Fuel for thought...

[Jack Burton]

As far as I know (I'm a system modder so thats quite alot more than average person's knowledge of such things.) radiation effects you 100%. All your equipment. Hull, thruster, guns, etc. If little enough damage is done, some items might not be damaged, but that is determined by hull and cost of certain equipment.

I like Jack's idea. Using cruise consumes fuel, so if you run out, your stuck with thruster and impulse engines. This will greatly reduce the time you get somewhere. However, the cargo holds of all ships would have to be upgraded rather largely, and would make trade routes requiring cruise to become less profitable (but thats not that big a deal. Cam-Theta route makes enough..)

We would need to make the consumption considerably small amount as we can't have people flying around with 400 units of H-fuel for 1 hour of cruising.

We would need to add H-fuel to all bases in the game, but that wouldn't take as long as modding this..

As for MOX consumption, I'd say no. We shouldn't have weapons consume MOX. The energy needs are already large enough. Though some type of things could work. For instance, make Mortars for capships require half the energy they do right now, and make them require ammo. They are better than Razors, but if you run out of ammo, your firepower is significantly lowered.

Thanks for the heads up on system radiation damage Dab !!!

I'm suprised there are so many posts already on the subject; as I only suggested the fuel idea a few hours ago. Seems in danger of derailment into a "weapon-ammo-mox-consumption " debate or the like so I'll try and get one more in edge wise here;

Can a ship itself be modified to say have an effect ( something to the effect of "if h-fuel = 0 than cruise disrupt " ) or the like? an actual effect pinned into a ship file keyed to cargo hold. Possible? or a blind alley? I can't think of any other way to make something carried in cargo affect the ship performance.

As far as having to greatly increase cargo capacity?
I don't think that will be necessary.


Part of space travel will most likely continue to be as it is now, a balance of cargo vs fuel carried.

A test of such things (adding a decay rate to H fuel and putting ten of them in my hold; then flying around to see how much flying time that actually buys you... trapsing about on just ten fuel cells seemed to indicate = Plenty of time. Even for jump hole search and exploration.

The decay rate set at a simple ' one ' and the HP raised for h fuel gives even the starflier; with only ten of it's thirty or so cargo devoted to fuel; the ability to fly from colorado to magellan without a hassle....If I havn't stopped for fuel by then....

Also to be frank; i'm not concerned with this altering any otherwise well-known lucrative trade route that everyone and their brother uses to buy their third cap ship....

A buddy already mentioned somethign to that effect earlier when I told him what I was working on.
" I'd never play it..No one else would either.. "

As I told him, after blinking a few times...
" I don't really care whether you would or not...that aside, do you think it can be done?"

PLEASE REMEMBER FOLKS
This is a post about whether or not this is possible; I have nothing to do with the discovery mod's creation or direction, and don't expect to see any of the things I mention here implemented in anything other than a game that runs on my desktop.

I'm just fiddling around here and my direction is realism. You guys know this code like it was a mother tongue; so I have come to you for advice on making this happen, I'm not trying to change your verse.


~ Jack