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The importance of Fuel

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Kotsu0, Nov 24, 2013.

  1. Kotsu0

    Kotsu0 Starship Captain

    I understand we will need fuel to travel spaceward. So wood, coal, maybe oil and uranium. Will there be higher tiers of fuel for going extreme distances (and thus to higher level planets), maybe something more advanced like Eve style Fuel Blocks, or rare energy crystals?
     
    Axe Garian likes this.
  2. Clockwork

    Clockwork Master Astronaut

    I think you'll just need more fuel.
     
    Serenity, Exxil3d, Renlou and 5 others like this.
  3. I'm still wondering if they are really going for 100 Fuel for travel to any place of the Universe.
    Till now and even on that pre-beta stream (that wasn't supposed to be recorded) shows it's 100 for any place, like it's not counting the distance.

    I hope that fuel is going to cost depending of the distance we will travel to add some decent challenge to space travel, or fuel will just be a "meh" thing we have tons and don't worry about.
     
    Renlou and Bughunter like this.
  4. Clockwork

    Clockwork Master Astronaut

    I'm kind of hoping you can travel to any planet in a sector you've unlocked for the same amount, but if you want to travel outside the sector your in you have to pay more.
     
    PurpleSquirel43 likes this.
  5. carcrasher65

    carcrasher65 Pangalactic Porcupine

    [​IMG]
    The more the better.
     
    Kotsu0, Osmedirez, Bughunter and 3 others like this.
  6. Mizehra

    Mizehra Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    The interesting thing about space travel is that you don't always need to be using energy to get there, once you accelerate to the desired speed, you can coast towards your destination with next to no slowdown, then it is just a matter of decelerating as you near your destination, so realistically, for the longer journeys, it would indeed only take a certain amount of fuel and no more past a certain point. :)

    Of course for shorter distances it could be a little different, but again, the distance between stars is massive, so travel between any two systems should fall under the above scenario. Travel between planets in the same system should also use much less fuel, since there wouldn't even be enough space between the origin and destination to warrant acceleration to max speed.
     
    Renlou, nababoo, Bughunter and 5 others like this.
  7. Axe Garian

    Axe Garian Oxygen Tank

    I can't help but to wonder if the amount of advanced fuel in the game is finite...
     
  8. Quantum Robodance

    Quantum Robodance Astral Cartographer

    This is my favorite explanation of one-cost-fits-all.
     
    Deity likes this.
  9. Clockwork

    Clockwork Master Astronaut

    That would be incredibly stupid.
     
    WoxandWarf, cyberspyXD and Axe Garian like this.
  10. TheLoanArranger

    TheLoanArranger Ketchup Robot

    Even if it is, there's no way anyone could run out. Unless someone figures out immortality, and the game sticks around for a hojillion years. And there's only one server for everyone. And it never gets reset. And... You get the idea.
     
    WoxandWarf and Axe Garian like this.
  11. Axe Garian

    Axe Garian Oxygen Tank

    Plausible, but it would still be useful to have the high tiers of Fuel be Renewable in some way so ya can maintain a supply of it once ya get REAL powerful... screw never outgrowing having to dig around for stuff like a Mole to maintain your Supplies of Fuel, or it'll get to be a major pain to travel around the Cosmos & hold up the Exploration Aspect of the game. ;)
     
  12. Jman1177

    Jman1177 Void-Bound Voyager

    It's a tricky question. On one hand, fuel costs getting way too high would be super frustrating, and you could get stuck somewhere far from home that's way to high level for you. You'd want to never travel very far without stocking up on fuel. On the other hand, a static fuel cost is kinda lame.

    Maybe there could be some kind of "warp to home system" feature that costs no fuel, but has a cool down. So you'll never get stuck somewhere, but long-distance travel is still more costly and will be more of a late-game thing.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2013
    Axe Garian likes this.
  13. DasRav

    DasRav Big Damn Hero

    I think they have not balanced fuel yet because that is not high priority to do before beta and is also very unlikely to cause bugs, since that particular function is most likely not going to be used anywhere else.

    We will most likely see different ways to craft fuel and these ways will be more or less efficient, depending on tech level and available resources. If I was in charge fo balancing this, I would make travleing to your second planet a big achievement, then make travel graduallly easier. I would include fuel from farming as a renewable way to craft fuel. We could make our rocket fuel today from plants, after all. Yes it would not take us to a different sun, but give us a few thousand years to work the kinks out :)

    I believe they will add different costs to travel different distances, it is sort of expected from this genre to make that effort. I can also see that there might be different types fo fuel, either more effiient ones, or different ones for different levels of distance. Like, maybe at some point normal FTL travel is just not quick enough and you need to build a wormhole generator and that needs unobtanium to make and go kill those tall blue people over there to get it.

    That said, I don't think we will get differnt fuel types on release, simply because it is effort they do not need to expand and it does not add all that much gameplay. You can add that later on to, for example, unlock new content to players who reached endgame.
     
    Axe Garian likes this.
  14. Episoen

    Episoen Void-Bound Voyager

    Space travel at sub-light speeds is incredibly slow if you just drift. Ideally you accelerate constantly for half of your trip, and decelerate constantly for the other half. Otherwise you are spending tens to thousands of years traveling in your relative time.

    Travel in Starbound is super-light speed, which by most definitions uses special properties of space, meaning that drifting is not feasible either.

    If you are using a warp system like in Star Trek or http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warpstat_prt.htm then the farther you are traveling, the more fuel you need, as you need to maintain your warp bubble for the length of your trip, or you need to use a more powerful warp bubble for longer distances.

    If you are using a hyperspace system like the Foundation series, then you can travel anywhere in the universe instantly, and travel will always have a flat fuel cost.

    Feasibly, if you have a system that can allow you to go faster than the speed of light and it doesn't take energy to maintain (like a worm hole, or a stable hyperspace tunnel) then drifting is an option once you get to speeds in the order of lightyears per hour.

    If we assume that space acts very differently in Starbound than it does in reality, all of this is bunk. But it's just a game so it's all bunk anyway.
     
    nababoo, Axe Garian and Erick648 like this.
  15. ForceablePlace

    ForceablePlace Phantasmal Quasar

    But getting 100 wood = 100 fuel (full fuel)... 1 wood fills 1% fuel, and items stack to 1000, so getting to max fuel is not hard at all, meaning advanced fuel would be pointless without a way to upgrade your fuel tank to something like 10000?

    Then advanced fuel would work, unless you have millions upon millions of chests full of wood lol
     
    Axe Garian likes this.
  16. bbq1040

    bbq1040 Big Damn Hero

    I think that using wood for fuel in a space ship is hilarious. It made me laugh when Leth was looking for fuel and he just popped in some trees he cut down and they counted in a 1 to 1 ratio. I would like to see some things like wood count maybe 1 to 10 or 1 to 20. That way there would be a reason to look for better fuel sources that gave 1 to 1 or better ratios like 1:2 or 1:10. However, I don't see fuel being anything more than an inconvenience since even with bad ratios it would only take more time to fill the fuel. I'd like to see something implemented where each fuel source would have it's own meter i.e. fuel could only be filled up to 100 by wood so there would be a max distance you could travel. Coal could be 150 or whatever and so on up to the best source which could fill to max. However, even something like that would be only be an inconvenience if planets are close enough together that you could get anywhere you wanted one planet at a time. Looking to the future I'd like to see the higher rated planets be farther away so that you actually couldn't get there unless you got the best material from the next lowest level. By that I mean you could only get a fuel source on planets from level 5,6, or 7 in order to travel to 8,9, or 10. Something like that. Then it's more of a progression and it also prevents players from getting stuck on a planet that is too high level for them to survive long enough to refuel, or get stuck on a planet where they die from cold because they are ill-equipped.
     
    nababoo, carcrasher65 and Axe Garian like this.
  17. nic329

    nic329 Scruffy Nerf-Herder


    there has to be some kind of cap. if you look at the quests we have seen the quest to build and use the "distress beacon" is due to the ships engines not being "powerful enough" which could indicate a cap on fuel or fuel conversion. mostly likely we will see some new fuel or more fuel to get into each new sector. but of course all the things im linking too are subject to change

    http://starbounder.org/First_Contact
     
    Axe Garian likes this.
  18. Soggytoast

    Soggytoast Void-Bound Voyager

    I may be wrong (and will watch the new stream vid again later to confirm) but I think that Leth had under 100 fuel when he
    traveled to his third planet. The first trip took 100 fuel to the ice planet and the second trip to the arid planet had under 100 fuel.
    I think it used all the fuel that he had though but it wasn't quite 100.
     
  19. T-Rex

    T-Rex Hard-To-Destroy Reptile

    Then when you don't have enough fuel and still tried to go there then you need to fight SPACE PIRATES! WOOOO
     
  20. Serenity

    Serenity The Waste of Time

    no sir you are mistaken, what in fact will be needed is more cowbell.
     
    Episoen and nic329 like this.

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