FreeOrion

I added a ramscoop ship part that is unlocked with deuterium tanks. I don't expect this to be particularly unbalancing, but thought I should mention it...

It generate 0.1 fuel / turn (above the default fuel regen) when ships are stationary. It does not stack with multiple copies of the part in a design.

This sounds wrong... ramscoops should work best at higher speeds... if I understand the concept.

Arguably, but that would make them nearly useless in practice, as you'd be unable to regenerate additional fuel if you didn't have any. Assume the ship is doing laps around the system it's in.

Am debating making it not work in empty systems.

Geoff the Medio wrote:Arguably, but that would make them nearly useless in practice, as you'd be unable to regenerate additional fuel if you didn't have any.

It would just reduce fuel consumption, which is not too interesting of a game concept, but so isn't fuel regeneration.

Geoff the Medio wrote:Am debating making it not work in empty systems.

Doesn't really seem necessary -- there can be plenty of space gas even if the system is empty.

Ships that go faster need more fuel to go faster, so you could argue that the additional 'fuel' that is collected is being used to go faster.

HOWEVER (I've mentioned this before), a ramscoop should be VERY efficient near a gas giant, as you could skim the extreme upper atmosphere. That is how refuelling was done in Traveller. In that game, you could go with unrefined fuel, which was much less efficient, or install a fuel processor to process the raw hydrogen.

So I'm good with the .1, with maybe as much as a .2 or a .3 recharge rate in a system with a gas giant.

As for starless regions, there is gas there too, but maybe go with a .075 rate instead of a .1? .05 sounds too extreme to me to justify the use of a 'slot'.

Depending on what the 'standard' recharge rate is of course. The ramscoop should be MUCH more efficient than the standard rate, to justify the use of the slot (otherwise I'll probably just go with a weapon).

Also, I've missed this, but is there currently a way to see how much fuel is left in the tanks when you exceed supply range? This would become important when contemplating jumping to a starless region, assuming varying recharge rates, i.e. hang out insystem a few more turns to accumulate enough fuel for two jumps instead of just one.

At a mere .1 per turn, it would only be used on extreme range exploring scouts and then very rarely, I don't see a use for the part in game. Nice flavour, but unless it does something vaguely useful for usable ship types it's not something I'd use.

Dilvish wrote:

Geoff the Medio wrote:Am debating making it not work in empty systems.

Doesn't really seem necessary -- there can be plenty of space gas even if the system is empty.

The reason would be to avoid it making stretches of several empty systems easier to cross.

Matt brings up a good point.

I would think that to be useful, you'd want refuel rates to be 1 jump's worth of fuel every 5-6 turns, with a Gas Giant insystem perhaps halving that figure, and a starless region increasing it by 50%

Assuming that 1 'jump' every 10 turns is the baseline for ships without ramscoops.

You may even want to go with 1 jump's worth of fuel every 4 turns, or 2 turns with a Gas Giant insystem. I like the idea of the Gas Giant tie in, as it adds flavor. "Science Officer: "Captain, we have two choices, system X-369 has a Gas giant whereas system Y-491 doesn't. Captain: "Well, we want to scout this region more quickly, so head to the Gas Giant".

The 4 Turns/2 Turns thing might require two Ram Scoops though... You'd need at least a Basic Large Hull to go with the 'Two Ramscoops, 1 Sensor Package' Option.

Just one more strategy wrinkle to add a bit more depth to the game.

Deep Space scouts would benefit greatly here, as would an invasion fleet on a long range deep strike, although you might just build outposts as 'bread crumbs' along the way to extend your supply range.

Ta'Lon wrote:I would think that to be useful, you'd want refuel rates to be 1 jump's worth of fuel every 5-6 turns...

The baseline fuel regeneration rate is 0.1 / turn. Adding a ramscoop increases that to 0.2 / turn, so it would take 5 turns to regenerate 1 jump's worth of fuel.

With that in mind... varying fuel recharge rates would look like this:

With the assumption:
No Ram Scoop: 0.1 Units of Fuel/Turn, 1 Unit of Fuel every 10 Turns
Ram Scoop : 0.2 Units of Fuel/Turn, 1 Unit of Fuel every 5 Turns
Additional Ram Scoops? (add 0.1 per scoop if allowed)

Starless: @66.7% Efficiency - 15 Turns / 7.5 Turns w/Ramscoop
@71.5% Efficiency - 14 Turns / 7 Turns w/Ramscoop
@75% Efficiency - 13.33 Turns / 6.67 Turns w/Ramscoop
@83.4% Efficiency - 12 Turns / 6 Turns w/Ramscoop


Regular System: 10 Turns / 5 Turns w/Ramscoop

Gas Giant Present:@125% Efficiency - 8 Turns / 4 Turns w/Ramscoop
@150% Efficiency - 6.67 Turns / 3.33 Turns with Ramscoop
@166.7% Efficiency - 6 Turns / 3 Turns w/Ramscoop
@200% Efficiency - 5 Turns / 2.5 Turn w/Ramscoop

Black Hole systems I can see both ways. They are great hoover vacuums, but they are constantly sucking more hydrogen and other things towards them...

Or an easier way to do this:

Starless: -.025 (or whatever) to Fuel Recharge Rates (makes Ramscoops more efficient than above %rates)
Gas Giant - +.1 (or whatever) to Fuel Recharge Rates (Ramscoops not as effective as above %rates)

Note that if additional scoops are allowed, interesting things happen. Like a nano-robot ship with 3 scoops and a sensor package collecting 2 units of fuel every five turns when 'living off the land'.

Ta'Lon wrote:Note that if additional scoops are allowed, interesting things happen. Like a nano-robot ship with 3 scoops and a sensor package collecting 2 units of fuel every five turns when 'living off the land'.

That might be acceptable at a higher tech level, but i wouldn't want it to be too easy to eliminate fuel dependence.

Having looked at it in game now, I won't ever use it.

Simply because if I need to travel that far, I'll simply use an Organic Hull which regenerates .2 per turn when travelling and .3 per turn when stationary, and is cheaper than all the hull types that don't.

By the time I've got a hulltype or am up against hulltypes where organics are too fragile, I'll have the ability to extend supply more easily as that's always a priority research.

While I wouldn't want to diminish the differentiation between hull types, I'm also not seeing the point of a part that basically does nothing that can't be done cheaper, and better, by the already most powerful hull type.

If it worked while moving, or it added more fuel, then it might be worth considering, but as it is it'd only be good on scouts, and at the price rarely if ever applied.

use an Organic Hull which regenerates .2 per turn when travelling and .3 per turn when stationary......By the time I've got a hulltype or am up against hulltypes where organics are too fragile, I'll have the ability to extend supply more easily as that's always a priority research.

Agreed. Maybe it would be possible to reduce the organic fuel regen bonus from 0.2/turn to 0.1/turn. The organics would still be able to regenerate fuel twice as fast as other hulls.

unjashfan wrote:

use an Organic Hull which regenerates .2 per turn when travelling and .3 per turn when stationary......By the time I've got a hulltype or am up against hulltypes where organics are too fragile, I'll have the ability to extend supply more easily as that's always a priority research.

Agreed. Maybe it would be possible to reduce the organic fuel regen bonus from 0.2/turn to 0.1/turn. The organics would still be able to regenerate fuel twice as fast as other hulls.

Or one could just allow organics to regenerate while travelling (at only 0.1)... and disallow it for all others (ramscoop would only work when "stationary" ie staying in system)