Let's Talk Fuel

[Grumblesaur]

I would like to convince you that there are more pros than cons to it in Freelancer.

Simply counting the items in your lists of pros and cons shows that there are no more advantages to this idea than there are disadvantages. But not all advantages are created equal.

Cons

• Merely playing the game will now require a monetary and attentional investment. This can be offset by boosting the profit of existing money-makers and tinkering with fuel capacity.
  

This costs essentially nothing for veterans who have bank ships they can /drawcash from, but a new player who misjudges the difficulty of a mission or uses their money trying to work out an equipment configuration for their ship may find themselves literally unable to continue playing without making a new character. Discovery's new player experience is already daunting enough with the many layers of rules, vast selections of equipment of all varieties, and dozens of FLHook commands, never mind what you have to do on the forums for anything more complex than solo play.

• Running out of fuel may prematurely end your game session. There are many solutions here besides the obvious (just plan ahead lol), which may not be obvious to new players.
  

Do you consider it good game design to give the player a chore to do and take the game away from them when they don't do it? Filling up the gas tank is something I do IRL; I'd like to fly a virtual spaceship for fun without micromanaging the logistics. Should we have to carry food and water for our crews as well? Should we have to have the crew commodity aboard our ships just to fly around?

You're asking the player to pay their resources just to not have their in-game agency taken away from them.

• Running out of fuel in a fight will likely result in a very unpleasant death. This can be solved by judiciously using fleet oilers, ships which are meant to refuel fleets before they go into combat.
  

Fleet oilers? You're overestimating how many people play this game. You don't get fleet oilers without fleets, and this game doesn't have the player population to field fleets. You're essentially asking any flight of snubs to dedicate one of their ships to being an H-Fuel mule or else make frequent fuel stops.

"Pros"

• A whole sub-type of RP is now possible and in fact necessary for efficient gameplay - fuel hauling. Ideally, a fleet has a carrier which houses the fighters who have very small fuel capacities, and is supported by at least one oiler, who will need to keep everyone topped up. This also makes both of these ships important tactical targets. Moreover, fuel haulers can prowl Sirius, on the lookout for poor sods who ran out of gas or simply need a top-up, for an extra charge.
  

Just because a game mechanic is new does not mean it is good. These "poor sods" who run out of gas in space will probably just F1 and play a different character (or log out) until they can get a friend to log in and refuel their lost ship for free rather than sit around in empty space PMing other people on the player list or waiting (likely in vain) for another player to pass them by.

• The spending of money is required for a healthy, interesting, and dynamic economy, and fuel will provide a small but steady outlet towards that end. This will ensure that all other econ systems are being adequately used, even by players who have a lot of money saved up. The fuel itself will also serve as a trading commodity like it already does, but to a far greater degree.

You're imposing a higher cost burden on unlawful factions, as they have fewer bases they can access, and what bases they can dock on typically sell fuel at a higher price. I understand it's realistic that living life as a criminal, terrorist, or separatist regime is expensive and difficult work, but for all the other gameplay loops in Discovery to function, you need people to play unlawfuls. Creating a disincentive for people to play unlawfuls in the form of having to pay more to do mechanically necessitated chores will leave lawful players with less to do.

• While needing to monitor your fuel and running out may seem like chores, I believe that both may lead to interesting interactions which can deepen the flavor of existing character RP. If you run out of fuel and open a distress call, will your next visitor be a friendly hauler, or a pirate after easy pickings? And if you decide to respond to that distress call, are you sure you're not heading into a trap?
  

It seems like a chore because it is a chore. Let's frame your idea a little differently, though:

Instead of fuel, every system deals persistent radiation damage to every ship within it. The radiation is low in some spots and higher in others, but you cannot go anywhere without your hull gradually eroding. You can counteract this by periodically using nanobots. If you run out of nanobots, then you just have your remaining hull integrity. If you can't make it to a station before your hull runs out, you die.

Nobody sensible will agree with your fuel proposal because it's functionally equivalent to this awful radiation idea I just wrote up, with the only difference being that the radiation will kill you as a guarantee, rather than forcing you to wait around or drop mines on yourself to commit suicide.

Your entire proposal is rooted in a misguided notion of realism. Freelancer is not realistic. Planets are tiny and distances are short because the game is representational. What distances we cross in ten minutes of playing the game take hours or days in the lore universe of Freelancer. We don't fly around with crew, food, and water in our cargo holds because we assume this is happening as a part of the roleplay environment. We don't fly around with fuel for the same reason that the vanilla campaign doesn't stop the story to show us Edison Trent going to the bathroom.

Let's not talk fuel; let's instead talk about mechanics that could entice a player to start or continue playing.

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A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay,
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.