The economy grinds to a halt because of fuel cells

[quik88]

Version 1.22 RC2

After 30+ hours, free play it seems the economy is grinding to a halt because of fuel cells.
I decided to build a Cell Recharge Fac and this is what happened:
http://i.imgur.com/dwO5gTOh.jpg

Saved up to 100k fuel cells before I let the npc buy them, took about 30min to empty everything! and now it cant keep up anymore even at 188% eff..

How about freighters dont take trade orders like deliver 3 energy cells, 120 food etc. Because they will go to the end of the universe to get that food or energy and use 1000 fuel cells in the process.... leave the small trade orders for small trade ships to take since they dont use fuel


{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

[Dygaza]

I've been calling this same thing for awhile. Only place that ain't effected by fuelcell shortage is DeVries. And that's only because there's hardly any freighters out there.

But hey, it's good business

[Mark Laiho]

Trade does slow down a lot without fuel cells. I have 4 cell recharges in the devires area just to cut down on refuelling messages. But for more money I guess I could build some in the omnicron area. Try building one in each system in omnicron. At a guess the NPC freighters are waiting 5 minutes to jump then when there in the system with your cell recharger they refuel. So you might be refuelling 4 systems of freighters not just the one your in.

[Mark Laiho]

Just noticed in patch notes that the omnicron cell rechargers have changed from food rations which couldn't be supplied to bofu so maybe the omnicron NPC cell rechargers will produce fuel cells now?

[Dygaza]

Just noticed in patch notes that the omnicron cell rechargers have changed from food rations which couldn't be supplied to bofu so maybe the omnicron NPC cell rechargers will produce fuel cells now?

They do, but those 2 are running 100% at their capacity, and selling everything they create asap. Huge line of freighters waiting for fuel.

[Kregoth]

I was just getting ready to show/report this myself, happening in Beta patch as well.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-o4mq ... -56-36.jpg
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/znqBC ... 18-h854-no

Seems fuel consumption needs some balancing?

[Dygaza]

I'm still not sure if this is only because of lack of fuel production, or too big fuel consumption.

As someone else mentioned in some other thread, and from my personal experience aswell. Freighters do sometimes make a lot of silly trips. I had npc freighter bringing me 2 comical (chemical) compounds in a big ship; from 2 jumps away. So they're wasting a lot of fuel.

Also for fuel efficiency, we need more dedicated freighters, delivering exact goods instead of all they can carry.

[brammie]

I've looked at the trade scripts and there are a few tings that can be tuned there. As it stands now the buy offers are not checked against the sell offers in trade.findfreetraderun, the only check that is done is that the buyoffers need to be avarage price or higher. If it was in there it could be easely expanded to include the jump fuel as well, so that the total trip makes profit.

Also there is no check in there about minimum cargo volume, so a XL will transport 50 ecells across the galaxy to keep buisy and waisting 1k fuelcells in the process .

I think this would help some on the consumption side, but then the speed with wich the goods gets transfered is slowed down some and you'll see more ships idelling.

ps,

the ships check there cargo first to see if they can sell stuff they got left and at the top of the checklist are player construction ships. So the ship coming to sell you 2 goods is explained. It got some goods left from previous trade runs. Its just the range and fuel consumption that doesnt get checked.

[Dygaza]

Of of the reason might also be that big traders start dealing with low quantities are that there ain't enough dedicated traders. There are some that only trade in specified goods. It's good that there are free traders, but there should be atleast one or more dedicated traders for each ware in big systems like Albion and OL.

Dedicated trader for some tech goods.

Code: Select all

<value name="$warelist" type="list" value="31"/>

<ref id="31">
<value type="ware" value="bioelectricneurongel"/>
<value type="ware" value="chemicalcompounds"/>
<value type="ware" value="plasmapumps"/>
<value type="ware" value="quantumtubes"/>
</ref>

All traders have tradelist, but in most cases it is empty. So they can carry all goods their storage holds. That's why it's not rare to see food trader with missiles onboard.

I had to do some small traderruns in OL small shipyards to buy fusion reactors and quickly sell some chemical compounds there. No trader were interested in trading chemicals, which ended up those stations being in lock. They produced their container spaces full other goods. So they didn't even have space anymore to buy chemicals. So ye, more dedicated freighters for one good only.

[Dygaza]

I just did what you did in the game that is furthest in progression of my games. Built fuel station in Eternal Dawn (picked sector that was a bit quiet just to see the difference.

I waited for like 20k fuel, and then opened it for npc trade. ofc 20k fuel is only enough to refuel 8 freighters fully. Well that didn't last for long, and my station dealer is now showing empty hands to those thirsty captains.

There was total of 8 freighter ships before I opened the station, and now I counted 65 freighters in system. I quess they need to do something, quess easiest way would be to lower cycle time on fuel production. That wouldn't effect cost per unit.

Right now 1 station (worth 70+ million) produces roughly 10k fuel per hour. Which is only enough to refuel 4 ships fully.

[FuzzyLogic]

How about approaching this from the consumption side:
-reduce fuel cells per jump from 100 to 50
-reduce fuel cell cargo space to 1500 instead of 2500
That would leave the freighters with enough fuel for 30 instead of 25 jumps so they need to refuel less often and at the same time fuel cell recharge stations stock lasts twice as long.

Numbers might need some adjustment but unlike adjusting the cycle time it would have no effect on the resource needs per hour for the recharge stations either.

[Margarine]

Seeing this too, especial in certain parts of OL.

Happy to provide save if needed.