New Patch: Fuel

Fair enough.

I do try to mine efficiently, and most of the Coal I found was in a Snow planet. And a Gold Pickaxe plows through Snow in seconds. But maybe I was very lucky with the amount of Coal I found.

I should have time to create 2-3 more characters in the next days. Will keep an eye on that particular aspect of the game.

 

I don't have any problem with how it is now. If they brought wood back as a fuel source, then I think it either needs to be refined somehow, or made to provide less fuel. Maybe I got lucky with the planets I visited, but before this recent patch, it was VERY easy to chop down enough wood and find enough coal to max out my 1000 fuel capacity, that, and I still had a lot of coal/wood leftover. Then throw in the fact that travelling to nearby planets in your system doesn't really cost that much fuel. It almost made fuel feel like a pointless mechanic since I had so much wood/coal leftover to toss in there.

 

That's called an RNG and people often confuse it with game mechanics.

 

It is also very hard for everyone on a server to be mining coal.

 

Your digging tools in Starbound dig in larger areas, therefore you spend LESS time digging.
Every planet has coal, so there is no linear requirement, since you can find it everywhere, not just where they tell you to go.

also, its a "game within a sandbox".. not just a sandbox.. with no game.

There is no Creative mode yet, but when that's in I'm sure you can explore all you want with no cost.
You can also edit the game files yourself or download a mod (yeah there are already mods) that make coal offer more fuel to the ship.

 

We can go the way of Minecraft a bit to make this work! Smelt wood into charcoal and use that to fuel your ship.

 

Coal, uranium, plutonium, and unobtainium are all finite resources. Granted the number of planets in the game is massive and the point in which you've used up all the fuel in the universe is a long way off. But still, it's there, and there is going to be a point in this game in which you can no longer travel between worlds.

And in a game in which interstellar travel is a major feature, not having a renewable fuel source is a little short-sighted.

 

Good point.. I'll start working on BioFuel for my mod. Great idea.

 

Simply make wood able to be processed into Charcoal at a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. Problem Solved.

No. It will never happen, even on servers with hundreds of players. There was math done before the game released and even if we had 100,000 people playing 24/7 on a single server, it would still take over 500 years for every planet in the game to be visited... and that doesn't even include mining and exploring them. That's just going to them and immediately leaving.... 24/7... for 500 years with ship travel time being the only factor.

Bottom of the line is... nothing is finite is this game unless you plan on living for thousands of years and playing 24/7, and even then you'd need thousands of other players doing the same on the same server.

 

When I found out wood worked as a fuel, and was so easy to get, it made the entire idea of a fuel system seem pointless. If its that quick to refuel, why even have it? I think wood was far too easy of a fuel source.
However, I do agree that coal is too costly. You scrounge it up, and it has other uses that you would rather apply it towards. It seems too prohibitive.

 

i'd rather have it so that you can fuel the ship with wood, but you need 4 wood for a unit of fuel. Keep coal at 1 for 2 units of fuel.

It's good enough for exploring the starting solar system, but if you want more efficient long range travel you'll need coal or better fuels.

 

That sounds like a challenge to me.

 

Check the upcoming patch FRUSTRATED KOALA
http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/info-beta-changelogs-and-release-notes.46048/

 

I think the only downside of adding another "processor" of sorts to convert wood into fuel is that you have another piece of equipment taking up space inside your ship. Unless it was built into the ship, like the storage and 3d printer.

 

nah i think its good they took wood away

yeh maybe refining a type of fuel from wood could be good like maybe : wood->charcoal then charcoal + tar = bio fuel or i dunno something like that

i agree with orolol about the fact ur meant to be Stranded with no fuel hence why u create the beacon for the first boss ...i believe the quest says its to get help. even the spaceship u summon could drop a fuel rod or somthing to give u 200 enough for u to jump to a new system

 

It was definitely much too easy to get around in the last patch, I like the changes they've made. I have seen so much coal I don't understand how people can consider it to be hard to collect, unless they're trying to leave their starter planet within the first 10 minutes? Maybe the planets in my starting solar system just had good coal spawns as far as I know, but every planet I've been on coal has not been hard to find.

 

Unfortunately, that is only temporary. They've mentioned that ore spawn is too generous this patch and that it will be corrected in the next.

 

Alright, so I've added BioFuel to the list of options. Keeping in mind that the fuel that is offered through my mod are not as easy as jamming everything into the fuel tank of your space ship.. They still require some patience and resource gathering. I'd say they are about mid-late first tier onward fuel options.

You can find it here: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?resources/spacefuel-tamefoxx.8/

 

I respect your opinion, and how you stated it!
But I disagree

I love using wood for decoration, so it never seemed useless to me. But for a fuel source? A high-tech, faster than light, super spacey space ship powered by....wood? If nothing more the ration of 1:1 fuel per wood was absolutely absurd since coal, a significantly more scarce and useful fuel was only 2:1 fuel to coal.

 

my only problem is that starting worlds should be vast and varied enough that you wouldnt NEED to or want to leave very often. Each world should have almost as much content as a Terraria map. In Terraria i'm not constantly world hopping, theres always alot for me to do on the world i generated. I know the biomes are limited in SB, but if they could add enough variety so that a desert planet can have multiple biomes, species, side quest, NPCs and loot. It would go a long way IMO.

When i first heard of SB i considered the planet hopping to be a more integrated version of creating a new world in Terraria. I didnt think it would be a necessity because a planet doesnt hold enough content. I'd like it if each planet could hold its own for a full playthrough.