Fuel Scooping

[Cody]

I'm also thinking that it wouldn't be an instantaneous transfer - 0.1ly per 3 secs or something like that, with a chance of damage on each iteration.

<nods>

And an auto-eject if an escape pod is fitted? Oh yeah.

Sounds good - gotta balance that exploit somehow!

[CmdrGumbo]

wouldn't there be some risk involved?

So you run the risk of equipment damage during the transfer? That would certainly be worth considering.

I'm also thinking that it wouldn't be an instantaneous transfer - 0.1ly per 3 secs or something like that, with a chance of damage on each iteration.

Wouldn't that be in contradiction to the available fuel-scoop mechanism, since we can already scoop energy off the sun and directly use it as fuel without a delay. Why should there be any difference with fuel that is just stored in additional containers? You'd just pump it from there to your main tank, similar to what the extra fuel tanks opx does.

How about limiting the amount of containers one can add to a ship (maybe depending on ship size or other factors)?

[phkb]

Wouldn't that be in contradiction to the available fuel-scoop mechanism

Not quite. [begin handwave] The fuel scoop takes fuel from outside the ship into the main tanks. Fuel containers are in your cargo hold. The magnetic seals on the containers are designed around a one-way transfer from the fuel scoop. Bypassing this and reversing the flow of fuel, inside a pressurised, air-filled ship, could potentially ignite the fuel with disastrous consequences.[end handwave]

Well, it has a certain ring of plausibility anyway. If you squint.

[CmdrGumbo]

Wouldn't that be in contradiction to the available fuel-scoop mechanism

Not quite. [begin handwave] The fuel scoop takes fuel from outside the ship into the main tanks. Fuel containers are in your cargo hold. The magnetic seals on the containers are designed around a one-way transfer from the fuel scoop. Bypassing this and reversing the flow of fuel, inside a pressurised, air-filled ship, could potentially ignite the fuel with disastrous consequences.[end handwave]

Well, it has a certain ring of plausibility anyway. If you squint.

Well you can, of course, always construct a case that makes it sound reasonable. I still say it's a contradiction, but of course I also see the need to keep things in balance.

[Day]

I hadn't read the full thread. Now I have

Fuel scooping.
Do we have the information of how quirium is produced? If not, probably through industrial fuel scooping.

We could have industrial fuel scooping installations
And the player could interoperate with them.

Solar storms
I would install an oxp which makes fuel more scarce, or unavailable depending on solar storms.

It might show a map of the systems with solar storms ^^

Uninhabited junction systems
Highly unlikely, as it is mandatory on the trade route, and strategic for military enforcement.

sunskimming required to activate a galactic hyperdrive
I like this one!!

cargo value drops upon each station docking
Would not install as it breaks the immersion for me. Value drop should depend on time, I do not see any way that it depends on station docking :-/

remove fuel from all galcop/oxp stations
Ah. It came from here. Thanks again phkb

Think of the new jameson who hasnt got enough money for a scoop, who now has all kinds of extra hassle just to be able to get to another system and sell his tiny collection of wares.
Brick. Oolite. Game. Hard. Adventure.
Now, they may not install those oxps.

The cost of fuel could be measured in credits/kg instead of credits/ly, then a big ship must buy even 1000 times more kg to get 7 ly fuel.
I would install this oxp

Also, iirc Diplomacy OXP currently runs their galacto-political actions when you're in a station, so I don't know if they've YET implemented dramatic market changes due to active fighting, but when (probably) they do, and you're rushing to get your very-valuable cargo of guns (or food. or computers. or medicine. Probably not luxuries, though.) to market at one (or both) of those system before the conflict ends, that's another reason to sun-skim.
I've not yet implemented market changes due to wars. I'm currently designing the conditions to be willing to launch an attack, to finance others to attack, etc, and explore the idea of having the economy size varying depending on the state of wars, and battles result. This might need a dedicated economy engine. I don't see why prices wouldn't vary depending on war, it is an extremely good idea, thank you

Maybe you could head for the sun with a chance to get some of your cheaper systems functioning again
As an electronics engineer, I'm baffled.
The only way I would understand this is... You have an extremely superprepared ship, with every system being monitored and fitted with backuped reparation systems, so that the reparation systems may work on each other. Yet it needs so much energy, not coming from the internal stock (as the repair could need it stopped), that the only way to operate it is in a solar corona.
That ship would be extremely expensive, and may not be repaired in-station. The usual mecano would probably break it rather than fix it.

Volatile stuff, is quirium - wouldn't there be some risk involved?
Right.
So you run the risk of equipment damage during the transfer?
A sun-skimmer would not sun-skim if they risked any equipment. But the sun-skimming equipment? Well, that's interesting.
The more expensive the equipment, the less risks

Fantastic thread!!!

[Astrobe]

I didn't play the OXP yet, but I think I'd try something like:

1) normal fuel at stations, however it is more expansive because of Docking fees OXP (plus, traffic jam).
2) "high octane" fuel at fuel stations. It has a better injector burning rate, so you're more secure after a long jump that leaves only 0.5LY in your tank. This super fuel is too dangerous to store at stations (needs high gravity for mass storage - I think fast-spinning Kyoto habitat stations would be perfect in this role).
3) Free fuel by sun skimming, and the fuel left in the pipes after skimming gives an additional 1LY of fuel (not usable for jumps) (to be done).

Point 2) could be further enhanced by requiring compatible injectors, and perhaps skimmed fuel could have a slightly worse burn rate (because it's not processed at all) - so we'd have 3 grades of fuel.
Then one could make it so that jumps >5LY require grade 2 (station) fuel and jumps >6LY require super fuel (which would provide a good and predictable reason for their presence in a system).

[another_commander]

FuelTweaks OXP release post split to new topic in Expansion Pack as per phkb's request: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18947

[phkb]

FuelTweaks OXP release post split to new topic in Expansion Pack

Thanks a_c!

[Hajimoto]

FuelTweaks OXP release post split to new topic in Expansion Pack as per phkb's request: https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18947

Thanks a lot!

[gilhad]

Hello, maybe totally useless rant, or inspiration:
In Elite II:Frontier (and IMHO also in Elite III: First Encounters), there was totally different mechanism in effect - normal space physic:

• there was Hydrogen Fuel (=civilian) as tradeable item like say food

• it could be traded or Fuel Scooped from stars or Gass Giant Planets by "sun skimming"

• there was also Military Fuel, which was something totally else, much more expenssive and could be only bought/sold, not scooped

---

• when you burn fuel, you will accelerate (forward, if in main thruters, backward if in revers - and less powerfull- thrusters),

• if you do nothing, you continue the same speed and direction (affected lightly by gravitation of near stars/planets).

• if you rotate your ship, it rotated, but still moved the same direction and speed, keeping it inetria (so it may move sideways or backways)

• for that you used fuel stored directly in the intraplanetary engines

• when out of that fuel, you became just "rotating asteroid"

• those engines could be refueled by spending the fuel (1ton for small ships, more for larger to refuell it fully, but you can anytime insert just 1 ton of fuel and get it refueled at least partially - if no full 1 ton was needed the rest was disposed = lost (at station or in space) and filled was usually good for few travels from whichpoint to station - but with large hip and distant station (like in more Stars systems) it may take few full refill to reach station before ship would need Maintanence Overhaul

• The speed of sship was not limited (just the acceleration) so with a lot of fuel and contant acceleration was possible to get terrible speed over time (and it took the same time and fuel to decelerate then)

• and a convenience there was aisted mode, that tried to puh ship to predefined speed at angle given by its front-back axis (as Oolite ships travels) - even if that was not perfect and spend more fuel, than was strictly needed

---

• For interstelar travel you need Engine to make Wormhole

• Those enginess came in different rating, (1-7 IIRC) each level more expensive, took much more tons of cargo and had much more power (and also much more Fuel consumption) (small ships may be able carry only lvl 1 for their small cargo space)

• The maximal reach was calculated from your ship tonage (IIRC just nominal, cargo ignored, but including cargo would make it even more interesting) and from Power of the Engine - jump to this distance would took the same time, jump near take less time

• So two diferent ships with the same engine had different max reach and the smaler one could scan departing cloud of the larger and arrive there ssooness - to intercept it

• Actual reach was determined by Fuel carried - a usual (or other way time and Fuel needed were determined from distance of jump and the engine + hip mach reach )

• At the moment of jump the number of tons needed was deducted from Fuel kept in cargo

• Ususally ships came on market with some "appropriate" Engine installed, for example Cobra MK III had engine (about 60TC) able to do max 7LY and the remaining cargo was the usual 20 TC (the classical value from original Elite - but in original Elite there was no other ships to compare - so we do not know, how far they was able to jump and how much of Fuel they neded)

• Usually the default engine was choosen somewhere about this range and cargo was about usual TC, while Range varied wildly say from 3LY-10LY.

• Smaller engines (or just "none"=intrasystem) could be fitted to any ship to take more carge at the great expense of range. Usually larger engines would not fit in cargo space at all, or only one level above default

• It was posible to stuff cargo with just fuel and make few jumps on max Range before you need get more fuel

---

• There was also Military Engines, which could use exclusively Military Fuel, but was way smaller and more powerfull (really small ship could make jump 21LY but there was nearly nothing then Engine + Fuel = no weapons etc )

• Used Military Fuel became Radioactivites (with negative price - you pay for somebody take care about it) and it was offence (Offender status + fine) to drop Radioactivities in sight of planet/Station

• Ships with Military Drive used also Military Fuel to refill interplanetary engines, but was also faster (larger acceleration) so small in-system fighters had this Engines as it base (with lvl 0 - no hyperspace, nearly no TC taken)

-----
Sometimes there was shortage of some items on Marker (so prices went up or skyrocket, if totally out of stock), which affected also the Fuel/Military Fuel, sometimes the market was full and prices was low.
Each Midnight the price were recalculated (and stocks was replenished or little drained ), so over time it went to its planet average (as per population/goverment/technology/ ....), but sometimes was needed to wait few days to collect enought fuel to be able travel away - the more reason for sun skipping

------
So it was canonical Elite Universe, where taking fuel canister was normal, large ships had more fuel consumption (as of large Engines), size of Engine and mass of ship allowed to have different Range and to carry different amount of Fuel for making more jumps in raw (and trade Range/Speed for Cargo TC space), harvesting Fuel was a way to make some small money and it "just worked"

-----

And something totally unrelated about handwaving and reasonss - in Oolite the fuel weight next to nothing (empty and refueled ship have the same TC cargo space). Also limit 7LY suggets that the fuel is contained in some sofisticated tanks build into Engines and kept under special circumstates (also hackig etc. uggest it is prone to leak)
On the othe hand the partially processed Quirium weight a lot (tons) and is so stable, that it could be kept in packs, which empty takes nearly none space and weight (as they empty allow the same normal cargo to be stored).
It leads me to assumption, that the Fuel is much more processed and that the processing is done, while the source (sun corona) is really hot, while the Quirium is processed only a little and stored cold. And therefore it may be big problem to make Fuel from Quirium safely with small equipement, a it would mean heat the Quirium few 1.000 C, press it as scooped corona could be pressed in near of high gravity star and then process it to the fuel - which may need else big machinery just for this purpose, or shave some corners and make a lot less fuel from it, that dedicated factory would could do.
And on the other hand maybe it would be poible to store proccessed fuel, but it would need specialized (and hard and heavy) containters - some OXPs have something like that, but such equipement is strictly dedicated to containing fuel and nothing else.

So it i upt to you, how you want shape your part of story (yes, I miss Hydrogen Fuel a normal tradeble and scoopable and imply ueable item as well as those internal tank, that let me accelerate fat even after long jump)

[Cmdr James]

So it was canonical Elite Universe, where taking fuel canister was normal, large ships had more fuel consumption (as of large Engines), size of Engine and mass of ship allowed to have different Range and to carry different amount of Fuel for making more jumps in raw (and trade Range/Speed for Cargo TC space), harvesting Fuel was a way to make some small money and it "just worked"

I disagree, it isnt the Elite universe, its the Frontier Universe. The two universes are completely different and only really connected by the elite brand and some of the same people working on them.