to utilise).

[cim]

Several OXPs, with the various fuel tanks, the Electronic Thumb, and the Gal Drive Pod.

But yes, there should be a way out in the core game (other than hoping you have a Galdrive and it didn't get damaged), though not an easy one to use.

[Cody]

... there should be a way out in the core game (other than hoping you have a Galdrive and it didn't get damaged), though not an easy one to use.

Yep... which is why I only mentioned WR, as it can be tricky at times.

[Diziet Sma]

But yes, there should be a way out in the core game (other than hoping you have a Galdrive and it didn't get damaged), though not an easy one to use.

Well, one of the things that we like about Oolite is that it tries to mirror RL and common sense, to whatever extent is possible.. and it certainly is possible to end up in such ill-fated circumstances in RL. So perhaps the in-game way out would be to offer the player the chance to commit suicide..

"You're drifting in interstellar space, with no hope of rescue or escape.. would you prefer to kill yourself now, or just wait until the oxygen runs out?"