Travel drive fuel

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Falcrack
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Travel drive fuel

Post by Falcrack » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 15:33

In the past, I have advocated for jump drives for L and XL ships, mainly because I wanted to have more of a reason for carriers to exist in X4. In real life, the main function of carriers is to extend the range of fighters and bombers, so perhaps they could serve a similar function in X4 if ships had a limited travel drive fuel capacity? Here's how I envision it might work.

Travel drive fuel would be a consumable item, so not carried in the cargo bay. There would be a fuel meter in the hud that indicates travel drive time usage remaining.

Fighters would have a limited travel drive fuel capacity, where they could use travel drive to cross maybe 2 sectors. Actual fuel capacity would vary slightly between different ships (no cookie cutter stats please!). M sized ships could cross maybe 10 sectors without refueling. After that point, they run out of fuel, and then would have to rely on regular engine speed, which would have unlimited range but obviously quite a bit slower.

Carriers and capital ships would have a much larger travel drive fuel capacity, able to cross the galaxy and back a few times (maybe 40 sector range), and in addition be able to store enough fuel to also resupply fighter wings. Fighters attached to the carrier would thus be able to have enough travel drive fuel for short patrols and travel drive during combat, but would need to redock periodically to refuel. They would need to be docked to a carrier to make extra long trips. There would be an actual reason for that docking bay on M sized ships to carry an extra fighter.

Auxiliary ships would have a truly massive amount of fuel onboard, sufficient for refueling carriers and destroyers, so they would be an integral part of any large fleet.

With such a change, there would need to be AI logic for automatic refueling, especially for miners and freighters. There would need to be a lot of automation in getting refueled to make sure that fuel requirements are not overly tedious. Perhaps fuel stations should exist in each sector, and special freighters designed to carry fuel which could also refuel other ships. You could have special fuel storage modules that you could add to any station you want so it can serve as a fuel depot. Ships that carry fuel would be especially useful in case you run out of fuel and don't want to slow travel to a fuel station, you could just have nearby fuel ships make a fuel delivery if necessary.

Having a fuel requirement would in effect be an operating cost for your ships. There aren't many things in X4 that would be considered an operating cost, so it would be an extra factor that you have to consider in managing your empire. Moving that fleet across the galaxy would have an actual cost to consider.

Tempest
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Tempest » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:09

i would honestly love to see this in action, you might even replace "drive fuel" with the word "energy cell" so it fits into already existing systems.

not sure about range numbers for ship-classes, a spacetrucker needing to refuel along the way would indeed require the fuel stations you mentioned.

it's a bit like slapping on a "survival mode", suddenly EVERYTHING would need careful managing.

not sure too sure if this'll be a welcome change for most (i'm guessing no)
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builder680
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by builder680 » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:14

Cool idea but the ai is already bad. I envision every navy out of fuel and immobile 20 hours in. Plus it would tax cpu further. Unworkable imo.

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:54

Fuel, even though in the form of "Jump Fuel", was used in the X-tension through X Rebirth, either in the form of Energy Cells or, in X Rebirth, specialised Fuel Cells made in specialised factories. Egosoft, partially correctly, removed all fuel needs in X4 with the, wrong, implementation of Travel Drive.

To reintroduce fuel, especially for Travel Drives, even if it makes logical sense (and in this case should be also applied in normal drives too) will definitely create a logistic nightmare and unbalance the whole economy, not to mention the effect it will have in combat situations, especially where the player is involved with his/her own ship that forgot to refuel or the combat is taking too long... A solution of sorts could be Hydrogen Scoops that collect loose Hydrogen in Space to use as fuel, of course the "renewal" of fuel that way would be minimal (maybe 10% of fuel used in propulsion for the same length that the ship is coasting collecting Hydrogen), so nobody gets totally stranded but it will certainly be frustrating to a lot of users...

EDIT: This, of course, would require a whole rethinking, redesigning and creating new drives and travel drives which, I think, would take at least a year to be implemented even supposing that bug fixing has ended (we wish) and further expansions are put on the back burner (we don't wish now do we?).
Last edited by dtpsprt on Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:57, edited 1 time in total.

Falcrack
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Falcrack » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:54

I would think that one way to handle fuel requirements would be to have every station built by the AI to have a fuel storage module. Every time a ship docks, it autorefuels (could be a global setting. Fuel transport would be a major part of the economy. Ships could get behavior settings (global or customizable per ship) to go refuel once fuel drops below a certain percentage. You could set up a long string of trade orders, and periodically the AI controlled ship will interrupt its current order so it can make a quick pit stop at a nearby station. The AI issues are not insurmountable.

I don't think regular drive should ever need fuel, that would be an even greater logistical nightmare! At least if regular drive is free, you can at least slow boat to a nearby station to get more fuel.

But given Egosoft's aversion to making any change which breaks existing saves, I give the odds of this idea happening (except in mod form) to be approximately -13.6%

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:01

Falcrack wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 16:54
I would think that one way to handle fuel requirements would be to have every station built by the AI to have a fuel storage module. Every time a ship docks, it autorefuels. Fuel transport would be a major part of the economy.

I don't think regular drive should ever need fuel, that would be an even greater logistical nightmare! At least if regular drive is free, you can at least slow boat to a nearby station to get more fuel.

But given Egosoft's aversion to making any change which breaks existing saves, I give the odds of this idea happening (except in mod form) to be approximately -13.6%
Even forgetting the regular drive fuel, this means that the Fuel storage module would have to be designed and it would change the designs of all stations. Forget about existing saves, the stations that would spawn with a new game would have to be redesigned. And, of course the player would have to incorporate this module in his/hers builds right?

Falcrack
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Falcrack » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:05

dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:01
Even forgetting the regular drive fuel, this means that the Fuel storage module would have to be designed and it would change the designs of all stations. Forget about existing saves, the stations that would spawn with a new game would have to be redesigned. And, of course the player would have to incorporate this module in his/hers builds right?
Yeah, new stations would spawn with fuel storage, AI would need to get instructions to build fuel storage with new builds. Maybe one save friendly change would be to add a automatically add a full fuel storage module to all existing NPC stations if it were to be patched in, spawn in a few fuel producing stations per faction sufficient to keep the AI running, and add a full fuel tank to all existing ships.
Last edited by Falcrack on Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:06, edited 1 time in total.

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:06

And all these without even thinking of the ship redesign needed to have the fuel storage compartment. If not in graphics (doubtedly) in stats, taking into consideration the mass of fuel which diminishes at the same time with use....

Falcrack
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Falcrack » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:07

dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:06
And all these without even thinking of the ship redesign needed to have the fuel storage compartment. If not in graphics (doubtedly) in stats, taking into consideration the mass of fuel which diminishes at the same time with use....
I don't think mass of fuel needs to be a consideration. Would need to be something in stats about it though.

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:09

It's a total redesign of half of the game... I give it a 0.000001% probability to happen in X4 and 0.01% in X5 (if there ever is an X5)...

And yes it will be in stats and it will make the CPU trying to change stats every second (at least) of travel drive usage...

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:11

Falcrack wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:07
I don't think mass of fuel needs to be a consideration.
Of course it is... it affects speed and stopping distance. The less mass the highest speed and the longer stopping distance. Just compare the Nemesis against the Kuraokami against the Dragon against the Dragon Raider...

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:14

And do not forget that the CPU would have to make these calculations for all the ships in the game (as it does now).

rusky
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by rusky » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:24

dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:11
Falcrack wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:07
I don't think mass of fuel needs to be a consideration.
Of course it is... it affects speed and stopping distance. The less mass the highest speed and the longer stopping distance. Just compare the Nemesis against the Kuraokami against the Dragon against the Dragon Raider...
Ship mass is just a value in the ship macro xml (tied to the ship hull). It is not calculated based on cargo/equipment, it is entirely static.

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:32

rusky wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 17:24
Ship mass is just a value in the ship macro xml (tied to the ship hull). It is not calculated based on cargo/equipment, it is entirely static.
Then the cargo is added to define the final movement "attributes". They are negligible in fighters, since they have small cargo holds anyway, but try to pilot a filled Crane versus an empty one and you feel the difference. Fuel will make maybe small changes but the fact that it is diminishing over use will have the CPU calculating it all the time especially since Travel Drive is the main kind of propulsion in X4... As it stands now (no fuel) the CPU calculates once when loading and starting a journey or picking up a cargo crate and starting again or selling the cargo and undocking empty...

SirConnery
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by SirConnery » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 20:26

I think it's a great idea in theory. In practice, the AI logistics and CPU overhead are real problems and I don't think it would work well.

Some ideas to make it work.

1. Only S ships have a limited Travel time until they need to be recharged by docking. No need for other additional mechanics or fuel wares. AI could also probably handle it. Only worry is additional CPU taxing by this mechanic.

Actually that's my only idea.

Raylak
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Raylak » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 20:29

While it might make sense and generally sound like a good idea... just no.

The AI just wouldn't be able to handle it, and until Egosoft actually do an AI rework, we should stop asking for any other features.

dtpsprt
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 20:59

Raylak wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 20:29
While it might make sense and generally sound like a good idea... just no.

The AI just wouldn't be able to handle it, and until Egosoft actually do an AI rework, we should stop asking for any other features.
+1 to that...

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Axeface
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Axeface » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 21:20

I personally dont see what this would bring to the game, I also take issue with carriers even existing at all if im honest... I dont think fighter spaceships make much sense and kind of wish egosoft had designed them out of the lore (I think they might have attempted to do this with Rebirth. The move to large freighters was inspired, they should have gone even further to drone freighters). I find the idea of less but bigger ships with loads of ecm, armour, heat etc much more exiting than ww2 fighter swarms dogfighting.

Rei Ayanami
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Rei Ayanami » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 22:36

Axeface wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 21:20
I dont think fighter spaceships make much sense
A few reasons why fighters make sense to have :
- More agile. One tiny fighter can turn and accellerate faster than a huge chunk of mass
- Smaller. Far harder to hit
- If one fighter goes down you still have tons of others, while if you have only one huge ship one single accident or one bad hit could mean instant defeat
- Many small ships are harder to predict by the enemy than one big one
- Smaller signature for radar/etc (less likely to be spotted)
- Many smaller ships can take care of more tasks at the same time than very few big ships

Raylak
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Re: Travel drive fuel

Post by Raylak » Wed, 8. Sep 21, 23:56

Axeface wrote:
Wed, 8. Sep 21, 21:20
I personally dont see what this would bring to the game, I also take issue with carriers even existing at all if im honest... I dont think fighter spaceships make much sense and kind of wish egosoft had designed them out of the lore (I think they might have attempted to do this with Rebirth. The move to large freighters was inspired, they should have gone even further to drone freighters). I find the idea of less but bigger ships with loads of ecm, armour, heat etc much more exiting than ww2 fighter swarms dogfighting.
Carriers don't make sense in the X universe other than a place for bombers to rearm, possibly as a mobile repair base for fighter squadrons if that works?

Less but bigger ships would make even less sense. Firstly, the player starts wouldn't be possible as the only way to captain a bigger ship would be to already be a high ranking member of one of the factions. Second, the universe would be pretty empty if these was only large ships slowly moving around like whales. Combat would be very, very dull, a whale drifts in range of another one and the turrets open fire, one eventually dies and the first slowly drifts on crippled.

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