Better ship fueling mechanics

Discussion in 'Mechanics' started by Seven Dollers, Dec 7, 2013.

  1. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    Once again, a grind centric, rather than exploration centric solution.
    I blame MMOs you know. They have just made people so complacent with operant conditioning devices that offer no grounded reward. It is just a little sad.
     
  2. Nighzmarquls

    Nighzmarquls Void-Bound Voyager

    Why not just be able to move your home planet with sufficient tech?
     
  3. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    If mining is grinding then the very foundation of this genre is grinding. You need lots of mining in this game. Requiring it for fuel isn't such a big deal.
     
  4. AchromaticSky

    AchromaticSky Tentacle Wrangler

    Ship range *absolutely* needs to be limited. Unlimited ship range means there's no concept of distance, and that completely kills the game's sense of scale. After spending hours traversing the galaxy, you should be far from your homeworld, not 5 seconds away from it.

    As a bonus, it cuts down on coordinate abuse significantly. Sure you know where that perfect planet is, but it would take dozens of hours to get there, so why not explore nearby planets instead? At endgame, you could get a tech that lets you travel anywhere, but it certainly shouldn't be cheap.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2013
  5. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Which is why the fuel system should scale exponentially with distance rather than linearly. But still shouldn't have a hard limit.
     
  6. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    The difference is that mining for weapons and armor offers non-consumable rewards. You have it, and then you can go off and enjoy them as rewards. Mining for fuel only leads to more mining for fuel, so that you can mine for more fuel. You never really progress. Armor and weapon upgrades is set progression.

    You keep pretending this is a set hard limit. It is not. The original post outlined methods to extend your ships range, you just choose to ignore this.
     
  7. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    As far as I see you are exclusively arguing with me, ah what the hell. Anyway, I can't argue that mining for fuel has no progression (at least in terms of mining itself) but clear cutting planets and grabbing surface coal doesn't either. And they're DEFINITELY not getting rid of fuel entirely. As to hard limit, I mean hard in terms of built into the code. So, no matter how much fuel you have, you can never jump further than your engine will carry you. Which would be extremely annoying and would as I've said before, jar suspension of disbelief. It should just scale exponentially leading to a practical limit to how far you can jump. This practical limit would be extended by either upgrading your engines to be more efficient (exploration route) or by making better fuel (base building route).
     
  8. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    Well I agree that clear cutting planets is slow and annoying, thus why I suggest a method that removes this. As for this assertion that there is no way they are removing fuel all together, I see little reason why not apart from your whims.

    Tell me, when you can't go to a sector that you don't have the schematics for, is that jarring on your suspension of disbelief?
     
  9. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    They're not removing fuel because unlimited movement (albeit with restricted speed) would be far worse than grinding. As to not being able to go to sectors I don't have the schematics for, yes it is. But I'm against advocating the removal of existing features (be they limitations or otherwise), something you are clearly not.
     
  10. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    No, I am not against removal of a feature, because this is a beta and the idea here is that features may be removed to achieve a more polished game. In a recent patch they removed having threat level variance within a sector. They removed this feature, because they wanted to test out if it improved the game. Removing features is a valid way to improve the game, assuming the feature itself is a problem

    Now I don't advocate unlimited movement, far from it, but I do prefer a method that revolved around questing and exploration over grinding. They can easily remove fuel without giving us unlimited movement.
     
  11. Gorvi

    Gorvi Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Should have to explore to explore. Shortcuts around this are always possible.

    There must exist a planet of warp pipes somewhere.
     
  12. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Anyway, since they've made fuel harder to get (no more wood) I doubt they're removing fuel altogether anytime soon.
     
  13. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    Well if that is the case I guess I am just going to have to advocate harder.
     
  14. Gorvi

    Gorvi Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Or make a mod to your liking.
     
  15. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    I'm not sure how feasible that would be, most mods add content, rather than core mechanics. Sadly while the raws used in Starbound are flexible, they do not provide a perfect blank slate to do anything you like.
     
  16. Aquillion

    Aquillion Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    In any case, I think most people agree that fuel is currently far too hard to get and too expensive to use. The game shouldn't force you to grind (or to spend huge amounts of time mining) just to enjoy it -- it should support a variety of different playstyles. Flying from planet to planet exploring the surface (and trading with people to get resources or better equipment, plus exploring dungeons) should be an entirely valid way to play.

    Some people seem to be saying "lol Starbound is about mining." I don't see it. Why should it be? Why would anyone want that? Mining is the least interesting and most derivative part of the game, since it's exactly like Terraria once you're underground -- the fun and original part in Starbound is exploring new planets, so the game should support a playstyle based around traveling from planet to planet rather than just digging with a pickaxe. Mining in Starbound currently feels like an afterthought.
     
    Seven Dollers likes this.
  17. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    Totally agree.
    Especially now that you can get really great weapons without having ever dug out any ore. Hopefully in the future you will be able to get all sorts of weapons and armor from means less mundane than swinging a pickaxe, and that sounds like a positive to me. I don't see why something as fundamental as travel should be so dependent on something like mining.

    Although there are those that do enjoy tunneling underground to mine, and for those people their play style will remain entirely unaffected, so nobody is losing out.
     
  18. Dimitriye98

    Dimitriye98 Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Yes, which is why there should be upgrades for your ship to make it more efficient, maybe even powered by passive charging with the tradeoff of being unable to use regular fuel entirely. As for base building encouraging fuels, may I suggest oil? You'd need a giant oil rig item to mine it and a fuel processing system (base-building), you'd need to explore to find the well (exploration), and it would be mined over time (passive fuel gain allowing you to stave off grinding). It wouldn't be too hard to make it function when the player is not on the planet, just check time when unloaded and check time when loaded.
     
  19. Gorvi

    Gorvi Subatomic Cosmonaut

    This is why I made a suggestion to use pixels for fuel and allow most ore/jewels to be converted into pixels.
     
  20. Seven Dollers

    Seven Dollers Poptop Tamer

    So now you want us sitting and waiting around for our fuel to finally top up so that we can head home to pick up that tool we forgot, then wait around to go back out again.
    It sounds so much like one of those facebook games, I'm surprised you aren't suggesting micro transactions to top up your oil rig. There is no rational reason why we should have to sit and wait for the supplies to travel, it isn't fun.
     

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