Let's Talk Fuel

[Nika]

Woohoo, now I'll have to grind to play the game, that's amazing! /s

How about no. If this ever passes, I will absolutely quit for good and call out how absolutely detrimental this is going to be gameplay of majority of playerbase.

And if this is another way to look for a money sink we have pobs and codeguns, if someone's so inclined to swing that way.

[Petitioner]

I don't think I'm in favor of this idea mostly because it's one of those changes that sounds cool but also makes the game "not really Freelancer anymore", but if we did do this, it would be interesting to experiment with it taking effect only when you leave your ZOI -- ie, unlimited free movement within ZOI, need to regularly refuel outside of it.

I would not be personally opposed to a small trial period involving two to four arbitrarily selected lesser-played IDs (to minimize impact on regularly-active players and characters) that all have reason to oppose each other. Say, Outcasts, Corsairs, GMG, and Kruger within the Sigmas and nearer/upper Omicrons alone?

edit: Not that Corsairs are a "lesser-played ID", but GMG and Kruger sure are.

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Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM

[Sand-Viper]

I'm on the fence with this one.

On the one hand: Neat concept, and gives rise to GMG Roadside Assistance, lol

On the other hand... Do we really want to put new players through this kind of added micro-managemwnt mini-game?

Looking at this from my main character's perspective: The Inn does spend a lot of time parked in place, certainly. But we do a heck of a LOT of flying around, sometimes for an hour or two before we find someone willing to stop and RP.

Do I really want to worry over keeping up with fuel levels? Ehhhh, maybe? If it's like, in an easily noticeable spot, such as above the energy bar, then I could more easily deal with it. But, how long before the novelty wears off?

The idea of having to put out a distress call for fuel is kind of a cool idea, since it's a roll of the dice as to who shows up. Hrmm.. Still, I'm not sure about this one.

Edit: Oh goodness, yeah I didn't think about how awful this might be to deal with for alien factions, let's not do 'em dirty like that?

Mrs. gives a *resounding* "N-o" lol

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The Gaelic Wyvern Inn
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[Zephyranthes]

No, absolutely not. People need to stop trying to make a realistic sim out of this game.

[Sombs]

• Merely playing the game will now require a monetary and attentional investment.
  

That is where your thought should have ended. We had this discussion before. The last thing, by a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very long shot, the game needs is punishment for actually logging into the game and doing anything.

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[YenExios]

I've never liked fuel as a mechanic in any game. I definitely think it wouldn't work in this game either.

There has been a lot of cool mechanics that Discovery has added. Such as: Cloaks, Jump Drives, Player Owned Bases, playable large capital ships, crafting, mining, pve encounters, and more. All of these aren't mandatory to playing the game. Anyone can play Discovery without touching most or any of these things, and they can still enjoy the game.

Fuel feels different. It feels like a forced mechanic. The idea of having to stop multiple times in a trip just so you don't go empty, feels like it is needlessly extending the trip while adding nothing. It feels like another chore. I admit I do think the potential RP encounters could be interesting, but I think it won't feel that unique from a normal encounter we have now. At least, not unique enough to justify adding fuel as a mechanic.

It goes without saying that unlawful and alien players would probably have a terrible time if they don't have enough neutral/friendly bases. I think making unlawful and alien engines more fuel efficient would be a compromise, but I have no idea what you would give lawfuls to balance it.

The final nail for me is vague, but simple: It wouldn't feel like Freelancer anymore. I didn't play this game just so I can play EVE-lite or something. I'm down to buy fuel or insurance as RP. Heck, I find myself buying food to RP eat from a certain traveling pair quite often recently. I can sure as hell tell you I don't want to do any of those things as a mechanic I have to do.

With all that said, I do think the idea is interesting. I appreciate you presenting said idea, and asking for opinions. I just don't see it working well in Freelancer.

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"It's not that I'm dumb. I just get unlucky when thinking sometimes."

[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.

[The_Godslayer]

Outside of niche roleplay moments, this would be an overall detriment. Making fuel any kind of mandatory necessity will put Disco into a single step off from being a significantly worse Eve Online, with that single step being microtransactions.

One of Freelancer's primary draws in the past was that it was an arcade shooter, not a simulator. Every patch we take another step closer to simulator. There are plenty of space simulators, hell there are even arcade space sims. I'd like to ask the dev team to kindly remember that the server is a roleplaying server for an arcade shooter game. Even powertrading was a secondary mechanic in vanilla, and powertrading in vanilla would still throw the main arcade shooter gameplay at you with trade lanes and pirate NPCs with cruise disruptors. Even Space Truck Simulator™ isn't a primary Freelancer function, even though it is a primary Discovery function.

If the development direction is to keep forcing the game towards the simulator genre and away from the arcade genre, at least add the fun things about simulators like being able to fly to planet's surfaces or dynamic asteroid fields that knock you around in fighters but capships just shove around BEFORE you add the pain in the ass unfun things like fuel economy and management, and power cell economy and management. Munition management already sucks most of the times you have to deal with it, and whoever had the bright idea to balance bomber weapons around docking modules (which are effectively codenames with a three times as annoying commodity requirement) needs to be put on an interpol watchlist expeditiously.

Finally, with the sole exception of niche, and would likely also be exceedingly rare, roleplay, what actual fun do you expect to generate from adding a literal chore to the game? This question should have been asked when PoBs were added, but they weren't and here we are STILL trying and failing to justify them and balance the justifications. If anyone here wants to do chores in game, please go clean your room. Go get a job. Get a second job, you'll have more money for actually interesting things. Getting off work, coming home, and getting on a game to go play going to work is crazy. Having nothing to do and getting on the game to roleplay work is actually insane behavior observed in caged animals.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"

[Zephyranthes]

Outside of niche roleplay moments, this would be an overall detriment. Making fuel any kind of mandatory necessity will put Disco into a single step off from being a significantly worse Eve Online, with that single step being microtransactions.

One of Freelancer's primary draws in the past was that it was an arcade shooter, not a simulator. Every patch we take another step closer to simulator. There are plenty of space simulators, hell there are even arcade space sims. I'd like to ask the dev team to kindly remember that the server is a roleplaying server for an arcade shooter game. Even powertrading was a secondary mechanic in vanilla, and powertrading in vanilla would still throw the main arcade shooter gameplay at you with trade lanes and pirate NPCs with cruise disruptors. Even Space Truck Simulator™ isn't a primary Freelancer function, even though it is a primary Discovery function.

If the development direction is to keep forcing the game towards the simulator genre and away from the arcade genre, at least add the fun things about simulators like being able to fly to planet's surfaces or dynamic asteroid fields that knock you around in fighters but capships just shove around BEFORE you add the pain in the ass unfun things like fuel economy and management, and power cell economy and management. Munition management already sucks most of the times you have to deal with it, and whoever had the bright idea to balance bomber weapons around docking modules (which are effectively codenames with a three times as annoying commodity requirement) needs to be put on an interpol watchlist expeditiously.

Finally, with the sole exception of niche, and would likely also be exceedingly rare, roleplay, what actual fun do you expect to generate from adding a literal chore to the game? This question should have been asked when PoBs were added, but they weren't and here we are STILL trying and failing to justify them and balance the justifications. If anyone here wants to do chores in game, please go clean your room. Go get a job. Get a second job, you'll have more money for actually interesting things. Getting off work, coming home, and getting on a game to go play going to work is crazy. Having nothing to do and getting on the game to roleplay work is actually insane behavior observed in caged animals.

[Petitioner]

Getting off work, coming home, and getting on a game to go play going to work is crazy. Having nothing to do and getting on the game to roleplay work is actually insane behavior observed in caged animals.

Is this why I'm flying a barge right now?

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Recruitment | Task Force Prometheus | ICN FIRESTORM