Fuel for thought...

[Jack Burton]

A question here for those modders out there with an eye for the code that makes this game tic..

As I was watching an episode of Firefly " Out of Gas " the other day, I had a thought about the game....

Fuel

There are ways to link an item ( say ID ) to thruster or tractor beam; ( " dismount your ID = NO movement in space ) there is also a ( ?? ) Glitch that forces you to never unmount a power capacitor from a cap ship lest you be dead in the water?

(( I'm unfamilliar with that one actually but I think that's the gist of it ))

Based on these two already existing game effects; I thought it would be easiest to approach it one of two ways..

H-fuel for small ships and MOX for cap ships and the like....They already exist in the game; so though the one has no decay rate set, it could... thus they are reasonable targets as a fuel sources; decay could be modified to be aibit easier/ harder on the pocketbook; made to where most bases sell it at one price or another ( could be astronomical at an out-of-the-way base...) and then keyed to cause you to lose

Thruster?
Cruise?

ALL movement?

if you didn't have ANY in your hold....complete decay = out of fuel...dead in the water or maybe limping simply without cruise?

( yes I know I'm toying with the cargo hold capacities as I concider having to allocate fuel room; not really a concern until I figure out if this can even be done ) Another problem with coding to this method is that a starflier would eat fuel just as fast as a Dromedary, I'm not certain you could even link ship size ( engines/ mass ? ) to cargo decay rate. )

A secondary way to enable such a playtool would be to make an already existing item ( Power cell? ) responsible for one or all of the movement types; and have it take " damage " while in flight...

....as if you were ALWAYS flying through Omega 41?...

a repair bill on that engine component for " damage " would equate to " fuel consumption "

This also alleviates the need to scatter MoX sellers thoughout a galaxy to insure fair access to fuel.
Anyone out there know of work that has already been done in this area? Or would be willing to look into the possibilities of modifiing existing code in a basic game to facillitate such a system?


~ Jack