Fuel price in proportion to ship?

[Killer Wolf]

"In 3 years and almost 4000 posts I've never been accused of not being polite"

well try harder, dammit.

i didn't know birds had navels.

[DaddyHoggy]

"In 3 years and almost 4000 posts I've never been accused of not being polite"

well try harder, dammit.

i didn't know birds had navels.

Greasy paws, navels - I'm a strange bird and no mistake...

[Sendraks]

Greasy paws, navels - I'm a strange bird and no mistake...

This could be one of the more worrying things to hear someone say in a bar.

[Cmd. Cheyd]

A Cobra MK3 can make ~700 Cr on a single jump milk run loaded down with 20 TC of Computers. He'd pay out 14 Cr in fuel as a maximum.

A fully loaded Anaconda can make ~26250 Cr on a single jump similarly loaded. That's 37.5x as much profit. Would a fuel cost of 525 Cr be out of line?

I certainly don't think so; and, that's a linear relationship. As I said before, I'd advocate an exponential one. I could easily see a fuel cost for an Anaconda stretching up to ~3675 Cr. I'm basing that on 14% of profits because a starting Jameson can lose up to 14% of his total money in his first jump. (14 Credits for 7LY Fuel vs. 100 Cr Starting Balance). I think it would impact the profitability of these ships, but in no way would it cripple them. Cargo contracting would become a harder ordeal, and might become a loss if you were executing a single contract at a time.

All of our fiction bases the lives of traders as "barely scraping by" existences; but, in game, it's the road to riches and generalized combat is a barely-break-even venture at it's absolute best. I think this would be an ideal way to balance those scales some.

EDIT: Yes, I do realize I'm going to be very unpopular for such an opinion. But it's mine. And I'm happy with it.

[Lucidor]

A fully loaded Anaconda can make ~26250 Cr on a single jump similarly loaded.

Yes, but on which world can you buy 750 tons of computers? I know, there are transport contracts, but they are usually ten jumps or more.

[Cmdr James]

you pays your money and you makes your choice. No one said an anaconda has to be easy to make money with. If its too pricey then scoop or get a ship you can afford to run

[_ds_]

Disembodied - I like the idea of having the fuel cost/consumption attribute being in the plists, especially as it gives individual control to both creators and players to assign stats that they think fit the overall feel of the ship. Certainly if the attribute was in plists, I'd be going to town on a number of vessels to ensure their fuel consumption was closer to "Chelsea Tractor" than "Hybrid Car."

Me too. I have a patch which adds a key 'fuel_charge_rate' which takes a float ("<real>", in XML plists); as this value is increased, fuel scooping becomes slower and fuel costs become larger, both linearly. Feedback welcome…

[Disembodied]

Me too. I have a patch which adds a key 'fuel_charge_rate' which takes a float ("<real>", in XML plists); as this value is increased, fuel scooping becomes slower and fuel costs become larger, both linearly. Feedback welcome…

I think a ship-by-ship approach is better than a blanket one – that way, the workmanlike Python can be significantly more fuel efficient than the flashy PCC, say. I'd leave the actual numbers up to personal preference, but some sort of relationship between fuel consumption, top speed and cargo capacity might be a good way to provide a rule of thumb.

[_ds_]

Me too. I have a patch which adds a key 'fuel_charge_rate' which takes a float ("<real>", in XML plists); as this value is increased, fuel scooping becomes slower and fuel costs become larger, both linearly. Feedback welcome…

I think a ship-by-ship approach

… which this is…

is better than a blanket one

… which this isn't…

– that way, the workmanlike Python can be significantly more fuel efficient than the flashy PCC, say. I'd leave the actual numbers up to personal preference, but some sort of relationship between fuel consumption, top speed and cargo capacity might be a good way to provide a rule of thumb.

That seems reasonable.

[Kaks]

I do like the skimming speed bit!

If I've read it right, though, you need to explicitely include the new key in order for the fuel changes to kick in.

What's still missing ( IMO, assuming I've read it right! ) - and what I was talking about when I mentioned 'frantic tweaking to get it close to feeling right' - is the bit that calculates 'fuel_charge_rate' if that attribute is not inside shipdata.plist

The 'fuel_charge_rate' bit would then only be needed in order to tweak the new behaviour - in case people feel hard done by.

I would still put some limitations to that tweaking, just to avoid a juggernaut with less fuel requirements than a cobra!

[Sendraks]

I would still put some limitations to that tweaking, just to avoid a juggernaut with less fuel requirements than a cobra!

Is a limitation really necessary? We know someone will create the sort of ship you just described, but then everyone can change the figure to something they think is more sane.

[Kaks]

In my opinion, yes.

[Commander McLane]

A fully loaded Anaconda can make ~26250 Cr on a single jump similarly loaded. That's 37.5x as much profit. Would a fuel cost of 525 Cr be out of line?

Actually the profit per jump is much lower, because there is no way to fully load or unload an Anaconda per jump. In normal trade you will need more than ten stations to fill her up, and at least seven to empty her belly again. She's really too big as a freelance trader, and is more of a contract work horse.

[DaddyHoggy]

A fully loaded Anaconda can make ~26250 Cr on a single jump similarly loaded. That's 37.5x as much profit. Would a fuel cost of 525 Cr be out of line?

Actually the profit per jump is much lower, because there is no way to fully load or unload an Anaconda per jump. In normal trade you will need more than ten stations to fill her up, and at least seven to empty her belly again. She's really too big as a freelance trader, and is more of a contract work horse.

Of course in OE one of the things L wanted to do which I actually liked was the super trading hubs where the 127(8?) max of any one item was bypassed by effectively having (I think if I understood correctly) ten stations inside one station (which you docked with) and then some magic in the background (like save-anywhere?) moved you between the sub-stations where you could buy more stuff.

So (may require new thread) - will the increased fuel costs initiate another sensible (I think) change that takes away the 128 max of any one item so that big traders like the Anaconda can actually fill up?

[Sendraks]

In my opinion, yes.

Thats fair enough, the question then is what formula you use for applying the limitation and to make sure that doesn't break particular ship configurations. If a way to stop daftness with ship design can be implemented, I'd welcome it.

Thinking about this further, having the Cobra MkIII's fuel consumption as the default for all ships makes sense. However, this should only be a starting point, because it then makes more sense to reference ships in the same class.

For instance:

Cobra MK III - default fuel consumption value

Python
0.2LM 100TC
Pretty much the default trade ship for new starters, has roughly x5 the Cobra's cargo capacity. So for simplicities sake it uses x5 as much fuel. But it is much slower than the Cobra MKIII, so there is trade-off being made for the sake of performance, so lets say is only x3.

Python ET
0.35LM 100TC
The ET has the same cargo capacity as the Python but the same speed as the Cobra MKIII. There isn't really much point in trying to work out how much fuel it should use than the Cobra, when it makes more sense to compare to the Python. It is essentially a performance model of the Python with bigger engines, so how much more fuel would it use than a regular Python? For sake of argument lets say its twice as much (x2), just because it seems like a reasonable increase in fuel cost for all that extra speed.

Now thats x6 as much fuel consumption as the Cobra MKIII, but that isn't necessarily the multiplier you'd reach just trying to calculate fuel consumption based on the differences betwen the MKIII and the ET.

Python Class Cruiser
0.35LM, 145TC
It is as fast as the Python ET, so the Python ETs fuel consumption is our starting point. The PCC has a cargo capacity that is almost 50% more than that of the Python and Python ET, so thats roughly 50% more fuel. So x1.5. That brings us to x9 more fuel consumption than the Cobra MKIII.

I like the Pythons for this kind of thinking as there are 3 ships in the class, which are all slight upgrades on each other, so it easier to work out how the fuel consumption for each ship might differ from the last. It also gives you values for a range of different speeds and tonnages to work with.

You can do the same for the Boa series as well.

Boa
0.24LM 125TC
Thats roughly x6 more capacity than the Cobra MKIII, so again a simple guess would be x6 more fuel. But it is a slow ship, not as slow as the Python, but still pretty slow. So x4 seems a bit more reasonable.

Boa Class Cruiser
0.312LM 175TC
Bigger and faster than the Boa. Almost 50% more cargo and entire 0.06LM faster. The cargo capacity would account for a x1.5 fuel consumption increase, but it is harder to assign a value to the speed. So lets say it uses up x2 more fuel than the Boa. Thats x8 more fuel than the Cobra MKIII.

That is slightly less than the Python Class Cruiser, at which point (despite the PCC being an OXP ship) its up to debate whether other factors should come into consideration. Does speed weigh more on the formula than TC? What about handling and the number of energy banks? Arguably the BCC handles better than the PCC and has a whole extra energy bank, but recharges every so slightly slower. Is that an argument for bringing the fuel consumption up to the same as the PCC? x9 more than the Cobra MKIII?

The Anaconda has x7.5 the TC of the Python, but is even slower. So it wouldn't necessarily equate that the Anaconda use up x7.5 the fuel of the Python (x22.5 more than the Cobra MKIII), because it handles like a bloated lavian tree grub and is about as slow.

To work out fuel consumption in a meaningful way, it has to be done by comparing the different ships within the same class. So the traders, the combat ships, the multi-role etc. You could probably do it by blanket formula, but it would be quite a complex one.

Fuel consumption = TC x LM x Energy Banks x Handling x Recharge X Thrust

For the purposes of the formula, the Cobra MKIIIs default values all =1 so applying the formula to the Cobra MKIII = no change in fuel consumption.

The real trick then is working out how much more or less than 1 different values in different areas change the multiplier. It is straight forward enough with TC I think, but the other factors are slightly harder to pin down. What effect does every 0.01LM above and below 0.35LM have on fuel consumption. Does each 0.01LM use x1.5 more fuel and each 0.01LM below use x1.5 less or should it be x1.6 above and 1.5 below or some variation thereof?

I've no idea how you'd even begin to calculate a handling value. I'm just throwing random figures around here, to show how the fuel consumption value could be calculated.

Still it might be fun finding out.

So (may require new thread) - will the increased fuel costs initiate another sensible (I think) change that takes away the 128 max of any one item so that big traders like the Anaconda can actually fill up?

Sounds like a good idea to me, but agree, requires a lot of discussion.