Let's Talk Fuel

[R.P.Curator]

Lets talk fixing whats already broken and finishing up the overhaul 5.0 started before introducing any new features and the issues they bring along.
Lets talk about the backlog and finishing that. This isn't a 1000+ players community. Its 100 tops! Most veterans and fans. Only thing that introducing new things that complicate the game will do is reduce that number further.

[EisenSeele]

If we are to add an actual fuel or logistic mechanic, I think it would be best to flesh out the current jump system with it instead - add more systems that are accessable only by jump - as shortcuts between larger gaps of normally accessible systems, and must be navigated one hop at a time at predictable end-points so that there's an element of mid-jump interception - and make said intermediate jump systems be like earhart where there's interesting stuff to find and death if you F1 in space. Then remove jump trading limitations because you've made it a shortcut system that can still be intercepted reliably.

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FEEDBACK

[darkwind]

Lets talk fixing whats already broken and finishing up the overhaul 5.0 started before introducing any new features and the issues they bring along.
Lets talk about the backlog and finishing that. This isn't a 1000+ players community. Its 100 tops! Most veterans and fans. Only thing that introducing new things that complicate the game will do is reduce that number further.

Good point.
Could be good for a start to repair back first
- Jump drives back to working (Removing battery costs for a start, And removing cargo limiting restrictions, preferably returning back old jumping by coordinates too)
- Cloaks back to working (Removing distance decay and making it working for more than 1 trade lane again)
- Energy/Shields/Armor/Guns usage for capitals back to working

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[Erremnart]

I don't think we need to complicate the gameplay more than it already is. Freelancer isn't a game that is suited for realism - it's a space arcade shooter.

Current Jump drives are much better than they were before. They are easy to use - no need to copy and paste long coordinates; just type a system name and jump.

Cloaks are also much better (=less cancerous to deal with) as you can't be literally rammed by a cloaked ship while having no means of decloaking them without a cloak disruptor. It also makes sense for sneaky ships to be encouraged to fly as slowly as possible to maintain their cloak (i.e., running silent). They still allow you to ambush people, scout, retreat, but they don't allow you to brute your way through a blockade or drive a cloaked battleship to an enemy cruiser to RMB it at 0M.

PS - I have cloaks and JDs on all my roleplaying ships, and I don't see them as a waste of slot or money. Yes, they are weaker, but they are still awesome and more immersive to use.

[rwx]

I stumbled across this thread as I had similar thoughts about a fuel system in the past.
I feel it is "a bit too much" to punish players from flying around (gameplay fun wise), but this could be balanced away.

Here is some input:

• I support the reasoning of @Kauket and @9th.Legion to not overcomplicate the game.
  
• I like @St.Denis idea with an auxiliary propulsion system at reduced speed to make running out of full not a death sentence.
  
• I don't see why only mid-size transports should get a bonus. E.g. the Kujira or the Titanic are already tanker ships.
  
• You can already RP a ship with fuel by using perishable MOX. As you run out it, you can deactive your shields and move with limited speed.
  But this is boring, if you encounter no person on your way. I guess afk-trading is not the intention. We have barges for that.
  
• Instead of adjusting prices and ship holds, you could simply reduce the cargo unit occupation setting of the commodities.
  
• Keep in mind there are rumors about a cargo piracy feature for all ships. If you forcefully take the fuel out of a trader and it's stranded/has reduced escape capatilities, fleeing is no longer an option.
  
• If you are really RP focused, then certain engines should only work with certain fuel. (E.g. gallic engines with Promethene and capital ship engines with H-Fuel)
  
• Depending on the degree of complexity you can also affect further systems. If you ran out of energy fuel (MOX), your core regeneration should be nullified and you are not able to use shields or weapons.
  

The final point is to indicate, that it would significantly limit the fun of the game. This would certainly result in even less activity. As much as I welcome a feature for realism, it certainly wouldn't be beneficial for an arcade game like Freelancer.

[Enko]

Good point.
Could be good for a start to repair back first
- Jump drives back to working (Removing battery costs for a start, And removing cargo limiting restrictions, preferably returning back old jumping by coordinates too)
- Cloaks back to working (Removing distance decay and making it working for more than 1 trade lane again)
- Energy/Shields/Armor/Guns usage for capitals back to working

No.

Jumpdrives are fine, powerful and cheap for what they offer. There is no way that they should be free, or let you jump cargo.

Cloaks work fine and are still powerful, having used these to ambush people or scoot from people they do basically what you ask of them.

There's an argument to raise the cost of these rather than reduce them, but right now they're just staying where they are. Since they were implemented the economy has inflated and they are cheaper today than they were a year ago.

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[Haste]

- Jump drives back to working (Removing battery costs for a start, And removing cargo limiting restrictions, preferably returning back old jumping by coordinates too)

Maybe we should just give players access to .beam, .pull and .chase?

As for the topic, no thanks. I think other people have made my point for me already, so there's not much reason to go into detail. TL;DR: the basic act of moving around in Freelancer (2003) should not be penalized. We want people to move around. All this does is encourage people to make even more alts so they have to fly around less. There is definitely a need for money sinks, but this is not how I'd implement them.

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[Nodoka Hanamura]

- Jump drives back to working (Removing battery costs for a start, And removing cargo limiting restrictions, preferably returning back old jumping by coordinates too)

Maybe we should just give players access to .beam, .pull and .chase?

can i .chase you

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[darkwind]

Maybe we should just give players access to .beam, .pull and .chase?

As for the topic, no thanks. I think other people have made my point for me already, so there's not much reason to go into detail. TL;DR: the basic act of moving around in Freelancer (2003) should not be penalized. We want people to move around. All this does is encourage people to make even more alts so they have to fly around less. There is definitely a need for money sinks, but this is not how I'd implement them.

Previous jump drives were perfect. Fast moving across galaxy and useful for everything.

People were already heavily penalized with new restrictive jump drives with low range and heavy costs. Moving fast is now heavily costy and not useful for anything except moving empty. People were already severely punished to move around. -_-

You are now limited to move around only slowly. You can't use new jump driving freely all the time, because it is super expensive.
You can't use jump driving for trading/smuggling any longer, because it is costy and cargo limited.
You are restricted to move slowly for everything except travel bonuses for capital ships (which were nerfed to be weak in armor, energy, shields and guns)

The current jump driving nerfs made moving slowly across Sirius! The most annoying aspect of Freelancer of moving very long time and slowly is back.
Fair to say ships at least got Cruise speed faster so they can move at least faster a bit with conventional with system engines But this speed will not even closely compare to pragmatic efficiency of moving in single jump how it was before.

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[Soban]

On the topic of fuel. As most say in the current game. No, thanks. Enough to manage already.

However, in a new gameplay loop: yes. (All this, except fuel, is an idea I'm working on)
Like if you added random rotating system to explore (with no real resource to exploit other than rp/rp commodities) then it will make thing interesting.
Because you will not be able to explore a whole system alone or in one go. And will need serious preparation.

But it requires creating systems, and that something I'm interested in.

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