Fuel system revamp - tank/cargo hold integration

[corundscale]

There are several problems with current fuel system:

1. Autopilot has no way of accounting for extra fuel you're carrying, limiting max velocity achievable while flying on auto to what autopilot can lose using only internal fuel tank.
2. Using extra fuel means stick around in cargo screen and clicking furiously on refuel button. A lot. It's needless, tedious busywork and if flying manually you'll have to switch back and forth to keep your bearing AND keep your ship refueled.
3. Landing in a planetside port may mean you'll no longer be able to lift off because your fuel tank gets filled, weighing your ship down. It's very frustrating and there is no good way of preventing it.
4. In general there is no flexibility and ability to adjust fuel/payload ratio based on mission type.

My proposed solution is: -reducing internal fuel tank to 1-2t on ALL ships (fuel 'buffer' allowing for steady consumption, as fuel in cargo hold is chunked into 1t portions). -adding remaining fuel tank tonnage to cargo hold -adding built-in autorefueller -changing delta-v calculation so that it accounts for any fuel inside cargo hold as well as internal tank

Caveats:

1. Uncontrolled consumption of fuel, especially planned jump reserve.
2. Current fuel gauge would have to be removed from HUD, being meaningless.
3. Allocating right amount of fuel might be confusing for new players.

Workarounds/rebuttals: Ad.1. It's not like current consumption of fuel (aside from jump fuel) is very controllable. Adding a functionality to lock-down fuel (in the simplest version two buttons converting 1t of hydrogen into hydrogen [locked] and vice versa) would remove the problem completely while allowing much finer control over fuel budget (which will get handy once the game gets some more complex missions) than is currently possible.

Ad.2. Current fuel gauge isn't terribly useful anyway as whether given amount of fuel is a lot is very context dependent, in particular it doesn't really help telling whether you can afford to accelerate more or not outside of most trivial one way trips. It could be replaced with digital delta-v budget readout.

Ad.3. Min recommended fuel amount could be incorporated into trade screen somehow and player could be warned when trying to take off without enough fuel. Some sort of distance/time calculator for typical burn-turn-burn trip could be added to help gauge travel times and whether they are acceptable. Alternatively a refuel button with displayed cost could be added to station interface adding recommended amount of fuel to your cargo bay and complaining if there isn't enough room.

P.S. I'm new to github, how do you tag an issue as feature request?

[impaktor]

There are several posts on the forum discussing this. Fuel is something that has been debated back and forth for a long time. Everyone have their own idea of how it should work.

Autorefueler and ditching/reducing separate fuel tank Reaction Mass Suggestions (And found a few bugs) for Pioneer

I'd like to see an auto refuel module as an additional ship equipment.

P.S. I'm new to github, how do you tag an issue as feature request?

You cant. Someone else marks it for you.

[corundscale]

Allowing for different kinds of remass in no way conflicts with my suggestion and it would be a nice feature (neither does renaming - correctly - "fuel" to "remass" or "propellant").

The first link is mine :) I've been trying to pursue the workflow suggested in wiki - discuss, then github. As for autorefueler I was suggesting it in the context of other changes:

1. fuel (remass) in cargo bay (to allow player to load as much fuel as they need and trade delta-v off for cargo space or acceleration - for high gravity liftoffs, for example) with only minimal buffer tank (minimal meaning the size of one cargo unit) to convert from chunked cargo to relatively smooth use of propellant (making autorefueler strictly necessary)
2. autopilot being able to use cargo bay fuel as basis of delta-v calculation (fixing autopilot's inability to go above 2x internal tank delta-v, which would be completely crippling if tank only contained 1t of fuel, with the rest being in cargo bay).
3. ability to reserve fuel to prevent autopilot from eating player's jump capability or fuel they need for next planned maneuvers.

As you can see 1. would be crippling without 2., 3. and default autorefueler, but extremely handy otherwise, 3. would be useless as standalone and only marginally useful with just 2. (though any sort of autorefueler would probably be bad without 3. and wonky without 2. ). 2. Would probably be the best starting point as it would be useful as standalone, but I wasn't suggesting those features separately, but as sub-features necessary to make a feature work.

[fluffyfreak]

Discuss on the forum please.

[corundscale]

@fluffyfreak http://pioneerspacesim.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=205 Have. :)